Here's my new VDARE.com column on the bin Laden hit. A is the Pakistan Military Academy. B is the bin Laden compound,less than mile away.
Not only is playing the Game of Empire bad for the USA. the USA is really, really bad at playing the Game.
May 2, 2011
Playing the Game of Empire
Here's my new VDARE.com column on the bin Laden hit. A is the Pakistan Military Academy. B is the bin Laden compound,less than mile away.
Not only is playing the Game of Empire bad for the USA. the USA is really, really bad at playing the Game.
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97 comments:
More info on the raid, although still precious few details:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_bin_laden_the_raid
Check out Obama's reaction when Seth Meyers joked about Osama's whereabouts at that dinner thing on Saturday:
read.bi/klf9ne
One smooth cat...
Wow, the Navy Seals got him instead the Delta force, who missed him at least once. This is an epic win for the navy guys over the army. I also can see a future final boss for a bunch of first person shooters formed.
Pakistan is screwed by it's own hand. Corruption everywhere, there are some people who hate extremist organizations because they're burning schools, and in general causing havoc. While others are sympathetic to extremist organizations. The government in no way is unified. And keep in mind this country has changed leaders a lot via the military in the past couple of decades.
So will the rightwingers accept Obama's claims or will we get another conspiracy work-up?
Steve, what do you want? Only Trump and a few other figures will call it like it is, Obama is still claiming "Pakistan is our ally."
It's total BS. But its religion for folks like Obama. Yes both Bush and Obama knew that Osama bin Laden was quite likely in some major Pakistani city. They were advised this according to Wikileaks by Tajik Counterintelligence officials. It was common knowledge.
But BS is catching. I don't think you've grasped the significance of Pakistan's hiding and protecting of Bin Laden.
As of an hour or two ago, I've decided that I don't really know whether OBL is dead, and haven't been offered any convincing basis to believe (though I accept it may be true) that the Obama administration killed him.
Where's the body? Where are photos of the body? Where is the confirmation even of angry denunciations by OBL's partisans?
OBL disappeared nearly a decade ago and it's been a long time since we've even gotten a fresh videotape. Now Obama says a small force of US soldiers have just killed him, but also conveniently disposed of the body in such a way as to make verification impossible, and that either our stalwart soldiers took no photos, or those are too secret to release.
Phooey. Obama's a notorious liar-- why should we believe him now? Bush lied about nuclear weapons in Iraq; Obama seems quite capable of lying about some middle-aged agitator in Pakistan.
That significance of Pakistan hiding and protecting bin Laden is two-fold:
1. Jihad/terror is not the spontaneous rage of a few nutcases angry over Jews in Israel. It is the means by which NATIONS or at least major elements within a NATION make war upon the US while being able to deny it. Osama bin Laden was a creature of the Pakistani intelligence service, at least part of the military, etc.
2. Pakistani nukes shelter them, because Pakistan knows concretely that the US will NOT use nukes against them, no matter what, as long as they play the deny game which the US wants to play as well, top leaders in both parties fear an escalating conflict. Its built-in.
THUS WE MUST stay in Afghanistan, to get "options" to take out more guys like bin Laden. Look at a map. The only way to get these guys (and their allies inside Pakistan's intel and army) is by rapid helicoptering over from Afghanistan. We cannot come in from sea -- the copters don't have the range and take too long, giving warning.
International Man of Mystery perpetrates International Act of Mystery.
Read all about it! Or, more precisely, read very little at all about it.
Leave Afghanistan and ... then what?
Do what Clinton did when the NEXT Pakistani intel/military protected Jihadi does something to the US: stages an embassy take-over and kills hostages on TV, "escaping" to the security services of a friendly Muslim nation (Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia all come to mind.)
Leaving Afghanistan means we cannot send in SEALs or drones to vaporize or confirm kill the next Osama. And considering he was the creature of Pakistan's ISI/Military, bet there will be a next one. Zawahari maybe. Leaving Afghanistan means we either wage nuclear war against Pakistan, or do nothing. Which guarantees doing nothing until we get cities wiped out.
The same military that guarded bin Laden guards Pakistan's nukes. Do you trust yourself, your family, and friends lives to their good judgment and fear of the US?
The penny drops! Right, here's what happened. For years Osama had in his possession Obama's long form birth certificate, for purposes of blackmail. So in the past week Obama feinted with his left, by circulating a forged certificate, and then followed that with an uppercut with his right, sending his men in to grab the original from Pakistan. Now the original certificate has been destroyed and Obama lives happily ever after. The End.
It's not a game of empire. Its the only response left to us given that enemy nations that HATE HATE HATE America and find advancement by intel and military forces in engaging in terror leave us.
We need to impress upon our enemies (the ISI and Pakistani military) that we can vaporize them rapidly. That means being in Afghanistan so we can send in drones, and SEAL teams, at a moments notice.
