Osama's Motive

[Bolo Boffin]

This is from Juan Cole's blog, Informed Comment:

Bin Laden sees the Muslim world as continually invaded, divided and weakened by outside forces. Among these is the Americans in Saudi Arabia and the Israelis in geographical Palestine. He repeatedly complained about the occupation of the three holy cities, i.e., Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem.

For al-Qaeda to succeed, it must overthrow the individual nation-states in the Middle East, most of them colonial creations, and unite them into a single, pan-Islamic state. But Ayman al-Zawahiri's organization, al-Jihad al-Islami, had tried very hard to overthrow the Egyptian state, and was always checked. Al-Zawahiri thought it was because of US backing for Egypt. They believed that the US also keeps Israel dominant in the Levant, and backs Saudi Arabia's royal family.

Al-Zawahiri then hit upon the idea of attacking the "far enemy" first. That is, since the United States was propping up the governments of Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, etc., all of which al-Qaeda wanted to overthrow so as to meld them into a single, Islamic super-state, then it would hit the United States first.

...Bin Laden hoped the US would timidly withdraw from the Middle East. But he appears to have been aware that an aggressive US response to 9/11 was entirely possible. In that case, he had a Plan B: al-Qaeda hoped to draw the US into a debilitating guerrilla war in Afghanistan and do to the US military what they had earlier done to the Soviets. Al-Zawahiri's recent message shows that he still has faith in that strategy.

Lots more at the link.

[seatnineb]

1. Wrong.

The Taliban were funded by Pakistan,Saudi Arabia and the United States.

So why would Bin Laden want to usurp or intimidate the Saudi Royal family and the governments of Pakistan and the United States?

The same Saudi Royal family and the governments of Pakistan and the United States who had supported and funded the Taliban.

The same Taliban that was supposedly protecting Bin Laden.

The same Taliban that was oppressing the poor, starving, war racked people of Afghanistan.

Al-CIA-da's objectives are all to clear.


The reality is.......

Bin Laden protects the hegemony of the Saudi Royal family(by pretending to be against it).

Having 15 fictitious hijackers from Saudi Arabia gave the excuse to the corrupt House Of Saud to crack down on its own democratically deprived people.

It is the House Of Saud which is conservative,unelected and mysogonistic.........A regime that breaks the very core tenets of Islam.......whilst all the time claiming to uphold these very same tenets!

It is the Saudi people who want change....but for the better........free elections,equal rights for women and Shia Muslims and Christians,open and fair criminal trials..............

It is in the interests of the House Of Saud,Bin Laden and family,the Bush administration and western governments in general that this change does not take place.

And that is why you have 9/11/01.

[Bolo Boffin]

2. I'm going with the internationally renowned expert

...instead of the anonymous internet conspiracy theorist.

No offense.

[seatnineb]

5. Wrong.

Lets see your internationally renowned expert write an article about this.

The Saudi royal family paid $300 million in "protection money" to both Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network and the Taliban government in Afghanistan, according to a report in the London Sunday Times, August 25, 2002.
http://www.jinsa.org/articles/view.html?documentid=1729

[DulceDecorum]

10. Juan Cole says:

From the point of view of al-Qaeda, the Muslim world can and should be united into a single country.

Nice to know that SOMEONE is talking to al Qaeda these days.
I missed that particular episode of Crossing Over.
Please pardon my interruption, Mr. Cole. You were saying:

From the point of view of al-Qaeda, the Muslim world can and should be united into a single country.
They believe that it once had this political unity, under the early caliphs. Even as late as the outbreak of World War I, the Ottoman state ruled much of the Middle East, and the Ottoman sultans had begun making claims to be caliphs (Muslim popes) from about 1880. In the below map, blue indicates heavy Muslim populations, green means medium, and yellow means the Muslims are a significant minority.



