One of the cherished talking points of the die-hard Bush apologists is that say what you will about Dubya, he’s kept us safe from al Qaeda ever since, well, that one time when he didn’t. And it’s always perplexed me that al Qaeda hasn’t hit us again, considering how truly pathetic our counterterrorism efforts have been since we let bin Laden slip away at Tora Bora. I mean, it’s not like turning Iraq into a violent failed-state hellhole puts a big cramp in his style.
So here’s my theory: Al Qaeda hasn’t hit us again because they don’t need to. Bin Laden’s big-picture goal, as I understand it, is to eject the United States from the Middle East and turn the entire region into some kind of 12th-century fundamentalist Islamic utopia. This is a bit of a tough sell, but it becomes easier if he can superheat the Muslim world’s anger at the United States from simmering to volcanic, until the entire region erupts and kicks us out, like Iran did 28 years ago.
The purpose of 9/11 was not to scare the United States into withdrawing from the Middle East; bin Laden is not that naive. No, the purpose of 9/11 was to provoke us into an ill-considered, violent overreaction that would enrage and radicalize the Muslim community, and Bush obliged beyond bin Laden’s bloodiest dreams.
Not only did Dubya blow up a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, not only did he completely lose sight of al Qaeda as anything other than a useful propaganda boogeyman, but he is still 100% committed to keeping American troops in Iraq to bully, brutalize and kill Muslims forever, provoking the Muslim world every single day that they’re there. So why bother with another attack? Bush is already doing everything he possibly can for al Qaeda, and seems perfectly happy to look the other way as our staunch anti-terrorist ally Pakistan gives terrorists safe haven.
On the other hand, another attack might (repeat, might) force Bush to actually do something about al Qaeda Not-In-Iraq, or pave the way for a president who will. So Osama just releases an occasional taunt-tape to keep the hawks frothing at the mouth, lays low, and harvests the hate until it reaches critical mass. Fortunately for us, fundamentalist reactionaries tend to overestimate their philosophy’s popular appeal…
(My thanks to scarecrow, Siun, Thers, and Ian for their ideas, challenges, and feedback. Anything half-assed or downright idiotic is despite their input and not because of it.)
UPDATE: As I suspected, I was not the first person to suggest this general idea. (h/t Phoenix Woman) Selise has some interesting links as well.
Related posts:
- Karl Rove May Not Care About Muslims’ Opinion of the US, But We Should
- Dick Cheney: I’m Proud I Tortured to Protect Our Country But Not Our Allies
- Early Morning Swim: Special Rachel Takes Down GOP Attacks on Sotomayor Edition
- Obama in Cairo: Aspirations, Admonitions, but No Apologies
- Late Night: But Will This Solve Those High School Lesbian Bathroom Attacks?
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zed-uno
closer ‘n’ closer
There has never been adequate (or any) congressional investigation of
why Zarqawi was left unmolested in northeast Iraq before the war.
Condi?
Impeach Gonzo or kiss the rule of law good-bye.
Excellent post Eli
Osama….political genius combined with Bush, abject moron, gives Osama a victory like this which billions could not buy.
The truth is we are hurting ourselves far more than our opponents, whoever they are, with the ‘conservative’ ‘Wah on Tehhah’.
They’ve fucked it up totally.
allan_in_upstate @ 3
Yeah, I always thought that was suspicious in the extreme. The only logical reason was to preserve him as a post facto justification for the invasion, which only makes sense if they had a pretty good idea that their primary reasons (WMD, 9/11) were total bunk.
In other words, it strengthens the case that they were dishonest and not just misguided.
OBL has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams domestically as well-police state, fear, division, what more could he have wanted? It was exactly the type of reaction I was immediately concerned about and the foolish route that the Bushies promptly chose.
Thanks, TexB! I’m positive that someone must have already suggested this idea and done it better, but I just haven’t been able to find it.
Eli,
Don’t forget as well, that Al-Qaeda has always taken a long view of things. It was 8 years between the two WTC attacks and it’s only been six since the last one. They do take their time.
Is this a fake firefighter convention or a real one…..
MYRTLE BEACH
Giuliani returns to city for convention
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani will be in Myrtle Beach on Friday morning to speak at a firefighters convention, an official from his presidential campaign said Tuesday.
Any truth to the arguements I’ve read that the Bush and Bin Laden families are friends and that Bush never really hit hard to get Ossama?
Eli @ 9
GWB gave Osama everything he wanted, right? Why would Osama need to attack again?
On the other hand, I think perhaps we have managed to piss off some other folks in the meantime.
nonplussed @ 8
You know what really kills me? 9/11 almost backfired disastrously for OBL.
1) It was so appalling that it actually made us *sympathetic* to most of the rest of the world.
2) We didn’t bog down in Afghanistan like the Soviets. We beat the Taliban and had al Qaeda and bin Laden cornered.
If Bush had finished the job at Tora Bora instead of getting distracted by Iraq and imprerialist visions, al Qaeda might actually be defunct right now.
Loo Hoo. @ 12
Absolute truth. Allowed his entire family to leave the US while the rest of us were grounded for 3 days.
You can bet the decider will find the really good hider before the 2008 election.
I’ll bet Rudy is touring with GOP firemen to get pics of himself with firehats in the background to combat the FDNY.
This is, of course, assuming that UBL is still alive. There’s fairly good reason to think he’s long since dead of kidney failure or some other related disease. He makes a convenient boogeyman, though.
How old is Usama?
dakine01 @ 10
This is true. On the other hand, maybe it was more difficult with an administration that was actually paying attention. They did *try* to strike on New Year’s of 2000, right? I don’t think there have even been any credible *attempts* since 9/11.
Dick Cheney, Reichstag, false flag terror, PNAC, new pearl harbor, NORAD stand-down, blah blah blah, the works.
It’s possible that we have some very brave national security insiders to thank for “Al-Quaeda’s” lack of an encore. we may never know…
from http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/
Not to say that AQ doesn’t have their marching orders from those who made up UBL’s inner circle back then, and who know the deal.
I should’ve said “How old would Usama be if he was still alive?
Eli @ 20
At least in the CONUS.
Was OBL behind the pizza delivery guys plot?
:)
Matthews interview with Moore is great and long.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/
bdu @ 22
I don’t think al Qaeda misses a beat with Zawahiri in charge, except in the charisma department.
ccmask @ 23
According to his wikipedia entry, he was born on March 10, 1957, making him just over 50, if he’s still alive.
Kathleen @ 16
But you would lose.
Also, let’s face it — as far as terrorist attacks, they f***ing knocked it out of the ball park, hell, out of the stadium parking lot with 9/11.
Why would they want to follow up the most spectacular, world-changing terrorist attack ever with some smaller, lower budget, less earth-shakingly powerful crap attack?
If I were OBL, I really can’t see anything much less than a nuke which might even motivate me to get off the couch.
it’s so galling that OBL played the U.S. like a fiddle… it took diabolically clever planning, but it was probably beyond his wildest dreams that both towers would actually came down.
then the reaction by bushco was beyond his wildest dreams also.. he almost go caught in tora bora and his plans would have been done, except he had the complete stupidity of bush to act as his safety net, by invading iraq, and so OBL winded up getting EXACTLY what he was dreaming of- a crusader in the middle east acting as the recruiting poster for all jihadis around the world.
if bush was a bed buddy of OBL, he couldn’t have coordinated it any better.
TexB @ 25
I actually do wonder if al Qaeda might have given any of those half-assed losers a nudge – I think they serve the same purpose as the taunt-tapes, to get us stirred up without really expending much in the way of Qaeda resources.
bdu @ 28
He could be poppy’s illegitimate son and that’s why he is so pissed at W.
I’m one of the ones who think that we’ll have another “Al Qaeda” attack at a time and place convenient to our maladministration’s goals. Maybe just in time to have martial law right in front of the ‘08 elections, or an impeachment hearing, or something like that.
OT BUT I have wondered about this for awhile. Is it possible that Dick Cheney had a heart transplant a few years ago? It seems that heart transplants are being done more and more. I know personally three people who have one. If everyday people have had one, why wouldn’t Cheney have one? He looks awfully healthy for a man with such a bad heart. He is so secretive, he could have had it and we would never have known. We have had very few health scares for an old fat man with a diseased heart lately. Just makes his power grabbing seem more scary since he isn’t going to croak any minute. He probably feels invincible. Feels like a new man…Just a thought and not sure what it would mean.
Sorry Eli, I still have one question: What about WTC 7?
…MORE
dachoste @ 31
Funny that, innit?
