The New York Times reports that Osama bin Laden's courier's cell phone has lots of interesting phone numbers on it. This article focuses on that of Harakat, a Pakistani militant group that fights in Kashmir and elsewhere, which sounds like a cutout organization for the Pakistan's CIA, the ISI. The NYT reporters have a couple of old Harakat insiders speaking off the record:
He and the other commander, who spent 10 years with Harakat, offered no proof of their belief that Bin Laden was under Pakistani military protection. But their views were informed by their years of work with the ISI and their knowledge of how the spy agency routinely handled militant leaders it considered assets — placing them under protective custody in cities, often close to military installations.
The treatment amounts to a kind of house arrest, to ensure both the security of the asset and his low profile to avoid embarrassment to his protectors.
A friend writes:
OK, so ISI was caching Bin Laden, probably using him when convenient, for example when [former Pakistan president] Musharraf wanted to knock off Benazir Bhutto. It already looked like that, now it seems almost certain.
Well, that might be hard to prove. Presumably, the ISI is reasonably professional in its spycraft. And then there's the next line of conceptual defense: it's not the ISI, it's "rogue elements" within the ISI. And then there's the argument that the ISI is a rogue element within the government of Pakistan. (Or is the government of Pakistan more a front for the ISI?)
Remember when the Warren Commission was shared that the Soviets had ordered JFK murdered? Like, what were they supposed to do if they found that to be the case and it got out? Push the button? This is the real deal: hiding Bin Laden for years IS a casus belli. Even the Israelis couldn't get away with _that_.
Pakistan is more of an enemy than Iraq ever was, more than Iran. Of course neither of them ever did much to us. More even than Libya (I'm counting Lockerbie).
Pakistan is more of an enemy than anyone we're whacking in Afghanistan. But we'd have to admit that we were PAYING the people sheltering Bin Laden for the past six years: the Fools at the Top would have to admit that were wrong. That won't happen. We may continue to pretend to get along with Pakistan for years more, so that they will allow our logistics for Afghanistan, a pointless and expensive war. And, of course, to avoid admitting what utter, poisonous damn fools our leaders are.
And I wonder if this goes deeper yet. A real fair chance that Musharraf was in on it. And might they have been involved with Bin Laden earlier? Involved in 9-11 itself? You have to wonder. With friends like these....
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74 comments:
Steve, you are reading into this too much. The simplest explanation is that Bin Laden is very popular in the Muslim world. An average Pakistani Muslim would go out of his way to help Bin Laden if he could, even if it means at a cost to himself. In that type of environment, it's easy for someone like Bin Laden to hide for a long time. Bin Ladan is the Muslim George Patton. People like him there.
doubt it matters much as the US is in no position to do anything about it.
How far down does the Pakistani rabbit hole go?
All the way to the Foggy Bottom, of course.
I should post something interesting I found about Huma Abedin and a real estate transaction with a State sponsored Nigerian presidential candidate circa 1998.
Why not Pakistan?
Something, among other innumerous thigs, that the let's-make-a-glass-parking-lot-of-mecca people don't ever get is that the real 'deciders', e.g. no-bid-contract people, don't factor in their opion deciding which country to 'send back to stone age' and when. They are but toddlers in the rear seat imitating the daddy steer the car. When the time comes, enough of the people fairly reliablely may be convinced that [Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Libya, Syria, and why not Pakistan] poses imminnent and grave danger to them. And it doesn't matter 'most' of them are convinced, either, as was the case in UK in 2003.
Again, why not pakistan?
I have vague theories, I do not really know. The point I want to make for high-verbal-IQ readers of Sailer:
Kid in toddler seat : Daddy : motions of tupperware lid in kid's hand
US citizens who believed invading Iraq meant cheap gas (no-blood-for-oil hippies in addition to let's-make-a-glass-parking-lot people) : poisonous damn fools [of U.S.] leaders : opinions concerning a prospective war with Pakistan
Do you STILL SERIOUSLY believe that Musharraf wanted to wack Bhutto? That's such bs, if he had the power to do that, he would still be in power instead of having to flee. The military wanted him gone that's why he is gone; he clashed with the ISI and military. No Pakistani I know believes Musharraf actually killed her.
