Al-Qaeda leader Bin Laden 'dead'

[Steve Knight]

"There's none so blind as those that WILL not see."

"Truthers" are not only walking around in dark shades, they're closing their eyes and sticking their fingers in their ears to make their spurious and asinine claims.

It's really pathetic, truth be told. (pun intended). Their lives must be socially bereft for them to try to foist these claims off as real. Thankfully, they're in the minority. Vastly minor. They should go back to school and get their tutors to beat them for failing logic and critical thinking classes.

[Guest]

I wonder what forum members think about the use of 'ex-judicial assassination' in the name of the protection our freedoms, liberties and democracy? Even surviving Nazi war criminals were allowed trails and 'due process'. Bin Laden should have been taken to the Hague and properly tried for his crimes.

Isn't respect for 'the rule of law' one of the important principles which marks us as distinct?

[Len Colby]

I agree Andy, this doesn't seem to be a case where they tried to capture him alive and he was killed in the process, officals have said it was a kill mission. They shuld have tried to bring him back for trial even if it were to be in a military tribunal in Guantanamo.

[Guest Tom Scully]

I gotta warn those of you who have such low opinions of those of us who are not reflexively swallowing the latest from these lizards in D.C., there is no good answer to this question. Read the following, note especially the dates of the Bush and Cheney quotes, and Pat Tillman's mother's opinion of Obama.

My question is, where you aware before you read all this that they've lied this blatantly, this often, and this tenaciously, but you still are willing to trust what they put out with less skepticism than contempt for those of us who refuse to? If you answer yes, your acceptance of the assertions of these criminals sure comes cheap. If you answer no; that you knew all about these lies but you trust what they say now and are inclined to criticize those of us who are skeptics because, in our experience, they've shown so often, if they are releasing info to the press to distribute, it is more than likely misleading. You probably won't read through this post, anyway.

Fiery Arab expert speaks his mind Susan Yerkes

San Antonio Express-News

May 11, 1994

Estimated printed pages: 3

Hot tip Wednesday: don't miss Farouk El-Baz . The charismatic genius, head of the Boston U Center for Remote Sensing, speaks at 7 at Trinity's Chapman Center on the Gulf War's devastating environmental impact.

Expect a fascinating evening.

Tuesday, El-Baz addressed the Free Trade Alliance S.A. on a wide range of international themes, from women's role in the Middle East ("They run the show. . . . Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia is b---s--- "); to impressing foreign clients ("You can say your technology came from the U.S. space program - nearly everything does").

El-Baz deplored U.S. businessmen who approach foreign clients with "the attitude that 'we're fabulous and yesterday these guys had no shoes.' They come back empty-handed every time," he said.

He dropped a bombshell on the subject of Islamic fundamentalism, naming 31-year-old Yemeni multibillionaire Osama bin Laden as the sponsor of most fundamentalist violence, including the World Trade Center bombing.

Unfortunately, he added, Bin Laden stays untouchable in his Peshwahar headquarters, because: " He's supported by the CIA ."....

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/international/middleeast/26BERG.html

Tracing a Civilian's Odd Path To His Gruesome Fate in Iraq

New York Times, The (NY)

May 26, 2004

Author: This article was reported by James Dao, Richard Lezin Jones, Christine Hauser and Eric Lichtblau and was written by Mr. Dao.

Estimated printed pages: 10

Abstract: Path that led Nicholas E Berg to his murder by militants in Iraq detailed; friends and relatives say he really believed he could help rebuild war-torn nations by repairing radio towers; he was briefly detained in Jan in Diwaniya by Iraqi police who thought he might be spy; was arrested again in Mosul Mar 24 as possible spy, smuggler or terrorist, held 13 days while Federal Bureau of Investigation checked and rechecked his story and freed Apr 6, at time when Iraqi insurgents were targeting foreign contractors, after his family sued for his release; he disappeared Apr 10, day he planned to return home, and body was found May 8; Mosul detention has raised questions about whether American officials did enough to get him released as quickly as possible, so he could have returned home before Apr wave of anti-Western killings; time line; map; photos (M)

Nicholas E. Berg had a distinctive strategy for soliciting work for his communications tower company: conduct free spot inspections, then offer to fix any problems. Where others went sightseeing, he went climbing and inspecting. Where others wrote postcards, he inventoried towers, from Texas to Africa.

By late last year, Mr. Berg, 26, had turned his sights on Iraq. An adventurous entrepreneur and religious Jew, Mr. Berg had a passionate belief in capitalism's power to transform poor nations. He really believed, friends and relatives said, that he could help rebuild that war-shattered country one radio tower at a time.

It was a vision that almost immediately aroused suspicions. In January, the Iraqi police, thinking Mr. Berg might be an Iranian spy, briefly detained him while he was touring towers near the south-central city of Diwaniya.

"Isn't this starting to read like a mystery novel," he wrote to his friends and family following his Diwaniya adventure.

Two months later, Mr. Berg would not be so lucky. Late on the evening of March 24, the Iraqi police in Mosul, apparently thinking Mr. Berg a spy, a smuggler or a terrorist, detained him while he was traveling to visit two business contacts.

This time, he remained in an Iraqi jail for 13 days while the Federal Bureau of Investigation checked and rechecked his story. When he was released on April 6 -- one day after his family filed suit demanding his release -- Iraq was being swept by insurgent violence singling out foreign contractors.

On April 10, the day Mr. Berg planned to return home, he disappeared. On May 8, American troops found his body near a highway overpass in Baghdad. The Central Intelligence Agency has said Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to Al Qaeda, is probably the man seen beheading Mr. Berg in a ghastly videotape.

Mr. Berg's detention in Mosul has raised sharp questions about whether American officials did enough to get him released as quickly as they could have. Mr. Berg's family contends he had planned to leave Iraq on March 30, which might have enabled him to avoid the anti-Western kidnappings and killings of April.

"Were it not for Nick's detention, I would have had him in my arms again," Mr. Berg's father, Michael, wrote in a letter in support of a demonstration by an antiwar group last week. In the letter, Mr. Berg blamed the Bush administration more than terrorists for his son's death.

But the many unexplained details of Mr. Berg's final days, combined with the uncommon details of his unconventional life, have also prompted furious speculation on the Internet and talk radio about Mr. Berg himself. Some have argued that he was a spy for Israel or the C.I.A., or that the video of his murder was staged by pro-American forces to arouse anger toward Iraqi insurgents. Some have asserted that he had ties to the very Qaeda militants who are believed to be responsible for his death.

<b>He was, after all, traveling alone, without a translator or a bodyguard, in a lawless land whose language he barely understood. He carried books about Iran and kept a detailed inventory of Iraqi communications towers. He was shown in the beheading video wearing orange clothing, which, to some, looked like the jumpsuits worn by prisoners held by the American military.

Adding to the mystery, both the Iraqi police and the American military deny responsibility for Mr. Berg's detention. The Iraqi police contend they promptly turned Mr. Berg over to the American military, an assertion Mr. Berg later confirmed in e-mail home. But American officials assert he remained in the custody of Iraqi police for the entire 13 days.

American law enforcement and intelligence officials have strenuously rejected the conspiracy theories. Mr. Berg was detained because his activities seemed suspicious, and once those suspicions were dispelled, he was released, they said. They are convinced, they said, that Mr. Berg was just a freelancing businessman with a high tolerance for risk, whose naivete and idealism blinded him to Iraq's treacherous corners.

"He was in the wrong place at the wrong time," an F.B.I. official said.

To Mr. Berg's friends and family, there was nothing odd or mysterious about his wanderings in Iraq. He was just being Nick: a bright, fearless, iconoclastic man who saw himself as a modern-day Prometheus, bringing progress to a downtrodden nation. And like Prometheus, his friends say, he was punished for his good deeds.

