Election Coverage, News, Politics, Terrorism
He’s baaack: My tinfoil hat has been snap-crackle-and-popping all week over the sudden return of Osama bin Laden. Starting Tuesday, the day after Labor Day, the president launched his campaign of political terror with a series of speeches intended, apparently, to terrify swing voters and security moms into voting for the GOP in the fall elections. The speeches were unremarkable, except for a surprising number of references to the world’s most wanted terrorist. Coincidentally, a new video of bin Laden that was taped in September 2001 also appeared this week.
Where has Osama been? After the attacks in 2001, President Bush said he wanted the terrorist mastermind “dead or alive.” But as months passed and bin Laden eluded capture — and with the distraction of the president’s misadventure in Iraq — poor Osama became a non-person of interest to the White House political team. I think we can assume that bin Laden went from being wanted dead or alive to Osama been-forgotten because the CIA and the Pentagon simply could not find him.
Flash forward to this week: Conversely, they would only begin referring to Osama again if they’ve got him — he’s sitting in a cell in a secret prison in Uzbekistan. (I hope they’re torturing him by forcing him to watch Bush’s speeches end to end.)
Consider this:
- Bush referred to bin Laden no less than 10 times yesterday.
- In his speech Tuesday, the president quoted bin Laden extensively:
But they’ve made clear that the most important front in their struggle against America is Iraq — the nation bin Laden has declared the “capital of the Caliphate.” Hear the words of bin Laden: “I now address… the whole… Islamic nation: Listen and understand… The most… serious issue today for the whole world is this Third World War… [that] is raging in [Iraq].” He calls it “a war of destiny between infidelity and Islam.” He says, “The whole world is watching this war,” and that it will end in “victory and glory or misery and humiliation.” For al Qaeda, Iraq is not a distraction from their war on America — it is the central battlefield where the outcome of this struggle will be decided.
- A new CBS poll finds that “fewer than half of Americans are confident the United States will capture Osama bin Laden, the man believed responsible for the 9/11 attacks.” Imagine how those numbers would change if Bush bagged bin Laden. The shift among conservative independents could flip the mid-terms.
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Yesterday Al Jazeera released a video from 2001 showing bin Laden cavorting with some of the 9/11 highjackers. We’re just a few days shy of the fifth anniversary of the 2001 attacks so the release is a bit suspicious. As usual, Keith Olbermann is in my head:
OLBERMANN: The urge to make political hay out of 9/11 not limited to so-called docudramas, both sides of the so-called war on terror today using the impending anniversary to showcase their own political agendas. This is never-before-seen footage from 2001, purportedly showing Osama bin Laden meeting with some of the 9/11 hijackers. Al Jazeera ran the video, which includes al Qaeda fighters demonstrating their skills for the camera.
The network would not say where it got the footage, did say it was packaged by the al Qaeda production unit. U.S. officials say we might expect a series of such tapes to be released over the next few days, possibly culminating in a message from bin Laden himself just before the anniversary.
Later, Olberman had this exchange with Craig Crawford:
OLBERMANN: But, of course, the administration could not possibly have those tapes in a big stack somewhere. We�re not going to suggest that.
CRAWFORD: And they couldn�t be coordinating their strategy, or they�d know where he is (INAUDIBLE), I would hope.
OLBERMANN: No, no, no, no, because George Orwell already wrote that book.
Craig Crawford of MSNBC and �Congressional Quarterly.� We�ll get out before we get into more trouble.
So call me crazy.
Topics: Election Coverage, News, Politics, Terrorism
It’s Osama Bin Laden Smith the guy who cleans the office. Oops our mistake.
My first thought on reading that Pakistan has arranged safe harbor for Taliban (and assuming OBL) in Pakistan was ’so that’s the Oct. surprise. Trust Musharoff?’ I bet he will find a way to turn over OBL and perhaps kill himself rather than let Pakistanis kill him. I am more disgusted every day and I expect the worst from now until Nov ‘06 and Nov ‘08.
You’re not crazy. This is what they’re all about…deception, illusion, confusion…it’s trademark Bush/Rove tactics.
And who’s to say that if/when they eventually do march out bin Laden it really IS him? Sounds crazy doesn’t it? There already are questionable bin Laden photos out there.
They create fear to manipulate the masses because they are so deathly afraid of the truth. The truth exposes them for what they are and all the nasty things they’re doing.
Personally, I don’t believe they ever intend to get bin Laden because of Bush’s chummy-scummy relationship with the Saudi Royals.
Look into his genealogy meet his family. Prescott Bush was Hitler’s good bud. Prescott’s “hard earned” dollars helped fund the nazis. And “Bandar Bush”…oh wait. Bandar’s not a blood relative. That’s just Bush’s pet name for him. Read all about them.
