Blowing the search for Bin Laden
By John Amato Saturday Aug 25, 2007 2:15pmWhen John Kerry talked about Tora Bora heavily, I wondered why the press just kinda shrugged it off. I always felt that the White House wanted Osama alive (at least until after the '04 election) so he could be the big bad evil that would keep Americans frightened and confused like the bed-wetters of the right wing blogosphere. Newsweek wrote an article on Bin Laden: "Into Thin Air, He's still out there. The hunt for bin Laden"
Yep, they're just that smart -- and the same "oh so smart" people keep showing up in the story:
To the civilian bosses at the Pentagon and the eager-to-please top brass, Iraq was a much better target. By invading Iraq, the United States would give the Islamists—and the wider world—an unforgettable lesson in American power. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was on Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board and, at the time, a close confidant of the SecDef. In November 2001, Gingrich told a NEWSWEEK reporter, "There's a feeling we've got to do something that counts—and bombing caves is not something that counts."
Gingrich should be vilified for this, but of course on FOX Propaganda C.--he's the "voice of reason."
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It's just plain blowing. Everything.
FRIST! my first
damnit
I have been saying that the invasion of Iraq was all about oil. I was off a little bit. It is about controlling all of thr energy resources of the middle east.
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=1130731388742388243&q=oil&total=3...
And the American public is beginning to feel that they need to do something that counts and arresting and trying these war criminals for acts of treason is something that counts.
In July, news of an aborted 2005 U.S. raid against Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan confirmed the failure of a key tenet of the Bush Doctrine, "no safe havens for terrorists." Now, it would appear, President Bush himself agrees with that assessment.
For the analysis, see:
"Bush Admits Failure of 'No Safe Havens' Policy."
It's intentional. Gotta keep "Goldstein" boogy-man alive and around for timely statements close to election periods and votes on legislation.
There was never a real plan to capture Bin Laden, who is wanted by the FBI, but not wanted for any involvement in 9/11.
go see for yourself.
Be sure to read the Tom Friedman's piece in the New York Times lamenting of why Bush and the GOP could swiftboat the Democrats but why Bush is allowing bin Laden to swiftboat him. A truly laughable neocon hand-wringing piece. Well for one thing the reich wing propaganda machine in this country aided the the Rethuglican Reich's swiftboating of the Democrats whereas they can't control the message half a world away and on Al-Jazzera network....Hello??????
.....nice to see however Friedman admit Kerry and the Dems get swiftboated by the reich wing in this country.
johncos @ 3:
Sorry :(
I get it now. Burying the guy under a million pounds of rock would not have been a satisfying enough revenge.
Six years on, and I finally get it.
Said it before, and I will say it again.
GOP ticket will be:
Romney/Gingrich
Maybe Bin Laden is with Cheney in his undisclosed location planning the next attack on America to boost both of their political prospects and recruitments.
It leads one to believe that Bush and Co. doesn't want to catch Bin Laden....oh wait, never mind. Sorry, I forgot where I was living for a moment.
Wretched Refuse @ 11:
Oh please, oh please, oh please!
Oh! America proved her power all right. Proved that she's as weak in the head as she's strong on weapons.
Capturing or killing Bin Laden would be the final nail in the coffin for the GOP's prospects in 2008. The GOP needs Bin Laden. Bin Laden and the GOP will be BFF.
What is the point of remembering 9/11 if we aren't going out of our way to find the guy who did it?
Had they caught Bin Laden, then the GWOT would have been over, and the FASCIST can't have that taken away from them.
I have a radical Idea. The blogosphere needs to create a project ... a project to find bin Laden. I would be willing to bet that using google earth (and equivalents) and online G2 work, he could be located. Clearly the government isnt going to do it. The blogosphere should do it.
This is something that could be hosted by Kos. You could even create a paypal account to collect money for a reward fund to pay those that locate him.
Ruthless People @ 17:
Trust in the power of gerrymandered districts and GOP shenanigans - like the attempt in California to change how electoral votes are assigned. They will do anything from voter disqualification to voter disenfranchisement. This isnt over. Remember, if it ends up in the courts, there is a better than even chance they will win as they own the courts.
[Deleted. Conspiracy theory]
[Deleted. Conspiracy theory]
anon @ 22:
Absolutely! And with Rove free of his White House duties he can better manage his continuing ground war on democratic elections.
johncos @ 3:
lol
anon @ 20:
:::DISCLAIMER:::
This post contains a link to an online Wapo article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/09/AR200609...
25 mil, huh ... ? That's the price on bin Laden's head right now, at least as recently as I bothered to check..
I love anon's idea that the blogosphere should nab bin Laden. A dream scenario!
However, what leaps out from the oh-so American huffing and puffing and Gingriching and Rummying is weakness -- big time weakness. In many ways, America has become a very weak country -- look at our stats on everything from healthcare and education to how the US is seen from elsewhere on the planet. Our response to that is military. Always military. Always the wrong response. Always the costly, self-defeating response. We need someone to lead us who has the guts to identify the weak areas, to ask us to join him/her in strengthening them and to do so in a way which makes us all proud of America's real strength, not terrified and angered by its militarism. (To be honest, I don't think the available "her" on our side of this issue would do this.)