"I'm sure that throughout the entire ordeal, he felt no fear," a close friend, Luke Lorenz, said of Mr. Berg's final hours. "I doubt that he thought they would hurt him. He really believed in the goodness of people. That if they took the time, they'd like him."

"When I see him sitting there in the video, it doesn't seem any different than when I'd see him anywhere else," Mr. Lorenz, 28, said. "Taking it all in."....

....He attended Cornell University, distinguishing himself in engineering courses, a faculty adviser said. But his defining semester came in a small Ugandan village, where he spent the spring of 1998 in an exchange program. There he was exposed to poverty he had never imagined, friends said. He turned his inventiveness to good use, fashioning a brick-making machine to help villagers stabilize mud huts. In letters, he described schemes to help the Ugandans market mushrooms and make bricks from indigenous materials.

"He was shaken by his experience," a friend, James Wakefield, 52, said. "He had nothing but a pair of pants, a shirt and boots when he came home. He gave away his clothing."

Friends say Mr. Berg's Africa experience made him impatient with traditional academics. He left Cornell at the end of 1998, despite being on the dean's list and having only one year left, school officials said.

He spent the next two years searching for ways to transform his Africa ideas into a practical plan, studying at Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania before transferring to the University of Oklahoma in Norman in the fall of 1999.....

......In Oklahoma, Mr. Berg's e-mail password was obtained by an associate of Zacarias Moussaoui. Mr. Moussaoui, who is awaiting trial on charges of assisting the Sept. 11 plot, attended flight school in Norman in 2001, but it is not clear that he ever met Mr. Berg.

F.B.I. agents interviewed Mr. Berg in 2002 and came away convinced that he had either shared the password with someone who passed it on to Mr. Moussaoui or that the password had been stolen from him. The F.B.I. cleared Mr. Berg of having links to terrorist groups, officials said.

In Oklahoma, Mr. Berg also began learning about communications towers. As a youth he had loved climbing; he built a three-story treehouse in his backyard and in college was an avid rock climber. In 2000, he quit his studies in Norman and for more than a year wandered across Oklahoma and Texas working as a freelance contractor replacing lights, painting girders and fixing cables hundreds of feet above the ground.

By 2002, he had returned to the Philadelphia area and formed his own tower company, Prometheus Methods Tower Service, using as a motto, "Man is more than fire tamed." Through cold calls and free spot inspections, he had built a client list of 50 companies by 2003.....

......As his business grew, Mr. Berg began plotting ways to resume his work in developing nations. With the help of the American Jewish World Service, he visited Kenya for two weeks in March 2003, working on water projects and pledging to return in the summer of 2004.

But it was Iraq that loomed large in Mr. Berg's imagination. While traveling to Kenya, he wrote e-mail fondly describing some Texans "rushing toward the action" in Baghdad as the American-led invasion was getting under way, even as other Westerners were fleeing with "sweaty hands."

Back in Pennsylvania, Mr. Berg defended the invasion, arguing that it had ousted a brutal dictator. And he argued that Americans had a moral obligation to help rebuild the shattered country. In part, friends said, he saw a business opportunity. In December 2003 he attended a convention in Virginia on rebuilding Iraq. Government officials and private contractors at the convention encouraged businesses to join in the reconstruction.

But his feelings were heavily influenced by his Judaism and his moral beliefs, friends said. Mr. Berg was raised in a secular Jewish household but became increasingly religious after college, studying the Torah and learning to keep kosher. He seemed particularly attracted to the Hebrew concept of tikkun olam -- healing the world through social action.....

.....His views differed sharply from those of many of his friends and his father, a retired high school teacher who actively opposed the war. But though his parents and friends warned him of the dangers of Iraq, they were not surprised when he decided to go.

"Nick was real good at recognizing physical danger; it's part of the job," Scott Hollinger, the foreman for Prometheus Methods, said. "He didn't do too well at recognizing human danger because he never thought anybody was going to hurt him."

In late December, he flew to Israel and crossed by land into Iraq via Jordan. For the next month, Mr. Berg operated in Iraq much the same as he did in the United States: touring the countryside, usually by taxi, inspecting towers and building a database, he told friends.

<b>One trip took him to Abu Ghraib, the neighborhood outside Baghdad that is now famous for its prison complex.</b> Another took him north to Mosul. He also made contact with an Iraqi businessman, Aziz al-Taee, who had lived in Philadelphia for 20 years before returning to Baghdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Mr. Taee, who owned electronic equipment stores in Philadelphia, pleaded guilty in 1994 to selling plastic vials that were used by crack dealers. Mr. Berg told friends that he found Mr. Taee "very competent" and that the two planned to create a company called Babylon Towers.

"The fact alone that he and I are just now sitting in a free and open Internet shop is unbelievable to most Iraqis," Mr. Berg wrote to friends in January.

Mr. Berg went home in February but returned to Iraq in March, expressing confidence about getting work from the Harris Corporation, a company based in Florida that had a $96 million contract to rebuild Iraq's media industry. Jan Bosman, the regional program manager in the north for the Iraqi Media Network, said Mr. Berg went to his office in Mosul in late March looking for work. Mr. Bosman said Mr. Berg seemed casual about the security situation in the country, traveling by taxi and staying in local hotels.

On March 24, while traveling to meet some business contacts, Mr. Berg was stopped at an Iraqi checkpoint near Mosul. "We were afraid for his life," the police chief, Mohammad Barhawi, said in an interview. "And we had suspicions about him. So we turned him over to the coalition forces."

Mr. Barhawi said the Iraqi police took Mr. Berg to its headquarters and handed him over immediately to coalition forces in an operations room inside the same compound, where the American military police have a liaison office.

He asserted that Mr. Berg was in Iraqi hands for "minutes," but American officials contend that Mr. Berg remained in Iraqi police custody the entire time he was detained.

During his detention, Mr. Berg was interviewed three times by F.B.I. agents who asked whether he had ever built a pipe bomb, what he was doing in Iraq, why he had gone to Iran, Mr. Berg told friends and his family later. He had never been to Iran but was carrying a book about Iran and some Farsi language materials, he wrote.

Mr. Berg also told friends that while he was in jail, other prisoners chanted "Isralein," apparently believing he was an Israeli. (He had an Israeli stamp in his passport.) American soldiers ordered the Iraqi guards to put him in a separate cell near political and war criminals from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, Mr. Berg wrote.

By then, Mr. Berg's parents, who had expected their son to return home on March 30, had become frantic. They contacted the State Department and were interviewed by the F.B.I., which corroborated Mr. Berg's statements in Iraq. The F.B.I. then recommended that Mr. Berg be released, F.B.I. officials said.

But when Mr. Berg was not immediately released, his parents filed a lawsuit on April 5, asserting that the American military was violating their son's civil rights. He was released the next day, April 6.

Mr. Berg's family contends that the swift release of Mr. Berg after the filing of the lawsuit proved that the American military had controlled their son's detention all along.

Upon his release, Mr. Berg sent e-mail saying he planned to catch a flight home from Jordan on April 10. He disappeared soon after that.

The next time Mr. Berg was seen publicly was on the grisly video showing his beheading. On the video, a masked man refers to the humiliation of Muslim prisoners at Abu Ghraib, prompting some to speculate that Mr. Berg was dressed in orange to simulate Muslim prisoners held there and at Guantanamo Bay.

Though Mr. Berg's Moussaoui connection has fueled speculation that F.B.I. agents would not allow him to be released out of concern that he had links to terrorists, officials in Washington deny that.

"What was this guy doing there in the first place?" an F.B.I. official said. "It's not as if Iraq suddenly turned hostile."

Such comments anger Mr. Berg's friends, who say he went to Iraq in part because he thought American officials and corporate leaders wanted American entrepreneurs to help rebuild the country.

