Bin Laden: Missing the Big Picture
Obama and Romney Are Both Ignoring the Real Issue with Killing Bin Laden
The anniversary of Bin Laden’s death is big news.
Obama is bragging about how he whacked Bin Laden, accusing Romney of being too soft to take out bad guys.
Romney supporters accuse Obama of “spiking the football” and inappropriately showing off to score political points.
Both sides are missing the big picture. Specifically, we noted last year:
I’m as happy as the next red-blooded American that Bin Laden is dead.
For more than a decade, the government has said that Bin Laden is the world’s worst terrorist, a terrorist kingpin, the head of the worst terrorist group in the world.
But if we captured and interrogated him, he could have spilled a lot of beans which would help prevent future terrorist attacks.
Right?
But as the Atlantic reports today:
There’s one option the administration appears to have never seriously considered: taking bin Laden alive.
***
The administration had made clear to the military’s clandestine Joint Special Operations Command that it wanted bin Laden dead, according to a senior U.S. official with knowledge of the discussions. A high-ranking military officer briefed on the assault said the SEALs knew their mission was not to take him alive. ***
And Gareth Porter reported yesterday that the U.S. didn’t even consider capturing Bin Laden as part of its Afghanistan war strategy:
The absence of any military planning to catch bin Laden was a function of Bush’s national security team, led by Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, which had firmly opposed any military operation in Afghanistan that would have had any possibility of catching bin Laden and his lieutenants.Rumsfeld and the second-ranking official at the Pentagon, Paul Wolfowitz, had dismissed CIA warnings of an al Qaeda terrorist attack against the United States in the summer of 2001, and even after 9/11 had continued to question the CIA’s conclusion that bin Laden and al Qaeda were behind the attacks.
Cheney and Rumsfeld were determined not to allow a focus on bin Laden to interfere with their plan for a U.S. invasion of Iraq to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime.
Even after Bush decided in favour of an Afghan campaign, CENTCOM commander Tommy Franks, who was responsible for the war in Afghanistan, was not directed to have a plan for bin Laden’s capture or to block his escape to Pakistan. [Background.]
We tortured a bunch of innocent farmers, children, grandparents and reporters … supposedly to get information about Bin Laden. But it doesn’t seem like the government was very interested in actually interrogating Bin Laden himself.
We pointed out the next day:
The Christian Science Monitor reports today:
Some US military intelligence officials also lament that bin Laden was not taken alive – and privately wonder whether concerns about the political “headaches” involved in trying detainees may have led the Obama administration to favor killing rather than capturing the architect of 9/11.
The opportunity to glean valuable intelligence from the leader of a powerful terrorist organization was lost, says retired Army Col. Stuart Herrington, a military intelligence specialist who interrogated generals under the command of Saddam Hussein and evaluated US detention operations at Guantánamo.
It is a misconception that ideologues don’t talk, he says. “The opinion that, ‘Oh, he’s such a fanatic, he won’t tell us anything’ – that’s uninformed blathering by people who don’t understand the business,” Herrington adds.
The Christian Science Monitor article also confirms that torture doesn’t work to produce actionable intelligence, and points out that even Bin Laden could have been made to talk if other interrogation techniques were used.
***
The ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee. – Senator Chambliss – says that the executive order stated that Bin Laden should be killed ….
As we noted in 2008, Bin Laden was useful to the U.S. as a prop in the so-called war on terror:
Former deputy national intelligence officer for transnational threats, a 23-year senior CIA analyst, who “drafted or was involved in many of the government’s most senior assessments of the threats facing our country [and who] devoted years to understanding and combating the jihadist threat”, writes today in the Washington Post that the neocons have whipped us into an irrational fear of the terrorism. In reality, “Osama bin Laden and his disciples are small men and secondary threats whose shadows are made large by our fears” and our leaders.
This is no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention. The BBC produced a documentary called The Power of Nightmares in 2005 that showed that politicians were greatly exaggerating the terrorist threat for political ends.
Indeed, we noted in 2009:
A United States Congressman claims that the Bush administration intentionally let Bin Laden escape in order to justify the Iraq war.
***
Many people claim that Bin Laden died a long time ago. According to Israeli intelligence, Pakistani intelligence, and other sources, Bin Laden is dead.
According to video experts and and top Bin Laden experts, recent Bin Laden videos are fake.
So if Bin Laden is alive, American leaders have to explain why they have repeatedly chosen not to pull the trigger.
And if he is dead, they have to explain why they are claiming that he’s alive and authenticating his videos.
