Did or did NOT OBL mastermind the 911 tragedy ? ...

[Trajan]

Did he plan, aid or abet the Two African Embassy bombings ???

Did he plan, aid or abet the Bali Nightclub bombings ? ...

Did he plan, aid or abet the 1993 bombing of the WTC ? ....

Did he plan, aid or abet the crashing of two aircraft into the twin towers of the WTC on 9-11 ??? ...

I, for one, believe he planned, aided and abetted each of those actions, and I believe it is right and proper to ARREST OBL and any of those persons who also planned, aided and abetted ANY of those acts of heinous criminality ....

Mind you: nearly a thousand innocent human beings were killed WITHOUT COUNTING 911 ....

Mind you: I speak nothing of 'war', but of apprehension and arrest ....

Are we not a moral and civilized people who demand justice and the rule of law ? ....

I sometimes get disgusted when I see that even here in DU, some would cast out the JUST apprehension of a criminal cabal, if only to discredit the opposition....

As a committed liberal and enlightened free person of the world: I cannot justify an obstruction of justice for the benefit of political expedience ....

I DESPISE Bush, but not to the point where I would let OBL get off the hook for his actions .... These are two unrelated circumstances: Bush's criminality is his own cross to bear ...

SO: those of you who feel OBL is a 'good guy', please step forward and justify that position ....

[The Traveler]

1. He is my enemy

But that itself does not make him "evil".

In his view, the American people are oppressed by a false god named "Capitalism". He wants the emissaries of that false god to stop troubling his people, and he would like to liberate the common American from the grasp of that demonic power.

In other words, he attacked us for our own good ... much like we attacked Iraq. Beware of people who will kill you for your own good. I see many similarities between Bush and OBL, in terms of their philosophy and how they apply it. OBL uses hijacked airliners and such. We use cruise missiles and cluster bombs. A fine distinction for the dead.

Declaring war on terrorism is much like declaring war on flanking maneuvers. These people (al Qaeda) have engaged us in what I prefer to call "asymmetrical warfare". We disapprove of their tactics. They would like to own cruise missiles but don't, thankfully, and that is largely what shapes their tactics.

That being said, we are best advised to oppose the onslaught of any would be tyrant. George Bush should be defeated in November and sent home to Texas. OBL should be blown out of his socks.

[still_one]

2. BULL

Anyone who kills civilians is evil.

[Bombtrack]

10. It is just outrageous that the moderators allow this nutball SHIT

He attacked us for our own good? God, grow a frigging brain.

[0007]

16. LOL!!

[radwriter0555]

26. actually, it turns out, those so called terrorists are NOT wrong about

their positions.

They're attacking 'us' because we are lead by bad men, inhabiting the white house.

They're not attacking US because WE are bad, but to punish the evil and nefarious doings of the thugs in the white house. it's all retaliatory, and not to say it's deserved, but why SHOULDN'T they oppose the doings of the thugs in the PNAC, by attacking western interests?

Why not? What ELSE should they do to protect themselves? Should they just roll over and die?

[Maestro]

28. I support

any military operations against Osama and regimes that support his ilk and I am a democrat and I approve of my message. Bush be damned for his diversion in Iraq.

Edit: This was in response to original first post. I made a mistake and put my response here.

[Malva Zebrina]

33. I don't support all knee jerk reactions that take our children to war

and put them in harm's way without the proper forms of evidence against who an evil man like Bush THINKS is the perpetrator. OK?

We don't have to act like barbarians because when we do, that opens the door to behaving like barbarians and totally ignoring our rule of law in other things,--we see that happening.


Sorry--I live in the United STates and am a United STates citizen. I demand to see justice, not barbarism, even though we were attack in a barbaric manner. We are NOT the Likuds and we do NOT have to practice a Likud way of dealing with enemies by bombing twenty people in a house, because one person is "suspected" to be in there, and one person is "suspected" because someone said so.

I can never support knee jerk, insane war .