Wow! That's a hell of an article.
I think it bears mentioned that Townsend, Bush's Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, is quoted as saying there's no way Bin Laden would be dead without the US knowing about it.
That always seems to be the conservative fallback--"he's probably dead anyway."
Bullshit.
The last time loverboy had that itchin, he did some fucked-up things to his ex-wife (well what we know of this snake) and is a lying piece of repug shit for what he did to Billy Clinton.
loverboy get some anti-fungui cream and rub it long time on your tiny balls.
Ruthless People @ 15:
If it were so, Gingrich would campaign as a moderate and the gullible(bought off) press would fall for it.
The war on terror is a struggle between two fundamentalist groups, the Islamic radical fundamentalists and the American government neo-cons. Everyone should watch the BBC miniseries of about 2002 entitled The Power of Nightmares which traces the development of the neo-con movement in this country and the rise of radical Islam first in Egypt and then Afghanistan and throughout the mid-east. Both arose in reaction to the prosperity and popular culture in the US after WW II. Both need an enemy to function. Originally, the neo-cons were ultra-hawks against the Soviet Union until it collapsed, then they used Bill Clinton as the enemy until 9/11 when the radical Islamists became the enemy. The radical Islamists used secular Arab governments, such as Sadat, as the enemy originally until the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, then the Soviets were the enemy of both radical Islamists and the neo-cons. This was the time when bin Laden was the pal of such neo-cons as Rumsfeld and Cheney. Now the neo-cons and radical Islamists are each others requisite enemy.
It's been clear that the Cheney/Bush regime didn't want to catch bin Laden when they pulled the US troops and turned the "chase" of bin Laden over to a tribal militia who had, just months before, been bankrolled by bin Laden. If they really wanted to catch him, they'd have let the US troops catch him.
Osama is Dead.
Of course --it's always been all about oil. There has been NO search for Osama bin Laden, no good faith effort. Isn't it clear by now that Bush lied about bin Laden, just as he lied about Saddam in order to invade Iraq? In the meantime, the Bush dictatorship is very nearly a fait accompli. Try to get back the freedoms you've lost. Lotsa luck! Enjoy a world in which a tiny elite has you by the balls.
No wonder the repugs are scared lily-liver chickenhawk shits.
chimp and his gang: going around bullying nations is a sure way to keep your war going and keep your constituents brain dead.
Can we please have dems speak up? Be a voice. Earn your check. If not, please step to the right.
Zenrage @ 17:
And don't forget we can't talk about 9-11 here.. Right John???
It seems that Osama is the like Emmanual Goldstein character which was given the 2 minutes of hate in the book 1984. He is the boogeyman which keeps the terror going. It is also rumored that he has been a few years but as long as they can use his name the grand daddy of terror does the trick of keeping up the war on terror.
M Baker @ 31:
The Wapo article didn't say alive or dead, did it? Well, either way, produce the body and/or any of his rejected livers and win 25 huge ones.
Angry One @ 6:
What a sad, sad lot.
The Bush Administration did not want to and still doesn't want to get"bin Laden". A mysterious boogeyman of terror who is still on the lam is much better than a criminal in jail. If we had captured bin Laden, there would have been less or maybe no support to invade Iraq. We are being terrorized by by our own government. Now, we have become one of the things that nightmares are made of to the Iraqi civilians. We are bankrupting America to the point that we will no longer be able to support social programs and making the entire world revile us. Bush is a piece of work for sure.
And we certainly showed them, didn't we Newt?! Showed them how to perfect more suicide bombing runs, that is...
FreeDUMB @ 18:
Have they filled ground-0 yet?
[Deleted. Please respect the siteowner's policy regarding alternate 9/11 theories]
Shared Humanity @ 5:
Huzzah!
me to me @ 41:
Thank you site monitor for respecting "alternate 9/11 theories" enough to cease labeling them "tin foil hat" or "conspiracy theories"
[...] Blowing the search for Bin Laden » This Summary is from an article posted at Crooks and Liars on Sunday, August 26, 2007 This [...]
As note, is it reasonable for John - a great musician - to take issue with physicists, engineers, architects and people that were directly involved during or after 911?
What if I were to state categorically that Coltrane was a poser? Lets try shall we ...
Coltrane was a poser ... in fact, he should be known as Coulterane.
... I'm a physicist by training and a musician by training (and profession at one point).
