Did Nobel Laureate, Obama, Jump the Shark with the Bin Laden Shooting Reports?

Killing Bin Laden by any means was just fine with me. It was inevitable that the Islamic beatification of Bin Laden would begin with a vengeance and it has. Obama certainly personalized and owns the killing of Bin Laden and it was a political decision by him to rush out with early details of the raid and take down of the greatest enemy of the United States. Unfortunately the consequences of killing Bin Laden, yet unknown, are beginning to show Obama to be equivocating. Coupled with the killing of Gadaffi's family in Libya, Obama will soon find himself in some very unfamiliar territory for a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. He needs our support on this one.
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Telegraph

Osama Bin Laden dead: White House backtracks on how bin Laden died

The White House admitted last night that its initial account of the way Osama bin Laden died at the hands of US forces had been riddled with errors.

Claims that the al-Qaeda leader had died while firing an automatic weapon at commandos were withdrawn, with President Barack Obama’s spokesman admitting “he was unarmed”. A dramatic description of bin Laden using his wife as a “human shield” and forcing her to sacrifice her life also proved to be false. The woman was still alive and was taken into custody with several of the terrorist’s children.

In an embarrassing climb-down, Barack Obama’s press secretary, Jay Carney, admitted that the previous version of events — which came mostly from the chief US counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan — had been put out “with great haste”.

The about-turn left the US open to accusations of a cover-up and led to calls for video footage of the raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and images of bin Laden’s body to be released to end conspiracy theories.

However, the White House suggested that pictures of bin Laden’s body were too “gruesome” to be made public because they could prove “inflammatory”.

Relations between the US and Pakistan, already strained by the fact that Pakistan was not told in advance about the raid, were put under renewed pressure by contradictory statements from Islamabad. It came as:

* David Cameron said bin Laden “must have had an extensive support network in Pakistan”, leaving the country with “searching questions” to answer.

* Five men of Asian origin were arrested after being seen filming at the Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria.

* The CIA director, Leon Panetta, said they had been only “60 to 80 per cent sure” that bin Laden was living at the compound.

* Mr Panetta also disclosed that the US was concerned that the Pakistani authorities would alert bin Laden if they told them about the operation.

* Material from the hard drive of bin Laden’s computer, described as “the mother lode of intelligence”, was being analysed.

On a day of claim and counter-claim, Mr Carney gave a briefing in which he knocked down a series of statements made on Monday by Mr Brennan and other government sources. Asked whether officials had been caught in a “fog of war”, he said: “We provided a great deal of information with great haste in order to inform you about the operation. Some of the information is being reviewed and updated.”

He then read out a new account of the assault, in which he said bin Laden was found on the top floor of a three-storey building, and as a US Navy Seal team entered: “His wife rushed the US assaulter and was shot in the leg but not killed. Bin Laden was then shot and killed. He was not armed.”

Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, called on the White House to make public the “precise facts surrounding his killing” to ensure it adhered to international law.

The Taliban issued a statement in which it said the US “lacks strong evidence to prove its claim” that bin Laden was dead.

Ron Paul, a congressman and Republican presidential candidate, said “confusion” in the White House accounts of events in Abbottabad was fuelling doubts. “The question I have is why does our government invite conspiracy theories all the time? Why don’t they show a picture?” he said.

Mr Carney said the White House was still “reviewing” whether it was “appropriate” to release any of the images. He also appeared to cast doubt on suggestions that the US filmed bin Laden’s burial at sea by refusing to confirm that the video existed.

Mr Cameron said the Americans had already done enough to show “reasonable people that bin Laden was dead” before saying that the Pakistani authorities had serious questions to answer over whether bin Laden was being protected while living at his compound within walking distance of Pakistan’s main military academy.

“The fact that bin Laden was living in a large house in a populated area suggests that he must have had an extensive support network in Pakistan,” he said. “We don’t currently know the extent of that network, so it is right that we ask searching questions about it. And we will.”

Mr Panetta confirmed that the Pakistani authorities were not told in advance of the audacious helicopter assault because of fears that the information would be leaked.

He also said the US had been unable to spot bin Laden in his compound from satellite images, meaning the CIA was only “60 to 80 per cent sure” they would find him there.

In Islamabad, the authorities said they had co-operated with the US and had kept the building under surveillance since 2009, contradicting Mr Obama’s account of a four-year CIA operation to identify bin Laden’s hiding place. They also suggested that their soldiers had raided the building in 2003 — two years before the building was even built, according to the US — looking for another senior al-Qaeda operative.

As the men arrested outside the Sellafield plant were being questioned, Mr Cameron said Britain must be “more vigilant than ever” against the threat of terrorism.

Bin Laden Reported Dead - The Empire Strikes Back

Afghan officials confirm that al-Qadea leader Bin Laden has died [GALLO/GETTY]

US president Barack Obama is due to make a statement shortly in which he is expected to announce the death of Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda.

Obama's address was due at 0300GMT from the White House.

Qais Azimy, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Kabul, said that Afghan officials have confirmed that Bin Laden had died and that his body was with the United States.

Officials would not confirm whether he had been killed in Afghanistan or Pakistan, and said that the death of the al-Qaeda leader was more of a "symbolic victory", as he was no longer directly connected to the group's field operations, Azimy reported. 

