Comments on: OSAMA BIN LADEN AND JOURNALISM 101

By: Sibel Edmonds

Sibel Edmonds — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 04:58:35 +0000

Test2

By: Aine

Aine — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 06:49:38 +0000

While we’re still chasing the phantom Bin Laden, we’re preparing for the next war in South America.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-builds-up-its-bases-in-oilrich-south-america-1825398.html

By: SanderO

SanderO — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:59:41 +0000

My reading of what’s out there is that Obama Bin Laden died at the end of 2001, probably from complications of acute kidney failure.

He’s been kept “alive” as a useful illusive target to justify all the militarism and getting the US more entrenched in AfPak.

This of course means that someone has been manufacturing the “evidence” that he is alive and who might that “someone” be? How does disinformation so well (or so awkwardly) and expects to pass it off as unnoticed fraud?

By: Ishmael

Ishmael — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 03:16:12 +0000

For 50 years, The Evil Soviet Union was the boogeyman du jour, hauled out to justify increased defense spending and military adventurism across the globe by the US. Then, in 1989, the Russians deprived us of an enemy by going home. At the time, there was great talk of a “Peace Dividend” caused by the savings from reduced Defense Dept. budgets. Then, lo and behold, we had a NEW boogeyman. An amorphous, shadowy thing called “Islamic Extremism” with Osama bin Laden as it’s avatar and symbol. Like some modern-day Hassan-I-Sabah, bin Laden became, The Old Man of The Mountain”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashishim

The new narrative proclaimed his aim and goal as the replacement of ALL governments with a world-wide Islamic Caliphate with every non-Muslim as a target. Never mind that the original Assassins targeted the people and centers of power in the Muslim world as a means of survival. In many ways, the propaganda value was even better. The Soviets, for all their so-called fanaticism for the worker’s state, were portrayed as logical, rational people who could be dealt and negotiated with. Bin Laden and his followers are portrayed as Insane Fanatics bent on the destruction of the world. So, in a sense, if bin Laden hadn’t existed, he would have been created. The new enemy was needed to continue the War On the Poor of the World. That’s what’s really going on.

By: mcthorogood

mcthorogood — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 05:39:57 +0000

@Kingfisher

Thanks for the info about Robert Steele. I agree that he would be a great BF guest.

By: Kingfisher

Kingfisher — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 05:07:45 +0000

Robert Steele would make a great BF guest.

By: Kingfisher

Kingfisher — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 05:06:40 +0000

“Does anyone know anything about the “Public Intelligence Blog”?”
Robert Steele’s blog, great website; he’s a former CIA officer and prolific amazon.com reviewer. He was recently in the documentary film “American Drug War – The Last White Hope”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlVCbWlx5y8

By: Metem

Metem — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 04:26:36 +0000

@mcthorogood

I knew about the public intelligence website (https://publicintelligence.net/), which I check regularly, but I’d never been to their blog. So thanks for that. If you don’t already know about them here are some other interesting sites that are similar in some ways.

http://cryptome.org

(the well known)
https://secure.wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks

http://intelligencenews.wordpress.com/

http://nsarchive.wordpress.com/

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/

By: James ONeill

James ONeill — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 04:14:11 +0000

Kristina: You are right to be sceptical. There have been so many fake videos and audiotapes of bin Laden that it is a legitimate question to ask as to who benefits from all of these “messages”.
To my knowledge there has been only one detailed examination of the question of whether or not OBL is alive or dead and that is David Ray Griffin’s recently published book: “Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive”. After a careful review of the available evidence Griffin comes to the conclusion that OBL most likely died on or about 13 December 2001.
Another useful discussion is Angelo Codavilla’s article in The American Conservative entitled Osama bin Elvis in which professor Codavilla concludes that there is more evidence that Elvis is still alive than bin Laden.
All of which raises the very interesting question: who benefits from all these fake videos?

By: mcthorogood

mcthorogood — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 03:57:05 +0000

Does anyone know anything about the “Public Intelligence Blog”?

http://www.phibetaiota.net/

By: Silver7

Silver7 — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 19:11:23 +0000

I think stories like this are a good illustration that there is a big difference between what’s REPORTED and what’s REPEATED. Most people have little or no awareness that Bin Laden repeatedly denied involvement with 9/11 on tapes and videos that have been verified as authentic, while the supposed confession tape wasn’t verified and which there is plenty of evidence to suggest that it is a forgery. That’s what Eric Margolis thinks and I’d take his word over a lot of others. He covered this in his October/09 interview on Antiwar radio along with many other topics. http://antiwar.com/radio/2009/10/30/eric-margolis-23/
(About 25 minutes in)

Another good example is the January/02 story on CBS news where foriegn correspondent Barry Petersen reports that Osama Bin Laden checked in to a hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan on Sept 10/01. You would think that the whereabouts of America’s most wanted criminal on the day of his biggest crime would be big news, and would be repeated over and over again by the media, and yet I’ll bet barely 1 person in 100 has any awareness of this story. ( Here’s the link to the written version on CBS’ site, and to a posting of a copy of the video on Youtube. Sorry, I couldn’t track down the original video on the CBS site )
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/28/eveningnews/main325887.shtml
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OW4A-yd9BI

There’s a school of thought that Benazir Bhutto in her interview with Frost had meant to say Daniel Pearl instead of Osama Bin Laden, and that this would make a lot more sense given the context of the interview. I guess we’ll never know for sure now but its food for thought.

By: Sibel Edmonds

Sibel Edmonds — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:07:12 +0000

@Miguel: That’s a good question, and I know Kristina has been following those ‘videos’ and ‘supposed video references’ very closely. Kristina?

@Elvis: Thanks for the link.

By: Elvis

Elvis — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:29:31 +0000

From the Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/11/AR2009121104037.html

An apparent U.S. missile strike along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan is believed to have killed a top al-Qaeda operations planner this week, U.S. counterterrorism officials said Friday. If confirmed, this would be the second deadly attack against a senior terrorist leader this fall.

Saleh al-Somali was one of two Arab men thought to have been killed when a pair of missiles tore into their car Tuesday near the town of Miran Shah in North Waziristan province, according to U.S. sources and Pakistani officials in the region. Local authorities said the missiles were fired by an unmanned aircraft of the type operated by the CIA inside Pakistan’s lawless tribal belt.

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Regarding bin Laden,

He reported had kidney problems – leading all to believe he had died.

I have listened to most of the audio from him and watched the credible videos.

I believe Usama is alive.

I believe his absence was because of his illness, and he received a kidney transplant.

It’s Osama bin Laden. I’m sure they weren’t going to just let him die.
Not with that kind of Wealth and Power.

For a time I thought He was dead, and al-Zawahiri kept quiet about it because it played to his advantage.

He probably wouldn’t be that hard to ‘see’ from a distance. He travels lightly with only his most devoted and trusted.

It’s cold now so he probably wants to stay warm [in the mountains].

By: T

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:00:54 +0000

The last time the MSM said they knew where Bin Laden was? Brian Ross at ABC said they had confirmed that Bin Laden had sanctuary in Pakistan. Yet, ABC management killed the story.

By: Miguel

Miguel — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:35:57 +0000

Kristina:

Do we know when was the last credible video or audio tape coming from bin Laden, proving he was alive near the time the tape was released? I do remember the 2004 video appeared to be credible, but I don’t remember if there is any tape after that one that had the same level of “authenticity”.