Sadly, this will be deleted by the renta punks in the finest traditions of Arriana Huffington, but if I'm not afraid of Bush, who is Amato.
http://stage6.divx.com/911-InsideJob/video/1220755/Improbable-Collapse
The Bush Administration did a great job tricking the American people and Karl Rove was right on target. Bin Linden was in New York City prior to the 9/11 attack and became ill and was taken to a NY hospital treated for kidneys and left. Then the Caryl Group had a big meeting with member including the Bin Liden family and Daddy Bush. Now you know why Bush knows about Osama's kidney problems. As for looking for Osama it was agreed with Osama's family that he be protected and not hurt. It was a business deal folks and Osama's family are big share holders. Now for those who forgot Bush said he doesn't think much of Osama and the office set up to look for his has been shut down. So why are people still talking about him. He's doing very well and has better protection from the CIA, FBI and Homeland Security then Americans have. Don't be surprise to hear in the coming years that Bin Liden had vacated in the US during the Bush Administration. The White House only puts out Osama's name when they want to put Americans in fear. Remember the 9/11 attacks were mostly Saudis and their Bush's friends. When you get stripped searched in the airport remember the 9/11 attackers just walked in and even now they come on Middle Eastern flights and buy pass that Homeland Security stuff. Chertoff only wants Americans to be searched not our friends by Saudi Arabia or Pakistan.
I'm afraid the situation is much worse than even the Newsweek article states. Strategic air power is a long discredited concept. Budansky's book Air Power has a very lucid account of why this is so. In a nutshell, the Air Force knew, from the first Gulf War, that striking civilian infrastructure had zero impact in degrading Saddam's war fighting ability. Knocking out bridges. electrical generating plants, communications and water treatment plants did not shorten that war by a single day.. The conclusions reached by the armed forces, themselves, was that the only proper use of air power is the direct tactical assault and degradation of the opposing armed forces. It was, therefore, daylight madness to repeat this assault on civilian infrastructure if they had any intention of turning Iraq into any sort of stable government, democracy or not. Trying to rebuild a crippled economy that was pointlessly destroyed has made reconstruction much more difficult if not impossible. The only possible rational for this piece of monumental stupidity was that it was done as a demonstration. It is the old argument of the armed forces: if you can't hit what you want to hit, hit what you can hit. This argument is what gave us the carpet bombing of cities.
• Bin Laden brother (Salem) co-owned an oil company with GWB.
• Bin Laden brother had breakfast with GHWB on Nine-eleven (Carlyle Group meeting).
• Bin Laden Saudis are Bushco's main allies.
• Bin Laden's were evacuated from US before FBI could interview them, during nationwide grounding of aircraft.
• "...the Guardian investigative team and BBC Television's Newsnight obtained documents, evidence and insider interviews exposing the Bush Administration's pre-September 11 directives to intelligence agencies blocking inquiries into the bin Laden family and Saudi Arabian financing of terror networks." -- Greg Palast
M Baker @ 31:
So is Ken Lay.
...soooo what happened to the Anthrax scare of 6 yrs ago?
Sy Hersh reported years ago that top Pentagon brass (presumably Rumsfeld, Cheney, etc.) let the Pakistani ISI sneak all the cave-dwellers into Pakistan from Tora Bora. It was supposed to be a middle of the night security clearance clandestine thing.
My, what a tangled web becomes unraveled. . .
i have always had the theory that this administration can not have bin laden captured because in the minds of a majority of americans, his killing or capture would signal an end to the active war on his terrorist organization. and we all know that the administration wants to keep us in a war time state to allow their repube party to build the permanent majority. this was the center piece of the rove/bush vision. how can you have a good old long lasting never ending no true idea of what victory actually is war if you capture the dude that started it all. rove tipped his hand when he talked of the power of having a "war time president".
MeMyselfAndI @ 51:
That wasnt a scare. That was an actual attack that killed people and threatened the lives of democratic leadership. I believe it was identified as highly weaponized anthrax, probably of US origin.
What happened is it worked.
http://www.moviesfoundonline.com/power_of_nightmares.htm
Free video of "The power of nightmares", which someone mentioned. I'm watching for the first time now. It shows the scumbag neocons pulling the same fear mongering shit back in the seventies with Russia as "The Enemy" instead of Islam.
V V
the righties let the worst terrorist in history escape while getting "tough on terror" label from the beltwayists
if they would of killed OBL after 9/11...they wouldn't of had a reason to go into Iraq...keeping him alive only served their purpose..
Bush PROMISED to the people of America, while standing with those Heroes near Ground Zero, that we will get those responsible for this.
Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11.
Bush broke his promise when he stated that he just doesn't care where Bin Laden is.
Why wasn't this statement scutinized by the media.
Bin Laden is enemy number 1 to this country. Bush swagered in his cowboy way and said he wanted Bin Laden dead or alive.
But he decided to attack a country that was defenseless. A country with no ties to Bin Laden.
One question. Why has this media let Bush off the hook so easily?
[...] people have noted this in depth expose by Thomas Evans about the stalled hunt for Osama Bin Laden. And [...]
A Richard Head @ 13:
You cannot deny the synergism between the right wing and bin Laden.
Yeah, we sure showed those Islamofascommurrorists by invading a secular country that they had no sway over and opening it up for them. Let that be a lesson!
Can someone please define the term "ISLAMIST" for me?
WTF is an islamist?
It seems as though it is supposed to be a Muslim? I know what a muslim is.
So out of respect for Muslims and Islam....siteowner please stop allowing that word to be posted. It is quite offensive and is a made-up NEWSPEAK propaganda term invented for fearmongering purposes by the Bush Regime or Fox News....
[...] tragiques erreurs de tirs, sp
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