It's called 'conflation of ideas.' Bushco has been using it for a long time to mix the concepts of AQ, 9/11 and Iraq.
Cycloptichorn
Bill and Dick, Osama and Sandy
By Michael F. Scheuer
July 5, 2006
With one credible September 11 movie, "United 93," under our belts, it will be interesting to see whether ABC-TV will complete the September 11 Commission's whitewashing of the pre-September 11 failure of U.S. intelligence-community leaders in its forthcoming mini-series based on Richard Clarke's memoir, "Against All Enemies."
Media teasers about the mini-series have said that Mr. Clarke -- the former "terrorism czar" -- and a senior FBI officer, the late John O'Neill, will be the heroes of the saga. If true, and if ABC's fact-checkers are not diligent in verifying Mr. Clarke's stories and claims, the mini-series will be the September 11 commission's dream come true: The Bush administration will be blamed for September 11, the feckless moral cowardice of the Clinton administration will be disguised and Mr. Clarke and Mr. O'Neill -- in my view, two principal authors of September 11 -- will be beatified.
Mr. Clarke's book, on the basis of my involvement to varying degrees in the issues it covers, is a mixture of fact, fiction and cover-up. Mr. Clarke seems to get most names and dates right, and is correct in damning the early Bush administration for obliviousness to the al Qaeda threat. We must also take him at his word on his touching, if sycophantic, tales of Mr. Clinton instructing a young boy to be good to his mom and Hillary Rodham Clinton's secluded moment praying on her knees.
On the fantasy level, Mr. Clarke lays it on thick. His claim that the Clinton administration "defeated an al-Qaeda attempt to dominate Bosnia" is nonsense; bin Laden sent few fighters there because he had no contiguous safe haven for them. Mr. Clarke's claim that "the CIA had taken months to tell the FBI" several hijackers were in America is a lie. FBI officers sat in the unit I first commanded and then served in and they read the same information I did. If the data did not get to FBI headquarters it is because the FBI then lacked, and still lacks, a useable computer system. The FBI did not know the September 11 hijackers were here because Judge Louis Freeh and Robert Mueller have failed to provide their officers computers that allow them to talk securely to their headquarters and other intelligence community elements.
Another spectacular untruth is on page 52: "Later in the 1990s, CIA... [failed] to put U.S. operatives into the country [Afghanistan] to kill bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership, relying on Afghans instead." Mr. Clarke, of course, was at the center of Mr. Clinton's advisers, who resolutely refused to order the CIA to kill bin Laden. In spring 1998, I briefed Mr. Clarke and senior CIA, Department of Defense and FBI officers on a plan to kidnap bin Laden. Mr. Clarke's reaction was that "it was just a thinly disguised attempt to assassinate bin Laden." I replied that if he wanted bin Laden dead, we could do the job quickly. Mr. Clarke's response was that the president did not want bin Laden assassinated, and that we had no authority to do so.
Mr. Clarke's book is also a crucial complement to the September 11 panel's failure to condemn Mr. Clinton's failure to capture or kill bin Laden on any of the eight to 10 chances afforded by CIA reporting. Mr. Clarke never mentions that President Bush had no chances to kill bin Laden before September 11 and leaves readers with the false impression that he, Mr. Clinton and Mr. Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger, did their best to end the bin Laden threat. That trio, in my view, abetted al Qaeda, and if the September 11 families were smart they would focus on the dereliction of Dick, Bill and Sandy and not the antics of convicted September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui.
About John O'Neill, little needs to be said. In my own experience, Mr. O'Neill was interested only in furthering his career and disguising the rank incompetence of senior FBI leaders. He once told me that he and the FBI would oppose an operation to capture bin Laden and take him to a third country for incarceration. When I asked why, he replied, "Why should the FBI help to capture bin Laden if the bureau won't get credit among Americans for his arrest and conviction"?
So, I look forward to ABC's mini-series, as well as to seeing the quality of the network's fact-checkers. If they do their job well, some of the September 11 Commission's whitewash may start to be peeled away. If they fail, however, the reality that Bill, Dick and Sandy helped to push Americans out of the windows of the World Trade Center on that September morning will be buried in miles of fantasy-filled celluloid.
Michael F. Scheuer, a 22-year veteran with the CIA, created and served as the chief of the agency's Osama bin Laden unit at the Counterterrorist Center.
Did the Dems Threaten ABC?
The Democrats have gone nuts over the ABC miniseries, The Path to 9/11. But it's a little hard to see why. Maybe it's because Disney and ABC have been reliably pro-Democrat in the past, so the Dems feel betrayed.
Looking at the big picture, though, it's a little hard to see what the Dems are complaining about. I haven't seen the miniseries, but I take it that it doesn't portray the Clinton administration as having taken very effective action against the growing threat from Islamic terrorists. What I don't understand is how the Democrats think they can rewrite history to challenge that characterization.
There is no doubt about the fact that the terrorist menace grew and became increasingly obvious during the Clinton administration. To note just a few highlights:
* January 25, 1993: Mir Aimal Kansi, a Pakistani, fired an AK-47 into cars waiting at a stoplight in front of the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Virginia, killing two CIA employees.
* February 26, 1993: Islamic terrorists try to bring down the World Trade Center with car bombs. They failed to destroy the buildings, but killed 6 and injured over 1000 people.
* March 12, 1993: Car bombings in Mumbai, India leave 257 dead and 1,400 others injured.
* July 18, 1994: Bombing of Jewish Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, kills 86 and wounds 300. The bombing is generally attributed to Hezbollah acting on behalf of Iran.
* July 19, 1994: Alas Chiricanas Flight 00901 is bombed, killing 21. Generally attributed to Hezbollah.
