by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Global Research
May 4, 2011
The US government’s bin Laden story was so poorly crafted that it did not last 48 hours before being fundamentally altered. Indeed, the new story put out on Tuesday by White House press secretary Jay Carney bears little resemblance to the original Sunday evening story. The fierce firefight did not occur. Osama bin Laden did not hide behind a woman. Indeed, bin Laden, Carney said, “was not armed.”
The firefight story was instantly suspicious as not a single SEAL got a scratch, despite being up against al Qaeda, described by former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld as ‘the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth.”
Every original story detail has been changed. It wasn’t bin Laden’s wife who was murdered by the Navy SEALs , but the wife of an aide. It wasn’t bin Laden’s son, Khalid, who was murdered by the Navy SEALs, but son Hamza.
Carney blamed the changed story on “the fog of war.” But there was no firefight, so where did the “fog of war” come from?
The White House has also had to abandon the story that President Obama and his national security team watched tensely as events unfolded in real time (despite the White House having released photos of the team watching tensely), with the operation conveyed into the White House by cameras on the SEALs helmets. If Obama was watching the event as it happened, he would have noticed, one would hope, that there was no firefight and, thus, would not have told the public that bin Laden was killed in a firefight. Another reason the story had to be abandoned is that if the event was captured on video, every news service in the world would be asking for the video, but if the event was orchestrated theater, there would be no video.
No explanation has been provided for why an unarmed bin Laden, in the absence of a firefight, was murdered by the SEALs with a shot to the head. For those who believe the government’s story that “we got bin Laden,” the operation can only appear as the most botched operation in history. What kind of incompetence does it require to senselessly and needlessly kill the most valuable intelligence asset on the planet?
According to the US government, the terrorist movements of the world operated through bin Laden, “the mastermind.” Thanks to a trigger-happy stupid SEAL, a bullet destroyed the most valuable terrorist information on the planet. Perhaps the SEAL was thinking that he could put a notch on his gun and brag for the rest of his life about being the macho tough guy who killed Osama bin Laden, the most dangerous man on the planet, who outwitted the US and its European and Israeli allies and inflicted humiliation on the “world’s only superpower” on 9/11.
When such a foundational story as the demise of bin Laden cannot last 48 hours without acknowledged “discrepancies” that require fundamental alternations to the story, there are grounds for suspicion in addition to the suspicions arising from the absence of a dead body, from the absence of any evidence that bin Laden was killed in the raid or that a raid even took place. The entire episode could just be another event like the August 4, 1964, Gulf of Tonkin event that never happened but succeeded in launching open warfare against North Vietnam at a huge cost to Americans and Vietnamese and enormous profits to the military/security complex.
There is no doubt that the US is sufficiently incompetent to have needlessly killed bin Laden instead of capturing him. But who can believe that the US would quickly dispose of the evidence that bin Laden had been terminated? The government’s story is not believable that the government dumped the proof of its success into the ocean, but has some photos that might be released, someday.
As one reader put it in an email to me: “What is really alarming is the increasingly arrogant sloppiness of these lies, as though the government has become so profoundly confident of their ability to deceive people that they make virtually no effort to even appear credible.”
Governments have known from the beginning of time that they can always deceive citizens and subjects by playing the patriot card. “Remember the Maine,” the “Gulf of Tonkin,” “weapons of mass destruction,” “the Reichstag fire”--the staged events and bogus evidence are endless. If Americans knew any history, they would not be so gullible.
The real question before us is: What agenda or agendas is the “death of bin Laden” designed to further?
There are many answers to this question. Many have noticed that Obama was facing re-election with poor approval ratings. Is anyone surprised that the New York Times/CBS Poll finds a strong rise in Obama’s poll numbers after the bin Laden raid? As the New York Times reported, “the glow of national pride” rose “above partisan politics, as support for the president rose significantly among both Republicans and independents. In all, 57 percent said they now approved of the president’s job performance, up from 46 percent.”
In Washington-think, a 24% rise in approval rating justifies a staged event.
Another possibility is that Obama realized that the the budget deficit and the dollar’s rescue from collapse require the end of the expensive Afghan war and occupation and spillover war into Pakistan. As the purpose of the war was to get bin Laden, success in this objective allows the US to withdraw without loss of face, thus making it possible to reduce the US budget deficit by several hundred billion dollars annually--an easy way to have a major spending cut.
If this is the agenda, then more power to it. However, if this was Obama’s agenda, the military/security complex has quickly moved against it. CIA director Leon Panetta opened the door to false flag attacks to keep the war going by declaring that al Qaeda would avenge bin Laden’s killing. Secretary of State Clinton declared that success in killing bin Laden justified more war and more success. Homeland Security declared that the killing of bin Laden would motivate “homegrown violent extremists” into making terrorist attacks. “Homegrown violent extremists” is an undefined term, but this newly created bogyman seems to include environmentalists and war protesters. Like “suspect,” the term will include anyone the government wants to pick up.
Various parts of the government quickly seized on the success in killing bin Laden to defend and advance their own agendas, such as torture. Americans were told that bin Laden was found as a result of information gleaned from torturing detainees held in Eastern European CIA secret prisons years ago.
This listing of possible agendas and add-on agendas is far from complete, but for those capable of skepticism and independent thought, it can serve as a starting point. The agendas behind the theater will reveal themselves as time goes on. All you have to do is to pay attention and to realize that most of what you hear from the mainstream media is designed to advance the agendas.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
US Government Contractor Claims “Al-Qaeda” Has Confirmed Bin Laden Fairytale
SITE organization was behind release of fake “Al-Qaeda” tapes released at politically opportune times stretching back years
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Friday, May 6, 2011
One of the groups behind the endless fake Bin Laden tapes and a contractor for the US government tells us that “Al-Qaeda” has confirmed the death of Osama. Although Bin Laden has been dead since 2001, the fact the US government is having to rely on the notorious SITE Institute to prop up the crumbling Bin Laden fable that was manufactured on Sunday night shows how desperate the White House has become in its bid to sell the public on more terror fearmongering.
“Al Qaeda released a statement on jihadist forums confirming the death of its leader, Osama bin Laden, according to SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant messages,” reports CNN.
“The statement, translated by SITE, lauded the late militant, threatened to take action against the United States, and urged Pakistanis to “rise up and revolt.”
SITE’s claim that “Al-Qaeda” has confirmed the official White House version of events concerning the death of Bin Laden, thereby lending presumed credence to a narrative that has quickly attracted derision and suspicion even amongst mainstream journalists, is about as credible as if Barney the Purple Dinosaur had made a statement assuring us that Osama was killed on Sunday evening.
SITE is a US military-industrial complex front and has been caught red-handed releasing fake Al-Qaeda tapes on numerous occasions.
The SITE organization is nothing more than a contractor for the U.S. government, receiving some $500,000 a year annually from Uncle Sam, the majority of which is paid for by U.S. taxpayers. The group was founded by Rita Katz, the daughter of an executed Israeli spy. Katz has worked closely with the Department of Justice, Department of the Treasury, and the Department of Homeland Security.
SITE’s website content was found to be largely copied from the U.S. State Department. “SITE’s “Terrorism Library, on cursory investigation, looks to be a straight data scrape from the U.S. Department of State’s Patterns of Global Terrorism – 2003, Appendix B,” notes SourceWatch. This organization is nothing more than a dummy group which acts as a conduit for Pentagon propaganda.
Everything about SITE indicates that it is nothing more than a trojan horse that is regularly used by the military-industrial complex to release staged Al-Qaeda videotapes as part of the ongoing propaganda offensive to justify the brutal, pointless and manufactured war on terror.
SITE was miraculously able to obtain the highly suspicious September 2007 Bin Laden video tape before it was released by the so-called Al-Qaeda group who had made it.
SITE has been positively endorsed by Blackwater USA, the infamous military contractor co-founded by former Navy Seal Erik Prince that was found to have been involved in several massacres of innocent Iraqi civilians.
SITE’s continued existence relies on fleecing the American taxpayer by way of contracts with the U.S. government and constantly invoking and hyping the hugely exaggerated threat of alleged Al-Qaeda groups in the Middle East.
The organization has proven itself adept at releasing Al-Qaeda propaganda tapes at the most politically expedient times for both the Bush and Obama administrations. For example, just two days after it was revealed that Al-Qaeda mastermind and CIA stooge Anwar Al-Awlaki had met with Pentagon top brass only a matter of months after 9/11, SITE released a video tape of Awlaki re-affirming his commitment to global jihad and praising the actions of the Fort Hood shooter and the Christmas Day bomber.
On the same weekend, SITE released a tape of Adam (Pearlman) Gadahn also praising Farouk AbdulMutallab and Faisal Shazad, the alleged Times Square bomber. Adam Pearlman is blatantly a Mossad spy who is releasing fake Al-Qaeda videos to bolster the geopolitical agenda of both the United States and Israel.
We are being asked to believe that Pearlman, a former hardcore Jewish Zionist who once wrote stinging essays condemning Muslims as “bloodthirsty terrorists,” and enjoyed regularly beating up Arabs is now preaching the cause of global jihad. Pearlman’s grandfather was none other than the late Carl K. Pearlman; a prominent Jewish urologist in Orange County. Carl Pearlman was also a member of the board of directors of the Anti-Defamation League, which was caught spying on Americans for Israel in 1993.
SITE claimed it obtained the Pearlman video from As-Sahab, Al-Qaeda’s supposed media arm. As we previously documented, SITE’s sister organization IntelCenter was caught adding its logo to a supposed Al-Qaeda tape at the same time as the As-Sahab logo was added, indicating the two organizations were one and the same.
Since the official narrative behind the Bin Laden myth has quickly crumbled as the White House flip-flops on the actual account of what happened, in addition to being caught staging the “situation room” photos which were erroneously passed off as depicting Obama and Hillary Clinton watching the assassination of Osama live on TV, holding together the flimsy fairytale of the Bin Laden fable is proving difficult.
That’s why we can expect more lurid fearmongering to distract from increasing suspicion towards the events of Sunday evening, like the supposed Al-Qaeda plot to derail trains in the U.S. on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, a plan described as “aspirational more than operational,” and one already rendered mythical based on the fact that no trains even operate at speeds over 500mph in the United States.
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Friday, May 6, 2011
One of the groups behind the endless fake Bin Laden tapes and a contractor for the US government tells us that “Al-Qaeda” has confirmed the death of Osama. Although Bin Laden has been dead since 2001, the fact the US government is having to rely on the notorious SITE Institute to prop up the crumbling Bin Laden fable that was manufactured on Sunday night shows how desperate the White House has become in its bid to sell the public on more terror fearmongering.
“Al Qaeda released a statement on jihadist forums confirming the death of its leader, Osama bin Laden, according to SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant messages,” reports CNN.
“The statement, translated by SITE, lauded the late militant, threatened to take action against the United States, and urged Pakistanis to “rise up and revolt.”
SITE’s claim that “Al-Qaeda” has confirmed the official White House version of events concerning the death of Bin Laden, thereby lending presumed credence to a narrative that has quickly attracted derision and suspicion even amongst mainstream journalists, is about as credible as if Barney the Purple Dinosaur had made a statement assuring us that Osama was killed on Sunday evening.
SITE is a US military-industrial complex front and has been caught red-handed releasing fake Al-Qaeda tapes on numerous occasions.
The SITE organization is nothing more than a contractor for the U.S. government, receiving some $500,000 a year annually from Uncle Sam, the majority of which is paid for by U.S. taxpayers. The group was founded by Rita Katz, the daughter of an executed Israeli spy. Katz has worked closely with the Department of Justice, Department of the Treasury, and the Department of Homeland Security.
SITE’s website content was found to be largely copied from the U.S. State Department. “SITE’s “Terrorism Library, on cursory investigation, looks to be a straight data scrape from the U.S. Department of State’s Patterns of Global Terrorism – 2003, Appendix B,” notes SourceWatch. This organization is nothing more than a dummy group which acts as a conduit for Pentagon propaganda.
Everything about SITE indicates that it is nothing more than a trojan horse that is regularly used by the military-industrial complex to release staged Al-Qaeda videotapes as part of the ongoing propaganda offensive to justify the brutal, pointless and manufactured war on terror.
SITE was miraculously able to obtain the highly suspicious September 2007 Bin Laden video tape before it was released by the so-called Al-Qaeda group who had made it.
