Are the Bin Ladin tapes real? Who cares?

Look folks this argument, on the face of it, is just silly.

I know I have said this in many threads, but unless you are trained in technical analysis, just from watching this you can't tell.

Now here are several points about Usssama Bin Forgotten

1.- He is NOT a creation of this administration. Truth be told, he was trained and financed by the CIA during the Jihad in Afghanistan. He is as real, as real can be... and he goes back, in his relationship to our government to the 1980s. More properly speaking he is what experts call blow back.

2.- Is Al Qa ida Dangerous? Yes, in their own particular way. They have several objectives and Junior has actually agreed to some of them... like vacating American Bases in the land of the two mosques, otherwise known as Saudi Arabia.

3.- What he behind 9.11? Perhaps... but I trend into the school that they let it happen... and yes the tactics used by Bin Ladin are the tactics we taught him. In other words, his people know our playbook.

4.- Could, or should we have caught him? Absolutely, the longer he is on the loose the longer he becomes a symbol. (And it does not matter whether the tape has the real deal or a CIA made fake ok... his presence and legend is enhanced by that tape)

5.- Bin Ladin and his cohorts can be traced ideologically to the Arab Brotherhood and Katib, who saw the west as dangerous for Islam, in fact a corrupting influence, and indeed they see the rise of a new caliphate. You can learn quite a bit about this by googling or readying books. But Katib was quite the opponent to Nasser... which might be ancient history to many of you. Al Zaharawi, Bin Ladin's deputy, was a Lt of Katib... and what I've heard of that tape follows THAT MO...

6.- You are actually doing some damage by going... this tape is fake, or worst, bin ladin doesn't exist

That is all.

Oh and for references

A good introduction into the Age of Sacred Terror is a book by that name. As to Katib and the Arab Brotherhood, google it.

Oh and what did Tsun Tze write? Oh yeah, know thy enemy, know thyself.

In this case, if you understand your enemy (and make no mistake about it, he'd love to kill you), you will understand why we are not liked abroad... in particular the Middle East.

just getting tired of this... and the damage it is doing to the credibity of the left

Look KO, Randhi Rhodes and others (Including me) have also pointed the two relevant questions here

1.- Why is the press still getting these tapes?

2.- Didn't Bush promise to capture him dead or alive?

The third brought by RR was...

Why are they politicing this?

That's all you need to deflate this as propaganda

Now go on and continue to question the tape, or even if Usama bin Forgoten was ever alive?

So, again, sorry for asking the question that evidently drove you to start this thread.

I could teach you how to score a symphonic work, but I wouldn't feel "silly" for doing so, because it's not given for everybody to understand everything.

but in another era, oh like seven years ago... you would not be asking why Intelligence Material goes first to the WH

Sorry

Now truth be told the question is not why it goes to the WH, but why are they using it to politice everything?

Of course it does.

But the question was how bin Laden GETS it there. If as he claimed he wants to speak to Americans first, why would he not send it to a news bureau? Could the news bureau broadcast it legally without the WH "analyzing" it first? It's just the mechanism that fascinates me.

And as even Republican colleagues said to me yesterday at work, why are we even broadcasting his propaganda? (My answer was because it supposedly serves the GOP because of its content.)

How he gets it to a news bureau

In the begining he tried the US Press, straight, direct. the first tape was released to a contact of ABC news in Pakistan.

They wrangled about it, back and forth, and using the law the bushies got them to agree NOT to air it, until they had a chance to examine it

These days, his courier service releases it to a news bureau. It is in Bahrain and it is Al Jazera.

From there... our SIGINT people get it, and basically until they are done, it does not go to the US Media

With some of these tapes, other foreign media has picked them up from Al Jazeera and run them

There is no love lost between DC and Al Jazeera, incidentally

I learned something today :toast:

but a collection of threads that are making me go batty about this....