"They can keep looking for a conspiracy, but they won't find anything at all," said Douglas Strickland, 25, a close friend.....

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-08-19-iraq-weapons_x.htm

Aug 19, 2002

Al-Qaeda may have tested biological weapons in Iraq

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) — Arab terrorists linked to al-Qaeda may have tested biological weapons at a small facility in northern Iraq known to American intelligence, a U.S. official said Monday....

...The Bush administration considered a covert military operation against the facility in Kurdish-controlled Iraq, but President Bush did not approve military action, ABC News' World News Tonight reported Monday.

Citing unidentified intelligence officials, ABC News said that as U.S. surveillance of the weapons facility intensified, Bush administration officials concluded it was too small and crude to be worth risking American lives and the outcry among allies that might follow any U.S. action inside Iraq. ...

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=2350361

Iraq weapons lab linked to al Qaeda, US TV reports - World ...

‎

New Zealand Herald - Aug 20, 2002

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has discussed a possible covert attack ... ABC News and CNN said the chemical weapons program was being run under the ..

http://www.google.com/search?q=Why+not+hit+terrorist+camp%3F&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:unofficial&client=firefox-a#sclient=psy&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aunofficial&tbs=cdr:1%2Ccd_min%3A2002%2Ccd_max%3A2002&tbm=nws&source=hp&q=raid+cancelled+bush&aq=&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=9ae34c4dfc701168

AL QAEDA THUGS ARE IN IRAQ: RUMSFELD

‎

Pay-Per-View - New York Post - Aug 21, 2002

WASHINGTON - On the eve of today's war Cabinet huddle at President Bush's Texas ranch, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said al Qaeda terrorists are operating in "a number of locations in Iraq."

Officials revealed on Monday that Bush scrubbed plans for a covert raid into Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq late last week, aimed at a small group of al Qaeda believed to be experimenting with gas and bio-weapons.

Rumsfeld, at a Pentagon briefing yesterday, acknowledged there's debate over the wisdom of an anti-Iraq strike, saying, "Leaders have to make decisions that may be close calls."

But Bush canceled plans for a joint Pentagon-CIA raid - into an area controlled by the

Kurds and not Saddam - after concluding that the tests were not a serious threat to America and that the lab wasn't very sophisticated, the report said. ...

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1003152,00.html

Monday, Sep. 2, 2002

Iraq & al-Qaeda

Is there a link? The go-to-war camp would love to prove that Saddam Hussein is doing business with Osama bin Laden. They talk up suspicions, but no one's got proof

By ROMESH RATNESAR

.....Other items the hard-liners like to list seem even longer on speculation. They point to a visit bin Laden deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri supposedly made to Saddam in 1992. But Zawahiri was then the head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and had not yet hooked up with al-Qaeda. Nor has the CIA been able to verify a Saddam-Zawahiri meeting, especially at a time when Baghdad was trying to improve relations with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Zawahiri's prime target.

Shahab, the imprisoned mercenary, claimed that in 1999 Iraqi officials paid him to smuggle several dozen liquid-filled refrigerator canisters into Afghanistan for the Taliban. Did they contain chemical agents or bio germs? Shahab does not know, and U.S. intelligence has been unable to confirm the report. Officials question whether the idea makes sense. Documents recovered in Afghanistan show al-Qaeda had its own blueprints for cooking up chemical weapons.

The hard-liners seem to think that by repeating this kind of unsubstantiated speculation, they can force Bush to stick to his vow to take on Saddam--even though, as White House aides insisted last week, he still does not have a plan for doing so. "Some people are, by design, trying to put him into a corner on this," says an official who works on Iraq policy. "They're arguing that if we don't attack, Saddam will win yet again because of the harm that will do to American credibility."

It's only prudent for U.S. intelligence to track any hint that Saddam may try to enlist a terrorist network in his battle against America. But the hawks are doing damage to their own cause by trumpeting unproved allegations of Saddam's links to bin Laden that could undermine more substantial reasons for taking down a dangerous dictator. The al-Qaeda connection looks too tenuous now to justify war with Iraq. If the President is truly concerned about preserving American credibility, he needs to do a more persuasive job explaining why another war against Iraq is worth the effort.

--Reported by Mark Thompson, Karen Tumulty and Douglas Waller/Washington and Andrew Purvis/Suleimaniya

http://replay.web.archive.org/20021009043520/http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021007-8.html

For Immediate Release

Office of the Press Secretary

October 7, 2002

President Bush Outlines Iraqi Threat

Remarks by the President on Iraq

Cincinnati Museum Center - Cincinnati Union Terminal

THE PRESIDENT:

..We know that Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy -- the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year, and who has been associated with planning for chemical and biological attacks. We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases...

http://replay.web.archive.org/20030411134510/http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030205-1.html

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell Addresses the U.N. Security Council

For Immediate Release

February 5, 2003

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell Addresses the U.N. Security Council

..... But what I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al Qaida terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder. Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, an associated in collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaida lieutenants.

Zarqawi, a Palestinian born in Jordan, fought in the Afghan war more than a decade ago. Returning to Afghanistan in 2000, he oversaw a terrorist training camp. One of his specialities and one of the specialties of this camp is poisons. When our coalition ousted the Taliban, the Zarqaqi network helped establish another poison and explosive training center camp. And this camp is located in northeastern Iraq.

Colin Powell slide 39

Slide 39

POWELL: You see a picture of this camp. ....

..... Zarqawi's activities are not confined to this small corner of north east Iraq. He traveled to Baghdad in May 2002 for medical treatment, staying in the capital of Iraq for two months while he recuperated to fight another day.

During this stay, nearly two dozen extremists converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there. These Al Qaida affiliates, based in Baghdad, now coordinate the movement of people, money and supplies into and throughout Iraq for his network, and they've now been operating freely in the capital for more than eight months..

http://replay.web.archive.org/20030410014152/http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030206-17.html

For Immediate Release

Office of the Press Secretary

February 6, 2003

President Bush: "World Can Rise to This Moment"

....One of the greatest dangers we face is that weapons of mass destruction might be passed to terrorists, who would not hesitate to use those weapons. Saddam Hussein has longstanding, direct and continuing ties to terrorist networks. Senior members of Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda have met at least eight times since the early 1990s. Iraq has sent bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with al Qaeda. Iraq has also provided al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training.

We also know that Iraq is harboring a terrorist network, headed by a senior al Qaeda terrorist planner. The network runs a poison and explosive training center in northeast Iraq, and many of its leaders are known to be in Baghdad. The head of this network traveled to Baghdad for medical treatment and stayed for months. Nearly two dozen associates joined him there and have been operating in Baghdad for more than eight months.

The same terrorist network operating out of Iraq is responsible for the murder, the recent murder, of an American citizen, an American diplomat, Laurence Foley. The same network has plotted terrorism against France, Spain, Italy, Germany, the Republic of Georgia, and Russia, and was caught producing poisons in London. The danger Saddam Hussein poses reaches across the world......

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ECwqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=90EEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3951,4365875&dq=why+not+hit+terrorist+camp&hl=en

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The, February, 2003 by GREG MILLER

SHOWDOWN ON IRAQ Why not hit terrorist camp?

Lawmakers question lack of military action

By GREG MILLER Los Angeles Times

Friday, February 7, 2003

Washington -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell spent a significant part of his presentation to the United Nations this week describing a terrorist camp in northern Iraq where al-Qaida affiliates are said to be training to carry out attacks with explosives and poisons.

But neither Powell nor other administration officials answered the question: What is the United States doing about it?