From al-Qaeda's point of view, the political unity of the Muslim world was deliberately destroyed by a one-two punch. First, Western colonial powers invaded Muslim lands and detached them from the Ottoman Empire or other Muslim states. They ruled them brutally as colonies, reducing the people to little more than slaves serving the economic and political interests of the British, French, Russians, etc. France invaded Algeria in 1830. Great Britain took Egypt in 1882 and Iraq in 1917. Russia took the Emirate of Bukhara and other Central Asian territories in the 1860s and forward. Second, they formed these colonies into Western-style nation-states, often small and weak ones, so that the divisive effects of the colonial conquests have lasted.
<Look at the British Empire and its imposition on much of the Muslim world, e.g.:>



Well, well, well.
Pardon me again Mr. Cole.
I am looking at the two maps you have presented.
It seems to me that India, Egypt, Nigeria and Sudan are nations that have a strong Islamic tradition and were afflicted with the presence of the British.
Now, I have NOT spoke with al Qaeda recently - or ever, come to think of it, but my understanding was that the British and the other Europeans had been terrorizing each other for hundred of years before Christopher Columbus discovered that there was an entire continent where people were living in peace.
After those people were mostly exterminated, the Europeans decided to gang up on Africa and Asia. To this end they held conferences to plan their piracy. One particular conference was held in Berlin, in 1885.
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MODAFRCA/SCRAMBLE.HTM

Most European nations as well the United States, sent representatives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramble_for_Africa
The delegates took a map of Africa and decided which of them was going to get to own which part after they had exterminated the entire population of the continent.
Their efforts in this endeavor have been only partly successful. Millions have died at the hands of Europe and the US but thousands survive to this very day. But they are working on that.
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0910-15.htm
http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/south_africa/index.html?sect=8
http://www.stimson.org/?SN=CB20020113266

Sorry, Mr. Cole, I was just pointing out that certain nations have a long history of murder and mayhem in the name of their God and Mammon.
All this time, we were unaware that al Qaeda was taking notes and looking forward to the time when they too could follow in the bloodstained footsteps of the imperialists. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Juan Cole goes on to say:
Al-Qaeda has succeeded in several of its main goals. It had been trying to convince Muslims that the United States wanted to invade Muslim lands, humiliate Muslim men, and rape Muslim women. Most Muslims found this charge hard to accept. The Bush administration's Iraq invasion, along with the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal, was perceived by many Muslims to validate Bin Laden's wisdom and foresightedness.

OMG.
Al Qaeda was behind the humiliation of those people in Abu Ghraib?
Now I just HAVE to go and kick the dialysis machine away from that Osama bin Forgotten.
HOW DARE HE!!
WHO THE EFF DOES HE THINK HE IS?
Forcing innocent US soldiers to commit atrocities
that have brought shame to the entire world.
What the hell else is that slimy bastard plotting now?
Him and his main henchman, Ayman Al-Zawahiri?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayman_Zawahiri
http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/terrorists/teralzawahiri.htm

Back to Mr. Cole:
For al-Qaeda to succeed, it must overthrow the individual nation-states in the Middle East, most of them colonial creations, and unite them into a single, pan-Islamic state. But Ayman al-Zawahiri's organization, al-Jihad al-Islami, had tried very hard to overthrow the Egyptian state, and was always checked. Al-Zawahiri thought it was because of US backing for Egypt. They believed that the US also keeps Israel dominant in the Levant, and backs Saudi Arabia's royal family.
Al-Zawahiri then hit upon the idea of attacking the "far enemy" first. That is, since the United States was propping up the governments of Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, etc., all of which al-Qaeda wanted to overthrow so as to meld them into a single, Islamic super-state, then it would hit the United States first.
The attack on the World Trade Center was exactly analogous to Pearl Harbor. The Japanese generals had to neutralize the US fleet so that they could sweep into Southeast Asia and appropriate Indonesian petroleum. The US was going to cut off imperial Japan from petroleum, and without fuel the Japanese could not maintain their empire in China and Korea. So they pushed the US out of the way and took an alternative source of petroleum away from the Dutch (which then ruled what later became Indonesia).