I'm not actually sure who killed Bhutto, could have been one of the other opposition parties; or really could have been terrorists. Terrorists have been burning women's colleges in Pakistan in recent history and seeing a female PM may have not been acceptable.
And as far as Pakistan not being an ally. I don't think our government ever considered them allies, but for some reason our government values the easy passage Pakistan provides to the middle-east/Afghanistan, that is why we're paying them. Not for some bs feel good ally nonsense.
Also if it helps you feel any better, drone bombs are being consistently dropped in Pakistan's outer regions, even approved by Obama.
How naïve is it to think that Pakistan is a "friend"? Or that any country is "friends" with any other?
"And then there's the next line of conceptual defense: it's not the ISI, it's "rogue elements" within the ISI."
Indian youth have grown up hearing that line. Usually followed by, "give us more dolla so that we can keep them down" directed towards US.
Hiding Bin Laden wasn't a Casus Belli. It was a task assigned to Pakistan by the US.
Or perhaps it's just a remarkable coincidence that Bush closed the CIA's Bin Laden unit at the exact same time that Bin Laden showed up at the Abbottabad compound . . .
Steve,
The biggest danger that Pakistan poses to the USA and the western world in general, is not harboring Bin Laden or the Taliban, or even its nuclear weapons program (another text-book example of Pakistani native cunning and duplicity - and big, fat western fatheaded stupidity), but massive uncontrolled Pakistani immigration into western lands.
We could withstand any number of Pakistan planned terrorist bombings or even tactical nuclear strikes and dirty bombs in our cities, but believe you me, mass Pakistani immigration (as being fostered by the 'poisonous' elites you rail against), will bury the west in 4 decades max.
Ask any Canadian or Englishman about it - you in the USA are only at the beginning and, boy, you're in for areal treat makes Mexican deluge immigration look like a presbyterian ladies' summer pic-nic (compltete with toothy, wimpy gay vicar).
Anyhow, I say not only cut off all 'aid' to Pakistan immediately, but impose an absolute, cast-iron , no exceptions moratorium on ALL further Pakistani immigration.
Their sh*thole of a country will plunge down the toilet quicker than you can say the word 'jihadi'.
Is your friend Wolfowitz?
I heard the last digits of most of the numbers in the cell were Nineteen Eighty Four.
*The actual mastermind of 9-11 was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was arrested inside the home of a Pakistani army brigadier
*A Pakistani general wired $100K to Mohammed Atta, a week before 9-11
*Over a 1000 ISI army officers were fighting for the taliban against the US
in Nov 2011. They were trapped in Kunduz and GW,Bush allowed Pakistan to airlift them to safety
*Serving Pakistani army majors have been arrested in Afghanistan by US army
*Pakistan operates on 3 enemies - Hindus - Jews and Crusaders ( christians )
*The terrorist groups are really the Army of Islam. People who could not get admitted into regular army are made to join these irregulars. And the terrorists are the second line of defense of Pakistan
*The US is certainly aware of this, but overlooks this since Pakistan can be a tool ( balance of power ) against Russia, India and Iran ( Shia )
Obama could argue that BUSH was the fool. Obama suspected all along that Pakistan and the ISI had Osama in hand--didn't he spend a summer in Pakistan as a civilian? Everyone else who knows Pakistan knows it from the brass-eye view, or as an elite journalist. (If you're a Western journalist in Pakistan, count yourself elite).
Obama said in 2008 that he'd go into Pakistan without telling the PAkis, when McCain was saying that was a bad move.
--Discordiax
Oh, and about the Warren Commission--why do you think there were so many loose ends? What would be something that both the Establishment of 1963--Earl Warren, Gerald Ford, Richard Russell, etc--would take to their graves as a secret, that the Watergate babies of the 1970s would also want kept under wraps for another 50 years? The missing piece is at least Castro's involvement.
--Discordiax
I don't understand. When was the Warren Commission ever informed that the Russians ordered JFK snuffed? That was always posed as a "what if" scenario, rather than as something that actually happened.
Steve, you're a smart guy and I'm desperate to hear a smart guy's take on this video, its become pretty popular. "9/11: The Top Scientific Arguments."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNXqkZO3Y1g
Pakistano delenda est!
