In a tense face-off with Rep. Culberson Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder said the U.S. won't have to worry about how to bring bin Laden to trial because "we will be reading Miranda rights to the corpse of Osama bin Laden." Does that mean they'll skip the "You have the right to remain silent" part? CNN
I hope they get video of that when it happens. Must-see Awkward Tee Vee.
::ominous whisper:: I read Miranda rights to dead people.....
Secret Joint Raid Captures Taliban's Top Commander
The Taliban's top military commanderwas captured several days ago in Karachi, Pakistan, in a secret joint operation by Pakistani and American intelligence forces, according to American government officials.
The commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is an Afghan described by American officials as the most significant Taliban figure to be detained since the American-led war in Afghanistan started more than eight years ago. He ranks second in influence only to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban's founder, and was a close associate of Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Mullah Baradar has been in Pakistani custody for several days, with American and Pakistani intelligence officials both taking part in interrogations, according to the officials.
The FBI and the State Department, which administers the international rewards program called Rewards for Justice, said the enhanced photos were created by forensic artists at the FBI's crime laboratory in Quantico, Virginia.
It's the fashion risk all the terrorists are taking these days. It's so... him.
If only President Obama could be as wise and prescient as BushCo was, he would have won the war in Afghanistan by now. All he needed to do is follow their sage advice. And really, who needs more than 11 months in office to transform the entire Middle East? Plus solve the economic crisis, the health care disasters, and global warming?
What on earth is the Obama administration waiting for?
A report released by the Democratic staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee blamed the Bush administration for failing to capture or kill Osama bin Laden when the al Qaeda leader was cornered in Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountain region in December 2001. The report, released Sunday, said the situation in Afghanistan presented greater problems today because of the failure to nab bin Laden eight years ago.
Bin Laden had written his will, apparently sensing he was trapped, but the lack of sufficient forces to close in for the kill allowed him to escape to tribal areas in Pakistan, according to the report.
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, and General Tommy Franks didn't send in enough forces. Too dangerous, they said. Too many potential casualties, they said. And after the fact, nobody knew where bin Laden was for certain, they said (and by "they", I'm including Dick Cheney).
They sure say a lot, don't they?
"But the review of existing literature, unclassified government records and interviews with central participants underlying this report removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora," the report said
Smoke him out! Isn't that what you spat out, BushCo? Promises, promises...
By releasing the report Sunday, Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, focused attention on the past failure of the Bush administration to take out bin Laden, saying that had created a greater problem today.
The report states:
"On or around December 16, two days after writing his will, bin Laden and an entourage of bodyguards walked unmolested out of Tora Bora and disappeared into Pakistan's unregulated tribal area. Most analysts say he is still there today."
But let's keep in mind that it's all Obama's fault for being such a ditherer. If only BushCo were still in charge, all this would be behind us now.
If the U.S. captures Osama bin Laden, there's no need to interrogate him, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Thursday.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the chairman of that committee, said that arguments raised by Republican senators about whether bin Laden would be afforded Miranda rights if he were captured amount to a "red herring."
"The red herring that my friend [Sen.] Lindsey Graham [R-S.C.] was covering is not realistic," Leahy said during an appearance on "Washington Journal" on C-SPAN.
Former FBI translator and founder of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, Sibel Edmonds.
When I saw that headline, I had to wonder if this is another one of those exaggerated stories that Commenters pounce on me for. But it's Sibel Edmonds, who usually sounds reasonable and very credible. I report, you decide:
In the interview, Sibel says that the US maintained ‘intimate relations’ with Bin Laden, and the Taliban, “all the way until that day of September 11.”
These ‘intimate relations’ included using Bin Laden for ‘operations’ in Central Asia, including Xinjiang, China. These ‘operations’ involved using al Qaeda and the Taliban in the same manner “as we did during the Afghan and Soviet conflict,” that is, fighting ‘enemies’ via proxies.
As Sibel has previously described, and as she reiterates in this latest interview, this process involved using Turkey (with assistance from ‘actors from Pakistan, and Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia’) as a proxy, which in turn used Bin Laden and the Taliban and others as a proxy terrorist army.
The goals of the American ’statesmen’ directing these activities included control of Central Asia’s vast energy supplies and new markets for military products.