Umm.
Mr. Cole, sir.
Sorry to keep interrupting you but I am really trying hard to make sense out of what you are saying.
Al Qaeda made a pre-emptive strike against the US?
Well, I guess that is one for the history books.
It must be a Rumsfeld thing, which means I won't understand it.
http://www.focusedperformance.com/articles/ut19molehills.html

Umm,
Mr. Cole sir, I am not going to bore you with allegations that certain planes never took off and certain planes are still registered, but I am wondering about one particular thing.
What exactly does al Qaeda have in the way of weapons?
You see, so far, they appear to only have access to BOX-CUTTERS
for slicing open cartons of groceries that are then placed on supermarket shelves.
Now I must admit, that al Qaeda has managed to inflict quite a good bit of damage using these weapons, but unless they are high on something other than the story of David and Goliath, they really do need a little bit more.
And I was wondering sir,
the US has been known to drop atomic bombs on the heads of hapless civilians going about their business in crowded cities. Also,
the United States Secretly Deployed Nuclear Bombs In 27 Countries and Territories During Cold War.
Newly declassified history reveals that the United States stationed nukes in "non-nuclear" Japan, Greenland and Iceland. Other countries unknowingly hosted U.S. nukes.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/19991020/
http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1999/nd99/nd99norris.html

Surely an international man of mystery such as Osama, must know that in June 1950, the US National Security Council issued a report (NSC 26/3) titled Demolition and Abandonment of Oil Facilities and Fields in the Middle East.
The report addressed the possibility of plugging Saudi oil wells ". . .as a means of conservation and denial during enemy occupation." Nuclear weapons were looked at as a possible tool to deny the Soviets access to the oil fields. The report found, "Denial of wells by radiological means can be accomplished to prevent an enemy from utilizing the oil, but it could not prevent him from forcing ‘expendable' Arabs to enter the contaminated areas to open well heads and deplete the reservoirs. Therefore, aside from other ill effects on the Arab population, it is not considered that radiological means are practicable as a conservation measure."
http://www.mepc.org/public_asp/journal_vol11/0409_russell.asp

Surely a shagadelic sheik such as al-Zawahiri has considered the effect of radioactivity on the Arab anatomy. Especially since these effects are barely next door.
http://rense.com/general17/south.htm
http://www.life.com/Life/essay/gulfwar/gulf01.html

So my question is this, Mr. Cole,
HOW
in the name of God and Satan
would ANYONE
dumb enough to use their own name to obtain a fireproof passport,
strike the US first?

Now, sir, you said:
If the Muslim world can find a way to combine the sophisticated intellectuals and engineers of Damascus and Cairo with the oil wealth of the Persian Gulf, it could well emerge as a 21st century superpower.
http://www.juancole.com/2004_09_01_juancole_archive.html#109487993311862124

That sir, will NEVER happen.
The US will obliterate the Muslim world in a series of pre-emptive strikes.
From looking at NSC 26/3,
we can see that the US is top dog and intends to remain top dog.
Or else.
From looking at the ever-growing federal deficit,
we can see that the US, financially, is a has-been.
Totally bankrupt.
From looking at the US military we see pure unabashed desperation.
And a desire to bomb the living crap out of every nation on earth.

The lights dimmed and Mr. Barnett, clad in a dark turtleneck and khakis, launched into his brief. He soon flashed up on a screen a picture of a mock personal ad that he found taped to a Pentagon wall in the late 1990s.
"ENEMY WANTED: Mature North American Superpower seeks hostile partner for arms racing, Third World conflicts and general antagonism. Must be sufficiently menacing to convince Congress of military financial requirements...Send note with pictures of fleet and air squadrons to CHAIRMAN JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF/PENTAGON."
In the early days of the current Bush administration, senior Pentagon officials thought China, with its growing arsenal of ballistic missiles and increasingly sophisticated submarine fleet, might fill this role.
Mr. Barnett's work with Cantor Fitzgerald, which stemmed from a long-standing relationship between the firm and the Naval War College, convinced him otherwise. China was buying U.S. debt, angling to join the World Trade Organization and growing increasingly dependent on foreign direct investment. "China isn't the problem, it's the prize," he told the officers.
He displayed a map of the sprawling "gap," which includes most of Africa, Central Asia, the Middle East and a big chunk of Central and South America. "This is globalization's ozone hole," he said.
http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/published/wsj.htm

Pile on the brown man's burden,
compel him to be free;
Let all your manifestoes
Reek with philanthropy.
And if with heathen folly
He dares your will dispute,
Then, in the name of freedom,
Don't hesitate to shoot.

