Will Obama 1.0 Help Create Osama 2.0?

From Tomasky, Moore, and Afghanistan by Lindsay Beyerstein:

…when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, a lot of people in the Muslim world saw it as struggle of Christendom vs. Islam. As a result, Afghanistan became a destination for would-be jihadists from all over the world. That's how Osama bin Laden got his start. If our goal is ultimately to marginalize Islamic extremists, we should be wary about escalating the kind of fight that galvanized them in the first place.

What Has Changed?

As far as I know the Bush/Cheney administration is the only administration in the history of the United States to condone torture. It is the only administration to have its lawyers “fix it” so that torture appears to be legal. Even Saint Ronald McReagan did not officially condone torture.

We went up against Hitler without officially sanctioning torture. We went up against Stalin without officially sanctioning torture. What has changed? Is Osama Bin Laden worse than Hitler and Stalin? Or is it that the Bush/Cheney administration is worse than Hitler and Stalin? After all, Hitler and Stalin never succeeded in destroying the ideals that the United States stands for. Bush and Cheney have come too damn close.

Religious Duty

When praying isn’t enough for your god, try acquiring a few nukes to appease and glorify him. He'll love it.

From CIA: Bin Laden doesn't oversee day-to-day al Qaeda operations:

Osama bin Laden is no longer believed to be the head of al Qaeda's day-to-day operations, but the United States' capturing or killing him would still have a powerful effect on the organization, CIA Director Michael Hayden said Tuesday.

"Bin Laden said repeatedly that he considers acquisition of nuclear weapons a religious duty, and we know that al Qaeda remains determined to attack our country in ways that inflict maximum death and destruction," he said.

Bin Laden And Bush And Cheney

John McCain should add George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to his list of those who should be brought to “justice through a Nuremberg-like international trial.”

From McCain: bin Laden could face Nuremberg-like justice by Ed Homick:

Sen. John McCain on Friday said as president he would consider bringing Osama bin Laden to justice through a Nuremberg-like international trial.

He told CNN's Wolf Blitzer, "We have various options. The Nuremberg Trials are certainly an example of the kind of tribunal that we could move forward with. I don't think we'd have any difficulty in devising an international -- internationally supported mechanism that would mete out justice. There's no problem there."

McCain said it would be a "good thing to reveal to the world the enormity of this guy's crimes, and his intentions, which are still there."

Read the rest here.

I don't think we'd have any difficulty in devising an international -- internationally supported mechanism that would mete out justice to bin Laden, Bush and Cheney. It would be a good thing to reveal to the world the enormity of their crimes and intentions.

Bush Likes To Keep Reminding Us That He Is Such An Ass

Do you remember when the issue with Senator John Kerry was that he was a huge flip flopper? Guess who is a bigger flip flopper?

"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority." G.W. Bush, 3/13/02

"I am truly not that concerned about him." G.W. Bush, responding to a question about bin Laden's whereabouts, 3/13/02 ( 4/8/02)

Now, all of a sudden Bush seems to care and be concerned about Osama.

From Get Osama Bin Laden before I leave office, orders George W Bush by Sarah Baxter:

President George W Bush has enlisted British special forces in a final attempt to capture Osama Bin Laden before he leaves the White House.

Defence and intelligence sources in Washington and London confirmed that a renewed hunt was on for the leader of the September 11 attacks. “If he [Bush] can say he has killed Saddam Hussein and captured Bin Laden, he can claim to have left the world a safer place,” said a US intelligence source.

Read the rest here.

“ President George W Bush has enlisted British special forces…” What? American special forces are not good enough? Talk about outsourcing.

From George Bush: 'Get Osama Bin Laden before I leave office':

However, one baffling mystery is that the FBI never added the September 11 crime act in Osama bin Laden's "Most Wanted" poster.

Maybe he had nothing to do with it?

Why is George W. Bush still president? Why hasn’t he been impeached?

Catapult That Propaganda

Actually it’s more like they’re using cannons:

For the first time in human history, there is a concerted strategy to manipulate global perception. And the mass media are operating as its compliant assistants, failing both to resist it and to expose it.

The sheer ease with which this machinery has been able to do its work reflects a creeping structural weakness which now afflicts the production of our news.

Perhaps there really is a vast right-wing conspiracy, or at least a conspiracy of the powerful:

So, who exactly is producing fiction for the media? Who wrote the Zarqawi letters? Who created the fantasy story about Osama bin Laden using a network of subterranean bases in Afghanistan, complete with offices, dormitories, arms depots, electricity and ventilation systems? Who fed the media with tales of the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, suffering brain seizures and sitting in stationery cars turning the wheel and making a noise like an engine? Who came up with the idea that Iranian ayatollahs have been encouraging sex with animals and girls of only nine?

Some of this comes from freelance political agitators. It was an Iranian opposition group, for example, which was behind the story that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was jailing people for texting each other jokes about him. And notoriously it was Iraqi exiles who supplied the global media with a dirty stream of disinformation about Saddam Hussein.

But clearly a great deal of this carries the fingerprints of officialdom. The Pentagon has now designated "information operations" as its fifth "core competency" alongside land, sea, air and special forces. Since October 2006, every brigade, division and corps in the US military has had its own "psyop" element producing output for local media. This military activity is linked to the State Department's campaign of "public diplomacy" which includes funding radio stations and news websites. In Britain, the Directorate of Targeting and Information Operations in the Ministry of Defence works with specialists from 15 UK psyops, based at the Defence Intelligence and Security School at Chicksands in Bedfordshire.

Where Oh Where Did Osama Go?

His 2004 documentary was called Super Size Me. His new film is entitled Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?

American filmmaker Morgan Spurlock:

…added that the movie showed how US foreign policy and socioeconomic forces in US-backed regimes created a hatred that certain factions could exploit. "I met so many people who want the same things for themselves and their families that we want. These moderate voices are not represented in the media. All we hear about are the extremists, the terrorists, because it's all about fear and scare tactics. I wanted to give these people a voice," he said.