SITE has been positively endorsed by Blackwater USA, the infamous military contractor co-founded by former Navy Seal Erik Prince that was found to have been involved in several massacres of innocent Iraqi civilians.
SITE’s continued existence relies on fleecing the American taxpayer by way of contracts with the U.S. government and constantly invoking and hyping the hugely exaggerated threat of alleged Al-Qaeda groups in the Middle East.
The organization has proven itself adept at releasing Al-Qaeda propaganda tapes at the most politically expedient times for both the Bush and Obama administrations. For example, just two days after it was revealed that Al-Qaeda mastermind and CIA stooge Anwar Al-Awlaki had met with Pentagon top brass only a matter of months after 9/11, SITE released a video tape of Awlaki re-affirming his commitment to global jihad and praising the actions of the Fort Hood shooter and the Christmas Day bomber.
On the same weekend, SITE released a tape of Adam (Pearlman) Gadahn also praising Farouk AbdulMutallab and Faisal Shazad, the alleged Times Square bomber. Adam Pearlman is blatantly a Mossad spy who is releasing fake Al-Qaeda videos to bolster the geopolitical agenda of both the United States and Israel.
We are being asked to believe that Pearlman, a former hardcore Jewish Zionist who once wrote stinging essays condemning Muslims as “bloodthirsty terrorists,” and enjoyed regularly beating up Arabs is now preaching the cause of global jihad. Pearlman’s grandfather was none other than the late Carl K. Pearlman; a prominent Jewish urologist in Orange County. Carl Pearlman was also a member of the board of directors of the Anti-Defamation League, which was caught spying on Americans for Israel in 1993.
SITE claimed it obtained the Pearlman video from As-Sahab, Al-Qaeda’s supposed media arm. As we previously documented, SITE’s sister organization IntelCenter was caught adding its logo to a supposed Al-Qaeda tape at the same time as the As-Sahab logo was added, indicating the two organizations were one and the same.
Since the official narrative behind the Bin Laden myth has quickly crumbled as the White House flip-flops on the actual account of what happened, in addition to being caught staging the “situation room” photos which were erroneously passed off as depicting Obama and Hillary Clinton watching the assassination of Osama live on TV, holding together the flimsy fairytale of the Bin Laden fable is proving difficult.
That’s why we can expect more lurid fearmongering to distract from increasing suspicion towards the events of Sunday evening, like the supposed Al-Qaeda plot to derail trains in the U.S. on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, a plan described as “aspirational more than operational,” and one already rendered mythical based on the fact that no trains even operate at speeds over 500mph in the United States.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Constantly Changing Story Undermines US Credibility on bin Laden Death
Summary Execution: Only One Man Was Armed
Submitted by davidswanson
warisacrime.org
Thu, 2011-05-05 14:46 Pakistan
Original Article is from Jim Miklaszewski of MSNBC:
Four of the five people shot to death in the operation that killed Osama bin Laden, including the al-Qaida leader himself, were unarmed and never fired a shot, U.S. officials told NBC News on Wednesday — an account that differs markedly from the Obama administration's original claims that the Navy SEALs came under heavy small-arms fire in a prolonged firefight.
According to the officials' account, as the first SEAL team moved into the compound, they took small-arms fire from the guest house in the compound. The SEALs returned fire, killing bin Laden's courier and the courier's wife, who died in the crossfire.
The second SEAL team entered the first floor of the main residence and could see a man standing in the dark with one hand behind his back. Fearing he was hiding a weapon, the SEALs shot and killed the lone man, who turned out to be unarmed.
As the U.S. commandos moved through the house, they found several stashes of weapons and barricades, as if the residents were prepared for a violent and lengthy standoff — which never materialized.
The SEALs then made their way up a staircase, where they ran into one of bin Laden's sons on the way down. The Americans immediately shot and killed the son, who was also unarmed.
Once on the third floor, the commandos threw open the door to bin Laden's bedroom. One of bin Laden's wives rushed toward the NAVY SEAL in the door, who shot her in the leg.
Then, without hesitation, the same commando turned his gun on bin Laden, standing in what appeared to be pajamas, and fired two quick shots, one to the chest and one to the head. Although there were weapons in that bedroom, Bin Laden was also unarmed at the time he was shot. (Editor's bold emphasis throughout)
Submitted by davidswanson
warisacrime.org
Thu, 2011-05-05 14:46 Pakistan
Original Article is from Jim Miklaszewski of MSNBC:
Four of the five people shot to death in the operation that killed Osama bin Laden, including the al-Qaida leader himself, were unarmed and never fired a shot, U.S. officials told NBC News on Wednesday — an account that differs markedly from the Obama administration's original claims that the Navy SEALs came under heavy small-arms fire in a prolonged firefight.
According to the officials' account, as the first SEAL team moved into the compound, they took small-arms fire from the guest house in the compound. The SEALs returned fire, killing bin Laden's courier and the courier's wife, who died in the crossfire.
The second SEAL team entered the first floor of the main residence and could see a man standing in the dark with one hand behind his back. Fearing he was hiding a weapon, the SEALs shot and killed the lone man, who turned out to be unarmed.
As the U.S. commandos moved through the house, they found several stashes of weapons and barricades, as if the residents were prepared for a violent and lengthy standoff — which never materialized.
The SEALs then made their way up a staircase, where they ran into one of bin Laden's sons on the way down. The Americans immediately shot and killed the son, who was also unarmed.
Once on the third floor, the commandos threw open the door to bin Laden's bedroom. One of bin Laden's wives rushed toward the NAVY SEAL in the door, who shot her in the leg.
Then, without hesitation, the same commando turned his gun on bin Laden, standing in what appeared to be pajamas, and fired two quick shots, one to the chest and one to the head. Although there were weapons in that bedroom, Bin Laden was also unarmed at the time he was shot. (Editor's bold emphasis throughout)
Webster Tarpley Warning of Imminent "False Flag" Event
Webster Tarpley: Next False Flag Terror Op will be Blamed on Pakistan's ISI
Webster G. Tarpley on the Alex Jones Show
Infowars
May 04, 2011
Here's the latest on possible retaliation attacks after killing of bin Laden
Webster G. Tarpley on the Alex Jones Show
Infowars
May 04, 2011
Here's the latest on possible retaliation attacks after killing of bin Laden
Dr. Steve Pieczenik Says Global War on Terror is a Hoax!
Editor's NOTE:
Radio personality Alex Jones has conducted extensive interviews of Dr. Steve Pieczenik in the wake of the US government's claim to have killed Osama bin Laden on May 1, 2011. Pieczenik is an MD and Phd who has worked for multiple US Presidents.
Jones was told by Pieczenik in 2002 that bin Laden was killed in December of 2001 and that his body was kept preserved for possible future use. Jones also claims to have been informed by 2 other separate White House sources that corroborate Pieczenik's story.
On Pieczenik May 3 told Alex Jones that he was informed by a high ranking US general that 911 was the result of a classic "false-flag" operation which included a stand-down of US forces.
Pieczenik also claims that bin Laden had Marfan's Syndrome as well as renal failure and died of his medical problems prior to our invasion of Afghanistan.
Pieczenik alleges that President Obama is beholden to the "High Cabal" primarily the international banking cartel.
Pieczenik said: "America needs a second (peaceful) revolution." He believes that both major political parties have been corrupted.
I encourage readers to listen to the following video:
Radio personality Alex Jones has conducted extensive interviews of Dr. Steve Pieczenik in the wake of the US government's claim to have killed Osama bin Laden on May 1, 2011. Pieczenik is an MD and Phd who has worked for multiple US Presidents.
Jones was told by Pieczenik in 2002 that bin Laden was killed in December of 2001 and that his body was kept preserved for possible future use. Jones also claims to have been informed by 2 other separate White House sources that corroborate Pieczenik's story.
On Pieczenik May 3 told Alex Jones that he was informed by a high ranking US general that 911 was the result of a classic "false-flag" operation which included a stand-down of US forces.
Pieczenik also claims that bin Laden had Marfan's Syndrome as well as renal failure and died of his medical problems prior to our invasion of Afghanistan.
Pieczenik alleges that President Obama is beholden to the "High Cabal" primarily the international banking cartel.
Pieczenik said: "America needs a second (peaceful) revolution." He believes that both major political parties have been corrupted.
I encourage readers to listen to the following video:
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Top Government Insider: Bin Laden Died In 2001, 9/11 False Flag Attack
by Paul Joseph Watson
Global Research
May 4, 2011
Infowars.com
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under three different administrations Steve R. Pieczenik says he is prepared to tell a federal grand jury the name of a top general who told him directly 9/11 was a false flag attack
Top US government insider Dr. Steve R. Pieczenik, a man who held numerous different influential positions under three different Presidents and still works with the Defense Department, shockingly told The Alex Jones Show yesterday that Osama Bin Laden died in 2001 and that he was prepared to testify in front of a grand jury how a top general told him directly that 9/11 was a false flag inside job.
Pieczenik cannot be dismissed as a “conspiracy theorist”. He served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under three different administrations, Nixon, Ford and Carter, while also working under Reagan and Bush senior, and still works as a consultant for the Department of Defense. A former US Navy Captain, Pieczenik achieved two prestigious Harry C. Solomon Awards at the Harvard Medical School as he simultaneously completed a PhD at MIT.
Recruited by Lawrence Eagleburger as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Management, Pieczenik went on to develop, “the basic tenets for psychological warfare, counter terrorism, strategy and tactics for transcultural negotiations for the US State Department, military and intelligence communities and other agencies of the US Government,” while also developing foundational strategies for hostage rescue that were later employed around the world.
Pieczenik also served as a senior policy planner under Secretaries Henry Kissinger, Cyrus Vance, George Schultz and James Baker and worked on George W. Bush’s election campaign against Al Gore. His record underscores the fact that he is one of the most deeply connected men in intelligence circles over the past three decades plus.
The character of Jack Ryan, who appears in many Tom Clancy novels and was also played by Harrison Ford in the popular 1992 movie Patriot Games, is also based on Steve Pieczenik.
Back in April 2002, over nine years ago, Pieczenik told the Alex Jones Show that Bin Laden had already been “dead for months,” and that the government was waiting for the most politically expedient time to roll out his corpse. Pieczenik would be in a position to know, having personally met Bin Laden and worked with him during the proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan back in the early 80′s.
Pieczenik said that Osama Bin Laden died in 2001, “Not because special forces had killed him, but because as a physician I had known that the CIA physicians had treated him and it was on the intelligence roster that he had Marfan's Syndrome,” adding that the US government knew Bin Laden was dead before they invaded Afghanistan.
Marfan syndrome is a degenerative genetic disease for which there is no permanent cure. The illness severely shortens the life span of the sufferer.
“He died of Marfan's Syndrome, Bush junior knew about it, the intelligence community knew about it,” said Pieczenik, noting how CIA physicians had visited Bin Laden in July 2001 at the American Hospital in Dubai.
“He was already very sick from Marfan's Syndrome and he was already dying, so nobody had to kill him,” added Pieczenik, stating that Bin Laden died shortly after 9/11 in his Tora Bora cave complex.
“Did the intelligence community or the CIA doctor up this situation, the answer is yes, categorically yes,” said Pieczenik, referring to Sunday’s claim that Bin Laden was killed at his compound in Pakistan, adding, “This whole scenario where you see a bunch of people sitting there looking at a screen and they look as if they’re intense, that’s nonsense,” referring to the images released by the White House which claim to show Biden, Obama and Hillary Clinton watching the operation to kill Bin Laden live on a television screen.
“It’s a total make-up, make believe, we’re in an American theater of the absurd….why are we doing this again….nine years ago this man was already dead….why does the government repeatedly have to lie to the American people,” asked Pieczenik.
“Osama Bin Laden was totally dead, so there’s no way they could have attacked or confronted or killed Osama Bin laden,” said Pieczenik, joking that the only way it could have happened was if special forces had attacked a mortuary.
Pieczenik said that the decision to launch the hoax now was made because Obama had reached a low with plummeting approval ratings and the fact that the birther issue was blowing up in his face.
“He had to prove that he was more than American….he had to be aggressive,” said Pieczenik, adding that the farce was also a way of isolating Pakistan as a retaliation for intense opposition to the Predator drone program, which has killed hundreds of Pakistanis.
“This is orchestrated, I mean when you have people sitting around and watching a sitcom, basically the operations center of the White House, and you have a president coming out almost zombie-like telling you they just killed Osama Bin Laden who was already dead nine years ago,” said Pieczenik, calling the episode, “the greatest falsehood I’ve ever heard, I mean it was absurd.”