Pile on the brown man's burden,
And if his cry be sore,
That surely need not irk you--
Ye've driven slaves before.
Seize on his ports and pastures,
The fields his people tread;
Go make from them your living,
And mark them with his dead.
http://www.boondocksnet.com//ai/kipling/labouche.html
http://www.boondocksnet.com//ai/kipling/index.html

http://www.alternet.org/story/11427
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30771

And finally, Mr. Cole sir,
from looking at the White House,
we see a man living in fear of pretzels and fair elections.
A man whose father is not holy.
A man who is surrounded by cons.
A man who will gladly kill us all,
and mock us as we breathe our last.

http://www.dangerouscitizen.com/Photo+Gallery/47.jpg

But then again, this is all probably part of the al Qaeda plan.

The US is not winning the war on terror. Al-Qaeda also has by no means won. But across a whole range of objectives, al-Qaeda has accomplished more of its goals than the US has of its.
Saturday, September 11, 2004
http://www.juancole.com/2004_09_01_juancole_archive.html#109487993311862124

[Bolo Boffin]

11. Dulce endorses a website!!!

911review.org

How very interesting.

And here's a classic moment:

Juan Cole goes on to say:
Al-Qaeda has succeeded in several of its main goals. It had been trying to convince Muslims that the United States wanted to invade Muslim lands, humiliate Muslim men, and rape Muslim women. Most Muslims found this charge hard to accept. The Bush administration's Iraq invasion, along with the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal, was perceived by many Muslims to validate Bin Laden's wisdom and foresightedness.

OMG.
Al Qaeda was behind the humiliation of those people in Abu Ghraib?
Now I just HAVE to go and kick the dialysis machine away from that Osama bin Forgotten.
HOW DARE HE!!
WHO THE EFF DOES HE THINK HE IS?
Forcing innocent US soldiers to commit atrocities...

This is the definition of a straw man argument, folks. Juan Cole says a goal of al-Qaeda is to convince Muslims of America's intent to rape and humilate the Islamic people. Abu Ghraib played into bin Laden's hands.

And Dulce goes on a rant about al-Qaeda being behind the Abu Ghraib atrocities!

That's not what Mr. Cole said, Dulce, and you know it. Shame, shame, shame.

And I'm sure that a peaceful, engaged Muslim superpower would fit into Barnett's view of globalization very nicely, the same way China does. Why don't you ask him about it, Dulce? Or maybe I will - that's an excellent question.

[DulceDecorum]

14. I have the right to remain silent

anything I say .....

[RH]

37. Is that a promise?

:loveya:

[DulceDecorum]

38. The days of a thief

are forty.

[forgethell]

31. Very interesting, but I am most interested in

This quote.


but my understanding was that the British and the other Europeans had been terrorizing each other for hundred of years before Christopher Columbus discovered that there was an entire continent where people were living in peace.
After those people were mostly exterminated, the Europeans decided to gang up on Africa and Asia

Which continent did Christopher Columbus discover where people were living in peace? We know it wasn't the Americas. The Aztecs, for just one instance, practiced the most massive rituals of human sacrifice since the Phoenicians in ancient times. Then they ate their victims. They had their little 'flower wars' to capture the sacrifices. they practiced slavery.

In the United States, the Anasazi are thought to have also practiced cannibalism. Peaceful? I think not.

They didn't call the adult Native American males 'warriors' and 'braves' for no good reason. Are you saying they learned the art of war from the bloody Europeans?

What about the head-hunters in Ecuador??

I could go own and own, but the point is, the American continent was no more 'peaceful' than any other. Besides, even in the old world, weren't they Europeans continually being overrun by Asians (Attila, Genghis Khan, the Seljuks, the Ottomans?) Yes, they were. They just eventually got more competent at war than anybody else, at least temporarily.

And it is the Arabic population that took far more black slaves out of Africa than the Europeans did.

So I repeat my question: what peaceful continent was it that Columbus discovered?

[RH]

3. Bin Laden protects the hegemony

of the Saudi Royal family by pretending to be against it?

:crazy:

Is that in the same sort of way that the "No Boeing" proponents of "the 15 fictitious hijackers" protect the hegenomy of Bushco by pretending to be against it?

:toast:

Seeing that being against anyhing would presumably give an excuse to crack down, perhaps someboy would care to explain how it may be possible to pretend to be against something without the same effect.

