We're still futzing around in Afghanistan, but nobody seems to know whether Osama is living. National Security Advisor Jim Jones said in May that the evidence is "inconclusive" on his continued existence.
Why don't we do this: announce that if Osama doesn't show up on videotape within a week reading from today's newspaper, then we're going to assume he's either dead or a coward.
If he doesn't show, we could then declare Mission Accomplished.
Why don't we do this: announce that if Osama doesn't show up on videotape within a week reading from today's newspaper, then we're going to assume he's either dead or a coward.
If he doesn't show, we could then declare Mission Accomplished.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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40 comments:
What's with these simple solutions? You sound like you got your PhD from a box of Cheerios.
Here's another: repudiate all foreign debt. Anyone dumb enough to lend you money that you buy guns with doesn't deserve to be paid back.
So beautifully cynical.
Im glad Im not the only one. M
That's one of the most brilliantly simple solutions I've ever heard, and hence there is 100% probability it will not be done.
If the "mission" had been to capture Osama, that would have been incredibly stupid. Why not just leave now, no matter what his ontological status? Sunk costs and all that.
Another problem is that our National Security Advisor is named Jim Jones.
If I were Obama.. er Osama (Ted Kennedy TM), I'd show up within 1 week + 1 day, making an ass of the US. Some people even suggest Osama is a bogeyman.
"Why don't we do this?"
"...we're going to assume..."
"...we could then declare..."
You're like one of those white guys who graduated from Michigan State or wherever 20 years ago, who bizarrely call the random collection of black dudes on the current football or basketball team "we".
Your whole online persona is constructed around the claim that the government or the elite don't give a voice to the concerns of ordinary whites, yet you oddly call this government "we", as if it's made up of a few of your cousins and some Thousand Oaks neighbors.
Old age is a major killer over there in eastern Asia.
Just some stuff I heard from a friend of mine, over there working for the "company", strictly off the record.
T99 will be here soon with a string of non-sequiturs to prove that it doesn't matter. We're in Afghanistan so that NY doesn't get nuked -- QED. Never mind that the string of logical connections required to get from A to B has no basis in reality.
Well, I personally think Osama's still alive, and I know an easy way to catch him, by cleverly taking advantage of his religious zeal.
Now Osama's probably hiding in a cave somewhere---but the neocons aren't! So I'd just round 'em all up in DC and NYC, together with their friends and relatives, and begin doing unpleasant things to them.
...sufficiently "unpleasant" that when Osama heard about the situation, he'd become fearful that Allah would destroy the entire world in absolute outrage. Therefore, he'd agree to surrender for trial in exchange for the neocons being granted the mercy of being boiled in oil or something.
And just to avoid any nasty charges of anti-Semitism, I'd certainly include a few "Scots-Irishmen" such as our own good friend Testing99.
What if I'm wrong and Osama really is dead, so we never hear from him? Well, then no harm done...
Well, my previous comment pointing out that Osama is dead didn't make it past the truth filter, but what the hell, I'll try again.
Osama bin Laden died during the initial invasion of Afghanistan, late 2001 or early 2002. For a few years there, everyone kinda knew he was dead and even talked about it a bit. For example, when John Kerry criticized Bush for letting bin Laden escape during the 2004 presidential debates, conservative commentators leapt to Bush's defense by pointing out that everyone knew he was dead.
Then, shortly thereafter, an Extremely Blurry (TM) tape of Osama was shown on American television. The tape was a crude hoax, as was obvious despite the high level of downsampling applied to the tape in order to conceal its inauthenticity, but since nobody's allowed to say that something shown on television is a complete hoax (because the government and mass media never, ever lie -- ever, especially related to the glorious War on Terror), everyone had to go back to pretending that Osama is in fact still alive.
Since that incident, however, we have not been treated to any such fake videos of Osama bin Laden. Most of the evidence of his continued existence has consisted of fake audio tapes, fake correspondence, and recycled authentic footage of bin Laden from pre-2002.
Yeah, we are in Afghanistan because bin Laden killed 3,000 Americans. Killed them because we did not deter attacks.
