Books – US author Steve Coll spent years looking into Osama bin Laden's family. Now, his new book provides a unique insight into the clan. SPIEGEL spoke with him about where the terrorist might be hiding, how his father got his start, and the unique romantic liasons pursued by one of his brothers.
McCain is just the guy to get this done, not personally of course, but if he is elected, it is probably our destiny.
McCain is the LAST person to get this done. McCain doesn't even know who the various players in the Middle East are. He wants to attack those most likely to help us and give a free pass to the terrorist who he will use, just as George W. Bush has used them, to get whatever he wants rmmed through congress using fearmongering.
McCain is NOT tough on defense, he is DUMB on defense.
McCain was leading the charge to go into Iraq--he shared this on late night TV shortly after 9/11, saying they had strong intell on Saddam. People with short memories may have forgotten that Saddam told his own military leaders he had WMD--so he inadvertently contributed to his own demise.
Both Obama and Clinton scare me, though. They want to disarm ordinary American citizens, and actually seem to think that adult psychopaths, sociopaths, malignant narcissists (what have you) can be reached with love and acceptance. That's like bringing an injured pit viper into your home and nursing it back to health.
""McCain was leading the charge to go into Iraq--he shared this on late night TV shortly after 9/11, saying they had strong intell on Saddam."
Good point cause ONLY the evil repugs said Saddam had WMDs and supported terrorist! Welcome to The Twilight Zone."
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological
weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program.
He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002-Truth!
Senator Clinton acknowledged the threat of Saddam Hussein
"Good point cause ONLY the evil repugs said Saddam had WMDs and supported terrorist! Welcome to The Twilight Zone."
Ohh ye who needs to be enlightened. Allow me to lift the veil of ignorance from your eyes ...
"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."â;; From a letter signed by Joe Lieberman, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara A. Milulski, Tom Daschle, & John Kerry among others on October 9, 1998.
"Saddam's goal â;¦ is to achieve the lifting of U.N. sanctions while retaining and enhancing Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. We cannot, we must not and we will not let him succeed."â;; Madeline Albright, 1998.
"(Saddam) will rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and some day, some way, I am certain he will use that arsenal again, as he has 10 times since 1983"â;; National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Feb 18, 1998.
"Iraq made commitments after the Gulf War to completely dismantle all weapons of mass destruction, and unfortunately, Iraq has not lived up to its agreement."â;; Barbara Boxer, November 8, 2002 .
"What is at stake is how to answer the potential threat Iraq represents with the risk of proliferation of WMD. Baghdad's regime did use such weapons in the past. Today, a number of evidences may lead to think that, over the past four years, in the absence of international inspectors, this country has continued armament programs."â;; Jacques Chirac, October 16, 2002.
"The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow."â;; Bill Clinton in 1998 .
"I am absolutely convinced that there are weapons...I saw evidence back in 1998 when we would see the inspectors being barred from gaining entry into a warehouse for three hours with trucks rolling up and then moving those trucks out."â;; Clinton's Secretary of Defense William Cohen in April of 2003.
"Iraq is not the only nation in the world to possess weapons of mass destruction, but it is the only nation with a leader who has used them against his own people."â;; Tom Daschle in 1998.
"I share the administration's goals in dealing with Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction."â;; Dick Gephardt in September of 2002.
"Saddam Hussein is not the only deranged dictator who is willing to deprive his people in order to acquire weapons of mass destruction."â;; Jim Jeffords, October 8, 2002.
"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."â;; Ted Kennedy, September 27, 2002.
"There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein's regime is a serious danger, that he is a tyrant, and that his pursuit of lethal weapons of mass destruction cannot be tolerated. He must be disarmed."â;; Ted Kennedy, Sept 27, 2002.
"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandates of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them."â;; Carl Levin, Sept 19, 2002.
"Every day Saddam remains in power with chemical weapons, biological weapons, and the development of nuclear weapons is a day of danger for the United States."â;; Joe Lieberman, August, 2002.
"As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am keenly aware that the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons is an issue of grave importance to all nations. Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."â;; Nancy Pelosi, December 16, 1998.
"The debate over Iraq is not about politics. It is about national security. It should be clear that our national security requires Congress to send a clear message to Iraq and the world: America is united in its determination to eliminate forever the threat of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction."â;; John Edwards, Oct 10, 2002.