A bit of trivia, Musharraf's brother is a doctor in Chicago:
http://www.ucomparehealthcare.com/drs/naved_musharraf/
There were those of us who argued for turning the entire Muslim Middle East into glass on the morning of Wednesday, September 12, 2001.
[And still do, for that matter...]
Why is this surprising?
US leaders need a somewhat competent enemy. A source to fund, organize and execute increasingly complex and costly attacks for a wide variety of reasons primarily scaring citizens which leads to:
* justifying foreign wars
* feeding the military-industrial complex
* expanding bureaucratic powers at the expense of civil liberties
The Soviet Union is gone. China isn't going to directly challenge us militarily now if ever. They'll can just continue to grow rich watching our oligarchs drive America into one military and financial ditch after another.
Iran is not going to attack anyone and the only civilized place outside Israel in the ME. MSM propaganda aside, this is why the largest Jewish population in the ME is in Iran and refuses to leave for Israel or the US.
North Korea suffers the historical fate of Korea itself. It is a tiny relatively nonstrategic (no oil, vital sea lanes, etc) nation surround by big boys. Every year it falls further behind South Korea with which it shares a profound ethnic identity and high human capital potential. They are a Berlin Wall waiting to happen.
So whose going to provide the media the threads from which to weave a panicked public hyped by overblowns fears which our bureaucrats desire?
Today, the two leading candidates are our good friends Saudi Arabia and Pakistan who use hopelessly backwards 3rd world dumps in the ME and Africa as cats paws (Afgan, Yemen, etc).
How 'bout, insteasd of going to war with Pakistan, we simply demand a little Danegeld, including the billions (plus interest) we've already given them, and then cut off imigration from the country, and get our allies to do the same?
Would it be too diffilcult to try a solution where we come out ahead, for once?
Because honestly I get the sense that people in the Ummah are laughing their asses off at us, everytime our TSA agents grope a 6-year-old white girl or our politicians utter the bullshit "Islam is a religion of peace" line.
In the 80s, if it meant defeating the Soviets, we were happy to lead the waltz between the ISI and Afghanistan's jihadis. Stratfor's George Friedman:
Intelligence organizations are as influenced by their clients as their clients are controlled by them. Consider anti-Castro Cubans in the 1960s and 1970s and their beginning as CIA assets and their end as major influencers of U.S. policy toward Cuba. [In the 1980s] the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI) became entwined with its clients. As the influence of the Taliban and Islamist elements increased in Afghanistan, the sentiment spread to Pakistan, where a massive Islamist movement developed with influence in the government and intelligence services.
Sept. 11, 2001, posed a profound threat to Pakistan. On one side, Pakistan faced a U.S. in a state of crisis, demanding Pakistani support against both al Qaeda and the Taliban. On the other side Pakistan had a massive Islamist movement hostile to the U.S. and intelligence services that had, for a generation, been intimately linked to Afghan Islamists, first with whole-hearted U.S. support, then with its benign indifference...
Pakistan is really a tinderbox, and in any case we're not going to invade them (conventionally). There is no good solution to the current morass, not for the U.S and not for Pakistan-- a country which, to look at the regularity of suicide bombings there, seems to be itself in a low-grade state of civil war.
Pakistan is in essence blackmailing the US. They say: "keep handing over the cash and keep quiet about the ISI, or things could get much, much worse for you."
The North Koreans tried the same thing: they got Clinton to pay them not to misbehave -- though they went ahead with their nuke plans anyhow.
Arguably, the Greeks are doing the same to the Germans. The Greeks say: "lend us the billions or we'll detonate your banking system."
Looking at it from the usual Sailerian stance of amused, detached, admiration for clever ploys, we could call blackmail a risky but sometimes effective strategy for weak countries to extract something useful from strong ones.
Of course, if only there was a Pakistan Lobby to rival the effectiveness of the Israel Lobby, they wouldn't have to bother with all this crude blackmailing stuff.
How is anyone dumb enough to still believe that bin Laden had anything to do with 9/11?
"Of course neither of them ever did much to us."
And Germany didn't bomb Pearl Harbor.
So what?
Remember when the Warren Commission was shared that the Soviets had ordered JFK murdered?