Wolf B. pointed out that W said AQ or AQ in Iraq 96 times in 29 minutes in his propaganda speech today.
El Cid @ 30
Yeah, this is a thought that has occurred as well. After you’ve destroyed the twin towers, a plain old car bomb seems pretty tame.
On the other hand, taking down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch *would* be pretty fucking impressive…
Alice B @ 35
He did disappear for more that a short time a little after 911.
actually, we do know why AQ hasn’t (yet) attacked the USA (at home) again. we have one of their old strategy documents.
i’ll be back in a minute to bring you-all the links.
Alice B @ 35
Maybe he just had it removed. It’s not like he was using it.
There is no real evidence that OBL was responsible for 9.11. In fact there is no evidence that he is alive today.
Name a credible source who has seen him alive? Anyone.
Islamists are not interested in our freedoms or our land… they want their own land and US out of them. They have stated this.
Our dicking around in the ME is all about oil which is the lifeblood of this economy and something that other economies are in need of… especially the nations of the far east.
We have an odd symbiotic relationship with Israel which has turned to a right wing fundmentalist almost fascist state grabbing the land of its neighbors and oppressing the indigenous people who live there and are not jews. Like the USA, the Israelis are seen as interlopers in the ME and are not wanted.
So we are their big brother and use our relationship as an excuse for a presence and cover to appropriate the oil in Iraq.
All the given reasons for the attack on Iraq were false. So what was the real reason? Qui bono? The military industrial complex made out like bandits… the price of oil has gone up 50% with no end in sight as long as americans sheepishly line up for the black drug. Israel is happy that Irag is no longer threatening them and now they want Iran out of the way and of course Syria. Big Brother is making plans. Iran is loaded with oil and gas.
We have been in wars ever since we were formed as a nation. How about that? And why did we overthrow the democratically elected Haitian government. It was OUR coup?
We meddle.
And so we are hated. But we don’t give a damn because we want what they have.
selise @ 40
Yes, please.
The basic problem with Bush and his friends is they think that everyone who doesn’t lead the Bush lifestyle and have to same skin color is somehow stupid. This, of course, applies to those in the Middle East. The Iraqi’s are not dummies Mr. Bush. Fact of the matter is, George, I would have to say Osama bin laden is much smarter than you. As witnessed by Maryam the other night, the folks in Iraq know the score. And Al Qaeda is not going to give you what you thirst for; a bigger 9-11.
We will never know what, how, or why 9/11 happened until the subject is allowed to be discussed openly without “conspiracy theory” being immediately invoked. Until that nut is truly cracked, everything since then will be a twisted version of reality that serves the neocon cabal. JMHO.
Eli @ 41
please see my theory on the last thread.
LS @ 45
My own personal opinion is that BushCo. was well aware that something was cooking, but pretty much looked the other way because they knew it would be politically beneficial. However, I don’t think they expected it to be anywhere near as catastrophic as what actually happened.
That’s pretty much as far as I’ll venture into Tinfoilia.
it’s as if this president plays on the same team for bin laden
he was told with precies intel there would be an attack, he took vacation and refused to act according to the template laid out by his own agencies
he was told attacking Iraq would increase the fold of terrorists, act as a re recruitment banner and terrorists would grow exponentially…he attacked Iraq
he was told our onterantional influence would deminish…he didn’t care
he was told where bin laden was, he stood down
he was told not to divert from afghanistan the resources neccessary to fight terrorism, he diverted those resources
he was told not to let the standing police and army go without a profession and if he were to let them go to make sure they didn’t take their weapons…he let them go without a job and with their weapons
he was told that if he tortured he would turn “the hearts and minds of the Iraqi’s against us”, he condoned the practice and insisted on it
he was told ot to build permanent bases for the same reasons, he built the largest permanent base in the history of planet earth, bigger then the vadican
he was told not to go in with too few men, too little equiptment, that’s exactly what he did
he was told to protect the ifrastructure, to provide water and free flow of oil, electricity, gas…he did the oposite
he was told to protect their treasure, he watched and laughed as they pillaged and looted
he was told not to surge, he surged
why isn’t the question raised;
does the president work for bin laden?
Oklahoma kiddo @ 44
And neither are the Iranians. The Iranian ex-pats I know are all a fair bit smarter than the average citizen of the US I’ve met, that’s for sure. Of course, that might have something to do with having to be abnormally cunning to get out of that country and into the U.S. these days.
The “we haven’t been attacked” mantra has always puzzled me. Especially during the heated immigration debate with countless “illegals” streaking across our borders at will. That’s what you get I suspect when the msm repeats the wanker talking points for years and years. The good news is that only 25 per cent of the population now believe the shit the republicans spew and there’s no evidence to support a reversal.
hate2haggle @ 50
When you consider only 49% of eligible voters votes, that 25% makes up half the electorate.
Perris, you do know how to cut to the chase.
I understand that most of the 9-11 perps were from Saudia Arabia. Do you think the Bush family has scaled back their friendship and business dealings with the Saudi’s? And Also, my understanding is that 1/2 of all foreign fighters in Iraq are from Saudi Arabia.
LS @ 46
BINGO! Just like US foreign policy/Israel without someone screaming ‘anti-semite’.
Eli @ 48
I think that may be true, but like I just said, unless all the information can be objectively examined, we won’t really know. The problem is, that if the official story is correct, which it very well might be, there is one continuum of logic; but if the official story is incorrect, there is another continuum of logic. We act on what we believe to be true. I hope someday, not matter what it is, something truly objective will reveal what happenened, one way or the other. That is how I look at it. With the manipulation of information that we have experienced since prior to 2000, it is hard to know what “truth” is, and there is ultimately only one truth.
perris @ 48
That is a truly excellent list. I think there is an alternate explanation, though: That Bush is such a petulant little child that he hates know-it-alls who tell him what to do, and by God, he’ll show them, he’ll show them all!
That was also the sense I got from his reaction to the ISG recommendations.
Eli, I don’t give a shit WHO was involved; there aint nuthin’ half-assed or idiotic about that.
It was spot-on, my 2c. :o)
The mesopotamian clusterfuck has been an Al Quaeda recruiter’s wet dream.
Talk about “meeting their quota”!!!
“Yo! Khalid! We got 50 young studs fresh out of the Islamabad Madrassas, to send you up there in Parris-Island-Waziristan, so you can give them the tech to go with the gung-ho. These guys are HOT TO TROT! All you got to do is get them to Iraq, and watch the fireworks.
Don’t thank us; thank George Bush. Fuck that “Grand Square in Baghdad” that Wolfowitz was bragging about in the run-up, when we dump Musharraf, we’re gonna name the whole damn COUNTRY here, “Bushistan”.”
Well, to hear the MSM tell it, we haven’t been attacked again since 9-11 due to all the extra security measures (read as: infringements on our civil liberties and/or nuisance measures that only provide an illusionary representative of security) that we, as Americans, have allowed into our daily lives.
Even George W. Bush is smart enough to know that you don’t bite the hand that feeds the family trust funds. The bin Laden family has long ties to the Bush family. Osama is safe as long as W. is in power.
Talk about being Heartless:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07…..ref=slogin
Lou Costello @ 54
Or a serious discussion of who in the vast Republican junta and its beneficiaries truly benefited from Dallas 1963 without eyes rolling, especially since Specter was a big part of that murder being whitewashed.
Hamelia patens
james @ 52
bdu @ 57
Yep; putting our shoes through the X-ray machines and giving up our gels and liquids have kept us safe from al Qaeda. Well done!
As for the surveillance, there was a letter to the editor in the NYT a while back pointing out that there weren’t enough translators to keep up with the volume of calls the NSA was illegally wiretapping. Meaning that they were almost certainly eavesdropping on conversations in English, which pretty much rules out any actual al Qaeda terrorists.
hate2haggle @ 51
To equate undocumented immigrants with “attacks” is truly repulsive.
If you call yourself a Christian, you are perverting Christ’s teaching.
Repent.
LS @ 59
Oh, great. Maybe they can dump them in mass graves afterwards.
james @ 61
Bingo!
Protecting ‘our’ vital interests?. In the Middle East that means oil. Bush and Cheney are oil men for god’s sakes.
As written:
“Bin Laden’s big-picture goal, as I understand it, is to eject the United States from the Middle East and turn the entire region into some kind of 12th-century fundamentalist Islamic utopia.”
(Should read “…dystopia“?)
LS @ 61
We Can Bury That For You Wholesale
Youkillednoodle @ 63
…a new bumper sticker?
No Attacks? One word…ANTHRAX.
Better yet three words…Weapons Grade ANTHRAX.
