Black Box OBL

[Laodicean]

.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/ma ... istan-deal

Osama bin Laden mission agreed in secret 10 years ago by US and Pakistan


US forces were given permission to conduct unilateral raid inside Pakistan if they knew where Bin Laden was hiding, officials say

Declan Walsh in Islamabad
guardian.co.uk, Monday 9 May 2011 19.06 BST



The deal was struck between Pervez Musharraf and George Bush in 2001 and renewed during the 'transition to democracy' – a six-month period from February 2008 when Musharraf was still president but a civilian government had been elected. Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters

The US and Pakistan struck a secret deal almost a decade ago permitting a US operation against Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil similar to last week's raid that killed the al-Qaida leader, the Guardian has learned.

The deal was struck between the military leader General Pervez Musharraf and President George Bush after Bin Laden escaped US forces in the mountains of Tora Bora in late 2001, according to serving and retired Pakistani and US officials.

Under its terms, Pakistan would allow US forces to conduct a unilateral raid inside Pakistan in search of Bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the al-Qaida No3. Afterwards, both sides agreed, Pakistan would vociferously protest the incursion.

"There was an agreement between Bush and Musharraf that if we knew where Osama was, we were going to come and get him," said a former senior US official with knowledge of counterterrorism operations. "The Pakistanis would put up a hue and cry, but they wouldn't stop us."

The deal puts a new complexion on the political storm triggered by Bin Laden's death in Abbottabad, 35 miles north of Islamabad, where a team of US navy Seals assaulted his safe house in the early hours of 2 May.

Pakistani officials have insisted they knew nothing of the raid, with military and civilian leaders issuing a strong rebuke to the US. If the US conducts another such assault, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani warned parliament on Monday, "Pakistan reserves the right to retaliate with full force."

Days earlier, Musharraf, now running an opposition party from exile in London, emerged as one of the most vocal critics of the raid, terming it a "violation of the sovereignty of Pakistan".

But under the terms of the secret deal, while Pakistanis may not have been informed of the assault, they had agreed to it in principle.

A senior Pakistani official said it had been struck under Musharraf and renewed by the army during the "transition to democracy" – a six-month period from February 2008 when Musharraf was still president but a civilian government had been elected.

Referring to the assault on Bin Laden's Abbottabad compound, the official added: "As far as our American friends are concerned, they have just implemented the agreement."

The former US official said the Pakistani protests of the past week were the "public face" of the deal. "We knew they would deny this stuff."

The agreement is consistent with Pakistan's unspoken policy towards CIA drone strikes in the tribal belt, which was revealed by the WikiLeaks US embassy cables last November. In August 2008, Gilani reportedly told a US official: "I don't care if they do it, as long as they get the right people. We'll protest in the National Assembly and then ignore it."

As drone strikes have escalated in the tribal belt over the past year, senior civilian and military officials issued pro forma denunciations even as it became clear the Pakistani military was co-operating with the covert programme.

The former US official said that impetus for the co-operation, much like the Bin Laden deal, was driven by the US. "It didn't come from Musharraf's desire. On the Predators, we made it very clear to them that if they weren't going to prosecute these targets, we were, and there was nothing they could do to stop us taking unilateral action.

"We told them, over and again: 'We'll stop the Predators if you take these targets out yourselves.'"

Despite several attempts to contact his London office, the Guardian has been unable to obtain comment from Musharraf.

Since Bin Laden's death, Pakistan has come under intense US scrutiny, including accusations that elements within Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence helped hide the al-Qaida leader.

On Sunday, President Barack Obama said Bin Laden must have had "some sort of support network" inside Pakistan.

"We don't know whether there might have been some people inside of government, outside of government, and that's something we have to investigate," Obama said.

Gilani has stood firmly by the ISI, describing it as a "national asset", and said claims that Pakistan was "in cahoots" with al-Qaida were "disingenuous".