And... you lost me. Go read JFK and the Unspeakable, amazing book.
http://www.ctka.net/reviews/jfk_unspeakable.html
Color this under "duh." OF COURSE the ISI/Military was harboring/protecting bin Laden. [Bhutto was likely killed by an ISI group directly, given the expertise and discretion needed. Bin Laden and groups like him are used against both India and the US for "total jihad" and "defense in depth."]
So why will no one acknowledge the truth? Because then if we do so, we are either at nuclear war with Pakistan, or we surrender in various ways. Since no pol wants to admit either, we go on pretending.
Pretending is central to modern liberalism, the decline of the West, and its slow-motion destruction. We want to pretend that the modern world of globalization, nuclear proliferation, and independent Muslim nations poses no nuclear threat to the US. Just as we want to pretend that all Black people are middle class and married (the Census release shows 30% of Black households headed by single women, only 28% headed by married couples). We want to pretend that IQ and other attributes are evenly distributed throughout all populations.
And we want to pretend that all badness in the world is the result of "evil racist White men," and the solution is electing magically transforming non-Whites to leadership positions. We want to pretend that "its all over for Anglos in Texas" and that most babies born in the US being non-White herald a new dawn of wealth, power, and "justice" etc. Instead of grinding poverty and ethnic/racial strife over spoils.
Pakistan is a threat. The only reason to be in Afghanistan is to play whack-a-jihadi with drones launched from there and continue the pretending. Hoping that sub-rosa killings will contain its nuclear arsenal, while allowing various sub-nuclear attacks to continue (and hoping that say, the Bombay style attack will not be launched against us, just India.)
But no one wants to say the truth openly, and propose say a massive build up of nukes to deal with Pakistan, launch on attack, automatically, because the end of the Cold War was supposed to bring puppy dogs and rainbows. Clinton promised!
>Even the Israelis couldn't get away with _that_.<
Wanna bet?
Those 90% of ISI agents sure give the other 10% a bad name.
Greg Cochran (a man who really knows how to follow the Fourth Law of Power, “Always say less than necessary”) recently posted an intriguing comment on Jerry Pournelle’s blog with regard to current tensions with Pakistan:
When you think about it, this could work out well. Pakistan would be a lot cheaper and more useful as an enemy than as an ally. It would get us out of Afghanistan, too - a big bonus.
Consider:
-- “what utter, poisonous damn fools our leaders are”
-- Our Justice Dept. and the “gun walker” fiasco.
-- Boston Globe reporter says DOJ might’ve been hiding Whitey Bulger while he was killing people!
-- Chicago's mayor, police and media won’t even acknowledge whites are now routinely assaulted in the toniest parts of town in broad daylight.
Can we survive long enough to change leaders?
People sometimes use the phrase "the game" to describe how big systems like the Pakistani Government and also American multinational corporations often get manipulated not for the common good but for the good of the people who run them.
It's not a description of evil, but rather of human nature. It explains what happens when individuals have been doing things a certain way for a long time and come to believe this is always the right way. One symptom is when a player begins to focus only on winning, on trouncing the opposing side. Another is when people become so habit-formed and sure of themselves that they stop asking the question: "Could I possibly be wrong about this?"
It's been my belief that the Pakistanis staged 9/11, using Saudis as cut-outs, and the Taliban as enablers of al Qaeda. Ultimately, if the Pakistanis feel confident enough about their ability to hide their involvement to detonate a nuclear weapon stateside, it would be interesting to see the reigning US administration's response. And what if the Pakistanis did it in collaboration with a Chinese request, combined with a guarantee of political and military support?
In light of this new evidence—the State department should call for the state to appoint an outside investigative team to take over the Attorney General D.A.'s new probe of the case. She says, "didn't take this investigation seriously enough."
I think Princess Bhutto's base was always tenuous at best. Even a brief perusal of her pre-1996 track record shows that big accusations of graft, torture and murder-for-hire were leveled promiscuously against her clique as well. After her public detonation she became a political football of Lady Di proportions of course, but the whole thing reminds me of the Rodrigo Rosenberg affair in Guatemala. For Pervez this is just one more subplot to sweat out while he's in Marylebone awaiting the next coup.
"It's been my belief that the Pakistanis staged 9/11, using Saudis as cut-outs, and the Taliban as enablers of al Qaeda."
