Some readers here have contended that those of us who doubt the official story of bin Laden's death are not using our critical thinking skills. I maintain that the opposite is true: those of us who have analyzed the news releases most cannot be anything but skeptical. Contradictions, omissions, and discrepancies abound, so that more questions are raised than answered.
1. Waterboarding produced the first “lead”–waterboarding is good, this is the silver bullet on waterboarding.
2. Intelligence Community nailed it, over the years, and finally did this without Pakistani assistance to include surveilling the courier in what is the equivalent of a denied area.
3. Bin Laden's presence so close to the military academy in Pakistan is proof positive of the duplicity of the Pakistani government and military, the time has come to “get tough” with them.
4. Afghanistan is a much needed base from which to attack Pakistan, we need to do more of that.
Phi Beta Iota: We don't make this stuff up. As skeptical as we are of everything coming out of the White House on this, mindful of the high probability that Bin Laden died years ago, if he does turn out to have been “cornered” in this villa, we are certain he was brought there, put there, by the Pakistanis, as a sitting duck, for the theater operation, with very specific quid pro quos vis a vis US withdrawal from Afghanistan. CIA retirees (Robert Grenier) are now spinning on CNN that the Pakistanis were not aware of Bin Laden's being hidden 1.3 kilometers from the Pakistani military academy. The furniture has been cleared out, the press is not allowed into the compound, and it will probably be refurbished and returned to its original owner, probably a senior Pakistani general who loaned it for the one act play.
President Obama’s May Day announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed by U.S. Forces has been a cause of general rejoicing in the U.S. and, apparently, a good deal of backslapping among the National Security Establishment. Yet prudence would suggest that some caution might be in order until more information is available.
There are a number of questions about this event which really have not been asked or answered that would greatly assist in verifying the account given by the President:
The courier: a false name for the preferred courier of bin Laden was extracted from detainees at Gitmo and later intelligence was able to discover his real name, yet how did intelligence know what this courier looked like? Also how was an American able to unobtrusively follow a courier daily in a small town like Abbotabad? Why did nobody in the town notice the Americans conducting a six month surveillance of the compound in question?
The faithful number two man: Osama bin Laden supposedly routinely travels with his doctor and chief lieutenant Ayman al Zawahiri, where was he when the attack occurred?
Proof by DNA: whose DNA was bin Laden’s compared to and where was the comparison test conducted? I would add one note. In the case of Osama bin Laden (or any Arab for that matter) DNA matches are tricky. For example, bin Laden has 50 sibelings by the same father but different mothers so not all his sibelings would have the same DNA although it should be possible to determine 50 to 60 per cent matches with all, but only a few 80 to 99 per cent matches with only a few.
Allowing for the sensitivity of this event in the Islamic World and the burial within 24 hours rule, bin Laden’s body should have been examined by a forensic pathologist to determine his medical condition at time of death. More to the point why burial at sea?
When the President made his announcement, there already was a crowd of mostly young, mostly white demonstrators with hand held American flags in front of the White House Gates. Where did they come from and how did they know what the President was going to announce?
Having listened to John Brennan’s noon news conference this day (2 May) one can’t help but conclude this whole event was a put up job, possibly representing collusion between the U.S. and Pakistani Governments. Was this entire event a staged show to bolster this administration’s counter-terrorism credentials and open the way for quick exit from Afghanistan?
Phi Beta Iota: As with 9/11, we believe the Administration is engaged in impeachable activities that are not in the public interest. There is absolutely ZERO evidence to back up the Administration's wild claims, and all common sense questions such as asked above cannot be answered by the Administration. The “system” is corrupt; we pray this is the final outrage that opens the eyes of the millions of naive US citizens that want to believe in America the Beautiful but cannot get a grip on just how evil neo-facsism can be.
Bottom line: ignorant government policies, and particularly the mandating of corn's use to make ethanol, have driven the price of corn up for real people who want to each corn and products containing corn (which turns out to be just about everything).
C. Larry Pope, CEO of the world's largest pork producer, explains why food prices are rising and why they are likely to stay high for a long time.