* July 26, 1994: The Israeli Embassy is attacked in London, and a Jewish charity is also car-bombed, wounding 20. The attacks are attributed to Hezbollah.
* December 11, 1994: A bomb explodes on board Philippine Airlines Flight 434, killing a Japanese businessman. It develops that Ramzi Yousef planted the bomb to test it for the larger terrorist attack he is planning.
* December 24, 1994: In a preview of September 11, Air France Flight 8969 is hijacked by Islamic terrorists who planned to crash the plane in Paris.
* January 6, 1995: Operation Bojinka, an Islamist plot to bomb 11 U.S. airliners over the Pacific Ocean, is discovered on a laptop computer in a Manila, Philippines apartment by authorities after a fire occurred in the apartment. Noted terrorists including Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed are involved in the plot.
* June 14?-June 19, 1995: The Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis, in which 105 civilians and 25 Russian troops were killed following an attack by Chechan Islamists.
* July?-October, 1995: Bombings in France by Islamic terrorists led by Khaled Kelkal kill eight and injure more than 100.
* November 13, 1995: Bombing of OPM-SANG building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia kills 7
* November 19, 1995: Bombing of Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan kills 19.
* January 1996: In Kizlyar, 350 Chechen Islamists took 3,000 hostages in a hospital. The attempt to free them killed 65 civilians and soldiers.
* February 25 - March 4, 1996: A series of four suicide bombings in Israel leave 60 dead and 284 wounded within 10 days.
* June 11, 1996: A bomb explodes on a train traveling on the Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevskaya Line of the Moscow Metro, killing four and unjuring at least 12.
* June 25, 1996: The Khobar Towers bombing, carried out by Hezbollah with Iranian support. Nineteen U.S. servicemen were killed and 372 wounded.
* February 24, 1997: An armed man opens fire on tourists at an observation deck atop the Empire State Building in New York City, United States, killing a Danish national and wounding visitors from several countries. A handwritten note carried by the gunman claims this was a punishment attack against the "enemies of Palestine".
* November 17, 1997: Massacre in Luxor, Egypt, in which Islamist gunmen attack tourists, killing 62 people.
* January 1998: Wandhama Massacre - 24 Kashmiri Pandits are massacred by Pakistan-backed Islamists in the city of Wandhama in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
* February 14, 1998: Bombings by Islamic Jihadi groups at an election rally in the Indian city of Coimbatore kill about 60 people.
* August 7, 1998: Al Qaeda bombs U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, killing 225 people and injuring more than 4,000.
* August 31 - September 22, 1998: Russian apartment bombings kill about 300 people, leading Russia into Second Chechen War.
* December 1998: Jordanian authorities foil a plot to bomb American and Israeli tourists in Jordan, and arrest 28 suspects as part of the 2000 millennium attack plots.
* December 14, 1998: Ahmed Ressam is arrested on the United States-Canada border in Port Angeles, Washington; he confessed to planning to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport as part of the 2000 millennium attack plots.
* December 24, 1998: Indian Airlines Flight 814 from Kathmandu, Nepal to Delhi, India is hijacked by Islamic terrorists. One passenger is killed and some hostages are released. After negotiations between the Taliban and the Indian government, the last of the remaining hostages on board Flight 814 are released in exchange for release of 4 terrorists.
* January 2000: The last of the 2000 millennium attack plots fails, as the boat meant to bomb USS The Sullivans sinks.
* August 8, 2000: A bomb exploded at an underpass in Pushkin Square in Moscow, killing 11 people and wounding more than 90.
* August 17, 2000: Two bombs exploded in a shopping center in Riga, Latvia, injuring 35 people.
* October 12, 2000: AL Qaeda bombs USS Cole with explosive-laden speedboat, killing 17 US sailors and wounding 40, off the port coast of Aden, Yemen.
Between 1993 and 2000, everyone who was paying any attention knew that the threat from Islamic terrorism was grave and getting worse. The catastrophic losses that occurred on Septimeber 11, 2001, could just as easily have happened in 1993, when the first plot to destroy the World Trade Center was carried off successfully, but the terrorists had miscalculated the effect of their explosives, or in 1995, when the plot to destroy eleven American airplanes in flight was thwarted by counter-intelligence work in the Philippines. What did the Clinton administration do in response to this grave threat? Essentially nothing. Worse, Clinton tried to sweep the problem under the rug, lest it disrupt the surface calm and prosperity for which he was eager to claim credit.
However Path to 9/11 portrays the Clinton administration, it can be no worse than the reality.
Now top Democrats have written a letter to ABC that can reasonably be read as a threat to pull the network's broadcast license if it shows Path to 9/11:
Presenting such deeply flawed and factually inaccurate misinformation to the American public and to children would be a gross miscarriage of your corporate and civic responsibility to the law, to your shareholders, and to the nation.
The Communications Act of 1934 provides your network with a free broadcast license predicated on the fundamental understanding of your principle obligation to act as a trustee of the public airwaves in serving the public interest. Nowhere is this public interest obligation more apparent than in the duty of broadcasters to serve the civic needs of a democracy by promoting an open and accurate discussion of political ideas and events. ***
We urge you, after full consideration of the facts, to uphold your responsibilities as a respected member of American society and as a beneficiary of the free use of the public airwaves to cancel this factually inaccurate and deeply misguided program.
Blue Crab Boulevard calls this letter an "enormous miscalculation." Blog of the Week Riehl World View agrees that the Democrats will pay a political price for their heavy-handedness:
[T]he ramifications of the current move by Dems to pressure ABC are going to have consequences far beyond a docu-drama. Americans don't like people, especially politicians, messing with their TV. And the other big issue facing Republicans in the run up to the coming elections besides Iraq was firing up their base. I say was because the Dems have just saved the Republicans from having to go to the trouble.