We can't construct politically a hermit kingdom like North Korea. Can't be done. As a practical matter, we need the trade.
That means deterrence. That means MAKING EXAMPLES of someone. Including Afghanistan, including Iraq.
Pakistan has over 100 nukes and growing. It's President says AQ "could" take over the nukes if there was a coup/revolution. No doubt to extort money from Obama. Pakistan being a basket case except for Jihad and nukes.
But what do you all propose? Just walk away from Afghanistan because "it's too hard" and upsetting and expensive without establishing deterrence?
How do you propose, Steve, to make sure Pakistan's nukes don't get sent to the Taliban/AQ, and nuke NYC in a shipping container? How will you deter them?
These are hard guys. They all killed many men to get to tribal or factional leader. Ayman Al Zawahari, who certainly IS alive, famously shot to death two young 12 year old boys in front of his jihadis who had just voted to spare them. Zawahari wants to raise an exile Army in Pakistan/Afghanistan and take over Egypt. His model is some guy named Mohammed who a number of years back left Mecca for Medina and did just that, returning as a conqueror. And there's thousands of guys just like him, who know all the stories, and figure "Why not Me? Why not raise an army by killing millons of Americans? What are they going to do, a few impotent missile strikes killing a few scorpions?"
It's the job of the President and National Security Advisor after 9/11 to make sure that America does not suffer another attack like that particularly one nuclear in nature.
That means deterrence. That means real fear, absolute and concrete, among tribal leaders, factional leaders, militia leaders, and military leaders. Who tend to be the same people. Unicorns, rainbows, hugs, kittens and being "reasonable" assuming the world is like some safe LA suburb won't get it done. The hardest hard boy gang banger would be considered soft by Pakistani tribal/factional leaders. Staying in Afghanistan and killing lots of their followers there up close and personal is the bare minimum to maintain deterrence.
Steve you remind me of those Civil War generals who could not understand how the minie ball made Napoleonic tactics obsolete, or those Allied Generals in the First World War who insisted once more over the top boys.
Sitting around being "nice" to people who are tribal, polygamous, and with nukes won't get it done. Neither is full scale war. Afghanistan is the best choice.
Otherwise, anyone can nuke the US, lay low for a few years, and rule with no problems meanwhile assembling a monster exile army for whatever purpose.
Nukes change everything. A single illiterate tribal leader in remote Pakistan can command more destructive power than Hitler and Tojo and Mussolini and Stalin combined. Nukes are the ultimate equalizer. Most here are too stupid to grasp that truth. [India is not, they were forced to do nothing in response to Pakistan's ISI Bombay attack. Because of Pakistan's nukes.]
There was that talk a few years ago that he required dialysis and probably died from kidney problems. Kind of suspicious that he only does audio tapes these days. Everyone seems to have forgotten about Mullah Omar, he is still wandering around Afghanistan somewhere, I keep wondering how hard it is to spot a guy with one eye.
"MAKING EXAMPLES of someone"
Sounds good. I have a little list.
"You're like one of those white guys who graduated from Michigan State or wherever 20 years ago, who bizarrely call the random collection of black dudes on the current football or basketball team "we".
LOL! one of my favorite things about modern american society. suburban white men who think they're actually on an professional or NCAA sports team.
"we did this", "you guys did that", "we beat you", "you lost to us"
this language is hilarious to me.
the only thing funnier than listening to them talk, is pointing this out to them. they get angry.
try this: point out to them that modern NCAA football and basketball is nothing but 20,000 white suburban men standing around and watching 20 black guys juggle a brown or orange ball. watch them go ballistic. watch them deny up and down that this is what is actually occuring.
yet, they've completely internalized this very real truth about their lives. this is what, i believe, leads to their BURNING, absolutely BURNING dislike for their own race when it comes to sports. suburban white men get positively LIVID over white players on "their" team.
hence, the average white NCAA basketball fan HATES, positively HATES successful white NCAA basketball players. jim rome even ponders this question on his ESPN show, wondering why sports fans so intensely dislike well behaved, well spoken, law abiding, athletically successful white athletes.
he can't, or is not allowed, to speak the real reason out loud. that the modern white american sports fan has been conditioned to hate his own group by decades of sports media conditioning. the way some of these jock sniffers in the sports media fawn over black criminal athletes while at the same time completely downplaying or even clowning white athletes, it's reached a ridiculous level.
