Today's briefing by the presidential press secretary. The questioner, a woman, is unidentified:
Q Regarding a historical agreement between Hamas and Fatah today, and Egypt today, Prime Minister Netanyahu called this a blow -- a blow to peace and great victory for terrorism. What’s the President’s view on this statement? Do you agree with Netanyahu?
MR. CARNEY: We understand that Fatah and Hamas have reached a reconciliation agreement. What is important now is that Palestinians ensure implementation of that agreement, that its implementation advances the prospects of peace, rather than undermines those prospects. We’re continuing to seek details, more information about the nature of the agreement, and we’re consulting with the parties about these very issues. And I refer you to the Palestinians for details on the agreement because we’re still seeking them ourselves.
Q But many people think that without solving Palestine issue, terrorist activities will not disappear in that region. Do you agree?
MR. CARNEY: We certainly agree that it’s imperative for the parties involved to sit down and negotiate a lasting peace. And the President has made that clear and he continues to believe that’s necessary.
Carney, State, and the White House all agree that they are paying the American people lip service. The US government is run by Zionists, anyway. It’s no wonder Congress issues pro-Israel resolutions faster than the Israeli Knesset itself. And it is no wonder that the yahoo has already stated today that Israel does not negotiate with the “Palestinian al-Qaeda”, he called Hamas. All thanks to Obama and the juvenile American orgy over the killing of some geriatric idiot dragging along a dialysis machine.
Carter lured the USSR to Afghanistan in order to bankrupt that superpower. Bin Laden lured the US into Afghanistan in order to bankrupt the empire. It’s amazing how history repeats itself.
Meanwhile, Obama is capitalizing — politically — on 9/11. He’s planning on meeting a few widows who lost their husbands on that day, milking a tragedy for all its worth. It’s a circle jerk of magnificent proportions.
It’s no different than the pathetic attempts to revive the memory of the Holocaust every once in a while, 60 years later to milk it for all the public relations it has to offer Israel. The Holocaust continues to be used for Israel’s own criminal policies, much in the same way 9/11 continues to be used to perpetuate the useless and deceptive “War on Terrorism”…..And the sheeple follow like idiots.
Boy Avi you can be harsh. Leaving aside the truth in your broadside, it is still significant what was said in that exchange.
Avi,
I can’t believe how easily people are buying into the official narrative regarding OBL and the operation by the US. Pakistani media, analysts and intelectuals have dubbed this as the weapons of mass deception.
This is the excuse that will culiminate in the US trying to get rid of Pakistan’s nuclear capability.
The media there is asking how did foreign helicopters get into the heart of Pakistan without the military knowing? It’s just not possible. As soon as an airplane enters into Pakistani territory, doesn’t identify itself, military planes are up in the air in seconds following it, and if need be are given the orders to shoot it down. Keeping that in mind, the US is saying no intelligence was shared, while Pakistan is saying intelligence was shared.
WTF is going on?!?
I predict escalating tensions and war on Pakistan. Somone is unhappy with Pakistan’s nuclear capability. Pakistan is not a threat to any country, other than India and vice versa.
When Pakistan declared nuclear capability, it wasn’t dubbed as the “pakistani bomb,” it was dubbed as the “Muslim bomb.” It was seen as a strategic win for the “Muslim” world.
Someone tell me again, this isn’t a war on Islam?
Q: As soon as an airplane enters into Pakistani territory, doesn’t identify itself, military planes are up in the air in seconds following it, and if need be are given the orders to shoot it down.
R: Where was Pak. when we went into Af.? Right, we went into AF, because NOR didn’t act when something penetrated US AS to prevent US from going after OBL in AF, despite our funding D.M. in Pak.
How’s that for M-speak?