Even Obama, "leading from Behind" Multilateralist, embraced drone strikes to remind the Pakistanis of just what can happen. The US is so weak, distant, and internally divided that Afghanistan as a SEAL/Drone base is the best we can do.
Your Ike model of mutually assured destruction is not sustainable since no one in Pakistan believes it. Thus instead of cheap ICBMs ala Ike we get expensive drones and SEALs. Best we can do.
How about the CIA training and funding the Mujahideen?
Or Pakistan ISI's role in creating and supporting the Taliban?
Yes Steve.
It is always fascinating to read what the real players of the 'great game' (the term actually meant the stand-off between Britain and Russia in central Asia in the late 19th century), really thought about Pakistanis - and how the British were actually guileful and wily enough to turn conman against conmn - only a 'public' school education in the bear-pits of Eton or Rugby could prepare you for that.
Often derided now as pompous, unpleasant gits it's worth reading up on such characters as William Raikes Hodson, Reginald Dyer, Robert Clive etc.I suppose being brought up in such a harsh and competitive and loveless world as 19th century England (Tom Brown's Schoolday's and the 'Flashman' character come to mind), is the best preparation possible in holding your own against 'oriental intrigue'.
In short, Brits of the old school simply did not trust Indians (or any other 'darkie' for that matter), unless they had their boot firmly on his neck, I'd hate to think that a thousand years' of oppressing your peasntry might have engendered that attitude, but coming from a nation where men were regularly hanged for stealing sheep or poaching rabbits.....
Of course modern Brits are a complete wash-out at 'playing the game'.
Curious that russians too had a deep distrust for 'darkies', but they've actually held on to that sentiment.
Anyway, graetly recommend the 'Royal Flash' books of George McDonald Fraser.
Another thing I've noticed is that living in England as I do, most Pakistani men of the older generation seem to have a strong and instinctive terror of Englishmen - it is a real and genuine fright that manifests itself in such ways as fear in sharing an elevator with a white man.
The second generation Pakistanis don't seem to have that fear.
The obvious next step is to improve international understanding by importing half the population of Pakistan.
but how do we know he was there all the time?
http://gulfnews.com/news/world/other-world/compound-in-pakistan-was-once-a-safe-house-1.802539
Compound in Pakistan was once a safe house used by the ISI.
One Arab news source is reporting that bin Laden's compound was previously an ISI safehouse.
Ace of Spades picks up on the safehouse angle. Apparently, this compound didn't even exist before 2004.
Yep, I think it's time for the military to pack its bags and come home, donate the billions in aid earmarked for Pakistan to India instead, and start quietly assassinating ISI personnel.
Who verified the location of "B"? Somebody's claiming the location just happened to show up first when you searched in Google Maps.
According to Wikileaks:
"In December 2009, the government of Tajikistan warned the United States that efforts to catch bin Laden were being thwarted by corrupt Pakistani spies."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/8488236/WikiLeaks-Osama-bin-Laden-protected-by-Pakistani-security.html
Its like Churchill (and then Ripley) said, fighting a land war in Asia is like going in the water to fight the shark; better to nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. :o)
The geography of Abbotobad sounds beautiful, a lot like Colorado Springs.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/pakistan/cantt-abbottabad.htm
But since its most analogous to West Point, I wonder if the US Army had any kind of exchange program with PDA. If it does, I have no doubt the US Navy, to top off their SEAL team's coup, will helpfully share that info with the world.
America should abandon its imperialist pretensions and bring the troops home.
That greasy bastard, David Cameron, has agreed to give £650 million of British taxpayers' money to Pakistan (which, remarkably, is not short of funds for a nuclear program), whilst having the sheer gall and chutzpah of destroying the futures of thousands of the sons and daughters of British taxpayers by slashing university funding.
How that stupid, shameless bastard managed to get that one through the British public and the Conservative Party, I'll never know.
On another note, I've got no time for Gaddafi, but I just don't want to see that smarmy, smug fat-faced bastard Cameron actually score a little victory, so here's to you Muammar : )
I don't have any idea what's going on, and I doubt if I will live long enough for the full story to come out.
Several Civil War secrets stayed secrets for more than a century. When I was a kid James Mason was playing Rommel in the movies and we all bought into the notion that Rommel was some kind of genius. After about fifty years we found out the truth - the Germans had broken The Black Code and knew our battle plans. What they didn't know was that we had broken their Enigma Code. That made Montgomery a genius for a while.
With the Venona papers we learned that Truman had been kept out of the loop by Omar Bradley. Truman was not considered trustworthy - too many commies in his administration.
Deep Throat took decades to uncover and I'm sure there are still revelations yet to come about Watergate.
So whatever is going on, it isn't due to be revealed for at least a couple decades yet.
Albertosaurus
Practice makes perfect.
Now that Pakistan has done us wrong, I think we should cancel the annual Pakistan Day parade in New York City; that'll show 'em. At least for 2011.
