There was just the Bhutto verbal slip, that many thought was simply a misattribution, that may have precipitated the violence.
It’s all we have to go on, but there are at least a couple of more kinks in the story, reported by no less than The New York Times and FOX itself in 2002.
People have been starting to notice some funny things. If he’s dead, and the Administration really did know about his death in 2002, that would be an awfully embarrasing fact to come out in an election year. Then there’s the tinfoil question of whether or not the Pak secret police really killed him- and assumed control of Al Qaeda operations.
That being the other statement of Bhutto’s that you can’t write off as a simple misattribution.
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so let's make this a safe space for speculation and
forgotten fact, ok? i don’t disagree with what i think you’re saying, but i want to clarify, and also make more complex, some of the issues you raise.
1. how do we know?
it’s not like any of us, esp me, are so sure of what we “know” about af’stan or pakistan, without command of the native languages in which blog posts or letters or papers are published, such that we could understand what ’the locals’ are saying about the (un)dead state of bin laden. what we get, and discuss and theorize upon, comes second or third or fourth hand, most of the time. and often from “official” us gummint sources or corporate whores.
2. what are we talking about?
in a previous post, i asked, “what, exactly, is ’al-qaida?’” why do you think you know what you know about it/them? from whom are we all getting our data? why do we treat AQ as “an organization?” where is it? based in what country? led by whom? elected how? established and maintained by what agency/authority? funded by whom? how often?
i can’t answer these questions with academic confidence, or even conversationally.
3. why does it matter if OBL is dead or alive?
at this point, it doesn’t, except to families of the recently dead. and it’s not like knowing the answer for sure would actually help them, in a meaningful way. he’s dead, he’s alive, he’s a floor wax and dessert topping…why does any of it matter? it only matters to those who have annointed him enemy #1. to whom and in what war, it’s never been clear to me.
just some thoughts from my increasingly foily outpost in the mountain caves.
Osama was two taste treats in one
Osama alive has market value
He scares the sheeple so
Osama dead becomes bad bread
Made from stale and moldy dough
Be he alive or be he dead
His fate: to be a tool
Keep them in line, not serpentine
A screeching, howling ghoul
If there is no story here
Then stories don’t exist
Was his death commonly known
Is there something we have missed?
Heads will roll, but not that far
Their shapes not perfectly round
Want to go bowling in Pakistan
And watch the pins fall down?
++++
We know nothing
…indeed.
MJS quoth the response better that I.
What, indeed, is Al Qaeda? Other than the terrible violence and attributed to it and the severe oppression we have as a response, why it matters not at all.
I agree with Len. If we could find the facts to pin this one on the Republicans, you might find your fellow Democrats a little less conciliatory in their electoral choices this year, and a lot less accomodating to the lies of the minions of Cheney in the future. It seems there is an abundance of data to suggest Osama carries out Jihad from the spirit world these days and not here on the sunlit Earth at all.
It strikes me as a weak point in the narrative justifying the endless war.
It strikes me as particularly effective if we could show the Pak military intelligence crew in co-ordination with a few Republicans has been running The Base all along.
Don’t ask me how. As I said, I know nothing. Perhaps someone else out there in the netherworld (listening, are you NSA?) might have a patriotic idea or two.
No Hell below us
Above us, only sky
Fox and NYT say Osama is dead
It does matter whether or not Osama is alive or dead. Osama was the Bush admin’s poster boy for world wide terrorism.
There is also a difference between merely misspeaking and being wrong. There is also a difference between merely being wrong and lying.
In Bhutto’s case, there is absolutely no reason to suppose that Bhutto misspoke. She made a statement about Bin Laden in context; she did not search for a name; she did not pause. Statements saying that she misspoke are pure supposition and there are no verifiable facts to support them.
Most who think she misspoke think she had Osama confused with Daniel Perle. Only an idiot would mistake one for the other and Bhutto was no idiot.
Moreover, Bhutto’s claim that Bin Laden is dead may very well be true. Several MSM outlets have reported precisely that, and, inexplicably they have been ignored. The best example is the FOX report of Dec 2001, for example. All but ignored —-even by Fox. The New York Times reported in 2002 that Bin Laden was dead and has apparently re-discovered their story. As of yesterday, it had been republished on the NYT web site.
My own opinion is that Bin Laden had been long dead by the time a ’tape’ surfaced just prior to the 2004 elections. Many believe the tape was faked. If it was faked —who faked it? Certainly, this release was believed by political pollsters and consultants to have ’re-elected’ Bush. Qui bono?
It also raises the question —who faked the tape? Who played the part of Bin Laden? Whose camera was it?
It was all the work of a ’lone videographer, working alone’
Sure!
The ONLY world wide conspiracy that we are supposed to believe in is the one that has been promoted most vociferously by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney et al. What is al Qaeda, if not a conspiracy? Bust let’s be fair: what is the GOP leadership if not an indictable criminal conspiracy?
In the meantime, check Findlaw or the Cornell Law School library. Search for SCOTUS or Federal Court decisions having to do with ’conspiracies’. There may be thousands. An easier search is decisions NOT having to do with conspiracies.
That’s a helluva lot of ink, time, and labor about something that does not exist. Besides—what is al Qaeda if not a conspiracy? The Bush administration, indeed, the GOP clearly believes in the theories that it wants YOU to believe.
Osama Bin Dead Longtime
The conventional wisdom pretty much everywhere in the world except Sheepleville, U.S. is that Osama Bin Dead Longtime.
In fact, here is a copy of his obituary, run in an Egyptian newspaper shortly after 9/11:
http://www.welfarestate.com/binladen/fun…
“Tim Osman,” real name Osama Bin Laden, was on the CIA payroll for decades. He was on death’s doorstep on 9/11, and he knew it. He was a willing patsy.
why "tim?"
that’s one i’ve always wondered. i heard that story a long time ago, of how “tim” toured american security and military installations including quantico, back when he was “an asset” needing a little red carpet treatment. but…”tim?” like a guy that swarthy looks like some extra from a Sherwood Forrest montage. whatever.
you can call me “enheduanna.” it’s better and more appropriate than CD.
What exactly does this poem
What exactly does this poem mean? im not exactly sure but i love the way it sounds.