February 23, 2004

• Oh, he'll be free for quite a few more days if this is true. You could ask Karl Rove when he feels the optimal time is if you want to know exactly how many. Oh, right, silly me. Politicians never misue the millitary or intelligence apparatus in favour of their own agenda.
• 894 days, 9 hours, 29 minutes, 30 seconds
• Osama bin forgotten
• Inside story of the hunt for Bin Laden
• Your turn. ;)
• Osama Bin Laden Found... Inside Each Of Us [Onion link [sorry]]
• Well, my morning paper says both the US and Pakistan have "no such information", and that's as said by the Pakistani Information Minister and, er, Scott McClellan. Curiously, the article on the end of the link (note URL) is an AFP version of the story that doesn't mention McClellan
• I love how Scott McClellan will do anything he can to avoid answering a question.
• I dug the first news reports of this on the sites, headline: "Bin Laden Detected". What, they got some kind of nifty 'Bin Laden Detector'? I imagined a kind of geiger-counter-type box with a bleeper, antenna and a VU meter. Stony-faced military operator says "Yep, he's over here.."
• here's a washpost series on background of the bin laden hunt. (sorry, registration required.) personally, i think bin laden will be "caught" just before the U.S. general election.
• Yeah, but you'd best say that now; because as soon as he IS caught in July (likely right before the fourth), you'll be labelled an ungrateful, unpatriotic, unamerican, partisanpolitic asshole for even INSINUATING that the Bush administration might've left him dangling for the moment of greatest political advantage. They'll treat us as stupidly as we allow them to think we are.
• Who's got who? (NSFW!)
• C.I.A. Closes Unit Focused on Capture of bin Laden
• Does that mean War Is Over?
• I don't think so. It's not Christmas, and there's nothing happy going on that I can see.
• Does that mean I have to wait to kiss that sailor in Times Square?
• Any excuse to dress up and go frolicking, eh TUM? : )
• New Clues in the Hunt for bin Laden?
• [Enclosed, please find, apologies to Baroness Emmuska Orczy] They sheik him here, they sheik him there They hunt bin Laden everywhere; Lurks he in heaven or in hell -- ? Once he shaves his beard, no one can tell.
• Al Qaeda Chiefs Are Seen to Regain Power
• This is all going so well, isn't it?
• Oohhh, freedom hater are we? *cuts kamus' funding, misappropriates it*
• The War On Drugs Helps Terrorists
• *covers up pete's funding misappropriation proving that he is indeed a "freedom" lover*
• Psychics 'hired to find Bin Laden'
• Where Were You That Summer of 2001?
• "Michael Scheuer, the former head of the C.I.A. bin Laden unit, told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann last week that the Taliban and Al Qaeda, having regrouped in Afghanistan and Pakistan, “are going to detonate a nuclear device inside the United States" Well. I wish the media would swarm around comments like that, and either debunk them as inplausible and unsupported, or highlight them as reliable information with multiple relaible sources. But instead we get basically nothing, with plenty of Anna and Britney coverage in place.
• The record so far suggests that this White House has done so twice. The first defeat, of course, began in early December 2001, when we lost Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora. The public would not learn about that failure until April 2002 (when it was uncovered by The Washington Post), but it’s revealing that the administration started its bait-and-switch trick to relocate the enemy in Iraq just as bin Laden slipped away. It was on Dec. 9, 2001, that Dick Cheney first floated the idea on “Meet the Press” that Saddam had something to do with 9/11. It was “pretty well confirmed,” he said (though it was not), that bin Laden’s operative Mohamed Atta had met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague months before Atta flew a hijacked plane into the World Trade Center. In the Scooter Libby trial, Mr. Cheney’s former communications aide, Catherine Martin, said that delivering a message on “Meet the Press” was “a tactic we often used.” No kidding. That mention of the nonexistent Prague meeting was the first of five times that the vice president would imply an Iraq-Qaeda collaboration on that NBC show before the war began in March 2003. This bogus innuendo was an essential tool for selling the war precisely because we had lost bin Laden in Afghanistan. If we could fight Al Qaeda by going to war in Iraq instead, the administration could claim it didn’t matter where bin Laden was. (Mr. Bush pointedly stopped mentioning him altogether in public.) Good point, Ralphie boy. And interesting to think that the press-as-administration-mouthpiece can only be "fixed" by the press. Which is the adminstration's mouthpiece.
• U.S. Aborted Raid on Qaeda Chiefs in Pakistan in ’05
• Al Qaeda widespread in Pakistan: Anti-terrorism officials and experts say a U.S. report incorrectly focuses on the group's strength in border areas.