I happened to be there for that esteemed event in 2006. I asked one of NYC's finest what was going on, and he told me. Couldn't believe it. So I said, in so many words, WTF?! He replied 'So, you got a problem with that?', and looked at me as if I was the KKK.
Location is not correct: the actual site is a little further away, and a little more isolated:
Google Map
See also these photos , which shows that the immediate area has become more developed since the Google Maps images were taken.
The world's most notorious terrorist seemed to be curiously undefended. I thought he would have had a dedicated team of bodyguards. The compound looks big enough to have housed a fair number as well as plenty of arms and ammo; it was no spider-hole. The attackers suffered no casualties?
Osama is reported to have been shot in the head. What does that mean? Was he executed on the spot? Standing up, laying down, what? Then his body was disposed of really fast, irretrievably.
I suppose he knew too much that might prove embarrassing, at the very least, so it was probably decided that it would be best to simply silence him forever and be done with it. He took his secrets with him.
It seems like you were as quick on the trigger as the folks who came knocking at Osama's door.
The real location is here: bit.ly/lyF9bk
Slightly further away than your map shows, but your point still stands of course.
After we killed Saddam Hussein's sons in 2003, it took us 11 days to bury the bodies. The Hussein boys are Muslims, but we get 11 days to bury the bodies. For Bin Laden, however, we claimed we needed an immediate burial at sea because of respect for Islam. Why the two standards? What's do different about Bin Laden and the Husseins?
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/03/world/after-war-uday-qusay-funeral-for-hussein-sons-call-for-death-america.html?ref=udayhussein
Also, we allowed the Hussein brothers, Saddam, and Al-Qaeda in Iraq super terrrorist Zarqawi to be buried in Iraq. Back then, we didn't care about terrorists and insurgents having a shrine to go to. Now we're saying that we couldn't bury Bin Laden because terrorists would worship at his shrine. What bull.
We've been conned.
I agree that we are terrible at playing the empire game. Jerry Pournelle describes us as an "incompetent empire".
Diego Garcia actually might not have been a good choice for a burial site. At some point the United States may decide to vacate its base, at which point Diego Garcia's original inhabitants would be able to return. The grave site would therefore no longer be inaccessible.
Peter
steve sailer wrote:
" Yet this news surprised even me over how badly we had been played for suckers by the locals. We Americans are too naïve to play the Great Game. We are in over our heads."
It is not that we are naive. Our "representatives" do not represent us. They represent Big Money. They do not care whether we got taken. The corporate investors who feed the politicians and control the media via advertising buys want the USA to make war. They make money when the USA makes war.
The people's interests are not being represented, and that was how the constitutional framers set up the American federalist system--to represent the "minority of the opulent."
If you want a democracy, go emigrate to just about any other western nation. They have parliamentarian systems, not federalist systems, which is why they give token, lip service to the game.
Check out this completely un-pc animated version of Osama's killing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiDyrkU0WAQ
@Gc,
Is Delta Force army? You must be thinking of Green Berets.
We're not "playing badly" on our side, we're playing rather well on the wrong side.
We're doing everything Osama wanted us to do. A few mistakes could be chalked up to incompetence, but we've been following his written script with considerable precision.
Anonymous,
Obama would need swathes of the military and CIA on his side to carry out such a hoax.
Give it up people.
Just a random thought. I'm about 6'5". Bin Laden was about 6'5".
My guess is that I would have stood out walking around on the streets of Pakistan. If he had been there for any period of time he must never have gone out. Or else everyone in the neighborhood was in on the deal.
How tall is the average Pakistani?
Albertosaurus
I gotta wonder, was he in hiding or under house arrest?
Did we really track him down over the course of many years by finding and following his messenger, or did some Paki general or ISI double agent give him up?
Or have we known he was there all along and his usefulness as a propaganda tool for continuing wars had finally expired -- meaning Obama has decided he's going to wrap up the Afghan war in time for 2012?
As always, more questions than answers, no?
Despite all the chest thumping about killing bin Laden, it should be pointed out that he was never indicted for the crimes of 9/11, only for the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
From the FBI's Most Wanted page:
"Usama Bin Laden is wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998, bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. These attacks killed over 200 people. In addition, Bin Laden is a suspect in other terrorist attacks throughout the world."
Why after almost 10 years has the Justice Department never presented any evidence to a federal grand jury to indict him in relation to 9/11? Hmmm...
Now that bin Laden is dead can we go after the actual perpetrators of 9/11?
We half-assedly play the "game of empire because we choose the stupidest places to expand our empire.
Cuba- hell yes. Most beautiful women, liveliest nightclubs and best gambling my grandfather said he ever saw.
Pockeestahn or however newsreaders pronounce it? Surly, substandard IT workers and cab drivers. Plus, that jetlag is a killer.
You know what would be funny? ...if Osama becomes more powerful in death than in life, like Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars or Che Guevara since his demise. While Osama was alive, he was no more than what he was: a prickly and rather insipid Islamic terrorist, just like Che was little more than a Stalinist thug in life. But in death, Osama can be whatever people want him to be. He can become a cult icon, a romantic larger-than-life martyr-hero. And then he'll really be dangerous. Remember, Jesus was more dangerous dead than alive. Figures who die in flesh can be resurrected in myth.