Too bad they really, really, really tried so hard to capture OBL.., he might have had the cure to heal cancer…
Lets make a full circle-jerk on this one. If those planes were able to fly for over almost one hour and a half without the ‘usual’ treatment, inside hotdamn US airspace, we could use the same strategy to kill OBL fo the 10th time…
“As soon as an airplane enters into Pakistani territory, doesn’t identify itself, military planes are up in the air in seconds following it, and if need be are given the orders to shoot it down.”
Where were the US military planes on 9/11? Should have been there in seconds, no?
link to oilempire.us
Antidote, I was thinking the same thing. Maybe those US miliary planes were redirected the same as they were when the USS Liberty was attacked and Johnson found out it was Israel who attacked, and not for example Egypt.
It makes sense that you would believe that the US perpetrated 9/11 and that the Israelis attacked the Liberty. Perfect sense.
“It makes sense that you would believe that the US perpetrated 9/11 and that the Israelis attacked the Liberty. Perfect sense.”
hophmi, are you insinuating that Israel didn’t attack the Liberty?
I haven’t been on this site long enough to know who’s being sarcastic, so help me out here. There’s no question that the Israelis torpedoed the USS Liberty during the Six Day War. The Israelis claim that they mistook the vessel for an Egyptian ship, and in some sense the incident is closed, but the official account leaves a lot to be desired.
well, my point was that the official account of 9/11 leaves a lot to be desired as well, and is full of contradictions, including the official blaming of the late OBL, now safely chained in the bottomless pit, as the mastermind of the operation. I make no claim to know who did it, or how it was done
No hedgehog, there’s no question that the Israelis torpedoed the USS Liberty. The debate here is over whether the Israelis did it purposely or whether it was accidental.
This site is unfortunately the kind of place where people will twist your words into something you clearly don’t mean unless you are super precise, like you’re addressing a classroom of kindergarten students.
There has long been a theory, promoted by pro-Palestinian propagandists and some of the survivors of the ship who are understandably angry about what happened, that the Israelis did this purposely. No hard evidence exists to support this point of view; all of it is contingent on disputed details of what happened.
link to en.wikipedia.org
Michael Oren’s book, Six Days of War, used newly classified documents to examine it in detail. Most historians, from across the political spectrum, have concluded that the attack was an accident and the result of some negligence on Israel’s part, but was not malicious. That, at least, is the view of the US State Department and historians such as Charles Smith, who represents perhaps the harshest mainstream critique of Israeli action during the incident.
The USS Liberty is one of those things where your viewpoint has more to do with politics than with facts; people who are pro-Palestinian generally believe it was deliberate and malicious because it is politically expedient to suggest that Israelis would purposely kill American soldiers.
This is neither here nor there, but I don’t really find the premise that the military “should have been there in seconds” plausible. The USA (fortunately!) is not regularly attacked by suicidal hijackers; it is impossible to be “ready” for something like 9-11. Even with the benefit of hindsight, the FAA is sometimes literally asleep.
Hophmi, if you think commenting here is like addressing “kindergarten students,” why bother?
I am unfamiliar with Charles Smith’s views on this matter, but the quote of his that keeps appearing online is “if they didn’t know, they didn’t try hard enough to find out”; that hardly sounds as though he’s concluded that it was an “accident.”
Do you really think that US intelligence expert James Bamford is motivated more by political expediency than by facts?
In any case, I’m not sure what the point is of debating whether the Israelis intentionally or accidentally attacked a US vessel 44 years ago since so much about the incident remains classified and since the US government has more-or-less closed the matter. As tragic as the attack was, it is a footnote in the war that begot the occupation.
False. Do you actually know something about this subject?
There are guidelines/procedures in place for dealing with situations of lost contact with planes and suspected hijackings. These standard procedures were activated on 67 occasions in the period from September 2000 to June 2001 (FAA news release, 8/9/02; AP, 8/13/02); and in 129 cases in the year 2000 (see, Calgary Herald, 10/13/01).
The figures above were also released by FAA and NORAD officials to the press in 2002.
