President Obama announced tonight that U.S. special forces killed Osama Bin Laden.
That's great ... but we could have killed him years ago.
As I noted in 2009:
Similarly, Cenk Uygur pointed out:According to the U.S. Senate - Bin Laden was "within the grasp" of the U.S. military in Afghanistan in December 2001, but that then-secretary of defense Rumsfeld refused to provide the soldiers necessary to capture him.
This is not news: it was disclosed in 2005 by the CIA field commander for the area in Afghanistan where Bin Laden was holed up.
In addition, French soldiers allegedly say that they easily could have captured or killed Bin Laden in Afghanistan, but that the American commanders stopped them.
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A retired Colonel and Fox News military analyst said that the U.S. could have killed Bin Laden in 2007, but didn't:
We know, with a 70 percent level of certainty — which is huge in the world of intelligence — that in August of 2007, bin Laden was in a convoy headed south from Tora Bora. We had his butt, on camera, on satellite. We were listening to his conversations. We had the world’s best hunters/killers — Seal Team 6 [Note: this is the exact same team that is credited with killing Bin Laden yesterday] — nearby. We had the world class Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) coordinating with the CIA and other agencies. We had unmanned drones overhead with missiles on their wings; we had the best Air Force on the planet, begging to drop one on the terrorist. We had him in our sights; we had done it ....Unbelievably, and in my opinion, criminally, we did not kill Usama bin Laden.Indeed, a United States Congressman claims that the Bush administration intentionally let Bin Laden escape in order to justify the Iraq war.
The New York Times reported ... that we sent in 36 U.S. Special Forces troops to get Osama bin Laden when we knew he was in Tora Bora. By contrast, we sent nearly 150,000 soldiers to get Saddam Hussein. In case you're keeping count at home, we got Saddam and we didn't get Osama. What does that tell you about this administration’s priorities? This goes beyond incompetence. If you send only 36 soldiers to get somebody in the middle of Afghanistan, it means you don’t want to get him...Postscript: Of course, some people claim that Bin Laden was actually killed years ago. But as I pointed out in 2009, whether or not he was alive or dead was less important than the fact that the American government pretended that he was a supremely powerful boogeyman who justified an endless and all-consuming war on terror:
Osama had about 1,500-2,000 well-armed, well-trained men in the region. 36 guys to get 2,000? Why would we let ourselves be outgunned like that?...
There is an inescapable fact – if you put this little effort into capturing someone, it means you don’t want to capture him.
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If people inside the administration actually held back from capturing Osama bin Laden when we had him cornered, it borders on treason.
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.
I won't believe anything till I see the corpse. OBL has not shown up (for real) in any video since the invasion of Afghanistan, what means he has been at least missing since then.
ReplyDeleteHe might have been killed back then but, as I understand that Al Qaeda is nothing but an agit-prop agency of the Empire (CIA and co.) and not the enemy they are claimed to be (too ideal of an enemy), he was probably in luxurious hiding, as corresponds to his family's wealth and rank in the Imperial and Saudi hierarchy.
There are other possibilities but it's very possible that he's still alive and hiding or that he's been dead for years or whatever else. Only the corpse would prove otherwise and I doubt nobody is going to reach out to the tribal areas to recover it, right?
What drones kill, drones only know.
Our government, especially the military-intelligence wing, has zero credits for trustworthiness.
ReplyDeleteWho's to say this isn't some kind of PsyOp, like the staged Jessica Lynch rescue or the orchestrated toppling of Saddam's statue?
Now the Guardian newspaper is saying he's been buried at sea. How convenient!
KILLED IN PAKISTAN.. REPORTEDLY SHOT IN HEAD.. BURIED AT SEA
ReplyDelete...After a firefight, a small team of American forces killed bin Laden and took possession of his body, the president said.
Buried at sea? Something smells fishy.
Our Democracy has been overthrown from within by the corporate shadow government thereby establishing the marriage of government to the Corporate Empire. That marriage is defined as FACHIST, our American Democracy is DEAD!
ReplyDeleteWe live under a secret, lying and murderous fascist government who is in a genocidal war with the American People, Iraq People, Pakistani People, Libyan People, and really, the rest of the World that is not under their central banking and Big Oil control and dictatorship!
American Corporate and government unpunished FRAUD reigns supreme while the Free Press has become a controlled propaganda machine.
9/11 was an inside job and at the time of the CIA attack, Osama Ben Laden, a known CIA agent, was in Europe under a kidney machine receiving dialyses treatment and like all people in that situation, he had a very short life expectancy. Yes, we know that the CIA made phony Osama Ben Laden videos but in all probability; he died years ago. His US official death today is probably for their purpose of reinvigorating Al Qaeda by spurring on the fight to justify their illegal war.
Ghostwheel: The Guardian is quoting (in regard to "burial at sea" The New York Times (with link and all), which in turn quotes "American officials" without further specification. At least they ponder that if this is that way it will fuel further "conspiracy theories" and they also mention that the sons of Saddam Hussein were kept without burial for 11 days and shown to the public in clear photos.
ReplyDeleteWhile I am very aware of the lackey nature of corporate press, I am still in cases like this still astonished of their lack of questioning what the authorities say.
Also I wonder what really happened at that mysterious military compound (a secret prison?) in Pakistan, as it's becoming clear that Bin Laden was not the one inside.
Buried at sea so no one could see, and to increase the faith of those whose faith was weakening?
ReplyDeleteBuried at sea. Yeah, right.
ReplyDeleteWhilst not a fan of Alex Jones, this is interesting viewing.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fpBPVkpmoeg
Couldn't agree more: Torture is never justified.
ReplyDeleteGL