Whiskey reminds me of these total/endless war video games. The only nation which comes close to espousing this concept as a state doctrine is Israel, the US a close second.
If Trump comes right out and says, "Pakistan is not our ally and hasn't been for years, or forever" he's:
(a) right,
(b) unusually honest for a Presidential candidate, and
(c) going to need full-on bodyguard, armored limo protection for the rest of his life. (He may already have it; I wouldn't know.
Kylie said...
My world view is based on the premise that much of the world mistakes kindness for weakness, despises both, and is as deceitful as it can be in any given circumstance.
Unfortunately its not even clear that US gov.deception is not involved in this.
Bin Laden was CIA starting in the 70's as proxy against the USSR in their Afghan War. He's been dead for years but still proves useful from time to time...
Osama = CIA
Saddam = CIA
Noriega = CIA
Etc
This how the game of empire is really played. It's called Controlled Opposition.
You've been writing a lot about Krugman and the elite media, so I thought this study finding that he makes the most accurate predictions among a set of pundits and politicians was right up the Sailershpere:
http://www.hamilton.edu/documents/Analysis-of-Forcast-Accuracy-in-the-Political-Media.pdf
There's a selection bias in that subjects are only judged on the accuracy of predictions that they choose to make in their columns or speeches, so the methodology rewards people who don't go out on limbs and risk being wrong.
Still, I bet you would have done quite well if you had been allowed to participate in this competition.
jesus christ you idiots please please PLEASE stop with the instant crazy spin and theories that he died ten years ago, SHOW ME DA PHOTOS, etc etc etc
you won't accept the photos, so stop requesting them...what are you, an amateur Internet barnacle, going to conclude from photos of some middle eastern head that has been blown apart...I try to remind myself that this insanity is mostly driven by social factors that you don't understand and can't change, but still...I can't read your idiotic certainty that something's not right and still think there is any hope for this country
it's an uphill battle to reverse decades built by a false racial mythology...it's even harder when drooling retards are seen as your major allies
Any column on The Game of Empire needs to hit on the core concepts:
1 The Big Lie
2 The False Flag
Forgeting about all of our 19th C. hijinks -
Historians agree FDR allowed Pearl Harbor to happen.
The US gov has admitted the Gulf of Tonkin incident was a fiction.
Pappy Bush baited Hussein into invading Kuwait.
Wake up, folks.
How about more blogs on our own deep state, steve?
And are you sure our deep state was fooled by pakistan's deep state?
Our foreign policy only appears foolish from the perspective of "is it good for the american people?"
From the perspective of our own deep state things are going according to plan.
"Kylie said...
'My world view is based on the premise that much of the world mistakes kindness for weakness, despises both, and is as deceitful as it can be in any given circumstance.'
Unfortunately its not even clear that US gov.deception is not involved in this."
I agree and didn't mean to imply otherwise in the statement you quoted. When I say "much of the world", I mean exactly that. What I don't mean is "almost everybody else but us".
Thanks for clarifying my point for me.
Heart of Pakistan's Deep State.
No phone or net access.
Near hospitals.
Ton of US money.
Maybe it was a prison?
That is hilarious, I have come to the same conclusion on my blog.
Did you read up on the neighborhood?
It is a Pakistani version of "Leave it to Beaver" land.
This is a top tourist destination, with untold number of tourists.
The "house" had 12 or more foot walls, was surrounded by barbed wire, few windows - this is a "Douchy James Bond villain" hideout (tm) if there ever was one!
And no one saw a thing, eh?
Incidentally, this whole "lets throw the body overboard" schtick - I am calling shenanigans.
After the 9/11 steel disappeared in record time, being shipped all over the world for whatever reason, dumping the body overboard ASAP set my tin foil spider sense a-tinglin'.
Yes, I admit it, now I am officially a 9/11 truther - be gentle.
Albertosaurus said, "With the Venona papers we learned that Truman had been kept out of the loop by Omar Bradley. Truman was not considered trustworthy - too many commies in his administration."
You touched on one of my interests here so let me ask you. Do you think Roger Hollis was a Soviet agent?
"In 2001, we rightly drove the Afghan government from power for the crime of hosting a declared and active enemy of the United States. But then we decided to hang around Afghanistan and try to make it less of a hellhole, which only made it more of one."
Not so easy. Suppose US had left Afghanistan in 2001 soon after driving the Taliban from power.. but then, few yhrs later, the Taliban regained power and Osama triumphantly returned to Afghanistan to set up his base of operation. Then, US would have lost and Osama would have won.
For US to win the War of Terror stemming from 9/11, it had to PERMANENTLY drive Taliban out of power and take out Osama and other top leaders of Alqaeda.
