Saturday, March 08, 2008

Is Osama bin Laden in Iran?

"The rumor is that Saad bin Laden - Osama's son Saad and Ayman Al-Zawahiri along with roughly 800 or so other top Al Qaeda terrorists were thus extricated from Afghanistan. Iran has shown that it has no fear of standing up to the west, and has a large, and capable intelligence apparatus clearly capable of hiding bin Laden. "


March 08, 2008
Whither Osama?
By Jon Caruthers American Thinker

That's the $25 million question, isn't it? For six years now, pundits, bloggers, media vetted "experts," politicians, columnists, and all sorts, kinds, and flavors of prognosticators have weighed in on the subject with the general consensus being that he's just on the Pakistani side of the Tora Bora mountains in the federally administrated tribal areas (FATA). After giving the US military the slip in late 2001, Osama and company have seemingly disappeared into the ether, reconstituting periodically to give the metaphorical digit to the American people and giving the left more ammunition to fire at the Bush administration. Although the question seems largely to have been settled in the media, taking a fresh look at the question of our age is instructive for understanding more about Al Qaeda and specifically why we've not seen another attack on American soil.

The general consensus among the intelligentsia in the government apparatus and parroted ad nauseam by the talking heads on the media circuit is that Osama is hiding out in the caves of the Hindu Kush. I would argue that he's not, and the fact that he's not is the reason why he's yet to be caught but more importantly the reason why we've yet to see an attack on American soil since that fateful day.

Let's think this through. Osama bin Laden is a hero in that part of the world - especially in the tribal areas. This isn't September 12th, 2001, we're a few years down the road. If he really were in FATA, somebody would have talked by this point. Obviously they wouldn't be singing to western intelligence agencies deliberately, these people take their blood oaths seriously, but they would have talked nonetheless. People are people no matter where you go. Maybe it would have been a couple of housewives gossiping while doing laundry down by the local creek, or some school kid bragging to his buddies on a soccer field, or a couple of camel traders yacking over tea in Peshawar - but people talk.

These mighty Pashtun warriors are still people and they're still susceptible to water cooler conversations like the rest of us - even if they lack the water cooler. We, along with the rest of the western world, have that part of the world hard wired with listening posts, spy drones, turncoats, secret agents, and every intelligence gathering asset known to man. Surely, we would have picked up his scent by now.

Moreover, this is a part of the world where blood feuds and tribal hatreds are a national pastime. If you're the leader of tribe A and you've got a longstanding blood feud with tribe B and you've found out through the grapevine that bin Laden is a guest of tribe B, what better way of settling your feud, making a quick $25 million (of course, as we're told relentlessly by the talking heads, in that part of the world money has no real value but I'm sure they'd be interested in $25 million worth of trade goods), and getting the prime pastureland and livestock of tribe A than dropping a dime and waiting for the smoke to clear from the daisy cutter?

That the trail has gone cold for this long means that Osama is not in the FATA of Pakistan - although I'm sure he's doing his best to ensure that the intelligence apparatus of the west believes him to be. I would wager that he's probably using cutouts to carry orders from his location to the FATA and broadcast them from there.

So, that brings up the question of where he actually is. Well, for starters, he would have to be in a place where he could ensure limited access and surrounded by people who have an incentive to not turn him in. This would imply that he's being deliberately hidden. Only a state power could have the resources necessary to limit exposure to the point where nobody could accidentally have seen him or reported on his location and yet allow him to conduct his organization. A state power would be able to allow Osama the freedom to run Al Qaeda and the security to know that he won't be caught doing so. The intelligence apparatus of a state power is made up of largely loyal and professional agents capable of keeping secrets and provide the infrastructure necessary for the smooth operation of an organization like Al Qaeda: bases for training, recruitment, communications, etc.

So, the big question is - which state? Which state would have the incentive to take such a large risk as hiding Osama bin Laden and his top deputies and sheltering Al Qaeda? To do so would risk almost certain military confrontation with the most powerful military power mankind has ever seen. Obviously, it would have to be a state that would share Al Qaeda's basic goals and aims and a state Osama would feel comfortable hiding in. Moreover, it would have to be a state that would have the capability of hiding bin Laden. Finally, it would have to be a state that bin Laden could have reached safely after 911.