The Americans had a problem, though. They needed to keep their fingerprints off these operations to avoid a) popular revolt in Central Asia ( Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan), and b) serious repercussions from China and Russia. They found an ingenious solution: Use their puppet-state Turkey as a proxy, and appeal to both pan-Turkic and pan-Islam sensibilities. [...]
This started more than a decade-long illegal, covert operation in Central Asia by a small group in the US intent on furthering the oil industry and the Military Industrial Complex, using Turkish operatives, Saudi partners and Pakistani allies, furthering this objective in the name of Islam.
[...]
Sibel has famously been dubbed the most gagged woman in America, having the State Secrets Privilege imposed on her twice. Her 3.5 hour testimony to the 9/11 Commission has been entirely suppressed, reduced to a single footnote which refers readers to her classified testimony.
In the interview, she says that the information that was classified in her case specifically identifies that the US was using Bin Laden and the Taliban in Central Asia, including Xinjiang. In the interview, Sibel reiterates that when invoking the gag orders, the US government claims that it is protecting ” ’sensitive diplomatic relations,’ protecting Turkey, protecting Israel, protecting Pakistan, protecting Saudi Arabia…” This is no doubt partially true, but it is also true that they are protecting themselves too, and it is a crime in the US to use classification and secrecy to cover up crimes.
I have information about things that our government has lied to us about… those things can be proven as lies, very easily, based on the information they classified in my case, because we did carry very intimate relationship with these people, and it involves Central Asia, all the way up to September 11.
Summary
The bombshell here is obviously that certain people in the US were using Bin Laden up to September 11, 2001.
It is important to understand why: the US outsourced terror operations to al Qaeda and the Taliban for many years, promoting the Islamization of Central Asia in an attempt to personally profit off military sales as well as oil and gas concessions.
The silence by the US government on these matters is deafening. So, too, is the blowback.
Sadly, this makes sense to me in the most chilling way imaginable.
Yes, even to me, it seems a bit absurd to think that the right wing is on Al-Qaeda's payroll -- although the enemies of our nation are getting their money's worth without paying a cent to the great Republican media noise machine.
Much has been made of Rush Limbaugh repeatedly wishing Obama fails -- and therefore America deteriorates even further, destroyed to the ground. Isn't Osama wishing the same thing?
And then there's Glenn Beck [...]
[I]deological leeches who use demagoguery to profit while preparing a bonfire to burn America to the ground.
That's just a sample. Please follow the link to read the whole thing.
You mean the ObamAdministration isn't going to "smoke him out"? No "bring 'em ons"? No gun-slingin'? Lily-livered libruls:
[U]nlike their predecessors in the Bush White House, who tried their hardest to ignore bin Laden, Obama administration officials took the rare step of engaging the 9/11 mastermind by charging his latest threat is just a desperate attempt to try and upstage the president's trip.
"I don't think it's surprising that Al-Qaeda would want to shift attention away from the president's historic efforts to shift attention away from the president's historic efforts, and continued efforts, to reach out and have an open dialogue with the Muslim world," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters during a press briefing here.
It was a message reinforced by officials throughout the Obama administration: "I think the timing is pretty self-evident and it doesn't take a rocket scientist on this one," declared Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
P.J. Crowley, spokesman at the State Department, got into the act as well by teeing up the president's Thursday speech in Cairo by taunting bin Laden a bit.
"You have, you know, the leader of the free world speaking from one of the great cities in the world," said Crowley. "And you have the — you know, bin Laden speaking from an undisclosed, you know, location. And I think that speaks — that speaks volumes in terms of the contrast."
Crowley added, "So I think there will be a contrast between the, you know, Bin Laden's vision of intolerance and perpetual conflict and the president's message tomorrow offering a vision of peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, and interconnected world, you know, for the 21st century."
In private, top Obama officials are even blunter, claiming bin Laden feels threatened that Obama's outreach — coupled with his vow to shut down the prison at Guantanamo Bay — is pulling the terrorist's top recruiting tools off the table.
Boy Georgie v. Obama: Cowboys and Indians v. chess.
Please note that the Nation of Dick says he is unaware of any impending strike on Bin Laden. He must just have some kind of "gut feeling" about the imminence of a victory over a 6'4" guy with a health problem who's managed to elude him for years.