First of all, the proof that it is counterproductive is very painfully evident-In Iraq, Afganistan and Israel as well as other places in the world-

it, the mad doctrine of pre-emption or pre-vention, does NOT work--all it does is superficially satisfy some reptillian brain, primitive response and make a lot of money for a lot of people, who might be inclined to encourage it should we not demand we see unequivocal proof of who has done the deed.

we must
defend ourself also--but to do so in a way that reeks of barbarism and that turns out many times to resemble an ethnic cleansing, is not "defending" oneself. We do not know how many Afgan civilians we killed--more than three thousand I am certain. We targeted civilian homes on "suspicions" It is outright murder without proof of guilt.

[Maestro]

61. I doubted from the beginning links to Saddam

and terrorism and now regret ever going to Iraq but I still believe that military action in Afghanistan was justified as did much of the world. Osama is a terrorist hell bent on destroying anything American which he equates with Christian domination. I don't support Bush, but I do support going after Bin Laden. He attacks innocents plain and simple. There is nothing knee jerk about that. He has proven that he is a legitimate target and it is because of him and the Taliban that innocents were put in harm's way. Yes our bombs have inadvertently killed women and children and the elderly, but that is war and it is ugly. Even though some here at DU disagree our soldiers (at least most) do not purposefully target civilians. They do not round them up and use them as shields. They do not hide in hospitals or mosques. To bring Osama to justice requires force. Bush in his idiocy has sidetracked this effort by going and finishing a vendetta with Saddam, but Osama still needs to be brought to justice. If you any other ideas of bringing Osama to justice please share.

[Character Assassin]

57. Oh, please.

So they're position of imposition of Islamic fundamentalism, Sharia and the co-equivalency of church and state, revocation of rights of women, blah blah blah blah indicates that they're NOT wrong about their positions?

Uh-huh. Righto.

They're not attacking US because WE are bad, but to punish the evil and nefarious doings of the thugs in the white house.

Bullshit. AQ and the various other Islamic fundamentalist goon societies were well underway long before the current resident of the White House and his policies.

They're attacking us because they are mouth-breathing fundamentalists who want to either kill you or make you exactly like them.

IOW, wrong. IOW, bad.

[leesa]

31. Please moderators, censor this so we aren't in any danger of thinking

beyond the jingoism box. OBL is evil. OBL did it, Dubya told us so! Funny!

[NecessaryOnslaught]

60. Dubya hasn't been wrong yet

AL KADA DID IT! let us pray--

"We must speak the truth about terror. Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th, malicious lies that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists themselves, away from the guilty." g dub

[The Traveler]

36. I was describing his perspective

Which I see as being dangerously close philosophically to certain attitudes I see in American foreign policy. As in "liberating" Iraq. (Bombing them for their own good.)

Apparently, I wasn't adequately clear.

[Selwynn]

37. Yes, its outrageous that we don't censor all ideas we disagree with!

I don't currently share the opinion of the MIHOP people, I don't share the opinion of moderates either, but I still respect their right to express an opinion, even an unpopular one as long as its done without racism, or personal attacks.

[FlaGranny]

42. I don't think you understood,

at least what I think I read was "in bin Laden's own opinion, he attacked us for our own good." That statement is as true as "Bush attacked the Iraqis for their own good." That doesn't necessarily mean either of those statements is true. The point is, we created bin Laden to begin with with stupid foriegn policies, and we're trying to deal with him using the same tactics that created him in the first place. If we kill him or catch him, what other monster will we have created in his place that we will have to deal with 5 or 10 years from now?

[WoodrowFan]

55. I know

everytime I try to get one of my Democratic friends interested in the DU they read some of the 9-11 Conspiracy crapola (there's no Al-Quida! Bush did it and Cheney flew the plane!) and they lose interest.

[spanone]

18. Bush has killed many civilians = evil.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

22. Under orders from Junior, how many innocent civilians have died...

...in both Afghanistan and Iraq? My guess is in the range of 15,000 to 25,000 in Afghanistan, and 25,000 to 35,000 in Iraq.

By your guidelines, what does that make Junior and the rest of the NeoCons?

[radwriter0555]

24. You mean like bush?

Bush has killed more civilians than OBL and saddam combined.

[The Traveler]

35. I agreee.

My commentary was more a reflection upon how the road to hell is paved with good intentions. When people believe they "know God's will" they can believe they have license to do outrageous things.