"Allegations of complicity or incompetence are absurd," he said. "We didn't invite Osama bin Laden to Pakistan."

Gilani said the army had launched an investigation into how Bin Laden managed to hide inside Pakistan. Senior generals will give a briefing on the furore to parliament next Friday.

Gilani paid lip-service to the alliance with America and welcomed a forthcoming visit from the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, but pointedly paid tribute to help from China, whom he described as "a source of inspiration for the people of Pakistan".
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2011

All this deal requires is a secret codicil NOT TO KNOW.

Comment on DU thread where I found this:

Look how carefully phrased that one sentence is:
"There was an agreement between Bush and Musharraf that if we knew where Osama was, we were going to come and get him," said a former senior US official with knowledge of counterterrorism operations.

Could have been a Post-it note on Condoleeza Rice's desk. Because if we stopped looking for Osama bin Laden, as it appears we did, then we wouldn't be able to go get him, now would we?

In the meantime they could keep a nice friendly eye on the fellow, down the street from the Pakistani version of West Point, and Osama bin Laden could come out and campaign for the Republican Party every couple of years.

Nice arrangement, no?

Bin Laden Sons Say U.S. Violated International Law

WASHINGTON — The adult sons of Osama bin Laden have lashed out at President Obama over their father’s death, accusing the United States of violating its basic legal principles by killing an unarmed man, shooting his family members and disposing of his body in the sea.

The statement said the family was asking why the leader of Al Qaeda “was not arrested and tried in a court of law so that truth is revealed to the people of the world.” Citing the trials of Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic, the statement questioned “the propriety of such assassination where not only international law has been blatantly violated,” but the principles of presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial were ignored.

“We maintain that arbitrary killing is not a solution to political problems,” the statement said, adding that “justice must be seen to be done.”

More at NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/world ... laden.html

[8bitagent]

Three interesting news stories:

1. Obama was prepared to have SEALS militarily fight Pakistani troops and police if they encountered resistance before, after or during the raid.
I'm thinking, if that had happen...we'd have a wayyy different narrative now(the fact Obama was willing to do that shows how ill advised he is)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp ... 3#42979845

2.

FBI claims ISI masterminded the 2008 Mumbai attack, but Bush connected lawfirms are fighting on behalf of Pakistan against the lawsuit...not because of claims of innocence, but because they feel it will add more fuel to the growing rhetoric against Pakistan by the West(isnt that the point?)

I notice Bush neocons are defending Pakistan against accusations they hid bin Laden or have ties to the Taliban and al Qaeda. Karl Rove was on with Bill O'reilly, saying there was no evidence that the ISI is in any way even connected to the Taliban

The lawsuit, filed late last year in U.S. federal court in New York by American family members of the victims and one survivor of Mumbai, is based in large part on evidence developed by the FBI linking the ISI to the operatives of the Lashkar e Taiba terror group who are charged with conducting the operation.

The lawsuit charges that the ISI provided “critical planning, material support, control and coordination” of the Mumbai attacks under the leadership of its director general, Ahmed Shuja Pasha, and his predecessor, Nadeem Taj. This allegedly included providing funding to David Coleman Headley, a Pakistani American who has pleaded guilty in federal court to conducting surveillance for the Mumbai attacks under the direction of an ISI case officer, whom he identified only as “Major Iqbal.”

But U.S. lawyers for the ISI are now moving to quash the lawsuit, arguing that if the case proceeds, it “will fuel violence and extremism” that will threaten the Pakistani government and pour “gasoline on the fire” of relations between Pakistan and India.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42980653/ns ... nd_courts/

The article also mentions that most the deaths of US troops killed these days in Afghanistan is by the Haqqani network, which many agree are controlled by the ISI

And then this article:

3.
bin Laden's sons saying killing was illegal, saying he should have been put on trial like Slobo or Saddam
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42982290/ns ... ork_times/

[Stephen Morgan]

3.
bin Laden's sons saying killing was illegal, saying he should have been put on trial like Slobo or Saddam
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42982290/ns ... ork_times/

Yes, he was murdered. We got his girl and his gun. Well, his wounded wife (he had others) and his water pistol.