It is not the conspioracy stuff that drives me nuts. After all, the last seven years drive all of us to go... where is my tinfoil? But as much as we all enjoy them... we need to be careful how far we go

Regarding the most recent tape released, from what I've read, it appears there were two companies responsible for finding the advertisement banner on an extremist website, SITE and IntelCenter. Apparently, they both contract with various agencies in the US Government, including Homeland Security. In this case, SITE is the one who released the info, including the translation, and has been providing the transcripts. From all I've read, they contact the US Government when they find something like this.

See posts #40-#42 here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1764233&mesg_id=1768956

Edited to add this as an example:

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/05/29/060529fa_fact?currentPage=2

behind on all the latest spins and swirls wrt the new Osama video.

I do recall, however, news reports (on NPR for sure, but I think elsewhere as well) discussing how they first got wind of there being a new OBL video showing up soon (at that time -- the 1 or 2 days prior to the video actually being released -- they were all saying "sometime around the anniversary of 9/11") on the jihadist online network.

My impression at the time was that no one, including our intelligence agencies, had seen the tape yet, therefore all parties were awaiting its arrival on the jihadist websites.

Maybe I have it all wrong -- like I said, I've been out of the heavy news loop for a couple days. Not only that, I have so far only seen a split second of OBL's alleged visage on TV this morning while getting ready for work. My fleeting impression was that the nose looked much broader, the cheekbones much fatter, and the beard grown in a completely different shape than the "classic" Osama look.

I respect the point you're making. And I definitely need to take a look at some of the other threads on this subject, and catch up on my news & blog reading.

I just wanted to point out that I remember very clearly how the news of the impending tape release was being presented. What your post seems to be referencing is something I didn't know about -- are they actually claiming that only way this video was released to the public was through the White House "allowing" it to be released?

If that's the case -- and admittedly, I'm ignorant of the most recent news stories -- it just seems illogical on its face. If it was going to be released on a Jihadist website, it was going to get all over the world within hours or less, no matter WHAT the White House would have preferred. You know, the internet -- that's how it works. How long do you think it would have taken for it to get on UTube?

It just seems to me that if the White House is laying claim to "allowing" the release of the video to the media, it's pretty difficult not to wonder how this could be so unless they are actually the source of the video.

Just sayin'...

sw
(edited for grammatical & punctuation errors, and for a missing sentence-closing phrase)

You nailed it, in a most logical way.
AS usual...
:thumbsup: :hi: :hug: :loveya:

BHN

obvious questions.

In any case -- thank you for the kind words, you are such a dear friend!

sw
:hug:

...is how the M$M never even questions the authenticity of these things. It's like watching a movie.
The real news lead Friday should have been...
Do you believe the politically convenient timing of this? Is it even real? And if it is, WHY is this asshat still alive???

he did not lead with this, in fact it was his third segment

He didn't ask whether it was valid

He asked why are we still getting them, and didn't the President promise to get this guy?

That was the opening for the segment...

As I said, you don't need to question the validity of it, and I would not try.

And on edit, I think it is him... mostly we have not received any convincing evidence, beyond hearsay that is, that he's dead

osama bin has been.

until we can get REAL investigations going about whoever in whatever department is designing the end product{i.e. the tapes} -- we aren't going to know much of anything for sure about why we are still getting these tapes through the admin.

you make all the points i also share -- but what is real -- is that something in the bureaucratic system in Washington is terribly, horribly askew.

not unlike d.c.'s relationships with corporations -- or any number of other entities -- we are out of whack.

thanks for your post.

I think they are produced by Al Qaidan Productions... but that is a gut feeling

And yes, they are as much into significant aniversaries and putting our nose in it, as the Brotherhood was with Nasser

don't lack for talent.

or sophisticated minds.

always the temptation is to sell ''the enemy'' short.

qutr and his brother were smart men -- they laid a good foundation -- and that foundation still serves.

If they REALLY wanted him dead, he would be dead by now.