Lawmakers who have attended classified briefings on the camp say that they have been stymied for months in their efforts to get an explanation for why the U.S. has not launched a military strike on the compound near the village of Khurmal. Powell cited its ongoing operation as one of the key reasons for suspecting ties between Baghdad and the al-Qaida terror network.

The lawmakers put new pressure on the Bush administration on Thursday to explain its decision to leave the facility unharmed.

"Why have we not taken it out?" Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) asked Powell during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. "Why have we let it sit there if it's such a dangerous plant producing these toxins?"

Powell declined to answer, saying he could not discuss the matter in open session.

"I can assure you that it is a place that has been very much in our minds. And we have been tracing individuals who have gone in there and come out of there," Powell said.

Absent an explanation from the White House, some officials suggested the administration had refrained from striking the compound in part to preserve a key piece of its case against Iraq.

"This is it, this is their compelling evidence for use of force," said one intelligence official, who asked not to be identified. "If you take it out, you can't use it as justification for war."....

......A White House spokesman said Thursday he had no immediate comment on the matter.

The administration's handling of the issue has emerged as one of the more curious recent elements of the war on terrorism. Failing to intervene appears to be at odds with President Bush's stated policy of pre-empting terrorist threats, and the facility is in an area where the U.S. already has a considerable presence.

U.S. intelligence agents are said to be operating among the Kurdish population nearby, and U.S. and British warplanes already patrol much of northern Iraq as part of their enforcement of a "no- fly" zone. ...

http://replay.web.archive.org/20030412195945/http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030208.html

For Immediate Release

Office of the Press Secretary

February 8, 2003

President's Radio Address

.... One of the greatest dangers we face is that weapons of mass destruction might be passed to terrorists who would not hesitate to use those weapons. Saddam Hussein has longstanding, direct and continuing ties to terrorist networks. Senior members of Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda have met at least eight times since the early 1990s. Iraq has sent bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with al Qaeda. Iraq has also provided al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training. And an al Qaeda operative was sent to Iraq several times in the late 1990s for help in acquiring poisons and gases.

We also know that Iraq is harboring a terrorist network headed by a senior al Qaeda terrorist planner. This network runs a poison and explosive training camp in northeast Iraq, and many of its leaders are known to be in Baghdad..

http://replay.web.archive.org/20040624050555/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5280219/site/newsweek/

The World’s Most Dangerous Terrorist

Who is Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi? And why are so many governments scared to death of him?

By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball

Newsweek

Updated: 6:33 p.m. ET June 23, 2004

...But just last week, in little-noticed remarks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld conceded that Zarqawi’s ties to Al Qaeda may have been much more ambiguous—and that he may have been more a rival than a lieutenant to bin Laden. Zarqawi “may very well not have sworn allegiance to [bin Laden]," Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon briefing. “Maybe he disagrees with him on something, maybe because he wants to be ‘The Man’ himself and maybe for a reason that’s not known to me.” <b>Rumsfeld added that, “someone could legitimately say he’s not Al Qaeda.”

Rumsfeld’s comments essentially confirm the contents of a German police document, first reported by NEWSWEEK last year, that quoted a terrorist defector from Zarqawi’s network in Afghanistan describing the group as operating in “opposition to Al Qaeda.”...........

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/08/19/powell.un/

Former aide: Powell WMD speech 'lowest point in my life'

Tuesday, August 23, 2005; Posted: 10:44 a.m. EDT (14:44 GMT)

(CNN) -- A former top aide to Colin Powell says his involvement in the former secretary of state's presentation to the United Nations on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was "the lowest point" in his life.

"I wish I had not been involved in it," says Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a longtime Powell adviser who served as his chief of staff from 2002 through 2005. <b>"I look back on it, and I still say it was the lowest point in my life."

</b>

Wilkerson is one of several insiders interviewed for the CNN Presents documentary "Dead Wrong -- Inside an Intelligence Meltdown." The program pieced together the events leading up to the mistaken WMD intelligence that was presented to the public. A presidential commission that investigated the pre-war WMD intelligence found much of it to be "dead wrong."

Powell's speech, delivered on February 5, 2003, made the case for the war by presenting U.S. intelligence that purported to prove that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Wilkerson says the information in Powell's presentation initially came from a document he described as "sort of a Chinese menu" that was provided by the White House..

http://articles.boston.com/2003-11-12/news/29196393_1_saddam-hussein-general-hospital-iraqi-troops-iraqi-ambush

Capture and rescue tale embellished, Lynch says

November 12, 2003|Associated Press

...Reports circulated by the US military early in the war said Lynch waged a fierce gunbattle with Iraqi fighters who ambushed her 507th Maintenance Company on March 23 at Nasiriyah.

She has since said her rifle jammed, and she did not get off a shot.

Video shot by the Americans who rescued her nine days later at an Iraqi hospital suggested they encountered resistance in a daring raid. Lynch's new book says hospital staff did not resist, and even offered US troops a key...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article527701.ece

From The Sunday Times

May 29, 2005

RAF bombing raids tried to goad Saddam into war

Michael Smith

THE RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown.

The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive.

The details follow the leak to The Sunday Times of minutes of a key meeting in July 2002 at which Blair and his war cabinet discussed how to make “regime change” in Iraq legal. ....

http://replay.web.archive.org/20060321202308/http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060320-7.html

For Immediate Release

Office of the Press Secretary

March 20, 2006

President Discusses War on Terror and Operation Iraqi Freedom

.....Q Mr. President, at the beginning of your talk today you mentioned that you understand why Americans have had their confidence shaken by the events in Iraq. ....Before we went to war in Iraq we said there were three main reasons for going to war in Iraq: ....All three of those turned out to be false. My question is, how do we restore confidence that Americans may have in their leaders and to be sure that the information they are getting now is correct?

THE PRESIDENT: That's a great question. (Applause.) First, just if I might correct a misperception. I don't think we ever said -- at least I know I didn't say that there was a direct connection between September the 11th and Saddam Hussein. We did say that he was a state sponsor of terror -- by the way, not declared a state sponsor of terror by me, but declared by other administrations. We also did say that Zarqawi, the man who is now wreaking havoc and killing innocent life, was in Iraq. .....but I was very careful never to say that Saddam Hussein ordered the attacks on America.....

http://replay.web.archive.org/20090118063600/http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060329-2.html

For Immediate Release

March 29, 2006

Interview of the Vice President by Tony Snow

The Tony Snow Show

Via Telephone

11:45 A.M. EST

THE VICE PRESIDENT (Cheney):

...So we've never made the case, or argued the case that somehow Osama bin Laden [sic] was directly involved in 9/11. That evidence has never been forthcoming....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/09/AR2006040900890.html

Military Plays Up Role of Zarqawi

Jordanian Painted As Foreign Threat To Iraq's Stability

By Thomas E. Ricks

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, April 10, 2006; Page A01

The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to internal military documents and officers familiar with the program. The effort has raised his profile in a way that some military intelligence officials believe may have overstated his importance and helped the Bush administration tie the war to the organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The documents state that the U.S. campaign aims to turn Iraqis against Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, by playing on their perceived dislike of foreigners. U.S. authorities claim some success with that effort, noting that some tribal Iraqi insurgents have attacked Zarqawi loyalists....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/11/AR2006041101888_pf.html

Lacking Biolabs, Trailers Carried Case for War

Administration Pushed Notion of Banned Iraqi Weapons Despite Evidence to Contrary

By Joby Warrick

Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, April 12, 2006; A01

On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile "biological laboratories." He declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."

The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true......

http://replay.web.archive.org/20041011103034/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6192327/site/newsweek/

Rewriting History

In his debate with John Edwards, Dick Cheney had a brand-new version of the events that led to war

WEB EXCLUSIVE

By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball

Newsweek

Updated: 4:32 p.m. ET Oct. 6, 2004

...Cheney, for example, called the claim of an Atta meeting with an Iraqi official in Prague “pretty well confirmed” in a Dec. 9, 2001,.....Cheney was still referring to it in a Sept. 14, 2003 “Meet the Press” appearance. “....

