01-06-2023, 09:30 PM
OBAMA GETS OSAMA
OBAMA'S "BIG LIE": WHITE HOUSE PROPAGANDA AND THE “DEATH” OF OSAMA BIN LADEN
Larry Chin
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24594
On the evening of May 1, 2011, President Barack Obama declared that the CIA, on his personal order, successfully killed Al-Qaeda “mastermind” Osama bin Laden. In a conveniently scheduled Sunday evening telecast, Obama shamelessly wielded tired lies and 9/11 propaganda, while congratulating himself and the CIA. In classic lying George W. Bush fashion, Obama announced “mission accomplished”.
Obama has pronounced Osama bin Laden to be dead. But according to historical facts and extensive documented evidence, he may never have been alive in the way that the official propaganda has portrayed him. Or alive at all. Osama bin Laden has been a CIA asset in reality, and a propaganda boogeyman in official fiction.
The official Osama bin Laden narrative, along with “Islamic terrorism” and Al-Qaeda, is a CIA military-intelligence fabrication designed to provide a pretext for an eternal global war agenda, and to provide an ongoing propaganda pretext for the “war on terrorism”.
The “Militant Islamic Network”, including bin Laden himself, has been, since the Cold War a intelligence network that has been “run” on behalf of Anglo-American interests. The attack of 9/11 was a false flag operation, planned and carried out by Anglo-American intelligence assets, blamed on “Al-Qaeda”, despite no credible supporting evidence.
On the other hand, evidence abounds concerning the manipulation of terror assets, including bin Laden, by the CIA. This milieu was thoroughly examined by Mike Ruppert in Crossing the Rubicon, in which he concluded: “Given the degree of documented intelligence penetration of al Qaeda; the fact that Osama bin Laden had been a CIA asset during the first Afghan conflict against the Soviets; the fact that a number of the so-called hijackers and/or al Qaeda members had been trained in CIA training camps in Chechnya; had fought in CIA/US-sponsored guerrilla conflicts (e.g. in Kosovo with the KLA in 2000), or had received military training at US installations; given all that, it is reasonable to assume that one or more top al Qaeda officials were in fact double or triple agents…”
“Based upon what is known about successful intelligence penetrations for years prior to the attacks of 9/11, Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda could not have sneezed without the CIA or the NSA knowing about it.”
The assertion that bin Laden’s whereabouts have been unknown, that he could have eluded detection for a decade (including the “he’s hiding in caves along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border” and other such fables) was debunked years ago. According to a November 2003 Reuters report, bin Laden was received kidney dialysis in a US military hospital in Dubai two months before the 9/11 attacks, and again on September 10, 2001, according to Pakistani intelligence. These and other reports support the conclusion that Osama bin Laden was not only a CIA asset (one whose whereabouts were more than known), but one who was deathly ill. Other reports over the years suggest that the “mastermind” may have certainly died at some point, even while his image continued to be used incessantly to keep the “war on terrorism” alive.
President Obama’s lying before the cameras was as shameless as the clumsiness of the mainstream corporate media dance surrounding it. At the same time Obama stated in his speech that the killing of bin Laden had taken place “tonight” in a mountain hideout in Pakistan, various reporters on competing networks, citing multiple sources, contradicted Obama, stating that bin Laden was killed a week ago in a firefight near Islamabad, and that bin Laden’s body had been tested for DNA ever since. This conflict alone raises enough doubt to throw this new official story into the question. In the coming days, there will undoubtedly be more holes revealed.
Seasoned observers have said for years that Osama bin Laden---the mythic figure--- would elude capture as long as the Anglo-American elites needed to continue the current course of war in the Middle East and Central Asia. He would never be captured, absolutely never be put on trial, and would not be “killed” unless political expediency demanded it. The elites, for various reasons, have chosen this hour to end this tired and overused trump card.