Dismissing the government’s account of the assassination of Bin Laden as a “sick joke” on the American people, Pieczenik said, “They are so desperate to make Obama viable, to negate the fact that he may not have been born here, (Editor: I have no evidence that President Obama was not born in the United States) any questions about his background, any irregularities about his background, to make him look assertive….to re-elect this president so the American public can be duped once again.”
Pieczenik’s assertion that Bin Laden died almost ten years ago is echoed by numerous intelligence professionals as well as heads of state across the world.
Bin Laden, “Was used in the same way that 9/11 was used to mobilize the emotions and feelings of the American people in order to go to a war that had to be justified through a narrative that Bush junior created and Cheney created about the world of terrorism,” stated Pieczenik.
During his interview with the Alex Jones Show yesterday, Pieczenik also asserted he was directly told by a prominent general that 9/11 was a stand down and a false flag operation, and that he is prepared to go to a grand jury to reveal the general’s name.
“They ran the attacks,” said Pieczenik, naming Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Stephen Hadley, Elliott Abrams, and Condoleezza Rice amongst others as having been directly involved.
“It was called a stand down, a false flag operation in order to mobilize the American public under false pretenses….it was told to me even by the general on the staff of Wolfowitz – I will go in front of a federal committee and swear on perjury who the name was of the individual so that we can break it open,” said Pieczenik, adding that he was “furious” and “knew it had happened”.
“I taught stand down and false flag operations at the national war college, I’ve taught it with all my operatives so I knew exactly what was done to the American public,” he added.
Pieczenik re-iterated that he was perfectly willing to reveal the name of the general who told him 9/11 was an inside job in a federal court, “so that we can unravel this thing legally, not with the stupid 9/11 Commission that was absurd.”
Pieczenik explained that he was not a liberal, a conservative or a tea party member, merely an American who is deeply concerned about the direction in which his country is heading.
Global Research
May 4, 2011
Infowars.com
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under three different administrations Steve R. Pieczenik says he is prepared to tell a federal grand jury the name of a top general who told him directly 9/11 was a false flag attack
Top US government insider Dr. Steve R. Pieczenik, a man who held numerous different influential positions under three different Presidents and still works with the Defense Department, shockingly told The Alex Jones Show yesterday that Osama Bin Laden died in 2001 and that he was prepared to testify in front of a grand jury how a top general told him directly that 9/11 was a false flag inside job.
Pieczenik cannot be dismissed as a “conspiracy theorist”. He served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under three different administrations, Nixon, Ford and Carter, while also working under Reagan and Bush senior, and still works as a consultant for the Department of Defense. A former US Navy Captain, Pieczenik achieved two prestigious Harry C. Solomon Awards at the Harvard Medical School as he simultaneously completed a PhD at MIT.
Recruited by Lawrence Eagleburger as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Management, Pieczenik went on to develop, “the basic tenets for psychological warfare, counter terrorism, strategy and tactics for transcultural negotiations for the US State Department, military and intelligence communities and other agencies of the US Government,” while also developing foundational strategies for hostage rescue that were later employed around the world.
Pieczenik also served as a senior policy planner under Secretaries Henry Kissinger, Cyrus Vance, George Schultz and James Baker and worked on George W. Bush’s election campaign against Al Gore. His record underscores the fact that he is one of the most deeply connected men in intelligence circles over the past three decades plus.
The character of Jack Ryan, who appears in many Tom Clancy novels and was also played by Harrison Ford in the popular 1992 movie Patriot Games, is also based on Steve Pieczenik.
Back in April 2002, over nine years ago, Pieczenik told the Alex Jones Show that Bin Laden had already been “dead for months,” and that the government was waiting for the most politically expedient time to roll out his corpse. Pieczenik would be in a position to know, having personally met Bin Laden and worked with him during the proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan back in the early 80′s.
Pieczenik said that Osama Bin Laden died in 2001, “Not because special forces had killed him, but because as a physician I had known that the CIA physicians had treated him and it was on the intelligence roster that he had Marfan's Syndrome,” adding that the US government knew Bin Laden was dead before they invaded Afghanistan.
Marfan syndrome is a degenerative genetic disease for which there is no permanent cure. The illness severely shortens the life span of the sufferer.
“He died of Marfan's Syndrome, Bush junior knew about it, the intelligence community knew about it,” said Pieczenik, noting how CIA physicians had visited Bin Laden in July 2001 at the American Hospital in Dubai.
“He was already very sick from Marfan's Syndrome and he was already dying, so nobody had to kill him,” added Pieczenik, stating that Bin Laden died shortly after 9/11 in his Tora Bora cave complex.
“Did the intelligence community or the CIA doctor up this situation, the answer is yes, categorically yes,” said Pieczenik, referring to Sunday’s claim that Bin Laden was killed at his compound in Pakistan, adding, “This whole scenario where you see a bunch of people sitting there looking at a screen and they look as if they’re intense, that’s nonsense,” referring to the images released by the White House which claim to show Biden, Obama and Hillary Clinton watching the operation to kill Bin Laden live on a television screen.
“It’s a total make-up, make believe, we’re in an American theater of the absurd….why are we doing this again….nine years ago this man was already dead….why does the government repeatedly have to lie to the American people,” asked Pieczenik.
“Osama Bin Laden was totally dead, so there’s no way they could have attacked or confronted or killed Osama Bin laden,” said Pieczenik, joking that the only way it could have happened was if special forces had attacked a mortuary.
Pieczenik said that the decision to launch the hoax now was made because Obama had reached a low with plummeting approval ratings and the fact that the birther issue was blowing up in his face.
“He had to prove that he was more than American….he had to be aggressive,” said Pieczenik, adding that the farce was also a way of isolating Pakistan as a retaliation for intense opposition to the Predator drone program, which has killed hundreds of Pakistanis.
“This is orchestrated, I mean when you have people sitting around and watching a sitcom, basically the operations center of the White House, and you have a president coming out almost zombie-like telling you they just killed Osama Bin Laden who was already dead nine years ago,” said Pieczenik, calling the episode, “the greatest falsehood I’ve ever heard, I mean it was absurd.”
Dismissing the government’s account of the assassination of Bin Laden as a “sick joke” on the American people, Pieczenik said, “They are so desperate to make Obama viable, to negate the fact that he may not have been born here, (Editor: I have no evidence that President Obama was not born in the United States) any questions about his background, any irregularities about his background, to make him look assertive….to re-elect this president so the American public can be duped once again.”
Pieczenik’s assertion that Bin Laden died almost ten years ago is echoed by numerous intelligence professionals as well as heads of state across the world.
Bin Laden, “Was used in the same way that 9/11 was used to mobilize the emotions and feelings of the American people in order to go to a war that had to be justified through a narrative that Bush junior created and Cheney created about the world of terrorism,” stated Pieczenik.
During his interview with the Alex Jones Show yesterday, Pieczenik also asserted he was directly told by a prominent general that 9/11 was a stand down and a false flag operation, and that he is prepared to go to a grand jury to reveal the general’s name.
“They ran the attacks,” said Pieczenik, naming Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Stephen Hadley, Elliott Abrams, and Condoleezza Rice amongst others as having been directly involved.
“It was called a stand down, a false flag operation in order to mobilize the American public under false pretenses….it was told to me even by the general on the staff of Wolfowitz – I will go in front of a federal committee and swear on perjury who the name was of the individual so that we can break it open,” said Pieczenik, adding that he was “furious” and “knew it had happened”.
“I taught stand down and false flag operations at the national war college, I’ve taught it with all my operatives so I knew exactly what was done to the American public,” he added.
Pieczenik re-iterated that he was perfectly willing to reveal the name of the general who told him 9/11 was an inside job in a federal court, “so that we can unravel this thing legally, not with the stupid 9/11 Commission that was absurd.”
Pieczenik explained that he was not a liberal, a conservative or a tea party member, merely an American who is deeply concerned about the direction in which his country is heading.
As Predicted: No Photographs of Dead bin Laden to be Released
As predicted here and by others, the Obama administration has decided not to release any photographs of Osama bin Laden after he was allegedly killed on May 1, 2011 by Seal Team 6. The primary reason invoked is to prevent the unnecessary provocation of his followers and others who remain sympathetic to his cause. This rationale of course has some merit.
Had the US not purportedly "buried him at sea" the lack of public disclosure of his photo ID would not be a problem. His remains could have been examined by multiple forensic pathologists not affiliated in any way with the US government. This could have included DNA testing in which an unbroken chain of evidence could have been insured with respect to the blood and tissue samples obtained. As it is, we are left having to simply take their word for the fact that a DNA test was performed, that the sample was from a recently dead man thought to be Osama bin Laden and that the result was 99.9% positive for OBL. Given all the lies, obsfuscation and omissions of the past however, it is most difficult to simply accept it on faith.
Had the US not purportedly "buried him at sea" the lack of public disclosure of his photo ID would not be a problem. His remains could have been examined by multiple forensic pathologists not affiliated in any way with the US government. This could have included DNA testing in which an unbroken chain of evidence could have been insured with respect to the blood and tissue samples obtained. As it is, we are left having to simply take their word for the fact that a DNA test was performed, that the sample was from a recently dead man thought to be Osama bin Laden and that the result was 99.9% positive for OBL. Given all the lies, obsfuscation and omissions of the past however, it is most difficult to simply accept it on faith.
Night Before 911, Osama bin Laden in Hospital in Pakistan
Editor's NOTE:
In addition to having been treated for kidney failure at the American Hospital in Dubai several weeks prior to 911, Osama bin Laden was taken to a hospital in Rawalpindi on the night of September 10, 2001 where he underwent dialysis. From Global Research comes the following quote which appeared in an article by Michel Chossudovsky on September 11, 2008.
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
According to Dan Rather, CBS, Bin Laden was hospitalized in Rawalpindi. one day before the 9/11 attacks, on September 10, 2001.
"Pakistan. Pakistan's Military Intelligence (ISI) told CBS that bin Laden had received dialysis treatment in Rawalpindi, at Pak Army's headquarters.
DAN RATHER, CBS ANCHOR: As the United states and its allies in the war on terrorism press the hunt for Osama bin Laden, CBS News has exclusive information tonight about where bin Laden was and what he was doing in the last hours before his followers struck the United States September 11.
This is the result of hard-nosed investigative reporting by a team of CBS news journalists, and by one of the best foreign correspondents in the business, CBS`s Barry Petersen. Here is his report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BARRY PETERSEN, CBS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Everyone remembers what happened on September 11. Here`s the story of what may have happened the night before. It is a tale as twisted as the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
CBS News has been told that the night before the September 11 terrorist attack, Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan. He was getting medical treatment with the support of the very military that days later pledged its backing for the U.S. war on terror in Afghanistan.
Pakistan intelligence sources tell CBS News that bin Laden was spirited into this military hospital in Rawalpindi for kidney dialysis treatment. On that night, says this medical worker who wanted her identity protected, they moved out all the regular staff in the urology department and sent in a secret team to replace them. She says it was treatment for a very special person. The special team was obviously up to no good.
"The military had him surrounded," says this hospital employee who also wanted his identity masked, "and I saw the mysterious patient helped out of a car. Since that time," he says, "I have seen many pictures of the man. He is the man we know as Osama bin Laden. I also heard two army officers talking to each other. They were saying that Osama bin Laden had to be watched carefully and looked after." Those who know bin Laden say he suffers from numerous ailments, back and stomach problems. Ahmed Rashid, who has written extensively on the Taliban, says the military was often there to help before 9/11.
(...)
PETERSEN (on camera): Doctors at the hospital told CBS News there was nothing special about that night, but they refused our request to see any records. Government officials tonight denied that bin Laden had any medical treatment on that night.
(voice-over): But it was Pakistan's President Musharraf who said in public what many suspected, that bin Laden suffers from kidney disease, saying he thinks bin Laden may be near death. His evidence, watching this most recent video, showing a pale and haggard bin Laden, his left hand never moving. Bush administration officials admit they don`t know if bin Laden is sick or even dead.
DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: With respect to the issue of Osama bin Laden`s health, I just am -- don`t have any knowledge.
PETERSEN: The United States has no way of knowing who in Pakistan`s military or intelligence supported the Taliban or Osama bin Laden maybe up to the night before 9/11 by arranging dialysis to keep him alive. So the United States may not know if those same people might help him again perhaps to freedom.