[leftistagitator]

7. I don't think he's doing it for us

I think he wants to create an superstate ruled by his interpretation of Islam. He knows that America will undermine the creation of a power rivaling ours, especially one that is as harsh and threatening as his would be. Hell, we don't even like Europe organizing. He also wants to get rid of Isreal, which pisses off the left and the right, and so he knows we will continue to support them. I see nothing embracing about Bin Laden's attack strategy. He's not trying to win hearts and minds at all, he doesn't even put of the token effort that * does. I'm sure he would be happy if we all converted, but I think what he really wants is for us to leave the Middle East alone entirely. For reasons I'm not going to get into right now, I think that it would be disasterous for us if we comply, possibly leading to either a World War, (with nukes), of a new Cold War. Better to fight them before they get that strong. Smartly though, not with armies like * thinks, but with special forces, aid, and good diplomacy. They way Big Dog would have done it, except that we probably still would have invaded Afganistan. Probably even before 9/11.

[Beam Me Up]

3. 'good guy'? Who the hell ever said THAT?

I doubt anyone on this board would be naive enough to regard OBL as a 'good guy'.

Patsy, maybe. CIA asset, could be. A mersenary covert agent masquarading as a Muslim fundamentalist, probably.

The architect of the events of 9/11, I highly doubt it. Not that he wouldn't want to bring about a terrorist attack on our soil--but to not only 'master mind' but pull off the events of 9/11--that requires considerably more assets than he has.

But, in any case, from the point of view of jurisprudence you have the cart before the horse, don't you? What--beyond hearsay, innuendo, aspersion and promises from governmental sources--EVIDENCE do you have that OBL was responsible for the events of 9/11?

Remember, the media had been 'programming' us for years that OBL would launch an attack against us on our soil. Then, when the unimaginable happened, naturally we were led to conclude that what had been foretold had come true. But EVIDENCE? Even FBI director Robert Mueller publicly stated to the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco that nothing on paper connected Arab terrorists to 9/11.

The hijackers also left no paper trail. In our investigation, we have not uncovered a single piece of paper – either here in the U.S. or in the treasure trove of information that has turned up in Afghanistan and elsewhere – that mentioned any aspect of the September 11th plot. The hijackers had no computers, no laptops, no storage media of any kind. They used hundreds of different pay phones and cell phones, often with prepaid calling cards that are extremely difficult to trace. And they made sure that all the money sent to them to fund their attacks was wired in small amounts to avoid detection.

http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/speeches/speech041902.htm

[Trajan]

4. This is what I was talking of

I purposely omitted 911 as a criteria .... Here: ...

"Did he plan, aid or abet the Two African Embassy bombings ???

Did he plan, aid or abet the Bali Nightclub bombings ? ...

Did he plan, aid or abet the 1993 bombing of the WTC ? ....

-snip-

Mind you: nearly a thousand innocent human beings were killed WITHOUT COUNTING 911 ....

-snip-

The references to 911 can be tossed aside, if it pleases you ...

Yet: is there not significant evidence (including incriminating statements) of his complicity with these other horrid acts ? ....

Are you prepared to say that OBL is a good person who did not commit those vicious crimes in Africa and in Bali ? ..

[Beam Me Up]

6. Hardly.

I'm more interested in finding out who bennefits from the existence of an OBL and an al Qaeda. The art of the magician is his misdirecting slight of hand. OBIWAN: "These are not the droids you're looking for."

And, on Edit: What do you mean about leaving out 9/11 as a criteria? Is or is not the subject heading of this thread: "Did or did NOT OBL mastermind the 911 tragedy?"

[GeronimoSkull]

5. WTC 1993

...This extraordinary admission that the FBI had advance plans and the full documentation of where to find everyone and everything was blithely reported. Only after the detonation of the bomb in the World Trade Center did "the FBI finally open the boxes." They had been receiving regular reports from "the man they called ‘the Colonel,’ wore a hidden microphone as he moved the inner circle. … There … federal agents heard first-hand as another plot evolved," one promulgated by their own operative and the rationale for the arrests of June 24.