The “successful kill” of bin Laden comes at a convenient time. Obama’s popularity has plummeted. His political opponents are threatening to unseat him in 2012. The continued US presence in the Middle East and support for the “war on terrorism” is fragile, weakened by popular protests, and ambivalence among Americans.
The “war on terrorism” narrative, the continuing world war done in its name, will never end. It is clear, however, that some change in course is in the works; at the very least, a tactical shift. In the meantime, Barack Obama can now claim to have “finished the job” in Afghanistan, just as he promised to do when elected, and declare himself to be a champion anti-terrorist, a “take-charge” military leader and bastion of justice who has avenged 9/11. Obama will ride this hard for his re-election campaign.
In response to Obama’s victory speech, crowds (of unknown origin) gathered outside the White House chanting “U.S.A.”. Whether this spectacle was staged or genuine is not known. What is known is that the vast majority of the American public remains oblivious to the fact that their own government, Bush/Cheney and Obama administrations alike, have never stopped lying to them about 9/11, the “war on terrorism”, or Osama bin Laden. On this night, Obama repeated The Big Lie, the biggest one of all.
OSAMA BIN LADEN’s SECOND DEATH
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24587
If today were April 1 and not May 2, we could dismiss as an April fool’s joke this morning’s headline that Osama bin Laden was killed in a firefight in Pakistan and quickly buried at sea. As it is, we must take it as more evidence that the US government has unlimited belief in the gullibility of Americans.
Think about it. What are the chances that a person allegedly suffering from kidney disease and requiring dialysis and, in addition, afflicted with diabetes and low blood pressure, survived in mountain hideaways for a decade? If bin Laden was able to acquire dialysis equipment and medical care that his condition required, would not the shipment of dialysis equipment point to his location? Why did it take ten years to find him?
Consider also the claims, repeated by a triumphalist US media celebrating bin Laden’s death, that “bin Laden used his millions to bankroll terrorist training camps in Sudan, the Philippines, and Afghanistan, sending ‘holy warriors’ to foment revolution and fight with fundamentalist Muslim forces across North Africa, in Chechnya, Tajikistan and Bosnia.” That’s a lot of activity for mere millions to bankroll (perhaps the US should have put him in charge of the Pentagon), but the main question is: how was bin Laden able to move his money about? What banking system was helping him? The US government succeeds in seizing the assets of people and of entire countries, Libya being the most recent. Why not bin Laden’s? Was he carrying around with him $100 million dollars in gold coins and sending emissaries to distribute payments to his far-flung operations?
This morning’s headline has the odor of a staged event. The smell reeks from the triumphalist news reports loaded with exaggerations, from celebrants waving flags and chanting “USA USA.” Could something else be going on?
No doubt President Obama is in desperate need of a victory. He committed the fool’s error or restarting the war in Afghanistan, and now after a decade of fighting the US faces stalemate, if not defeat. The wars of the Bush/Obama regimes have bankrupted the US, leaving huge deficits and a declining dollar in their wake. And re-election time is approaching.
The various lies and deceptions, such as “weapons of mass destruction,” of the last several administrations had terrible consequences for the US and the world. But not all deceptions are the same. Remember, the entire reason for invading Afghanistan in the first place was to get bin Laden. Now that President Obama has declared bin Laden to have been shot in the head by US special forces operating in an independent country and buried at sea, there is no reason for continuing the war.
Perhaps the precipitous decline in the US dollar in foreign exchange markets has forced some real budget reductions, which can only come from stopping the open-ended wars. Until the decline of the dollar reached the breaking point, Osama bin Laden, who many experts believe to have been dead for years, was a useful bogyman to use to feed the profits of the US military/security complex.
FACT OR FICTION?
Pakistan Military Knew About Bin Laden Raid Well In Advance Of Attack
Rick Ungar
May 06, 2011 "Forbes" - - Evidence is now emerging that the Pakistani government and military not only knew of America’s plans to launch an attack on Osama bin Laden’s compound far in advance, but assisted the United States in the effort.