And perhaps "feeling" is too emotional a reference when it comes to the Nation of Dick:
Outgoing US Vice President Dick Cheney Friday did not give up hope of capturing or killing Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, with only 11 days left before Barack Obama moves into the White House.
"We've got a few days left yet," Cheney told CNN when asked why bin Laden or Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri continue to elude US capture.
The government’s own figures, put out by the National Counterterrorism Center but going back only to 2004, show an increase in 2007:
The urgency of rounding up Osama bin Smoke 'im Out apparently diminished relative to the increase in the number of deaths since his September 11, 2001 attacks.
But hey, there are still 11 days to go. Patience. It simply took BushCo 7 years to get it up, so to speak.
ABC News' Bret Hovell reports:Sen. John McCain is scheduled to be a guest on Late Night with David Letterman on Thursday night, a McCain aide tells ABC News.
The Arizona senator just returned from an overseas trip that took him to Iraq, Afghanistan, India and Bangladesh, among other countries.
Grammps went to all those scary, Al Qaeda-ridden places? Then he must have returned just chock full-o'-helpful info! I can't wait for him to share his Big Important Plan to catch Bin Laden*. Betcha anything that Letterman can get that out of him. He's good that way.
*"I'll get Osama bin Laden, my friends," McCain said. "I'll get him. I know how to get him. I'll get him no matter what and I know how to do it."
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President-elect Barack Obama wants to renew the U.S. commitment to finding al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to his national security advisers.
The Obama team believes the Bush administration has downplayed the importance of catching the FBI's most-wanted terrorist because it has not been able to find him.
"We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority," Obama said during the presidential debate on October 7.
Multiple senior government officials tell ABC News the intelligence community is anticipating a message from Osama bin Laden before or just after the presidential election.
As we race toward Election Day, sources say a number of intelligence analysts have concluded it is critical for al Qaeda's top leader to be seen or heard, if only for public relations purposes. [...]
According to sources, the full weight of the intelligence electronic eavesdropping and human sourcing is right now desperately looking for any hint of a bin Laden statement. So far there is only rumor, no hard evidence a message is coming, officials said.
Another perfectly timed unsubstantiated, meaningless rumor. Boy howdy! Good thing they're circulating it! We wouldn't want the election to be completely unaffected by terrorism this time around.
"With so much at stake, and time running short, [Virginia Republican Party Chairman Jeff] Frederick did not feel he had the luxury of subtlety. He climbed atop a folding chair to give 30 campaign volunteers who were about to go canvassing door to door their talking points — for instance, the connection between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden: "Both have friends that bombed the Pentagon," he said. "That is scary."
Grammps can put on the pretense of tamping down the hate-mongering all he wants, but it's too late. A fuse has been lit. Let's hope there's not an explosion. Here's what happened next:
"And he won't salute the flag," one woman added, repeating another myth about Obama. She was quickly topped by a man who called out, "We don't even know where Senator Obama was really born." Actually, we do; it's Hawaii.
This is why Obama will win Virginia. Voters, for the most part, detest this kind of contemptible, dishonest character assassination (I even hestitate to use that word now). Gramm-pa and IWRC are vile candidates who have lost themselves the election by underestimating America and overestimating what passes for their own so-called judgment.
John McCain being interviewed by Mother Jones magazine in the Nov/Dec 1998 issue (emphasis added) ...
MJ: You not only have had combat experience in Vietnam, but you were also a prisoner of war. When you look at terrorism right now, with people like Osama bin Laden, do you have any reservations about watching strikes like that?
John McCain: You could say, Look, is this guy, Laden, really the bad guy that's depicted? Most of us have never heard of him before. And where there is a parallel with Vietnam is: What's plan B? What do we do next? We sent our troops into Vietnam to protect the bases. Lyndon Johnson said, Only to protect the bases. Next thing you know.... Well, we've declared to the terrorists that we're going to strike them wherever they live. That's fine. But what's next? That's where there might be some comparison.
What foresight, huh? Who's going to ask him about this? Nobody? That's what I thought.
I heard him say this last night, and my jaw dropped. Yet I haven't seen one mention of it anywhere. In fact, the pundits have all been saying how there were no major gaffes. Well, here's one now!
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