The Democrats' shameless maneuvering now going on on behalf of Clinton brings back, not only the animus Republicans have always felt for Clinton, while drawing attention to their general weakness in foreign affairs, it also reminds everyone of the scandal ridden side show that was Democrat Clinton's presidency.
Well, one can always hope. But it's hard to think of an instance of bully-boy tactics by the Democrats causing them any serious problems.
UPDATE: ABC says that it is still making changes in the program, evidently in response to the Democrats' attacks, so we won't know how effective the Democrats' tactics have been until the program airs.
Why Does the Left Hate "The Path to 9/11"?
By Hugh Hewitt
Thursday, September 7, 2006
On Sunday and Monday nights at 8 PM, ABC will air a five hour mini-series, "The Path to 9/11." I have watched it, and it is a riveting and in some respects horrifying recreation of the events from the hours before the first World Trade Center attack in 1993 through the awful events of 9/11. Rarely does television reach this level of drama, and director David Cunningham and writer Cyrus Nowrasteh deserve great praise from left, right and center for a masterful retelling of the crucial events leading up to the devastation of five years ago.
A five hour show that must condense eight years by necessity will not be complete, but it is very accurate. As a very accurate docudrama, "The Path to 9/11" has drawn the deep anger of the Clinton political machine. Representatives of that era have been demanding at a minimum edits and some outright cancellation of the program. Monica Lewinsky makes an appearance, you see, as does Bill Clinton's videotaped testimony about his perjury. National Security Advisor Sandy Berger is portrayed as indecisive, Madeleine Albright as misdirected, George Tenet as sputtering. The film does not spare the Bush Administration its shots either, but for the left in the US the most damning thing possible is a recounting of the deep slumber concerning al Qaeda that overcame not just President Clinton but all parts of the national security apparatus throughout the '90s. The film does not damn those in charge during those years. It does however deliver a indictment of criminal negligence from which there is simply no escape.
By attempting a programming coup against the series, the Clinton forces have brought enormous attention to the film, and for that I thank them. The program is not primarily about the Clinton stewardship --or lack thereof-- of the national security. It is not even secondarily about that.
Rather the mini-series is the first attempt --very successful-- to convey to American television viewers what we are up against: The fanaticism, the maniacal evil, the energy and the genius for mayhem of the enemy.
In the self-serving complaints about this scene or that take delivered by Richard Ben-Veniste and other proxies are replayed again the deadly narcissisms of the'90s. The program's great faults are --they say-- in the inaccurate portrayal of Bill Clinton and his furrowed brow and continual efforts to track down bin Laden.
It is all about them, you see. Just as it was in the '90s. To hell with O'Neill or the victims of 9/11, and forget about the worldwide menace that continues to nurse its hatred, though now from caves and not compounds.
Not a word from these critics about the program's greatest strength, which is in the accurate rendering of the enemy, and the warning it might give about the need for continual vigilance.
Critics of the program want to argue that a five hour program has collapsed eight years too brusquely. There is, by the way, zero mention in the fve hours of the allegations that Clinton let bin Laden slip through his fingers when the terror chief was offered up by Sudan. There is no Atta meeting in Prague, no suggestion of a Saddam history of terror ties unrelated to 9/11 --in short, there is no reaching by the writer/producers/director. It is an objective show, and not one that will cheer the right. But any show that does not praise Clinton or hopelessly conflate the eight years of the Clinton tenure with the eight months of the pre-9/11 Bush Administration is to be condemned.
"The Path to 9/11" is a faithful and compelling recreation within the limits of the craft of the fatal nonchalance of the '90s, combined with a salute to the hard-working men and women who struggled against the bureaucratic insanities of that era, represented chiefly in the person of FBI Agent John O'Neill, played by Harvey Keitel, and a supporting cast of brave and never-discouraged lower level Bureau and CIA operatives who understood the risks. In trying to deep-six the series, the Clinton forces are trying to silence their story.
The Clinton operatives are also bringing a useful attention to the program and especially any last minute edits ABC might make. The network risks outrage from center and right if it airbrushes the narrative, and even from those in Hollywood who stand by the idea that a good faith piece of work should be unmolested by the PC police.
No matter your opinions of Presidents Clinton and Bush, be sure to watch (or set your TiVo) to ABC Sunday night at 8. You be the judge. Hopefully ABC will give you that chance.
CRITICS & HYPOCRITES
September 8, 2006 -- How to tote up all the hypocrisy spew ing from Camp Clinton - including from the former president himself - over ABC's upcoming mini-series, "The Path to 9/11"?
Calling the docudrama, which is based on the Kean-Hamilton 9/11 Commission's report as well as other sources, "fiction," the Clintonites want it re-edited to tone down its criticism of the former president - or, better still, yanked entirely.
To show the film as it now stands, Bill Clinton's office said in a statement yesterday, would be "despicable."
What - no liberal cries of "censorship"? Nothing about the sacred constitutional guarantee of free speech? No warnings about the "chilling effect" caused by ideological zealots intent on pursuing their partisan agenda?
Oh, well. Hypocrisy, it's been said, is the lubricant of political discourse.
Clinton's folks - including former National Security Adviser Sandy "I've Got Stolen Secret Papers Down My Pants" Berger - claim the flick is full of factual errors that portray them as lax in their pursuit of Osama bin Laden.
But the 9/11 Commission did fault the Clinton folks, along with the Bush administration, for mistakes that paved the way for 9/11. As we've argued on this page for the past five years, those mistakes extend back to the Reagan and Carter administrations.
But with Democrats battling to regain control of Congress, it seems that nothing that doesn't place 100 percent of the blame on George W. Bush is acceptable.