According to GlobalPost, the Pakistan government’s willingness to continue the narrative that they were caught totally by surprise is in response to their fear of a popular backlash among the Pakistani people were they to know that their government and military had helped the Americans execute the raid.
One senior military official, who asked not to be named because he is not permitted to speak to the press, said that Pakistani army troops were in fact providing backup support when the United States began its operations inside the compound where bin Laden had been staying, including sealing off the neighborhood where the compound was located.”
Via Global Post
Adding further support to the notion that Pakistan was in on the mission, a number of local residents have confirmed to the BBC that they were visited by Pakistani army personnel two hours before the attack commenced, ordering them to switch off the lights inside and outside their homes and instructing them to stay indoors until they were informed it was safe to come out.
The report goes on to add-
Gen. David Petraeus paid an extraordinary visit to Islamabad on April 25,” said a senior military official said. The official said Petraeus held a one-on-one meeting with Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Pakistan’s army chief of staff, in which they discussed the details of the operation.
The next day, Pakistan’s top military body — the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee — held its quarterly session, which was attended by Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the country’s intelligence chief, who is not a regular member of the body. Pasha had visited the United States to meet with the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon Panetta, on April 11.”
General Patraeus, who is preparing to take over as CIA Director, has yet to confirm or deny the report.
So, why would the Pakistani government endure the embarrassment and charges of incompetency that have come with appearing not to know the U.S. was conducting a raid on their soil without permission?
To answer the question, it is important to understand the current political environment in the country and the growing displeasure among the population with the presence of American military and ongoing CIA operations within Pakistan’s borders.
These feelings are particular sensitive in the wake of the recent killing of two Pakistanis by a CIA contractor who claimed that the deceased were attempting to rob him.
The Pakistani Street has also grown tired of what they perceive as the over-involvement of the United States in their affairs over the last decade and are particularly unhappy with the constant drone attacks being conducted in their country by Americans – many resulting in the deaths of innocent civilians.
Were it to be known that the Pakistani military and government was assisting the United States in taking out Bin Laden, the government would not only face the potential of a popular uprising but would also be forced to deal with the displeasure of many of its Arab nation allies who would not approve of their cooperation.
The revelations come on the heels of today’s disclosure that the CIA had maintained a ’safe-house’ within eyesight of bin Laden’s Abbotabad compound since August, 2010 in order to keep an eye on the location. Again, Pakistani officials deny any knowledge of the CIA presence in the area.
Like so many of the difficulties faced by Pakistan in its awkward relationship with the United States, the government may have, again, found themselves in a ‘no win’ situation.
If the Pakistani government did know what was coming, the current disclosures may only be the tip of the iceberg as top members of the military are said to be angry over appearing to be incompetent in the eyes of the public.
[b]OSAMA BIN LADEN: DEAD OR ALIVE?
[/b]
Tod Fletcher
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22708.htm
Osama Bin Laden: Dead Or Alive? by David Ray Griffin is a crucially important and timely examination of the whole range of evidence bearing on the question, is Osama bin Laden still alive? The importance of this question for the present comes from the fact that the United States under its new president is escalating its offensive in Afghanistan and expanding the war into Pakistan, and has claimed that the “hunt for bin Laden” is one of its principal motivations for doing so. Either explicitly or implicitly, the US government and major media outlets such as The New York Times and Washington Post continue to assert that bin Laden is alive, hiding in the tribal territories on the “AfPak” border, posing an undiminished threat to US security.
In his gripping new book, Griffin strikes at the root of this pretext for war by closely examining all the evidence that has come out since September 11, 2001, either indicating that bin Laden is still alive or that he is in fact dead. His conclusion is that bin Laden is certainly dead, and that in all likelihood he died in very late 2001. Griffin shows that many US experts in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency came to this very same conclusion long ago, but their views, which do not support the continuation of what President Obama, borrowing the term from Dick Cheney, calls “the long war,” have received very little media attention. Were they to do so, one of the main props for the war regime would be undermined.