It's also a business under enormous strain. Some “60 to 70% of the cost of raising a hog is tied up in the grains,” Mr. Pope explains. “The major ingredient is corn, and the secondary ingredient is soybean meal.” Over the last several years, “the cost of corn has gone from a base of $2.40 a bushel to today at $7.40 a bushel, nearly triple what it was just a few years ago.” Which means every product that uses corn has risen, too—including everything from “cereal to soft drinks” and more.
What triggered the upswing? In part: ethanol. President George W. Bush “came forward with—what do you call?—the edict that we were going to mandate 36 billion gallons of alternative fuels” by 2022, of which corn-based ethanol is “a substantial part.” Companies that blend ethanol into fuel get a $5 billion annual tax credit, and there's a tariff to keep foreign producers out of the U.S. market. Now 40% of the corn crop is “directed to ethanol, which equals the amount that's going into livestock food,” Mr. Pope calculates.
Everyone is entitled to a dream. It gives us hope, focuses our energy, makes us human.
Sometimes, though, we get sold a dream instead of creating our own.
Is it really every girl's dream to become a princess, to be chosen by someone of royal birth and to have a $34 million wedding? Or is that the Disney-industrial complex betraying you, selling you short?
I just read that the folks who brought us the Mall of America are going to redo the troubled Xanadu shopping complex in New Jersey and rename it The American Dream. Is this the best we can do? Shop?
Dreams are too important to sell cheap, to give over to some organization trying to make a buck.
Catherine Casey chose a different dream–to move to Accra on her own to build an outpost of the Acumen Fund. It's a dream that scales, that pays dividends, and most of all, that she can make come true.
It's so easy to be sold on the combination of compliance, consumption and approval by the powers that be. Of course, you're entitled to any dream you like, but I hope you will choose a bigger one.
Is it just me, or does it appear that we're okay with selling our cyber-soul to China (and Russia), as long as we can also blow tens of billions on US firms pretending to do cyber-security?
Report: Despite status as U.S. security threat, China's Huawei partnering with Symantec
East-Asia-Intel.com, April 27, 2011
The Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies, which has been linked to the Chinese military, is working with the U.S. software security giant Symantec, which is engaged in securing hundreds of thousands of U.S. computer systems against outside intrusions, according to a report last week in the Diplomat newsletter.
The report said “China and Russia are leveraging U.S. multinational corporations' economic requirements to accomplish strategic goals that could quite plausibly include covert technology transfer of intellectual property, access to source code for use in malware creation and backdoor access to critical infrastructure.”
Huawei was blocked from buying the U.S. telecom 3Leaf last year by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and also was blocked in 2008 from buying 3Com over security concerns. The U.S. National Security Agency also stepped in to dissuade AT&T from buying Huawei telephone equipment.
Despite those actions, Huawei formed a joint venture with Symantec in 2007 called Huawei Symantec Technologies Co. Ltd. (HS), the report said. Huawei is the majority partner with 51 percent ownership, with the entity being headquartered in Chengdu, China.
The report said a 2008 report identified HS as developing “China's first laboratory of attack and defense for networks and applications.”
The result is that Symantec is assisting China's cyber development of computer warfare capability.
Phi Beta Iota: The US Government compounds its lack of a strategic analytic model and the requisite integrity to actually pay attention to whatever findings might emerge, with an abysmal inattention to the most basic aspects of counter-intelligence, not just within government, but across the private sector, which does not actually take counter-intelligence seriously either. Creating a Smart and Safe Nation is not difficult–it requires only a uniform commitment to intelligence and integrity across all boundaries.
Here’s how the U.S. Air Force wants to hunt the next generation of its enemies: A tiny drone sneaks up to a suspect, paints him with an unnoticed powder or goo that allows American forces to follow him everywhere he goes — until they train a missile on him.
On Tuesday, the Air Force issued a call for help making a miniature drone that could covertly drop a mysterious and unspecified tracking “dust” onto people, allowing them to be tracked from a distance. The proposal says its useful for all kinds of random things, from identifying friendly forces and civilians to tracking wildlife. But the motive behind a covert drone tagger likely has less to do with sneaking up on spotted owls and more to do with painting a target on the backs of tomorrow’s terrorists.