Osama bin Laden has been killed, a United States official said Sunday night. President Obama is expected to make an announcement on Sunday night, almost 10 years after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Pakistan Shaking Down US for Another $2 Billion, Bin Laden Rests Comfortably.

Washington (CNN) -- The Obama administration is putting the final touches on a security assistance package totaling as much as $2 billion over five years to help Pakistan fight extremists on its border with Afghanistan, senior U.S. officials and diplomatic sources tell CNN.

The aid is expected to be announced later this week when Pakistani officials are in Washington to hold high-level talks.

The package aims to address Pakistan's insistence it does not have the capability to go after terrorists, and needs more support from the United States, the sources said. The aid will help the Pakistanis purchase helicopters, weapons systems and equipment to intercept communications. (read enough yet?)



Osama bin Laden 'living comfortably in Pakistan'

Osama bin Laden is alive and well and living comfortably in a house in the north-west of Pakistan protected by local people and elements of the country's intelligence services, according to a senior Nato official.

By Rob Crilly in Islamabad
Published: 1:10PM BST 18 Oct 2010 Telegraph

The latest assessment contradicts the belief that the al-Qaeda leader is roughing it in underground bunkers as he dodged CIA drones hunting him from the air.

"Nobody in al-Qaeda is living in a cave," according to an unnamed Nato official quoted by CNN.

He added that Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's second in command, was also living in a house close by somewhere in the country's mountainous border regions.

Pakistani officials on Monday repeated their long standing denials that the Saudi-born terrorist mastermind was being given safe haven.

However, the Nato official said bin Laden was thought to have ranged from the mountainous Chitral area near the Chinese border, to the Kurram Valley which borders Afghanistan's Tora Bora, one of the Taliban strongholds during the US invasion in 2001.

North Waziristan, in particular, has become a nexus for Afghan, Pakistani and Arab militants as they plot attacks against Nato forces across the border in Afghanistan.

Earlier this month a leaked White House report accused its ally Pakistan of playing a double game by avoiding "military engagements that would put it in direct conflict with Afghan Taliban or al-Qaeda forces in North Waziristan".

A senior Pakistani security official denied that bin Laden was being protected and said the latest allegations were designed to heap pressure on Islamabad ahead of talks in Washington this week that would focus on strengthening co-operation between the two countries.

"Every time something important is happening then things like this keep creeping out," he said. "If it's not bin Laden it's something else."

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.

Did This Man Find Osama bin Laden?

This would make for a real banner week for American intelligence.

Did Super Size Me man find Osama bin Laden?
Daniel Sankey | December 6, 2007 - 11:38AM
Brisbane Times

Rumours continue to spread that documentary-maker Morgan Spurlock, of Super Size Me fame, has found Osama bin Laden.

At the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year, Spurlock invited a select group of potential buyers to view footage of his latest film - Where In The World Is Osama bin Laden?.

Weinstein Co bought the rights to the film - but apparently not until all other invited buyers were forced to sign confidentiality agreements regarding the contents of the preview footage.

The movie, which tails Spurlock on his quest through the Middle East, will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival next month.

Whether rumours circulating on film websites about him finding Bin Laden turns out to be true - or whether it is simply a cunning ploy from Weinstein Co's marketing gurus - remains to be seen.

However, Daniel Marracino, the film's director of photography, was quoted in Variety recently as saying: "We've definitely got the Holy Grail."

Weinstein Co has released films such as the Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There, starring Cate Blanchett, and Transamerica, starring Felicity Huffman.

"When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse"

The strong horse has arrived. It did not come from where bin Laden expected. It is not Arabian but an agile, intelligent and ruthless Persian. Gaza reflects events in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan. A militant messianic/martyr Islamic cult is taking hold. The take over in Gaza was swift and appears to be complete. What does this mean for Iraq?

At a time when we need skilled and intelligently tough leadership we have something less. Abandon Iraq, as the Israelis abandoned Gaza, and events will quickly sort themselves into another Iranian influenced victory for an Islamic cult. Saddam Hussein understood the threat. He died cursing the Persians, in stunned disbelief that a plow horse with blinders led the Americans.

Our naive mission to graft democracy to Islam must give way to a realistic appraisal and acceptance of an unpleasant reality. We are stuck in the beginning of a hundred year religious war. We were not prepared for it and have yet to begin to adjust to it. We have a choice. We can react to events and be carried along with them or we can step aside and let the inevitable adjustments within Islam take place. We already have one nuclear near-Islamic state in Pakistan. It is one bullet away from who knows what.

Should the US attack Iran's budding nuclear assets, Iran has already set in motion and place the suicide squads necessary to attack US global interests. We attack, we pay. We do not, we pay. Weak diplomacy will never influence the Iranians. A war with Iran could be very costly with unknown consequences. Acquiescence would be worse.

These are the most dangerous times since 1941. We will get no help or cooperation from Russia or China. Their interest is to support a weakening of US power. The Chinese are doing it brilliantly the Russians more clumsily. We on the other hand have a leader who loses his watch accepting accolades from adoring Muslims in a future European-Muslim state of our making. The Albanians may adore Bush but there are few significant allies left that trust him. He has little credibility to inspire, influence or lead, so dissipating has been his governance. The US needs a comprehensive appraisal of foreign policy and a strategy for this new hostile environment. We desperately need leadership that understands this.