In Chapter 1, “Evidence that Osama bin Laden is Dead”, Griffin surveys in detail the many different indications published in the major media in late 2001 and early 2002 that bin Laden had been very ill and had died. These included a December, 2001 video in which he appeared to be at death’s door (as admitted by a Bush administration spokesperson), analyses by medical experts of the grave state of his health, the sudden and total cessation in December, 2001 of any surveillance intercepts of communications from him, and even reports of his funeral. In this early period, various high-level officials in the US and Pakistani governments, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and President Pervez Musharraf, speculated that he was dead. By mid-2002 many experts had concluded that he was dead, including FBI counterterrorism official Dale Watson, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, and Israeli intelligence officials. The conviction that he died in 2001 is held today by former intelligence operatives Robert Baer and Angelo Codevilla.
In Chapter 2, “Two Fake bin Laden Videos in 2001?”, Griffin shows that two videos which purportedly showed bin Laden taking credit for the attacks of 9/11 and thus established his guilt for them, were not only very conveniently timed for the Bush and Blair administrations’ legislative and military agendas, but also were highly suspect for other reasons. One of them was never actually released, but simply claimed by the Blair government. The other showed a bin Laden who did not physically resemble the genuine bin Laden of earlier videos, in which he in fact denied responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. Griffin presents strong arguments that both claimed videos were faked, suggests likely motivations behind such a risky undertaking, and cites the opinions of experts (including the FBI) who came to this conclusion long ago.
In Chapter 3, “Purported bin Laden Messages After 2001”, Griffin argues that if fake bin Laden videos were produced in this early period, when he was probably still alive, then there is even stronger reason to be suspicious of “bin Laden videos” or other claimed “messages” that were released later, after all communications intercepts from him had ceased and many experts had concluded that he was dead. Yet, in subsequent years, a long series of such dubious “bin Laden messages” were released. Griffin presents an exhaustive survey of 19 of these, from an “email message” of March, 2002 to the “bin Laden audiotape” of January 14, 2009. For each and every one, Griffin identifies key indications of fakery or strong reasons to be suspicious of its authenticity. In the course of the discussion of the messages, he establishes that the technical capability to fabricate fake messages of the different types already existed.
In Chapter 4, Griffin turns to the important question “Who Might Have Been Motivated To Fabricate Messages?” He shows that the US military in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 employed a psychological operations unit to produce bogus evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, as a pretext for the invasion. The psyops unit produced a “letter” from a Jordanian in Iraq, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, that was then “intercepted”, purportedly enroute to Al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan. The psyop was advanced after the invasion by the New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins, who wrote front-page stories presenting the “evidence” as genuine. Journalists at other organizations, including Newsweek magazine and The Telegraph of London, however, thought it highly likely at the time that the letter was bogus. Griffin concludes that the target of the psychological operation was the US public. He asks, could something very similar have been going on with the “bin Laden messages”? Does the US government desire to expand its war operations anywhere, say into the precise places it claims bin Laden is still living in? Based on the evidence Griffin presents, there is no reason to assume that comparable psyops would not be utilized to achieve this goal.
In Chapter 5, “The Convenient Timing of Many of the Messages”, Griffin shows that another reason to suspect the inauthenticity of the “bin Laden messages” is that they frequently were released at key moments when they would benefit the Bush administration in the pursuit of particular objectives. In other words, the “messages” were almost always objectively detrimental to the enemies of the US, and beneficial to the Bush administration or the Blair government. Griffin lists 11 specific instances of this unusual characteristic of the “messages.”
Osama Bin Laden: Dead Or Alive? by David Ray Griffin is a book to rally around – that is, a basis on which we can mobilize and organize resistance to yet another incalculably bloody war of aggression by the predatory military-industrial-financial elite that runs this country, and is running it into the abyss. Griffin has placed a strong weapon of truth in our hands with which to stop the brutal war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Let’s use it!