If there is one thing I hate to admit it is that the Truth troll might have a good point.
I looked up agricultural products by country on an agriculture industry website.
http://www.fao.org/es/ess/top/topproduction.html?lang=en
They list every imaginable ag product and how much any country produces and their rank in the production of the product. It is a pretty exhaustive list of countries and products. Afghanistan is conspicuously absent.
According to the US geological survey Afghanistan page, they have non-fuel mineral resources but they can't develop them without technology.
http://afghanistan.cr.usgs.gov/
But first they would have to want to, and they would have to be able to get along with others, and honor contracts.
The oil and natural gas pipeline could really help them out, if it doesn't fall victim to the usual graft and corruption. They could have a better life. Or they could peddle poppies.
"Can't be done."
Why not? U can have trade with sealed borders by simply telling the border police to do what border police have been doing for decades before the open-borders crowd started claiming it’s unfeasible. Try getting into Israel without been stripped and searched. You think any goods are being let through customs without being checked or even X-rayed? In European countries and Switzerland this was de-rigueur before the EU nonsense set in. In South Africa it was the same before the blacks took over.
This is already the point where the argumentation becomes unhinged.
We're still futzing around in Afghanistan, but nobody seems to know whether Osama is living.
Winston: "Does the Brotherhood exist?"
O'Brien: "That, Winston, you will never know. If we choose to set you free when we have finished with you, and if you live to be ninety years old, still you will never learn whether the answer to that question is Yes or No. As long as you live it will be an unsolved riddle in your mind."
To the Anonymous who thinks Bin Laden is dead:
I think he's dead too, possibly as early as Tora Bora in late 2001. They really pounded that whole area with FAEs. There's rumors of a FLIR tape showing a group of men on horses hightailing it out, then it all goes white - the FAE. The story goes that one of the riders appeared to be very tall.
The reasons we are in Afghanistan have more to do with maintaining Turkey's monopoly on production of opium poppies than "terror." The USSR's invasion in 1979 or whenever had more to do with getting opium poppies than as a stepping stone to a warmwater port. A lot of the venues/battlegrounds of the Cold War and Post-Cold War period involve either drug producing regions or organized crime/political gangs. See Central and South America; see Iraq; especially see Afghanistan; even see Somalia (khat).
- Chris in Austin
I say "we" when referring to my alma mater's sports teams....never knew I was laughingstock.
Jody is right on his point about the vitriol aimed at the Hansbroughs and Redicks of the sports world. It's a weird phenomena.
Jody said....try this: point out to them that modern NCAA football and basketball is nothing but 20,000 white suburban men standing around and watching 20 black guys juggle a brown or orange ball. watch them go ballistic. watch them deny up and down that this is what is actually occuring.
I don't think many guys would go "ballistic" when you're pointing out something fairly obvious. You really have a high opinion of yourself.
If you "pointed this out to me" I would say yeah, but I enjoy watching the game played at a high level....and plus the center is white.
Jody, here are your viable options:
1) LSD
2) Electro-shock therapy
3) Past-regression therapy
4) Intensive counseling
5) Two years living as a Tibetian
Monk.
For your own mental health, for god sakes man, chose one...And convince Don Wassal to go with you.
David Ray Griffin has just published a book(May 20, 2009) on that very topic. It is entitled "Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive."
Obviously, Osama was always meant to be used as a Boogeyman, never to be captured or killed. If he was ever captured or killed, then the former Administration would need to go to great lengths to give the impression that he was still alive.
Former CIA operative Robert Baer also seems to believe that he is dead,
"I posed these questions to half a dozen of my former CIA colleagues who have been on bin Laden's trail since 9/11. What surprised me was that none of them would say for certain whether he is alive or dead. Half of them assumed he is dead, while the other half assumed he is alive."