How the tables have turned. Remember how Democrats responded to Republican criticism three years ago, when CBS prepared to air a two-part drama about Ronald Reagan that portrayed the late president as an unfeeling tyrant, complete with wholly invented dialogue?
"This is censorship, pure and simple," wailed Barbra Streisand.
The Reagan film's defenders noted that some of the critics hadn't even seen the film - just like ex-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who now complains about the 9/11 film, even though she only has second-hand information about it.
And People for the American Way lashed out at "the echo chamber of right-wing pundits and Republican Party officials" for declaring that Ronald Reagan "is off-limits to media treatment that is anything short of fawning."
Gee. Isn't that exactly what the Clintonites are saying about their leader right now? How shocked they seem that some folks in Hollywood, of all places, deem to portray Team Clinton in a way that is "short of fawning."
Tom Kean, co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission and a paid consultant for the film, insists it is balanced and accurate - adding that "people in both administrations are not going to be happy."
Which is as it should be. The saddest part about the real-life path to 9/11 is that the blame dates back a quarter-century.
Sad to say, the Clintonite protests seem to be working - ABC late yesterday said it has altered some scenes. Just how far the network gives in remains to be seen.
Give it a rest Cyclo. Bubba has to admit that he:
1. Failed inhis efforts to "get Osama"
2. Did not try hard enough.
Trying is not good enough.
He should admit he was "distracted by the Babe in the White House". He was distracted and the Republicans are to blame for the distraction since they are the one who pursued the silly impeachment hearings,.,
woiyo wrote:Give it a rest Cyclo. Bubba has to admit that he:
1. Failed inhis efforts to "get Osama"
2. Did not try hard enough.
Trying is not good enough.
He should admit he was "distracted by the Babe in the White House". He was distracted and the Republicans are to blame for the distraction since they are the one who pursued the silly impeachment hearings,.,
Perhaps you will then concede that Bush is too by the family nemesis in Iraq to focus on the evil bin Laden.
Perhaps you will also conceded that this distraction in Iraq is the reason behind the disbanding of "Alec Station", the CIA led task force who's mandate was to hunt bin Laden and other top AQ members/leaders.
So, if merely trying isn't good enough, what do you call the disbanding of this CIA task force?
So, if merely trying isn't good enough, what do you call the disbanding of this CIA task force?
According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had ten sexual encounters, eight while she worked at the White House and two thereafter.(35) The sexual encounters generally occurred in or near the private study off the Oval Office -- most often in the windowless hallway outside the study.(36) During many of their sexual encounters, the President stood leaning against the doorway of the bathroom across from the study, which, he told Ms. Lewinsky, eased his sore back.(37)
Ms. Lewinsky testified that her physical relationship with the President included oral sex but not sexual intercourse.(38) According to Ms. Lewinsky, she performed oral sex on the President; he never performed oral sex on her.(39) Initially, according to Ms. Lewinsky, the President would not let her perform oral sex to completion. In Ms. Lewinsky's understanding, his refusal was related to "trust and not knowing me well enough."(40) During their last two sexual encounters, both in 1997, he did ejaculate.(41)
According to Ms. Lewinsky, she performed oral sex on the President on nine occasions. On all nine of those occasions, the President fondled and kissed her bare breasts. He touched her genitals, both through her underwear and directly, bringing her to orgasm on two occasions. On one occasion, the President inserted a cigar into her vagina. On another occasion, she and the President had brief genital-to-genital contact.(42)
I'm sure ABC will happily change the script to make Mr. Keitel happy. Of course, this will have no impact whatsoever since the film has already been shot.
Maybe Mr. Keitel should start demanding that they re-edit the finished product, since that would make more sense. :wink:
**The above post is for humorous purposes only. Any resemblance to any serious discussion, living or dead, is not intentional.
Ah yes, that old first amendment can be a heavy burden. Especially when it's being used against you, huh?
I'm sure ABC will happily change the script to make Mr. Keitel happy. Of course, this will have no impact whatsoever since the film has already been shot.
Maybe Mr. Keitel should start demanding that they re-edit the finished product, since that would make more sense. :wink:
**The above post is for humorous purposes only. Any resemblance to any serious discussion, living or dead, is not intentional.
McGentrix wrote:Ah yes, that old first amendment can be a heavy burden. Especially when it's being used against you, huh?
It can be annoying, yes ;-)
Meanwhile, how did you react, exactly, when Fahrenheit 9/11 came out?
ABC ignores Democrats, won't pull plug on The Path to 9-11
By Hal Boedeker
Orlando Sentinel
Top Senate Democrats urged the Walt Disney Co. on Thursday to cancel The Path to 9-11, but ABC said it would air the epic docudrama about events leading up to the terrorist attacks five years ago.
"Presenting such deeply flawed and factually inaccurate misinformation to the American public and to children would be a gross miscarriage of your corporate and civic responsibility to the law, to your shareholders and to the nation," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and four others wrote.
Reid and his colleagues sent the letter to Bob Iger, Disney's chief executive officer. The senators warned Iger that if the miniseries aired, "The reputation of Disney as a corporation worthy of the trust of the American people and the United States Congress will be deeply damaged."
A network spokeswoman said ABC has no plans to drop the five-hour program, which will air Sunday and Monday. WFTV-Channel 9 will air the commercial-free program, General Manager Shawn Bartelt said.
The program depicts events in The 9-11 Commission Report, starting with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. In a statement, ABC acknowledged that, like other docudramas, the miniseries contains fictionalized scenes and composite characters.
"No one has seen the final version of the film, because the editing process is not yet complete, so criticisms of film specifics are premature and irresponsible," the ABC statement said. "We hope viewers will watch the entire broadcast of the finished film before forming an opinion about it."