Imagine if USSR had pulled out of Germany the moment the Nazi leaders fled or went underground. What if soon after the Russians leave, the Nazi thugs regain power in Germany with Hitler as Fuhrer again? No, the Allies couldn't leave Germany until all the Nazi roots were pulled out and Germany was set on a course of non-militarism.
I suppose the same applies to Afghanistan, but the main problem is not the Taliban or terrorism but the sheer tribal dysfunctionalism among Afghanis which make it a haven for extremism.
If we could go back in time, USSR should never have invaded it.
To the neocons Afghanistan - and all the thousands of dead and maimed connected to it - has been irrelevant for years. It's all about trying to de-stabilize Pakistan because they see Pakistan's nukes as a threat to...someone.
" jesus christ you idiots please please PLEASE stop with the instant crazy spin and theories that he died ten years ago, SHOW ME DA PHOTOS, etc etc etc
you won't accept the photos, so stop requesting them...what are you, an amateur Internet barnacle, going to conclude from photos of some middle eastern head that has been blown apart...I try to remind myself that this insanity is mostly driven by social factors that you don't understand and can't change, but still...I can't read your idiotic certainty that something's not right and still think there is any hope for this country
it's an uphill battle to reverse decades built by a false racial mythology...it's even harder when drooling retards are seen as your major allies"
How's the weather up there in your ivory tower? I'm surprised you can breathe up there without any oxygen.
Christ, what an @sshole.
I agree with Udolpho. There's nothing to see here folks. This here clipping of Osama by Obama is just a simple case of Muslim on Muslim violence.
Re the question of Navy versus other special forces. Maybe it was a honey trap. They say Osama could never resist a boy in white.
Gilbert Pinfold.
Oh, and the one above about Muslim on Muslim violence is mine too.
"Diego Garcia actually might not have been a good choice for a burial site. At some point the United States may decide to vacate its base, at which point Diego Garcia's original inhabitants would be able to return. The grave site would therefore no longer be inaccessible."
The US military isn't pulling out of Diego Garcia in our lifetimes. The US will be there as long as the US empire lasts - and once that collapses, why should the current PTB care about what happens to OBL's grave? They'll be long dead and gone and it will be someone else's problem.
Besides if they really are worried about OBL's grave becoming a shrine, they could do like the USSR did to Hitler's remains: secretly dig them up and thoroughly burn and pulverize them until nothing recognizable remains, then scatter the ashes anonymously.
In reality no one officially has said that the sea burial was done to prevent OBL's grave from becoming a shrine; that was an excuse made up on the spot by internet commentators to rationalize the otherwise inexplicable decision to bury OBL at sea for phony concerns about Islamic burial rites.
The alleged burial at sea makes no sense, so people are using the "no grave means no shrine" to make sense of the apparent nonsense that the Obama regime puts forth as official explanation. It's like we'll stoop to any rationalization to justify the official line, no matter how illogical, and then screech at the doubters as "lunatics" because they don't buy it.
Reading Whiskey is always amusing: no matter what happens, the answer is always the same: more war.
Osama alive? Gotta stay in Afghanistan and fight.
Osama dead? Gotta stay in Afghanistan and fight.
The bullshit from conspiracy theorists over the burial at sea has got to stop. Lets be honest, even if bin Laden's body was recoverable, the claims of a plot wouldn't stop. The DNA evidence would be declared phony, the pictures staged (and probably taken at Bush's ranch in Texas), so on and so forth.
Modern Liberal Democracy and Empire don't mix too well as the elites have to either lie to people all the time (WMD) or do everything in secret. Either way the normal process of evaluating and judging policy through public debate is lost.
The Romans lost their republic because their empire grew too big to handle. The American empire wasn't too big until the neocons came on the scene and decided they wanted to use American power to re-arrange the whole middle-east. They'e the American version of Caesar but without any redeeming features.
Tino, thanks for some of the most informed comments I've seen in a long time.
it's an uphill battle to reverse decades built by a false racial mythology...it's even harder when drooling retards are seen as your major allies
If you concerned yourself less with saving the race and more with your own issues, you'd be less of a pretentious jackass.
Wandrin: To the neocons Afghanistan - and all the thousands of dead and maimed connected to it - has been irrelevant for years. It's all about trying to de-stabilize Pakistan because they see Pakistan's nukes as a threat to...someone.
Yes, exactly. In fact, back a few years ago there was a very interesting article published in one of America's leading foreign policy journals, written by the former New York Times South Asia Bureau Chief and based on the unpublished memoirs of the former U.S. Ambassador. However, despite the dramatic claims it never received even a whiff of mention in the American MSM. On the other hand, I suppose we shouldn't be too surprised, since everyone knows NYT Editors and former US Ambassadors typically spend all their time peddling kooky "conspiracy theories"...
