Phi Beta Iota: This individual means well and probably remembers what he was told, but CIA has a history of lying to Presidents, Attorney Generals, and Congress and we professionals know for a FACT that waterboarding does not work, it creates false leads, and only morons support the concept in their ignorance.
We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic.
It’s increasingly clear that the operation was a planned assassination, multiply violating elementary norms of international law. There appears to have been no attempt to apprehend the unarmed victim, as presumably could have been done by 80 commandos facing virtually no opposition—except, they claim, from his wife, who lunged towards them. In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial. I stress “suspects.” In April 2002, the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, informed the press that after the most intensive investigation in history, the FBI could say no more than that it “believed” that the plot was hatched in Afghanistan, though implemented in the UAE and Germany. What they only believed in April 2002, they obviously didn’t know 8 months earlier, when Washington dismissed tentative offers by the Taliban (how serious, we do not know, because they were instantly dismissed) to extradite bin Laden if they were presented with evidence—which, as we soon learned, Washington didn’t have. Thus Obama was simply lying when he said, in his White House statement, that “we quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda.”
Nothing serious has been provided since. There is much talk of bin Laden’s “confession,” but that is rather like my confession that I won the Boston Marathon. He boasted of what he regarded as a great achievement.
The White House's account of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden has undergone some revisions in recent days–a fact White House press secretary Jay Carney (pictured above) attributed to a “fog of war” atmosphere as information continues to stream in. But that explanation hasn't been sufficient for some journalists, who are beginning to grumble on Twitter.
The changing story has drawn considerable criticism, notably from analysts on the left, where there was already ambivalence about celebrating bin Laden's death. Salon‘s Justin Elliott has been hitting hard, claiming the Pentagon's report from Monday now “reads like fiction” and writing “on my way to becoming a Deather with latest story change that there was no big firefight after all.” Filmmaker Michael Moore observes, “The Pentagon lied about the Jessica Lynch rescue & they really lied about Pat Tillman. They've already changed their OBL story 3x in 3days..” Bin Laden, states author Joe McGinniss, “was unarmed, we killed him. Spinning it like self-defense is as wrong as Vietnam.”
Elsewhere on Twitter, Politico‘s Ben Smith writes, “Admin could have avoided all this grief by just making up a story out of whole cloth and sticking to it, as is traditional,” while Slate's Dave Weigel tweets, “Tomorrow, admin sources will revise story. bin Laden actually in purgatory” (where a majority of CNN poll respondents believe he is). Weigel also cites the claim from administration officials in the Times report that bin Laden had an AK-47 and Makarov pistol in arm's reach: “So was one in hand and one in arm's reach? STUPID LANGUAGE.”
Then there's Time‘s Bobby Ghosh, who says “methinks media would not have been so understanding if it was Bush in the WH now, making so many mistakes in announcement of #OBL‘s killing,” adding, “‘Fog of War' excuse doesn't wash. How many factual errors did Bush White House make in announcing Saddam's capture… or Zarqawi's killing?” Ghosh delivers one more parting shot: “By claiming ‘fog of war' the WH is suggesting Seals gave wrong first information. If there was a fog, it was in the WH. Fog of politics.”
To catch you up, here are some of the main ways the story has changed in recent days:
Phi Beta Iota: This is one of the most extraordinary, erudite, credible, and well-put-together indictments of the CIA and the White House for a variety of false flag attributions to Bin Laden, to include detailed repudiations of CIA translations and detailed repudiations of the figures alleged to be Bin Laden.
I have been told by more than one source that Leon Panetta was directing the operation with both his own CIA operatives, as well as direct contacts with military – both entities were reporting to Panetta only at this point, and not the President of the United States. There was not going to be another delay as had happened 24 hour earlier. The operation was at this time effectively unknown to President Barack Obama or Valerie Jarrett and it remained that way until AFTER it had already been initiated. President Obama was literally pulled from a golf outing and escorted back to the White House to be informed of the mission. Upon his arrival there was a briefing held which included Bill Daley, John Brennan, and a high ranking member of the military. When Obama emerged from the briefing, he was described as looking “very confused and uncertain.” The president was then placed in the situation room where several of the players in this event had already been watching the operation unfold. Another interesting tidbit regarding this is that the Vice President was already “up to speed” on the operation. A source indicated they believe Hillary Clinton had personally made certain the Vice President was made aware of that day’s events before the president was. The now famous photo released shows the particulars of that of that room and its occupants. What that photo does not communicate directly is that the military personnel present in that room during the operation unfolding, deferred to either Hillary Clinton or Robert Gates. The president’s role was minimal, including their acknowledging of his presence in the room.
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In my initial communication to you of these events I described what unfolded as a temporary Coup initiated by high ranking intelligence and military officials. I stand by that term.
Phi Beta Iota: It has been well-known since the Cuban Missile Crisis that the President of the USA is not actually in charge, and that the military-industrial complex has its own chain of command. Less well known, but documented in Morton Halperin's still-relevant Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy, is the reality that Rule One in Washington is “Lie to the President if you can get away with it.”
“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.
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.
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.