Barry Petersen, CBS News, Islamabad.
(END VIDEOTAPE) END
In addition to having been treated for kidney failure at the American Hospital in Dubai several weeks prior to 911, Osama bin Laden was taken to a hospital in Rawalpindi on the night of September 10, 2001 where he underwent dialysis. From Global Research comes the following quote which appeared in an article by Michel Chossudovsky on September 11, 2008.
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
According to Dan Rather, CBS, Bin Laden was hospitalized in Rawalpindi. one day before the 9/11 attacks, on September 10, 2001.
"Pakistan. Pakistan's Military Intelligence (ISI) told CBS that bin Laden had received dialysis treatment in Rawalpindi, at Pak Army's headquarters.
DAN RATHER, CBS ANCHOR: As the United states and its allies in the war on terrorism press the hunt for Osama bin Laden, CBS News has exclusive information tonight about where bin Laden was and what he was doing in the last hours before his followers struck the United States September 11.
This is the result of hard-nosed investigative reporting by a team of CBS news journalists, and by one of the best foreign correspondents in the business, CBS`s Barry Petersen. Here is his report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BARRY PETERSEN, CBS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Everyone remembers what happened on September 11. Here`s the story of what may have happened the night before. It is a tale as twisted as the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
CBS News has been told that the night before the September 11 terrorist attack, Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan. He was getting medical treatment with the support of the very military that days later pledged its backing for the U.S. war on terror in Afghanistan.
Pakistan intelligence sources tell CBS News that bin Laden was spirited into this military hospital in Rawalpindi for kidney dialysis treatment. On that night, says this medical worker who wanted her identity protected, they moved out all the regular staff in the urology department and sent in a secret team to replace them. She says it was treatment for a very special person. The special team was obviously up to no good.
"The military had him surrounded," says this hospital employee who also wanted his identity masked, "and I saw the mysterious patient helped out of a car. Since that time," he says, "I have seen many pictures of the man. He is the man we know as Osama bin Laden. I also heard two army officers talking to each other. They were saying that Osama bin Laden had to be watched carefully and looked after." Those who know bin Laden say he suffers from numerous ailments, back and stomach problems. Ahmed Rashid, who has written extensively on the Taliban, says the military was often there to help before 9/11.
(...)
PETERSEN (on camera): Doctors at the hospital told CBS News there was nothing special about that night, but they refused our request to see any records. Government officials tonight denied that bin Laden had any medical treatment on that night.
(voice-over): But it was Pakistan's President Musharraf who said in public what many suspected, that bin Laden suffers from kidney disease, saying he thinks bin Laden may be near death. His evidence, watching this most recent video, showing a pale and haggard bin Laden, his left hand never moving. Bush administration officials admit they don`t know if bin Laden is sick or even dead.
DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: With respect to the issue of Osama bin Laden`s health, I just am -- don`t have any knowledge.
PETERSEN: The United States has no way of knowing who in Pakistan`s military or intelligence supported the Taliban or Osama bin Laden maybe up to the night before 9/11 by arranging dialysis to keep him alive. So the United States may not know if those same people might help him again perhaps to freedom.
Barry Petersen, CBS News, Islamabad.
(END VIDEOTAPE) END
Fascinating bin Laden Prediction Comes True
PREDICTED IN MARCH 2010: Staging bin Laden's 'Death'
by Enver Masud
Global Research
May 2, 2011
The Wisdom Fund - 2010-03-25 (original article's appearance)
It appears that we are being primed for the "death" of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Attorney General Eric Holder told a House panel this month [March 2010] that bin Laden "will never appear in an American courtroom."
Others who have examined the evidence, and the "bin Laden tapes," have concluded that bin Laden is dead.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates admitted that the US has had no reliable information on the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden in years.
But the US needs a neat ending to its war on Afghanistan.
Staging bin Laden's death will be seen as a fitting end to this genocidal war for the control of energy resources. Of course it will have to be done so that visual identification is not possible.
We suspect that when bin Laden is "killed," we'll just have to trust the folks that lied us into war to confirm they got him.
by Enver Masud
Global Research
May 2, 2011
The Wisdom Fund - 2010-03-25 (original article's appearance)
It appears that we are being primed for the "death" of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Attorney General Eric Holder told a House panel this month [March 2010] that bin Laden "will never appear in an American courtroom."
Others who have examined the evidence, and the "bin Laden tapes," have concluded that bin Laden is dead.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates admitted that the US has had no reliable information on the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden in years.
But the US needs a neat ending to its war on Afghanistan.
Staging bin Laden's death will be seen as a fitting end to this genocidal war for the control of energy resources. Of course it will have to be done so that visual identification is not possible.
We suspect that when bin Laden is "killed," we'll just have to trust the folks that lied us into war to confirm they got him.
Osama bin Laden: US Responds to Questions about Killing's Legality
Editor's NOTE:
Regular readers know that I have expressed great skepticism about the alleged killing of Osama bin Laden by the US special forces on May 1, 2011. The default position based upon all the available data is that bin Laden died in late 2001 as a result of end-stage kidney failure. Thus it would be impossible for him to have been killed several days ago.
If bin Laden managed to remain alive against all odds until being killed by Navy Seals in his alleged compound 3 days ago, the situation as outlined in the piece below is very troubling. First, no solid evidence has ever been produced that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the 911 attacks and there is a great deal of evidence that indicates to a high degree of probability that he was not.
Recall that former Secretary of State Colin Powell never produced the promised "white paper" which was supposed to prove bin Laden's guilt. Moreover, the FBI never listed the 911 attacks on bin Laden's "rap sheet." When asked why, the FBI indicated it lacked the requisite evidence.
Therefore, in the absence of actual evidence that bin Laden was guilty of perpetrating the 911 attacks, the US has committed an unjustified summary execution if in fact bin Laden was still alive on May 1, 2011.
Osama bin Laden: US Responds to Questions about Killing's Legality
Doubts remain over manner in which al-Qaida figurehead died but US officials defend Barack Obama's action
By Owen Bowcott
May 03, 2011 "The Guardian" - -The chorus of official applause from international leaders over the death of Osama bin Laden has failed to silence doubts about the killing's legality.
Despite widespread backing for the raid, there is a growing demand for the precise legal basis of the US operation to be explained, particularly given the absence of prior debate in the UN security council.
Prof Nick Grief, an international lawyer at Kent University, said the attack had the appearance of an "extrajudicial killing without due process of the law".
Cautioning that not all the circumstances were known, he added: "It may not have been possible to take him alive ... but no one should be outside the protection of the law." Even after the end of the second world war, Nazi war criminals had been given a "fair trial".
The prominent defence lawyer Michael Mansfield QC expressed similar doubts about whether sufficient efforts had been made to capture Bin Laden. "The serious risk is that in the absence of an authoritative narrative of events played out in Abbottabad, vengeance will become synonymised with justice, and that revenge will supplant 'due process'.
"Assuming the mission was … intended to detain and not to assassinate, it is therefore imperative that a properly documented and verifiable narrative of exactly what happened is made public. Whatever feelings of elation and relief may dominate the airwaves," he said, "they must not be allowed to submerge core questions about the legality of the exercise, nor to permit vengeance or summary execution to become substitutes for justice."
The human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC argued that the killing risked undermining the rule of law. "The security council could have set up an ad hoc tribunal in The Hague, with international judges (including Muslim jurists), to provide a fair trial and a reasoned verdict," he wrote in the Independent. "This would have been the best way of demystifying this man, debunking his cause and de-brainwashing his followers."
The immediate justification for the killing was that the head of al-Qaida had long ago declared war on the US and other nations. "In war you are allowed to attack your enemy," a US embassy spokesman in London said.
Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, echoed Barack Obama's assertion, stating: "Osama bin Laden is dead and justice has been done."
A more thorough explanation of the legal basis was given last year by Harold Hongju Koh, legal adviser at the US state department. He told a meeting of the American Society of International Law: "Some have argued that the use of lethal force against specific individuals fails to provide adequate process and thus constitutes unlawful extrajudicial killing. But a state that is engaged in an armed conflict or in legitimate self-defence is not required to provide targets with legal process before the state may use lethal force.
"The principles of distinction and proportionality that the US applies are …implemented rigorously throughout the planning and execution of lethal operations to ensure that such operations are conducted in accordance with all applicable law."
He added: "Some have argued that our targeting practices violate domestic law, in particular, the longstanding domestic ban on assassinations. But under domestic law, the use of lawful weapons systems - consistent with the applicable laws of war - for precision targeting of specific high-level belligerent leaders when acting in self-defence or during an armed conflict is not unlawful, and hence does not constitute 'assassination'."
John Bellinger III, who served as the state department's senior lawyer during George Bush's second term as president, also insisted the strike was legitimate.
"The killing is not prohibited by the long-standing assassination prohibition in executive order 12333 [signed in 1981] because the action was a military action in the ongoing US armed conflict with al-Qaida and it is not prohibited to kill specific leaders of an opposing force," he wrote.
"The assassination prohibition also does not apply to killings in self-defence. The executive branch will also argue that the action was permissible under international law both as a permissible use of force in the US armed conflict with al-Qaida and as a legitimate action in self-defence, given that Bin Laden was clearly planning additional attacks."
Many human rights groups have reacted with caution. "Osama bin Laden took credit for and supported acts around the world which amounted to crimes against humanity," said Claudio Cordone, senior director at Amnesty International.
"He also inspired others to commit grave human rights abuses. His death will put an end to his role in organising or inspiring such criminal acts. We do not know the full circumstances of his killing and the others with him and we are looking into that." Amnesty is writing to the US and Pakistani governments for "greater clarification about the events that led to the death of Osama bin Laden".
One area of anxiety is the suggestion that the intelligence needed to locate Bin Laden's refuge might have been obtained through torture of suspects detained at Guantánamo Bay or other secret holding centres.
Whether or not the Pakistan government authorised the assault on its territory might technically affect the legality of the operation under international law. But the enthusiastic support of the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, for the killing is likely to silence any critical voices in the security council.
"The death of Osama bin Laden … is a watershed moment in our common global fight against terrorism," Ban said. "Personally, I am very much relieved by the news that justice has been done."
Regular readers know that I have expressed great skepticism about the alleged killing of Osama bin Laden by the US special forces on May 1, 2011. The default position based upon all the available data is that bin Laden died in late 2001 as a result of end-stage kidney failure. Thus it would be impossible for him to have been killed several days ago.
If bin Laden managed to remain alive against all odds until being killed by Navy Seals in his alleged compound 3 days ago, the situation as outlined in the piece below is very troubling. First, no solid evidence has ever been produced that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the 911 attacks and there is a great deal of evidence that indicates to a high degree of probability that he was not.
Recall that former Secretary of State Colin Powell never produced the promised "white paper" which was supposed to prove bin Laden's guilt. Moreover, the FBI never listed the 911 attacks on bin Laden's "rap sheet." When asked why, the FBI indicated it lacked the requisite evidence.
Therefore, in the absence of actual evidence that bin Laden was guilty of perpetrating the 911 attacks, the US has committed an unjustified summary execution if in fact bin Laden was still alive on May 1, 2011.
Osama bin Laden: US Responds to Questions about Killing's Legality
Doubts remain over manner in which al-Qaida figurehead died but US officials defend Barack Obama's action
By Owen Bowcott
May 03, 2011 "The Guardian" - -The chorus of official applause from international leaders over the death of Osama bin Laden has failed to silence doubts about the killing's legality.
Despite widespread backing for the raid, there is a growing demand for the precise legal basis of the US operation to be explained, particularly given the absence of prior debate in the UN security council.
Prof Nick Grief, an international lawyer at Kent University, said the attack had the appearance of an "extrajudicial killing without due process of the law".
Cautioning that not all the circumstances were known, he added: "It may not have been possible to take him alive ... but no one should be outside the protection of the law." Even after the end of the second world war, Nazi war criminals had been given a "fair trial".
The prominent defence lawyer Michael Mansfield QC expressed similar doubts about whether sufficient efforts had been made to capture Bin Laden. "The serious risk is that in the absence of an authoritative narrative of events played out in Abbottabad, vengeance will become synonymised with justice, and that revenge will supplant 'due process'.
"Assuming the mission was … intended to detain and not to assassinate, it is therefore imperative that a properly documented and verifiable narrative of exactly what happened is made public. Whatever feelings of elation and relief may dominate the airwaves," he said, "they must not be allowed to submerge core questions about the legality of the exercise, nor to permit vengeance or summary execution to become substitutes for justice."