Research for yourself.
Eli @ 64
I’ve been back and forth across the TX/Mexico border, and there was virtually zero security. A guy with a dog said, are you Americans? We said yes, and they just waved us all through – they did not look at any papers at all.
LS @ 59
OMFG !!
This is outrageous! You don’t know how much this angers me.
bluntfourO @ 68
Well, it’s utopia to *him*. Hell, it’d be utopia for most of our fundies too, if they’d just stop worrying about which God it was.
Eli @ 7
You give ‘em too much credit. Zarqawi was not after us, and he might have been hard to get (didn’t ever read about they were concentrated enuf to take out by air), so why bother? Remember, the planning was all for taking out Saddam Hussein, even before 9/11. Never about anti-terrorism. They don’t care about terrorism except as a vote-getting tool.
the only empirical study of suicide terrorism, of which i am aware, has been done by robert pape at the university of chicago. i strongly, strongly recommend his work to all. his book is “Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism”, and here’s a lecture he gave which is a good overview. and here’s an op-ed he wrote in 2005, discribing (a bit) the AQ strategy document that was found by norwegian intelligence:
Off to cook, pups. Wishing y’all a good and hatefree night.
LS @ 60
That is beyond disgusting! They could handle it at a time when casualties were far higher. I know, these people are all “Volunteers” which must mean they don’t merit it, cause none of them are young Republicans…
LS @ 71
It’s a specially-trained terrorist-sniffing dog.
Eli @ 48
That’s about my take, too.
Bin Laden has said his goal is to bankrupt the US, and Bush has been doing an excellent job at that. So he hasn’t needed another attack.
Also, I suspect Osama used up most of his personal fortune on the attacks, and donors probably don’t want to see their money spent on something as risky or far-fetched.
My gawd, what’s with this man Bush?
AP – President Bush on Tuesday lashed out at critics who say that al-Qaida’s operation in Iraq is distinct from terrorists who attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
GordonM @ 79
Who says Bin Laden said that???
Eli @ 48
I agree Eli. Even given the fact that Neil Bush was in the 2 towers the months prior to 911. I think someone (?) infiltrated the building(setting charges) when they were fireproofing it.
Lots of us knew that the war would be a dissaster and that all it would do would be to feed terrorism not stop or even hinder it.
But people were too scared because they listened to the “daddy” party.
How anybody could have taken this administration seriously re terrorism when they instructed people to buy plastic sheeting and duct tape is so beyond my comprehension.
OBL et all couldn’t have succeeded more if they had tried.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 81
A implies C.
B implies C.
Therefore A implies B.
What’s your problem?
Goodnite all. Nice post Eli. Thanks for all the great work done here today, as usual.
It’s as popular as “Between gravity and inertia, I’m getting no where” and “Bush is a few electrons short of a current”
It’s hard to be a scientist in today’s world!
twolf1 @ 72
stupid me, my comment must be too long (or too many links)! it’s stuck in moderation purgatory. i’ll just go back and catch up with reading all the comments so far…. while waiting for the very kind (and hard working) mods to check it out and hopefully release it.
Thanks & goodnight, ccm!
selise @ 86
Whereabouts is it? I definitely want to keep an eye out for it.
I have to agree that OBL and GWB are the best thing that ever happened to each other. And, as you say, GWB has been the terrorist’s ultimate dream in terms of over-reaction against an uninvolved target. Were I a terrorist, I couldn’t hope for a more cooperative and compliant adversary. But note that OBL estimates that they’ll have to kill about four million Americans before we’ll back off. But he’s a patient man.
I want to call attention to the mantra, “We fight them over their so we don’t fight them over here.” That’s not how it’s working. In fact, “We send volunteers over there so Al Qaeda doesn’t have to come over here where they might kill non-volunteers.” Remember that these are conservatives in charge. They believe in the voluntary value-for-value exchange. Our troops are paid (and paid well in their eyes) to risk life and limb. If and when life and/or limb is lost, that’s the risk the troops were paid to take. “Did you think, when you signed up, that there was no chance you’d be called on to serve?”
But we wouldn’t want the rest of us to incur “collateral damage.” So we send our voluntarily expendible troops over there so that the collateral damage occurs over there and not here. That way they can kill Americans without endangering the rest of us.
ccmask @ 82
Actually, Neil Bush was head of “security” for the towers.
summary: UBL was ready and willing to buy the milk, and got a big fat cow for free. another example: if i remember correctly, there was a strong sentiment from the more mainstream Islam marginalizing the actual theology of UBL and his version of jihad and its justifications, much the way most mainstream Christians would have distanced themselves from the people project megiddo studied. ironically, of course, had both groups succeeded, they would have run into each other on the temple mount.
but if the US hadn’t reacted to 9/11, or had reacted rationally to 9/11, for instance, by spending $12 billion a month on tracking down the guys who did it, mainstream Islam wouldn’t have come around. by focusing on Iraq, which of course had nothing to do with 9/11 but happens to be strategically right in the middle of a bunch of countries we like to rattle our sabre at, the GWeeB ensured that instead of it being a country united, with almost unanimous international support, against a fringe extremist jihadi element, it was the most powerful nation on the planet versus the most popular religion on the planet. My guess is the insurgents forgot about UBL almost as quickly as the GWeeB did.
kirk murphy @ 66
So Osama just releases an occasional taunt-tape to keep the hawks frothing at the mouth,…
I don’t think so. I think he’s dead, and that all of the “Bin Laden Tapes” are bogus.
Want proof?
Well, I don’t have any. However, has anyone here seen the commercial where Michael Jordan goes up for a jumps shot in the playoff game against Cleveland, with Craig Ehlo guarding him, gets free, lets it fly – and misses the shot. Continuous camera shot shows Jordan appropriately distraught, home crowd goes wild, etc. Or the following clip in the same commercial, where Joe Montana, with the game on the line, flotas a pass to the back of the end zone to Dwight Clark, who *just* misses the ball as it skids across his fingertips, followed again by ‘the agony of defeat’ shots of Clark and Montana?
Well, those things didn’t happen.
In reality, Jordan hit the shot, and Clark made “The Catch”. How they ever came up with the technology to make that commercial is beyond me – but the fact is that they did – and it’s perfect.
If they can do that, making up a little grainy Osama tape is child’s play.
No attacks??? See my just out of moderation comment #73
Eli @ 92
78 – and the mods have already released it! (((mods)))
The Pakistani ISI is a creation of the CIA. The ISI are Bin Laden’s paymasters.
“Incoming”
RevDeb @ 84
Not only OBL, Iran has benefited beyond their wildest dreams in regards to their political aspirations!
Lou Costello @ 98
Yes, I remember the anthrax. I just don’t believe it was al Qaeda.
Lou Costello @ 98
no AQ attacks. there have been attacks here by other people since 911.
LS @ 82
First hit on Google for “bin Laden bankrupt US”. From 2004.
Could someone help me out here? Who were the people related to bin Laden Bush sneaked out of America- let fly out on 9/11 when no other planes were allowed to fly? Wasn’t it bin Laden’s sister and family, or an ex-wife or something? For a long time I have thought we have not ‘caught’ bin Laden because BushCo does not want to. IMO, they can and do use his likeness and name for war propaganda, however, to ‘catch’ him would upset the balance of BS involving possibly bases, but certainly the relationship between the Bush family, the extended Laden family, other families with oil interests in the mid-east, and that little man Bush delicately holds hands with and/or that little man’s family.
Haven’t you noticed that all utopias are dystopias? It’s in the nature of the beast. Don’t even know why there should be 2 words.
selise @ 104
Who sent the anthrax to the Dems who were holding up the PatAct?
Lou Costello @ 73
not to mention all of the succesful attacks on americans overseas, all of the succesful terrorist attacks in Iraq
GordonM @ 105
Did you see that Fox News put a “D” next to Arlen Specter’s name tonight?
selise @ 99
Hmm… Very interesting. It kinda leaves it open-ended whether OBL intends to attack the US again – what happens when all our allies have left?
eCAHNomics @ 107
Same reason we have both “upload” and “download”, need words from both the perspective of the person dreaming it up and the perspectives of the people who have to live in it!
Lou Costello @ 36
I just watched “loose change” a few weeks ago, and I want to know why OBL was visited in the Dubai hospital by the CIA. I watched the lecture by the Cooper Union professor. The facts presented made me look for a pillow to scream into.
