Bin Laden Dead?

still, would loooove to see Limbaugh endorse Obama for reelection

My boss is now claiming he has a link to the video. Am going to offer a generous bet on Rick Astley being on the other side.

virus

haha jason burke (observer reporter and author of a book on al quaeda) just got merked:

@burke_jason Jason Burke
unconfirmed but good source RT @azelin: Breaking! Al Qaeda Releases Bin Laden's Final Video http://youtu.be/cUKkm2MEfpQ

burke_jason Jason Burke
who was having a bit of a joke ... sorry .. is very later where i am ...
3 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply

come on Josh, the intelligence on OBL has been a continuous thing, starting with Clinton. Obama may have given it fresh urgency - i don't know - but saying Bush (or more accurately, the CIA and armed forces during the Bush administration) had "nothing to do with this" is false.

"I know, right? Numbers is WAY better than Catch Bull at Four. I don't get why people think that one is so great."

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/5/2/1304330744836/Osama-Bin-Laden-in-a-cave-008.jpg

Tea for the Tillerman dude

pissing myself at the oSama/oBama pronunciation confusion. small things.

This is going to get buried in typical off-topic watercooler chatter, but I think that there's a bit more of a political powerplay going on than USA govt is letting on:

First off, India intel confirm the Osama reveal was a quid-pro-quo deal to stop drone/special ops activity in Pakistan:
http://expressbuzz.com/topnews/did-isi-sacrifice-osama-in-quid-pro-quo-deal/271012.html

3 weeks ago, top Pakistani military chiefs travel to USA to stop aforementioned activity (rising tensions against a "sovereign nation"):
1) http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2011/04/despite-us-pakistan-tensions-aired-at-cia-hq-cia-drone-strike-will-continue-officials-say.html
2) http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-04-13/us/29413489_1_drone-strikes-ahmed-shuja-pasha-pakistan-share

Another CIA/diplomatic envoy to try to patch things up:
1) http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iXYCLJk-0QdZ1anL_49a85mQz6Mw?docId=d2a920a1a24148faaa57995bdff3916b
2) http://www.dawn.com/2011/04/13/isi-sought-a-more-formalised-arrangement-relationship-on-solid-footing-cia.html

And now here we are, post-Osama assissination:
"US Defense officials thanked military leadership of Pakistan on intelligence sharing and successful operation against Osama."
http://www.onlinenews.com.pk/details.php?id=178566

Think the suggestion that the information that tipped them off came in six months after Obama took office says a lot about the urgency the Bush administration gave over to finding him.

I get how the quest for OBL has been constant, to varying degrees, for years. But catching OBL here, now? It sounds like it goes back to an intercepted phone call. Obv. Clinton and Bush has actionable intelligence at various points, but both failed to adequately capitalize on it.

Who gets the $25million reward, they guy they water-boarded for the info?

good post steve shasta

According to former RAW chief A S Dullat, the killing of Osama would serve a psychological blow to the hardcore elements because of his larger-than-life image. But, adversely, it could also lead to a spurt in terrorist attacks by a more determined lot. “We need to understand that Al-Qaeda has become more of a thought than a merely operational organisation,” says Dullat. That bin Laden was hiding deep in Pakistan gives credence to India’s claims about Pakistan’s complicity, said Dullat. “It is good that Pakistan finally cooperated with the US.”

However, another security expert, Ajay Sahni, differs. In his view, bin Laden’s elimination was a top secret operation done by the US alone and has increased problems for Pakistan, as it is caught in a dilemma whether to concur for providing help to the US in killing the Al-Qaeda leader or feign ignorance of his presence in a garrison town like Abbottabad where he was being “kept in an ISI safehouse”. “It is doomed either way. It cannot claim not knowing Osama’s presence nor can it say that the US operated on its own deep inside its territory without its knowledge. Pakistan establishment now should brace for severe Al-Qaeda retaliation,” he warned.

pretty wild! i think you have to take indian interpretations of events out of pakistan with a grain of salt tho

As predicted, nobody is reading my post.

It appears that there have been numerous meetings over the last 3 weeks between the Pakistan military (who seem to have been providing OBL safe-harbor near to their "West Point") and CIA culminating in a deal with the ISI providing the info and green light to take out OBL in exchange for no more illegal drone/special ops activity. Not quite a conspiracy theory, but yet a very different picture than what the White House is painting.

it's pretty weird how silent steve shasta has been on this issue

lol

sorry unnamed indian intelligence sources saying "we won’t be surprised if the ISI itself threw off the cover on Laden and handed him over to Am­e­ricans"?

http://hosting01.hotchyx.com/adult-image-hosting-21/7419mariah_eyeroll.gif

adult-image-hosting

steve it's very plausible.

the thing it shares w/the best conspiracy theories is that 1) such an arrangement is actually totally within the realm of the thinkable and 2) such an arrangement would be totally out of bounds to reveal. i.e. IF it were true, a cover-up would be guaranteed, therefore we can never know if it's true.

so weird that the CIA and ISI would be meeting a lot!! they like never talk!!!

hm. some shasta 4 thought.