Libs, your research is excellent. Now, note the dates. They are ALL BEFORE George Bush did the unthinkable: falsified intel and fabricated lies to bolster his desire to invade Iraq.
Most of those people, upon learning that the President was a liar, did what intelligent, moral, people with integrity do - they CHANGED THEIR MINDS.
When furnished with overwhelming evidence TO THE CONTRARY, they admitted they made a mistake and changed their minds.
Repukes and Neocon idiots call that flip-flopping. Everyone else calls it intelligent and courageous.
Personally, I'd have voted for invasion also given the intel. that was provided. Almost anyone would. Most Dems DID. Who could ever conceive that the highest office in the land could bold face lie about an issue that could and did cost thousands of lives and bankrupt a country.
Thanks for the research and for proving the point.
GWB is a liar, and incompetent, and a war criminal.
After seeing the presentation by Powell on C-SPAN, even I thought they may have some hard data (one might reasonably assume there *is* top secret data not leaked to the public), and I wasn't inclined to question McCain--or H. Clinton or anyone else who thought the evidence was there.
I'm assuming you're building a case for Obama? If so, he needs a new slogan! "Change we can believe in" sounds like more GW Bush. I don't "believe in" much, and prefer hard facts.
""McCain was leading the charge to go into Iraq--he shared this on late night TV shortly after 9/11, saying they had strong intell on Saddam."
Good point cause ONLY the evil repugs said Saddam had WMDs and supported terrorist! Welcome to The Twilight Zone."
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002-Truth!
This and the quote below was part of prepared remarks for a speech in San Francisco to The Commonwealth Club.
"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."
Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002-Truth!
Sounds like Gores claiming "strong intel" don't it?
I have my doubts about all the candidates--and who they may appoint. The dems refuse to see the very real threat that Islamic extremists pose (it's about power--not "religion" or "how people pray"), and the repubs seem to be easily distracted by red herrings (attacking Iraq in the first place, not actively going after bin Laden when they had the chance on multiple occasions, etc.).
And one correction, Dionys--Osama's gotten away with it repeatedly, not just once.
If bin laden does something, we'll just have to deal with it. Electing McCain won't stop it.
I thought that we were going to get Osama "Dead er Alive"!
What happened to gunslingin George's tough guy talk?
Doesnt even think of him anymore.
Isnt that the ultimate flip flop?
July 5 2006, the branch of the CIA that was supposed to hunt down Bin Laden was closed.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13699308/
Was this a big story
yes
Was this covered as a lead story news-wide?
It escaped my notice for months, not that I'm a newshound, but still, I'll bet a lot of folks are not aware that the search has been officially 'off' for what? a year and a half or more?
Bin Laden has attacked the U.S. irrespective of party in power. I don't think who we elect will make a lot of difference in his strategy.
I've read arguments that McCain would keep Bin Laden's organization focused, or that Obama would be more receptive to placating him, but we know that Western women generally are not Osama fans, so it doesn't take a leap to determine he's probably not a Clinton fan.
It looks like Obama, like Jimmy Carter before him, has the popular vote by a landslide and enough delegate votes as well. He scares me, though, because he just doesn't seem like a big picture guy, and his slogan, "Change we can believe in," leaves me absolutely cold. And if he continues his push to disarm U.S. citizens, I think he'll have serious trouble on his hands right here at home.
So far we have been awfully stupid in the "war on terror". McCain promises to continue that stupidity.
Generals Bin Laden and Bush
... That the Iraq War is "fueling the spread of the jidahist movement," as the 2006 National Intelligence Estimate put it, has been a truism of intelligence reporting from the war's beginning; indeed, from before it began. "[T]he Iraq conflict has become the cause célèbre for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating support for the global jihadist movement" -- this point from the 2006 NIE is truly an example of a "chronicle of a war foretold".
... That broader story comes down to a matter of two strategies and two generals: General Osama bin Laden and General George W. Bush. General bin Laden, from the start, has been waging a campaign of indirection and provocation: that is, bin Laden's ultimate targets are the so-called apostate regimes of the Muslim world -- foremost among them, the Mubarak regime in Egypt and the House of Saud on the Arabian peninsula -- which he hopes to overthrow and supplant with a New Caliphate.