Overall, it's nice to see that at least some of the commenters here actually have a bit of common sense, though I think the majority fall into a slightly different category. If Bernie Madoff were paroled from prison and immediately opened a new investment fund, they're the sort of people who'd be first in line to hand over their money. The WN term "patriotard" has always been one of my favorite neologisms...
anyone else read the ABC News post that said the Pakistan Air Force scrambled jets to intercept the helicopters? Let's all be thankful nothing happened or else we'd be explaining why we would be bombing Pakistan for reacting to our breach of the borders of a sovereign nation against international law.
Tommy:
Yeah, it's pretty weird that some people don't take the word of the US government on matters of the war on terror at face value. I mean, after all the stories of WMDs in Iraq panned out, and it turned out that Pat Tillman really did go out fighting the Taliban, Gitmo had only the worst of the worst, Abu Girab was just a few bad apples, Jessica Lynch fought till she ran out of ammo, etc., my failure to trust the latest story wrt the war on terror can only be attributed to my America-hating tinfoil hat-ism.
Bullshit, udolpho.
The photos and videos of the hussein family deaths were legit and therefore there are no claims or myths or sightings or conspiracy theories left in their wake.
Live video of this raid from the helmet cams of the seal team should exist. Tons of photo evidence should exist. Yet this gov tells us to to move along.
Yeah, it's pretty weird that some people don't take the word of the US government on matters of the war on terror at face value. I mean, after all the stories of WMDs in Iraq panned out, and it turned out that Pat Tillman really did go out fighting the Taliban
What!?! Pat Tillman is dead? I thought he was holed up at some undisclosed location with Cheney? What makes you think he's dead? Are you saying you trust the government on this one? Next you'll be telling me that the Bush administration didn't just bury those Iraqi WMDs somewhere in Texas waiting for an opportunity to use them in the next neocon false flag operation.
I also can see a future final boss for a bunch of first person shooters formed.
You think OBL's death will help them grow balls?
It's a pretty obvious game premise that would sell well, ceteris paribus. Trouble is, game devs are SWPLs and nerds (SWPLs without social graces). Last time I checked there was like one FPS dealing with the ME theater. I can only think of two, Delta Force: Black Hawk Down, and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The CoD game was only about 1/2 set in the ME, then it let out a SWPL sigh of relief and headed for Russia and the honkey "ultranationalists." They didn't even name a ME country.
I haven't checked into FPS games in a couple years but the trend is already set, and pretty obvious: SWPL cowardice.
'So, you got a problem with that?', and looked at me as if I was the KKK.
He has his inverse analogue right here. I've always felt 9/11 was an attack on NYC, not America.
Steve Sailer said . . . Amusingly, just last Saturday it was finally revealed that Obama Sr. had been kicked out of Harvard in 1964
Steve, there's an interesting backstory to this. The documents were first obtained by Sally Jacobs, a Boston Globe reporter, in 2009 through a Freedom of Information request; however, she chose to sit on this scoop, possibly to save it for a book she's working on, or for ideological reasons, like Newsweek spiked the Lewinsky story. The story was finally published last week by a small newspaper in Arizona, the Arizona Independent, because Heather Smathers, a reporter there, got it through an FOIA request herself.
The story is here.
The bullshit from conspiracy theorists over the burial at sea has got to stop. Lets be honest, even if bin Laden's body was recoverable, the claims of a plot wouldn't stop. The DNA evidence would be declared phony, the pictures staged (and probably taken at Bush's ranch in Texas), so on and so forth.
Uh, yeah, conspiracy theorists will always be conspiracy theorists. But explain to me again why they'd do something like this? They want to turn everyone into conspiracy theorists?
Whiskey,
Who cares if they don't like us. We'll leave and closer the borders.
Diego Garcia actually might not have been a good choice for a burial site. At some point the United States may decide to vacate its base, at which point Diego Garcia's original inhabitants would be able to return. The grave site would therefore no longer be inaccessible.
Not likely - especially since there are no citizens now on the island.
Even if this were to happen, it would be trivial to disinter the remains. The Soviets did such for the remains of Hitler in Berlin 25yrs after WWII.
I would've used OBL remains as a meatspace honeypot to trap, track and otherwise deal with his most ardent followers.
Publicize a remote location as holding the (faux) remains of OBL, so only the most devote followers would trek to the site. Gather full intel on these individuals (photos, video, DNA, etc) and track them after their pilgramage.
@Whiskey: "Its the only response left to us given that enemy nations that HATE HATE HATE America"
And why do they hate hate hate America and don't seem to hate hate hate, say, Brazil? Do we ever seriously think about this? And about what the savings in lives and money we'd get if our reputation in that part of the world was better?
Harry:
Another story along those lines was the NYT's sitting on the domestic spying scandal (massive wiretapping without warrants, basically Echelon turned on the American people) until after the 2004 election. I always wonder about these cases. Are they ideological? Is someone calling in favors somehow to get them delayed?
Svigor is asking the same question I have. It's not that I see any reason to doubt that OBL is really dead. (After this huge media frenzy, having him turn up alive would be a nightmare for the administration, so I assume they made damned sure he was dead.). It's that the burial at sea is such a weird thing to do, in this situation. And the organizations telling the story has repeatedly lied about big things and small ones, so it's not like I can just accept their word as good.
