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10 Years of Translated Bin Laden Messages Leaked
DragonFire1024 lets us know that Wikileaks has obtained 10 years of messages and interviews by Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda. The documents were translated and the messages and interviews were authenticated by the US CIA. "The nearly three hundred page, 'official use only' packet from 2004, translated by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, a division of the CIA, includes interviews with bin Laden from various news agencies and also includes messages he sent directly to the US from the periods of 1994 to 2004. One message includes bin Laden's denial of having anything to do with the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania."
Wow, if the source is credible that's pretty damning. For those who don't like to RTFA:
One message includes bin Laden's denial of having anything to do with the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania.
"Following the latest explosions in the United States, some Americans are pointing the finger at me, but I deny that because I have not done it. The United States has always accused me of these incidents which have been caused by its enemies. Reiterating once again, I say that I have not done it, and the perpetrators have carried this out because of their own interest," said bin Laden on September 16, 2001, just five days after the attacks.
To me the timing of that message seems far more relevant to 9/11 than a vague message 4 months prior that he could "make life miserable for the United States", "If the Taleban allowed". It seems that in as much as we've had to deal with manufactured evidence to serve the cause of the Bush administration regarding the Iraq war now it's clear that the CIA has also withheld critical counter-evidence that the American people and its allies should have been aware of. Could this message have been too sensitive to release? Well, they seemed to release other messages and video around the time of the event that helped make the case and build support for war..
To be honest, I don't think any of this is at all surprising.
Sure, the 9/11 conspiracy theorists will be able to make a new bunch of YouTube videos, but all the sane people realise that going to war was a sham anyway.
The office of the POTUS chose to ignore relevant information presented to them by other departments, and that there was some other agenda for the war in Iraq, that we are unlikely to find out for a long time if ever.
As the parent said, I think it may have more immediate implications for allies of the US who went to war based on the judgement of GWB etc. But then again, this kind of stuff on the Internets rarely gets looked at.
Speaking as a Brit who had similar bullshitting fed to them by our own Government regarding this issue...
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.
Bin Laden initially denied involvement in the September 11, 2001 attacks, and then later claimed credit in a 2004 video for personally directing the 19 hijackers. Sources, including a transcript of the video: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2004/10/29/binladen_message041029.html http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/29/bin.laden.transcript/
What are you talking about? What evidence? Bin Laden initially claiming that he didn't do it? You do know that he later claimed responsibility, right?
Re-releasing statements that we all heard on television back in 2001 does not change anything. It merely presents a clear retrospective of the events. Obviously, the documents prior to 2001 are of greater interest. Especially the fatwas (religious opinions) where he called for attacks on US civilians and military targets in an attempt to force the US to remove its resources from the Gulf region.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Sure, if by "liberally" you mean "nonsensically." Bin Laden wasn't even close to being an "ex CIA agent." Chances that he met anyone from CIA in Afghanistan during the jihad against the Soviets are slim to nil. Steve Coll's book does a pretty good job of busting this myth.
No question OBL's gang of jihadists profited off of the CIA's investment in the war against the Soviets, but most of it was indirect. For example, it's true that some of the bases that al Qaeda used were originally built with CIA money. But that's a far cry from saying OBL trained under CIA on those bases.
Of course, arguments over that miss the forest in the trees -- the U.S. was behind bin Laden's rise to power whether or not OBL ever worked for the CIA. The U.S. strongly encouraged Saudi Arabia and other Arab allies to help out in the war in Afghanistan by stirring up Muslims with a call to jihad. The Saudis got clerics to issue fatwas and they underwrote travel and training expenses for jihadists. The way they saw it, it was win-win. Cozy up to the U.S. (we were selling them AWACS and other arms at the time) and get rid of a large group of potential troublemakers at the same time. Other Arab governments followed suit. You don't need shadowy conspiracy theories or phony news stories about OBL being visited in the hospital by CIA agents worried about his kidneys to find evidence for any of this -- it's all a matter of public record.
Go look at the the FBI website. Osama Bin Laden is not wanted by the FBI for the attacks of 9/11.
Fat Osama only fooled easily lead sheep who are also fooled by other blatantly ridiculous shit... like faith healers such as Benny Hinn, speaking in tongues, and fools who claim cavemen and dinosaurs were on the Earth at the same time a few thousand years ago.
The summary makes it sound like Wikileaks has some kind of mole in the CIA who handed them documents in a shadowy meeting on a grassy knoll... Wikileaks only "obtained" the documents in the sense that "obtained" means "read about in a blog." The documents were first published a couple days ago on Steven Aftergood's excellent newsletter, Secrecy News.
"On December 20, 2001, German TV channel "Das Erste" broadcast its analysis of the White House's translation of the videotape. On the program "Monitor", two independent translators and an expert on oriental studies found the White House's translation to be not only inaccurate, but also manipulative saying "At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of Bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic" and that the words used that indicate foreknowledge can not be heard at all in the original Arabic. Prof. Gernot Rotter, professor of Islamic and Arabic Studies at the Asia-Africa Institute at the University of Hamburg said "The American translators who listened to the tapes and transcribed them apparently wrote a lot of things in that they wanted to hear but that cannot be heard on the tape no matter how many times you listen to it."
- David Stein
Computer over. Virus = very yes.
There have been political tensions on and off between Ireland and the UK since the fifteenth century.
The latest bout has more or less calmed down now, but at one point we were arresting and holding people indefinitely for the "crime" of being Irish in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sound familiar?
The problem with this approach is that as soon as you arrest a man who was thought to be fairly blameless within his circle of friends and family, most of whom were aware of the political tension but were otherwise fairly ambivalent towards you, they turn against you. Lather, rinse and repeat a few times and if you didn't have a terrorist organisation before you do now.
The question wasn't whether Saddam ever had WMDs, the question was whether he had them at the time we invaded Iraq.
All of the evidence indicated that he did not, including reports from UN weapons inspectors who were actually working in Iraq at that time. By the way, in the month building up to the invasion, George Bush forced the inspectors to leave Iraq.
By now, there is plenty of evidence that the decision to invade Iraq was made long before September 11, 2001. You can bet that John McCain has similar plans for the event of his own inauguration. It's what Republicans do.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The problem seems to be that in this particular case, the mass-killer *didn't* lie. But Bush didn't get his information directly from Saddam, did he ? He can't just make a phonecall or something. Instead, he had to rely on the CIA, who also doesn't ask Saddam directly, but instead (as it seems to be now) is pushed by Cheney's office to produce damning evidence.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Actually, along with biological weapons and nuclear weapons, poison gas IS a WMD. With or without a sophisticated delivery system.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Clueless civilians.
Chemical weapons are treated as the same sort of dire
threat by actual Armies that both Nuclear and Biological
weapons are. There are some very good reasons that those
weapons were basically used once and then effectively
abandoned.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The vast majority of his chemical weapons were destroyed under the watch of the UN after the first Gulf War. This is well documented for anyone who cares to look. The whole argument was over the few weapons that couldn't be accounted for because of bookkeeping errors and the regular amount of chaos that happens after your country is bombed to hell. Bush did lie about the status of those weapons for political reasons, just like Clinton did in 1998, but at least Clinton had the sense not to try and take over the whole country.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!