"And what about all the other audiotapes bin Laden has put out since 9/11? Experts will tell you that off-the-shelf digital-editing software could manipulate old bin Laden voice recordings to make it sound as if he were discussing current events."
Look, T99 you don't need to draw it out over five or six paragraphs. It's very simple and it comes down to this: Amalek must die. That's why we're in Afghanistan. That's why we're in Iraq.
Read Exodus. The..er...Scots-Irish like T99 chronicled their wars of extermination for posterity.
"conservative commentators leapt to Bush's defense by pointing out that everyone knew he was dead."
What? When the heck did this happen? I do remember that some of the creepier neocons (like Michael Ledeen) would occasionally write things like "I heard through my super-secret connections that bin Laden may be dead. Wouldn't it be great if this is true?" (usually with the kidney problems, not violence, penned as the reason), but the idea that this was ever any kind of widespread "common knowledge" or a regular part of GOP talking points is absurd. Commenters here were alive five years ago, you know.
A stunningly unoriginal post from Steve.
This makes as much sense as threatening to toss Brer Rabbit in the briar patch.
"hence, the average white NCAA basketball fan HATES, positively HATES successful white NCAA basketball players. jim rome even ponders this question on his ESPN show, wondering why sports fans so intensely dislike well behaved, well spoken, law abiding, athletically successful white athletes."
Duke probably lands 2/3 of the white McDonald's High School All Americans. It's easy to hate Duke.
Regardless, you took the originally poster's statement too far. Even if all the players on Michigan State were white, a middle-aged fat guy would still look stupid talking about "we" when discussing the team's performance.
The USA won't gety serious about AQ, the GWOT, borders,or pretty much of anything until a city gets sacrificed. Let's say Houston. Maybe then.
Re the sports thing.
A few years ago I recall seeing Chomsky pointing out how, to him, when at university or HS (can't remember which) it seemed silly to talk about 'our' team, 'we' this, 'we'. What did those teams actually have to do with him after all? I think that he was pretty much talking about white jocks, especially given the era he would have experienced this.
Now of course a football team or whatever can be representative of a people, tribe nation. Some coherent group. Modern pro sports seeks to destroy any organic relationship between a team and its fans. A crowd of white Americans can be cheering for 'their' team while conceivably that team is composed of non-American, non-white, non-English speaking players.
Anyhow I suspect Chomsky types who used to sneer at support for the team because it was full of white jocks have now changed their tune, now they are all for referring to it as 'our' team precisely because it well... it isnt.
There is also another phenomenon - teams like Manchester United (English soccer team) have a global fanbase, millions strong. Its bizarre but in a sense at least people are given the option of supporting a foreign team. Rather than having their team turned into one.
"hence, the average white NCAA basketball fan HATES, positively HATES successful white NCAA basketball players. jim rome even ponders this question on his ESPN show, wondering why sports fans so intensely dislike well behaved, well spoken, law abiding, athletically successful white athletes." (jody)
Jody, I haven't watched sports, really, since I was 18 but I always cheered for the white athletes. Especially in very "non-white" sports like basketball. In fact, I used to have basketball cards of white players in my locker (Tom Chambers, Kevin Mchale, Bill Laimbeer) even ordinary players (Fred Roberts, Jon Eaton). I had some friends who did the same. I'm pretty sure there are more white people out there who do?
Now that I think about it, this is probably a healthy attitude to have about race. My "people" aren't very good at basketball compared to African Americans, but there's no reasons to believe I'm being discriminated against becuase of it? I can still cheer for the white basketball players and enjoy how they play while admitted that African Americans are, on average, better basketball players.
This is a good way to think about things....
Whether bin Laden is really alive or not is not important. He is kept alive but the military-industrial complex and crooked populists. He is the eternal enemy, who is nowhere to be found, but everywhere, the ex-ally, now implacable foe. He is Goldstein, the Party's nemesis in 1984. He is now more a concept than a human being. He exists thru the naive belief of those who think is a real threat to America, more than those who are bankrupting it, or invading it from it's southern border.