The human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC argued that the killing risked undermining the rule of law. "The security council could have set up an ad hoc tribunal in The Hague, with international judges (including Muslim jurists), to provide a fair trial and a reasoned verdict," he wrote in the Independent. "This would have been the best way of demystifying this man, debunking his cause and de-brainwashing his followers."
The immediate justification for the killing was that the head of al-Qaida had long ago declared war on the US and other nations. "In war you are allowed to attack your enemy," a US embassy spokesman in London said.
Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, echoed Barack Obama's assertion, stating: "Osama bin Laden is dead and justice has been done."
A more thorough explanation of the legal basis was given last year by Harold Hongju Koh, legal adviser at the US state department. He told a meeting of the American Society of International Law: "Some have argued that the use of lethal force against specific individuals fails to provide adequate process and thus constitutes unlawful extrajudicial killing. But a state that is engaged in an armed conflict or in legitimate self-defence is not required to provide targets with legal process before the state may use lethal force.
"The principles of distinction and proportionality that the US applies are …implemented rigorously throughout the planning and execution of lethal operations to ensure that such operations are conducted in accordance with all applicable law."
He added: "Some have argued that our targeting practices violate domestic law, in particular, the longstanding domestic ban on assassinations. But under domestic law, the use of lawful weapons systems - consistent with the applicable laws of war - for precision targeting of specific high-level belligerent leaders when acting in self-defence or during an armed conflict is not unlawful, and hence does not constitute 'assassination'."
John Bellinger III, who served as the state department's senior lawyer during George Bush's second term as president, also insisted the strike was legitimate.
"The killing is not prohibited by the long-standing assassination prohibition in executive order 12333 [signed in 1981] because the action was a military action in the ongoing US armed conflict with al-Qaida and it is not prohibited to kill specific leaders of an opposing force," he wrote.
"The assassination prohibition also does not apply to killings in self-defence. The executive branch will also argue that the action was permissible under international law both as a permissible use of force in the US armed conflict with al-Qaida and as a legitimate action in self-defence, given that Bin Laden was clearly planning additional attacks."
Many human rights groups have reacted with caution. "Osama bin Laden took credit for and supported acts around the world which amounted to crimes against humanity," said Claudio Cordone, senior director at Amnesty International.
"He also inspired others to commit grave human rights abuses. His death will put an end to his role in organising or inspiring such criminal acts. We do not know the full circumstances of his killing and the others with him and we are looking into that." Amnesty is writing to the US and Pakistani governments for "greater clarification about the events that led to the death of Osama bin Laden".
One area of anxiety is the suggestion that the intelligence needed to locate Bin Laden's refuge might have been obtained through torture of suspects detained at Guantánamo Bay or other secret holding centres.
Whether or not the Pakistan government authorised the assault on its territory might technically affect the legality of the operation under international law. But the enthusiastic support of the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, for the killing is likely to silence any critical voices in the security council.
"The death of Osama bin Laden … is a watershed moment in our common global fight against terrorism," Ban said. "Personally, I am very much relieved by the news that justice has been done."
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Osama bin Laden’s Useful Death
Editor's NOTE:
This article by Paul Craig Roberts is outstanding. Either bin Laden died of renal (kidney) failure in 2001 or the probability is extremely high that he never suffered from renal failure. Recall that he was alleged to have been treated "at the American Hospital in Dubai in July 2001, two months before 9/11." Unless this report is a fabrication, he should not have survived his time in Tora Bora Afghanistan. For more evidence that Osama bin Laden has been dead for years see THIS.
With respect to the claim that Osama bin Laden's alleged "burial at sea" was compatible with Islamic law/tradition see THIS.
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
By Paul Craig Roberts
May 03, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- In a propaganda piece reeking of US Triumphalism, two alleged journalists, Adam Goldman and Chris Brummitt, of the Associated Press or, rather, of the White House Ministry of Truth, write, or copy off a White House or CIA press release that “Osama bin Laden, the terror mastermind killed by Navy SEALs in an intense firefight, was hunted down based on information first gleaned years ago (emphasis added) from detainees at secret CIA prison sites in Eastern Europe, officials disclosed Monday.”
How many Americans will notice that the first paragraph of the “report” justifies CIA prisons and torture? Without secret prisons and torture “the terror mastermind” would still be running free, despite having died from renal failure in 2001.
How many Americans will have the wits to wonder why the “terror mastermind”--who defeated not merely the CIA and the FBI, but all 16 US intelligence agencies along with Israel’s Mossad and the intelligence services of NATO, who defeated NORAD, the National Security Council, the Pentagon and Joint Chiefs of Staff, the US Air Force, and Air Traffic Control, who caused security procedures to fail four times in US airports in one hour on the same day, who caused the state-of-the-art Pentagon air defenses to fail, and who managed to fly three airliners into three buildings with pilots who did not know how to fly--has not pulled off any other attack in almost ten years? Do Americans really believe that a government’s security system that can so totally fail when confronted with a few Saudi Arabians with box cutters can renew itself to perfection overnight?
How many Americans will notice the resurrection of the long missing bin Laden as “terror mastermind” after his displacement by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Guantanamo prisoner who confessed to being the “mastermind of 9/11” after being water-boarded 183 times?
Americans are too busy celebrating to think, a capability that seems to have been taken out of their education.
Americans are so enthralled over the death of bin Laden that they do not wonder why information gleamed years ago would take so long to locate a person who was allegedly living in a million-dollar building equipped with all the latest communication equipment next to the Pakistani Military Academy.
Allegedly, the “most wanted criminal” was not moving from hide-out to hide-out in desolate mountains, but ensconced in luxury quarters in broad daylight. Nevertheless, despite his obvious location, it took the CIA years to find him after claiming to have gained information of his whereabouts out of captives in secret prisons. This is the image of the CIA as the new Keystone Cops.
In an immediate follow-up to the announcement that the Navy SEALs and CIA mercenaries acted in an exemplary fashion following the rules of engagement while a cowardly bin Laden hid behind a woman shield when the gunfire erupted, we have from the pressitutes that “U.S. officials conceded the risk of renewed attack.
The terrorists almost certainly will attempt to avenge bin Laden’s death, CIA Director Leon Panetta wrote in a memo. . . . Within a few hours, the Department of Homeland Security warned that bin Laden’s death was likely to provide motivation for attacks from ‘homegrown violent extremists’."
John Brennan, White House counter-terrorism adviser, told reporters that “it was inconceivable that the terrorist fugitive didn’t have support in Pakistan where his hideout had been custom built six years ago in a city with a heavy military presence.”
So the claimed murder of bin Laden by the US in a sovereign foreign country with which the US is not at war, a crime under international law, has set up three more self-serving possibilities:
Terrorists will avenge bin Laden’s death, says the CIA, setting up another false flag attack to keep
the profits flowing into the military/security complex and the power flowing into the unaccountable CIA.
Homeland Security can extend the domestic police state, abuse of travelers, and arrests of war protestors.
And Pakistan is under the gun of invasion and takeover (for India, of course) for shielding bin Laden.
The Israel Lobby’s representatives in the US Congress quickly fell in with the agenda. Senator Carl Levin, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, declared that the Pakistani Army and intelligence agency “have a lot of questions to answer, given the location, the length of time and the apparent fact that this was actually--this facility was actually build for bin Laden, and its closeness to the central location of the Pakistani army.”
The two reporters question nothing in the government’s propaganda. Instead, the reporters join in the celebration. Nevertheless they let slip that “officials were weighing the release of at least one photo taken of bin Laden’s body as part of what Brennan called an effort to make sure ‘nobody has any basis to try and deny the death.’”
As the Guardian and European newspapers have revealed, the photo of the dead bin Laden is a fake. As the alleged body has been dumped into the ocean, nothing remains but the word of the US government, which lied about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and al Qaeda connections, about yellowcake, about Iranian nukes, and, according to thousands of experts, about 9/11. Suddenly the government is telling us the truth about bin Laden’s death? If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I’ll let you have for a good price.
My initial interpretation of the faked bin Laden death was that Obama needed closure of the Afghan war and occupation in order to deal with the US budget deficit. Subsequent statements from Obama regime officials suggest that the agenda might be to give Americans a piece of war victory in order to boost their lagging enthusiasm. The military/security complex will become richer and more powerful, and Americans will be rewarded with vicarious pleasure in victory over enemies.
This article by Paul Craig Roberts is outstanding. Either bin Laden died of renal (kidney) failure in 2001 or the probability is extremely high that he never suffered from renal failure. Recall that he was alleged to have been treated "at the American Hospital in Dubai in July 2001, two months before 9/11." Unless this report is a fabrication, he should not have survived his time in Tora Bora Afghanistan. For more evidence that Osama bin Laden has been dead for years see THIS.
With respect to the claim that Osama bin Laden's alleged "burial at sea" was compatible with Islamic law/tradition see THIS.
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
By Paul Craig Roberts
May 03, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- In a propaganda piece reeking of US Triumphalism, two alleged journalists, Adam Goldman and Chris Brummitt, of the Associated Press or, rather, of the White House Ministry of Truth, write, or copy off a White House or CIA press release that “Osama bin Laden, the terror mastermind killed by Navy SEALs in an intense firefight, was hunted down based on information first gleaned years ago (emphasis added) from detainees at secret CIA prison sites in Eastern Europe, officials disclosed Monday.”
How many Americans will notice that the first paragraph of the “report” justifies CIA prisons and torture? Without secret prisons and torture “the terror mastermind” would still be running free, despite having died from renal failure in 2001.
How many Americans will have the wits to wonder why the “terror mastermind”--who defeated not merely the CIA and the FBI, but all 16 US intelligence agencies along with Israel’s Mossad and the intelligence services of NATO, who defeated NORAD, the National Security Council, the Pentagon and Joint Chiefs of Staff, the US Air Force, and Air Traffic Control, who caused security procedures to fail four times in US airports in one hour on the same day, who caused the state-of-the-art Pentagon air defenses to fail, and who managed to fly three airliners into three buildings with pilots who did not know how to fly--has not pulled off any other attack in almost ten years? Do Americans really believe that a government’s security system that can so totally fail when confronted with a few Saudi Arabians with box cutters can renew itself to perfection overnight?
How many Americans will notice the resurrection of the long missing bin Laden as “terror mastermind” after his displacement by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Guantanamo prisoner who confessed to being the “mastermind of 9/11” after being water-boarded 183 times?
Americans are too busy celebrating to think, a capability that seems to have been taken out of their education.
Americans are so enthralled over the death of bin Laden that they do not wonder why information gleamed years ago would take so long to locate a person who was allegedly living in a million-dollar building equipped with all the latest communication equipment next to the Pakistani Military Academy.
Allegedly, the “most wanted criminal” was not moving from hide-out to hide-out in desolate mountains, but ensconced in luxury quarters in broad daylight. Nevertheless, despite his obvious location, it took the CIA years to find him after claiming to have gained information of his whereabouts out of captives in secret prisons. This is the image of the CIA as the new Keystone Cops.
In an immediate follow-up to the announcement that the Navy SEALs and CIA mercenaries acted in an exemplary fashion following the rules of engagement while a cowardly bin Laden hid behind a woman shield when the gunfire erupted, we have from the pressitutes that “U.S. officials conceded the risk of renewed attack.
The terrorists almost certainly will attempt to avenge bin Laden’s death, CIA Director Leon Panetta wrote in a memo. . . . Within a few hours, the Department of Homeland Security warned that bin Laden’s death was likely to provide motivation for attacks from ‘homegrown violent extremists’."
John Brennan, White House counter-terrorism adviser, told reporters that “it was inconceivable that the terrorist fugitive didn’t have support in Pakistan where his hideout had been custom built six years ago in a city with a heavy military presence.”
So the claimed murder of bin Laden by the US in a sovereign foreign country with which the US is not at war, a crime under international law, has set up three more self-serving possibilities:
Terrorists will avenge bin Laden’s death, says the CIA, setting up another false flag attack to keep
the profits flowing into the military/security complex and the power flowing into the unaccountable CIA.
Homeland Security can extend the domestic police state, abuse of travelers, and arrests of war protestors.
And Pakistan is under the gun of invasion and takeover (for India, of course) for shielding bin Laden.