....The claim that Saddam's agents had instructed Al Qaeda terrorists in making "poisons and gasses" had in fact been a prominent feature of the administration's prewar assertions, highlighted by Powell in his Security Council speech and Cheney repeatedly in his TV appearances and speeches. But the allegation was almost entirely based on the claims of one high-level Al Qaeda detainee—first identified by NEWSWEEK as Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi—who, according to the 9/11 commission, has since recanted his story.Asked if Duelfer's team had found any evidence that Iraq had provided such training for terrorists, the U.S. official familiar with Duelfer's report shook his head and said simply: "No."...

http://replay.web.archive.org/20090110200337/http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/08/20060821.html

For Immediate Release

Office of the Press Secretary

August 21, 2006

Press Conference by the President

White House Conference Center Briefing Room

....Q Quick follow-up. A lot of the consequences you mentioned for pulling out seem like maybe they never would have been there if we hadn't gone in. How do you square all of that?

THE PRESIDENT: I square it because, imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein who had the capacity to make a weapon of mass destruction, who was paying suiciders to kill innocent life, who would -- who had relations with Zarqawi. Imagine what the world would be like with him in power....

http://replay.web.archive.org/20061004233413/http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060910.html

For Immediate Release

Office of the Vice President

September 10, 2006

Interview of the Vice President by Tim Russert, NBC News, Meet the Press

NBC Studios

Washington, D.C.

9:00 A.M. EDT

.....Q Then why in the lead-up to the war was there the constant linkage between Iraq and al Qaeda?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: That's a different issue. Now, there's a question of whether or not al Qaeda -- whether or not Iraq was involved in 9/11; separate and apart from that is the issue of whether or not there was a historic relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. The basis for that is probably best captured in George Tenet's testimony before the Senate intel committee in open session, where he said specifically that there was a pattern, a relationship that went back at least a decade between Iraq and al Qaeda......

.......we know that Zarqawi, running a terrorist camp in Afghanistan prior to 9/11, after we went into 9/11 -- then fled and went to Baghdad and set up operations in Baghdad in the spring of '02......

.........Zarqawi was in Baghdad after we took Afghanistan and before we went into Iraq. You had the facility up at Kermal, a poisons facility run by an Ansar al-Islam, an affiliate of al Qaeda......

http://replay.web.archive.org/20061004032134/http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060912-2.html

Office of the Press Secretary

September 12, 2006

Press Briefing by Tony Snow

...Q Well, one more, Tony, just one more. Do you believe -- does the President still believe that Saddam Hussein was connected to Zarqawi or al Qaeda before the invasion?

MR. SNOW: The President has never said that there was a direct, operational relationship between the two, and this is important. Zarqawi was in Iraq.

Q There was a link --

MR. SNOW: Well, and there was a relationship -- there was a relationship in this sense: Zarqawi was in Iraq; al Qaeda members were in Iraq; they were operating, and in some cases, operating freely from Iraq. .. No. There was no direct operational relationship, but there was a relationship. They were in the country, and I think you understand that the Iraqis knew they were there. That's the relationship.

Q Saddam Hussein knew they were there; that's it for the relationship?

MR. SNOW: That's pretty much it....

http://replay.web.archive.org/20061003234511/http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060915-2.html

For Immediate Release

Office of the Press Secretary

September 15, 2006

Press Conference of the President

...MARTHA: Mr. President,..... you were still saying there was a relationship. Why did you keep saying that? Why do you continue to say that? And do you still believe that?

BUSH: The point I was making to Ken Herman’s question was that Saddam Hussein was a state sponsor of terror, and that Mr. Zarqawi was in Iraq...I never said there was an operational relationship.

http://replay.web.archive.org/20061025044659/http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061019-10.html

For Immediate Release

Office of the Vice President

October 19, 2006

Satellite Interview of the Vice President by WSBT-TV, South Bend, Indiana

2nd Congressional District -

Representative Chris Chocola

...Q Are you saying that you believe fighting in Iraq has prevented terrorist attacks on American soil? And if so, why, since there has not been a direct connection between al Qaeda and Iraq established?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, the fact of the matter is there are connections. Mr. Zarqawi, who was the lead terrorist in Iraq for three years, fled there after we went into Afghanistan. He was there before we ever went into Iraq. ...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17970427/

Saddam’s pre-war ties to al-Qaeda discounted

By R. Jeffrey Smith

Updated: 10:56 a.m. ET April 6, 2007

Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.

The declassified version of the report, by acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, also contains new details about the intelligence community's prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and its judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information. The report had been released in summary form in February.

The report's release came on the same day that Vice President Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, repeated his allegation that al-Qaeda was operating inside Iraq "before we ever launched" the war, under the direction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist killed last June.......

For Immediate Release

Office of the Vice President

April 5, 2007

http://replay.web.archive.org/20070815121246/http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/04/20070405-3.html

Interview of the Vice President by Rush Limbaugh, The Rush Limbaugh Show

Via Telephone

1:07 P.M. EDT

Q It's always a great privilege to have the Vice President, Dick Cheney, with us. Mr. Vice President, welcome once again to our program.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you, Rush. It's good to be back on......

.....Q It may not just be Iraq. Yesterday I read that Ike Skelton, who chairs -- I forget the name of the committee -- in the next defense appropriations bill for fiscal '08 is going to actually remove the phrase "global war on terror," because they don't think it's applicable. They want to refer to conflicts as individual skirmishes. But they're going to try to rid the defense appropriation bill -- and, thus, official government language -- of that term. Does that give you any indication of their motivation or what they think of the current plight in which the country finds itself?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Sure -- well, it's just flawed thinking. I like Ike Skelton; I worked closely with Ike when I was Secretary of Defense. He's Chairman of the Armed Services Committee now. Ike is a good man. He's just dead wrong about this, though. Think about -- just to give you one example, Rush, remember Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist, al Qaeda affiliate; ran a training camp in Afghanistan for al Qaeda, then migrated -- after we went into Afghanistan and shut him down there, he went to Baghdad, took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq; organized the al Qaeda operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene, and then, of course, led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June. He's the guy who arranged the bombing of the Samarra Mosque that precipitated the sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni. This is al Qaeda operating in Iraq. And as I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq. ......

http://replay.web.archive.org/20070711103242/http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/06/20070603.html

For Immediate Release

Office of the Vice President

June 3, 2007

Vice President's Remarks at the Wyoming Boys State Conference

...Q I was wondering -- I'm not trying to start a debate, or anything, but do you still think that the Iraq war can be won? And do you think we need to institute a draft to get the job done?

THE VICE PRESIDENT:

....The worst terrorist we had in Iraq was a guy named Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a Jordanian by birth; served time in a Jordanian prison as a terrorist, was let out on amnesty. ... Then when we launched into Afghanistan after 9/11, he was wounded, and fled to Baghdad for medical treatment, and then set up shop in Iraq. So he operated in Jordan, he operated in Afghanistan, then he moved to Iraq. He was the lead al Qaida terrorist in Iraq until we killed him last June, just about a year ago....

http://replay.web.archive.org/20060612200329/http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/14773342.htm

Jun. 08, 2006 Zarqawi's death not a severe blow to al-Qaida, experts say

...The Bush administration focused attention on Zarqawi, beginning with then-Secretary of State Colin Powell's February 2003 speech to the U.N. Security Council, in an attempt to link the war in Iraq to al-Qaida. Later, the White House blamed the chaos that engulfed Iraq after the U.S. invasion on "foreign terrorists" such as the Jordanian-born Zarqawi.