:shrug:

[seatnineb]

4. Wrong.

Sorry to shatter your illusionary little cocoon.....

representatives of the Saudi royal family met secretly with Osama bin Laden in an effort to strike a deal to protect their kingdom. Bin Laden agreed not to use his operatives to subvert the Saudi royal family

The first meeting between the princes, Saudi businessmen and al-Qaeda representatives was held in Paris during the fall of 1996. The second meeting, attended by Prince Turki al Faisal al-Saud - then chief of Saudi intelligence,
http://www.jinsa.org/articles/view.html?documentid=1729

So you were sayin.........

[RH]

6. Wrong? wrong? wrong? wrong? wrong? wrong? wrong? wrong?

:eyes:

So what's the point?

How do we know that the 'No Boeing' brigade have never met with the Bush family to do a secret deal?

And assuming that the Jewish propanganda is true, how does the extortion of "protection money" protect hegemony? I'd have thought that the point was rather that the supposed hegonomy fails to extend to Bin Laden but if that's the sort of protection you'd prefer you're very welcome to it, for as far as I am concerned at least.

[seatnineb]

7. Sure.

Care to name me any high ranking American or Saudi politicians that Osama and his group have killed.

Dont expect to hear from ya in a long time........

[RH]

8. One might have thought

that Barbara Olson was close. The IRA hit a few prime targets but I don't know that it made a difference.

But more to the point I've never yet noticed anything from Osama that especially avows to hit high ranking politicians in person. He'd rather hit the Twin Towers because that was where the real power is. When he talks about the Saudi regime he seems to take pity; to him they're just the pawns in the bigger game.

It is also a mystery to me why Osama is routine credited with that much integrity or competence anyway. In politics they're all the same; shake hands one day and back stab the next, whatever it takes to keep their boat afloat. The worst feuds occur in families.

Et tu, Brutus?

[seatnineb]

20. Really?

In terms of military significance........

The twin towers counted for fuck all.

Just like that renovated wedge at the Pentagon.

There was no "POWER" in these locations.

How did Osama possibly think that he could hurt the U.S military by flying planes into these places.

:silly:

Keep tryin........

[RH]

23. hurt the U.S military?

Where does that idea come from?

Hurt the US Military?

Here's what Osama Bin Laden the businessman has had to say about it:

" According to their own admissions, the share of the losses on the Wall Street Market reached 16%. They said that this number is a record, which has never happened since the opening of the market more than 230 years ago. This large collapse has never happened. The gross amount that is traded in that market reaches 4 trillions dollars. So if we multiply 16% with $4 trillion to find out the loss that affected the stocks, it reaches $640 billion of losses from stocks, with Allah's grace (subhannahu wa ta`aala). So this amount, for example, is the budget of Sudan for 640 years. They have lost this, due to an attack that happened with the success of Allah lasting one hour only. The daily income of the American nation is $20 billion. The first week they didn't work at all due to the psychological shock of the attack, and even until today some don't work due to the attack. So if you multiply $20 billion by 1 week, it comes out to $140 billion, and it is even bigger than this. If you add it to the $640 billion, we've reached how much? Approximately $800 billion. The cost of the building losses and construction losses? Let us say more than $30 billion. Then they have fired or liquidated until today, or a couple of days ago, from the airline companies more than 170,000 employees. That includes cargo plane companies, and commercial airlines, and American studies and analysis have mentioned that 70% of the American people even until today still suffer from depression and psychological trauma, after the incident of the two towers, and the attack on the Defense Ministry, the Pentagon - thanks to Allah's grace (subhannahu wa ta`aala). One of the well-known American hotel companies, Intercontinental, has fired 20,000 employees - thanks to Allah's grace (subhannahu wa ta'aala). Those claims cannot be calculated by anyone due to their very large scale, multitude and complexity - and it is increasing thanks to Allah's grace (subhannahu wa ta`aala) - so watch as the amount reaches no less than $1 trillion by the lowest estimate - thanks to Allah's grace (subhannahu wa ta`aala) - due to these successful and blessed attacks. We implore Allah to accept those brothers within the ranks of the martyrs, and to admit them to the highest levels of Paradise."

http://www.religioscope.com/info/doc/jihad/ubl_int_2.htm

[seatnineb]

25. Osama the Hypocrite.

Interesting to see how Osama forgot to mention how the U.S military industrial complex has been making a killing.......
Both financially and physically(just ask the poor Afghans)


While many sectors in the US are suffering from the economic crunch, top weapons manufacturers are awaiting new orders, hiring new people, looking for new investments and gaining attention on the stock market.