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Our guy.
"The head of the worst terrorist group in the world".... was "working for the United States right up until 9/11".
That little inconvenience was kinda missed by the corporate weasel media. Naturally.
OBL was reported DEAD by several sources over 10 years ago
All of these articles are still, surprisingly, online:
FOXNEWS.COM Report: Bin Laden Already Dead
Wednesday, December 26, 2001
http://tinyurl.com/mfs8y
CNN reported a magazine runs what it calls bin Laden's will:
Saturday, October 26, 2002
http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/10/26/binladen.will/
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation's counter-terrorism chief, Dale Watson, says he thinks Osama bin Laden is "probably" dead.
Thursday, 18 July, 2002
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/2135473.stm
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said Osama bin Laden is "probably" dead:
Monday, October 7, 2002
http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/central/10/06/karzai.binladen/
"May Day"
Red Flag #1: Osama bin Laden was a CIA asset all the way until 9/11.
Red Flag #2: OBL was very sick and died in late 2001 according to many reliable sources and a death certificate.
Red Flag #3: OBL was never charged with the attacks of Sept. 11 and his FBI 'Most Wanted' page made no mention of it.
Red Flag #4: There's 'no proof' connecting OBL to 9/11 according to FBI spokesperson. We never received a white paper.
Red Flag #5: 'OBL' 2004 and 2007 is a different person.
Red Flag #6: The CIA admits to faking a Bin Laden video.
Red Flag #7: OBL was at large for over a DECADE. (10 years!)
Red Flag #8: OBL was deliberately allowed to escape from Tora Bora.
Red Flag #9: The Bin Ladens were allowed to leave the US after 9/11 without proper questioning.
Red Flag #10: There are close ties between the Bushes and Bin Ladens.
Red Flag #11: We were lied to about every detail of the Bin Laden raid.
Red Flag #12: Bin Laden was not captured alive for interrogation despite being unarmed.
Red Flag #13: His body was dumped in the ocean without any notice.
Red Flag #14: Stratfor emails dispute the idea that 'OBL' was secretly buried at sea.
Red Flag #15: The photos of a dead Bin Laden are being withheld despite FOIA law suits.
Red Flag #16: The 'Situation Room' photo-op was clearly staged PR.
Red Flag #17: The OBL raid is being used politically by Obama Admin.
Red Flag #18: Members of Seal Team 6 were killed in a chopper crash soon after the raid.
Red Flag #19: At least 5 of the accused 9/11 hijackers trained at US military bases. These patsies were protected from arrest prior to Sept. 11.
Red Flag #20: The demolitions of the 3 WTC towers and multiple war games of 9/11 prove it was an inside job.
How Much BS Can You Stand?
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/osama-bin-laden-death-anniversary-10-things-ve-174844622.html
Osama bin Laden death anniversary: 10 things we’ve learned about terror leader since raid
By Dylan Stableford
One year ago today, on May 1, 2011, Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs in a daring raid on his compound near Islamabad, Pakistan. Through thousands of documents seized during the assault—many of them slated to be declassified later this week—we've learned a lot about the terror leader since his death.
He wanted to kill President Obama
According to the trove of documents uncovered by U.S. forces, bin Laden "regularly ordered his subordinates to plan new attacks, including assassinations of President Barack Obama and Gen. David Petraeus," NBC News reported.
According to the Washington Post, bin Laden wanted to kill Obama, in part, because he felt Vice President Joe Biden was "unprepared" to step in as commander in chief. Bin Laden's planned assassination of Obama involved hijacking Air Force One, the Post said.
"Obama is the head of infidelity and killing him automatically will make Biden take over the presidency," Bin Laden wrote in a message to one of his top lieutenants, the paper said. "Biden is totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the U.S. into a crisis." And all of this, despite an "increasingly limited cadre of operatives capable of carrying out such attacks."
He fantasized about blowing up oil tankers
In 2010, bin Laden wanted to hijack oil tankers and blow them up at sea, "creating explosions he hoped would rattle the world's economy and send oil prices skyrocketing," U.S. officials said shortly after his killing. While they concluded it was merely a "fantasy," the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security nonetheless issued warnings to commercial oil companies.
He was a hoarder
According to NBC chief pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski, Navy SEALs who carried out the raid on his Abbottabad compound recovered "five computers, 10 hard drives and more than 100 storage devices—DVDs, discs and thumb drives—that included between 10,000 and 15,000 documents and between 15,000 to 25,000 videos" inside. But a lot of them were duplicates, and many amounted to home videos, documenting "life around the compound ... chickens and cows, rabbits and dogs."