You can't make this stuff up!
"When you think about it, this could work out well. Pakistan would be a lot cheaper and more useful as an enemy than as an ally. It would get us out of Afghanistan, too - a big bonus."
Improving US-India relations may lead to that. When India was (relatively)anti-American, US and China vied for influence in Pakistan. If Indian inches closer to US, it can be US-India vs China-Pakistan.
"Steve, you're a smart guy and I'm desperate to hear a smart guy's take on this video, its become pretty popular. 9/11: The Top Scientific Arguments.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNXqkZO3Y1g"
Because he's a smart guy, he won't bother. Typical youtube crap.
Um. So what? Why is this important Steve?
hiding Bin Laden for years IS a casus belli. Even the Israelis couldn't get away with _that_.
Please. Israel could "accidentally" sink the USS Enterprise and get away with it.
The Father of our country, George Washington, is shaking his head sorrowfully.
"[P}ermanent, inveterate antipathies against particular Nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and [...] in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The Nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the Government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The Government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of Nations has been the victim.
"So likewise, a passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite Nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite Nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the Nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens, (who devote themselves to the favorite nation,) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.
"[S]uch attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent Patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practise the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the Public Councils! Such an attachment of a small or weak, towards a great and powerful nation, dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.
"Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens,) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove, that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defence against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation, and excessive dislike of another, cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.
"The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connexion as possible."
Osama is an old friend of Musharaff.
In 1990, Mush was posted in Gilgit in Northern Kashmir. The locals being Shias were denied the right to vote.
When they protested, Mush unleashed Osama on them to kill the infidel Shias. Osama being a wahabi Sunni, was happy to kill 20000 Shias.
Al-Qaida is a coalition of 16 Islamist groups of which 8 are direct creations of the Pakistan military.
"Iran is not going to attack anyone and the only civilized place outside Israel in the ME. MSM propaganda aside, this is why the largest Jewish population in the ME is in Iran and refuses to leave for Israel or the US."
You're a crackpot. Iran has hardly any jews and to suggest they have more than Isreal just makes you look ridiculous.
@Anon
Osama was a 'friend' of everyone's, he was funded by America for some time.
Anyways, I see a lot of people thinking of Pakistan as one people united; I think I only saw one person mentioning a civil war (albeit low levels). Pakistanis and the Pakistani government are heavily splintered, trust me not all them like being bombed (by the terrorists they love and respect so much!) all the time.
Bin Laden was CIA, controlled opposition. He died years ago.
The same stooges who claimed the Gulf of Tonkin wasn't a false flag are the same stooges who swallowed the absurd Bin Laden yarn.
Obama administration was recently caught running a false flag weapons op in Mexico.
Hello? Anybody home?
"And what if the Pakistanis did it in collaboration with a Chinese request, combined with a guarantee of political and military support?"
Oh come on. There may be one or two people in the Chinese leadership foolish enough to entertain such a notion, but never enough to make a difference.
The 21st century is all about handling the delicate, piecemeal transfer of top dog status from the U.S. to China. It won't be without pain but the Chinese know it's coming and so do we.
Overt or covert nuclear war is not on the agenda.
@SPImmortal
I'm still not convinced that Iran is going to nuke Israel, a nation surrounded primarily by muslims.. That would be some collateral damage..
But that depends how truly off the rocker the Sheik is..
"Pretending is central to modern liberalism, the decline of the West, and its slow-motion destruction."
Well you'd know a thing or two about pretending, eh Whiskey.
No, he was valued for his anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism but also feared and loathed for his radicalism. It's like Latins take pride in Che as an anti-American but few would actually want to live under the rule of Che-ism.
So, Pakis had a love/hate thing with Osama. In one way, he was to be prized and protected as the badass Muslim who struck fear into the heart of America. On the other hand, he was a pain in the ass who destabilized the political order in the Muslim world.
I think some on the Right felt likewise about Hitler. They admired Hitler as the frightfully effctive enemy of Jews and commies. But they also regarded him as crazy and dangerous.
Same with Jesse James in the South. Southerners admired him as an anti-Yankee fighter but also feared his insane criminality.
Good analysis. Bin Laden's popularity ratings were pretty high in most of the Muslim world after 9/11, but declined over the years as Bin Laden staged numerous attacks on Muslim civilians.