I think you’re right on. Let’s see. The U.S. has alienated neutrals and allies, increased the animosity of all Arabs, thrown its next-to-best punch and come up short militarily, put all of its assets into an area surrounded by adversaries, emboldened adversaries, plunged into debt, and brought about a decline in the famous freedoms within the United States. The benefits haven’t completely played out for OBL. He can always spare 19 more guys when the benefits start to decline.
LS @ 106
ick
Lou Costello @ 73
Are you implying that “real” terrorists sent anthrax to Democrats?
LS @ 109
They have so much trouble with that!
Not really sure who that one harms, other than their own credibility.
Eli @ 114
I agree. Sigh.
Fox needs to put an R next to Lieberman’s name.
ccmask @ 83
Sorry. If you think that spending as much or more on our military than the rest of the world combined means that a two-bit jackass can’t attack us, you’re wrong. Remember the “military-industrial complex”? We’ve been grossly ripped off for 50 years by the “industrial” part, and the “military” part is so sure of their own invincibility, they can’t be bothered by anything less than threats from another superpower. It’s called being “fat and happy”.
Eli @ 110
yup. i don’t know…. but it does look there may be another attack in our future.
it really wouldn’t matter what OBL wants to do – if we weren’t so good and giving him recruits to execute his plans. sadly, bushco is giving him all the help he needs.
PMA @ 112
The thing that scares me is that if we elect a Democratic president, and they get us out of Iraq, then OBL needs to provoke us again, and the next thing you know the Republicans are saying “We told you so.”
Which of course would also fit in with OBL’s goals – Republican government is good for business.
San Francisco power outages:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl…..54,00.html
Eli @ 122
Exactly.
One thing we’ve learned about terrorists is that they have patience. Another thing: they work on their own timetable, not ours. And another: when they see we’re damaging ourselves, they don’t get in the way.
I’m always amazed at the egocentric point of view many of us have as we boost security during what are, to us, important dates. I think — judging from the dates of past attacks — that terrorists don’t give a hoot about the days that are special to us. They choose their own days and, in the process, make those days important to us after their attacks. Example: 9/11 meant nothing to us as a special day, but now it’s brought up many times per day, every day.
We need to stop thinking like Americans when predicting what terrorists will or won’t do.
Hell, it’d be utopia for most of our fundies too, if they’d just stop worrying about which God it was.
Nonsense. They don’t want to live there any more than the Saudi royal family does. That’s for us.
Eli @ 120
exactly. ‘cuz OBL’s stated goal is not to get us out of iraq – it’s to get us out of the ME. he wants us in iraq (and afghanistan) – for now, so that we can be hurt economically and militarily. and then so that we will have to withdraw from the ME in general, and OBL can attack his enemies directly (and w/o our support of them).
LS @ 122
Yeah, it took out LJ, Yelp, Craiglist, and others. Us valley geeks were rendered powerless due to lack of our standard resources!
A better story about it here.
LS @ 94
Wrong, Neil Bush was NOT head of security, John O’Neill, a former FBI agent was tasked with that. Bush’s uncle was involved with the real estate company that owned the Towers. If we are going to ever be taken seriously, we can’t throw out myths and half-truths or hearsay.
Liberal Heart @ 122
Sure; it’s ever so much easier to attack when we’re *not* expecting it. The target is a lot more important than the date, and there’s no shortage of them.
Eli @ 119
So, are you speculating that it would benefit the Republicans if OBL attacks us after Bush leaves? That is precisely what Bush, etal., want us to believe. That is why terrorism is their key to endless power. It benefits the neocon narrative – planned or not planned. That is what is so frustrating. That is why we need to know the truth. As far as I can tell, they haven’t told the truth…pretty much…ever. JMHO.
thanks eli for an important discussion.
i really, strongly recommend robert pape’s research and analysis (see my long comment at 78) to all. the data is amazing… i can’t believe it isn’t routinely discussed by the pundits who claim to be oh-so-serious about national security and terrorism… oh wait. nevermind.
We haven’t been attacked since 9/11 because Cheney hasn’t deemed it necessary. When he thinks it will be advantageous, an attack will “happen”. Like to do away with an election that Cheney thinks they may not win. I still think one only has to know that Bush/Cheney blocked every attempt at a meaningful investigation of 9/11 for one reason only…..keep the ones who designed it under-wraps. If Bush et al had nothing to do with it, they would have begun the investigation on Sept 12, 2001. Just the fact that it was delayed and focused on meaningless B.S. instead of who, what amd why makes it seem obvious…conspiracy by those that blocked a true investigation. In Europe, a conspiracy is always suspected. In USA, its never a conspiracy by anyone in power.
selise @ 78
Quoting it for those who may have missed it up top while it was in moderation (like myself).
LS @ 128
Absolutely. Their whole War-On-Terror narrative is that Bush and the Republicans are Tough And Strong against terror, and the Democrats are limp-wristed sissies, which is why we haven’t been attacked since Dubya turned his radiant manliness upon the terrorist menace, and why we *will* be attacked again the second a Democrat steps into the WH and gives Osama the all-clear sign.
It’s bullshit, but I guarantee you that the same people who were saying we can’t hold Bush responsible for terrorist attacks 8 months into his term would be placing the blame for an attack entirely on a Democratic president even if it happens the day after inauguration.
Alice B @ 132
I often see this notion of no election brought up. I don’t guy into it, but would like to know if that’s something an administration can actually pull off. Has it ever been done? (Not a good history student here…)
(My thanks to scarecrow, Siun, Thers, and Ian for their ideas, challenges, and feedback. Anything half-assed or downright idiotic is despite their input and not because of it.)
Actually, Eli, I couldn’t agree with you and the others more!
selise @ 131
I read Pape’s book, but on further thought, it seems a lot simpler. Suicide bombing does not require a lot of people, and humilitated people have nothing to lose, so it’s not hard to find the few you need. Besides suicide bombing is really efficient. I think the kill ratio is something like 10:1 on average. Compare that to the 250,000 bullets it takes the U.S. to kill one insurgent in Iraq & Afghanistan.
Eli @ 132
If 9/11 had happened on Pres. Gore’s watch,
what are the chances that the Republicans *wouldn’t* have tried to impeach him?
Eli, the definitive document on this subject is Doug Muder’s “Terrorist Strategy 101: A Quiz”.
perris @ 109
My tinfoil theory on the Anthrax..Inside job by Ft. Detrick or Dugway employee blowing the whistle on an illegal bio-weapons program. The FBI destroyed all of the samples so the origin could never be traced.
LS @131,
I think the truth is that terrorists, either foreigh or domestic, can and will hit us again and can do serious damage. There is no absolute security and it’s a fact of life. I think any truthful President would admit the fact and try to educate the public to prepare for such losses while doing all we can to prevent it.
The truth is, it would only take a few more Timothy McVay morons to do as serious damage as Al Quaida. There’s no way to totally preclude it.
eCAHNomics @ 134
It really opens up your options when you don’t have to worry about getting caught. At least not after the fact.
PMA @ 139
Absolutely. It’s a myth that we can have a Big Daddy president who’ll protect us — but many Americans seem to need to buy into that comforting idea.
eCAHNomics @ 134
that does not square with why the targets of suicide terrorism are democracies. i like the example pape uses with the kurds. many attacks against turkey – but not hussain’s iraq.
bdu @ 112
Yes, that is the implication…is the author’s perspective “utopia” or “dystopia”? I assume it is actually the latter. (Though he’s already averred that the usage is intended from OBL’s perspective.)
Eli @ 141
When I was half the age I am now, I never dreamed I would own or operate a computer, or have a phone that I can carry around and make calls while walking to a supermarket, and I never dreamed I would have to talk about suicide bombers.
To paraphrase Lisa Simpson, “it’s specious reasoning. You might as well say that this rock has prevented Al-Qaeda from attacking us again.”
Alice B @ 131
Um, something like 70% of Americans believe that the JFK assisination involved a conspiracy. That’s down from 80% in the 80s, but way up from when it happened.
Polling about conspiracy theories is almost meaningless. It’s just something fun to talk about. Poll about the economy, and you’ll get real answers.
DrenchedOtter @ 143
Ooo!!! How much do you want for it?
When the next “attack” comes the WH will announce a program with some euphemistic name to “protect the homeland” but it will be the final Republican power grab.
PMA @ 140
Oh yeah, Timothy McV…that lone nut…riiiiiiight.
Do not trust anything these people (official story) say. OKC just practice for 9ll
Alice B @ 132
…yet.
odd how people can carry on ad infinitum about all of the Bush/Cheney regime’s nefariousness and mendaciousness, and yet when it comes to 9/11, the event that led us all down to this terrible rabbit hole, the Official Story rules by some kind of divine right, and anything else is tinfoil-hat, conspiracy wingnuttia.