If Rove,Chaney and Dimwit were in couhoots with Ben they could have known where he was all along.See they are able to trot out new tapes at every election cycle. Smell the rotting fish?I would not trust these crooks with guts to a hog.
Of course they have him but not in a jail, he’s living large at the taxpayer expense somewhere. Why do you think that whenever Bushie Inc. gets in deep do-do a mysterious Osama B-L tape shows up. Of course for the election he may have to visit wardrobe to get a nice orange prison jumpsuit but rest assured that wardrobe will have it back before they close for that day. These whack jobs are aren’t American in any way shape or form and should be arrested and tried for crimes against humanity. Then they can have their day with the hang man; and Rush limpdog cryed like the baby he is.
Ugandan dictator Idi Amin was living large in exile in Saudi Arabia and what did the US do about it? Nothing!
They didn’t want to do anything to Idi Amin because the Saudi royals did not relish becoming hors d’ouevres for that monster.
Besides, the Sausia are quite adept at eating their own. Look at the deaths after 9/11.
If he gets caught that’s a major positive for all of us regardless of political party.
If the Bush administration captures him or has him already and will trot him out before the election, the response is simple.
IT TOOK YOU FIVE YEARS. HAD DEMOCRATS BEEN IN CHARGE IT WOULDN’T HAVE TAKEN MORE THAN FIVE WEEKS
Right on the money, they either have him or they are planning another attack of thier own. These nuts can not lose and risk thier dirty secrets being released to the world. God help us all.
The Pentagon recently released a revised strategy for the branded ‘war on terror.’ It didn’t include Al-Qaeda.
Iran is now the new exporter of terror.
The recent clips of ObL cavorting with 911 thugs further sets the stage for the “capture” of ObL by heroic US forces. As the article notes, Bush is suddenly mentioning mr. O bin Forgotten.
If Al-Qaeda (Osama) is disarmed, then where’s the justification for the police state measures, Homeland Security, and further defense spending?
Osama’s capture must coincide with an Iranian war, started, perhaps, after the US military kills some Iranians who tried to infiltrate Iraq. They might even be dressed in US military uniforms.
Something like that.
They no more think they have to produce Osama than George thought he’d have to actually fire Rove for Plamegate.
They’ve never been held responsible, they don’t actually believe they have to do anything other than keep lying and spinning.
Well, we’re all waiting for the “October Surprise”. You might have nailed it.
I doubt these egomaniacs could hold back from pounding their chests, if they had caught UBL. They are also too incompetent. The Democrats should be questioning the neocons committment to winning the war on terror every single day. The GOP is all talk and no action. Send ‘em all home in November…
If he has been caputered I HOPE PEOPLE WONT GO ALL OUT THINKING THEY DID IT THEY KEPT US SAFE. let them stop and peice things together . Why would it take an election ? .before he was to show up.
But if they bring out Bin Laden, will it not become more difficult to sell us on more war? The boogie man under your bed when the lights are off frightens us more than when you turn on the lights and see nothing there.
The Bush crew will probably trot out someone who looks like bin Laden, but it won’t actually be him.
It reminds me of the movie, Capricorn One, whose premise posited that the moon landing was faked. I’m not saying that was true. It was, after all, just a movie. But Karl Rove is sneaky enough to use the basic idea of faking something like the capture of bin Laden.
I just hope the American people are intelligent enough to recognize that they’re being hoodwinked.
One Bushbot guy I know said he knew for a fact bin Laden was dead–he heard it from the photographer who snapped the shot of dirty old Saddam being hauled out of the spider hole.
The source quality aside, I asked why the Bush Administration was still acting as if bin Laden were alive, i.e., why are they fabricating and lying about someone who’s dead?
He never answered that.
Shock and Awe is what they used on 9/11…These guys like to play with thermate…Look for them to bring down something with a lot of people on it thats made of steel….Like the Golden Gate Bridge……
After the cold war ended, the Military Industrial complex needed a new enemy. This time they won’t settle for merely assinating a President, create a conflict, only to slink back out of sight for a couple of decades…This time they are here to stay!!! What we are seeing is a full frontal Assault on the Constitution…They are correct about one thing, and perhaps this explains the smirk, The People who did this really do hate us for our Freedoms!!!
I find it very plausible that they would trot out an OBL look-alike to prove that the secret terror prisons were necessary. They would just create a new and improved number one guy to be the boogey man.
[...] mpaign to terrorize voters. What is Rove’s October surprise? As early as Sept. 8, we suggested that the administration could have captured [...]