[Spliff]

Have there been any stories about Saddam's interrogation? What's going on with him? Is he still in Iraq? Are they beating the crap out of him? What's going on?

Geez, talk about the media's short attention span.

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by Spliff:
Geez, talk about the media's short attention span.

They can't report if they don't have information. Believe me, if the govt was talking, they'd be reporting.

[Troll]

Where's Bin Laden now. Geez the media has a short attention span! You didn't complain much before Saddam was captured and no one was mentioning the fact that he was free.

People have a short attention span and you could complain about the lack of publicity for pretty much anything. Where's the coverage about the 4,000 people that died yesterday of AIDS, where's the coverage of the human rights crisis in Zimbabwe ... Saddam's capture isn't a big story really. 50,000 people dying in an earthquake has got to boot Saddam off the front page.

[eklipse]

Originally posted by Lerkfish:
They can't report if they don't have information. Believe me, if the govt was talking, they'd be reporting.

My guess is they start talking round about Novemberish.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by Troll:
Where's Bin Laden now.

My guess is OBL is probably under several thousands of tons of rock. That's why we haven't seen video of him since Tora Bora. It's completely in his interests to release video, he used to release video regularly. He released videos after the campaign in Afghanistan began. He even left a video of himself boasting about 9/11. He's a total, egotistical, media hound. But since Tora Bora . . . . . . no video. Why? Either he doesn't have $200 for a camcorder, or like Monty Python's parrot, he's ceased to be.

All we have heard is poor quality audio tapes. Obviously, the intelligence community isn't going to say they are fakes. Nobody wants to stick their heads out that far, and anyway, the "allies" would completely go back to sleep if we say he's dead. But I bet he is. He's just not the type who could keep quiet for 2 years.

Saddam, of course, is in a cell somewhere isolated except for his debriefer. We won't hear from him in quite a while.

[rjenkinson]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
But since Tora Bora . . . . . . no video. Why? Either he doesn't have $200 for a camcorder, or like Monty Python's parrot, he's ceased to be.

...or he doesn't want intelligence agencies analyzing the videos for terrain, etc.

-r.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by rjenkinson:
...or he doesn't want intelligence agencies analyzing the videos for terrain, etc.

-r.

It didn't stop him before. He just put a backdrop behind himself. You can't ananlyze a backdrop. No, he's a stiff, bereft of life. He has shuffled off this mortal coil and joined the choirs invisible. We nailed him under a mountain and he's pushing up the Daisy Cutters.

[rjenkinson]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
It didn't stop him before. He just put a backdrop behind himself. You can't ananlyze a bacdrop. No, he's a stiff, bereft of life. He has shuffled off this mortal coil and joined the choirs invisible. We nailed him under a mountain and he's pushing up the Daisy Cutters.

...or you almost did and now he's taking fewer chances. the bottomline is there is no proof that he died a tora bora, or anywhere else for that matter.

-r.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by rjenkinson:
...or you almost did and now he's taking fewer chances. the bottomline is there is no proof that he died a tora bora, or anywhere else for that matter.

-r.

No, no proof, and there may never be proof. Nobody is going to excavate those mountains to see if he's under there. But until I see his smiliing face on video, my bet is he's dead. He just has too many reasons to make a video if he's alive, but he has chosen not to.

Remember, this is the guy who made the analogy of the strong and weak horses. His own supporters would be rallied by a boastful video. Ha! The Americans tried to kill me, but they failed!. If the absence of a video is not because he is dead, then it is because he's a coward, too scared of the all-seeing, all-knowing Americans to show his face. I don't think he'd want to send that message. Ergo: he's dead.

This is going to be like Martin Bormann. There will be rumors and sightings, but at some point, we'll just declare him presumed dead. Either that, or like Mengele, his remains will eventually show up. But given the artillary that was dropped on his last known position, I doubt that.

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
No, no proof, and there may never be proof. Nobody is going to excavate those mountains to see if he's under there. But until I see his smiliing face on video, my bet is he's dead. He just has too many reasons to make a video if he's alive, but he has chosen not to.