SPImmortal said...
"Iran is not going to attack anyone and the only civilized place outside Israel in the ME. MSM propaganda aside, this is why the largest Jewish population in the ME is in Iran and refuses to leave for Israel or the US."
You're a crackpot. Iran has hardly any jews and to suggest they have more than Isreal just makes you look ridiculous.
Obviously that was a typo. Iran has the largest Jewish population in the ME of any country *outside Israel*.
The 25,000 Jews in Iran today is hardly insignificant. It's far more than any other ME country (outside Israel). This ranks Iran just after far more materially desirable countries like Italy, Chile and Venezuela in terms of Jewish population.
The conditions in Iran for Jews are probably the best in the ME *outside Israel*.
From wikipedia: In July 2007 Iran's Jewish community rejected financial emigration incentives to leave Iran. Offers ranging from 5,000–30,000 British pounds, financed by a wealthy expatriate Jew with the support of the Israeli government, were turned down by Iran's Jewish leaders.[76][77] However, in late 2007 at least forty Iranian Jews accepted financial incentives offered by a Zionist charities for immigrating to Israel
"Remember when the Warren Commission was shared that the Soviets had ordered JFK murdered?
And... you lost me. Go read JFK and the Unspeakable, amazing book.
http://www.ctka.net/reviews/jfk_unspeakable.html"
Yes. AFter reading that book, you cannot believe that way the CIA and military didn't kill JFK.
More Stuff That White People Like: GAY MARRIAGE?!?
Ugh.
Someone just shoot me.
While I am sure that the Abbotabad hit killed a, perhaps the, high leader of al Quaeda I do not think it was bin Laden.
He died years ago, probably at Tora Bora. While the CIA have repeatedly authenticated the "bin Laden tapes" as genuine a Swiss voice recognition software company said they were fakes. Who do you believe - the world's largest, richest and most powerful intelligence agency with worldwide history of the CIA or a swiss company you'be never heard of? Easy choice I think.
On top of that anybody who disposes of the body and lies, repeatedly, about how and why is hiding something - in this case obviously whose body it was.
My guess is Pakistanis are both angry and relieved that Osama is dead.
"Osama was a 'friend' of everyone's, he was funded by America for some time."
Lot of people make a big deal of this but US funded Stalin during WWII. Nixon met with Mao during the Cold War. US offered sanctuary to Marxist Jewish scientists during WWII and then gave sanctuary to former Nazi scientists during the Cold War.
And US funds lots of 'bad guys' right now all over the world cuz the world is a dangerous place and you gotta do business with all sorts of people.
"The Father of our country, George Washington, is shaking his head sorrowfully."
Personally, I don't buy any of this. People say the Founding Fathers were for 'republic, not an empire' and not sticking their nose into the affairs/interests/territories of other nations, but the Founders said that stuff ONLY BECAUSE they had an entire continent to conquer. They sure were not averse to attacking and pushing out the Indian nations. European nations being small, they could only move outward across the seas. US, on the other hand, could move westward. It too was a form of imperialism and conquest. But Anglo-Americans, like Anglo-Canucks and Anglo-Australians lucked out because they took over mostly empty lands inhabited by pushover primitives.
Even so, the notion that the Founders were only for minding their own business is so much BS. If so, why didn't they remain on their original 13 colonies? Why take the land of the other Indian tribes?
And then consider the Monroe Doctrine, which was a massive form of interventionism in the entire American sphere, North and South.
The Founders, masked with lofty words, their desire to conquer or control all of the Americas.
Besides, would the original 13 colonies have been possible if Brits had minded their own business like the Japanese? No, even the original 13 colonies were founded by 'foreign intervention.'
Once all of America had been conquered and settled, it was in the American blood to look for more Manifest Destinies.
The neocons want a war with Pakistan but hopefully America will run out of money before they can get it off the ground.
Oh come on. There may be one or two people in the Chinese leadership foolish enough to entertain such a notion, but never enough to make a difference.
The 21st century is all about handling the delicate, piecemeal transfer of top dog status from the U.S. to China. It won't be without pain but the Chinese know it's coming and so do we.