Steve-AR @ 148
I think it’ll be called Let’s Knock the Sh*t Outta Iran.”
I just need to clarify what I wrote. It was not Neil Bush that was “supposedly” connected to the WTC, it was “supposedly” Marvin Bush. Even so, that is rumor, and I cannot verify it, so please disregard anything I have said about it.
The most important thing to keep in mind about terrorism is that it is a rare event (except that associated with war). Worldwide since 1968, less than 20,000 people have been killed by (non-war) terrorism. In fact, this is my description:
Eli @ 149
I think Lisa just grimaces to avoid saying “D’Oh!” :)
Imagine I’m spelling out the largest scream you’ve heard in awhile..Cheney wants to be Preznit:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/…..ys-chance/
For those of you whom missed this morning’s fireworks, here’s the link for a live stream of AGAG’s ‘testimony’!!!
http://www.cspan.org/watch/cs_…..p;Code=CS2
I normally lurk, but got a little more involved tonight after getting steamed at Gonzo hearings. Anyway, I enjoyed it and will meet again on other nights. Going to lose myself in a book or escapist movie.
Bwwwhahahahaha: Rove sends a letter to Moby? WTF?
http://fox-tractorfacts.blogsp…..-pals.html
PMA @ 156
May I recommend ‘1984′? (ducking below my desk!)
PMA @ 155
Thanks and welcome to the comments, PMA! I was seriously tempted to post something on Gonzo, but I’ve been itching to write this one since I went on vacation. I’ll probably just post the Gonzo thing at my own place; it’s mostly snark, really.
LS @ 152
Ackkkk!!!!!
It boils down to this. Mr. Bush is not very bright and he is not at all likeable. But this person has had the advantages of wealth, which he never earned, and connections. He is not deserving of respect. And he is a killer of innocent people.
LS @ 153
Well, the New York Sun *speculates* that Cheney might want to be president.
Hell, I’d love to see someone like him or Newt run, I’m just afraid that they might somehow magically win…
Eli @ 160
magic = cheating ?
LS @ 158
Cheney-Lieberman ‘08.
Marty Peretz’s dream team.
Eli @ 159
When Sessions questions your credibility, it should rattle the WH’s cage, just a tad anyways!!!
TexB @ 162
Let’s just call it “The Immaculate Election”.
Eli @ 170
707!! Exactly!!! Oh, sh*t. Tell me that can’t happen…:O
LS @ 156
His approval ratings are well below “none of the above”. Let him go for it! Edwards v Cheney – the Rematch! And this time the shit doesn’t get to sit!
Eli @ 166
If that should happen, I would be asking Petro for a room for a spell while I relocate!!! ;-)
Eli @ 170
You know Greg Palast calculations that the Ds start out with a 6 million vote deficit, thru R actions like caging, purging, not counting provisional ballots, etc.
ccmask @ 11
Is that a real poncho I mean is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sear’s poncho?
Hmmm. No fooling.
cheeny IS THE PREZNIT!! back to lurking and reading to get on point…..
I don’t sense all that much excitement for any of the candidates on that CNN stage last night.
Gore is another story.
eCAHNomics @ 172
Yeah, but the R’s start out with a 40 million deficit because all the I’s have defected.
Incoming bright shiny object alert.
TSA has the dry runs.
allan_in_upstate @ 179
Is that anything like the dry heaves?
GordonM @ 178
Yeah, I always thought it was the policy, stupid. But as the Ds had no policy, the 6 million swung the total. Had to wait until the Rs got so bad that voters abandomed them.
LS @ 155
Stay with it LS…I’ve got your back! Marvin Bush and more!
Eli @ 180
Other end.
I guess I hadn’t heard everything yet.
No, it’s more like dry humping.
My eyes are glazing. Off to the Aunties.
Nice post, if somewhat stating the obvious.
The key point, missed in virtually every narrative, is that terrorist operations are launched from a position of *weakness*.
They are asymetric, not due to a fiendish genius or grand design, but because;
if you fancy yourself an army, but are lacking in resources, the only option left is to steal your enemies’ resources and turn them on themselves.
The failure to deal with a weak enemy from an inherent position of strength is a strategic mistake.
Al Quaida is only as powerful as we make them.
And we have made them powerful indeed.
Because our leaders are weak and foolish.
They have limited military background, and for the most part have never accomplished a single objective through honest work.
THere has not been an attack because Bush is still in charge…correct, but not for the reasons the GOP’ers put forward. There is no reason to attack the USA as it is performing just as OBL wants it to. But as soon as there is a change in leadership, 2008, there will be an attack. That is what happened in Spain. OBL will simply ‘reset’ new leaderships goals with an attack and keep the situation burning. Happened in Great Briton as well.
Lou Costello @ 182
Thanks Lou! I know it’s out there. I just want solid info.
Yeah – having to state and restate the obvious does get tiring, but ya know….
I don’t remember where I heard it but a couple of days ago someone asked, if “they” hate us for our freedom and way of life, why haven’t “they” attacked Denmark, Sweden, Italy, etc. Outside of Spain and Britain, what has gone on?
@ 190
Indeed, I believe OBL himself actually made this exact point (I think he referred to Sweden specifically).
Eli @ 191
The “they hate us for our freedom” meme is a classic case of projection. It’s W who hates us for our freedom.
Eli @ 48
That’s my take on it, too. The response to the August 6 report seals the deal for me. They figured it would be a minor bomb attack — a couple of dozen people at most. Numbers don’t matter.
The anthrax business, however, is an entirely different matter. So is David Kelley’s probable murder.
Eli @ 191
Welll….I haven’t been talking to Mr. bin Laden. Personally I think he’s dead or a remnant of the CIA’s war on anyone.
The other narrative which I think gets short shifted is that this is NOT a conservative administration.
They are radicals.
Theire vision of a unitary Executive is RADICAL.
The notion of a pre-emptive war is RADICAL.
Depriving citizens of privacy and due process of law to preserve freedom is RADICAL.
A Constitutional ammendment to trump States’ laws concerning marriage…RADICAL
eCAHNomics @ 192
There ya go!
you gotta have teamwork
that peaches and creamwork
sounds like a good plan by the handler of these two tools. Am sure smart guy like ben caca likes hiding out in a hole, if he is hiding (that’s funny)
sure that dumb guy likes the penguin running his life and screwing it up
heh heh. something bandar ben bandaid might cook up to keep his hand in?
no one is this stupid. this is tooooo tooo ridiculous to be a coincidence. it was funny when even republicans and their interpreters, the punditocracy of alabamabad, believed the nonsense, funny in a kind of end of the world sort of way. now even some of the ones not huffing tailpipes are sort of thinking that maybe something he said might now not sound not quite right about that death and destruction thingie civil war thingie.
do idiots and cretins have a pecking order when left on their own?
My weakly held hypothesis on anthrax is that it was AQ. Just too difficult to believe that some one unrelated was ready to go within a week afterwards.
Don’t remember any David Kelley. Can you refresh my memory?
Lou & LS – have you checked out
http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/
??
lot’s of good, reality based links and info on there.
eCAHNomics @ 192
I actually wrote this a little over two years ago:
“The Republican leadership cannot be reasoned with; they are sexist, intolerant religious fanatics who hate America for its freedoms, and will not rest until it is destroyed.”
Oklahoma kiddo @ 165
The fact that Jeb lost his first election and they had to run the idiot son instead, may be the one thing that will save us. The folks that have been working since the Goldwater days to subvert the Constitution have got to be pissed at “W”.
Loo Hoo. @ 12
theyre more than friends ..they own a defense contractor company together called the carlyle group…they sell weapons for billions and billions of dollars…starting to make sense now? 9/11 was a false flag so “we the people” wouldnt object to going to war….war is big money…were going to iran next supposedly because of weopons of mass destruction..lol..israel is the only country over there with nuclear weapons and steadily making them without any un inspectors allowed to inspect them. our government are puppets for israel people..wake up
Knut Wicksell @ 193
And who was the last person in contact with Kelley? None other than our own Judy, Judy, Judy.
bush’s polyps were removed because they were not loyal bushies.
jon stewart
pet wrecker @ 204
And they had to be surgically removed and examined..
Late Nite upstairs.
Trex wants to know what everyone’s wearing to YK2
LS @ 205
They weren’t waterboarded?
Reid @ 202
Say it loud…and often.
Eli @ 207
LOL. They were playing in their own little personal Petraeus surge dish.