It would be hard to persuade a politician to give OBL a public ultimatum due to the Spartacus effect.
If either OBL or more likely someone in his name, explodes a bomb or runs berserk as a consequence of this public experiment the President will be seen to be irresponsible and will be blamed directly for provoking the killings.
Even if it's only a tiny risk, politicians are very fussy about how they perceive their public image. They would not want the media to use their name as an appellation to terror attacks.
If a public statement by the President is made claiming OBL is definitely dead there also is a non-zero risk this might provoke attacks, whether he is dead or not, and whether there is direct evidence or not.
The way it might be politically safe to announce OBL is definitely, not probably, dead is by a process of confirmation of rumour.
Intelligence services of foreign allied states will be asked to announce OBL is certainly dead to take the brunt of the non-zero risk of reactionary terrorism. Israel, then India, then Pakistan, then China and a Euro country and then a few weeks or months later the President of the United States would confirm in his view what everyone already knows. OBL is dead.
Why hasn't this happened already? It would require the cooperation of politicians in other countries who also are self-conscious about image.
Also, if we don't have direct body evidence of OBL's death a formal announcement he is definitely dead cannot be made anyway without political controversy (opinion pieces: seen to be taking credit for something that's not proven etc).
@ Testing 99:
Pakistan has yet to develop an H-bomb. In fact, their nukes are about equivalent to the ones we dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They have the destructive capacity and delivery system to wipe out an Indian city or several (which is deterred by India's nuke capability which is similar). That's the extent of the threat they pose. Putting them on a level plane with Western nuclear-armed powers is naive and disingenuous at best and malevolently mendacious at worst.
There is no good reason for us to continue our dead-end "interventions" in West/West-Central Asia. Tell us how we, the American people, benefit directly from these policies if you are convinced I'm wrong. And please, no nonsense about "keeping us safe" - the politicians can't even close our own borders so fighting enemies abroad won't help.
"He exists thru the naive belief of those who think is a real threat to America, more than those who are bankrupting it, or invading it from it's southern border."
Think t99.
Nukes are so easy to transport and detonate.
You just put one in your briefcase, and set the timer, like an egg timer.
Haven't you guys ever watched TV??
Osama bin Laden never existed in the first place. The man you saw was an actor hired by the government.
I think he is dead. The CIA testing of "his" messages says it is him but the Swiss experts say it isn't. Apart from being bombed he was also supposed to be suffering from terminal liver failure needing daily dialysis & you don't get that in an Afghan cave.
On the other hand if Jim Jones is making announcements in Washington then who can we trust to stay dead.
Fascinating. One person commented directly on the Experiment. Everybody else ran off on broad tangents covering everything from Chomsky to the NCAA to Pakistani nukes.
One of the Anonymouses said "Afghanistan is conspicuously absent [from agricultural products]."
What about opium? I'd say they're pretty near the top of the list there.
But we don't need the test "show up on video...". Let's just announce that "recent evidence has shown that ObL has been dead for the last 5 (pick a number) years, and is still dead".
That way we can neatly sidestep any arguments about "so why haven't you found him yet???".
David "Nukes are so easy to transport and detonate.... briefcase..."
It'd have to be a really big briefcase. And you have to make room for the digital count-down timer.
The thing is, there are thousands of cargo container boxes coming in to American ports every day. L.A. is a big port, so is N.Y. A crate in one of them, a crate in another, bring them together in some abandoned warehouse, bring in the Pakistani scientist, tighten down a few bolts, pack it on an 18-wheeler, and Bob's your uncle.
"A crate in one of them, a crate in another, bring them together in some abandoned warehouse, bring in the Pakistani scientist, tighten down a few bolts,"
Yup. Just like on TV. Except TV would make over the "Pakistani" scientist into a blue-eyed white - a white supremacist, of course. In real life, however, an Afghanistani scientist would be used. I know because I've extensively researched this by reading almost two Robert Ludlum novels and some article on Debka in addition to watching TV.
Steve asks
"Is Osama bin Laden even alive?"
I ask
Was Osama bin Laden ever alive?
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