[norton ash]

When they kick out your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head, or on the trigger of your gun?

[8bitagent]

3.
bin Laden's sons saying killing was illegal, saying he should have been put on trial like Slobo or Saddam
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42982290/ns ... ork_times/

Yes, he was murdered. We got his girl and his gun. Well, his wounded wife (he had others) and his water pistol.

It's funny, the only photo I've seen shows one of the dead body guards lying next to a child's toy watergun.

Chris Matthews was joining in with the usual MSNBC spookery agent club having a good celebratory gloating episode yesterday, but had to ask "was there any contingency to arrest bin Laden" and the "former" CIA guys said something like "Seals aren't in the business of making arrests" and Matthews just laughed and said fair enough.

Aside from Maddow covering gay rights and Bradley Manning, sometimes criticizing Obama for Orwellian stuff....it seems like MSNBC is just as big a proponent of Pentagon/CIA propaganda as Fox.
Im so freaking sick of Evan Kohlman, that smug smarmy "terrorism expert", and the rest of the msnbc spook patrol on there. Though, for some reason I like Richard Engle in a borderline gay kind of way

[Nordic]

Go to 4:39 on this video, and Rachel Maddow will make you gag.

She might as well be Karl Rove when she says what she says.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-m ... hel-maddow

[Stephen Morgan]

3.
bin Laden's sons saying killing was illegal, saying he should have been put on trial like Slobo or Saddam
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42982290/ns ... ork_times/

Yes, he was murdered. We got his girl and his gun. Well, his wounded wife (he had others) and his water pistol.

It's funny, the only photo I've seen shows one of the dead body guards lying next to a child's toy watergun.

That was the allusion, along with some vaguely remembered statement about Aristotle Onassis taking JFK's girl and his gun, apparently some sort of tradition in gangland.

Not sure he was really a bodyguard, though, only sure he's dead.

Aside from Maddow covering gay rights and Bradley Manning, sometimes criticizing Obama for Orwellian stuff....it seems like MSNBC is just as big a proponent of Pentagon/CIA propaganda as Fox.
Im so freaking sick of Evan Kohlman, that smug smarmy "terrorism expert", and the rest of the msnbc spook patrol on there. Though, for some reason I like Richard Engle in a borderline gay kind of way

The loyal opposition.

[Canadian_watcher]

It's funny, the only photo I've seen shows one of the dead body guards lying next to a child's toy watergun.

I saw it and remember that the toy looked oddly out of place ie blood not right around it or something to that effect. could easily be off my rocker though

[Stephen Morgan]

It's funny, the only photo I've seen shows one of the dead body guards lying next to a child's toy watergun.

I saw it and remember that the toy looked oddly out of place ie blood not right around it or something to that effect. could easily be off my rocker though

Well, it had a dead man's bullet-riddled skull resting on it. I mean, that makes a brightly coloured plastic children's toy look somewhat out of place.

[JackRiddler]

gotta steal this:

http://www.timesleader.com/FwBp/rotator/Expert-bin-Ladens-DNA-results-are-inconsistent-.html

A Fort Worth DNA expert says that no results from DNA samples from Osama bin Laden’s body after he was killed in a U.S. raid on his hideout in Pakistan have been disclosed by U.S. government officials and that any media reports about the DNA are inaccurate.
Bruce Budowle is a local DNA expert and professor in the University of North Texas Health Health Science Center’s Department of Forensic and Investigative Genetics, and executive director of the Institute of Investigative Genetics.

Budowle made a splash last week when he was quoted in national media as an expert in DNA – and he said bin Laden’s DNA case has not been reported well.
“Given what I’ve seen so far, there have been some inconsistencies in what’s been presented, and the reason for that is unknown at this time,” he said last week during an interview with the Business Press.

