We'll need a reason to invade Northern Pakistan... Let's just assume he's alive on what intel we get from our agencies.. hehe.
And President Bush doesn't trumpet this because...?
And Al Qaeda doesn't play the bin Laden "martyr" card because...?
Doesn't add up.
It seems that Bin Laden is either dead or scared to death. While I prefer the former, I can live with the latter.
Osama now owns a gas station in downtown Barstow, CA. I saw him there myself on Saturday, but he was reluctant to talk beyond asking for my money. Without his beard he looks just like every other Arab gas station owner in CA (that's most stations). Also, he had the effrontery to charge me $2.49 per gallon, thus enriching the Saudis even more so they can support more terrorism. If that wasn't him, he's DOA in Tora Bora.
If UBL is alive or dead, then that fact would be classified, wouldn't it? And this "former" SpecOps guy can't discuss it could he?
If he's divulging classified, he's compromising his fellow SpecOps guys on future ops, isn't he?
And if this guy doesn't know what he's talking about, then...
And if UBL is dead, why hasn't it been published as a war coup?
And if UBL is alive, and his whereabouts are known, then isn't that also classified?
And if UBL is alive and we don't know his location, should that ALSO not be classified?
You see the semantics that only a trial lawyer could understand?
He's sleeping with the desert fishes...
I've got to believe he's either dead or really sick. Bin Laden would have to make a video appearance before the election just to stick it to President Bush. He hasn't made an appearance in some time. The guy's got too big an ego to sit out this long.
He daid!
He's dead Jim.
But then Ijaz Monsour said his operatives saw him in Iran. By the way, what's happened to Ijaz?
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.
Patty Murray (D WA)
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.
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