This gives us a very short list of a handful of countries in the Dar al-Islam that bin Laden would feel comfortable in and able to get to after the harrowing escape from Tora Bora: the non-tribal areas of Pakistan, Syria, and Iran. While it's true that the ISI (Pakistani intelligence service) founded the Taliban and might therefore be partial to hiding bin Laden, there are other elements within the Pakistani military that are very much pro-western and hiding in Iran would therefore be extremely risky. While Syria could certainly shelter bin Laden and their top operatives, that bin Laden and Al Qaeda would certainly feel at home in Syria, and that it's possible bin Laden could have reached Syria though the "rat line" Iran helped establish in late 2001/2002 for transiting terrorists from Afghanistan through Iran, it's not at all clear that Syria has anything to gain from hiding bin Laden and everything to lose. For us to turn up evidence that Syria is sheltering bin Laden would be the end of the House of Assad for sure.

That leaves us with Iran. As mentioned above, Iran established a rat line during Operation Enduring Freedom to "rescue" Al Qaeda terrorists from certain capture and annihilation at the hands of the coalition. The rumor is that Saad bin Laden - Osama's son Saad and Ayman Al-Zawahiri along with roughly 800 or so other top Al Qaeda terrorists were thus extricated from Afghanistan. Iran has shown that it has no fear of standing up to the west, and has a large, and capable intelligence apparatus clearly capable of hiding bin Laden. It's a Muslim country with a large Arab minority with a long history of working closely with Al Qaeda in the past. For a time, Imad Mugneyeh was the liaison between the Iranian mullahs and Al Qaeda. For Al Qaeda, Iran is the perfect hiding place. For Iran, sequestering bin Laden gives them effective control of Al Qaeda and having control of Al Qaeda gives them yet another way to carry out murderous terrorist attacks by proxy and gives them a degree of anonymity to carry out their low-level war against the US that they've been carrying out since the revolution in 1979.

If this is indeed the case that Iran is hiding bin Laden, this explains why we haven't seen a major terrorist attack against America since 911. Bush showed beyond a shadow of a doubt in 2003 that in the wake of a mass-casualty attack the United States is perfectly willing to go to war against any belligerent country we suspect is building or harboring weapons of mass destruction and Iran is doing precisely that. They may talk a tough game, but at their core the mullahs are terrified of pushing us to the point where we're willing to round up the troops in Iraq and move east to Tehran. Unlike Iraq, the people in Iran really DO hate their leaders and would come over to us if we did. Until Iran has a stockpile of functional nuclear weapons, or until Bush leaves office, there is a very real chance that any mass casualty attack on the US would result in us invading Iran and this is causing the mullahs to lose sleep. I would wager that Al Qaeda has been told that they are allowed to operate in Europe and against America in Iraq, but under no circumstances are they to attack the American homeland - which is why the only plots uncovered here are plots engaged in by rank amateurs not actually affiliated with Al Qaeda but sharing their sympathies. When Iran goes nuclear, all that will change and we'd better get ready.


43 comments:

  1. A counter to the "Free" Unregulated, Moral-Free, Trade is all good:
    ---
    Charles said...
    One reader, writing privately believes that foreign money is beginning to dominate the US political process; and that it all began when huge trade deficits enabled foreign entities to dominate the ownership of key corporations.
    //////////////
    I agree with the private poster.

    3/07/2008 09:36:00 PM
    Charles said...
    Starting from Bush I the bushes have been pro NAU. It stems from Bush the elder's stay at the CIA. The CIA is most faithful to the big money. This does not mean that they are bought. Rather it means that they see financial interests as more powerful than political interests so they follow the money. The money these days is nomadic millionaires in the english speaking world. They have no country. That is they were once called politely-- world citizens. Now they don't want anyone else to have a country. They want everyone else to be world citizens.

    The elite democrats are all on board with regards to this issue because they both believe in international institutions and because they see illegals as a source of cheap votes. Much as elite republicans see illegals as cheap labor.

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  2. We'll be SO much better off when China's influence dominates much of the World, and their advanced economy devours every hydrocarbon and oxygen atom.
    Praise Be to Ping Pong.

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  3. Latest benefit:
    Poison Glycol in Chinese Toothpaste.

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  4. "The CIA is most faithful to..."

    ...plodding along, God bless it.

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  5. Some people think he's dead. If some of his relatives are in Iran, why not him too? I think the writer might be right. There was talk of this 4 years ago. Osama has a diverse bunch of kids, that's for sure.

    I'm starting to think we need a National Party. I know that sounds bad, and I don't mean like that, but a party that puts forth the program that 75% of us want on certain issues, and at least 50% on others, and then act on it. I feel I've got no where to go, out in the cold.

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  6. I think we ought to be like Cuba, bob.