And by the way, (1) our military and CIA were running joint drills where planes were hijacked and crashed into buildings; and (2) George W. Bush had to spend part of a G8 summit on high alert because of a credible threat of planes crashing into his location, prior to September 2001.
We have a trillion dollar military that has reacted to odd circumstances with planes for many years and your position is basically that they’re asleep at the wheel. When a plane loses contact or is suspected of being hijacked that immediately becomes a military issue, not strictly FAA. Your comment is uninformed and misleading at best.
Do some research before you post here. The caliber of the participants in these Mondoweiss debates is obviously much higher than what you’re used to.
Michael Oren’s book was just Israeli propaganda. Read Finklestein’s review of it. Similarly, anybody who reads the wiki account of the USS Liberty incident objectively will not agree with hophmi’s comment. The Chicago Tribune article referred to in wiki, which is the most recent assessment of the incident with the most recent records available to my immediate knowledge, makes it much more clear than not that the attack was not an accident, but deliberate. Americans need not be pro-Palestinian to conclude from the available evidence aggregate that the Israelis attacked the USS Liberty on purpose. They need only be concerned about the mass murder of Americans by a foreign state, Israel, and the American government’s own cover up of the matter and refusal to give it full hearing right down to this day.
That’s it. IDF inadvertently torpedoed the ship in self-defense, in spite of unprecedented measures to avoid the loss of innocent lives. Rather uniformly, the unprecedented measures undertaken by IDF are unprecedented in their lack of effectiveness.
Fact is that the US Government failed its responsibilities and it’s citizens on 9/11, and Israel attached the USS Liberty.
The diversions around those facts can be discussed forever. But not those facts.
“The media there is asking how did foreign helicopters get into the heart of Pakistan without the military knowing? It’s just not possible.”
Yes it’s very possible, they’ve used stealth helicopters, electronic jamming, stealth UAVs, if there is any country that has the means and technology to pull this off is the US.
Wow you guys don’t follow the news do you
link to msnbc.msn.com
Everything is a conspiracy on here, it is boring.
“Everything is a conspiracy on here, it is boring.”
That’s how I feel about comments re the threat of anti-semitism and Islamic terrorism
What does a conspiracy mean except it’s a recognition that’s it’s really hard to get information on the subject? Of course we have rare and courageous books like The Transparent Cabal. Check how M & W characterized the Israel Lobby in their book of the same name. How many here have ever tried to get info under the FOA, and then also followed up with a request to get the redacted and blacked out portions of what was given you while your hair turned gray?
Speak, Solinitzen (sic), speak.
“this isn’t a war on Islam”
It isn’t. Afghanistan sits astride pipeline routes that will bypass Iran and China. The Afghani’s religion is irrelevant. They could be Amish. But they’re Muslim. So what? We can believe whatever we like.
The multinational oil companies, backed up by Western muscle, must control the flow of this most precious commodity. What do they care what you worship or fail to worship?
Bin Ladin’s new death and the events surrounding it are suspect but the reason and timing behind it is unclear. It’s too early to assure an Obama re-election, so why now and what’s up America’s sleeve that’s about to be popped on us? Whatever for, it’s setting of the stage for something big since it gives Obama a free pass to do something questioanable. Maybe Iran; Israeli planes landing in Iraq may be a hint to something along those lines .
Gee, I agree with the first three commenters here, Avi, ToivoS, and Walid.
And, now, I will chime in with some more information regarding the reason and timing behind BL’s death and the events surrounding it–apparently, the US has known where BL was since 2005 and Wikileaks
show this now: link to counterpunch.org
re timing.
I don’t know whether this has been mentioned already, but I noticed dozens of tweets last Sunday night pointing out that both Hitler and OBL died on May 1st. Nice touch/symbolism, linking the the WOT to the ‘good war’. Brace yourself for the nasty post-war/occupation period and re-education of Arabs to turn them into the right kind of democrats (pro-American, catering to the Empire)
Walid,
Saudi Arabia gave Pakistan the nod to hand us osama on a silver platter.