All the while that the U.S. has sounded the alarm about "Muslim Fundamentalist terror," it has funded the Islamic Fundamentalist group in Afghanistan led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who has received to date $3.3 billion in official U.S. aid administered by the CIA. Many of the figures in the Muslim movement in the U.S., including those accused of involvement in the World Trade Center bombing, were among those who organized the sending of CIA arms and funds to Hekmatyar.

The U.S. rulers are terrorizing the American people with operations of their own authorship, deployed as a rationale for "maintaining vast military budgets for devastating assaults upon Iraq, Somalia and targets now on the Pentagon drawing board.

http://takingaim.info/articles/wtc93.html

[billhos]

13. You really should not

waste your time with whacko conspiricy sites that just tell you what you want too believe. That is right, people who believe this garbage do it because they want to.

[GeronimoSkull]

15. LOL

Is that really the best you can do?

[Bombtrack]

8. Thank you, I really do have difficulty trying to argue with the fringe

types who just refuse to look at all mainstream viewpoints as anything but suspicious and right wing.

Bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri are responsible for all of those actions and more including the gunning down of 50 swiss tourists in Egypt off the top of my head. These people denying Bin Laden's guilt haven't researched it objectively. They fail to see that all these conspiracy websites have agendas themselves. Many of them you have to pick through the soft anti-semitism and anti-americanism with a fine tipped comb.

[bobthedrummer]

9. The Saudis were clearly protected, they had to be-LIHOP

this goes back to the days of Reagan/Bush and Thatcher, this goes back to what John Kerry should know-BCCI and the commissions paid out to defense contractors partially wound up funding OBL and other terrorists-why didn't Bush invade Saudi Arabia since 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis? How come Bush allowed 4 planes full of Saudis to fly out when our skies were locked down after 9/11?

This article is most helpful in finding answers to those kind of questions, imo. Why wasn't Saudi Arabia targeted under the failed Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive war in regards to state sponsored terrorism???????? LIHOP, LIHOP, LIHOP, drip, drip, drip-yes Osama bin-Laden was allowed to make a contribution to 9/11, that's where I'm at today-LIHOP at a minimum. Cui bono?
http://cryptome.org/soil/soiled-dove2.htm

[sce56]

11. How did OBL get the missle launcher on the plane?

how did he get the US AirForce to stand down?

<>



<>

[bobthedrummer]

12. I discount missile launcher on plane, but the behavior of the USAF on9/11

IS highly questionable-fellow DUer Paul Thompson has kept a good account of that aspect of the 9/11 attacks which saw, as forewarned, the use of commercial aircraft as weapons/missiles.
http://www.wanttoknow.info/911timeline2pg

[the Kelly Gang]

14. I still haven't seen proof apart from a dodgy video recording

that is so obviously a fake that it raises more questions than it answers

I don't know if he's guilty of what is said but I do know that he is presented as a reason to justify anything the present US administration wants to do.

To blindly accept that he is the enemy without proof of his actions apart from statements from agencies known for perpetuating lies is not too clever.

I also don't accept the methods of attack he has used..if it is him.. but if it is... he justifies them just as the US/UK etc have justified 1000'sof innocent Afganis & Iraqis dying.

If he IS guilty of what is claimed..then the US and it's allies have killed many many MANY more innocent people than he has in pursuit of him and but as always.western lives are considered more valuable than Arabs..even amongst some liberal circles.

[9215]

17. This seems simple enough to me.

I believe in LIHOP/MIHOP so OBL is just part of a network of terrorists working for the "Octopus". Bad guy to be sure, but about as big a threat to the US as Emmanuel Goldstein was to Oceania.

[markomalley]

19. Give him a break

You should let OBL off the hook. He did his patriotic duty, as he saw it. Would you blame a soldier for killing during a war? Can you blame a hungry person for stealing a loaf of bread so he can eat? Why should you blame a righteous, holy man for following the precepts of his religion. He is just doing right by his measure of rightness.

We should forgive and forget.

Reparations should be paid to all the families who we have harmed in the middle east and in south asia since this whole mess began.

[bobthedrummer]

20. You're about to be challenged on most everything you just posted

First of all, who are you addressing as "you"?

[markomalley]

21. G'head...challenge away

Well, first of all, the post was addressed to "you" in general.