Remember, this is the guy who made the analogy of the strong and weak horses. His own supporters would be rallied by a boastful video. Ha! The Americans tried to kill me, but they failed!. If the absence of a video is not because he is dead, then it is because he's a coward. I don't think he'd want to send that message. Ergo: he's dead.

when I was a child and playing chess with my dad, I used to try gambits and HOPE he wouldn't see them. Of course he did. As I got older, I learned that chess is not forgiving. I had to protect every gambit I made.
Assuming OBL is dead without proof is a dangerous gambit. Remember, he's the guy ACTUALLY responsible for 9/11, instead of the saddam guy bush lied was responsible? Wouldn't it behoove us to MAKE SURE OBL was actually taken care of?

I'm amazed, actually, at the stance that you just trust he's dead because you haven't heard from him. *scratches head* This is truly become BIZARRO world (like superman comics). We celebrate catching the guy who didn't do as a huge victory, and become apologists for not catching the guy who did do it.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by Lerkfish:
when I was a child and playing chess with my dad, I used to try gambits and HOPE he wouldn't see them. Of course he did. As I got older, I learned that chess is not forgiving. I had to protect every gambit I made.
Assuming OBL is dead without proof is a dangerous gambit. Remember, he's the guy ACTUALLY responsible for 9/11, instead of the saddam guy bush lied was responsible? Wouldn't it behoove us to MAKE SURE OBL was actually taken care of?

I'm amazed, actually, at the stance that you just trust he's dead because you haven't heard from him. *scratches head* This is truly become BIZARRO world (like superman comics). We celebrate catching the guy who didn't do as a huge victory, and become apologists for not catching the guy who did do it.

I didn't say assume OBL is dead. I certainly didn't say act on the assumption that he is dead. The prudent thing is to assume that he is very much alive. After all, his organization is alive, and OBL was only ever a threat because of his organization.

What I'm expressing is my personal belief. That doesn't mean I'd call off the search. I'd still keep looking for him, and his supporters until they are either all dead, or all capured.

However, I still think OBL is almost certainly dead.

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
I didn't say assume OBL is dead. I certainly didn't say act on the assumption that he is dead. The prudent thing is to assume that he is very much alive. After all, his organization is alive, and OBL was only ever a threat because of his organization.

What I'm expressing is my personal belief. However, that doesn't mean I'd call off the search. I'd still keep looking for him, and his supporters until they are either all dead, or all capured.

However, I still think OBL is almost certainly dead.

ok, that's better...you had me worried for a second.

[eklipse]

Originally posted by Lerkfish:
Assuming OBL is dead without proof is a dangerous gambit. Remember, he's the guy ACTUALLY responsible for 9/11, instead of the saddam guy bush lied was responsible? Wouldn't it behoove us to MAKE SURE OBL was actually taken care of?

It doesn't really matter whether OBL is dead or not - the conditions that created him are still very much present in the world (and they may well have gotten worse).

As long as he is alive he will have support.

If he is killed, OBL 2.0 will take his place.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by eklipse:
If he is killed, OBL 2.0 will take his place.

Which is why dead-but-not-confirmed-dead may actually be the best outcome. There is no martyr to rally around, but no effective leader either.

[eklipse]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Which is why dead-but-not-confirmed-dead may actually be the best outcome. There is no martyr to rally around, but no effective leader either.

You think his associates won't notice he's missing? - or are they all dead-but-not-confirmed-dead too?

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Which is why dead-but-not-confirmed-dead may actually be the best outcome. There is no martyr to rally around, but no effective leader either.

no offense, but this STILL sounds like my chess analogy.

[lil'babykitten]

So. Who's this 'Saddamn' we're talking about?

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by eklipse:
You think his associates won't notice he's missing? - or are they all dead-but-not-confirmed-dead too?

Do they have his charisma? Charismatic organizations always have a hard time adapting to the death of the charismatic leader. That's one of the reasons theorized why so many of them go in for embalming and public display (e.g. Lenin). The idea is to keep the old leader in some sense alive so that the new leadership can be included in the charisma.

OBL was a figurehead. Without him, the organization is still going to be dangerous. It is still a threat. But he was the public face and the rallying charismatic figure. It will not be the same without him, and almost certainly will not have the same potency and appeal.