Budowle, who worked for the FBI in its forensic science laboratory for 26 years and assisted in identifying victims of the 9/11 attacks, said the media have only speculated about DNA evidence, but no accurate information has been presented.

“It could be because someone made a mistake in the beginning, or someone’s not telling stuff or the media misinterpreted, but it’s all speculation at this point,” Budowle said.
The DNA test results that were reported also were inconsistent values, he said.
“We’ve heard that it’s from his sister in Boston, that’s one explanation, and someone else said he only has a half sister and not a full sister, yet they had a 99.99 percent certainty. That alone says there was something done to the calculations,” he said.

But if officials did need bin Laden’s DNA to confirm that it was his body the U.S. team brought out of Pakistan, they could get it quickly, Budowle said. “In crime labs it can take a lot longer of a time frame, but in theory, if you just had one single mission, and you’re making a comparison, it can probably be done in a few hours,” he said

DNA testing can increase the chances of accurately identifying an individual by using a large number of genetic markers, such as from blood or a cheek swab.
“If you have a sample from the individual from years before and it is a direct comparison, you can have a very, very high probability, like 99.9 percent. However, if you are comparing indirectly and do not have a sample from the individual but comparing to a relative, you’re only getting partial information, so the power is reduced unless you have a lot of relatives,” Budowle said. The more family members one has to compare to an individual’s DNA, the better the result for identification.

Many speculate if officials do have a direct sample of DNA from bin Laden, or if they have an indirect sample of DNA from a family member to compare the results. “That’s where the problem comes in. Right now, anything is just speculation or at best misunderstood,” he said. Budowle said he did not know what officials used to compare DNA results for bin Laden, but speculated that they used the standard routine genetic markers first, which are used in most crime labs. Bin Laden’s DNA test results also depend on what family member was used. “I think there’s a lot of confusion so far on what has been conveyed,” he said.

According to administration officials, facial recognition software was also used to help identify bin Laden’s body. “They both can be very accurate, but given the pool of candidates, it may be one is better in one situation than another,” Budowle said.

Accuracy and probability are two large factors when comparing DNA results. “Probability is not accuracy, because something can be very accurate but the result may not give you a high probability for certainty for identity,” he said. If officials do have bin Laden’s DNA, then it probably would be used for further studies, possibly to see whether it shows up in any other evidence, such as explosive devices or in other terrorists attacks.

“My guess is that you would be unlikely see his [DNA] because it didn’t look like he was active himself. He seemed to use others to do the work, so the chances of his DNA leading us to other cases may be remote,” Budowle said.

[JackRiddler]

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/ ... ps.01.html

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: So, what is the story behind Bin Laden's death? What are the consequences?

Joining me now is one of America's great spy masters, Michael Hayden. Hayden was director of the National Security Agency on 9/11, and later was the head of the CIA. He's worked under Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama.

Welcome, Michael Hayden.

HAYDEN: Thanks very much, Fareed.

ZAKARIA: So you took news of this courier in to President Bush many years ago, right?

HAYDEN: We did. I think it was about four years ago, in 2007. We - we had built up sufficient lead information on the name of the courier that we thought it was ready for presidential primetime. So we briefed it to the president, not as something eminent but as our most promising lead to track down Bin Laden because, frankly, Fareed, the trail had been quite cold for a - a long period of time.

ZAKARIA: And why had it been cold, General? Because you had these huge bounties out on his head, and one of the things that people used to always say to me in the region was, gosh, this guy must inspire fanatical devotion and loyalty. The Americans are willing to pay $25 million and nobody turns up to - to claim the reward.

HAYDEN: Yes. Well, a - a couple of thoughts on that.

Clearly, he was concerned with his own operational security. Those people who knew where he was was a very small group of folks. $25 million translates very well into an American or European context. Frankly, Fareed, we learned that those kinds of numbers really don't have the same kind of meaning in the - in the tribal region of Pakistan.