But Democrats weighed in fiercely on the $40 million production. The Democratic National Committee called the production "irresponsible, slanderous, fraudulent" and asked Democrats to tell Iger "to keep this right-wing propaganda off the air." The Democrats said they had collected more than 100,000 signatures in an online petition addressed to Iger.
Sandy Berger, former national-security adviser to President Clinton, said the scenes involving Berger are "complete fabrications." In a letter to Iger, Berger wrote, "The incidents depicted did not happen. They are not contained in the 9-11 Commission Report."
Another letter to Iger came from Bruce Lindsey, chief executive officer of the William J. Clinton Foundation, and Douglas Band, counsel to Clinton.
"The content of this drama is factually and incontrovertibly inaccurate and ABC has a duty to fully correct all errors or pull the drama entirely," they wrote.
Asked whether the editing changes were in response to the complaints, the ABC spokeswoman said: "The adjustments are being made to strengthen some scenes and make the points of the specific scenes clearer." She said the edits so far have been minimal, such as changing a few lines of dialogue.
An early version, sent to critics for review, depicted uncertain responses by both the Clinton and Bush administrations. Former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, a Republican and chair of the 9-11 Commission, served as senior consultant on the miniseries.
In July, Kean said he wished he could make a few changes. "But, look, the spirit of this is absolutely correct," Kean said. "This is the story of how it happened."
CBS' plan to repeat the documentary 9-11 on Sunday has sparked another protest. The American Family Association, a Tupelo-Miss.-based group, objects to coarse language and plans to swamp the Federal Communications Commission with demands for fines against CBS affiliates. But WKMG-Channel 6 says it will air the program.
Has bin Laden bin forgotten?
America's ever-shifting attitude towards bin Laden tells us far more about the confused war on terror than about bin Laden himself.
by Brendan O'Neill
POSTED APRIL 25, 2002 --
?'The goal has never been to get bin Laden', said General Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, on 6 April 2002. President George W Bush might have declared on 17 September 2001 that bin Laden was ?'Wanted: Dead or Alive' - but Myers told CNN that a far more important aim than bin Laden's head on a platter was the ?'capture, killing and scattering' of ?'mid-level al-Qaeda operatives' 1. ?'The goal [in Afghanistan] was never after specific individuals', he claimed 2.
But four days later, on 10 April 2002, army secretary Thomas White said that one of America's ?'strategic objectives' in Afghanistan is ?'to get bin Laden and we are pursuing that' 3. Asked if the war on terror could only be hailed a success once bin Laden was found, White said yes - claiming that ?'no one said it was going to be easy' 4.
?'I truly am not that concerned about him', said President George W Bush on 13 March 2002, after being asked the million-dollar question ?'where is bin Laden?' once too often 5. ?'Deep in my heart I know the man is on the run, if he's alive at all', said Bush, brushing bin Laden off as ?'a person who has now been marginalized' 6.
But a week later, on 21 March 2002, US commanders claimed that bin Laden and co are ?'still a threat in the new Afghanistan'. Major-general Frank Hagenbeck warned that ?'there are al-Qaeda operatives in Paktia right now, who are going to great lengths to regroup' 7 - while CIA director George Tenet claimed that bin Laden remains an ?'immediate and serious threat' 8.
On 8 April 2002, US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld said bin Laden's threat had been ?'neutralized'. ?'Our goal was to stop terrorism to the extent that we could', said Rumsfeld - claiming that ?'enough pressure' had been applied to al-Qaeda leaders to make them ?'so busy surviving' and ?'moving from place to place' that they no longer have time to plot terrorist attacks 9.
But on the same day, one newspaper claimed that ?'bin Laden managed to escape hours before a joint team of FBI and Pakistan commandos raided an al-Qaeda hideout in Faisalabad in the Punjab province on 28 March, which resulted in the capture of his lieutenant Abu Zubaydah' 10 - leading to concern in the ?'American camp' that bin Laden is ?'safe and well and planning new terror attacks' 11.
What's going on? Is bin Laden still the big bad threat to world peace that President Bush once wanted ?'dead or alive' - or has he been ?'marginalized' out of the picture? Has al-Qaeda's threat been ?'neutralized' - or are they plotting further terrorist attacks and ?'secret guerrilla warfare'? Is getting bin Laden one of America's ?'strategic objectives' - or was it never a priority in the first place?
Since the start of 2002, America's hunt for bin Laden has verged on the farcical. On 7 January 2002, an exasperated military spokesman said the USA would stop ?'chasing shadows', after yet another round of ?'where's bin Laden?' questions from assembled journalists 12.
At the end of December 2001, ?'informed Afghan, Iranian and US government sources' apparently believed that ?'bin Laden managed to escape to the eastern region of Yemen' 13. But on 6 January 2002, Bob Graham of the US Senate Intelligence Committee said bin Laden and his henchmen ?'had escaped and are probably over the border in Pakistan' 14. On 14 January US officials were reported to believe that al-Qaeda leaders ?'are crossing the borders into Iran' 15. But the following day, intelligence expert and former CIA chief Vince Cannistraro said: ?'I think most intelligence experts are absolutely convinced that bin Laden has slipped the noose and has left Afghanistan and Pakistan' 16.
Absolutely convinced? Not quite. Cannistraro suggested that bin Laden might have escaped Pakistan by boat and be hiding out somewhere in the Arabian Sea, but nobody knows for sure.
In mid-January 2002, secretary of state Colin Powell tried to knock all the bin Laden rumour-mongering on the head - but only showed up the USA's dearth of intelligence. ?'I have seen nothing that suggests we know where he is, whether it's Afghanistan, Pakistan or somewhere else', declared Powell 17 - even though by then, US military and intelligence forces in Afghanistan had been looking for bin Laden for three months. But, Powell assured us, US forces are still in ?'hot pursuit' of him 18.