It worked with the Soviets and seems to be working like a charm with the US – protracted war that bankrupts. On the other hand, I often worry – as I live in DC – that OBL will attack just before Bush leaves office. That will be the ultimate parting shot…
eCAHNomics @ 198
BUMP.
Lou Costello @ 73
Didn’t you find it strange that the PatAct (hundreds of pages) was ready to go right after 9ll? Anthrax only to Dems holding it up…
Kathleen @ 16
He’s probably at Gitmo sending his tapes from there.
CCmask, Re: “Travels with Rudy”; I live in Myrtle, and at least this time, he’s tracking LIVE firemen and women.
After that tragic fire recently in Mt. Pleasant, near Charleston, in which the 9 firefighters were killed, he was casket-chasing with a vengeance. To their credit, they wouldn’t let him turn the service into a campaign photo-op, but stuck him in the back of the seating arrangements, with the third cousins twice-removed. A healthy aure of cyinicism prevailed, thank you, Mt. Pleasant.
(It was also fortuitous that about the same time, his S.C. campaign manager, Thomas Ravenel, the STATE TREASURER of South Carolina, was charged with possession of and intent to distribute, Cocaine, by the feds. Not a good visit to the Palmetto State, for Rudy. :o) )
I saw John Edwards today, for the first time, in Georgetown, S.C. He spoke to a small but fired-up crowd of about 250, in the Union Hall of the Georgetown Steelworkers local.
I came out with an “Edwards” sticker on my shirt. He’s impressive. The man can think on his feet, unlike whatever it is that’s currently sitting in the Oval Office.
He said:
“The day that I take office, I will close the prison at Guantanamo.” BIIG round of applause. I was pumped, to hear that, in red-state South Carolina.
He said, of his vote to authorize, in 2002:
“I was wrong.” (Are you listening, Sen. Clinton? No farting; no tap-dancing; just…wrong.)
He hammered on universal health care for all americans. Same thing with global warming. Says it’s a crisis, NOW.
Said he’d quickly remove 40,000 troops from Iraq, and do everything he could to get the factions to make the compromises necessary to try to hold it together, but that he would get ‘em all out, in good time. He said he would keep a presence in the mid-east, probably in Kuwait, and on the carriers. Said he wanted to keep the troops in Afghanistan.
Elizabeth is a sweetheart.
Another tough sweetheart. :o)
You could tell, she tires easily. I worry about her being able to hang on, or improve. They’ve been married 30 years on their anniversary soon, and they obviously love each other. I don’t know what it will do to him, if he loses her. It could make him tougher, or it could break him. The man is real; not some slickly packaged candidate-product.
We were one fired-up bunch of democrats, and when he and Elizabeth walked in, it was a LONNNG standing O. Took ‘em 3 minutes to make 40 feet of aisle.:o) Shouts; whistles; hoots; “get ‘em John!”
Happy, happpppy, bunch of donkeys to have them there. :o) And it worked on him, as it should have. They were delighted with the reception.
With all those bods packed in that little hall, it got to “98.6 and rising” in a hurry, thank you, Mr. Lightfoot.:o)
He was sweating right along with us, as he spoke. Rather unkempt. Unshined shoes.
Coulda been a plan…The candidate speaking to what he thought would be a blue-collar audience, but that skips the question of don’t “poor” people want to vote for candidates who look successful?
Edwards looked like a…hell, I dunno, like a realtor, only an unsuccessful realtor, with no listings, and nothing to offer but himself. :o) It was enough for me.
I think the man is as real as your first kiss. He doesn’t pretend to be anything he’s not. He can think, and he fielded questions like Brooks Robinson handling hot grounders. One of the steelworkers went off on all the jobs moving out of the country.
Edwards said:
“You’re preaching to the choir, brother”, and launched into a well-informed rant about tax incentives, and how he’d work like hell to keep our jobs here. He also said he’d push for the minimum wage to go to $9.50 by 2012.
I’d been making some noise, and he gave me the first question. I was ready:
“John, thank you and Elizabeth for coming to Georgetown. We know how hard the campaign grind is, and we appreciate it. I have a bit of a toughie for you, right off the bat.
On your campaign website, you state that you have not received any AIPAC-directed funds. My 2c, this is a good thing. Is it still true, and do you plan to continue that policy?”
He said: “I have taken NO PAC funding, and I will not do so in the future.”
Which sounded good to me, and I sat down, hoping that I get a chance to ask Clinton about that, when she comes to S.C.
Running for high office, everyone wants to present their “good” side, but inevitable, there will be times when you are going to be figuratively naked, and that’s what SHOULD happen. To me, formal practiced speeches are nothing more than position papers. Of some use, but I want to watch them deal with the here-and-now immediacy of talking semi-formally, to the voters. Get off that damned stage, and let us look at your face and watch your body language when you tell us what you believe.
I’m gonna go see Obama, when he comes to S.C., but I can tell you, I’m practically certain to vote for Edwards, after sitting 15 feet from him while he talked and answered questions for 45 minutes.
Forget those two $200 haircuts. Unless my Hemingway crap-detector is totally on the fritz, the man is a populist.
Want to put the knock on Edwards for being a personal injury lawyer? Fine. Then let’s be the jury, and see what kind of award we want to give him. At this point, I’m ready to lay both ears and a bushCo tail on him. :o)
WRT the topic at hand:
1) 911 is still out to lunch as to who did what in terms of USA. Bin Laden planned it. Saudi Sunni Wahabist’s for the most part executed it. That they did this WITHOUT some convuluted means of complicity from House Of Saud and Bushco is NOT disproved AFAIC. Sure, House of Saud IS a target of Bin Laden . . . or is that propoganda, too? Wierd scenes ARE in the gold mine, folks (courtesy Mr. Morrison). I know, he’s a fallen Prince of Saud, but still . . . the House itself is divided in MANY ways, not just by Bin Laden . . . my point, he may WELL still have some support there and that could EASILY be linked to the BushCrime Family, who have been DOING business with House of Saud since the 20’s and their PLACEMENT at the head of that newly BORN nation’s lines drawn in the sand by Europe/USA/Russia . . . . or who EVAH drew the lines.
2) BushCo did Afthanistan AT THE TIME back then, because Cheney was booted outta there by the Taliban on the gas pipeline deal they cut with other countries and left USA out of it completely. It’s true, google it, the articles are there. 911 was a convenient reason to do it. You don’t see a gas pipeline for Russia, Germany and France there, do you????? Hmm?
3) We did Iraq following Afghanistan (and let Bin Laden go, how’s THAT work for fighting back for 911??) because of PNAC, and it’s directives. Control the oil, control the ME. Period. If they have to, they will nuke the sands of Iran to glass, so NO ONE can have the oil. Oh, yeah. Did I mention there’s a NEW pipeline deal with Iran/Russia, to flow from Turkmenistan thru Iran/Pakistan to India? That the USA apparently knew NOTHNG about? Think there will be some USAF action along THAT pipeline corridor soon? Based on HISTORY?
4) We the USA have IGNORED domestic needs, including REAL terrorist defenses and Homeland Security Planning . .
5) I fear a False Red Flag moment in a nuke satchel MUCH more than I fear a Bin Laden born Terror Moment . . . but the public is gullible.
And That’s been proven, over and over and over again (this dance is gonna be a drag) like an old Dave Clark 45rpm piece of vinyl.
Harumph.
Tanbark @ 213
i take it youre a democrat but i implore u to check out ron paul..
BTW-OT . .
Thanks for the Edwards report, Tan.
He’s sounding good . . . but sadly, as has been reported in blog places, or at least CONJECTURED, Shilary has already been inspected and selected to be elected and injected into our mainstream, whether we want her Bib Biz PAC lovin ways and war machine backing or not.
Harumph.
I hope the country turns to Edwards/Kuch or ANYONE but Shilary in the final vote.
She won’t be getting MINE for ANY reason.
What makes you think that Osama din Laden is even alive? I don’t think he is, and hasn’t been probably since late 2001. We’ve seen no pictures of him indicating date, no videos likewise. Only odd voice recordings.
If I remember correctly, OBL made it very clear what his main goal was to bankrupt the US like Russia with Afghanistan. With the USA spending about 12 billion dollars a month in the endless war, that goal will be met soon. The dollar has lost about half its value since Bush unleashed the military. Any household that uses the credit card for years and only pays the interest on the debt will suffer when the lenders decide to call its debts. Not that China and other foreign lenders will demand their payment in dollars, which will be worthless. Those lenders will demand what the US is not willing to give to them right now, its military technology and other important assets. By the time Americans wake up it will be too late. OBL was born rich and knows or knew (if he’s dead) that the only way to hurt the US was to make it spend billions of dollars in a worthless war. Iraq is to the US what Afghanistan was to Russia.