Osama’s death is a part of a nefarious deal struck between Saudi Arabia and USA. The Saudis, now with the gratitude and dedicated help of usa, will spend the rest of the year doing what they need to do to assert it’s floundering hegemony in the region.
Every move made currently by the house of saud and obama is about REPRESSION AND SABOTAGE OF THE ARAB SPRING.
Taxi, it wasn’t Bin Ladin. The US made a spectacle of Saddam, his hair, his unshaven face, his bad teeth, his day in court and his hanging. For Bin Ladin, none of those things but a super quick dumping of the body at sea after a quasi-instant DNA test and results. I’m guessing the guy’s been dead for about 8 or 9 years but resuscitated by Bush whenever he needed him to sell something or other to the American public. Obama has taken a page from Bush’s how-to book.
About the Saudis, Americans and the folkloric “Arab Spring”, it seems that in every Arab country, the masses are allowed to aspire for a better life, except for Bahrain. Why is that?
Bahrain is the new Palestine :-(
re: Osama, well I dunno what the heck be going on but his death sure stinks of fish.
And I believe that evil politicians now are purposely creating foggy info/situations specifically to create one million conspiracy theories – just so they had hide their corrupt and diabolical actions amidst infinite probabilities.
I need to correct something I’ve been dumping around this site. Namely:
I read the White House transcript in full. Tony Snow later helps Cheney remember that he meant Saddam Hussein and not Osama bin Laden in the quote above, which Cheney thanks Snow for reminding him of.
So, I stand corrected. At least, I stand confused.
Q: So, I stand corrected. At least, I stand confused.
R: Well, dear Sir or Madam, you should stand fully erected [no pun intended] to show, and amplify all of your patriotic feelings for/toward our team-6 USA!
USA! USA! USA!
Feel proud for ‘our’ ability to be able to kill a single man [and some other people hanging around]. We taught the ME and SE-Asia quite something didn’t we?
No need for a repeat of 1660′s [A.D.] ‘Habeas Corpus’ enactment ,based upon the missing of a corpse.
Get what you want, kill whatever you want, invade whatever you want and we’re just that little more joined at the hip with that other shining example of democracy or dictatorship in the ME.
Do not, I repeat, do not question our ulterior motive/s. We wanted to capture OBL, but he threw women at us [human shields in rooms he wasn't present] and then went for his ID.
Based upon his unprepared and non-rehearsed re-/actions we decided to opt for the NYPD approach to pump a few bullets in him and ask question later, after we dumped his body in the Ocean [in accordance with Islamic religious sensitivities - as you remember Saddam's sons - buried 11 days after we 'nailed' them, and Saddam's hanging being broadcasted almost live on the WW], but above all, not to switch our laptops on during the ‘Real Deal With Bill McNeil.’
See our ‘in-/actions’ and true horror @ link to whatreallyhappened.com
my memory of the script in development at the time is that it was alleged that al-qaeda operatives were meeting representatives of saddam’s government in prague prior to 9-11. of course, cheney can say whatever the f*ck he wants, contradicting previous statements made by him, or the objective facts, with impunity.
as far as the ‘discovery’ of bin laden, or whomever, is concerned, an al -queda operative was picked up in abbottabad in january of this year (umar patek, a suspect in the 2002 bali bombing), and former president musharaf has stated that his government had intelligence regarding an al qaeda safe house in abbottabad in 2004 (he also reported, curiously, that when in abbottabad his usual ‘jog’ takes him past the BL compound site), so it beggers the imagination that the ISI/CIA learned of BL’s presence there recently. it also turns out that BL was not armed, did not use anyone as a ‘human shield’, did have ‘escape’ plans (including money and documents sewn into his clothing), and, so, wasn’t intent on dying a martyr’s death, etc.
“So, I stand corrected. At least, I stand confused.”