So was the USA going to stop ?'chasing shadows' or was it still ?'hotly pursuing' a man who could be anywhere in Central Asia, Asia, the Middle East, north Africa or the surrounding seas? There was no point asking man-in-charge-of-the-US-war-machine Donald Rumsfeld, who says looking for bin Laden is ?'like looking for a needle in a haystack' 19.
The US authorities' lack of intelligence on bin Laden, Muhammad Omar (remember him?) and the rest of the al-Qaeda and Taliban rumps revealed much about the uncertain nature of their war against terror - a war with ever-shifting aims and uncertain goals. So how did the Bush administration respond to the New Year revelations that their intelligence agencies didn't have a clue where bin Laden is? They changed their war aims. Again.
?'American military chiefs have made a subtle change in Washington's war aims to help mask their continued failure to capture bin Laden', said one report on 14 January 20, as former leader of the US armed services committee and senator John McCain tried to make not knowing where bin Laden is sound like a success story. ?'He's on the run now a far different scenario than the one where he had sanctuary and was able to operate', boasted McCain. 21 In the same week, President Bush declared that bin Laden ?'is on the run . I mean this is a guy who three months ago was in control of a country' - seeming to have confused bin Laden with Taliban leader Omar.
So America's war aim went from getting bin Laden ?'dead or alive' to bringing him to justice to dismantling his organization to giving him the runaround as a means of foiling his dastardly plan. Never have so many war aims been targeted at so few people in so little time.
The confusion over bin Laden's whereabouts is a reflection of America's confused war - not an indication that the wily bin Laden is outwitting US intelligence by secretly jetting from one part of the globe to another, as some would have us believe. Just consider some of the places bin Laden has been ?'spotted' or rumoured to be hiding in since 11 September:
IRAN . Apparently ?'extensive investigations' by one newspaper in December 2001 revealed that bin Laden had ?'crossed the south-west border into Iran, where he is being sheltered by dissident Iranian guerrilla fighters' 22.
KASHMIR . An Italian TV station claimed on 22 December 2001 that bin Laden ?'has fled to Kashmir with the help of Pakistan's secret services' 23.
UGANDA . In April 2002, Ugandan villagers ?'mistakenly arrested a man they thought was bin Laden, hoping to claim America's $50million reward' - only to discover that the man was an Arab-looking ?'mental patient' 24.
THE WORLD . On 20 December 2001, the US authorities announced that the hunt for bin Laden ?'has widened into an international effort that [will] require time, creativity and a new deployment of resources', extending beyond Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia, Yemen and even ?'further afield' 25.
And consider some of the headlines from the international press over the past six months: ?'He may be dead, he may be trapped', ?'Bin Laden still in Kandahar', ?'Bin Laden's trail is lost', ?'Osama bin Laden no longer exists' .
Then there was the debate in January 2002 about whether bin Laden was still alive. On 18 January CNN.com ran the headline ?'Pakistan's Musharraf: Bin Laden probably dead', after Pakistani President Musharraf said ?'I think now, frankly, he is dead, for the reason he is a kidney patient' 26. Then one week later, CNN ran the headline ?'Bin Laden probably alive, White House says', after top Bush officials said that bin Laden is ?'likely alive and will be caught' 27.
So is bin Laden ?'probably alive' or ?'probably dead'? Is he in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Georgia, Uganda or somewhere else on the planet? Or has he had plastic surgery to change his look? According to the San Francisco Chronicle, an unnamed Northern Alliance official told an Iranian newspaper: ?'We have concrete reports that [plastic surgeons from Pakistan] were hired on heavy expenses. They have totally changed bin Laden's look .' 28
The truth is, nobody knows. None of the claims about bin Laden's health or whereabouts is based on hard facts or figures, because US intelligence in the war on terror is so bad. And it is precisely the confused nature of America's war that gives the space for so much wild speculation about what's going on and where bin Laden might be hiding.
After admitting in January 2002 that they didn't have the first clue where bin Laden is (and changing their war aims to suit this new reality), US officials shifted gear again in February - by claiming that they no longer care where he is.
There was Bush's ?'no longer concerned about bin Laden' speech and Rumsfeld's ?'bin Laden has been neutralized' claim - followed by US vice president Dick Cheney's claim that ?'Bin Laden himself isn't that big a threat' 29. As one report pointed out, ?'Top Pentagon officials have increasingly argued that - alive or dead - [bin Laden] is irrelevant', quoting one Defense Department official as saying, ?'Everybody wants to know where bin Laden is. The next question is, who cares?' 30. (Those affected by the 11 September attacks - who have been told from day one that bin Laden was responsible and that the USA would pull out all the stops to catch him - might care.)
The ?'not caring' about bin Laden tells us much about the war on terror - where even this one central aim, getting the guy that America claims was behind the 11 September attacks, can be remoulded and reworded to suit the unfavourable reality of war on the ground.
At last, in February 2002, there seemed to be some success on the bin Laden front. On 4 February 2002, the US authorities boasted about killing an al-Qaeda target who was ?'over six feet tall and wearing Arab clothing' 31. Unfortunately, as the Washington Post pointed out a week later, 'Mir Ahmad was a little tall. But he was not Osama bin Laden. Villagers said Ahmad and two other local men were peasants gathering scrap metal from the war [when] they were killed [by] a US Hellfire missile' 32 US forces are so low on intelligence that they can't seem to tell one 'towel-head' from another. As some Afghans told a US journalist, 'the Americans do not really know who they are aiming at' 33.
Things got worse in April 2002, when ?'the Bush administration concluded that bin Laden was present during the battle for Tora Bora late last year and that failure to commit US ground troops to hunt him was its gravest error in the war against al-Qaeda' 34. In short, US forces let bin Laden slip right past them in December 2001.