So, WTF? Is there some reason why this actually made sense wrt Islamic beliefs or US law or something? Do we do this sort of thing with all the other Muslims we kill?
And why do they hate hate hate America and don't seem to hate hate hate, say, Brazil?
I'm going to side with Whiskey just a little bit, and say that they do happen to hate hate Europe and hate Japan even though Europe and Japan did nothing to them.
They can't stand powerful nations that succeed despite (or because) not following Islam.
"They can't stand powerful nations that succeed despite (or because) not following Islam."
Pointless, meaning-free, juvenile drivel.
Here's a hint: how would you feel if China occasionally bombed and invaded various American states? No matter what reasons they had, we'd be pissed.
Burial at sea = no autopsy or close look at the body. They were trying to hide something.
So whatever is going on, it isn't due to be revealed for at least a couple decades yet.
For almost ten years, people have been saying that Osama bin Laden died around December 2001.
If this guy who got shot was really Osama, they could have published an autopsy, DNA data, etc.
A birth certificate, a high-profile commando raid - it's all just publicity. Politicians in a "democracy" are always playing for the cameras.
"tanabear said...
Why after almost 10 years has the Justice Department never presented any evidence to a federal grand jury to indict him in relation to 9/11? Hmmm..."
If this is what passes for cleverness with you, then count yourself "not clever". Yeah, they engineered the whole 9/11 attack, and killed thousands of american citizens, but wouldn't bother to indict their patsy - because that would be wrong.
Perhaps he was never indicted because our government knew full well that - if we ever found him - we would do exactly what we ended up doing with him, i.e. killing him - not trying him.
By the way, Al Capone was never indicted for the Valentine's Day Massacre. Does that mean no one thought he was guilty of it?
Anon sez:...and Germany was set on a course of non-militarism.
, which the US now routinely complains about. WTF does the US really want?
8:13 anonymous: This may be of interest. It coincidentally ran a few days ago.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/29/world/middleeast/29iraq.html
I'd be interested in good accounts of Sunday's events that are heavy on sourced facts. Here are a few articles.
New Yorker, May 2 -- Notes on the Death of Osama Bin Laden. Steve Coll's observations. Catchy quote -- "Pakistan’s military and intelligence service takes risks that others would not dare take because Pakistan’s generals believe that their nuclear deterrent keeps them safe from regime change [and because] the rest of the world sees them as too big to fail... Pakistan is currently the A.I.G. of nation-states."
Washington Post, May 2 -- Bin Laden discovered ‘hiding in plain sight’. A Washington-based account of the raid.
Daily Telegraph (Austr.), May 3 -- US wanted Osama bin Laden alive and didn't tell Pakistan about the raid; questions how he lived 'in plain sight'. Another DC-based account of the raid, based on an interview with John Brennan, Pres. Obama's counterterrorism advisor.
A few questions:
* Where were the helicopters staged from? Where did they head after leaving Abbottabad? There's been mention of two UH-60 Blackhawks and a Chinook. What were the ranges of the variants used? The nearest corner of Afghanistan is about 220 km from Abbottabad. Can these helos do a 450 km combat mission without refueling?
* Brennan stated that Pakistan scrambled jets on learning of the incursion and firefight. What happened then? What were the U.S. plans to deal with possibly hostile PAF fighters engaging the helos?
* What were the compound's defenses against air assault? Who manned them, AQ or the Pakistani armed forces? Why were they ineffective?
* Was a functioning kidney dialysis machine found inside the compound?
I am NOT Albertosaurus, but I do think Roger Hollis was a Soviet agent.
Hmm...more fat rednecks drivelling on about "the game of empire", "false flags", conspiracy theories, and other gibberish put in their head by overheated kooks.
You don't actually know what you are talking about. Your thoughts come not from those with experience in high level affairs of state, but from lifelong failures tormented by paranoia. You don't know any of the diplomatic or security thinking behind, say, dumping his body at sea, whether it was debated and how intently, who was consulted--but that's okay, because your mind reading powers are in perfect working order!
Just taking this one, small issue (not terribly significant--Osama is dead wherever they bury him), you look like fools. Uninformed, you march forth with an opinion! That there are a dozen possible innocent explanations for any detail (and a thousand reasons why you'll never know one way or the other), you won't let that stop you! You will lurch straight for the one most likely to give you that endorphin rush you crave!