MRW, since Saddam had nothing to do with it, what proof was provided that Bin Ladin did? The US has been picking up a lot of Israel’s bad habits and it’s regrettable that such a great country has to stoop to assassinating people that haven’t been tried and convicted. We have gotten used to seeing it done by the vile Israel because this is what vile countries do. But it’s very disappointing to see America doing it. For all we know, maybe the job was subcontracted to Israel.
About the probability of the job being subbed to Israel, just picked up this piece of a couple of days back by Richard Silverstein:
“… If Bin Laden resisted violently I would have no problem with his killing. If he resisted passively, there surely are ways to disable someone without killing them as they did his wife, who they shot in the leg but did not kill.
In the situation of Israeli targeted killings and anti-terror operations, the victims are often killed either in bed or unarmed. While there is always a claim that violent resistance was offered, the evidence often does not support this. That is why the Bin Laden operation is beginning to sound suspiciously like an IDF one.
I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that this was simply an execution, not an apprehension. And that it was always intended to be an execution, contrary to what the government told us when they said they were prepared to capture him if he didn’t resist violently.”
for the rest of it:
link to richardsilverstein.com
“And the President has made that clear and he continues to believe that’s necessary.”
But with Dennis Ross, Clinton etc always negotiating for Israel nothing is changing
Former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden unit Micheal Scheuer on the Diane Rehm show yesterday. He brought up how Israels illegal activity continues to undermine US National Security. Brought it up several times. No one said anything. Not even Diane. She was silent.
link to thedianerehmshow.org
the transcript for the show where Scheuer brings up US support for Israel
REHM
10:43:58
And do you think that will happen early on?
MACGREGOR
10:44:01
Well, I think — well, listen, you started out, Diane, by reminding everybody of what Carl Levin was saying and others. And I think that there are a number of politicians who’ve been looking for the cover to extract forces from Afghanistan, as well as Iraq. And I think this will now begin, but I don’t think it will happen quickly.
REHM
10:44:17
All right. To Lanham, Md. Good morning, Tee (sp?). Thanks for joining us.
TEE
10:44:24
Good morning, Diane. You took my call. And, first of all, my comment is I thank you so much, and I thank God bin Laden really got killed because he was trying to build on different things. And I believe all the Muslim and the non-Muslim, really, some of them really believe that it’s a blessing from God that bin Laden got killed because bin Laden made the Muslim really look so ugly, bad and good put on the same basket. So I don’t see the reason why people really are trying to (word?) on bin Laden. The man really don’t like democracy and everything. It’s not good for him to be in this world, really.
REHM
10:45:11
All right. Michael Scheuer.
SCHEUER
10:45:14
Well, I, you know — I think there are different feelings about bin Laden in the Muslim world. Some people hate him. Some people love him. The fact of the matter was, in terms of historical personages, he was a great man. He affected, certainly, negatively, American life more than anyone in the last 50 years. And for the presidents to keep repeating it, as did Mr. Bush, that we are not at war with Islam is — it sounds very, very good. But increasing numbers of Muslims are at war with us and our allies.
SCHEUER
10:45:50
And I think it’s extraordinarily good that bin Laden was killed. But to think that as long as we support the Israelis, as long as we’re the protectors of the Saudi police state, as long as we have troops on Muslim territory, that this war is going to end or we’re going to stop being the main recruitment tool for the Islamists, I think that’s a stretch.
REHM
10:46:13
And to Southfield, Mich. Good morning, Bob. Thanks for joining us.
BOB
10:46:19
Thank you. There was a rumor going around at one time that bin Laden had serious kidney illness. He was undergoing dialysis. I’m wondering if one of your panelists could put that to rest. And I’d also been wondering, given his lack of communication with the outside world, communicating through couriers as he was, how effectively could he had been leading anything from there?
REHM
10:46:44
Michael Hirsh.