The September 11th attacks gave the military-industrial complex further justification for increased military production and an excuse to use war to boost the sagging US economy.
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/9-11/military_complex.htm

Osama Bin Laden is nothing more than a Bush Clan/House Of Saud/Mossad/CIA/MI6 stooge.

A sort of pied piper of Guantanamo.

His words mean NOTHING.
Judge him by his actions(or lack of action).

And we all know that his actions have favoured the very organizations I mentioned above.

[reorg]

9. They seem to be mercenaries, available to the highest bidder

In what civil wars where they shown to have participated in? Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo. They are also said to be in Chechnya and other countries in the region around the Caspian sea. They were supported by the US and fought where US interests were at stake. In all these areas we now see US American bases, as well as a growing number of oil, gas and pipeline projects by US firms.

As far as undercover operations are attributed to these mercenaries, they don't seem to have any clear objectives at all, other than raising hell and demonstrating a "terrorist threat". These would appear to be "false flag" operations on behalf of those who benefit from them: groups in the US who want to "strengthen" the military by increasing expenditures and who wish to "secure" regions where important resources are found.

And the "ideological thinking" of these mercenaries? It doesn't seem to get far beyond "we'll fight to the death for our fatherland and the Almighty" ... typical chauvinist and adventurist tripe that also marks more traditional ventures of this kind such as the French Foreign Legion.

[reorg]

15. one interesting example

if somewhat atypical - is the guy portrayed in this article of the Chechen Times:


>> 21.07.2003

An American Fighter’s War in Chechnya

(...)

At the age of 19, Collins was out of prison and at loose ends in San Diego. As a teen he’d been in a gang, robbed liquor stores and gotten into a gunfight while robbing a home. In jail he’d converted to Islam. Hearing about the plight of Bosnia’s Muslims, he left California with a vague plan of taking up arms in their defense.

Events detoured him to Afghanistan, where he got weapons training among mujahedin busy harassing Russian forces in Tajikistan — among them Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the man sentenced to death in Pakistan for the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. After Afghanistan came Chechnya, where Collins took a second bride (in addition to his wife back in the United States), lost a leg, and waged war alongside guerrilla leaders Shamil Basayev and Khattab.

Collins considered himself one of the mujahedin — which he defines as men fighting to protect the women and children of any invaded and oppressed Muslim lands, from Chechnya to Kosovo. He guesses there are 10,000 mujahedin around the world, perhaps half of them in Chechnya.

(...)

Soon, back home in America, he was a paid FBI informant moving in circles he said included Hani Hanjour, the man believed to have piloted American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. An FBI spokesman told The Washington Post that as an asset of the bureau’s counterterrorism team in Phoenix, Arizona, from 1996 to 1999, Collins «did some very productive things and helped some cases over the years."

(...)

"’Braveheart’ was our favorite movie, and we watched it at least once every couple of days,"

(...)

http://www.chechentimes.org/en/people/?id=3024

[reorg]

18. another interesting example

also not typical, from the New Zealand Herald:

>> David Hicks - Islamic convert adventurer or terrorist?

29.08.2004

(...)

"We call him Indiana Jones, that's his nickname," Hicks' father, Terry Hicks, said, describing his son as an adventurer.

(...)


Hicks dropped out of the Smithfield Plains High School in Adelaide's north when aged 14 in 1990.

Some former classmates describe him as a rebel who experimented with drugs and alcohol and dabbled in Satanism.

(...)

He then travelled via Adelaide to Kosovo in mid-1999, where he fought alongside ethnic Albanian Muslims in the Kosovo Liberation Army against the Serbs.

Returning to Adelaide, he was fully converted to Islam and then journeyed to Pakistan to further his Islamic studies.

It was in Pakistan he was allegedly recruited by al-Qaeda and sent to Afghanistan, where capture and infamy awaited.

(...)