He had an 'extensive' porn collection
In the fallout following bin Laden's death, it was revealed that the terror leader had a stash of pornography in his hideout in Abbottabad when Navy SEALs killed him. U.S. officials told Reuters the pornography recovered in bin Laden's compound consisted "of modern, electronically recorded video" and was "fairly extensive."
"The officials said they were not yet sure precisely where in the compound the pornography was discovered or who had been viewing it," Reuters said, noting that the compound had been cut off from access to Internet and Wi-Fi networks. "It is unclear how compound residents would have acquired the pornography."
The White House Situation Room, May 1, 2001. (Pete Souza/The White House)
He liked to watch himself
A video released by the Obama administration confiscated from the compound during the raid "showed bin Laden watching pictures of himself on a TV screen," Reuters reported, "indicating that the compound was equipped with video playback equipment."
He felt threatened by the Arab spring
An administration official told NBC News that Bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri—his right-hand man—saw the early 2011 uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa as a "danger" for the future of al-Qaida. "Governments that bin Laden and his followers had given up on overturning were 'toppling,' but 'the demonstrators were not expressing support for al-Qaida at all" and "not using al-Qaida themes," the official said.
He was largely isolated, and flailing
"What you get is that bin Laden would come up with an idea but it was a very broad aspirational idea," the official told NBC. "And then he'd turn it over to somebody and there was always some sort of disconnect." Bin Laden's subordinates would then have to explain how difficult his terror ideas would be to carry out, the official said.
By the end of 2010, the official added, "there was certainly a sense of loss in terms of the senior leaders that perished, a sense that the midlevel cadre had been decimated."
He was 'delusional'
Peter Bergen, CNN's national security analyst and author of "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden," says the al-Qaida head had become "delusional"--a result of living in near-isolation. "He was out of touch after six years basically living in probably two rooms of his house," Bergen told Newsmax.com. "He's calling for attacks on America. The people in al-Qaida were saying, 'Well, you know, that's all very well, but we just don't have the resources to do that.' He was pushing for things that just weren't very plausible."
He was so depressed, he wanted to rename al-Qaida
Hunkered down in his Abbottabad compound, bin Laden anguished as al-Qaida suffered "disaster after disaster," encouraged its operatives to flee to areas "away from aircraft photography and bombardment" and even thought about changing the name of his notorious international terrorist network, John Brennan, Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, said on Monday.
Bin Laden worried about recruiting terrorist talent as U.S. strikes killed some of his veterans, and "agreed that 'a large portion' of Muslims around the world 'have lost their trust' in al-Qaida," Brennan said. "So damaged is al-Qaida's image that bin Laden even considered changing its name." Why? "As bin Laden said himself, U.S. officials have largely stopped using the phrase 'the war on terror' in the context of not wanting to provoke Muslims."
"In short, Al Qaeda [was] losing, badly," Brennan said. "And Bin Laden knew it."
He was nonetheless the last word on terror
Ultimately, everything went through Osama bin Laden, the official told NBC, in part because of his charisma: "He weighed in on a lot of issues. They tended to seek his guidance on a lot of things and clearly would wait until he got back to them."
Red Flag #5: 'OBL' 2004 and
Red Flag #5: 'OBL' 2004 and 2007 is a different person.
Red Flag #6: The CIA admits to faking a Bin Laden video.
The 5 videos that have been seized by Navy SEALs after bin Laden was killed:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42941138/ns/world_news-death_of_bin_laden/t/videos-show-osama-bin-ladens-secret-life/
Most likely these videos do not show the real Osama bin Laden. See in particular the three following links:
http://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/bin-laden-ear-job/
http://i.imgur.com/68Xkz.jpg
http://whatreallyhappened.com/IMAGES/the-ears-have-it-2.jpg
Red Flag #14: Stratfor emails dispute the idea that 'OBL' was secretly buried at sea
See :
1) UnLaden sailors tell no tales
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=30&art_id=111318&sid=32469584&con_type=3
« Monday, May 23, 2011
Sailors aboard the USS Carl Vinson said they only found out from the news that Osama bin Laden was buried at sea from their ship. Crew of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, which arrived in Hong Kong yesterday, claimed to be unaware of any special operation against the al-Qaeda leader until it was all over. However they declined to discuss the issue in detail.
Commander of carrier strike group 1 Rear Admiral Samuel Perez would discuss neither bin Laden nor morale among sailors since his death.