OBAMA'S "BIG LIE": WHITE HOUSE PROPAGANDA AND THE “DEATH” OF OSAMA BIN LADEN
Larry Chin
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24594
On the evening of May 1, 2011, President Barack Obama declared that the CIA, on his personal order, successfully killed Al-Qaeda “mastermind” Osama bin Laden. In a conveniently scheduled Sunday evening telecast, Obama shamelessly wielded tired lies and 9/11 propaganda, while congratulating himself and the CIA. In classic lying George W. Bush fashion, Obama announced “mission accomplished”.
Obama has pronounced Osama bin Laden to be dead. But according to historical facts and extensive documented evidence, he may never have been alive in the way that the official propaganda has portrayed him. Or alive at all. Osama bin Laden has been a CIA asset in reality, and a propaganda boogeyman in official fiction.
The official Osama bin Laden narrative, along with “Islamic terrorism” and Al-Qaeda, is a CIA military-intelligence fabrication designed to provide a pretext for an eternal global war agenda, and to provide an ongoing propaganda pretext for the “war on terrorism”.
The “Militant Islamic Network”, including bin Laden himself, has been, since the Cold War a intelligence network that has been “run” on behalf of Anglo-American interests. The attack of 9/11 was a false flag operation, planned and carried out by Anglo-American intelligence assets, blamed on “Al-Qaeda”, despite no credible supporting evidence.
On the other hand, evidence abounds concerning the manipulation of terror assets, including bin Laden, by the CIA. This milieu was thoroughly examined by Mike Ruppert in Crossing the Rubicon, in which he concluded: “Given the degree of documented intelligence penetration of al Qaeda; the fact that Osama bin Laden had been a CIA asset during the first Afghan conflict against the Soviets; the fact that a number of the so-called hijackers and/or al Qaeda members had been trained in CIA training camps in Chechnya; had fought in CIA/US-sponsored guerrilla conflicts (e.g. in Kosovo with the KLA in 2000), or had received military training at US installations; given all that, it is reasonable to assume that one or more top al Qaeda officials were in fact double or triple agents…”
“Based upon what is known about successful intelligence penetrations for years prior to the attacks of 9/11, Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda could not have sneezed without the CIA or the NSA knowing about it.”
The assertion that bin Laden’s whereabouts have been unknown, that he could have eluded detection for a decade (including the “he’s hiding in caves along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border” and other such fables) was debunked years ago. According to a November 2003 Reuters report, bin Laden was received kidney dialysis in a US military hospital in Dubai two months before the 9/11 attacks, and again on September 10, 2001, according to Pakistani intelligence. These and other reports support the conclusion that Osama bin Laden was not only a CIA asset (one whose whereabouts were more than known), but one who was deathly ill. Other reports over the years suggest that the “mastermind” may have certainly died at some point, even while his image continued to be used incessantly to keep the “war on terrorism” alive.
President Obama’s lying before the cameras was as shameless as the clumsiness of the mainstream corporate media dance surrounding it. At the same time Obama stated in his speech that the killing of bin Laden had taken place “tonight” in a mountain hideout in Pakistan, various reporters on competing networks, citing multiple sources, contradicted Obama, stating that bin Laden was killed a week ago in a firefight near Islamabad, and that bin Laden’s body had been tested for DNA ever since. This conflict alone raises enough doubt to throw this new official story into the question. In the coming days, there will undoubtedly be more holes revealed.
Seasoned observers have said for years that Osama bin Laden---the mythic figure--- would elude capture as long as the Anglo-American elites needed to continue the current course of war in the Middle East and Central Asia. He would never be captured, absolutely never be put on trial, and would not be “killed” unless political expediency demanded it. The elites, for various reasons, have chosen this hour to end this tired and overused trump card.