Hicks was captured among Taleban forces in Afghanistan in December 2001. The Northern Alliance handed him to American forces.

(...)

One of the allegations is that Hicks met al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden while at a training camp for the terrorist group in Afghanistan and proceeded to translate training material from Arabic to English.

(...) <<


http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3587479&thesection=news&thesubsection=world

[reorg]

19. and in Iraq ...

to quote a resistance fighter (with a day job in a government agency that earns him the equivalent of 189 US$ per month) on such mercenaries (Islamic militants coming from overseas):

>> 'Some have no allegiance to any group, others have so much money they must come from al-Qaeda. It is impossible to work with them. They are bloody people, far too irrational. They do not care if they kill innocent Iraqi people. They are terrorists.' <<

http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-InternationalNews&ao=122046&t=1

Way to go, Osama, if you want to "convince" anyone of something they can easily determine for themselves.

[demodewd]

12. bolo

You grossly underestimate the imperial economic power and accompaning desperation of the United States.

[RH]

13. US power is not economic.

It is extremely unecomonic. US got rich after the Second World War by paying out with money spirited out of thin air. Profit from usury and growth from fair economic competition are not the same.

"Desperation" is thus correct. Watch the EURO. While it goes up the dollar goes down.

[demodewd]

16. dollar demand

The US is the citadel of deregulated imperialistic global capitalism. It must maintain petrodollar dominance of transnational oil tranactions to counter its depleted industrial base and ever expanding trade deficits. Without a continuance of strong US consumerism the whole global laisez faire project will collapse. Only a high demand for dollars will stop this from happening. And that dollar demand is directly related to currency conversion to buy oil via the petrodollar.

[Bolo Boffin]

17. And if you think

that a sitting American administration planned and carried out an attack on its own citizens to maintain their imperial economic power and appease their desperation...

...then you grossly overestimate both factors.

Now let's get back to discussing Osama's motive.

[DulceDecorum]

21. ...that they would not....

In 1932 the United States Public Health Service (PHASE), in cooperation with the Tuskegee Institute, initiated a study in Macon County, Alabama to determine the effects of untreated syphilis. The study would last until 1970 and follow 399 black men diagnosed with syphilis.

In order to ensure that they would not be treated, which became increasingly difficult with the discovery and widespread use of penicillin after 1943, local physicians, draft boards and PHS venereal disease eradication programs were given a list of the "subjects."
<snip>
Due to media exposure, the study was halted in 1970. By that time, at least 28 and perhaps as many as 100 had died as a direct result of complications caused by syphilis.

In December of 1974, the government agreed to pay approximately $10 million in an out of court settlement: $37,500 per participant. A year earlier, it had offered free medical care to the surviving participants and their families, many of whom had contracted the disease congenitally.

For obvious reasons, the survivors preferred compensatory funds with which to hire their own physicians.
http://www.dreamscape.com/morgana/adrastea.htm

[Bolo Boffin]

22. Please explain

how the Tuskegee experiments

a. maintained imperial power

b. showed the desperation of the United States

c. remained secret

[DulceDecorum]

28. You mean to say

that the Tuskegee Experiments
were carried out
just for kicks?

[Bolo Boffin]

29. I think you misunderstood me.

Please explain how the Tuskegee experiments

a. maintained imperial power

b. showed the desperation of the United States

c. remained secret

[DulceDecorum]

30. Now, I could reply to that

but is there really any need?

You are RIGHT
ABOUT EVERYTHING
ALWAYS,
and there isn't a damn thing I can do about it.

[stickdog]

24. Motive ain't the issue. Millions have a more than decent motive.

The issue is means and opportunity. This is where Dick Cheney moves to the head of the suspect list.

[RH]

26. Nah.

Cheney would have to give orders, with a huge trail of evidence and far too many people involved.

Talk about a very small group of people with access to something like the aircraft flight control systems and then in terms of means and opportunity you may be getting somewhere. I have not yet, at least, seen anything to rule it out.

[stickdog]

27. Or have Cheney talk to this same little group.

All I'm saying is that inside jobs are ALWAYS easier.

If you believe that 19 hard drinking, coke snorting, stripper watching fundamentalists Muslims could pull this off using a few box cutters, exactly what's stopping the mostly highly trained US (or Saudi or Israeli) mil/intel assets from having a much easier time at it?

