What would happen if they simply kept the compound under tight surveillance?

If a real threat developed they could deliver destruction within minutes.

Skip_In_Boulder (1000+ posts)   Wed May-04-11 04:04 PM
Original message
Al Qaeda Member Turns Himself In

Edited on Wed May-04-11 04:04 PM by Skip_In_Boulder
Let's see how the baggers spin this assuming it's true.

1:06 PM, MAY 4, 2011 • BY JOHN MCCORMACK

Saudi Arabia says an al-Qaida member on the kingdom’s most wanted list called from abroad and turned himself in.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1038860

I'm not saying this isn't a good thing, but not a very significant domino yet.

Obama will leave his second term in office with the United States at peace (ie, no wars, though peacekeeping missions may be on the table).

Sounds like he might be thinking along the same lines as many of us.

Unortunately doesn't fit your script, so you'll change the question.

fuck me dead.

HA hHHAHhahahah Hahah ahah ah ahH AHAHAHAhaahahaha

fail

He's either of afraid of the gathered Intel or SEAL Team Six.

Magic magnifying mind notwithstanding.

http://www.cfr.org/iraq/morphing-al-qaeda/p16980

Information is wonderful.

My thoughts, for what they are worth

the goal of undermining the terror network. He did that by killing the network's number one guy! LOL
I swear if you wrote this kind of stuff in a novel, nobody would buy it. Unfortunately, it's free all day long through the airways and tv. You almost have to take pains to avoid it.

Is there something you want to say?

Hard to define where "real threat" starts with a guy who can affect so much just by talking into a tape recorder, though. :shrug:

fro god old-fashioned fear mongering?

You too, I'd bet.

Which raises another question. It seems bin Laden's biggest threat is the communication he sent from inside that compound, not his presence inside it. Strikes me that, PR aside, a valuable source of information was destroyed.

I'd agree, my instinct would be a few months of listening would bring good results. But apparently someone felt there were other factors, and in they went. And who knows what the Navy picked up while they were on the ground. The real "prize"might've not been OBL at all. :shrug:

Time will tell.

another permanent base there. Terrorist attacks have been accomplished while he was there so he managed to strike form there.So we would keep him alive on house arrest? He does not deserve the money it would take to keep him.

Plain and simple. Set up a front? You've been watching too many spy movies, where the good guys always win and the bad guy has to stop and reload his gun while the good guy's gun has an endless supply of ammo.

Let's say you "set up a front". Four people leave the compound at the same time. One goes to Abottabad, one to Islamabad, one to Baghdad, and one to New York City. They all are seen placing a piece of tape on a telephone pole. The one in New York City then goes to Scores, the strip-club, and writes something on a dollar bill before giving it to an olive-skinned stripper as a tip.

Contact with any of the four and the jig is up. Pull a piece of tape off a telephone pole, and the jig is up. Send an agent to talk to the stripper and the jig is up. All in the amount of time it takes to place a cell phone call. So you maintain the ruse...

Next day, thousands are killed in the NYC subway with poison gas. On the streets above, one homicide bomber blows himself up in Times Square while another waits blocks away. First responders get to the scene of the bombing at the same time as bomber number two. 2 blows herself up and kills hundreds more, including the responders. Simultaneously, a van pulls into the emergency lane on the 405 Freeway underneath the flight path to LAX. Two men jump out with stinger missiles and shoot down two incoming widebody jets in less than 15 seconds, then disappear back into traffic.

Since you're posting hypotheticals, here's mine: What good did you do by "setting up a front"? And what's your explanation of how you, as President of the United States, dropped the ball and allowed so many to die? Your name will be forever attached to one of the CT'ers favorite acronyms... LIHOP.

Did al Qaeda dissolve? Is there no one else to use a cell phone?

Four couriers will never leave that compound with rolls of tape or dollar bills to give strippers.

You're being way to simplistic here. "Set up a front"? Who ya gonna call... Jason Bourne?

:toast:

The Seal team that went in did not have permission to be there. Do you think that Pakistan would permit another country to set up surveillance?

Oh! wait! We could use the Pakistani intelligence agency to do that for us. :sarcasm:

is by another stealthy, clandestine organization.

Can you think of any?

Here's a hint.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&sugexp=crnk_lssbd&pq=langley+va+cia+headquarters&xhr=t&q=langley%20va%20cia%20headquarters&cp=0&qe=bGFuZ2xleSB2YSBjaWEgaGVhZHF1YXJ0ZXJz&qesig=tKY6uzHnBnIwDQve1WzWHA&pkc=AFgZ2tmhL6_rGuc3uMIz6RpBlt6wqiG5rgWYhR7kxDB4Mxb0fiwUa8mZOQNLRJ0h8wiRVjQ2rOlGLY-n6N3-Hstai74rGL1Tug&gbv=2&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&wrapid=tljp130456030844040&um=1&biw=1516&bih=686&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=il

I don't think people realize how gullible one must be to believe that the government in Pakistan was a trustworthy ally.