Actually, this works even under the "alive, but too scared to prove it" theory. A charismatic leader who is scared to appear in public (which today means on TV) loses the very thing that makes them formidable.

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Do they have his charisma? Charismatic organizations always have a hard time adapting to the death of the charismatic leader. That's one of the reasons theorized why so many of them go in for embalming and public display (e.g. Lenin).

OBL was a figurehead. Without him, the organization is still going to be dangerous. It is still a threat. But he was the public face and the rallying charismatic figure. It will not be the same without him, and almost certainly will not have the same potency and appeal.

Actually, this works even under the "alive, but too scared to prove it" theory. A charismatic leader who is scared to appear in public (which today means on TV) loses the very thing that makes them formidable.

Actually, I had to research Al Queda for a graphic: their structure is intentionally resistant to relying on charismatic leadership. Each individual cell is designed to operate independently and without supervision.
I really don't think OBL dead or alive would affect the organizations' present goals, just future ones.

[davesimondotcom]

How many times can the media report nothing? The 24 hour stations are busy reporting about Kobe and Jacko...

Seriously though, it gets tiresome when something in the news happens and they repeat the same crappy lack of information over and over, then invite "experts" to speculate as to the meaning of that meaningless info...

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by Lerkfish:
Actually, I had to research Al Queda for a graphic: their structure is intentionally resistant to relying on charismatic leadership. Each individual cell is designed to operate independently and without supervision.
I really don't think OBL dead or alive would affect the organizations' present goals, just future ones.

In terms of command leadership, you are correct. Al-Queda is a horizontal network organization and they are very hard to take apart. The groundbreaking theoretical study of this relatively new phenomenon is the Rand study The Advent of Netwar, which was published in 1996. It's a great, if depressing, read.

The evidence is that al-Queda's command structure has become even looser since the war on terror began. Jessica Stern, a former Clinton National Security Council terrorism expert, has a very good article in Foreign Affairs about it.

But that isn't what I'm talking about. Al-Queda's actual command structure is very loose, but it had a central rallying charismatic figure in Bin Laden. He was the inspiring figure, and whether he is actually dead or not, he has effectively vanished after Tora Bora. That does leave a hole in the organization, despite the fact that it's command structure is actually very loose.

[eklipse]

Originally posted by lil'babykitten:
So. Who's this 'Saddamn' we're talking about?

He's the eldest of the 3 brothers and the only one still at large. Saddam was captured by US forces in mid-December, Sodom was captured trying to enter Syria from behind and Saddamn fled Iraq prior to the war and continues to send regular audio tapes - consisting mostly of foul language and anti-American abuse - to Arabic TV stations from an unknown location.

[Troll]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
He's just not the type who could keep quiet for 2 years.

Except he hasn't been keeping quiet has he?

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by Troll:
Except he hasn't been keeping quiet has he?

Did you read what I wrote? Where is the video?

[quandarry]

''knock knock''

''who's there?''

''saddam''

''saddam who?''

''saddam stuffy in this spider hole!''

[Troll]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Did you read what I wrote? Where is the video?

Yes, actually I quoted what you wrote. Quiet - adj. with little noise. Noise != video.

As if you'd be convinced by a video anyway. There is quite a lot of evidence that he and Mullah Omar are still alive - phone calls intercepted by US intelligence, sitings, the steady flow of analysed audio tapes. Besides, the US Army tore Tora Bora apart and DNA sampled every lump of flesh they found. They would love to parade bits of Mullah Omar or OBL around they way did the Husseins. I'd be happier if they got him, and for a time I thought they had, but there's been too much evidence to the contrary since then.

[dialo]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
He even left a video of himself boasting about 9/11.

There is a lot of doubt as to whether that video is authentic.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by Troll:
Yes, actually I quoted what you wrote. Quiet - adj. with little noise. Noise != video.

As if you'd be convinced by a video anyway. There is quite a lot of evidence that he and Mullah Omar are still alive - phone calls intercepted by US intelligence, sitings, the steady flow of analysed audio tapes. Besides, the US Army tore Tora Bora apart and DNA sampled every lump of flesh they found. They would love to parade bits of Mullah Omar or OBL around they way did the Husseins. I'd be happier if they got him, and for a time I thought they had, but there's been too much evidence to the contrary since then.