Second of all, I stand by what I posted.
"He did his patriotic duty, as he saw it. Would you blame a soldier for killing during a war? Can you blame a hungry person for stealing a loaf of bread so he can eat? Why should you blame a righteous, holy man for following the precepts of his religion. He is just doing right by his measure of rightness."

1. "He did his patriotic duty, as he saw it." Not as I saw it, not as you saw it, but as he saw it.
2. "Would you blame a soldier for killing during a war?" That is pretty self-explanatory -- considering a soldier has a choice between killing the enemy or being shot or imprisoned as a coward by his own leaders.
3. "Can you blame a hungry person for stealing a loaf of bread so he can eat?" -- if you have a problem with that, I ask you where is your sense of social justice and mercy??? What kind of progressives are here on this board???
4. "Why should you blame a righteous, holy man for following the precepts of his religion." -- You have to look at it from his point of view. We came in a hundred years ago and have done nothing but exploit that region for their natural resources. We have brought to power all sorts of evil in there (look at the Baathists, the Zionists, and the "House of Saud" for examples) and then expect them to sit around and do nothing????? What if it was us that were being exploited???
5. "He is just doing right by his measure of rightness." Again, his measure. Not yours. Not mine. His.

They are desparate people over there. They have been ruled from outside either through colonialism or through economic exploitation for years. All so-called reasonable measures have failed to restore their lives to what they once were.

Don't get me wrong, I hardly support the killing of so many people (innocent is another question). But, I can understand their rationale in doing so. If we want to prevent this from happening again, we need to look for a minute through their eyes and see the world that way.

*BTW, I question innocent -- the people in the Pentagon were soldiers, defense civilians (fat, old soldiers out of uniform), or defense contractors (fat, old soldiers who are mercenaries). They are legitimate combatants in a military struggle that we started years ago. OTOH, some in the WTC were innocent -- the kids, the janitors, the shopkeepers, etc. The people that were there working in the money factories are just soldiers in a different kind of war -- the economic war. They made their money from the exploitation of workers both inside the US and around the world. Should they have died? No. Were they innocent? Well......that may be a matter of opinion.

So, go ahead and challenge me. Please.

[Stone_Spirits]

27. sorry but

He's a dangerous fundamentalist who uses religion to advocate violence. I have no sympathy nor will I make excuses for anyone, including our own American bred fundies who uses Religion as a weapon. I don't see much difference between the way OBL and Bush advocate Holy Wars except that Bush has murdered far more people because he has the most powerful army on the planet under his control. Bush is by far more dangerous, but his actions directly empower OBL types proportionately.

Another factor is that America fostered violent forms of fundamentalism in Afghanistan so OLB is in one sense a tentacle of the empire. Still I make no excuses for fundies of any stripe. May they all rot in whatever form of hell they believe in.

[Soup Bean]

30. Now this is the silliest thing I've ever heard.

Stealth freeper? A little over the top, there.....

[markomalley]

32. "Now this is the silliest thing I've ever heard."

Why? Because the people of the middle east have legitimate fundamental issues with the US? Pointing those issues out doesn't make me anything but honest.

You people can kill OBL if you want but a hundred will rise where he fell. Unless we deal with the issues of exploitation, we will have terrorists trying to strike back any way they can.

And all of this garbage spewed that it's ok to attack this person but not ok to attack another just conceals the problem that there are fundamental issues that must be dealt with -- if not by us then by somebody else.

I also offer a reconciliation initiative to them , the essence of which is our commitment to stopping operations against every country that commits itself to not attacking Muslims or interfering in their affairs - including the US conspiracy on the greater Muslim world... The peace will start with the departure of its last soldier from our country. The door of reconciliation is open for three months of the date of announcing this statement.

BBC: Bin Laden in his own words

He is trying to spare the Europeans of the same fate that will befall the US because of our imperialist policies. Had we not taken those policies and occupied their land so long, we wouldn't have had the fate that we do now. You can blame them all you want, but until we correct the injustice of our policies, there will always be another OBL coming along.

What is so silly about that?

What gives you the right to call me a "stealth freeper" because of saying that?