Overt or covert nuclear war is not on the agenda.
why do you think china gave pakistan nuclear weapons? US won't give up the top dog status without a fight, we are already seeing US trying to overthrow governments of africa and middle east in an attempt to perserve its empire and secure access to oil.
In "Winning Modern Wars" (page 130) General Wesley Clark states the following:
"As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan.
...He said it with reproach--with disbelief, almost--at the breadth of the vision. I moved the conversation away, for this was not something I wanted to hear. And it was not something I wanted to see moving forward, either. ...I left the Pentagon that afternoon deeply concerned."
@Modernguy on 6/24
Thank you for saying that. Ever since my teen years, having paid way too much attention to world affairs, I have observed this childish phrasing. States are not individuals. States are not "friends" of other states. It reminds me of creepy eastern bloc organizations like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_German-Soviet_Friendship.
Another one which I see even here on this blog is improper use of "we" when "we" are not the actor, the regime in DC is. For example "we supported candidate X in the election in Nigeria", "we send country Y so much foreign aid", "we should bomb country Z...". Just who is this "we"? It's a vast oversimplification of the way the world works. I suspect some just do it out of habit, but it's a good habit to break.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/06/24/how_the_democrats_nearly_destroyed_the_economy_110339.html
Instead of something as dull and stupid as ATLAS SHRUGGED, shouldn't cons be making a CASINO-JACK-like movie out of this story?
PS. CJ, like SOCIAL NETWORK, pretends to be critical of a crooked Jew but really ends up rationalizing/justifying/redeeming it as a form of angry rebellion against the FAR WORSE WHITE GOYIM.
In one scene, we see how Abramoff is made to feel uncomfortable by being pressured to pray to Jesus with Tom Delay and some preacher, but I guess Hollywood doesn't see the irony. Most of the time, most Christians are forced to worship the Almighty Jew and defer to everything AIPAC, WALL STREET, and ZIONIST.
I say Sailer should write the screenplay for RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT. It can be actor-centric and so not very expensive to make. What a colorful cast of characters. Sailer, of course, would add Bush and Rove as idiots too.
The problems in Pakistan shows one shouldn't go fox hunting in a field full of snakes.
Or is like going dive-fishing in a pond full of leeches? The diver finally emerges from the water with the fish but his body's covered with leeches.
Why white kids don't wanna play basketball: being attacked by blacks on the OTHER team.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9uzcT8nXbY&feature=related
"And then there's the next line of conceptual defense: it's not the ISI, it's "rogue elements" within the ISI."
Indian youth have grown up hearing that line. Usually followed by, "give us more dolla so that we can keep them down" directed towards US.
Thank God, whoops, Gods that the Hindoos are here to play you and him fight.
But Anglo-Americans, like Anglo-Canucks and Anglo-Australians lucked out because they took over mostly empty lands inhabited by pushover primitives.
Yeah, it was luck. Anybody who reads Jared Diamond knows that.
Even so, the notion that the Founders were only for minding their own business is so much BS. If so, why didn't they remain on their original 13 colonies? Why take the land of the other Indian tribes?
You're right. When they said "avoid alliances and passionate attachments to other nations," obviously they meant "no expansion." Sovereign self-reliance and enlightened self-interest obviously mean no expansion. Obviously George never should have said the bit about minding our own business and never expanding, if he didn't mean it.
Tightly argued stuff you got there anon.
It's depressing how often, when we're in a position to see and judge results, our allegedly wise, smart elites, allegedly informed by vast spy agencies and commanding an incredibly powerful army, end up looking like a bunch of fools. It's almost enough to make you suspect they're just not all that competent....
"Even so, the notion that the Founders were only for minding their own business is so much BS. If so, why didn't they remain on their original 13 colonies? Why take the land of the other Indian tribes?"
One of the justifications for independence was that Great Britain was hindering territorial expansion in the colonies, which led to costly fights with the natives. When the Continental Congress (interesting choice of name there) declared independence, they were quite clear about their motives. If Washington, et. al. were being deceptive about their motives (they weren't) the colonists certainly weren't fooled. And it was one of the founders, Thomas Jefferson, who sent Lewis and Clark all the way to the Pacific, after purchasing half the continent. Jefferson, wanting the Pacific Northwest, too, explicitly sent them well outside of the boundaries of the land he'd purchased.