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  7. Look at the amount of money that pours through that Cesspool

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  8. We'll be SO much better off when China's influence dominates much of the World, and their advanced economy devours every hydrocarbon and oxygen atom.
    Praise Be to Ping Pong.

    - Doug

    Where did you go to school?

    And who were you re-educated by since>

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  9. When Iran goes nuclear, all that will change and we'd better get ready.

    My sentiments exactly. The writer should have emphasized that so I'm doing it for him.

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  10. What time did you eat dinner?

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  11. Wal-Mart plants seeds of alliance with Latin farmers
    ---
    Now THERE'S a trade agreement I can get behind!
    Replace the F...... Federal Govt with Walmart, and real benefits will accrue to all.

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  12. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  13. "SAN PEDRO SACATEPEQUEZ, GUATEMALA -- Perched on less than an acre of land off an unpaved road in a hardscrabble rural area, farmer Gumercindo Ajanel would hardly seem like a Wal-Mart regular. But in fact, he's working for the American retail giant.

    On a recent morning, he proudly displayed fresh-picked cilantro and parsley he ships to the chain's local stores. A company agronomist taught him to grow greens that are hygienic and visually appealing. Best of all, he said, Wal-Mart buys frequently and pays promptly. "That helps a lot," said Ajanel, who employs 30 farmhands in this area about 35 miles northeast of the capital, Guatemala City."
    ---
    Wonder if he employs all 30 on that one acre?
    That would be some INTENSIVE Farming!

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  14. Osama and the "WOT" are so yesterday.
    I take my cues from my superiors, so forgive me, Deuce, and Whit.
    ...just following orders.

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  15. Wal-Mart has 40 agronomists on staff in Central America who work closely with farmers such as Fermin Pec, who grows radishes, lettuce, cabbage and other vegetables in San Pedro Sacatepequez. “Their pickiness has helped me improve,” Pec says of Wal-Mart's requirements.

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  16. Did you do any truckfarming/gardening for yourself, Albob?

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  17. Obama Minister's Hatred of America

    Wright continued: “Fact No. 4: We put [Nelson] Mandela in prison and supported apartheid the whole 27 years he was there. We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God. Fact No. 5: We supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-semitic.”

    His voice rising, Wright was on a roll: “Fact No. 6: We conducted radiation experiments on our own people. They’re just finding out about that. We care nothing about human life if the ends justifies the means. Fact No. 7: We do not care if poor black and brown children cannot read and kill each other senselessly. We abandoned the cities back in the '60s when the riots started and it really doesn’t matter what those nations do to each other; we gave up on them and public education of poor people who live in the projects . . .”

    Wright went on: “Fact No. 8: We started the AIDS virus, and now that it is out of control, we still put more money in the military than in medicine; more money in hate than in humanitarian concerns. Everybody does not have access to healthcare, I don’t care what the rich white boys in the Senate say. Listen up: If you are poor, black and elderly, forget it.”

    Concluding, Wright said: “Fact No. 9: We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty. And fact No. 10: We are selfish, self-centered egotists who are arrogant and ignorant and betray our church and do not try to make the kingdom that Jesus talked about a reality. And — and — and in light of these 10 facts, God has got to be sick of this s***.”

    Meeting with Jewish leaders in Cleveland on Feb. 24, Obama described Wright as being like “an old uncle who sometimes will say things that I don't agree with.” He rarely mentions the items of disagreement.

    Obama went on to explain away Wright’s anti-Zionist statements as being rooted in his anger over the Jewish state’s support for South Africa under its previous policy of apartheid. As with a previous claim that his church gave an award to Louis Farrakhan because of his work with ex-offenders, Obama made that up out of thin air.

    Wright’s statements denouncing Israel have not been qualified in any way.

    As for Wright’s repeated comments blaming America for the 9/11 attacks, Obama has said it sounds as if the minister was trying to be “provocative.”

    Hearing Wright’s venomous and paranoid denunciations of this country, the vast majority of Americans would walk out. Instead, Obama and his wife Michelle have presumably sat through hundreds of similar sermons.

    Indeed, Obama has described Wright as his “sounding board” during the two decades he has known him. Obama has said he found religion through Wright in the 1980s and consulted him before deciding to run for president. He prayed privately with Wright before announcing his candidacy last year.

    Aside from showing poor judgment, it’s difficult to imagine that Obama could be so close to Wright without agreeing with at least some of his views.