[RH]

32. Scrutiny.

19 hard drinking, coke snorting, stripper watching fundamentalists Muslims are not so easy to keep track of.

I think they could have done it, just for the hell of it. You've otherwise got to find another way to explain what they were up to, which in terms of ordinary innocent behaviour is not so easy to do. is it?

Still waiting for their trial though.

America should take more notice of the Hamburg trial.

[stickdog]

33. Yes, we always subject our most powerful leaders to the fiercest scrutiny.

That's why corporate media won't shut up about what Bush was doing in that class room THE VERY DAY of 9/11. And they certainly haven't let him off the hook concerning his bizarrely impossible remembrances of the day. And "scrutiny" is also why every journalist in America has hounded Dick Cheney about all the war games he was running that day until he was forced to tell the American public the whole story.

Yes, the fact that the White House claims that Bush's own personal phone logs for the morning of 9/11 are now "inadvertently" unprocurable has certainly generated a vicious FIRESTORM of intense media scrutiny. I mean, it's not like the Bush administration ever gets away with any obvious crimes on our watch. No, sir.

[RH]

34. OMG, get a grip, please,

and some sort of sense of balance and perspective, before its too late.

You think the corporate media ought to give a damm about Bush and his goat story? If that's the best you've got he's home and dry.

The sheer hypocrisy of it all is astounding. One the one hand they're trying to tell me, over and over and over and over and over again that eye witness testimonies are unreliable, not worth a cent, and on the other hand an incidental recollection of GW Bush is supposed to be perfectly accurate and reliable?

How many of Mohammed Atta's personal phone logs have you studied?

[stickdog]

35. It was your contention that the actions of Bush & Cheney are far too

SCRUTINIZED for them to have had an active hand in executing 9/11.

I merely pointed out that NOTHING about what those two did that day has been scrutinized by anyone working in corporate media. Even after F-9/11 has informed millions of Americans about many of the extremely disturbing questions that so clearly BEG to be asked, our corporate media is afraid to even broach the subject of Bush's or Cheney's actions on 9/11 lest they too be branded as having "no sense of balance or perspective" by "right thinking" individuals like yourself. And that's the best possible interpretation of major corporated media's highly conspicuous and unerringly universal silence on this critical issue.

Most of us here have already seen the video footage of Bush that morning many times, so -- depite your ignorant insinuations to the contrary -- the facts of what happened are hardly in dispute. We know with 100% certainty that Bush dicked around for nearly 30 minutes after the SECOND plane hit the WTC at a widely publicized, previously scheduled photo op just 5 miles from an international airport. Have you ever stopped to consider just how bizarre that behavior was given the circumstances? I mean, America was obviously under attack. After dozens of warnings that this might happen, terrorists were using planes to strike buildings. So tell us, RH, how did the Secret Service know for sure that Bush scheduled charter school appearance wasn't an intended target of one of the terorists' planes as well?

Before answering, please consider that the Presidential limo is decked out as a full emergency command center -- AND IT WAS WAITING JUST OUTSIDE THE SCHOOL DOORS to whisk Bush away to safety, make all those little kids infinitely safer AND convey at least the barest appearance of competent Presidential crisis management. In addition, Air Force One -- which is an even better command and control center -- was just five miles away. But the man we call our Commander in Chief instead followed along in a book as little kids read to him about a pet goat -- with burning Americans leaping out the top floors of the soon to topple WTC towers the whole while!

Watch this and then tell me who's the real hypocrite:

http://www.tbtmradio.com/geeklog/public_html/staticpages/index.php?page=20040606205339801

[RH]

36. No that was was not the contention.

Read the post.

It was my contention that "19 hard drinking, coke snorting, stripper watching fundamentalists Muslims are not so easy to keep track of."

To what extent were they under any kind of scrutiny on Tuesday 9/11/2001 as compared to Bush & Cheney? That is the issue.

[stickdog]

39. It's nonsense. Crime is no different from any other human endeavor when

it comes to the inherent advantages of those with more money, power and influence over those with less. One would have to be wholly ignorant of the entire concept of organized crime to seriously suggest otherwise.