According to the Washington Times, the world media has ?'revelled' in the search for bin Laden 35. ?'It has become the perennial "Osama bin Laden whereabouts" story', said the Washington Times. ?'For months, the press has pondered his fate - pestering officials, connecting conspiratorial dots and plying insiders for clues.' The paper estimates that the question of bin Laden's whereabouts has been covered in 992 newspaper stories, 24 magazine accounts and 510 newswire reports over the past six months.
All those miles of newsprint and speculation, and still we're none the wiser. Nothing better illustrates the failure of the war on terror than the fact we know less about bin Laden now than we did on 12 September 2001. At least then we knew he was alive and in Afghanistan .now he could be alive, dead, sick, well and just about anywhere.
-- 30 --
Has bin Laden bin forgotten?
America's ever-shifting attitude towards bin Laden tells us far more about the confused war on terror than about bin Laden himself.
by Brendan O'Neill
POSTED APRIL 25, 2002 --
?'The goal has never been to get bin Laden', said General Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, on 6 April 2002. President George W Bush might have declared on 17 September 2001 that bin Laden was ?'Wanted: Dead or Alive' - but Myers told CNN that a far more important aim than bin Laden's head on a platter was the ?'capture, killing and scattering' of ?'mid-level al-Qaeda operatives' 1. ?'The goal [in Afghanistan] was never after specific individuals', he claimed 2.
But four days later, on 10 April 2002, army secretary Thomas White said that one of America's ?'strategic objectives' in Afghanistan is ?'to get bin Laden and we are pursuing that' 3. Asked if the war on terror could only be hailed a success once bin Laden was found, White said yes - claiming that ?'no one said it was going to be easy' 4.
?'I truly am not that concerned about him', said President George W Bush on 13 March 2002, after being asked the million-dollar question ?'where is bin Laden?' once too often 5. ?'Deep in my heart I know the man is on the run, if he's alive at all', said Bush, brushing bin Laden off as ?'a person who has now been marginalized' 6.
But a week later, on 21 March 2002, US commanders claimed that bin Laden and co are ?'still a threat in the new Afghanistan'. Major-general Frank Hagenbeck warned that ?'there are al-Qaeda operatives in Paktia right now, who are going to great lengths to regroup' 7 - while CIA director George Tenet claimed that bin Laden remains an ?'immediate and serious threat' 8.
On 8 April 2002, US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld said bin Laden's threat had been ?'neutralized'. ?'Our goal was to stop terrorism to the extent that we could', said Rumsfeld - claiming that ?'enough pressure' had been applied to al-Qaeda leaders to make them ?'so busy surviving' and ?'moving from place to place' that they no longer have time to plot terrorist attacks 9.
But on the same day, one newspaper claimed that ?'bin Laden managed to escape hours before a joint team of FBI and Pakistan commandos raided an al-Qaeda hideout in Faisalabad in the Punjab province on 28 March, which resulted in the capture of his lieutenant Abu Zubaydah' 10 - leading to concern in the ?'American camp' that bin Laden is ?'safe and well and planning new terror attacks' 11.
What's going on? Is bin Laden still the big bad threat to world peace that President Bush once wanted ?'dead or alive' - or has he been ?'marginalized' out of the picture? Has al-Qaeda's threat been ?'neutralized' - or are they plotting further terrorist attacks and ?'secret guerrilla warfare'? Is getting bin Laden one of America's ?'strategic objectives' - or was it never a priority in the first place?
Since the start of 2002, America's hunt for bin Laden has verged on the farcical. On 7 January 2002, an exasperated military spokesman said the USA would stop ?'chasing shadows', after yet another round of ?'where's bin Laden?' questions from assembled journalists 12.
At the end of December 2001, ?'informed Afghan, Iranian and US government sources' apparently believed that ?'bin Laden managed to escape to the eastern region of Yemen' 13. But on 6 January 2002, Bob Graham of the US Senate Intelligence Committee said bin Laden and his henchmen ?'had escaped and are probably over the border in Pakistan' 14. On 14 January US officials were reported to believe that al-Qaeda leaders ?'are crossing the borders into Iran' 15. But the following day, intelligence expert and former CIA chief Vince Cannistraro said: ?'I think most intelligence experts are absolutely convinced that bin Laden has slipped the noose and has left Afghanistan and Pakistan' 16.
Absolutely convinced? Not quite. Cannistraro suggested that bin Laden might have escaped Pakistan by boat and be hiding out somewhere in the Arabian Sea, but nobody knows for sure.
In mid-January 2002, secretary of state Colin Powell tried to knock all the bin Laden rumour-mongering on the head - but only showed up the USA's dearth of intelligence. ?'I have seen nothing that suggests we know where he is, whether it's Afghanistan, Pakistan or somewhere else', declared Powell 17 - even though by then, US military and intelligence forces in Afghanistan had been looking for bin Laden for three months. But, Powell assured us, US forces are still in ?'hot pursuit' of him 18.
So was the USA going to stop ?'chasing shadows' or was it still ?'hotly pursuing' a man who could be anywhere in Central Asia, Asia, the Middle East, north Africa or the surrounding seas? There was no point asking man-in-charge-of-the-US-war-machine Donald Rumsfeld, who says looking for bin Laden is ?'like looking for a needle in a haystack' 19.
The US authorities' lack of intelligence on bin Laden, Muhammad Omar (remember him?) and the rest of the al-Qaeda and Taliban rumps revealed much about the uncertain nature of their war against terror - a war with ever-shifting aims and uncertain goals. So how did the Bush administration respond to the New Year revelations that their intelligence agencies didn't have a clue where bin Laden is? They changed their war aims. Again.