    In light of Wright’s perspective, Michelle Obama’s comment that she feels proud of America for the first time makes perfect sense. (In a second iteration, she said she feels “really proud” for the first time.) Wright’s blame-America mentality also fits in neatly with many on the left who support Obama’s weak approach to national security and dealing with foreign dictators.

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  18. 'No Russian thaw under Medvedev'

    President Vladimir Putin has warned that relations between Russia and the West will not be any simpler under his successor Dmitry Medvedev.
    "I do not think our partners will have it easier with Medvedev," Mr Putin was quoted as saying.

    The outgoing Russian president made the comments after talks in Moscow with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

    Mr Medvedev, who was elected in a landslide victory earlier this month, will take over as president in May.
    _________________________________

    I wonder how Putin can be so confident over Medvedevedved?

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  19. They may talk a tough game, but at their core the mullahs are terrified of pushing us to the point where we're willing to round up the troops in Iraq and move east to Tehran. Unlike Iraq, the people in Iran really DO hate their leaders and would come over to us if we did.
    They may not like the mullahs but I wouldn't bet on them "coming over to us although it looks as though the world is beginning to get the message that we are benign occupiers.

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  20. Obama will have to answer regarding his longtime membership in Wright's church. He tries to disavow Wright's more outrageous statements and views while his defenders charge opponents of low politics of "guilt by association" but a man is known by the friends (and preachers) that he keeps.

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  21. 2164th: I wonder how Putin can be so confident over Medvedevedved?

    You heard of Barium Milkshake? In Kremlin they serve Polonium Potato Salad.

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  22. WASHINGTON - President Bush said Saturday he vetoed legislation that would ban the CIA from using harsh interrogation methods such as waterboarding to break suspected terrorists because it would end practices that have prevented attacks.

    "The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror," Bush said in his weekly radio address taped for broadcast Saturday. "So today I vetoed it," Bush said.

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  23. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Congress would work to override Bush's veto next week. "In the final analysis, our ability to lead the world will depend not only on our military might, but on our moral authority," said Pelosi, D-Calif.

    But based on the margin of passage in each chamber, it would be difficult for the Democratic-controlled Congress to turn back the veto. It takes a two-thirds majority, and the House vote was 222-199 and the Senate's was 51-45.

    Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Bush often warns against ignoring the advice of U.S. commanders on the ground in Iraq. Yet the president has rejected the Army Field Manual, which recognizes that harsh interrogation tactics elicit unreliable information, said Reid, D-Nev.

    "Democrats will continue working to reverse the damage President Bush has caused to our standing in the world," Reid said.

    Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch, said Bush "will go down in history as the torture president" for defying Congress and allowing the CIA to use interrogation techniques "that any reasonable observer would call torture."

    "The Bush administration continues to insist that CIA and other nonmilitary interrogators are not bound by the military rules and has reportedly given CIA interrogators the green light to use a range of so-called 'enhanced' interrogation techniques, including prolonged sleep deprivation, painful stress positions, and exposure to extreme cold," Daskal said. "Although waterboarding is not currently approved for use by the CIA, Attorney General Michael Mukasey has refused to take it off the table for the future."

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  24. I don't, not myself Doug, but I know a guy Marvin G. who grows everything you can imagine, and was doing well until the casino got built. Great watermelons, squash of all kinds, cantelopes, all the profits going to the Indians. Cursed of the Red Man, Marvin's got to quit, he's got a problem. Best guy to get cheap fruit and corn from, when he's down on his luck, which is always. My wife rented her 13 acres in Ohio out to a teacher/farmer who grows tomatoes. He said he'd get me a special Ohio hunting license to kill the deer, which are a major problem for him back there(during the night) if I wanted. Could shoot them off the porch, would be a big help to him, he said. He just had the Amish build him a nice sales stand by the highway.

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  25. a man is known by the friends (and preachers) that he keeps.

    For sure, maybe especially the preacher, as Obama wasn't born into that church, I think, but sought it out. I believe I'm right on that, wholly voluntary, not cursed by birth into some whack job of a pseudo/church.

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  26. Dick Morris is still counting Hillary down--

    By DICK MORRIS

    The real message of Tuesday’s primaries is not that Hillary won. It’s that she didn’t win by enough.

    The race is over.

    The results are already clear. Obama will go to the Democratic Convention with a lead of between 100 and 200 elected delegates. The remaining question is: What will the superdelegates do then? But is that really a question? Will the leaders of the Democratic Party be complicit in its destruction? Will they really kindle a civil war by denying the nomination to the man who won the most elected delegates? No way. They well understand that to do so would be to throw away the party’s chances of victory and to stigmatize it among African-Americans and young people for the rest of their lives. The Democratic Party took 20 years to recover from the traumas of 1968 and it is not about to trigger a similar bloodletting this year.