And, most importantly, he went off the grid. And by that I mean the - the telecommunications and electronic grid, which has been a very powerful tool for us for such a long period of time. And it was - it was that absence from electronic communications that convinced us we know he's communicating. He must be doing it through human beings. We need to find and follow the couriers. And that was the hypothesis with which we went into this four years ago or so.

ZAKARIA: So this is classic human intelligence? You had people on the ground. They talked to people. They developed relationships. Is that right?

HAYDEN: It is. But it also came out of detainee interrogations.

One - one of the more prominent leads we had at the beginning of this exercise was partial identity information that came out of detainees that we were holding in our so-called black sites. And then, from that point, we used all the tools of intelligence.

I can't go into detail, but, I can assure you, it was signals intelligence and imagery intelligence and human intelligence that allowed us to build this. And - and Fareed, this wasn't done one brick at a time. This was actually done one pebble at a time. This is classic analytic work.

ZAKARIA: Tell us for a moment about that issue of interrogation, because, you know, there's something of a debate here about whether the extraordinary methods, the ones that have aroused so much controversy, that people like Colin Powell and John McCain came out against, were those methods crucial to getting information that has led to Bin Laden?

HAYDEN: Well, let me put it to you this way, Fareed. First of all, I'm proud to be a citizen of a country that feels it needs to debate these kinds of issues. But, as we debate them, the debate has to be fact-based. And the lead information I referred to a few minutes ago did come from CIA detainees, against whom enhanced interrogation techniques have been used, not to elicit specific bits of information, but move them from their initial air of defiance into a zone of cooperation.

So the facts of the matter are people against whom we used these interrogation techniques provided us at least one of the strings of information that led to last weekend's events.

ZAKARIA: There are people who say, though, that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the - kind of - one of the chiefs, one of the planners of 9/11, perhaps the chief planner, denied even knowing the courier. And actually that's what tipped some of the interrogators off, that it wasn't some extraordinary methods.

HAYDEN: I think the actual - the actual facts are that he gave us some - some very partial lead information at the beginning. As we developed the information, we went back to him, and he and another detainee were so demonstrative - atypically demonstrative in rejecting knowledge of this individual, that that in itself turned into lead information.

And I'd have to suggest, Fareed, if - if he had not been largely cooperating with us, this would not have been anomalous behavior. And so it's all of a piece.

ZAKARIA: So tell us about these kinds of operations. Is it - is it a - was it a very risky operation? In other words, the president had to make a call between dropping a drone, which would have almost certainly killed every - killed Bin Laden, but everybody else and perhaps with very little evidence, or going in.

My - my mind goes back to Desert One, that famous case where President Carter tried to rescue the Iranian hostages, ended up in a total fiasco. For logistical reasons, a sandstorm in the desert, dirt got into the helicopters. How much do you - would you have worried about those issues when - when deciding to go for a human operation here?

HAYDEN: I would have been very worried, and I know my - my friends at the agency were - were very worried. But - but frankly, Fareed, this - this was a courageous choice on the part of the president. Make no mistake about it.

But, in addition to being courageous, I think it was also inevitable. This was the very best chance we had to kill or capture this target. The president had choices, and it made more difficult because even as those helicopters were going over the wall, everything we had on this facility, the belief that Bin Laden was there, was truly circumstantial. There were no sightings, nothing that you can point to and say, that's it. That's him.

So the president made this decision, even in the face of uncertainty. That requires some courage, but - but, frankly, I - I cannot imagine any American president not making that decision.

ZAKARIA: So you are very well acquainted with the relationship between the CIA and the ISI. You worked it, the Pakistani intelligence agency. Given all you know, is it - is it plausible to you that Osama Bin Laden was living in a fortified house, eight times the size of every other house in the - in the area, with no phone lines, all kinds of suspicious activity, and that nobody in the Pakistani military knew, even though this was happening one mile from their West Point, their Sandhurst?