Obviously, I don't have access to any classified information (and wouldn't discuss it if I did). It is certainly possible that such information exists. But I haven't seen it, and I suspect nor have you. All I have seen is a complete absence of videos from OBL for two years. Prior to Tora Bora, his smiling face appeared regularly. Afterwards, nothing. It's a significant break with the previous pattern, and to me at least, that speaks rather loudly.

As for his DNA. I don't believe that the mountains in the Tora Bora were ever actually excavated. I imagine that would be quite an operation. I also doubt that anyone hit on the surface would leave much testable DNA after being hit by a fuel-air bomb. Those are really big, really hot, bombs.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by dialo:
There is a lot of doubt as to whether that video is authentic.

But of course, all the scratchy cassette tapes that have surfaced since Tora Bora are authentic, I suppose.

[dialo]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:

I'm not really sure what the purpose of this is.

[davesimondotcom]

Originally posted by dialo:
I'm not really sure what the purpose of this is.

Eye exercises.

[Troll]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Obviously, I don't have access to any classified information (and wouldn't discuss it if I did). It is certainly possible that such information exists. But I haven't seen it, and I suspect nor have you.

I haven't seen the actual intelligence either, but I'd have to be blind to ignore what the intelligence agencies are saying:

CIA says Osama Still alive - 5 January 2004 (3 days ago)
US Director of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, agrees (see same article).
UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw says "so far as we know Bin Laden is still alive" (same article , same date).

On 6 March 2003, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the captured al Qaeda leader reported that OBL was alive and operating from the border region with Pakistan.
Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble says "Bin Laden is alive" on 8 November 2002.
The CIA reportson 23 October 2002 that Bin Laden was not at Tora Bora and is alive and well.
In October 2002, US spy satellites intercept a telephone call revealing that OBL is alive.
On 23 September 2003, Pakistani Intelligence reverses its previous statements and proclaims Bin Laden alive.
Abdel Bari Atwan who has interviewed OBL says he is alive on 2 September 2002. "It is un-Islamic not to declare his death if he's dead," he said adding that al Qaeda has issued lists of its members who have been killed and the lists have not included bin Laden.

That's just a random sample but I think it, together with the audio tapes, refutes your claim that he's dead which relies only the fact that he hasn't released video tapes.

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Afterwards, nothing. It's a significant break with the previous pattern, and to me at least, that speaks rather loudly.

As for his DNA. I don't believe that the mountains in the Tora Bora were ever actually excavated. I imagine that would be quite an operation. I also doubt that anyone hit on the surface would leave much testable DNA after being hit by a fuel-air bomb. Those are really big, really hot, bombs.

As I understand it, nothing the US possesses could penetrate Tora Bora. But even if they did have, no one really knows whether he was ever there. I’d love for him to be dead, but I don't hear anything convincing supporting that theory. It's not even a question of better safe than sorry. Look it took the US how many months to find Saddam in Iraq - OBL is altogether more difficult to catch. Besides, you haven't got Mullah Omar either. He dead too?

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by Troll:
That's just a random sample but I think it, together with the audio tapes, refutes your claim that he's dead which relies only the fact that he hasn't released video tapes.

It's not a "claim," its an opinion. Read my posts (instead of reacting to them) and you will see that is all I said it was.

[Troll]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
It's not a "claim," its an opinion. Read my posts (instead of reacting to them) and you will see that is all I said it was.

Apologies; it's your OPINION. All I'm saying is that your opinion appears to be based on something other than the facts that I've seen presented. But you're entitled to it.

It's irrelevant really, because even if OBL was killed at Tora Bora, Al Qaeda has proved since then that they're pretty effective without him. Now if it was a "War on OBL", things might be different.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by Troll:
It's irrelevant really, because even if OBL was killed at Tora Bora, Al Qaeda has proved since then that they're pretty effective without him. Now if it was a "War on OBL", things might be different.

Absolutely. It is a war, not a criminal proceeding. We aren't looking for specific defendants, but rather to eradicate an organization and beyond. That's why I don't think we should get distracted with questions like have we found OBL. What matters is how the campaign is going.