"But as you expect, coming into Hong Kong their morale is very high."
For most on the carrier, May 1 - the day bin Laden was shot dead in Pakistan by US Navy SEALS - meant the usual tour of duty in the north Arabian Sea. "I was probably patching someone's teeth," said dentist Lieutenant Chang. She found out about the burial only after logging onto her computer and seeing the news. Engineer Lawrence Mayer went about his day as usual and was unaware of the death until he saw the news on CNN that night. "My jaw dropped," he said. "It was a great shock."
2) Local sailor on ship that carried bin Laden can't say much about events:
http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/385489_Local-sailor-on-ship-that-carried-bin-Laden-can-t-say-much-about-events
« A Lancaster County native is stationed aboard the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier on which Osama bin Laden's corpse was washed under traditional Islamic procedure and then lowered into the sea for burial. Jason M. Arcudi, a 25-year-old Manheim Township High School graduate, serves as a machinist mate in the nuclear division of the USS Carl Vinson, which is based in San Diego and is on deployment in the North Arabian Sea.
News that the 30-year-old carrier played a role in such a momentous chapter in the decade-long pursuit of the world's most wanted terrorist was thrilling news to members of Arcudi's family, who live on Petersburg Road near Neffsville. "I didn't even know anything about it, and then I get home and I see all these message in my email, and I finally see it on the news that the Carl Vinson was involved in the disposal of bin Laden. I was like, 'Oh, my gosh!' " said Arcudi's mother, Paula Arcudi. »
Anniversary?
Am I to understand that the author accepts and believes the proposition that bin Laden was killed by Navy Seals in a compound in Afghanistan one year ago?
No.
Pakistan.
Yes, Pakistan
So you trust and believe the "official story," given us by the Obama admininstration? You believe he was buried at sea according to Muslim traditions, that he had eluded our intelligence for over 10 years, and THAT in spite of a 25 million dollar reward? And that all the myriad of reliable reports and witnesses that either attended his funeral or knew of his death in 2001 are all false? Including the FBI?
You believe all this?
And when you write to Santa this year you will ask for. . .
More Nonsense
Documents Uncovered In Bin Laden Raid Released
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/03/osama-bin-laden-documents_n_1473757.html
Osama, Obama, and Us: A Shocking Display of Propaganda from NBC
"Did you see [Brian] Williams asking any of the scores of questions one might ask: about how no one in that crashed helicopter was hurt; about whether Osama was armed, and if not, then why he had to be killed instead of captured and interrogated for the valuable information he could offer; about how and why the SEALs’ headcams purportedly failed at the critical moment and prevented the White House group from seeing what was going on; about why the body had to be thrown in the sea—and before proper DNA verification was possible; about the wildly conflicting accounts of what took place and the White House’s failure to this moment to explain; about…I could go on and on. But we’ve already laid all that out—you can read those questions here."
http://whowhatwhy.com/2012/05/04/osama-obama-and-us-a-shocking-display-of-propaganda-from-nbc/
Osama bin Laden Documents Released Online
(CNN) -- Scores of pages of al Qaeda documents seized in last year's U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden were released Thursday.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/03/world/osama-bin-laden-documents/index.html
Not the issue
The issue is whether the government can spread propaganda about any individual and then rub them out and say "case closed." Bin Laden's murder was a pure mafia-style rubout. The public gets no chance to establish whether the charges against Bin Laden were legitimate or not. So no, I was not proud that Bin Laden was rubbed out. We do not know what happened, number one. Number two, if he was indeed rubbed out, it was a direct assault on Western juris prudence (what's left of it) that protects us all. For Washington to admit to saying "I’m as happy as the next red-blooded American that Bin Laden is dead" is extremely disappointing.
.
And another thing
Even if Bin Laden was not rubbed out, and the entire raid was a fable, it was a fable used to show Americans that rubouts are ok, and juris prudence means nothing at all. In actuality, if the chances were only fifty fifty that Bin Laden was in the compound, as the Obama administration has represented, he was probably not there.
I Suspect It Was A Script-Flipping Psy-Op
Now that the establishment are trying to morph the war on terror into a war on the free people of the world, what better way to facilitate such a shift than by "killing" the old enemy.
And after all, a State Department figure is even recently quoted as saying himself that: "The war on terror is over".
The Feds recently conceded they could not locate any records or photos of the Bin Laden raid, the immediate aftermath, the body or the autopsy. The alleged Bin Laden shooter is even completely unknown.
Amazing that anyone trusts the Feds or the media after the Iraq WMD debacle.