[Soup Bean]

50. You're making Bin Laden out to be a hero.

He's not a freedom fighter. You don't target a civilian building if you're a freedom fighter. I agree that our foreign policy has been exploitative and dangerous, and we worship the almighty dollar. However, if you're going to empathize with Osama and his ilk, you need to be prepared to take an emotional shot or two.

Praising Bin Laden is not the right thing to do. Understand why he does things, fine. Giving him any kind of whiff of sympathy is not ok.

I apologize for the "stealth freeper" comment. I shouln't have done that, and I won't do it again.

[markomalley]

56. Accepted.

And that's my primary purpose. You need to look through Osama's eyes. Our occupation of their most holy ground (the Arabian penninsula) and our unquestioning, unwavering support of (from their perspective) European invaders occupying their second most holy ground (Jerusalem) inflames them.

I could write a book on this, but the short version is that unless we fix the problem...we can kill Osama and another will rise up. It's not about a single man. It's about a movement. We won't destroy the movement, because it reproduces and spreads. Why? Because for their reasons, they are right!! The only way to fix the problem is to remove the source of the problem.

Am I being inflammatory doing so? Well yes (blush). Am I causing a couple of people to maybe think in doing so? Maybe. I hope so.

Sorry if it is upsetting. Sorry if I didn't choose my words more eloquently.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

23. Mueller evidently can't provide any linkage between the hijackers...

...and OBL/Al Qaeda. From an article dated 051302 in the URL:

FBI Admits: No Evidence Links 'Hijackers' to 9-11
The possibility that 19 Muslim men accused of being the Sept. 11 hijackers were not, in fact, the hijackers, is not so extraordinary an idea as it might seem.

<http://www.americanfreepress.net/051302/FBI_Admits__No_... >

Excerpt:

"After seven months of non-stop declarations by U.S. government spokesmen that there exists solid proof tying 19 Muslim men to plotting the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, FBI Director Robert Mueller has now admitted quite the opposite.

That 19 Muslim men who have apparently disappeared have been named as the hijackers is not in doubt.

What is in doubt is whether those 19 men were actually plotting anything, either individually or together.

The amazing possibility remains that others carried out the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, using the identities of the 19 Muslims who have been assigned guilt in the tragedy.

In an April 19 speech delivered to the Common wealth Club in San Francisco, Mueller said that the purported hijackers, in his words, 'left no paper trial.' The FBI director stated flatly:

'In our investigation, we have not uncovered a single piece of paper—either here in the United States or in the treasure trove of information that has turned up in Afghanistan and elsewhere—that mentioned any aspect of the Sept. 11 plot.'"

Remember the find of the rental car filled with "evidence", and of the passport of one of the hijackers supposedly found in the rubble of the WTC? I remember thinking at the time that this evidence left behind was completely uncharacteristic of an operation that had worked so well.

And what can you make of the following article?:

Pentagon Lied: Terrorists Trained at U. S. Bases
<http://www.madcowprod.com/issue06.html >

Excerpt:

"So it appears certain that at least some of the previous denials have been rendered inoperative, and that a list exists in the Defense Dept which names Sept 11 terrorists who received training at U.S. military facilities, a list the Pentagon is in no hurry to make public. This admission has significant import.

Consider: Foreign nationals training at secure U.S. facilities do so almost solely at the behest of governments considered friendly to the United States.

Gaining admittance to the International Officer’s School at Maxwell AFB in Montgomery—which terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta was reported to have attended—would have required Atta to be someone well-connected with a friendly Arab government. (For the record, the spokesperson denied that the International Officer’s School attendee named Mohamed Atta is the same Mohamed Atta who piloted a passenger plane into the WTC, while repeatedly declining requests for biographical details about a second Arab pilot with the same name as the terrorist.)"

[radwriter0555]

25. obl specifically denied perping 9.11, and I believe him. He has more

street cred than bush, that's for sure.

and I believe he's been dead since Dec 2001.

And the FBI doesn't think he perped 9.11 either. Take a look at the FBI's most wanted web page for OBL. No mention of 9.11.

[leesa]

29. We don't know it's not been investigated. We don't know who did 9-11.

My guess is that the culprits are a lot closer to home, based on the Bush Crime Family's reluctance to look at the details of that day.