The Israel Lobby’s representatives in the US Congress quickly fell in with the agenda. Senator Carl Levin, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, declared that the Pakistani Army and intelligence agency “have a lot of questions to answer, given the location, the length of time and the apparent fact that this was actually--this facility was actually build for bin Laden, and its closeness to the central location of the Pakistani army.”
The two reporters question nothing in the government’s propaganda. Instead, the reporters join in the celebration. Nevertheless they let slip that “officials were weighing the release of at least one photo taken of bin Laden’s body as part of what Brennan called an effort to make sure ‘nobody has any basis to try and deny the death.’”
As the Guardian and European newspapers have revealed, the photo of the dead bin Laden is a fake. As the alleged body has been dumped into the ocean, nothing remains but the word of the US government, which lied about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and al Qaeda connections, about yellowcake, about Iranian nukes, and, according to thousands of experts, about 9/11. Suddenly the government is telling us the truth about bin Laden’s death? If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I’ll let you have for a good price.
My initial interpretation of the faked bin Laden death was that Obama needed closure of the Afghan war and occupation in order to deal with the US budget deficit. Subsequent statements from Obama regime officials suggest that the agenda might be to give Americans a piece of war victory in order to boost their lagging enthusiasm. The military/security complex will become richer and more powerful, and Americans will be rewarded with vicarious pleasure in victory over enemies.
Despite DNA evidence, some doubt bin Laden really dead
Editor's NOTE:
Still no pictures have been released. What is the hold-up? Is the intelligence community being tasked with creating a suitable picture?
This article suggests that bin Laden's body would have been accepted by a Muslim country which would have made the "at sea burial" unnecessary.
Instead of concentrating on the bizarre way in which this alleged killing, identification and burial of bin Laden was carried out, the FCM (fawning corporate media) are more concerned with why Pakistan allowed bin Laden sanctuary. Watch out for growing calls (from our political and pundit class) to step up our military/CIA activities in Pakistan.
Despite DNA evidence, some doubt bin Laden really dead
Conspiracy theorists on the left and right insist Osama bin Laden is either still alive or has been dead for years, pouncing on the government's decision to slide the body of the world's most wanted man off a board into the Arabian Sea.
By Matea Gold, Eryn Brown and David S. Cloud
May 2, 2011
The Seattle Times/Tribune Washington bureau
WASHINGTON — Within hours of the raid on Osama bin Laden's Pakistan compound, the CIA had used 21st technology to get "a virtually 100 percent DNA match" on the dead man. But something out of another century may come back to haunt the United States: the al-Qaida leader's burial at sea.
Conspiracy theorists on the left and right were quick to insist bin Laden was either still alive or had been dead for years, pouncing on the government's decision to slide the body of the world's most wanted man off a board into the Arabian Sea.
"I am sorry, but if you believe the newest death of OBL, you're stupid," antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan posted on her Facebook page. Infowars, the website of Libertarian radio host Alex Jones, was crammed with stories charging that the U.S. government concocted the killing to justify a security crackdown. The Tea Party Nation website brimmed with indignant posts questioning the timing of Obama's announcement.
"Don't you think OBAMA needs something to assure his reelection," one commentator wrote.
Even a relative of one of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks voiced skepticism, citing the burial at sea.
"Is it true or false? I don't know," said Stella Olender of Chicago, whose daughter Christine died at the World Trade Center. "To me, that seems strange, that they disposed of it and no one (besides) whoever was right there knows what happened."
The conspiracy theories spoke to the quandary facing the United States: proving the al-Qaida leader's death without inflaming his supporters and the broader Muslim world. Because of that concern, U.S. officials were considering the merits of releasing gory photos of bin Laden taken after he was shot.
The burial at sea — which occurred on the USS Carl Vinson, an aircraft carrier in the northern part of the Arabian Sea — was necessary because arrangements couldn't be made with any country to bury bin Laden within 24 hours, as dictated by Muslim practice, administration officials said. But a senior military officer said the United States also wanted to avoid creating a shrine on land that would attract his followers.
Administration officials said Monday there was no question who was killed in the Pakistan raid. In addition to being visually identified on the scene by U.S. operatives, bin Laden was identified by name by a woman believed to be one of his wives, according to a senior intelligence official. On Sunday evening, CIA specialists compared photos of the body to known photos of bin Laden, determining with 95 percent certainty that they were one and the same.
On Monday morning, the CIA and other agencies conducted an "initial DNA analysis," comparing a sample taken from the body with DNA samples from several bin Laden family members. The results, the official said, gave them "a virtually 100 percent DNA match."
The intelligence community has been collecting DNA samples from bin Laden's relatives for years, according to another U.S. intelligence official. Because the family is so big, it was not difficult to obtain samples, officials said.
Dr. Frederick Bieber, a medical geneticist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, said it is possible for genetic kinship analysis to be done quickly, particularly if profiles of relatives have already been completed.
The administration was considering whether to release graphic photos of bin Laden's bullet-ridden body to put rumors of a hoax to rest. (A photo purportedly of bin Laden's corpse circulating widely online was determined to be a fake.)
Some congressional leaders suggested doing so was necessary.
"Unless there's an acknowledgment by people in al-Qaida that bin Laden is dead, it may be necessary to release the pictures — as gruesome as they will undoubtedly be, because he's been shot in the head — to quell any doubts that this somehow is a ruse that the American government has carried out," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.
Doubt was widespread in the Muslim world.
"He is still alive," said Sayed Mohammed, a chef at a restaurant in Cairo's bustling Zamalek neighborhood. "He is a clever guy — he is no Hosni Mubarak."
And in Peshawar, a city near Pakistan's militant-infested tribal areas and a place where locals are vehemently anti-West, many refused to believe that bin Laden had been killed.
As he made copies at a Peshawar stationery store, Muhammad Sajjad said: "I am sure he will conquer America first, then he will die."
The burial at sea largely followed widely accepted interpretations of Islamic law taking care not to anger the mainstream Muslim community, said Ebrahim Moosa, a professor of Islamic studies at Duke University in North Carolina.
During a White House news conference, John Brennan, the White House adviser on counterterrorism and homeland security, indicated that senior administration officials had weighed these concerns before the assault on bin Laden's compound.
Defense officials said the administration reached out to one other country to take the body for burial, but the country refused. Brennan said appealing to other countries would have exceeded the time frame Islamic custom requires, of burial within 24 hours of death.
But some Islamic scholars and clerics were divided Monday over whether the sea burial was appropriate or an insult to Muslims. Several said bin Laden should have been buried on land in a simple grave. The body was washed in accordance with Islamic custom, placed in a white sheet, then put inside a weighted bag.
With only a small group of witnesses, a military officer read prepared religious remarks, which were translated into Arabic by a "native speaker," the official said. The body was placed on a board, tipped up and then "eased into the sea" from the carrier's lowest deck, the official said.
Akbar Ahmed, the chairman of the Islamic studies department at American University, said the sea burial prevented bin Laden's resting place from becoming a focus for discontent.
"Shrines are very powerful," he said. "Shrines of controversial figures in Muslim history become centers to attract the angry, the disenchanted. The shrine bestows powers of religious charisma. If they allowed Osama bin Laden to be buried in Pakistan, his followers would show up, plant flowers, and women will say the shrine has healing powers, especially among the uneducated. His myth would continue to grow."
On the other hand, Ahmed said, the secretive burial at sea may also give rise to anger and speculation about whether bin Laden was really dead. "You really want to see him. When something like this is done under cover of dark, it leaves a lot of people asking questions."
Mohammed Qudah, a professor of Islamic law at the University of Jordan, said burying the Saudi-born bin Laden at sea was not forbidden if there was nobody to receive the body and provide a Muslim burial.
"The land and the sea belong to God, who is able to protect and raise the dead at the end of times for Judgment Day," he said. "It's neither true nor correct to claim that there was nobody in the Muslim world ready to receive bin Laden's body."
Clerics in Iraq, where an offshoot of al-Qaida is blamed for the death of thousands of people since 2003, also criticized the U.S. action. One said it only benefited fish.
The Islamic tradition of a quick burial was the subject of intense debate in Iraq in 2003 when U.S. forces embalmed the bodies of Saddam Hussein's two sons after they were killed in a firefight. Their bodies later were shown to media.
Two Pentagon officials say bin Laden's at-sea burial was videotaped and probably will be publicly released soon.
Information from The New York Times and McClatchy Newspapers is included in this report.
Still no pictures have been released. What is the hold-up? Is the intelligence community being tasked with creating a suitable picture?
This article suggests that bin Laden's body would have been accepted by a Muslim country which would have made the "at sea burial" unnecessary.
Instead of concentrating on the bizarre way in which this alleged killing, identification and burial of bin Laden was carried out, the FCM (fawning corporate media) are more concerned with why Pakistan allowed bin Laden sanctuary. Watch out for growing calls (from our political and pundit class) to step up our military/CIA activities in Pakistan.
Despite DNA evidence, some doubt bin Laden really dead
Conspiracy theorists on the left and right insist Osama bin Laden is either still alive or has been dead for years, pouncing on the government's decision to slide the body of the world's most wanted man off a board into the Arabian Sea.
By Matea Gold, Eryn Brown and David S. Cloud
May 2, 2011
The Seattle Times/Tribune Washington bureau
WASHINGTON — Within hours of the raid on Osama bin Laden's Pakistan compound, the CIA had used 21st technology to get "a virtually 100 percent DNA match" on the dead man. But something out of another century may come back to haunt the United States: the al-Qaida leader's burial at sea.
Conspiracy theorists on the left and right were quick to insist bin Laden was either still alive or had been dead for years, pouncing on the government's decision to slide the body of the world's most wanted man off a board into the Arabian Sea.
"I am sorry, but if you believe the newest death of OBL, you're stupid," antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan posted on her Facebook page. Infowars, the website of Libertarian radio host Alex Jones, was crammed with stories charging that the U.S. government concocted the killing to justify a security crackdown. The Tea Party Nation website brimmed with indignant posts questioning the timing of Obama's announcement.
"Don't you think OBAMA needs something to assure his reelection," one commentator wrote.
Even a relative of one of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks voiced skepticism, citing the burial at sea.
"Is it true or false? I don't know," said Stella Olender of Chicago, whose daughter Christine died at the World Trade Center. "To me, that seems strange, that they disposed of it and no one (besides) whoever was right there knows what happened."
The conspiracy theories spoke to the quandary facing the United States: proving the al-Qaida leader's death without inflaming his supporters and the broader Muslim world. Because of that concern, U.S. officials were considering the merits of releasing gory photos of bin Laden taken after he was shot.
The burial at sea — which occurred on the USS Carl Vinson, an aircraft carrier in the northern part of the Arabian Sea — was necessary because arrangements couldn't be made with any country to bury bin Laden within 24 hours, as dictated by Muslim practice, administration officials said. But a senior military officer said the United States also wanted to avoid creating a shrine on land that would attract his followers.
Administration officials said Monday there was no question who was killed in the Pakistan raid. In addition to being visually identified on the scene by U.S. operatives, bin Laden was identified by name by a woman believed to be one of his wives, according to a senior intelligence official. On Sunday evening, CIA specialists compared photos of the body to known photos of bin Laden, determining with 95 percent certainty that they were one and the same.
On Monday morning, the CIA and other agencies conducted an "initial DNA analysis," comparing a sample taken from the body with DNA samples from several bin Laden family members. The results, the official said, gave them "a virtually 100 percent DNA match."
The intelligence community has been collecting DNA samples from bin Laden's relatives for years, according to another U.S. intelligence official. Because the family is so big, it was not difficult to obtain samples, officials said.
Dr. Frederick Bieber, a medical geneticist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, said it is possible for genetic kinship analysis to be done quickly, particularly if profiles of relatives have already been completed.
The administration was considering whether to release graphic photos of bin Laden's bullet-ridden body to put rumors of a hoax to rest. (A photo purportedly of bin Laden's corpse circulating widely online was determined to be a fake.)
Some congressional leaders suggested doing so was necessary.
"Unless there's an acknowledgment by people in al-Qaida that bin Laden is dead, it may be necessary to release the pictures — as gruesome as they will undoubtedly be, because he's been shot in the head — to quell any doubts that this somehow is a ruse that the American government has carried out," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.
Doubt was widespread in the Muslim world.
"He is still alive," said Sayed Mohammed, a chef at a restaurant in Cairo's bustling Zamalek neighborhood. "He is a clever guy — he is no Hosni Mubarak."