HAYDEN: Right. Fareed, let me give you a professional and a - and a personal answer.

At the professional level, and frankly this is the best answer I'm going to give you, we just have to let the facts take us where they will. And now that we've got this trove of documents and electronic media from this particular building, some of those facts may be in that - that mountain of data.

On a personal level, it - it really does tug at credulity to - to think this could go on without someone - and by no means am I accusing anyone particularly, particularly at the highest levels of the Pakistani government, but it's hard to believe this could happen without someone suspecting at least what was going on there. I mean, what did the neighbors think? What was the word on the street? What did the local police chief believe? Those kinds of things. I think, in this case we have a right to know. In this case, the burden of proof is on the Pakistanis.

ZAKARIA: Finally, General, give us a sense of the consequences. So you talk about the treasure trove of documents. What do you see as the - as the most likely consequence of Osama Bin Laden's death?

HAYDEN: There are two or three things that are - that are happening, Fareed. One is the treasure trove of documents - and - and frankly, I can't remember the last time we did what's called SSE, sensitive site exploitation, against a leading al Qaeda figure. It's been years. And so this will be very, very important.

The second thing is, al Qaeda now has to go through a succession crisis. The word is out that they've got a succession plan. It's Ayman al-Zawahiri, the number two. But no plans survives contact with reality the way it was originally developed. So I'm going to enjoy watching how al Qaeda deals with this.

And then, finally, Fareed - and this is really important. Any member of the al Qaeda, particularly prospective members of al Qaeda, have to remember this mission. They're going to think about what happened here, that these Americans have great reach, have great precision, and a very long memory. That's a very powerful thing in the kind of war in which we're engaged.

ZAKARIA: You've tried to kill this man for 10 years. Personally, what does it feel like when you - what did it feel like when you heard the news?

HAYDEN: It - a bit of mixed emotion in - in the sense that I didn't know the details, and so I wanted to know more. But a - kind of the - the basic human level, it was very powerful satisfaction that we had done what we had set out to do, and that the work my old community, the intelligence community, have been working so hard on for so long was now paying off in a way in which their successes, as opposed to their failures real and imagined, are now being talked about by their countrymen.

ZAKARIA: Michael Hayden, a pleasure to have you on.

HAYDEN: Thank you very much, Fareed.

ZAKARIA: And we will be back.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[JackRiddler]

.

This article illustrates the frequent usefulness of deconstructing official stories on their own terms.

http://counterpunch.org/leupp05112011.html

May 11, 2011

"Shut Up and Move on About the Realities"
The Death of Bin Laden: a Scenario

By GARY LEUPP


The movie version, first draft.

Twenty-five heavily armored commandos descend in a two Blackhawk stealth helicopters into the valley surrounded by the scenic Sarban Hills. Lights still glitter in Abbottabad, a city of 80,000, just after midnight. The silent choppers hover momentarily over the heavily fortified compound, then land in the courtyard next to the trash incineration heap.

A lone defender fires a weapon at the SEALs from one of the buildings. Unflinching, the heroes enter and shoot him down. They blow away his wife, then blast their way through a wall to enter the main house. It’s a simple, rudimentary structure without air conditioning. An unarmed man appears on the first floor. They shoot him dead. An 18-year-old boy, also unarmed, appears on the stairway. They kill him immediately.

Bounding up the stairs past the corpse, the commandos find a 29 year old woman. She lunges at them, crying out Osama’s name. One of them shoots her in the calf. Someone binds her wrists while others climb the stairs to the fourth floor.

There they find their quarry in his pajamas, defenseless. Without hesitation, they shoot him in the chest, following up with a shot to the head that blows off half his skull. His 12-year-old daughter looks on.

In a “situation room” in the White House, the president and other top officials anxiously watch live video feeds from cameras mounted on Special Forces’ helmets, until the feed fails for 25 minutes. They do not see the death of bin Laden.