Take a look at the Stern article I linked to above. She'd agree that al-Queda is still is still 'pretty effective." But I think she'd also say that they are significantly degraded from what they were.

[dialo]

Originally posted by Troll:
I haven't seen the actual intelligence either, but I'd have to be blind to ignore what the intelligence agencies are saying:

CIA says Osama Still alive - 5 January 2004 (3 days ago)
US Director of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, agrees (see same article).
UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw says "so far as we know Bin Laden is still alive" (same article , same date).

On 6 March 2003, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the captured al Qaeda leader reported that OBL was alive and operating from the border region with Pakistan.
Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble says "Bin Laden is alive" on 8 November 2002.
The CIA reportson 23 October 2002 that Bin Laden was not at Tora Bora and is alive and well.
In October 2002, US spy satellites intercept a telephone call revealing that OBL is alive.
On 23 September 2003, Pakistani Intelligence reverses its previous statements and proclaims Bin Laden alive.
Abdel Bari Atwan who has interviewed OBL says he is alive on 2 September 2002. "It is un-Islamic not to declare his death if he's dead," he said adding that al Qaeda has issued lists of its members who have been killed and the lists have not included bin Laden.

That's just a random sample but I think it, together with the audio tapes, refutes your claim that he's dead which relies only the fact that he hasn't released video tapes.
As I understand it, nothing the US possesses could penetrate Tora Bora. But even if they did have, no one really knows whether he was ever there. I’d love for him to be dead, but I don't hear anything convincing supporting that theory. It's not even a question of better safe than sorry. Look it took the US how many months to find Saddam in Iraq - OBL is altogether more difficult to catch. Besides, you haven't got Mullah Omar either. He dead too?

Newsweek has been running a bunch of good stories on bin laden and pakistan for the past year and a half that may or may not be true. Pretty damn detailed, though.

One only needs to look at the CCR bit on Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to see that you have to have a pretty sophisticated analysis strategy to understand anything going on in the whole bin laden-pakistan-ISI-taliban-afghanistan sphere.

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/t...smcapture.html

With no two stories matching up, it really goes to show that without a proper meta-analysis, there is no way to form even remotely reliably true judgements about osama's situation.

[spacefreak]

Surely Osama, through his worldwide network, could have obtained a camera and a newspaper. All he has to do is hold up the front page and snap a portrait.

I think the government should rattle al Qaeda and proclaim that Osama is most definitely dead. Coordinate this with a full-fledged intelligence monitoring campaign and have the special forces ready to dispatch.

[davesimondotcom]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
Surely Osama, through his worldwide network, could have obtained a camera and a newspaper. All he has to do is hold up the front page and snap a portrait.

If gave visual evidence of his living, breathing existance, it could give clues to his wearabouts. He learned that from Tora Bora.

What it also could do is lower some of his "ghost-like" mysteriousness. Right now, very few people truly know if he's alive or dead. And he's using that to enhance his legend.

UBL is a jerk. But he's not dumb.

[BlackGriffen]

Speak of the devil.

BlackGriffen

[swrate]

Originally posted by dialo:
Newsweek has been running a bunch of good stories on bin laden and pakistan for the past year and a half that may or may not be true. Pretty damn detailed, though.

One only needs to look at the CCR bit on Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to see that you have to have a pretty sophisticated analysis strategy to understand anything going on in the whole bin laden-pakistan-ISI-taliban-afghanistan sphere.

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/t...smcapture.html

With no two stories matching up, it really goes to show that without a proper meta-analysis, there is no way to form even remotely reliably true judgements about osama's situation.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3368709.stm

The tape was broad casted on Al Jazeera, and made public by different Arabic News, whose experts attested the voice was Ben Laden's.

"I've had no confirmation, but let's for the purpose of this interview assume that it was him," Mr Straw told the BBC.

"So far as we know, Osama Bin Laden is still alive."

The 14-minute recording is the first supposed Bin Laden tape to be aired by al-Jazeera since 18 October, 2003.

In the latest recording, the speaker obliquely refers to an unofficial peace plan for the Middle East launched in Geneva early in December, and the capture of Saddam Hussein on 13 December.


"it was a Happy New Year" tape.