Several public statements about Zarqawi - that he had a leg amputated in Baghdad and hosted a meeting of terrorist chieftains in Syria - turned out to be inaccurate.

"It's a fair statement to say that Zarqawi's role has been overplayed somewhat," said retired senior CIA official Paul Pillar, former deputy director of the agency's counterterrorist center.

There were two reasons, Pillar said. The Jordanian provided evidence, however flimsy, of an al-Qaida presence in Iraq. And his public denunciations of democracy made him a "poster child" for the White House argument that the war in Iraq was being fought against the enemies of democracy in the Arab world.

In fact, Zarqawi and bin Laden, who came from vastly different backgrounds, disliked each other from their first meeting and sparred over tactics and strategy.

"There was mutual advantage," Pillar said. "But not a command relationship."

Pillar and others said Zarqawi benefited from the al-Qaida brand and set himself up as the self-styled leader of "al-Qaida in the land of the two rivers," an ancient name for Iraq. Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, who are hiding in Afghanistan or Pakistan, received in return a channel to try to influence events in far-off Iraq. ...

http://www.azdailysun.com/news/opinion/columnists/article_f204ae11-a3fd-5316-a48e-c09d92be443e.html

Tillman's mother on general: I told you so

MARY TILLMAN Los Angeles Times (MCT) | Posted: Wednesday, August 11, 2010 5:00 am

..The memo makes it clear there was no intention of telling the truth unless circumstances made it absolutely necessary. Much later, during Brig. Gen. Gary Jones' investigation of Pat's death, McChrystal was asked why we were kept in the dark....

...McChrystal says they didn't want to give us a half-baked finding. Yet that is exactly what they did. Rather than being told there were questions about Pat's death, we were presented with a contrived story, an absolute lie about how he had been killed by enemy fire. What many people don't realize is that Pat's autopsy and field hospital report were very suspicious from the start. The autopsy gives a description of Pat's body that led us to later question if the autopsy was even his, and the field hospital report contains language that suggests he was alive when he was brought back to the field hospital at Forward Operating Base Salerno. Yet soldiers' statements indicated Pat was decapitated by the barrage of bullets, and he was deemed killed in action by the medic on the scene.

These horrifying discrepancies raised dire questions. Even the medical examiner called for a criminal investigation, but the adjutant general prevented it from going forward. By covering up the circumstances of Pat's death, McChrystal and the rest of the chain of command may have, knowingly or unknowingly, covered up a crime.

McChrystal's actions should have been grounds for firing him back then. That is why it was so disturbing to us when President Obama instead promoted McChrystal to the position of top commander in Afghanistan last year....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/27/AR2006082700687.html

By Dan Eggen

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, August 28, 2006

...But another more infamous date -- Sept. 11, 2001 -- is nowhere to be found on the same FBI notice.

The curious omission underscores the Justice Department's decision, so far, to not seek formal criminal charges against bin Laden for approving al-Qaeda's most notorious and successful terrorist attack. The ...

...FBI officials say the wanted poster merely reflects the government's long-standing practice of relying on actual criminal charges in the notices.

"There's no mystery here," said FBI spokesman Rex Tomb. "They could add 9/11 on there, but they have not because they don't need to at this point. . . . There is a logic to it."

David N. Kelley, the former U.S. attorney in New York who oversaw terrorism cases when bin Laden was indicted for the embassy bombings there in 1998, said he is not at all surprised by the lack of a reference to Sept. 11 on the official wanted poster. Kelley said the issue is a matter of legal restrictions and the need to be fair to any defendant.

"It might seem a little strange from the outside, but it makes sense from a legal point of view," said Kelley, now in private practice. "If I were in government, I'd be troubled if I were asked to put up a wanted picture where no formal charges had been filed, no matter who it was." ...

I'd be troubled if I was accepting the non-transparent official, corporate media complicit line, especially since the government's mixed records of assertions has not, as it has not in this case, been reviewed by any impartial magistrate or in any formal presentation of the evidence to even a body of such a low bar of confirmation as a grand jury comprised of random citizens selected to serve on such a panel.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/may/02/ml-bin-laden-sea-burial/

Islamic scholars criticize bin Laden’s sea burial

The Associated Press

Monday, May 2, 2011 | 8:10 a.m....

Edited May 3, 2011 by Tom Scully

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Official: Osama bin Laden is dead

www.msnbc.msn.com

Osama bin Laden is dead and US has body, says person familiar with developments.

For a dissenting view, here's a quote (from "James Henry Fetzer" on facebook, yesterday):

One of the most blatant acts of bullxxxx in our nation's history! A man who could so directly

and baldly lie in announcing the death of a man who died on or about 15 December 2001

could also directly and baldly lie about his birth certificate! They are announcing that Osama

was taken out by Obama. Now the wars can continue, the predator drones can keep killing,

and no one will care about where Barack was born!

Latest report:

Osama bin Laden corpse photo is fake (2 May 2011)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/02/osama-bin-laden-photo-fake?CMP=twt_fd

Related article:

"On the Ethical Conduct of Warfare: Predator Drones" (22 February 2011)

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23324

Earlier article:

Gordon Duff, CIA HINTS, BIN LADEN DEAD SINCE "EARLY 2000's" (June 29, 2010)

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/06/29/gordon-duff-cia-hints-bin-laden-dead-since-early-2000s/

Griffin's book:

David Ray Griffin, OSAMA BIL LADEN: DEAD OR ALIVE? (2009)

http://www.amazon.com/Osama-Bin-Laden-Dead-Alive/dp/1566567831

An interview with someone who would know:

Benazir Bhutto: Bin Laden was Murdered (2007)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnychOXj9Tg

Scholars press release:

28 May 2006 - OSAMA TAPE APPEARS TO BE FAKE, EXPERTS CONCLUDE

http://twilightpines.com//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=67

An interview with a CIA agent after 9/11:

CIA veteran doubts the bin Laden story (2001)

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/744.html

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Osama bin Laden’s Second Death

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24587

Global Research, May 2, 2011

If today were April 1 and not May 2, we could dismiss as an April fool’s joke this morning’s headline that Osama bin Laden was killed in a firefight in Pakistan and quickly buried at sea. As it is, we must take it as more evidence that the US government has unlimited belief in the gullibility of Americans.

Think about it. What are the chances that a person allegedly suffering from kidney disease and requiring dialysis and, in addition, afflicted with diabetes and low blood pressure, survived in mountain hideaways for a decade? If bin Laden was able to acquire dialysis equipment and medical care that his condition required, would not the shipment of dialysis equipment point to his location? Why did it take ten years to find him?

Consider also the claims, repeated by a triumphalist US media celebrating bin Laden’s death, that “bin Laden used his millions to bankroll terrorist training camps in Sudan, the Philippines, and Afghanistan, sending ‘holy warriors’ to foment revolution and fight with fundamentalist Muslim forces across North Africa, in Chechnya, Tajikistan and Bosnia.” That’s a lot of activity for mere millions to bankroll (perhaps the US should have put him in charge of the Pentagon), but the main question is: how was bin Laden able to move his money about? What banking system was helping him? The US government succeeds in seizing the assets of people and of entire countries, Libya being the most recent. Why not bin Laden’s? Was he carrying around with him $100 million dollars in gold coins and sending emissaries to distribute payments to his far-flung operations?

This morning’s headline has the odor of a staged event. The smell reeks from the triumphalist news reports loaded with exaggerations, from celebrants waving flags and chanting “USA USA.” Could something else be going on?

No doubt President Obama is in desperate need of a victory. He committed the fool’s error or restarting the war in Afghanistan, and now after a decade of fighting the US faces stalemate, if not defeat. The wars of the Bush/Obama regimes have bankrupted the US, leaving huge deficits and a declining dollar in their wake. And re-election time is approaching.