The “successful kill” of bin Laden comes at a convenient time. Obama’s popularity has plummeted. His political opponents are threatening to unseat him in 2012. The continued US presence in the Middle East and support for the “war on terrorism” is fragile, weakened by popular protests, and ambivalence among Americans.
The “war on terrorism” narrative, the continuing world war done in its name, will never end. It is clear, however, that some change in course is in the works; at the very least, a tactical shift. In the meantime, Barack Obama can now claim to have “finished the job” in Afghanistan, just as he promised to do when elected, and declare himself to be a champion anti-terrorist, a “take-charge” military leader and bastion of justice who has avenged 9/11. Obama will ride this hard for his re-election campaign.
In response to Obama’s victory speech, crowds (of unknown origin) gathered outside the White House chanting “U.S.A.”. Whether this spectacle was staged or genuine is not known. What is known is that the vast majority of the American public remains oblivious to the fact that their own government, Bush/Cheney and Obama administrations alike, have never stopped lying to them about 9/11, the “war on terrorism”, or Osama bin Laden. On this night, Obama repeated The Big Lie, the biggest one of all.
OSAMA BIN LADEN’s SECOND DEATH
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24587
If today were April 1 and not May 2, we could dismiss as an April fool’s joke this morning’s headline that Osama bin Laden was killed in a firefight in Pakistan and quickly buried at sea. As it is, we must take it as more evidence that the US government has unlimited belief in the gullibility of Americans.
Think about it. What are the chances that a person allegedly suffering from kidney disease and requiring dialysis and, in addition, afflicted with diabetes and low blood pressure, survived in mountain hideaways for a decade? If bin Laden was able to acquire dialysis equipment and medical care that his condition required, would not the shipment of dialysis equipment point to his location? Why did it take ten years to find him?
Consider also the claims, repeated by a triumphalist US media celebrating bin Laden’s death, that “bin Laden used his millions to bankroll terrorist training camps in Sudan, the Philippines, and Afghanistan, sending ‘holy warriors’ to foment revolution and fight with fundamentalist Muslim forces across North Africa, in Chechnya, Tajikistan and Bosnia.” That’s a lot of activity for mere millions to bankroll (perhaps the US should have put him in charge of the Pentagon), but the main question is: how was bin Laden able to move his money about? What banking system was helping him? The US government succeeds in seizing the assets of people and of entire countries, Libya being the most recent. Why not bin Laden’s? Was he carrying around with him $100 million dollars in gold coins and sending emissaries to distribute payments to his far-flung operations?
This morning’s headline has the odor of a staged event. The smell reeks from the triumphalist news reports loaded with exaggerations, from celebrants waving flags and chanting “USA USA.” Could something else be going on?
No doubt President Obama is in desperate need of a victory. He committed the fool’s error or restarting the war in Afghanistan, and now after a decade of fighting the US faces stalemate, if not defeat. The wars of the Bush/Obama regimes have bankrupted the US, leaving huge deficits and a declining dollar in their wake. And re-election time is approaching.
The various lies and deceptions, such as “weapons of mass destruction,” of the last several administrations had terrible consequences for the US and the world. But not all deceptions are the same. Remember, the entire reason for invading Afghanistan in the first place was to get bin Laden. Now that President Obama has declared bin Laden to have been shot in the head by US special forces operating in an independent country and buried at sea, there is no reason for continuing the war.
Perhaps the precipitous decline in the US dollar in foreign exchange markets has forced some real budget reductions, which can only come from stopping the open-ended wars. Until the decline of the dollar reached the breaking point, Osama bin Laden, who many experts believe to have been dead for years, was a useful bogyman to use to feed the profits of the US military/security complex.
FACT OR FICTION?
Pakistan Military Knew About Bin Laden Raid Well In Advance Of Attack
Rick Ungar
May 06, 2011 "Forbes" - - Evidence is now emerging that the Pakistani government and military not only knew of America’s plans to launch an attack on Osama bin Laden’s compound far in advance, but assisted the United States in the effort.
