Is Osama bin Laden a red herring?

hindustantimes.com ^ | November 08 2001 | Rahul Gul

[AM2000]

your thoughts?

[livius]

Very interesting, particularly in light of Osama's declaration - just the other day - that he was responsible for 9/11. That is, he hadn't really stated this before.

I think bin Laden was certainly involved, but I tend to think that he was working with a somewhat more organized Islamic state (something that really IS a state, unlike al Quaeda or even Afghanistan). Red herring? Probably.

But I hope it's a double-edged red herring, so to speak. That is, while he is attempting to mislead us and throw us off the scent of whoever is controlling him, we are trying to mislead them by pretending to believe that bin Laden is solely responsible. Or maybe that's too much to hope, after 8 years of Bill Clinton's magic sleeping potion.

[Lexington Green]

How could we not have known? Clinton let this happen. The blood is on his hands as well as Osama's.

[glockmeister40]

The reason why they could pull this off is due to the lax U.S.immigration laws. We are at war and the front lines are not in the middle east. They are right here in America. Let's rid ourselves of our enemies living within our borders. Mass deportations now!

[Gimlet]

I don't think lax immigration laws are the crucial issue here - rather lax attention to the world and it's clear and present dangers. OBL and his cronies have been on the move for twenty plus years and they have slowly gathered support and credibility by knowing how to exploit the genuine concerns of many people. We have let this happen under our very noses. And by us I don't just mean dozing Reagan/ Bush/ Clinton/ Clinton/ Bush administrations and Congress but also a careless and carefree people who ignored the writing on the wall. We were so busy chasing adultery and dot.com wealth bubbles we ignored terrorism. An interesting article. There is an increasing number of really useful material come from various world news sources. Very little pro OBL - in fact virtually none that I can find - but lots of material that really gives insight into what people in the world are thinking about terror, about OBL, and about us.I find some hope in it.

[exmoor]

Is Osama bin Laden a red herring?... No! He's a damn BLOW FISH !!!

[thirst4truth]

What's for sure is that the US underestimated its adversaries and that its intelligence agencies have no justification for failing to anticipate 9-11 considering that its counter-terrorism budget has jumped from $2 billion to $12 billion over a decade and it spends some $30 billion a year in intelligence-gathering activities.

Is that because their intellignce was to investigate and audit Republicans, conservative non-profit groups, church groups, and busting down innocent Americans doors because they might be smoking a joint?

What did the Clintons do after the 1993 bombings? Spend millions on lawyers taking them to trial?

What did they do after TWA 800? Blame Boeing?

What did they do after the OKC bombing? Deny any terriost connections!

What did they do after the embassy bombings, take out a couple of tents and camels on the day Monica testified?

What did they do after 17 sailors were killed in a direct attack on one of our ships? Nothing! Still waiting!

It's this weakness coupled with Torrecelli's bill to not let criminals give us intellignece and all along the leader of their party and the country was being run by one of the biggest crimials in history!!

[wjeanw]

If anyone is seriously interested in understanding the Islamic terrorists, I would recommend reading Yossef Bodansky's books:

TARGET: AMERICA - discusses why we are targets and how a new Pan-Asian alliance has been formed between Iran, Syria, Pakistan, Korea and China to wage a terrorist war against America.

TERROR - discusses how the terrorist network is organized along with all the training

BIN LADEN: THE MAN WHO DECLARED WAR ON AMERICA - describes how Al Quaida was set up and its links to other terrorist networks

Another chilling book is CRISIS IN: KOREA where the North Korean link to the terrorist network is explored, as well as NK's commitment to developing FIRST STRIKE capability against the South and the USA.

[dighton]

No, a dead duck.

[F-117A]

But in the Urdu version of the article, Bin Laden does not threaten to use nuclear or chemical weapons.

How much of the US media is going to mention the fact that the BBC caught this discrepancy

I posted the fact that CNN reported this discrepancy two days ago. two versions

[Gimlet]

Highly unlikely that India would want to provoke such a war. India has the second largest Moslem population in the world. (larger than Pakistan's) If their Moslem population is endangered, India is endangered. I think it likely that OBL et al would love to prokoke something in India so that India turns on its Moslems. That would destabilize the country. A huge bomb plot was thwarted in New Delhi not so long ago. These terrorists work by provoking - provoking countries to react in ways that expose their values to doubt. Example - provoke the US to clamp down on freedoms. That is their basic MO. That is how they win. That is why in a war with terrorist we need the heavy guns but also top notch strategists/ chess players.

[Gimlet]

No doubt about it - these attacks have been long in the making and planned right beneath our eyes. I honestly don't think it makes sense to blame any one group of Americans for being asleep at the wheel - we ALL were. The Khobar barracks where we lost so many Marines; WTC1 in 1993; the Embassy plots; the USS Cole - to mention just a few connected incidents. There are so very many more - some successful, some thwarted. And then that BBC story of how we had Bin laden in our grasp last July when he was in an American hospital for dialysis. Why did we not grab him then? Can there be any validity to the story that we held back because of pressure from the Bush family and their connections with the Carlyle group? While it is wise to keep an open mind for possibilities of all kinds - even the wildest conspiracy stories - it is vital to keep a grip on reality. Having crazy stories does not help sort through the entanglemnets of money, policy, history, oil, etc. "Follow the money" though is not a bad thread to keep in mind even though money means nothing to religious fanatics. And now Bin Laden seems to be taking credit for WTC but denying all knowledge of Anthrax. I do think that if that was connected with Al-Qaeda then they would have made a bigger thing of it than this seems to be.

[lakey]

Thanks for the flag. Interesting post.

[Roy Tucker]

Sure, we need to squeeze him out of Afghanistan and see where he runs to...unless we kill him first. Then we see where the minions run to.