I don't really think it even qualifies as a conspiracy theory, it makes perfect sense and conforms to how those organizations tend to operate

It appears that there have been numerous meetings over the last 3 weeks between the Pakistan military (who seem to have been providing OBL safe-harbor near to their "West Point") and CIA culminating in a deal with the ISI providing the info and green light to take out OBL in exchange for no more illegal drone/special ops activity. Not quite a conspiracy theory, but yet a very different picture than what the White House is painting.

― it's time for the fish in the perculator (Steve Shasta), Tuesday, 3 May 2011 17:46 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

no, your links show there have been meetings about drone attacks. but you'd expect that either way. the india story "confirms" nothing, it just has spies from hostile nations who "believe" things. the pakistan story is sourced from the pakistan military, who are spinning for their lives atm. if someone gets a US source saying something similar i'll believe it. but what would be their reason for hiding pakistan's co-operation, if it existed?

ceasing drone operations in pakistan would basically mean ceasing the entire afghan war

the interpretation of petraeus as CIA cheif has been that he's "mr. drone". maybe that's way off, but a complete drone moratorium seems kind of unlikely.

not that i wouldn't mind 'cutting and running' personally!

if you guys really believe that this was a deal btw the isi and the cia over drone strikes, you should check out this poster "captain lorax"

Does anybody believe that 3 apaches and a chinook just waltzed in "undetected" to Pakistan airspace, conduct a 40 minute firefight/extraction during which one gets shot down by a RPG (whoops sorry, the White House claims a "mechanical"), and leave unchecked, all within 1000 yards of Pakistan's largest military academy?

wake up, sheeple!

what would be their reason for hiding pakistan's co-operation, if it existed?

presumably pakistan would not want to broadcast their cooperation because they depend on terrorist groups to hassle india (also fear of direct terrorist retaliation inside pakistan)

uhhh one of shastas links is a pakistani news article broadcasting pakistani intelligence-sharing leading to the osama mission

this geopolitical stuff seems awfully morally compromised!

"For Pakistan's rulers it's a catch-22. Should they announce that they had advance knowledge about the American mission, radical elements within Pakistan will blame them for the death of their leader. Should they claim that they had no information about the mission, they end up looking incompetent."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/03/3206700.htm

max is that the "dawn.com" one? i got a weird interstitial when i clicked on it, got the heebie jeebies and closed the window

the one from onlinenews.com.pk

the cia and isi communicate a lot. it is not weird for them to be meeting all the time! especially not one month after a cia agent was arrested for murdering two pakistani citizens.

and this is all making the assumption that "the isi" is a unified, indivisible institution w/ a single power center

Huh, there was actually a third envoy one week ago today, Petraeus was near Islamabad:

"SAF commander General David Petraeus paid a visit to Islamabad on April 25 and he is said to have held "a short and crisp" discussion with Kayani at Chaklala airbase, an unusual venue for a meeting.

The two generals are even said to have taken a short trip to an undisclosed location in an aircraft.

The same night Petraeus joined a White House meeting chaired by President Barack Obama through teleconferencing.

Observers feel that Obama referred to that meeting in his speech yesterday in which he announced the death of bin Laden."

http://news.outlookindia.com/item.aspx?720841

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqoMgUkefXw
"aquaman's problem now"

yeah i think indian newspapers are definitely the best place to get information about pakistans military

i'd be just as willing to believe that this was done w/o knowledge of the pakistanis as a huge fuck-you, your country sucks, deal with it.

but yeah the logistics of it are waaay beyond my amateur war-nerdery to figure out. a few helicopters? and they dumped him in the ocean? there isn't really an ocean nearby... those things must have good range, who knows.

he was buried in the arabian sea apparently

uh atlantis, WAKE UP

Wait, is the implication that Pakistan used OBL as a bargaining chip to ... stop drone attacks? That doesn't make any sense to me, so I must have read it wrong. What does Pakistan gain from such an agreement? The drone thing is a red herring, because we'll sure as hell keep them up if we need to, especially following a concession from Pakistan/the ISI that they knew where OBL was. Pakistan might emerge from such a hypothetical agreement briefly drone-free, but I can't see how the country would possibly be in a better position vis a vis its relationship with the US.

they'd have to fly over all of pk to get there!

xps

Did they chum the water first?

they flew to bagram air base first.

they'd have to fly over all of pk to get there!

xps

― goole, Tuesday, May 3, 2011 1:10 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

we have a few bases in afghanistan they could have stopped at!

xp lol

Let's just see, eh? Taking Indian security source cum grano salis vs Bush wouldn't authorize blanket drone grounding in P-stan and hence didn't get the prize can be verified if there's a dramatic reduction in drone strikes. We should be able to check up on this in the months ahead.

What does Pakistan gain from such an agreement?

Resumption of full sovereignty/political cover.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxVdU2eVYSg&feature=player_embedded