I think that they’re all in it together. I think that Bush never intended nor intends to capture OBL… Bush knew about the attacks and allowed them to happen.
Somehow everyone got what they wanted (except us plebs) in the 9/11 attacks.
President Bill Clinton quietly worked at protecting the United States from another terrorist attack after the first World Trade Center bombing, thwarting a number of attempted terrorist attacks inside the United States. He brokered a tenuous peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. He negotiated with the North Koreans to mitigate their nuclear ambitions.
Upon entering the White House in January 2001, the Bush administration scrapped everything “Clinton,” did a one-eighty, and set off on what has become a disastrous course for our country.
Bush’s answer to the Al Qaeda terrorist threat? Demote the counter-terrorism chief under Clinton, Richard Clarke. Assign Condi Rice, the NSA chief, to formulate a “regional plan” for addressing the al Qaeda terrorist threat…with “regional plan” actually being code for “attack Iraq.” Stick fingers in ears and place hands over eyes so top Bush officials couldn’t hear or see the numerous warnings in the Summer of 2001 of an imminent domestic terrorist attack. Result? 9/11 attacks succeeding and thousands of U.S. citizens dying.
Bush’s answer to Israeli/Palestinian conflict? Blow off anything President Bill Clinton had accomplished and give Bush/Cheney belligerence a chance. Result? Intifada. Israelis dying. Palestinians dying.
Bush’s answer to North Korea? Once again, blow off anything President Bill Clinton had accomplished and give Bush/Cheney belligerence a chance. Result? North Koreans reconstitute and ramp up their nuclear program. Countless North Koreans die while tensions on the Korean Peninsula dramatically and dangerously increase.
We all know how much Dick Cheney hates all Democrats and anything “Clinton.”
Based on Bush’s bipartisan work as governor of Texas, I didn’t believe he had this same degree of Cheneysian hatred of Democrats and anything “Clinton” in him.
I was wrong.
Bush and Cheney have done everything possible to overturn and even destroy anything “Clintonian.” They’ve done everything possible to ignore and obstruct anything Democrats have proposed.
And our nation is much, more poorer because of their anti-American, anti-Christian hatred of over half of the citizens of these United States.
Another obvious reason is that it was 8 years between the 1993 WTC attack and the 9/11 attacks. Al Quaeda takes its time.
I think you folks are neglecting something. Not a surprise; I would have neglected it myself, had I not read one of John Robb’s more insightful essays a few days ago.
Terrorist Death-March is all about unanticipated consequences. Not just to us. Also to outfits like al Queda.
Long story short, they’re onto a new sort of warfare and they don’t know where all the bugs in the technique are, yet.
Sort of like every army in Europe during WW I. Taking three years to figure out that you just don’t charge the other side’s trenches, no matter how many weeks you spend shelling them.
In the case of terrorism, the problem is diminishing returns, according to Robb’s analysis.
The “audience”, i.e., the people in the target countries, get desensitized after a while.
Media coverage declines after an initial peak, and you cannot get it back up to previous levels without topping what you did the last time.
The target recovers, given time, unless you have figured out a way to do “evergreen” damage.
All of this logic tends to put AQ’s collective ass in a wringer. As one of the more perceptive commenters put it …
Add to this the fact that over the last six years, OBL’s networks have been buttoned up and hiding. They didn’t, and still don’t, have the protection of a friendly nation-state government, as they once did in Afghanistan.
I agree that given the mess the neocons have made of Afghanistan, Iraq, the GWOT generally, and absolutely every other item within their field of vision, there isn’t any pressing reason for new attacks by AQ.
But lack of a logical reason doesn’t always mean that people will do the logical thing. In the case of AQ, the problems may be structural. Implicit in the kind of attack they specialize in, plus their situation over the last six years. It could very well be that they might not yet have answers to these problems yet.
In other words, this could be the strategic equivalent of 1917 for AQ. And they just haven’t yet invented either tanks or Hutier tactics yet.
Reid @ 215
Ron Paul is nothing more than another false-flag operation.
Knowing what I know now, I would not touch Ron Paul with waldoes, from behind lead shielding six feet thick.
His ties to the early 90s militias, Christian Identity, The Patriot Network, Tom DeLay’s ARMPAC, and other sectors of the wingnut Right are strong and emphatic. He is in the habit of pandering to racists and then denying it. He spouts New World Order conspiracy bullshit every other time he opens his mouth.
The folks at Orcinus have been hammering on Ron Paul of late. Here are four recent pieces. Spend some time there, and check out the links therein.
1) Man of the Hour
2) Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast
3) The Trouble with Ron
4) Ron Paul vs. the New World Order
The fundamental problem here, of course, is that the wingnuts have infiltrated and subverted the Libertarian Party the same way they infiltrated and subverted the Republicans.
And Ron Paul is their pointman.
I’m sure someone has already referred to it, but Juan Cole’s piece which was published in Salon
http://www.salon.com/opinion/f…../al_qaida/
would suggest maybe it isn’t wise to think there ought be no attention paid to mechanisms by which as much as possible of this bad case scenario might be altered.
In one section of Mr. Cole’s piece, an abbreviated overview of the recent mosque bombings in Islamabad. It is certainly vastly more complex than this thumbnail…and Mr. Cole is most capable of delivering the information…poignantly illustrating how buffoonish the nearly cavalier PNAC maraud through Iraq. And while that long term effort is undertaken, what preparations are underway to allow us to survive well enough in these inevitably more trying times? Lord! And Romney calls Clinton (as do his cohorts “the liberals” in one way or another) a communist because she suggests (as do the other “liberals”)we need a plan that might include ALL OF US.
If we can survive ourselves, maybe we’ll find a way that allows us to reassess what is important to our happiness and well being and what is not.
Sheila Condit @ 224
We need far more than just a new plan.
We need a new bauplan.
Because when the next attack comes, it will probably be aimed at one of Mr. Robb’s systempunkts.
There are simply too many of these for any reasonable plan to protect. We can, and probaly should, try. But we must consider, and prepare, for the most likely eventual outcome, which will be failure of defense.
There are just too may points of attack, and most of them, just like the networking protocols devised in the 1980s, like ftp, telnet, smtp, etc., rely on trust as their main line of defense. If you doubt this, look into how trivially easy it is to forge nearly the entire header of an email message.
Designs like that will not hold up long in an inherently hostile environment. As we are now learning, to our cost, about the information networks we must retrofit so much security into, at great cost and damage to functionality.
How many of you have had your Windows PC lock up when your antivirus software ran a scan? The costs of retrofitting security to an inherently insecure system just bit you on the ass. And that’s the smallest and most trivial of examples.
When I said “bauplan”, I meant different designs for the systems that are so vulnerable.
Like electrical power grids. The more centralized these are, and the more tightly coupled, the more vulnerable they are. Highly centralized systems invite decapitation. Tightly coupled arrays of systems invite “cascade failure” when one segment is successfully attacked.
A classical example of a cascade failure is the Northeast Blackout of 1965.
Interestingly, if much of your residential power comes from distributed systems, like residential solar, the entire grid becomes more resistant to attack. It isn’t centralized anymore. The bad guys don’t have one nice fat juicy target that’ll bring the house down when it’s hit anymore.
Chew on that thought.
Beats the hell out of hysteria. And witch hunting people, the way we do now. And security theater, which is just about all the security we’ve put in place since 9/11, with the “assistance” of Republican patronage turkey farms like DHS.
Long story short, if we think about this the way we usually do about security, we’re going to lose. We’re going to get hit when our pants are around our ankles and we’re going to get hurt badly. Much more badly than we need to be if we start thinking instead of going off half cocked without thinking.
The way Bushco has done ever since 9/11.
Ever since I first heard Regent Cheney’s remarks about how they’ve kept us safe from al Qaeda for five years, I’ve wondered why no one has bothered to point out that that is not an accomplishment of any kind. Osama Been Forgotten (at Tora Bora when Gary Berntsen the CIA controller of the forces chasing Bin Laden was turned down by Washington on 5 separate occasions on his request for Speical Ops forces to seal off Bin Laden’s escape routes) has not been the focus of our administration’s attention since then. [Are those 5 turndowns analogous in anyway to the 5 times that Cheney “Cut and Ran” from Vietnam? He seems to have a thing for fives. Anyway, not to digress further, it was clear to me that it took al Qaeda 8 years to get it together to attack their number one primary target, the World Trade Center again — 1993 till 2001 and this was when they were not under the enormous pressure that our military and CIA are supposed to be putting on them now. If al Qaeda keeps to its former schedule then we shouldn’t expect to be targeted again until at least 2009. So much for the idiot bozo neocons and keeping America safe from al Qaeda.