[kentuck]

34. I think this is an excellent question....

Although bin Laden has been connected to numerous terrorist attacks, I have always doubted that he was the "mastermind" behind 9/11. However, it was such a great action against the US, he was more than willing to take credit after the fact.

I recall soon after 9/11 a report about someone telling Osama about what happened and he said he was watching on TV and then proceeded to give a lecture on the construction of the WTC buildings themselves and how surprised he was that they both came tumbling down...

I am not totally convinced that Mohammed Atta and his cell were not independent in their actions and that bin Laden was not aware of their plans, even though he apreciated what they did. I think Atta may have been the "mastermind" himself.

[Selwynn]

38. The most truthful answer is:

We don't know. He is certainly a bad man. Whether he was a scape goat because of that or directly responsible is just something that's unclear.

Your last statement, "those who feel OBL is a "good guy," please step forward" -- name me one person who has said he is a good guy. He may have some points about the United States that are shockingly more valid than many people like to admit, but his actions and extremism are reprehensible. Terrorism, the deliberate and specific targeting of civilians, is never acceptable, ever.

I'm honestly not sure what you're trying to get at in your post. OBL is a bad man - whether we using his face as a justification for a permanent war state (and then in turn using they "we're at war" justification to excuse every kind of totalitarian anti-democratic law passed and action taken) is a highly debatable matter.

I heard someone say, Bush made the mistake of thinking that if you want to fight terrorism you just "send in the army." And that has proven unsuccessfully. In reality fighting terrorism is more like a crime drama, with sting operations, covert actions, intelligence and law enforcement. I think that's true. What's more I think the Administration knows full well that there are better, more effective ways to combat terrorism, but they don't want to take them - because they want to continue to use the excuse of terror to justify the US's continuing war mongering and militancy.

OBL should be captured and arrested, tried and if proven guilty, sentenced. But the most effective way to make that happen is not through the military, but through a combination of diplomacy, intelligence, and special tactical operations.

[kentuck]

39. Selwyn, John Kerry agrees with you....

and so do I.

I think htat was the big story from the interview with Tim Russert this morning.

[markomalley]

40. Catching Osama won't matter

Fixing the underlying issues is the only thing that will remove the problem.

[Selwynn]

41. I wasn't implying otherwise.

[markomalley]

45. gotcha

[kentuck]

46. What do you mean "gotcha"?

You didn't get nobody. You were the "gottee".

[markomalley]

49. Gotcha - point

No, I meant I got your point. In other words I understand the point that you were making. I comprehend.

[kentuck]

51. Just checking...

Just wanted to keep you on the right track....

[Name removed]

43. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JohnLocke]

44. All right -- let's hear it...

[Selwynn]

47. Yeah - let me hear the argument, before I make judgement

[WoodrowFan]

53. deny the Holocaust too? (NT)

ah yes, the classic anti-semetic crap raises its head. go ahead, tell us the Holocaust didn't happen either, you know you want to.

[Th1onein]

48. I don't believe OBL had anything to do with 911

[gottaB]

52. The stronger the case against OBL, the stronger the case for LIHOP

I agree with you about OBL. That's why I'm starting to have grave doubts about BushCo.

Occam's razor usually favors attributing nonfeasance on the part of public officials to ineptitude, laziness or stupidity rather than malicious intent. The case of OBL appears to be exceptional because of the perniciousness of the threat, and the volume and intensity of the warnings. That's not to say that malice must be the explanation, merely that malice is the more parsimonious explanation.

[Name removed]

54. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Character Assassin]

58. Please refresh your tinfoil headgear with a new layer.

[NecessaryOnslaught]

59. Cmon' Cabal

Everyone knows that 19 Muslim fanatics, 7+ of whom are still living, beat the CIA, the INS, The FBI, numerous local police departments, The MOSSAD, airport security, airport surveillance cameras, the FAA, NORAD and Issac Newton, and flew those jumbo jets like Kamikaze pilots(complete with official Kamikaze headbands) all up and down the east coast, smashing and crashing their way into the heart of the infidel. I mean, they worked out at Golds gym man, GOLDS GYM. Un-fking-stoppable