For bin Laden, these are the "near enemies," which rely for their existence on the vital support of the "far enemy," the United States. By attacking this far enemy, beginning in the mid-1990s, bin Laden hoped both to lead vast numbers of new Muslim recruits to join Al Qaeda and to weaken U.S. support for the Mubarak and Saud regimes. He hoped to succeed, through indirection, in "cutting the strings of the puppets," eventually leading to the collapse of those regimes....
...In this sense, 9/11 proved the culmination of a long-term strategy, following on a series of attacks of increasing lethality during the mid to late 1990s in Riyadh, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, and Aden. The 9/11 attackers used as their climactic weapon not transcontinental airliners or box cutters but the television set -- for the image was the true weapon that day, the overwhelmingly powerful image of the towers collapsing -- and used it not only to "dirty the face of imperial power" (Menachim Begin's description of what terrorists do), but also to provoke the United States to strike deep into the Islamic world.
... Americans, by relying on air bombardment and on the ground forces of their allies in the Northern Alliance, avoided the quagmire of Afghanistan -- at least in that initial phase -- and instead offered bin Laden a much greater gift. In March 2003, they invaded Iraq, a far more important Islamic country and one much closer to the heart of Arab concerns.
... many of the Bush administration's leading Iraq War backers comprised a kind of guerrilla force within the U.S. government, fighting against a longstanding strategic alignment in the Middle East. This guerrilla status, which defined many of the government's most knowledgeable Middle East hands as enemies to be isolated and ignored, helps to account, at least in part, for a great many of the extraordinary incompetencies and disasters of the war itself. That the roots of the war lie in stark opposition to established U.S. policy also helps explain the central conundrum of the current U.S. strategic position in Iraq and the Middle East. This was defined for me with typical concision and aplomb by Ahmed Chalabi in Baghdad last year. "The American tragedy in Iraq," said Chalabi, "is that your friends in Iraq are allied with your enemies in the region, and your enemies in Iraq are allied with your friends in the region."
A Defeat Only American Power Could Have Brought About
.... So how, finally, do we "take stock of the War on Terror"? Let me suggest three words:
1. Fragmentation -- brought about by "creative destabilization," as we see it not only in Iraq but in Lebanon, Palestine, and elsewhere in the region;
2. Diminution -- of American prestige, both military and political, and thus of American power;
3. Destruction -- of the political consensus within the United States for a strong global role.
Gaze for a moment at those three words and marvel at how far we have come in a half-dozen years.
....
In September 2001, the United States faced a grave threat. The attacks were unprecedented in their destructiveness, in their lethality, in the pure apocalyptic shock of their spectacle. But in their aftermath, American policymakers, partly through ideological blindness and preening exaggeration of American power, partly through blindness brought about by political opportunism, made decisions that led to a defeat only their own actions -- that only American power itself -- could have brought about.
A small coven of America's enemies, using the strategy of provocation so familiar in guerrilla warfare, had launched in spectacular fashion on that bright September morning a plan to use the superpower's strength against itself. To use a different metaphor, they were trying to make good on Archimedes' celebrated boast: having found the perfect lever and place to stand, they proposed to move the Earth. To an extent I am sure even they did not anticipate, in their choice of opponent -- an evangelical, redemptive regime scornful of history and determined to remake the fallen world -- lay the seeds of their success.
hyperbola,
People calling for jihad have had their eyes on world domination for a long time--well before the U.S. came into existence--and they are arm-chair critics (and opportunists) like everyone else, grabbing sound-bytes that further their bias and agenda.
And the U.S. has mishandled situations, it's true. We have recently seen belief trump science ourselves, and "faith-based" initiatives, which allow foreign government... to come in and collect tax dollars to provide social services while they indoctrinate the recipients. Islamist extremists have not missed this chance.
We are funding the spread of government incompatible with a secular society, and it can only result in a train wreck.
I wonder how much attention we should really devote to Ousama bin Laden and the fear of another attack...
Tne media and the government's manipulation of 9-11 has added more injury and death, as well as causing the loss of our precious freedoms.
So how much attention should we really devote to the fear of terrorism? The fear of terrorism is proving to be worse than the act of terrorism in terms of its destructive power.
"So how much attention should we really devote to the fear of terrorism? The fear of terrorism is proving to be worse than the act of terrorism in terms of its destructive power."
Given the fact al Qaeda struck on US soil twice and at other U.S. targets continuously throughout Clinton's presidency, I'd say it deserves far more attention than, say, the fable of man-made global warming.
Actually John McCain has killed more Americans (by forcing them to live in a nuclear waste dump) than Bin Laden.