Al Qaeda needs to top the 9/11 scale or lose face. The reason they have not hit us again reflects their planning cycle for what is now much more difficult for them given the Bush-assisted success on 9/11.
Loo Hoo. @ 12
Lots of truth. Most likely the reason we haven’t been hit is Osama’s family told him not to. The Bushes are also close to the Saudis. One of GWB’s failed enterprised was Harkin Energy or something like that. It turned into what looked like a stock pump and dump scheme. According to an article I read somewhere, the Arabs bailed GWB out. Saudis were 15 of the 19 hijackers. We didn’t attack them.
Reid, thanks. I don’t know Paul’s positions off the top of my head. Did he vote “no” on the authorization vote, in 2002?
If so, that took courage, and I will say so.
But, if he did THAT, wtf is he doing in the GOP? And where does he stand on “choice” for women? And on putting public funds into private schools, where the kids can be taught that a zillion years of fossil record is a communist plot?
And on global warming? And most immediately, was he publicly against escalating the war, with the splurge? (I think he gets a “yes” on that one…if I remember right.)
And what about the republican tax plan that bush so generously laid on the top 3 or 4% of americans?
I’m sorry, but after all that’s happened in the past 6 and a half years, and, in fact, in my lifetime, for me to support a republican candidate for preznit, he would have to climb up on the dais at the GOP convention, drop trou, and hang a shit on Ronald Reagan’s photograph. It aint gonna happen.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 165
And now people on this site are calling bin laden smart, someone even said he is a political “genius”. Assuming that Bush is only President because of the Clintons malfeasance and that bin laden is only where he is because of the Clintons malfeasance, i.e., louis Freeh, Tenet, “sandy” berger, etc., I find it difficult to differentiate between bin laden and bush. Both are spoiled rich kids and fuck ups. Both are getting to act out their fantasies and both should have, in any social darwinistic world , be relegated soemwhere out of view.
But what happened? Hey we had the Clintons and now we have the Clintons accusing Obama of being naive when it comes to national security.
Until we call out the Clintons it is going be more of, more of.
Eli:
I think you are right. There is an unintended truth in the “flypaper theory”.
Bush and Cheney have been doing Bin Ladens work for him all along. No surprise here.
Larue, maybe not; on the “it’s already over” thing. If Edwards wins in Iowa, how can anyone crown Clinton? She’ll have to win and win big, in N.H. and S.C., to have any validity to the “unity” shreiks that we’ll start hearing from her campaign. As I’ve been saying, if she wins the nomination, she HAS to win it quickly. The longer the nomination contests continue, the worse it is for her. We all know that Iraq is NOT going to get better, and as it worsens, all of her supporting statements for the invasion and occupation, and especially, her refusal to say that her vote to authorize was a mistake, are going to go from the dimensions of a baby crow for her to have to eat, to one the size of a pterodactyl.
The fact that she has discovered her inner anti-war self ONLY as it became obvious that the american voters were beginning to gag on the bushCo koolaid, is an indication of two things, to me:
That she doesn’t have a lot of character, on these political issues, and that she’s just not very bright, politically.
As Iraq worsens, John Edwards is going to have carry HIS authorization vote around like a moldy hotdog, and regularly take a bite of it, at practically every campaign appearance. He did it at Georgetown, and he’s going to have to do it some more, too. That’s fair. But his vision for the country seems to me to be coherent and VERY progressive.
I fault him for not coming out 100% in favor of gay marriage, since he’s still “recognizing the relationships” blah-blah, etc., but we can work on him, on that. The main thing is, the man is passionate about economic democracy, and the role that government should play in promoting it.
NO laissez-faire bullshit about the “marketplace” running rampant and utterly controlling the economy. We’ve all seen where that leads. We HAVE to have government regulation and oversight on these corporate wheelings and dealings. Way too much economic power has been concentrated in a few cartels, by uncontrolled mergers, etc. I think John Edwards will put a “Whoa!” on that, instanter.
I think there is a quiet consensus developing that the next president is going to be a democrat. And the democrat who scares corporate america and the MSM the least, is Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Of the three democrats who are the frontrunners, the democrat who scares corporate america and the MSM the most, is John Edwards. If we want real, substantial, change in the country, toward a genuinely progressive political culture, that’s what we have to deal with.
Girls, you didn’t mention that size counts.
If OBL’s last American penetration climaxed in two World Trade Towers down, a hole in the Pentagon, shutting down all US flights and US financial commerce for a bit, then basic rules of megalomania dictate follow-on retaliatory size restrictions.
You don’t simply blow up a few subway stations if you’re as big a dick as Osama B.
With respect Eli- You write this story as if the reader assumes the official 9/11 story was the truth. Some polls show a majority does not believe the official story.
“No, the purpose of 9/11 was to provoke us into an ill-considered, violent overreaction that would enrage and radicalize the Muslim community, and Bush obliged beyond bin Laden’s bloodiest dreams.”
Maybe it was not Bin Ladens dream. Maybe it was PNAC or something of the sort who neederd another Pearl Harbor. I agree with you Eli whomever it was it was to provoke an over reaction on many levels.
Thank you for your article.
Tanbark @ 229
Brief Overview of Congressman Paul’s Record:
He has never voted to raise taxes.
He has never voted for an unbalanced budget.
He has never voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership.
He has never voted to raise congressional pay.
He has never taken a government-paid junket.
He has never voted to increase the power of the executive branch.
He voted against the Patriot Act.
He voted against regulating the Internet.
He voted against the Iraq war.
He does not participate in the lucrative congressional pension program.
He returns a portion of his annual congressional office budget to the U.S. treasury every year.
Congressman Paul introduces numerous pieces of substantive legislation each year, probably more than any single member of Congress
Reid @ 236
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issues/
Thsi has been exactly my understanding for a lond time, as I have commented here previously, not because I’m so smart but because Bin Laden himself put it in writing prior to 9/11, and I read it on the Internet (certainly not in the MSM, they only quote Bin Laden when the quote furthers short-term Bushco political needs).
Impeachment is the only option.
Tanbark @ 233
There’s not a thing in your post I disagree with.
I hope Edwards and Kuch pull together at the end. It would be a GLORIOUS start on this Republic’s rebuilding efforts!!! *G*
Al Gore as Energy Czar, as long as he DON’T push his nuke buddies for more reactors and stays focused on development of NEW and reusable/sustainable sources of energy.
Al’s just TOO much of a big biz fat kat for me to toss my entire hat at . . . . it’s taken me a LONG time to get here, but, I’m at Edwards/Kuch all the way, with Gore involved.
I’m not sure I want Hil OR Bill in any of the cabinet postings . . . Senator Whitehouse though, along with a few others, gets to head up the prosecution of the evil one’s!!! *G*
Stormcrow @ 225
I’m going to tie in my reply and incorporate some of what you posted above about Ron Robb’s analysis . . which was an interesting read and thanks for that.
Robb’s theory(s) are quite the com studies analysis lens applied to terror/insurgency battles.
And, as Robb and others, and you above say, Bin Laden has the wherewithal to BUILD to something, and do it . . and hitting vulnerable spots in our defensive ‘armor’ is simply common sense, yes.
If you look at how Russia fell, they fell economically as a result of overextension . . .
We the USA are VERY close to that, but not in our DIRECT WAR MONEY economy!
Where then?
Forgot where I read it recently, google will reveal if anyone cares . . .
But I understand we are about to default and toss away on some few TRILLIONS of dollors worth of hedge funds.
And the impact of THAT was foretold as being PROPHETIC of MAJOR damage to our economy.
So, there IS something that ties all the binds we are in that you point at Stormcrow, and Ron Robb points . . . ultimately, we will fall due to a house of cards scam that concentrates all the wealth into the hands of 1%.
And when if falls, like Mark Knofler so sweetly sings, even the 1% won’t have squat except for:
“Paraguay, Paraguay.”
You guys are fun in here . . . most all of you! Thanks for the brain exercises, I always come away from this place with something new.
Larue, I LIKE the Kuch. But will the political climate be right for a populist (even one with offshore hedge funds; which practice, Edwards says he will end, if he’s elected) and for a “leftie” on the same ticket? The old “balance” word will rear it’s head, methinks.
Reid, those are generally good things. (except for that about no votes for the feds exercising gun control, which I think SHOULD happen.)
But, again, I have to ask:
WTF is he doing in the republican party? :o)