They knew what they were doing, and the people whom they governed knew what they were doing.
From the Declaration of Independence: "[King George III] has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands."
Wesley Clark quote:
He said it with reproach--with disbelief, almost--at the breadth of the vision. I moved the conversation away, for this was not something I wanted to hear. And it was not something I wanted to see moving forward, either. ...I left the Pentagon that afternoon deeply concerned."
Wesley Clark was concerned that Uncle Sam was proceeding to draft plans against America's enemies in the wake of 9/11, after he almost brought us to war with Russia over Kosovo? Does he not remember that we have invasion plans covering Canada and Latin America, or is he just being deliberately misleading?
Bull. More or less all resistance movements got off the ground by being backed by intelligence services. A captain in Irish army intelligence(James Kelly) virtually created the Provisional IRA as a armed organisation and Eire allowed wanted PIRA killers to live there. But Eire did not control the PIRA in any meaningful sense.
History shows that although intelligence services can, in effect, create movements by giving key support at a initial stage, resistance movements tend to get control. It's a fact that the (CIA predecessor) OSS's "support for the Viet Minh played a significant symbolic role in helping them fill the power vacuum left in the wake of Japan’s surrender".
The CIA supported some Islamic radicals in the past that is no reason to see Al Qaeda as their stooge or cats paw. Israel supported Hamas in the early days does that mean it does today ?
No, Mossad and the CIA are not ten feet tall. They have went from failure to failure often - as I pointed out above - bringing into being the very forces that have caused them so much trouble.
ISI do not control Al Qaeda at all. They'll have links to the Taliban, however I very much doubt they could destroy the Afghan Taliban even if they wanted to and the ISI's lack of influence is shown by what happened when a journalist took the most famous Taliban connected ISI man along as protection when he contacted the taliban
"According to sources, it was confirmed that Col.Imam’s body had been found on the corner of a street near Mir Ali in North Waziristan. Tehreek-e-Taliban has claimed responsibility for killing the former ISI official.
Colonel Imam had gone missing on March 25 last year along with another former ISI official, Khalid Khwaja, and a British journalist of Pakistan origin, Asad Qureshi, while they were going from Kohat to North Waziristan.
He was believed to have played a key role in the growth of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan."
ISI surely has lines of communication the Taliban and through that indirect communication to wanted Al Qaeda suspects. But, if ISI knew where top Al Qaeda men were you can bet they would be making themselves look good. They would have 'found' Bin Laden for example.
Does he not remember that we have invasion plans covering Canada and Latin America, or is he just being deliberately misleading?
an invasion plan for a hypothetical war is different from an actual plan to invade
"Thank God, whoops, Gods that the Hindoos are here to play you and him fight."
If only we had the media hackery of US's most beloved.
Consider this stupidity:
"India would no doubt welcome a reduction in military aid to Pakistan, and the U.S. could use this as leverage to pressure India to allow the Kashmiris to vote on their future, which would very likely be a vote for independence."
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/16/110516fa_fact_wright?currentPage=all
Glass houses, stones, etc.
Color Whiskey's comments under "duh". Bin Laden has been dead for 10 years, wtf are you people talking about...??
Geo. Washington et al. did not see the "Indian Nations" as nations. They saw only (as the Declaration of Independence puts it) "savages," warring primitive tribes, anarchy. Not nations. "Nations" means civilization, which for the Founders meant advanced societies by the standards of that day.
It's important to remember that anthropological standards have not remained constant; while we moderns take for granted calling the Indian tribes "nations" and "a civilization," that view would have been regarded as very eccentric in the 18th century. Rosseau was considered an eccentric - and even his "Noble Savage" was only that: a savage, without a government. (Rosseau championed such a thing. But it never would have occurred to him, except as a far-fetched poetic metaphor, that his "savage" indeed lived in a real "civilization" with a real "government.")
Besides, even if the colonists were hypocrites, leaving nations alone is still a good ideal. The only marginally possible criticism of them was that they didn't live up to this ideal. The solution to this failure? Live up to that ideal going forward. (Indeed, war-mongering interventionists, as some allege the Founders to have been, are in a unique position to imagine the evils of interventionism practiced on themselves, and to cry out in warning against it.)
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