The special forces, proud and professional, quickly handcuff the 15 surviving women and children, leaving them there for Pakistanis security to detain and question. Then they gather intelligence: files, computers, video tapes, flash drives. Finally they soar into the sky in one of the stealth choppers with their precious cargo, Osama bin Laden’s bloody carcass.

This all needs to last 38 action-packed minutes, fully half of it to the intelligence-gathering.

After an appropriate musical interlude accompanying the helicopter flight over the majestic Khyber Pass we see the heroes back at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. The corpse is photographed and subjected to DNA testing. Somber-faced troops haul it onto another aircraft and fly south to the Arabian Sea. We watch a Muslim chaplain conduct a brief service before the body, wrapped in a sheet, is dropped into the water below.

I’m not really sure about what happened. The story has been altered many times in the last few days. But this is probably a realistic depiction of events.

The problem is, it doesn’t really inspire the film viewer. Maybe some would break into applause and chants of “USA! USA!” in seeing young Hamza blown away, or seeing Osama’s wife Amal crumble to the floor. But there’s no heroism here. It’s more like a horror flick.

So on to the second draft.

What this scenario needs, if it’s to get financing and become box-office hit, is an intense firefight fought inside a mansion. The Arab men should use their women as human shields, establishing their cowardice and contempt for women’s lives and highlighting the difference between Good and Evil. Fighting should continue throughout the operation, culminating with the engagement with bin Laden on the top floor. He should be reaching for his AK-47 on a table when a commando shoots him in the chest in self-defense.

In the White House, Obama and other top officials should be viewing the mission throughout, somberly following each advance.

The thing is, this is precisely the scenario originally announced. “After a firefight,” Obama announced the night of the action, “a small team of Americans with extraordinary courage…killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.” The next day John Brennan, Obama’s counter-terrorism coordinator, stated that bin Laden had been “hiding behind women who were put in front of him as a shield.” A senior defense official at a Pentagon briefing repeated the story; bin Laden “and some other male combatants on the target appeared to use—certainly did use women as shields.”

Brennan called the firefight venue “a million-dollar-plus compound.” In fact, as Bloomberg reports, “Video of the interior featured rooms with basic, inexpensive furniture. More luxurious homes in Abbottabad are listed for less than $500,000.” But in the movie the house should be elegantly furnished, with ornate Persian rugs, teak furniture, polished bronze candlesticks, a fine brass hookah, silk curtains and so on.

It was initially reported that Obama and his national security team had seen everything. “It was probably the most anxiety-filled periods of times,” said Brennan. “The minutes passed like days, and the President was very concerned about the security of our personnel.” “Those were 38 of the most intense minutes,” declared Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. For the film, best to stick to that script and leave out the 25 minute gap in the live feed.

Some other ideas for the screenplay:

Some Pakistanis should be shown secretly monitoring events, perhaps from the nearby military academy, mortified that their complicity with al-Qaeda will be revealed, and contemplating action against the U.S. forces. This will help justify the violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and make the commandos appear more heroic, since they risk engagement with local military.

The U.S. and bin Laden forces should be evenly matched to make it seem a fair fight. Some SEALs should at least be injured. Women soldiers (think of the Jessica Lynch myth) should play key roles, and there should be some African-Americans although in real life there aren’t may among the SEALs.

Osama should be wearing a bullet-proof vest, surviving the wound to his chest enough to take further threatening action. Perhaps the 12-year-old daughter, screaming, could rush to him and he could hold her close (as a human shield) forcing the heroes to blow the 6’4” Saudi’s brains out.

There should be tons of the blue pills on Osama’s bed stand. (Remember how Viagra was found in the luggage of Saddam Hussein’s son Uday, after U.S. soldiers assassinated him?) And some gay porn. (Recall how U.S. troops reported finding this in Manuel Noriega’s office?) It could be right next to an open Qur’an. A blueprint for a nuclear weapon should be laid out on the desk. And a stash of marijuana in the top drawer.

