http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmongoose.htm

Operation Mongoose is one example of the CIA and mafia working together.

Cooperation = snitches.

And yes I meant the Italians that can be applied to any organized crime group whether it be the Italians, Russians, or even 1%er biker clubs. The feds consistently use them to snitch off their rivals inside and outside their organizations and then let the them roll on and on committing more crimes. [/quote]

Actually this is a rare occurrence. Unfortunately though it does happen but it is nothing sinister. Controlling informants is difficult in the best of circumstances. And if you think the major convictions of mafia players in the 80's and 90's without these informants you are sadly mistaken.

I'm well aware of the CIA issues which is why I specifically mentioned the FBI and left them out.

Allow me to reiterate:

What I posted was a direct quote from a CIA briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In U.S." delivered about a month before 9/11. After hearing this briefing senior administration officials stopped flying commercial airliners.

Who was President when 9/11 happened?

What's the big deal, Beav?

Al Qaeda is just small potatoes,
just a few guys hiding in caves.
No global threat.
Bush just didn't buy into the fear-mongering.

Cooperation = snitches.

And yes I meant the Italians that can be applied to any organized crime group whether it be the Italians, Russians, or even 1%er biker clubs. The feds consistently use them to snitch off their rivals inside and outside their organizations and then let the them roll on and on committing more crimes. [/quote]

Actually this is a rare occurrence. Unfortunately though it does happen but it is nothing sinister. Controlling informants is difficult in the best of circumstances. And if you think the major convictions of mafia players in the 80's and 90's without these informants you are sadly mistaken. [/quote]

You've never heard of Whitey Bulger then have you? The FBI used him as an informant knowing all the while he was dealing drugs and having people murdered all over Boston. He even managed to turn an FBI agent into becoming his informant. And lets not forget about snitches who were put into the WPP like Sonny The Bull Gravano and Henry Hill who continued to deal drugs, and commit other crimes under the Feds watch.

And lets not forget the feds getting caught red handed attempting to pour gasoline on the fire down in Oregon between some of the 1% bike clubs a year or so ago. Those bozos made a tense situation even worse and its a miracle there hasn't been open warfare between the clubs as a result.

And who was President when those reports were submitted? Clinton didn't do anything and neither did Bush. To me they are all equally at fault.

Then why have we been in Afghanistan and Iraq for so long?

I authorized the CIA to get groups together to try to kill him.

The CIA, which was run by George Tenet, that President Bush gave the Medal of Freedom to, he said, "He did a good job setting up all these counterterrorism things."

The country never had a comprehensive anti-terror operation until I came there.

Now, if you want to criticize me for one thing, you can criticize me for this: After the Cole, I had battle plans drawn to go into Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban, and launch a full-scale attack search for bin Laden.

But we needed basing rights in Uzbekistan, which we got after 9/11.

The CIA and the FBI refused to certify that bin Laden was responsible while I was there. They refused to certify. So that meant I would've had to send a few hundred Special Forces in helicopters and refuel at night.

But at least I tried. That's the difference in me and some, including all the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try. They did not try. I tried.

So I tried and failed. When I failed, I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke, who got demoted.

I worked hard to try to kill (Bin Laden). I authorized a finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody has gotten since. And if I were still president, we'd have more than 20,000 troops there trying to kill him.

Now, I've never criticized President Bush, and I don't think this is useful. But you know we do have a government that thinks Afghanistan is only one-seventh as important as Iraq.

And you ask me about terror and Al Qaeda with that sort of dismissive thing? When all you have to do is read Richard Clarke's book to look at what we did in a comprehensive, systematic way to try to protect the country against terror.

I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get bin Laden. I regret it. But I did try. And I did everything I thought I responsibly could.

The entire military was against sending Special Forces in to Afghanistan and refueling by helicopter. And no one thought we could do it otherwise, because we could not get the CIA and the FBI to certify that Al Qaeda was responsible while I was president.

And so, I left office. And yet, I get asked about this all the time. They had three times as much time to deal with it, and nobody ever asks them about it. I think that's strange.

--President William Jefferson Clinton