DNC Headquarters last month.
Posted on 10/25/2004 2:01:22 PM PDT by CHARLITE
Is Osama bin Laden alive or dead? And if Osama is alive, where is he?
"President Bush knows damn well that (bin Laden) has been dead for quite some time," said former Navy SEAL Matthew Heidt, echoing the sentiments of many in the special operations community.
"(Bin Laden) has not been heard from since Tora Bora despite developments in the Global War on Terror that make it unthinkable for him to remain silent," Heidt said in his web log, "Froggy Ruminations."
The last audiotape purportedly from bin Laden (but not authenticated) was issued on May 7th of this year. But Gregory Djerejian (Belgravia Dispatch), who shares Heidt's view, notes that the last video tapes from bin Laden were made public Oct. 19th and Sept. 11th, 2003. There was nothing on those videotapes which indicates when they were made, and they show a much healthier bin Laden than the gaunt fellow in the videotape released Dec. 26th, 2001, suggesting they were made before then.
JWR contributor Jack Kelly, a former Marine and Green Beret, was a deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
"Scumbag".
Tey-ray-za has intimate knowledge of this term, having lived with JF Kerry.
He's dead Jim.
But then Ijaz Monsour said his operatives saw him in Iran. By the way, what's happened to Ijaz?
He's living in Fresno in a duplex he shares with Jimmy Hoffa.
According to Richard Miniter who wrote "Shadow War: The Untold Story of How Bush Is Winning the War on Terror" he mentioned today that four of his ordinarily good sources say UBL made a deal with Iran and that's where he holes up most of the time.
Osama is dead.
Until I see some proof of life I will continue to believe this suckah expired shortly after Tora Bora.
Absolutely well said.
Patty Murray (D WA)
"And President Bush doesn't trumpet this because...?"
1) He's using it to lure other members of Al-Qaeda into a trap
2) He doesn't want the media to think the war on terror is over
3) He doesn't have his body, so the media would just call it a Bush lie.
" And Al Qaeda doesn't play the bin Laden "martyr" card because...?"
1) Not all of them know about it
2) He didn't die during a fight, making him look like a wimp
3) It might lose a lot of support that it had before
This is what I've come to believe. I think that President Bush was very constrained during the debates, because there are certain truths that he simply can not reveal. It puts him at a distinct disadvantage, while Kerry can rant on and on about what wasn't done, what should be done.......and once Bush is re-elected, I think that we will learn more. He will also pick up the pace of the WOT.
Mate, UBL wouldn't "voom" if you put four million volts through him. He's bleedin' demised. If someone hadn't nailed him to his perch, he'd be pushing up the daisies. He's kicked the bucket, shuffled off the mortal coil and joined the choir invisible. This is a dead terrorist.
Yep. What I REALLY believe is that he WAS killed at Tora Bora. The doc got away, but UBL bought the cave (ha! - farm). If that isn't what happened, then how could the next few (2?) videos that were released AFTER Tora Bora show him looking so much younger/healthier and a whole lot less gray/green around the gills than he did on that final one that came out right in early Dec. of '01?
Osama has fled the Middle East IF he is alive. I don't know, but in beginning..I was sure he was in Somolia. There is a lot of Al Queda there and noone was concerned about that area, and lots of messengers to send back and forth. I think he is out of area, and was never in Tora Bora, or whatever that area is near Pakistan.
Barstow, CA is very possible, why not hide in plain view....makes sense to me, WHY he could be a traveling transvestite for all we know, dressing in women's clothing and driving a nice station wagon/SUV, of course its his wife's not really his as he is concerned about the environment. OH Í'm sorry, I got him confused with Kerry, LOL.
I saw bin Laden in Walmart last week. He was in the furniture department, picking out bean bag chairs. It appeared he was trying to decide on hot pink or lime green.
Sheesh, already, the guy's dead.
I posted an article from the Asia Times yesterday by B Ramam who shared an interesting perspective on bin Laden.
Snip:
"In fact, bin Laden, who was incapacitated by a shrapnel injury at Tora Bora, was shifted to the Binori madrassa in Karachi, where he was under treatment until August 2002. Since then he has disappeared. He was keeping in touch with his followers through video and audio messages until this April. Since then, he has been observing even electronic silence.
He used to circulate at least three messages every year to his followers - on the anniversary of September 11, 2001, to pay homage to the terrorists who participated in the terrorist strikes in US territory; before the beginning of the Ramadan fasting period; and at the end of the fasting period. This year, he did not issue any message coinciding with September 11. Instead, there was a message from Ayman al-Zawahiri, his No 2. Nor was there a message before the start of the fasting period this Ramadan.
The continuing silence of bin Laden could be due to one of the following reasons.
He is dead. Reliable Shi'ite sources in Pakistan believe there is a greater possibility of his being dead than alive. Though their arguments are strong, I am disinclined, for the present, to believe them because if he were really dead the news would have spread like wildfire in the tribal areas of Pakistan. He is literally worshipped there and his burial site, if in tribal territory, would have become a place of pilgrimage. The Sunni tribals insist he must be alive, though none of them claims to have seen him.
He is observing electronic silence for his own physical security.
He has been sidelined by his followers and has no longer any de facto or de jure control over al-Qaeda or the International Islamic Front (IIF) formed by him in February 1998. The increasing audibility of al-Zawahiri indicates the possibility of his playing the leadership role at least in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region, though not in Iraq. I have been writing since April 2003 that bin Laden is no longer in day-to-day control of the IIF. This is now being exercised by Pakistan's Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), which has been in the forefront of recruiting volunteers and collecting funds for the jihad in Iraq.
If bin Laden is still alive, where will he be? In the past, US military officials were saying that he ought to be in the tribal areas on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Now they are increasingly saying he is most probably in Balochistan - possibly in the Pashtun majority areas of Balochistan. If he goes into the Baloch-majority areas, the Baloch people, though Sunnis, and the Shi'ite Hazaras would hunt him.
In my past articles, I have argued as to why it was unlikely that he would take shelter in the tribal areas near the Afghan border. The most important argument was that US troops were right across the border in Afghan territory and if they came to know of bin Laden's presence in the adjoining Pakistani territory, they would make a foray into Pakistan with or without the permission of President General Pervez Musharraf and kill or whisk him out.
Shi'ite sources in Pakistan say that if he is alive there is a greater likelihood of his being in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) than in the tribal areas near the Afghan border. The POK is Pakistan's Fallujah, a stronghold of diehard Sunni elements. And it is outside the easy reach of US troops."
Source: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1256084/posts
What if he's changed his appearance?
Just finished that book myself. The author makes a very good argument regarding Osama.
I haven't read it yet but plan to - only heard the author talking about it yesterday.
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