According to GlobalPost, the Pakistan government’s willingness to continue the narrative that they were caught totally by surprise is in response to their fear of a popular backlash among the Pakistani people were they to know that their government and military had helped the Americans execute the raid.
One senior military official, who asked not to be named because he is not permitted to speak to the press, said that Pakistani army troops were in fact providing backup support when the United States began its operations inside the compound where bin Laden had been staying, including sealing off the neighborhood where the compound was located.”
Via Global Post
Adding further support to the notion that Pakistan was in on the mission, a number of local residents have confirmed to the BBC that they were visited by Pakistani army personnel two hours before the attack commenced, ordering them to switch off the lights inside and outside their homes and instructing them to stay indoors until they were informed it was safe to come out.
The report goes on to add-
Gen. David Petraeus paid an extraordinary visit to Islamabad on April 25,” said a senior military official said. The official said Petraeus held a one-on-one meeting with Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Pakistan’s army chief of staff, in which they discussed the details of the operation.
The next day, Pakistan’s top military body — the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee — held its quarterly session, which was attended by Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the country’s intelligence chief, who is not a regular member of the body. Pasha had visited the United States to meet with the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon Panetta, on April 11.”
General Patraeus, who is preparing to take over as CIA Director, has yet to confirm or deny the report.
So, why would the Pakistani government endure the embarrassment and charges of incompetency that have come with appearing not to know the U.S. was conducting a raid on their soil without permission?
To answer the question, it is important to understand the current political environment in the country and the growing displeasure among the population with the presence of American military and ongoing CIA operations within Pakistan’s borders.
These feelings are particular sensitive in the wake of the recent killing of two Pakistanis by a CIA contractor who claimed that the deceased were attempting to rob him.
The Pakistani Street has also grown tired of what they perceive as the over-involvement of the United States in their affairs over the last decade and are particularly unhappy with the constant drone attacks being conducted in their country by Americans – many resulting in the deaths of innocent civilians.
Were it to be known that the Pakistani military and government was assisting the United States in taking out Bin Laden, the government would not only face the potential of a popular uprising but would also be forced to deal with the displeasure of many of its Arab nation allies who would not approve of their cooperation.
The revelations come on the heels of today’s disclosure that the CIA had maintained a ’safe-house’ within eyesight of bin Laden’s Abbotabad compound since August, 2010 in order to keep an eye on the location. Again, Pakistani officials deny any knowledge of the CIA presence in the area.
Like so many of the difficulties faced by Pakistan in its awkward relationship with the United States, the government may have, again, found themselves in a ‘no win’ situation.
If the Pakistani government did know what was coming, the current disclosures may only be the tip of the iceberg as top members of the military are said to be angry over appearing to be incompetent in the eyes of the public.
[b]OSAMA BIN LADEN: DEAD OR ALIVE?
[/b]
Tod Fletcher
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22708.htm
Osama Bin Laden: Dead Or Alive? by David Ray Griffin is a crucially important and timely examination of the whole range of evidence bearing on the question, is Osama bin Laden still alive? The importance of this question for the present comes from the fact that the United States under its new president is escalating its offensive in Afghanistan and expanding the war into Pakistan, and has claimed that the “hunt for bin Laden” is one of its principal motivations for doing so. Either explicitly or implicitly, the US government and major media outlets such as The New York Times and Washington Post continue to assert that bin Laden is alive, hiding in the tribal territories on the “AfPak” border, posing an undiminished threat to US security.
In his gripping new book, Griffin strikes at the root of this pretext for war by closely examining all the evidence that has come out since September 11, 2001, either indicating that bin Laden is still alive or that he is in fact dead. His conclusion is that bin Laden is certainly dead, and that in all likelihood he died in very late 2001. Griffin shows that many US experts in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency came to this very same conclusion long ago, but their views, which do not support the continuation of what President Obama, borrowing the term from Dick Cheney, calls “the long war,” have received very little media attention. Were they to do so, one of the main props for the war regime would be undermined.