    John McCain’s nomination guarantees that the superdelegates wouldn’t dare. A perfectly acceptable alternative for most Democrats, McCain would harvest so large a proportion of Obama’s votes if Hillary steals the nomination that he would probably win. Even putting Obama on the ticket would not allay the anger of his supporters; it would just make him complicit in the robbery.

    Will Hillary win Pennsylvania? Who cares? Even if she were to sweep the remaining primaries and caucuses by 10 points, she would move just 60 votes closer to Obama’s total of elected delegates. And she won’t sweep them all. Even if Hillary wins Pennsylvania, the largest prize up for grabs, Obama will probably win North Carolina, which is almost as large. He’s likely to win Mississippi and Wyoming and has a good shot in Oregon and Indiana. The most likely result of these coming contests is that Obama will be roughly where he is now, about 140 elected delegates ahead of Hillary.


    Suppose that Hillary will carry those states by enough to offset Obama’s delegate lead. The proportional representation system makes a knockout impossible and so mutes relatively narrow victories as to make them almost inconsequential. Little Vermont, with 600,000 people, gave Obama a net gain of four delegates, half of what Hillary won from the Texas primary, a state with 20 million residents. Even after Hillary won big-state victories in Ohio and Texas, she drew only 20 closer to Obama’s total of elected delegates.

    Hillary won’t withdraw. That much is for sure. The tantalizing notion that 800 insiders can offset a season of primaries and caucuses will drive both Clintons to ever-escalating rhetoric. Will their attacks hurt Obama? Likely all they will achieve is to give him needed experience in the cut and thrust of me dia politics.

    Left out of the entire equation is poor John McCain. Unable to get a word in edgewise and unsure of which Democrat to attack, he will have to watch from the sidelines as Hillary and Obama hog the headlines. If the superdelegates deliver the nomination to Hillary in the dead of night without leaving fingerprints at the crime scene, McCain’s nomination will be worth having. If Obama prevails, it won’t be worth the paper on which it is written. The giant killer, Obama will have soared to new heights of popularity and McCain won’t be able to bring him back to Earth in the nine weeks that will remain.

    Suggestion for Obama:

    The next time Hillary uses the recycled red phone ad, counter with one of your own. When the phone rings in the middle of the night, have a woman’s voice, with a flat Midwestern accent, answer it and say, “Hold on” into the receiver. Then she should shout, “Bill! It’s for you!”

    Because with Hillary’s complete lack of any meaningful experience in foreign affairs, and her lack of the “testing” that she boldly claims, she’ll be yelling for Bill.

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  27. damn double posts, if I knew how to take one out, I would...

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  28. We need some wolves out in the east.

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  29. They really raise hell, for sure. He's got an electric fence that does no good. Around here, what really attracks the deer is a crop of rapeseed. Man, do they love that rapeseed, when it's in that lettuce leafy stage.

    Presto! Like magic! Thanks.

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  30. "Is Osama bin Laden in Iran?"

    It's plausible. But I'm curious why anyone be so sure he's not in Iran.

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  31. I read the other day, can't recall where, that a small herd of elk has been introduced into Kentucky. Couldn't believe it, but I think it's true. Employment for the game wardens. Hope they get established, as they easily could, I think, if they're not shot out. Elk can get pretty tame, just like deer, if they are treated right.

    I saw a deer once, sitting on a guy's porch, actually lying in his porch swing. I thought it must have been a dummy or something, so I drove back and took a closer look through the binoculars. Sure enough, tame deer, lying on the porch swing, in the shade, calm as could be. Didn't look injured or anything, either.

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  32. Mehlman, Rove join up with McCain. No real surprise here.

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  33. Charles Krauthammer on Hugh Hewitt Show saying exactly what I believe about the middle east: There will be no peace until the Palestinians and the Arab world recognize the right of Israel to exist. Bush, Rice and Abbas are simply going through the motions.

    There's no reason Rice would continue to hold to the ridiculous "Agreement by the end of the year." except that the "show" is important to our so-called allies.

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  34. Dreaded Lamp Post Threat In London

    Government to the rescue. Going to pad the lamp posts.

    The study claims that 68,000 people were injured in the U.K. last year while chatting or texting on their cell phone, Infomatics reports.

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