• Juan Cole: Bush's incompetence gives al-Qaida new lifeThe White House hints at military action as the terror organization regroups in northern Pakistan and the Musharraf government begins to wobble.
• Hundreds of U.S. and Afghan soldiers have embarked on a major operation against militants in the eastern Afghan region of Tora Bora Haven't heard about Tora Bora in awhile. Good times...
• US documents show Pakistan gave Taliban military aid
• Into Thin Air, He's still out there. The hunt for bin Laden.
• Transcript of the most recent Osama bin Laden tape.
• Oops, here.
• I'm waiting for Osama to prove he's still alive by holding Madeleine McCann up in front of the camera while laughing like a maniac and threatening to bite her.
• Bin Laden Expert: He's Winning. Former CIA Analyst Says New Video Shows West Is Losing Fight Against Al Qaeda, Warns Of New Threat
• Latest Bin Laden Video Is a Forgery: All References to Current Events Are Made During Video Freeze Hmm...
• Hmmmm indeed...
• But that would mean that the U.S. government, in not exposing the tape as a fraud, would be complicit in misleading its citizens, to keep them in fear. And that's just ridiculous! I mean, really!
• Your winnings, Capt. Renault! *salutes*
• Researcher: Bin Laden's beard is real, video is not
• *pulls on invisible beard in contemplation* Hmmmm...
• " And there are so many splices that I cannot help but wonder if someone spliced words and phrases together. I also cannot rule out a vocal imitator during the frozen-frame audio. The only way to prove that the audio is really bin Laden is to see him talking in the video," hmmmm indeed.
• I have good information that the video of bin Laden landing on the moon is a hoax. Also, I will sell you my daughter.
• *theremin noises*
• Bin Laden may have just escaped U.S. forces... again. For three days and nights — between Aug. 14 and 16 — U.S. and Afghanistan forces pounded the mountain caves in Tora Bora... What happened this time? Military officials admit there were unidentified "planning and coordination problems" even before it got to execution, “primarily between the operators and the generals who give the go-orders”
• Hey Ralph, can she cook? I might eventually get tired of ramen.
• Musharraf Uses U.S. Cash to Fight India
• Benazir Bhutto said Osama bin Laden was dead
• The fact of whether he is or isn't doesn't much matter, does it? It's the idea of Osama that's alive and well. And all sides are intent on keeping it that way.
• I find it hard to believe that Bhutto would have any greater insight into Bin Laden's status than anyone else in the region.
• Fears rise that key Pakistani city will fall to Islamic militants
• Invading Pakistan Oh boy.
• I don't know what to think about this -- I really don't. If they were serious about going after bin Laden, it's what should have happened years ago. Pakistan itself wasn't much of a partner in that hunt. Going into northern Pakistan made much more sense than going into Iraq, but I guess it's a little late on that one. On the other hand, it's a powderkeg, dragging the world down into more war and misery. Or did they realize that war with Iran wasn't a realistic option, and needed somebody else? And just how is this different than the Russia-Georgia thing?
• And since when has the US respected the sovereignty of foreign nations? Gotta love how this news is effectively non-existant in the media outlets, and the White House is basically mum on said subject. All the more reason to believe that some hot shit is about to go down... imho anyways
• Fuck.
• Anyone up for breakfast?
• Bush aims to catch bin Laden
• US missiles fired from drone aircraft strike a Taliban leader's compound in Pakistan.
• Afghanistan: Civilian Deaths From Airstrikes on the Rise. Airstrikes Cause Public Backlash, Undermine Protection Efforts
• Bush may aim to catch Bin Laden, but Bush hasn't hit anything yet, so it's just one more way for him to piss away money and pretend he's doing something against the war on terrior. Besides, I think Bin Laden's dead. He laughed himself shitless over Bush.
• Woodward: Bin Laden capture could be ‘the September or the October surprise.’
• so it's just one more way for him to piss away money and pretend he's doing something against the war on terrior. Oh he's doing something allright. Those careless strikes with civilian casualties are the best way to create the terrorists of the future...
• Bush Said to Give Orders Allowing Raids in Pakistan
• Pakistan order to kill US invaders
• Pakistani troops fire shots into the air to stop US troops from crossing the border into Pakistan.
• Is the Bush Administration at War with its Own Weapons in Pakistan?
• Tariq Ali: The American War Moves to Pakistan
• Osama Bin Laden: Terrorist and...Wedding Poet?
• Afghan article says US Bin-Ladin hunt phoney