2008-05-06 Terrorist Triage

2008-05-06 \War on Terror\al Qaeda\veteran views\Michael Sheehan http://www.newsweek.com/id/135654/output/print Terrorist Triage &ldquo;In those days [1998-2000] Sheehan was among that persistent, relentless and finally shrill chorus of voices trying to warn the Clinton administration that Osama bin Laden and his boys represented a horrific danger to the United States and its interests. Days after the October 2000 suicide attack on the USS Cole in Yemen that killed 17 American sailors, experienced analysts like Sheehan at the State Department and Richard A. Clarke at the White House were certain Al Qaeda was behind it, but there was no support for retaliation among the Clintonistas or, even less, the Pentagon.&rdquo; Um... that last claim is so not true; Clinton bombed Afghanistan and Sudan specifically because of the threat he perceived from Osama. &ldquo;But what's interesting is not that Sheehan was so right, for all the good it did, or that President Bill Clinton and then President George W. Bush were so wrong not to pay attention. What's interesting is Sheehan's argument now that Al Qaeda just isn't the existential-twilight-struggle threat it's often cracked up to be.&rdquo;   