And in Peshawar, a city near Pakistan's militant-infested tribal areas and a place where locals are vehemently anti-West, many refused to believe that bin Laden had been killed.
As he made copies at a Peshawar stationery store, Muhammad Sajjad said: "I am sure he will conquer America first, then he will die."
The burial at sea largely followed widely accepted interpretations of Islamic law taking care not to anger the mainstream Muslim community, said Ebrahim Moosa, a professor of Islamic studies at Duke University in North Carolina.
During a White House news conference, John Brennan, the White House adviser on counterterrorism and homeland security, indicated that senior administration officials had weighed these concerns before the assault on bin Laden's compound.
Defense officials said the administration reached out to one other country to take the body for burial, but the country refused. Brennan said appealing to other countries would have exceeded the time frame Islamic custom requires, of burial within 24 hours of death.
But some Islamic scholars and clerics were divided Monday over whether the sea burial was appropriate or an insult to Muslims. Several said bin Laden should have been buried on land in a simple grave. The body was washed in accordance with Islamic custom, placed in a white sheet, then put inside a weighted bag.
With only a small group of witnesses, a military officer read prepared religious remarks, which were translated into Arabic by a "native speaker," the official said. The body was placed on a board, tipped up and then "eased into the sea" from the carrier's lowest deck, the official said.
Akbar Ahmed, the chairman of the Islamic studies department at American University, said the sea burial prevented bin Laden's resting place from becoming a focus for discontent.
"Shrines are very powerful," he said. "Shrines of controversial figures in Muslim history become centers to attract the angry, the disenchanted. The shrine bestows powers of religious charisma. If they allowed Osama bin Laden to be buried in Pakistan, his followers would show up, plant flowers, and women will say the shrine has healing powers, especially among the uneducated. His myth would continue to grow."
On the other hand, Ahmed said, the secretive burial at sea may also give rise to anger and speculation about whether bin Laden was really dead. "You really want to see him. When something like this is done under cover of dark, it leaves a lot of people asking questions."
Mohammed Qudah, a professor of Islamic law at the University of Jordan, said burying the Saudi-born bin Laden at sea was not forbidden if there was nobody to receive the body and provide a Muslim burial.
"The land and the sea belong to God, who is able to protect and raise the dead at the end of times for Judgment Day," he said. "It's neither true nor correct to claim that there was nobody in the Muslim world ready to receive bin Laden's body."
Clerics in Iraq, where an offshoot of al-Qaida is blamed for the death of thousands of people since 2003, also criticized the U.S. action. One said it only benefited fish.
The Islamic tradition of a quick burial was the subject of intense debate in Iraq in 2003 when U.S. forces embalmed the bodies of Saddam Hussein's two sons after they were killed in a firefight. Their bodies later were shown to media.
Two Pentagon officials say bin Laden's at-sea burial was videotaped and probably will be publicly released soon.
Information from The New York Times and McClatchy Newspapers is included in this report.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Osama bin Laden's Second Death
Editor's NOTE:
Paul Craig Roberts makes a very good point about how difficult it would be to survive 10 years on dialysis under the circumstances that Osama bin Laden has purportedly been exposed to. Without a kidney transplant and proper immunosuppresive medication, it would be extremely unlikely for any patient to survive for 10 years on dialysis especially if forced to be "on the run" for some of that time as bin Laden supposedly was.
For all the reasons Roberts detailed, I too find it almost impossible to believe that the genuine Osama bin Laden was killed yesterday. The fact that the body was so quickly disposed of irrespective of the suspect reasons offered, leads to the conclusion that the entire matter is an example of a major psychological intelligence operation.
It will be important to very carefully analyze any detailed data which might be forthcoming from the Obama administration with respect to forensic pathological examination of the body, including DNA identification. At this point, all that is available is a report that DNA analysis identified the body as that of Osama bin Laden with a 99.9% certainty. No details were provided for how a proper reference sample was obtained or what technique was utilized.
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
Osama bin Laden's Second Death
By: Paul Craig Roberts
May 02, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- If today were April 1 and not May 2, we could dismiss as an April fool’s joke this morning’s headline that Osama bin Laden was killed in a firefight in Pakistan and quickly buried at sea. As it is, we must take it as more evidence that the US government has unlimited belief in the gullibility of Americans.
Think about it. What are the chances that a person allegedly suffering from kidney disease and requiring dialysis and, in addition, afflicted with diabetes and low blood pressure, survived in mountain hideaways for a decade? If bin Laden was able to acquire dialysis equipment and medical care that his condition required, would not the shipment of dialysis equipment point to his location? Why did it take ten years to find him?
Consider also the claims, repeated by a triumphalist US media celebrating bin Laden’s death, that “bin Laden used his millions to bankroll terrorist training camps in Sudan, the Philippines, and Afghanistan, sending ‘holy warriors’ to foment revolution and fight with fundamentalist Muslim forces across North Africa, in Chechnya, Tajikistan and Bosnia.” That’s a lot of activity for mere millions to bankroll (perhaps the US should have put him in charge of the Pentagon), but the main question is: how was bin Laden able to move his money about? What banking system was helping him? The US government succeeds in seizing the assets of people and of entire countries, Libya being the most recent. Why not bin Laden’s? Was he carrying around with him $100 million dollars in gold coins and sending emissaries to distribute payments to his far-flung operations?
This morning’s headline has the odor of a staged event. The smell reeks from the triumphalist news reports loaded with exaggerations, from celebrants waving flags and chanting “USA USA.” Could something else be going on?
No doubt President Obama is in desperate need of a victory. He committed the fool’s error or restarting the war in Afghanistan, and now after a decade of fighting the US faces stalemate, if not defeat. The wars of the Bush/Obama regimes have bankrupted the US, leaving huge deficits and a declining dollar in their wake. And re-election time is approaching.
The various lies and deceptions, such as “weapons of mass destruction,” of the last several administrations had terrible consequences for the US and the world. But not all deceptions are the same. Remember, the entire reason for invading Afghanistan in the first place was to get bin Laden. Now that President Obama has declared bin Laden to have been shot in the head by US special forces operating in an independent country and buried at sea, there is no reason for continuing the war.
Perhaps the precipitous decline in the US dollar in foreign exchange markets has forced some real budget reductions, which can only come from stopping the open-ended wars. Until the decline of the dollar reached the breaking point, Osama bin Laden, who many experts believe to have been dead for years, was a useful bogyman to use to feed the profits of the US military/security complex.
Paul Craig Roberts makes a very good point about how difficult it would be to survive 10 years on dialysis under the circumstances that Osama bin Laden has purportedly been exposed to. Without a kidney transplant and proper immunosuppresive medication, it would be extremely unlikely for any patient to survive for 10 years on dialysis especially if forced to be "on the run" for some of that time as bin Laden supposedly was.
For all the reasons Roberts detailed, I too find it almost impossible to believe that the genuine Osama bin Laden was killed yesterday. The fact that the body was so quickly disposed of irrespective of the suspect reasons offered, leads to the conclusion that the entire matter is an example of a major psychological intelligence operation.
It will be important to very carefully analyze any detailed data which might be forthcoming from the Obama administration with respect to forensic pathological examination of the body, including DNA identification. At this point, all that is available is a report that DNA analysis identified the body as that of Osama bin Laden with a 99.9% certainty. No details were provided for how a proper reference sample was obtained or what technique was utilized.
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
Osama bin Laden's Second Death
By: Paul Craig Roberts
May 02, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- If today were April 1 and not May 2, we could dismiss as an April fool’s joke this morning’s headline that Osama bin Laden was killed in a firefight in Pakistan and quickly buried at sea. As it is, we must take it as more evidence that the US government has unlimited belief in the gullibility of Americans.
Think about it. What are the chances that a person allegedly suffering from kidney disease and requiring dialysis and, in addition, afflicted with diabetes and low blood pressure, survived in mountain hideaways for a decade? If bin Laden was able to acquire dialysis equipment and medical care that his condition required, would not the shipment of dialysis equipment point to his location? Why did it take ten years to find him?
Consider also the claims, repeated by a triumphalist US media celebrating bin Laden’s death, that “bin Laden used his millions to bankroll terrorist training camps in Sudan, the Philippines, and Afghanistan, sending ‘holy warriors’ to foment revolution and fight with fundamentalist Muslim forces across North Africa, in Chechnya, Tajikistan and Bosnia.” That’s a lot of activity for mere millions to bankroll (perhaps the US should have put him in charge of the Pentagon), but the main question is: how was bin Laden able to move his money about? What banking system was helping him? The US government succeeds in seizing the assets of people and of entire countries, Libya being the most recent. Why not bin Laden’s? Was he carrying around with him $100 million dollars in gold coins and sending emissaries to distribute payments to his far-flung operations?
This morning’s headline has the odor of a staged event. The smell reeks from the triumphalist news reports loaded with exaggerations, from celebrants waving flags and chanting “USA USA.” Could something else be going on?
No doubt President Obama is in desperate need of a victory. He committed the fool’s error or restarting the war in Afghanistan, and now after a decade of fighting the US faces stalemate, if not defeat. The wars of the Bush/Obama regimes have bankrupted the US, leaving huge deficits and a declining dollar in their wake. And re-election time is approaching.
The various lies and deceptions, such as “weapons of mass destruction,” of the last several administrations had terrible consequences for the US and the world. But not all deceptions are the same. Remember, the entire reason for invading Afghanistan in the first place was to get bin Laden. Now that President Obama has declared bin Laden to have been shot in the head by US special forces operating in an independent country and buried at sea, there is no reason for continuing the war.
Perhaps the precipitous decline in the US dollar in foreign exchange markets has forced some real budget reductions, which can only come from stopping the open-ended wars. Until the decline of the dollar reached the breaking point, Osama bin Laden, who many experts believe to have been dead for years, was a useful bogyman to use to feed the profits of the US military/security complex.
US says Osama bin Laden Dead: Body Already Disposed of at Sea!
Editor's NOTE:
The claims made in the piece below do not pass muster. Given that September 11, 2001 experts like David Ray Griffin and others purport that Osama bin Laden has been dead since the late fall of 2001, it would have behooved the US government to show pictures of the "dead bin Laden" and to have been totally transparent about the method and means by which they identified his body. The excuse that he must be buried within 24 hours due to Islamic burial practice/tradition is a non-starter given the magnitude of his alleged offenses.
Worse yet is that he was buried at sea so that it would be impossible to exhume the body later on if DNA and other test results were brought into question--assuming that they were done at all. (Editor: as of Monday afternoon May 2, Obama administration official John Brennan stated in a press conference held at the White House that DNA analysis was done and was 99.9% positive for the body of Osama bin Laden. When asked why only 99.9% positive, Brennan continued his exit from the room without answering on the record. No information was provided about how the tests were performed, by whom or under what conditions, meaning; at this point we must simply take their word for it. Brennan refused a definitive answer when asked if the Obama administration would provide pictures of bin Laden's dead body, stating that the matter was still under consideration).
News reports had stated that a decision was made in advance not to capture bin Laden alive but instead to kill him. (Editor: at the above referenced WH news conference, John Brennan indicated that the American Seal Team who carried out the mission was prepared either to take bin Laden prisoner or to kill him if necessary, claiming that bin Laden refused to be captured alive and therefore was executed along with his son and wife).
In any case, there is now no way to have him tried in a US court. No evidence will ever be brought forth regarding Osama bin Laden's alleged role in the 911 attacks and there will be no opportunity to cross examine witnesses. The evidence of bin Laden's guilt for 911 (that former Secretary of State Colin Powell promised the American people) has not and apparently will never be produced. Moreover the FBI, apparently for lack of evidence, had never formally charged bin Laden with the 911 attacks, yet the Bureau had no problem acusing him of other terrorist attacks.
This has all the elements of a psychological intelligence (psy-op) operation designed to mislead the populace perhaps related to the current unrest in the Middle East or the need to beging removing US troops from Afghanistan.
Stay tuned.
Why Was Bin Laden Buried At Sea So Quickly?
By: Glen Levy
Time News Feed
May 2, 2011
After spending many years hunting down the world's most wanted man, why did the U.S. bury Osama bin Laden at sea within 24 hours of killing him?
The reason is bound up within Islamic practice and tradition. And that practice calls for the body of the deceased to be buried within 24 hours, according to a U.S. official, who spoke Monday on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive national security matters.
"We are ensuring that it is handled in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition," confirmed the official. "This is something that we take very seriously. And so therefore this is being handled in an appropriate manner."