I don't think people are thinking through their alternatives when they critique the mission as it went down. And why are they assuming that these weren't considered and deemed unworkable (as surveillance, like you said, would obviously be).

And if he managed to get out a message to carry out a specific terrorist attack without our knowledge?

Wouldn't that be the equivalent of "Tora Bora"?

Indefinitely? I'm not sure that would be a wise position.

How many times has bin Laden slipped through our fingers?

....that it only takes one administration with a careless attitude toward intelligence gathering to put us back to square one.

Do you think that was risk worth taking?

:shrug:

The sooner he's gone and it's over with, the better.

he and his group have been pretty effectively neutered. What it does do however is deliver a message that if you do this you will be killed, whether it's 3 days or 10 years later.

Bin Laden brought it on himself, I can't understand the weird hand wringing that goes on here.

fucker.

Extended 'tight surveillance' in a country which does not welcome you, which must be top secret? That sounds impossible to achieve and extremely dangerous for those 'simply' doing the work. For all time. Near a military base.
And how do you detect this 'real threat'? You can not even find out what is carried in and out physically, you could not detain Satan if he strolled in daily.
How does your plan actually work?

Between satellites, electronic intercepts, rotating teams of monitors, and the whole gamut of spookdom, I figure they could pull it off. Assuming they wished to.

It is almost like saying 'by magic'. It rolls right over the fact that physical messengers could carry anything in or out and we'd have no idea what it was. It also rolls over the 'rotating teams' getting in, out, remaining secreted and the fact that this puts them at risk of death. So they could watch an operative carry plans for an attack out the front door? That would certainly be possible.

We're not talking about the Fortress of Solitude here.

People who we can not detain. If detected by them, we are dead and the mission as well. The subject exits in a Land Rover and drives like a resident to an airstrip to a waiting plane. And our guy is ready to follow? And if they send 3 couriers?
All of this in a neighborhood filled with Pakistani military, who are not to know of this mission. It is you who said this would be simple to do. It sounds flat out impossible to me. And pointless.

The only thing that could have been done was to fly two helicopters hundreds of miles inland, land inside a walled compound, and shoot people in the head.

Then depart with a human body.

What if Bin Laden had ordered another successful attack by some means we were unable to detect or compromise, all the while we had determined his location but chose to simply sit back and employ "surveillance"?

Would you like to be the individual who has to explain that to the victim's families? Not to mention the absolute political shit storm that would ensue.

Oasis

Without our knowledge.

Is more than likely just trying to keep his murderous ass alive. Hopefully he catches a bullet in the eye soon as well.

So, you're ok with the possibility Bin Laden may have ordered an attack while we had him under surveillance, and that wouldn't have deterred you from action?

Oasis

And, again, what if an attack would have taken place while we had him under surveillance (and it seems you're assuming no surveillance took place before the operation---which is pretty illogical imo)

How would you go about explaining the lack of action? (which many would quite cogently argue rises to the level of Executive malfeasance)

Oasis

It's either a war on terror or a war on bin Laden. Are you saying that terroristic capability has died with him?

that explanation would fly if there indeed was an attack while we had him under surveillance? "Well, sure it was Al Queda, and yeah he's their indisputable leader, but some other individual could have been responsible too"

You're seemingly disregarding the fact we reportedly acquired an immense amount of valuable information that has the potential to greatly assist us in the overall war on terror.

Oasis

there are many good questions that aren't ever entertained, let alone answered these days.

a damn shame, too.

:hi:

And as a bonus, any visitors to the house would have been observed, identified and logged. Then passed on to analysts.

Who would have traced the connections back to the extremist organizations in the field. Then THAT info would be cross-referenced to suspicious weapons movements across the region.

Then..... Al Qaeda would have been destroyed utterly.

But then again, it really wasn't possible for US operatives to keep watch over a house so close to the military academy - and under the noses of the ISI, who KNEW DAMNED WELL that OBL was there.

bin Laden was Al Qua eda, Al Qa eda was bin Laden. Hey, do you know how many wives this freak had? His was a spoiled Saudi rich kid with nothing better to do. And Bush loved them Saudi rich kids. I have no fucking sympathy for him whatsoever. Sorry. He was fucked up. Got that? okay. Let's move on.

womanizer. women are second class citizens, property of the men. understand now?

:wow:

how bout you?

you've already murdered, that's the last straw!"

Why? Who do you think would go along with that? It would be nothing but a slow-motion fiasco, and another chess piece on an overcrowded board.