?'American military chiefs have made a subtle change in Washington's war aims to help mask their continued failure to capture bin Laden', said one report on 14 January 20, as former leader of the US armed services committee and senator John McCain tried to make not knowing where bin Laden is sound like a success story. ?'He's on the run now a far different scenario than the one where he had sanctuary and was able to operate', boasted McCain. 21 In the same week, President Bush declared that bin Laden ?'is on the run . I mean this is a guy who three months ago was in control of a country' - seeming to have confused bin Laden with Taliban leader Omar.
So America's war aim went from getting bin Laden ?'dead or alive' to bringing him to justice to dismantling his organization to giving him the runaround as a means of foiling his dastardly plan. Never have so many war aims been targeted at so few people in so little time.
The confusion over bin Laden's whereabouts is a reflection of America's confused war - not an indication that the wily bin Laden is outwitting US intelligence by secretly jetting from one part of the globe to another, as some would have us believe. Just consider some of the places bin Laden has been ?'spotted' or rumoured to be hiding in since 11 September:
IRAN . Apparently ?'extensive investigations' by one newspaper in December 2001 revealed that bin Laden had ?'crossed the south-west border into Iran, where he is being sheltered by dissident Iranian guerrilla fighters' 22.
KASHMIR . An Italian TV station claimed on 22 December 2001 that bin Laden ?'has fled to Kashmir with the help of Pakistan's secret services' 23.
UGANDA . In April 2002, Ugandan villagers ?'mistakenly arrested a man they thought was bin Laden, hoping to claim America's $50million reward' - only to discover that the man was an Arab-looking ?'mental patient' 24.
THE WORLD . On 20 December 2001, the US authorities announced that the hunt for bin Laden ?'has widened into an international effort that [will] require time, creativity and a new deployment of resources', extending beyond Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia, Yemen and even ?'further afield' 25.
And consider some of the headlines from the international press over the past six months: ?'He may be dead, he may be trapped', ?'Bin Laden still in Kandahar', ?'Bin Laden's trail is lost', ?'Osama bin Laden no longer exists' .
Then there was the debate in January 2002 about whether bin Laden was still alive. On 18 January CNN.com ran the headline ?'Pakistan's Musharraf: Bin Laden probably dead', after Pakistani President Musharraf said ?'I think now, frankly, he is dead, for the reason he is a kidney patient' 26. Then one week later, CNN ran the headline ?'Bin Laden probably alive, White House says', after top Bush officials said that bin Laden is ?'likely alive and will be caught' 27.
So is bin Laden ?'probably alive' or ?'probably dead'? Is he in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Georgia, Uganda or somewhere else on the planet? Or has he had plastic surgery to change his look? According to the San Francisco Chronicle, an unnamed Northern Alliance official told an Iranian newspaper: ?'We have concrete reports that [plastic surgeons from Pakistan] were hired on heavy expenses. They have totally changed bin Laden's look .' 28
The truth is, nobody knows. None of the claims about bin Laden's health or whereabouts is based on hard facts or figures, because US intelligence in the war on terror is so bad. And it is precisely the confused nature of America's war that gives the space for so much wild speculation about what's going on and where bin Laden might be hiding.
After admitting in January 2002 that they didn't have the first clue where bin Laden is (and changing their war aims to suit this new reality), US officials shifted gear again in February - by claiming that they no longer care where he is.
There was Bush's ?'no longer concerned about bin Laden' speech and Rumsfeld's ?'bin Laden has been neutralized' claim - followed by US vice president Dick Cheney's claim that ?'Bin Laden himself isn't that big a threat' 29. As one report pointed out, ?'Top Pentagon officials have increasingly argued that - alive or dead - [bin Laden] is irrelevant', quoting one Defense Department official as saying, ?'Everybody wants to know where bin Laden is. The next question is, who cares?' 30. (Those affected by the 11 September attacks - who have been told from day one that bin Laden was responsible and that the USA would pull out all the stops to catch him - might care.)
The ?'not caring' about bin Laden tells us much about the war on terror - where even this one central aim, getting the guy that America claims was behind the 11 September attacks, can be remoulded and reworded to suit the unfavourable reality of war on the ground.
At last, in February 2002, there seemed to be some success on the bin Laden front. On 4 February 2002, the US authorities boasted about killing an al-Qaeda target who was ?'over six feet tall and wearing Arab clothing' 31. Unfortunately, as the Washington Post pointed out a week later, 'Mir Ahmad was a little tall. But he was not Osama bin Laden. Villagers said Ahmad and two other local men were peasants gathering scrap metal from the war [when] they were killed [by] a US Hellfire missile' 32 US forces are so low on intelligence that they can't seem to tell one 'towel-head' from another. As some Afghans told a US journalist, 'the Americans do not really know who they are aiming at' 33.
Things got worse in April 2002, when ?'the Bush administration concluded that bin Laden was present during the battle for Tora Bora late last year and that failure to commit US ground troops to hunt him was its gravest error in the war against al-Qaeda' 34. In short, US forces let bin Laden slip right past them in December 2001.
According to the Washington Times, the world media has ?'revelled' in the search for bin Laden 35. ?'It has become the perennial "Osama bin Laden whereabouts" story', said the Washington Times. ?'For months, the press has pondered his fate - pestering officials, connecting conspiratorial dots and plying insiders for clues.' The paper estimates that the question of bin Laden's whereabouts has been covered in 992 newspaper stories, 24 magazine accounts and 510 newswire reports over the past six months.
All those miles of newsprint and speculation, and still we're none the wiser. Nothing better illustrates the failure of the war on terror than the fact we know less about bin Laden now than we did on 12 September 2001. At least then we knew he was alive and in Afghanistan .now he could be alive, dead, sick, well and just about anywhere.
-- 30 --