What your brain is doing isn't thinking at all--it is the reflexive brain activity of the addict in the presence of his drug. One cannot reason an addict out of his addiction, though. The cycle is usually only broken when the addict's behavior removes the last support from under him. Unfortunately in the realm of politics this normally never happens--people just spend their whole lives believing increasingly woolly nonsense.
i want to see whiskey and udolpho go head to head on the microphone, WWF style. then after they're too angry to even bother yelling anymore and boil over into primal rage, they can start throwing wild punches.
this match is scheduled for one fall.
reading around the web, apparently there is little room for a person like me, open to the idea that bin laden was just killed a few days ago by US forces, but skeptical until i see more evidence.
it's a highly charged issue and it seems you can only be on one side or the other. simply asking for some more evidence lumps you into the kooky, hopeless ranks of the people who will never accept any amount of proof.
extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. after 10 years, 1 trillion dollars, and hundreds of american soldiers killed, the official story is that bin laden was discovered, attacked, killed, and dumped in the ocean all in less than 24 hours. certainly i believe they ran...some kind of operation. they've been running operations in paksitan for years. certainly i believe they killed...somebody. was it bin laden? it's totally possible the white house has the goods, so let's see them. i can accept it's true with a reasonable amount of corroborating data, so go ahead, show it.
i continue to maintain the birth certificate the white house released was pretty fishy. i can totally believe obama was born in hawaii and is eligible to hold the office he holds. the birth announcement in the newspaper from 1961 seems good enough to me. but what is obama hiding on that document?
i'm totally sketched out by the presidential hold obama put on his own official documents immediately after he was elected. i'm sketched out by how neil abercrombie was hell bent on proving obama's eligibility then 1 week later admitted the document couldn't be found - with the democrat machine officials in hawaii trying to explain it away that state law prevents them from showing it to anybody, even the governor, when in reality, those records are given out all the time, for instance, in the little league world series to prove that the kids are of the correct age. liberals at princeton protected michelle obama in the same way, for a while, before realizing, she wasn't actually the nominee for president.
i'm sketched out by the lack of experts who have handled and examined the physical document itself which the white house claims to have, especially as that would be standard operating procedure for all other controversial documents. i guess we forget the fraudulent documents dan rather produced for bush. (we can all do a quick detection for the liberal opinion on this matter, if we go to google and type in "dan rather fraud". the autocomplete blanks out after you get to the "u" or "d" in fraud. before that, it offers all sorts of completions of your phrase. steve noted this similar effect on pat buchanan.) forget academic researchers or forensic experts, even the secret service does a better job evaluating forged bills.
when the white house released the birth certificate i simply assumed it was legit. until the next day when multiple non-birther, non-conspiracy nut professional graphic artists and computer printing industry people said that the file was highly strange and looked altered. again, was it a deliberate troll? a sloppy forgery? we need more analysis.
not to diverge totally, but do people realize the FBI has locked most of their surveillance files on MLK? ostensibly they watched him to find evidence that he was a communist sympathizer, but ended up finding out all kinds of hugely embarrassing stuff about him that would blow major holes in his mythos. appeals that "The government would not lie to us about that" and "Too many people in on the conspiracy for it to be true" don't seem to work here to defend obama, since the US government is already protecting at least 1 other guy in this exact manner.
Ok, having been here awhile, I think I can summarize Whiskey in one sentence: He likes to live vicariously through our men in uniform because it makes him feel better about his admitted Beta-tude.
Whiskey: Steve, what do you want? Only Trump and a few other figures will call it like it is, Obama is still claiming "Pakistan is our ally."
It's total BS. But its religion for folks like Obama.
Whiskey, I know it sounds crazy, but you must not attempt to analyze current U.S.A. policy towards Pakistan without taking into account Obama's homosexual love affair with Chandoo [pictures here] - to include a trip they took together, to Pakistan, in 1981 - and Hillary's homosexual love affair with Huma Abedin [Huma's parents were born in what is now known as Pakistan, although Huma herself probably works for Saudi intelligence].
tommy: The bullshit from conspiracy theorists over the burial at sea has got to stop. Lets be honest, even if bin Laden's body was recoverable, the claims of a plot wouldn't stop.
On the other hand, I would very much like to know whether there was an autopsy performed [by the medical team on the USS Carl Vinson], and, if so, whether there was any evidence that nephrologists [and/or kidney-transplant surgeons] in Pakistan had been tending to Osama all these years.
If Osama had spent the last decade as a patient in the care of Pakistan's "best and brightest", then that would be just one more nail in the coffin of [any possible notion of] Pakistani trustworthiness.
"Hmm...more fat rednecks drivelling on about "the game of empire", "false flags", conspiracy theories, and other gibberish put in their head by overheated kooks."
Hmmm...a 40 y/o childless married man acting snarky in the comments section. I'm sure that the sexually frustrated 20 y/o men that infest his immature forum are impressed. If only I was as successful as Udolpho...
"I am NOT Albertosaurus, but I do think Roger Hollis was a Soviet agent."
Thanks for the reply. I've read Wright's Spycatcher and other things that make the case for his being a spy but can't make up my mind. He seems such an unlikely recruit, with little evidence of any ideological or political passion in college or after. But then, it might just be that his cover was better. I need to read The Defence of the Realm: An Authorised History of MI5, which supposedly makes the case against him being a Soviet agent.
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