In Chapter 1, “Evidence that Osama bin Laden is Dead”, Griffin surveys in detail the many different indications published in the major media in late 2001 and early 2002 that bin Laden had been very ill and had died. These included a December, 2001 video in which he appeared to be at death’s door (as admitted by a Bush administration spokesperson), analyses by medical experts of the grave state of his health, the sudden and total cessation in December, 2001 of any surveillance intercepts of communications from him, and even reports of his funeral. In this early period, various high-level officials in the US and Pakistani governments, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and President Pervez Musharraf, speculated that he was dead. By mid-2002 many experts had concluded that he was dead, including FBI counterterrorism official Dale Watson, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, and Israeli intelligence officials. The conviction that he died in 2001 is held today by former intelligence operatives Robert Baer and Angelo Codevilla.
In Chapter 2, “Two Fake bin Laden Videos in 2001?”, Griffin shows that two videos which purportedly showed bin Laden taking credit for the attacks of 9/11 and thus established his guilt for them, were not only very conveniently timed for the Bush and Blair administrations’ legislative and military agendas, but also were highly suspect for other reasons. One of them was never actually released, but simply claimed by the Blair government. The other showed a bin Laden who did not physically resemble the genuine bin Laden of earlier videos, in which he in fact denied responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. Griffin presents strong arguments that both claimed videos were faked, suggests likely motivations behind such a risky undertaking, and cites the opinions of experts (including the FBI) who came to this conclusion long ago.
In Chapter 3, “Purported bin Laden Messages After 2001”, Griffin argues that if fake bin Laden videos were produced in this early period, when he was probably still alive, then there is even stronger reason to be suspicious of “bin Laden videos” or other claimed “messages” that were released later, after all communications intercepts from him had ceased and many experts had concluded that he was dead. Yet, in subsequent years, a long series of such dubious “bin Laden messages” were released. Griffin presents an exhaustive survey of 19 of these, from an “email message” of March, 2002 to the “bin Laden audiotape” of January 14, 2009. For each and every one, Griffin identifies key indications of fakery or strong reasons to be suspicious of its authenticity. In the course of the discussion of the messages, he establishes that the technical capability to fabricate fake messages of the different types already existed.
In Chapter 4, Griffin turns to the important question “Who Might Have Been Motivated To Fabricate Messages?” He shows that the US military in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 employed a psychological operations unit to produce bogus evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, as a pretext for the invasion. The psyops unit produced a “letter” from a Jordanian in Iraq, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, that was then “intercepted”, purportedly enroute to Al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan. The psyop was advanced after the invasion by the New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins, who wrote front-page stories presenting the “evidence” as genuine. Journalists at other organizations, including Newsweek magazine and The Telegraph of London, however, thought it highly likely at the time that the letter was bogus. Griffin concludes that the target of the psychological operation was the US public. He asks, could something very similar have been going on with the “bin Laden messages”? Does the US government desire to expand its war operations anywhere, say into the precise places it claims bin Laden is still living in? Based on the evidence Griffin presents, there is no reason to assume that comparable psyops would not be utilized to achieve this goal.
In Chapter 5, “The Convenient Timing of Many of the Messages”, Griffin shows that another reason to suspect the inauthenticity of the “bin Laden messages” is that they frequently were released at key moments when they would benefit the Bush administration in the pursuit of particular objectives. In other words, the “messages” were almost always objectively detrimental to the enemies of the US, and beneficial to the Bush administration or the Blair government. Griffin lists 11 specific instances of this unusual characteristic of the “messages.”
Osama Bin Laden: Dead Or Alive? by David Ray Griffin is a book to rally around – that is, a basis on which we can mobilize and organize resistance to yet another incalculably bloody war of aggression by the predatory military-industrial-financial elite that runs this country, and is running it into the abyss. Griffin has placed a strong weapon of truth in our hands with which to stop the brutal war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Let’s use it!