Senator McCain's history of Human Rights Violations
Do No Evil â;; The Dineh-Navajo were literally swept off of lands they'd owned since 1500 A.D. by legislations authored by Senator McCain on a ruse that handed the coal beneath them over to the largest unsustainable energy corporation in America. Forced resettlements have led to disease and early death among more than 7,000 of the Dineh-Navajo.
http://donoevil.propeller.com/story/2008/04/02/...
Islam has slowly, over time, eventually taken control of most countries it has entered once it gets its numbers up. Its adherents already insist on concessions and have tried to win the right to inflict shari'a on their own people in both the U.S. and Europe--requesting separate "courts."
They've intimidated the world--including the U.N.--to bow to shari'a under the guise of "religious defamation," and countries and organizations are adopting shari'a out of fear.
I think we should devote a lot of attention to terrorism.
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If Osama attacks the U.S. again at election time, it would be suicide for him and any country harboring him. Just let him try. If McCain is elected he might just try.
bin Laden will do exactly what a lot of Republicans will do. He'll vote for Hillary.
He will try it exactly in order to elect McCain. The RepugniCons are so fond of using him as a bogey man they can't possible let him get caught. That's why Bush wouldn't let his Army officers order in special forces at Tora Bora to capture Bin Laden and the Taliban leadership.
McCain would be as much of an ally for bin Laden as Bush has been. Bush killed off his mortal enemy, Saddam and opened up Iraq as a new theater of operation for al Qaeda. Bush's Iraq occupation has given bin Laden a massive windfall of recruiting and propaganda fodder in the Arab world.
But the Iraq debacle strengthened another bin Laden enemy, Iran. McCain can't even get that straight. He thinks Iran trains al Qaeda and attacking them would hurt bin Laden. So al Qaeda wants McCain elected to attack Iran, eliminate another al Qaeda enemy, and keep the Islamic Radical recruiting going.
dude youre an idiot,,,go put on your tinfoil hat... i guess you were asleep during the clinton administration,,,did you ever hear of the first world trade center bombing,,you douchebag
Hey eyesshut I think your the douchebag.
Your new here, let me help ya out
"You're in another dimension... a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind... a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Welcome to The Twilight Zone."
From the headline:..."and the unique romantic liasons pursued by one of his brothers...."
Osama and Bush also pursue the same "romantic liasons" and I have heard them interviewed on TV.
When asked what it is like to be with such famous people, the "liasons" had only one comment......
Baaaaaa!
Teech, you never cease to prove what a complete moron you truly are.
Well, alls I ken say is you are provin the point from the opposite end.
Relax. Libs. They didn't know it was your girl.
eyesopen:
it's one thing to be rude but you are also misinformed
after a thorough investigation, US authorities not only apprehended the culprits in the 1993 WTC bombing under Clinton, but also ruled that any link between the first WTC bombing and Bin Laden or AQ was 'inconclusive' [no real evidence, in case you don't speak governement-ese]
let's see...under Clinton...convictions
under Bush...we get videos of Benny
PS: I broke my moratorium on the word 'link' damn it
anyway, for some reason people think Bin Laden engineered the first bombing too, which you can believe if you want, I guess
the US government in 1993 was only dimly aware of AQ, but they knew Bin Laden of course, and OBL formed AQ in 1988. But it wasn't until the 'fatwa' release in 1996 that OBL declared his intentions as an enemy of the US, and he didn't really make good on that fatwa until the African embassy bombings in 1998
this is all from memory and I don't have a, uh, random group of symbols you can click on to direct you to a specific web page, but you can just search Al Qaeda or Al Qaida of Al Qiada timeline and read if you care about what you post.
"If Osama attacks the U.S. again at election time, it would be suicide for him and any country harboring him."
He already got away with it once. What's to stop him from getting away with it again? Not Bush. He's in bed with the Bin Ladens.
I'll tell you what "Osama's" attack will be:
The implementation of National Security Presidential Directive 51:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05...
Funny how you glossed over this ...
"It would have been possible to eliminate Osama bin Laden, specifically between 1998 and 2001, in the time before Sept. 11. We had agents on site at the time, and they gave (former President Bill) Clinton the chance to strike three times."
But, being the horn dog putz Bill Clinton truly is, he fumbled every time and gave us 9/11. That is the true, failed legacy of Bill Clinton.