The various lies and deceptions, such as “weapons of mass destruction,” of the last several administrations had terrible consequences for the US and the world. But not all deceptions are the same. Remember, the entire reason for invading Afghanistan in the first place was to get bin Laden. Now that President Obama has declared bin Laden to have been shot in the head by US special forces operating in an independent country and buried at sea, there is no reason for continuing the war.

Perhaps the precipitous decline in the US dollar in foreign exchange markets has forced some real budget reductions, which can only come from stopping the open-ended wars. Until the decline of the dollar reached the breaking point, Osama bin Laden, who many experts believe to have been dead for years, was a useful bogyman to use to feed the profits of the US military/security complex.

[Guest]

has unlimited belief in the gullibility of Americans.

Having read your drivel for some time Mr Fetzer I too have developed an almost 'unlimited belief in the gullibility of Americans' or at least in the few choice conspiracist Americans overly represented here just like yourself

Of course the important debating points surrounding the ex-judicial assassination of Bin Laden relate to human rights, the rule of law and the norms and values of liberal democracy. I wouldn't however expect you to have any interest in such matters as they don't sell books.

[Jack White]

I concur with Elias Davidsson:

Barbaric (Written by European author Elias Davidsson):

...by Elias Davidsson on Osama bin Laden's murder

According to mass media, Osama bin Laden was murdered yesterday, on May 1st, 2011. He was murdered with "other family members", whose identity is still unknown. The President of the United States of America took credit for this act of murder. Murder is prohibited in every jurisdiction. It is regarded as a criminal act both under national and international law. President Barack Obama should henceforth be charged for ordering an act of outright murder.

1. Mass media report Americans "celebrating" the murder of Osama bin Laden. CNN reported that a crowd was singing "God Bless America" near Ground Zero and that outside the White House a crowd was "jubilating." Others reportedly sung the national hymn, as if murder was a patriotic act. Celebrating murder is a barbaric practice. Civilized people never condone murder, let alone celebrate it.

2. Osama bin Laden was not charged for any links to 9/11. U.S. leaders did not directly attribute to him the crime of 9/11. In March 2002, President George W. Bush said in a press conference that he was not anymore concerned by the fate or whereabouts Osama bin Laden (OBL). Was he lying, or was bin Laden already dead by that time, as reported in Pakistani media? The FBI admitted in 2006 that it possesses no "hard evidence" to connect OBL to the events of 9/11. This admission was made after a journalist discovered that the FBI fails to mention OBL's nexus to 9/11 on its website. Mass media have deliberately suppressed this lack of evidence, in order to keep the public supporting the war on Afghanistan and the "war on terrorism". President Barack Obama has now demonstrated his mendacity by suggesting that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the mass-murder of 9/11. Those reading the exact wording of his speech - in which he announced the murder of Osama bin Laden - will note that he did not directly link Osama bin Laden for 9/11. He merely suggested this allegation by rhetorical means, the typical conduct of a masterful swindler.

3. Even suspected criminals are entitled to a fair trial. At the very threshold of civilized conduct, persons may be sentenced to death after having been proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt by an impartial court for the most odious crimes. Osama bin Laden was accused of many crimes. But he was not proven guilty of any crime in a court of law. He was not charged for any connection to the mass-murder of 9/11. He was widely suspected to pose as a radical Muslim but actually acting for Western intelligence services in discrediting Islam. Whatever he ever said, or is alleged to have said, was, however, no ground for murder. To hound and murder a fugitive - if that was his condition - would make this murder particularly odious.

4. One of the persons murdered yesterday is alleged to have been Osama bin Laden. But this is not certain. According to CNN, an unnamed U.S. official said that bin Laden "was buried at sea". He explained that this was done in order to abide by "the Islamic tradition." How dare people who commit murder claim to have respect for religious traditions, let alone Islam? Do Muslims throw bodies of dead people into the sea? Another claimed that by throwing the body into the sea, the U.S. tried to prevent his burial ground to become a shrine, as if Osama bin Laden was widely perceived as a hero! The swift disposal of his body suggests, however, that the murderers were concerned that the public would discover that the victim was mutilated or that the body did not belong at all to Osama bin Laden.

5. The silence surrounding the identities of the "other family members" who also were murdered, demonstrates the disregard by the U.S. government for human lives. Even if their deaths was not directly desired, it was taken into account. Their killing would be considered under common law as "reckless murder", for which President Barack Obama must be held to account.

6. Congratulations by world leaders for this act of cowardly murder should raise concern to every member of the human family. When national leaders express their satisfaction over an act of outright murder, they forfeit their claim to remain in power. Decent people around the world should seek the removal from public office of any person who commends murder.

7. The murder of a person alleged to be Osama bin Laden is obviously an effort to revive the monstrous lie that Muslims committed the mass-murder of 9/11, a lie that is being increasingly exposed as the 10th anniversary of the mass-murder is approaching. The US government of Barack Obama has decided to enforce this lie by an act of cowardly murder and by further lies. These efforts will not succeed. This episode of evil will be duly documented and justice will prevail. The killers of Osama bin Laden must be charged, prosecuted and punished in order that such acts will not be repeated.

The above text was written under the impact of the shock that befell the author by learning about the cowardly murder and the barbaric sequels to that murder. Those who doubt some of the claims made above are invited to request sources from the author.

Elias Davidsson

Bonn, Germany

2 May 2011, 11:00 a.m. GMT

[Don Jeffries]

There are many ways to look at this event. For a lot of us, the entire story is ridiculous. The "burial at sea" was the icing on the cake. I have muslims in my family- that is certainly not in their traditions. The Deputy Secretary of State, who served under Kissinger, Vance and Baker, was interviewed back in 2002, and told reporter Alex Jones that Bin Laden had been dead "for months" at that point, and that they would keep him "on ice" until he was needed at a later time.

Even if one accepts the death at face value, there are a few dicey moral dilemmas to contend with. First, as has been pointed out by some critics, is it right to celebrate the death of anyone to this degree? Seems ghoulish, at the very least. If they had presented the body, is there any doubt that many Americans would have relished seeing it carted through the streets as some kind of ghastly booty prize? Second, how would this killing differ from mandated assassination? Bin Laden may not have been a head of state in technical terms, but he was a "leader" by any definition and was targeted for death by our government.

I will not be waving my flag or chanting "USA! USA!" over this, needless to say.

[Duane Daman]

There's none so blind as those that WILL not see."

There's none so blind than those who use psychological projection as a means to insult certain people and don't even realize it.

[Duane Daman]

I concur with Elias Davidsson:

Barbaric (Written by European author Elias Davidsson):

...by Elias Davidsson on Osama bin Laden's murder

According to mass media, Osama bin Laden was murdered yesterday, on May 1st, 2011. He was murdered with "other family members", whose identity is still unknown. The President of the United States of America took credit for this act of murder. Murder is prohibited in every jurisdiction. It is regarded as a criminal act both under national and international law. President Barack Obama should henceforth be charged for ordering an act of outright murder.

1. Mass media report Americans "celebrating" the murder of Osama bin Laden. CNN reported that a crowd was singing "God Bless America" near Ground Zero and that outside the White House a crowd was "jubilating." Others reportedly sung the national hymn, as if murder was a patriotic act. Celebrating murder is a barbaric practice. Civilized people never condone murder, let alone celebrate it.