The thing is---this might very well happen. In 2002 HBO aired the television “Live from Baghdad” which featured the infamous fiction that Iraqi troops invading Kuwait in 1990 had removed prematurely born babies from incubators, leaving them to die. (The charges were made on the eve of “Operation Desert Storm” by a daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador, coached by the Hill & Knowlton advertising firm. They had been disproved over a decade earlier.) But hey, it makes for great drama.

Lies often serve the warmongering elite. From the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898 (falsely attributed to Spanish forces) that justified the Spanish-American War to the Gulf of Tonkin Incident of 1964 that justified the Vietnam War to charges of al-Qaeda ties and weapons of mass destruction that justified the invasion of Iraq in 2003, they pile on the lies. The neocons have an articulated theory about “noble lies” needed to generate public support for actions that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.

In this case, the discrepancy between the initial reports and later “corrections” has been attributed to the “fog of War.” Such a nice concept. War, you see, is so inherently confusing that misreporting is the norm. Nobody’s fault, surely. But what are we to believe happened in this case? Why was the counter-terrorism advisor so wrong? Did he misinterpret audio and visual reports from the ground? Did the sound of maybe a dozen assault rifle bursts over 20 minutes sound like a firefight? And was it not clear within hours of the episode that there had been only one instance of resistance in the first minutes of the operation?

The cynical (and not so cynical) might theorize that the initial false reporting was deliberate. Tens of millions will no doubt have been convinced forever that this was a heroic battle, and that those questioning that view are supporting the enemy. Those who peddle disinformation know that the truth will eventually come out, but by that time the purpose has been achieved. Many were ecstatic at the original version, gathering spontaneously to wave the flag and chant USA! USA! They won’t be inclined to listen to the debunkers.

Sen. John Kerry is among those with little patience for those who question and criticize. “I think those SEALs did exactly what they should have done,” he declared May 8. “And we need to shut up and move on about, you know, the realities of what happened in that building.”

Shut up and move on about the realities of what happened! In other words, agree without knowing or question that the commandos did “exactly what they should have done.” By definition, virtually.

I think of the old Beatles song: “Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream,” because this is what Kerry asks us to do. Why should we bother with “realities” when we have the psychological refuge of unthinking patriotism?

I think too of an unnamed Bush administration official’s statement to Ron Suskind on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, contemptuously dismissing “what we call the reality-based community.” These are people, the official elaborated, who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” He continued: “That’s not the way the world really works anymore. We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality, we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

That sort of sentiment remains alive and well in the Obama administration and the whole power structure. Empire creates its own realities, and wants everybody to shut up.


Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University, and holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Religion. He is the author of Servants, Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan; Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan; and Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's merciless chronicle of the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, Imperial Crusades. He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu

[JackRiddler]

.

Obviously related threads:

OSAMA BIN LADEN ANNOUNCED DEAD BY OBAMA (The big one, currently 49 pages)
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=31969

Black Box OBL (Me arguing for ISI-CIA collusion thesis in OBL death show)
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=32007

It’s All About Pakistan - America’s latest villain (Raimondo, push to blame Pakistan, perhaps even attack Pakistan)
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=32034

Truth activists/bloggers snatch defeat from jaws of victory (Hamden's critique of "OBL long-dead" approach)
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=31981

Surging Towards Disaster in the "Afpak Theatre" (selection of Afpak war developments since Feb 2009)
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=23040

.

[crikkett]

Go to 4:39 on this video, and Rachel Maddow will make you gag.

She might as well be Karl Rove when she says what she says.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-m ... hel-maddow

I thought we've all stopped watching the Daily Show.

[Nordic]

I did, but when I DVR "The Colbert Report", I get the last 7 minutes or so of The Daily Show, which immediately precedes it, and I happened to catch this little bit of nauseating chatter when I turned on The Colbert Report.

It was unfortunate, and it's yet another reason why I no longer watch TDS. But I'll share it!