But the lingering question is why at sea? The official said that finding a country willing to accept the remains of the world's most wanted terrorist would have been difficult, so the decision was made to bury bin Laden at sea. Furthermore, one suspects that the U.S. would not have wanted there to be a physical grave site for fear of it turning into a place of worship for bin Laden's followers. (Editor: More nonsense here. It was not necessary to bury the alleged bin Laden anywhere until proper forensic examination by multiple unbiased pathologists was completed in a transparent and documented fashion) There are rumors, however, that the U.S. asked Saudi Arabia to take the body (bin Laden was born in Saudi) but they allegedly refused. (Editor: more rumor and inuendo, no facts, all suggests a massive psy-op)
It's also believed that DNA testing would have been carried out beforehand to verify that the body was that of bin Laden, (Editor: what a vacuous comment. The question is whether proper DNA testing was carried out or not) as well as being proof against any conspiracy claims that could emanate to suggest that his death didn't take place. The exact location of the burial was not revealed. (via ABC)
The claims made in the piece below do not pass muster. Given that September 11, 2001 experts like David Ray Griffin and others purport that Osama bin Laden has been dead since the late fall of 2001, it would have behooved the US government to show pictures of the "dead bin Laden" and to have been totally transparent about the method and means by which they identified his body. The excuse that he must be buried within 24 hours due to Islamic burial practice/tradition is a non-starter given the magnitude of his alleged offenses.
Worse yet is that he was buried at sea so that it would be impossible to exhume the body later on if DNA and other test results were brought into question--assuming that they were done at all. (Editor: as of Monday afternoon May 2, Obama administration official John Brennan stated in a press conference held at the White House that DNA analysis was done and was 99.9% positive for the body of Osama bin Laden. When asked why only 99.9% positive, Brennan continued his exit from the room without answering on the record. No information was provided about how the tests were performed, by whom or under what conditions, meaning; at this point we must simply take their word for it. Brennan refused a definitive answer when asked if the Obama administration would provide pictures of bin Laden's dead body, stating that the matter was still under consideration).
News reports had stated that a decision was made in advance not to capture bin Laden alive but instead to kill him. (Editor: at the above referenced WH news conference, John Brennan indicated that the American Seal Team who carried out the mission was prepared either to take bin Laden prisoner or to kill him if necessary, claiming that bin Laden refused to be captured alive and therefore was executed along with his son and wife).
In any case, there is now no way to have him tried in a US court. No evidence will ever be brought forth regarding Osama bin Laden's alleged role in the 911 attacks and there will be no opportunity to cross examine witnesses. The evidence of bin Laden's guilt for 911 (that former Secretary of State Colin Powell promised the American people) has not and apparently will never be produced. Moreover the FBI, apparently for lack of evidence, had never formally charged bin Laden with the 911 attacks, yet the Bureau had no problem acusing him of other terrorist attacks.
This has all the elements of a psychological intelligence (psy-op) operation designed to mislead the populace perhaps related to the current unrest in the Middle East or the need to beging removing US troops from Afghanistan.
Stay tuned.
Why Was Bin Laden Buried At Sea So Quickly?
By: Glen Levy
Time News Feed
May 2, 2011
After spending many years hunting down the world's most wanted man, why did the U.S. bury Osama bin Laden at sea within 24 hours of killing him?
The reason is bound up within Islamic practice and tradition. And that practice calls for the body of the deceased to be buried within 24 hours, according to a U.S. official, who spoke Monday on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive national security matters.
"We are ensuring that it is handled in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition," confirmed the official. "This is something that we take very seriously. And so therefore this is being handled in an appropriate manner."
But the lingering question is why at sea? The official said that finding a country willing to accept the remains of the world's most wanted terrorist would have been difficult, so the decision was made to bury bin Laden at sea. Furthermore, one suspects that the U.S. would not have wanted there to be a physical grave site for fear of it turning into a place of worship for bin Laden's followers. (Editor: More nonsense here. It was not necessary to bury the alleged bin Laden anywhere until proper forensic examination by multiple unbiased pathologists was completed in a transparent and documented fashion) There are rumors, however, that the U.S. asked Saudi Arabia to take the body (bin Laden was born in Saudi) but they allegedly refused. (Editor: more rumor and inuendo, no facts, all suggests a massive psy-op)
It's also believed that DNA testing would have been carried out beforehand to verify that the body was that of bin Laden, (Editor: what a vacuous comment. The question is whether proper DNA testing was carried out or not) as well as being proof against any conspiracy claims that could emanate to suggest that his death didn't take place. The exact location of the burial was not revealed. (via ABC)
Sunday, May 1, 2011
NATO War Crimes in Libya
Editor' NOTE:
The reported NATO bombing of Colonel Gadhafi's son's compound has apparently resulted in the deaths of his youngest son and several grandchildren. NATO insists that it had excellent reason to believe that the home was part of the Libyan dictator's military command and control system. This is the euphemistic phrase now being used to justify attacks on what are known to an extremely high degree of certainty to be civilian non-combatants.
Even if NATO had actionable intelligence (a morally bankrupt term) that only Colonel Gadhafi was present in the compound (not a rational assumption however), the UN resolution currently in force calls only for a "no-fly" zone and the protection of Libyan civilians. Clearly the bombing of the Gadhafi compound is the very opposite of what the UN Security Council intended when it passed UNSC resolution 1973. The latest NATO attack proves that the intention is clearly to kill Colonel Gadhafi no matter how many innocent non-combatant civilians are murdered in the process.
It is clear that the "no-fly" zone justification for NATO and other allied intervention represented a ruse by which the Western powers intended to initiate regime change in Libya and the removal of Colonel Gadhafi despite their protestations to the contrary.
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
Gadhafi’s youngest son killed but Libyan leader survives NATO missile strike, spokesman says
Associated Press, through the Washington Post World
Published: April 30
TRIPOLI, Libya — Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi escaped a NATO missile strike in Tripoli on Saturday, but his youngest son and three grandchildren under the age of 12 were killed, a government spokesman said.
The strike, which came hours after Gadhafi called for a cease-fire and negotiations in what rebels called a publicity stunt, marked an escalation of international efforts to prevent the Libyan regime from regaining momentum.
Rebels honked horns and chanted “Allahu Akbar” or “God is great” while speeding through the western city of Misrata, which Gadhafi’s forces have besieged and subjected to random shelling for two months, killing hundreds. Fireworks were set off in front of the central Hikma hospital, causing a brief panic that the light would draw fire from Gadhafi’s forces.
The attack struck the house of Gadhafi’s youngest son, Seif al-Arab, when the Libyan leader and his wife were inside. White House spokesman Shin Inouye declined to comment on the developments in Libya, referring questions to NATO.
The alliance acknowledged that it had struck a “command and control building in the Bab al-Azizya neighborhood” Saturday evening, but it could not confirm the death of Gadhafi’s son and insisted all its targets are military in nature and linked to Gadhafi’s systematic attacks on the population.
The commander of the NATO operation, Canadian Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard, said he was aware of unconfirmed reports that some Gadhafi family members may have been killed and he regretted “all loss of life, specially the innocent civilians being harmed as a result of the ongoing conflict.”
Seif al-Arab Gadhafi, 29, was the youngest son of Gadhafi and brother of the better known Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, who had been touted as a reformist before the uprising began in mid-February. The younger Gadhafi had spent much of his time in Germany in recent years.
Gadhafi’s children have been increasingly engaged in covering up scandals fit for a “Libyan soap opera,” including negative publicity from extravagant displays of wealth such as a million-dollar private concert by pop diva Beyonce, according to a batch of diplomatic cables released by the secret-spilling WikiLeaks website.
But Seif al-Arab remained largely in the shadows, although he had a penchant for fast cars and partying when outside Libya.
Moammar Gadhafi and his wife were in the Tripoli house of his 29-year-old son when it was hit by at least one bomb dropped from a NATO warplane, according to Libyan spokesman Moussa Ibrahim.
“The leader himself is in good health,” Ibrahim said. “He was not harmed. The wife is also in good health.”
Ibrahim would not give the names of the three children killed, except to say they were nieces and nephews of Seif al-Arab and that they were younger than 12. He said they are not releasing the names yet to protect the privacy of the family.
He said the compound that was hit was in the Garghour neighborhood.
“It seems there was intelligence that was leaked. They knew about something. They expected him for some reason. But the target was very clear, very, very clear. And the neighborhood, yes of course, because the leader family has a place there, you could expect of course it would be guarded, but it is a normal neighborhood. Normal Libyans live there,” he said.
The reported NATO bombing of Colonel Gadhafi's son's compound has apparently resulted in the deaths of his youngest son and several grandchildren. NATO insists that it had excellent reason to believe that the home was part of the Libyan dictator's military command and control system. This is the euphemistic phrase now being used to justify attacks on what are known to an extremely high degree of certainty to be civilian non-combatants.
Even if NATO had actionable intelligence (a morally bankrupt term) that only Colonel Gadhafi was present in the compound (not a rational assumption however), the UN resolution currently in force calls only for a "no-fly" zone and the protection of Libyan civilians. Clearly the bombing of the Gadhafi compound is the very opposite of what the UN Security Council intended when it passed UNSC resolution 1973. The latest NATO attack proves that the intention is clearly to kill Colonel Gadhafi no matter how many innocent non-combatant civilians are murdered in the process.
It is clear that the "no-fly" zone justification for NATO and other allied intervention represented a ruse by which the Western powers intended to initiate regime change in Libya and the removal of Colonel Gadhafi despite their protestations to the contrary.
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
Gadhafi’s youngest son killed but Libyan leader survives NATO missile strike, spokesman says
Associated Press, through the Washington Post World
Published: April 30
TRIPOLI, Libya — Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi escaped a NATO missile strike in Tripoli on Saturday, but his youngest son and three grandchildren under the age of 12 were killed, a government spokesman said.
The strike, which came hours after Gadhafi called for a cease-fire and negotiations in what rebels called a publicity stunt, marked an escalation of international efforts to prevent the Libyan regime from regaining momentum.
Rebels honked horns and chanted “Allahu Akbar” or “God is great” while speeding through the western city of Misrata, which Gadhafi’s forces have besieged and subjected to random shelling for two months, killing hundreds. Fireworks were set off in front of the central Hikma hospital, causing a brief panic that the light would draw fire from Gadhafi’s forces.
The attack struck the house of Gadhafi’s youngest son, Seif al-Arab, when the Libyan leader and his wife were inside. White House spokesman Shin Inouye declined to comment on the developments in Libya, referring questions to NATO.
The alliance acknowledged that it had struck a “command and control building in the Bab al-Azizya neighborhood” Saturday evening, but it could not confirm the death of Gadhafi’s son and insisted all its targets are military in nature and linked to Gadhafi’s systematic attacks on the population.
The commander of the NATO operation, Canadian Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard, said he was aware of unconfirmed reports that some Gadhafi family members may have been killed and he regretted “all loss of life, specially the innocent civilians being harmed as a result of the ongoing conflict.”
Seif al-Arab Gadhafi, 29, was the youngest son of Gadhafi and brother of the better known Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, who had been touted as a reformist before the uprising began in mid-February. The younger Gadhafi had spent much of his time in Germany in recent years.
Gadhafi’s children have been increasingly engaged in covering up scandals fit for a “Libyan soap opera,” including negative publicity from extravagant displays of wealth such as a million-dollar private concert by pop diva Beyonce, according to a batch of diplomatic cables released by the secret-spilling WikiLeaks website.
But Seif al-Arab remained largely in the shadows, although he had a penchant for fast cars and partying when outside Libya.
Moammar Gadhafi and his wife were in the Tripoli house of his 29-year-old son when it was hit by at least one bomb dropped from a NATO warplane, according to Libyan spokesman Moussa Ibrahim.
“The leader himself is in good health,” Ibrahim said. “He was not harmed. The wife is also in good health.”
Ibrahim would not give the names of the three children killed, except to say they were nieces and nephews of Seif al-Arab and that they were younger than 12. He said they are not releasing the names yet to protect the privacy of the family.
He said the compound that was hit was in the Garghour neighborhood.
“It seems there was intelligence that was leaked. They knew about something. They expected him for some reason. But the target was very clear, very, very clear. And the neighborhood, yes of course, because the leader family has a place there, you could expect of course it would be guarded, but it is a normal neighborhood. Normal Libyans live there,” he said.
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