2. Osama bin Laden was not charged for any links to 9/11. U.S. leaders did not directly attribute to him the crime of 9/11. In March 2002, President George W. Bush said in a press conference that he was not anymore concerned by the fate or whereabouts Osama bin Laden (OBL). Was he lying, or was bin Laden already dead by that time, as reported in Pakistani media? The FBI admitted in 2006 that it possesses no "hard evidence" to connect OBL to the events of 9/11. This admission was made after a journalist discovered that the FBI fails to mention OBL's nexus to 9/11 on its website. Mass media have deliberately suppressed this lack of evidence, in order to keep the public supporting the war on Afghanistan and the "war on terrorism". President Barack Obama has now demonstrated his mendacity by suggesting that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the mass-murder of 9/11. Those reading the exact wording of his speech - in which he announced the murder of Osama bin Laden - will note that he did not directly link Osama bin Laden for 9/11. He merely suggested this allegation by rhetorical means, the typical conduct of a masterful swindler.

3. Even suspected criminals are entitled to a fair trial. At the very threshold of civilized conduct, persons may be sentenced to death after having been proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt by an impartial court for the most odious crimes. Osama bin Laden was accused of many crimes. But he was not proven guilty of any crime in a court of law. He was not charged for any connection to the mass-murder of 9/11. He was widely suspected to pose as a radical Muslim but actually acting for Western intelligence services in discrediting Islam. Whatever he ever said, or is alleged to have said, was, however, no ground for murder. To hound and murder a fugitive - if that was his condition - would make this murder particularly odious.

4. One of the persons murdered yesterday is alleged to have been Osama bin Laden. But this is not certain. According to CNN, an unnamed U.S. official said that bin Laden "was buried at sea". He explained that this was done in order to abide by "the Islamic tradition." How dare people who commit murder claim to have respect for religious traditions, let alone Islam? Do Muslims throw bodies of dead people into the sea? Another claimed that by throwing the body into the sea, the U.S. tried to prevent his burial ground to become a shrine, as if Osama bin Laden was widely perceived as a hero! The swift disposal of his body suggests, however, that the murderers were concerned that the public would discover that the victim was mutilated or that the body did not belong at all to Osama bin Laden.

5. The silence surrounding the identities of the "other family members" who also were murdered, demonstrates the disregard by the U.S. government for human lives. Even if their deaths was not directly desired, it was taken into account. Their killing would be considered under common law as "reckless murder", for which President Barack Obama must be held to account.

6. Congratulations by world leaders for this act of cowardly murder should raise concern to every member of the human family. When national leaders express their satisfaction over an act of outright murder, they forfeit their claim to remain in power. Decent people around the world should seek the removal from public office of any person who commends murder.

7. The murder of a person alleged to be Osama bin Laden is obviously an effort to revive the monstrous lie that Muslims committed the mass-murder of 9/11, a lie that is being increasingly exposed as the 10th anniversary of the mass-murder is approaching. The US government of Barack Obama has decided to enforce this lie by an act of cowardly murder and by further lies. These efforts will not succeed. This episode of evil will be duly documented and justice will prevail. The killers of Osama bin Laden must be charged, prosecuted and punished in order that such acts will not be repeated.

The above text was written under the impact of the shock that befell the author by learning about the cowardly murder and the barbaric sequels to that murder. Those who doubt some of the claims made above are invited to request sources from the author.

Elias Davidsson

Bonn, Germany

2 May 2011, 11:00 a.m. GMT

Very well stated! .. I'm afraid my concuring with Mr. Davidson means I also concur with Jack White, which I guess means Peter McKenna and Steve Knight will now spew even more of their unnecessary vitrol towards those they consider to be part of the "lunatic fringe", ie; "the great unwashed CTers" ...

Edited May 4, 2011 by Duane Daman

[Ron Ecker]

They shuld have tried to bring him back for trial even if it were to be in a military tribunal in Guantanamo.

Don't be silly. Dead men tell no tales.

I also know why they are reluctant to release the photos of Bin Laden's body. Due to rigor mortis, his hands are still raised in surrender.

[Don Jeffries]

Our leaders have become very amateurish in the way they attempt to cover up their misdeeds. What a ridiculous story this is; a crack team of Navy Seals assassinates the unarmed, #1 boogie man in the world, then disposes of his body at sea. Look at the opportunity that was lost; here we had the guy behind 911, and would have easily been able to bring him to trial, so that we could grill him mercilessly about the details of the attacks, thereby ending all this nasty controversy.

Kind of ironic, isn't it, that a man who was awarded the Nobel Peace prize is now being lauded for ordering an assassination. The same lover of "peace" who, if they decide to attack Pakistan too, can bring the record number of countries we are at "war" with to an incredible four at one time. When Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly are singing Obama's praises, it ought to be obvious to even the most brain dead American that our "two" party system is a joke.

What kind of credibility do our leaders have, that anyone would believe them about this? Remember, just the day before Obama was allegedly killed, the mainstream news was breathlessly reporting about Quaddafi's new squad of super rapists, armed with viagra. It was so absurd that they quickly denied the reports, but that kind of unbelievable allegation is now par for the course for them. Look at the photshopped picture of a supposedly dead Bin Laden that was initially released. It was discredited almost instantly. They can't even do a half adequate job of covering their tracks. That's why the ever trusty John McCainiac was quoted today as advising the authorities not to release any photos of the dead Bin Laden.

At this point, our leaders have to realize that trust has to be earned.

[Jack White]

Our leaders have become very amateurish in the way they attempt to cover up their misdeeds. What a ridiculous story this is; a crack team of Navy Seals assassinates the unarmed, #1 boogie man in the world, then disposes of his body at sea. Look at the opportunity that was lost; here we had the guy behind 911, and would have easily been able to bring him to trial, so that we could grill him mercilessly about the details of the attacks, thereby ending all this nasty controversy.

Kind of ironic, isn't it, that a man who was awarded the Nobel Peace prize is now being lauded for ordering an assassination. The same lover of "peace" who, if they decide to attack Pakistan too, can bring the record number of countries we are at "war" with to an incredible four at one time. When Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly are singing Obama's praises, it ought to be obvious to even the most brain dead American that our "two" party system is a joke.

What kind of credibility do our leaders have, that anyone would believe them about this? Remember, just the day before Obama was allegedly killed, the mainstream news was breathlessly reporting about Quaddafi's new squad of super rapists, armed with viagra. It was so absurd that they quickly denied the reports, but that kind of unbelievable allegation is now par for the course for them. Look at the photshopped picture of a supposedly dead Bin Laden that was initially released. It was discredited almost instantly. They can't even do a half adequate job of covering their tracks. That's why the ever trusty John McCainiac was quoted today as advising the authorities not to release any photos of the dead Bin Laden.

At this point, our leaders have to realize that trust has to be earned.

Don Jeffries is one of our few clear thinkers here.

Jack

[Ron Ecker]

Our leaders have become very amateurish in the way they attempt to cover up their misdeeds. What a ridiculous story this is; a crack team of Navy Seals assassinates the unarmed, #1 boogie man in the world, then disposes of his body at sea. Look at the opportunity that was lost; here we had the guy behind 911, and would have easily been able to bring him to trial, so that we could grill him mercilessly about the details of the attacks, thereby ending all this nasty controversy.

You might add the nonsense about the Seals thinking he was going for a weapon. The room, we are told, was full of weapons, yet we're supposed to believe that bin Laden didn't have one in his hands by the time the invaders got to his room, after they had already shot up the lower floor. Well, maybe bin Laden and his wife (if she was the only wife with him in the room) were both deaf. Any record of that? What a surprise when the Seals come bursting in!

Hey, maybe bin Laden was deliberately committing suicide, by going for a weapon when the Seals burst in. Wait, if he wanted to kill himself, wouldn't he do it himself, instead of giving these infidels from hell the pleasure of offing him?

I guess that bin Laden being unarmed, with his choice of weapons at his immediate disposal after a helicopter lands, a couple of guys downstairs are blown away, and a bunch of the interlopers are on their way to his room, is just one of those things that we'll never, ever figure out!