By Joseph Chrysdale, Washington Times
Jun. 20, 2005 at 1:28PM
CIA Director Porter Goss says the agency has a good idea where al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is hiding. In an interview with Time magazine published Monday, Goss, 66, said much of the delay in apprehending bin Laden was rooted in diplomacy. "When you go to the very difficult question of dealing with sanctuaries in sovereign states, you're dealing with a problem of our sense of international obligation, fair play," Goss said. "We have to find a way to work in a conventional world in unconventional ways that are acceptable to the international community."
yeah sure I KNOW where Osama is too...
he is in the Middle East....
doesnt mean that he is either A) there now. As Zarqawi has proven, there is some security in never sleeping in a bed or staying at any one safe house or B) in a country were we can reach him.
CIA Director Porter Goss says the agency has a good idea where al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is hiding.
Is not the same as,
Goss says CIA knows where bin Laden is
Haven't you noticed that this never became a huge story? It's because of those three words above--we don't KNOW, we have AN IDEA. If Bush knew exactly where UBL was, he'd get him. The CIA's word is still not the gold standard, and having a "good idea" ("In Pakistan somewhere"?) isn't actionable intel. All it does is get nervous nellies thinking "Oooh! Oooh! We're letting him run free!".
Of course we should get him, but anyone who knows the most basic facts about Al Qaeda knows that it doesn't rely on one man; notice that the "planners" of 9-11 were numerous?
So, everything our President said after 9/11 was just talk?
"We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. (Applause.) From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."
If we KNEW where he was we would go get him.
I know where he is too - he's in Pakistan. Goss isn't telling us anything we don't already know. I think if we knew which house he was in, we would take it out. But we don't know to that level of detail. so what do we do? carpet bomb the city he's in? that tactic didn't kill Hitler, or Yamamoto, and likely would not get OBL either.
You can know the "general" whereabouts of someone (which we probably do with UBL) but that doesn't mean you can get him!
We know the general whereabouts of Zarqawi (he is in Iraq!) - We have over 130,000 American soldiers there, but we haven't got him yet!
UBL has managed to ekk out a survival in the Afghan / Pakistan border region - We are hunting him! - We just lost a lot of very good men (great men!) hunting his as$ -
You have no clue as to how hard we have been chasing his as$ and number of lives that are constantly in jeopardy over trying to locate him.
Again it is just intellectually empty to suggest because we don't have him yet....we haven't been serious enough in trying to catch him. Nothing can be further from the truth.
It also seems extremely easy for you to ignore the fact that we have killed / captured over 3/4 of al Qeade's leadership, killed or captured thousands more al-Qeade foot soldiers, removed the Taliban from power and disrupted their established money sources to a huge degree.