HIRSH
10:46:44
Yeah, it’s a good question. There were credible reports that he had kidney problems, that he needed dialysis. It was one — you know, right after 9/11, there were questions about how long he could stay in the caves he was disputatively hiding in. We have not had any information as yet in terms of what was removed from the compound, whether that included a dialysis machine or, really, what was the state of his health. And, yes, we had reports going back to 2006, 2007, that he was really no longer in operational command of al-Qaida, that Ayman Zawahiri, his chief deputy, was more or less running things, and that he, you know, would continue to issue these audio and occasional videos, but that was about it.
HIRSH
10:47:34
So we don’t — I think it is believed that he was not in direct command, particularly since we knew that al-Qaida had evolved to a decentralized organization in which Internet preachers — like Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born cleric, who’s holed up in Yemen — were sort of issuing their own Fatahs on the net.
REHM
10:47:54
And here’s an email from Newport News, Va., that says, “The global war on terror is not over. I’m not sure what the response is going to be, but I am sure it will be unpleasant.” Col. Macgregor.
MACGREGOR
10:48:14
Well, your caller is right. One, you know, Michael Scheuer did a good job of outlining all of the places in Africa, in the Middle East, where al-Qaida’s adherence or supporters are operating. He neglected to mention Latin America, where we’ve seen a significant increase in the numbers of jihadists there. And we know that many, many, many have passed over our porous borders inside the United States. We just don’t know precisely where they are, how many, because we don’t capture most of them. So I think your caller is right.
MACGREGOR
10:48:43
The question that’s really important is how do you deal with this? And my point has been, for a very long time, you don’t deal with it by marching in with hundreds of thousands of troops and occupying other people’s countries. That’s a disaster. You don’t deal with it by pouring trillions of dollars into failed societies, expecting to change them overnight. You’ve got to be much more selective about what you do. Look at the instruments of power that you have. And ensure that if you are going to kill someone, kill the right person because we’ve been killing, maiming and incarcerating hundreds of thousands of people who were never the enemy. And we have cultivated millions of enemies as a result.
REHM
10:49:21
Michael Hirsh.
HIRSH
10:49:22
Yeah, I agree. And I think that one of the untold stories here behind this successful mission is that President Obama, very quickly, upon taking office, reoriented the entire strategy, made it focus on al-Qaida and its spawn, drop the term global war on terrorism, which was all about conflating all of these various Islamist groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah, which was a way of justifying the Iraq War under the Bush administration, and had his defense and intelligence apparatus focus on getting bin Laden and the actual al-Qaida guys that attacked on 9/11. And I think that that is one of the reasons why he’s had this success.
SCHEUER
10:50:03
If I could — Diane, if I may…
REHM
10:50:03
Here’s an email from Hank, who says, “I don’t believe any photos of bin Laden should be released. It will only inflame the Muslim world. Anyone who believes that” — let’s see — “is implying the military is participating in the lie.” Michael Scheuer.
SCHEUER
10:50:27
Well, I don’t know what the answer is to this, Diane. You know, pictures would inflame the Muslim world, but they’re going to be inflamed anyway. I think the — what the president is faced here, though, is with such a complete lack of faith in the United States government by so many people in the United States, this is going to be viewed by those folks as another cover up. So I don’t — he’s in a tough place. I don’t know what he’ll do. I’d like to add, though, just on the point that was just being discussed.
REHM
10:50:54
Sure.
SCHEUER
10:50:55
I think the killing of bin Laden was, again, a worthy thing to do, but it also proves how useless it is to depend on the CIA and Special Forces to win this war. We began capturing and killing people one at a time in August of 1995, and we’ve continued to that. And all we really have as a result is a body count. We don’t have a metric of how much progress we have made. And the fact is, there is many more jihadists in the field today than there were in August 1995. So I don’t know what the answer is, but the answer is not targeted killings.
REHM
10:51:35
Here’s an interesting email from Michael, who says, “Please give the Pakistani government a break. If they did know, they certainly do not want to be seen by the Muslim world as the ones who betrayed bin Laden for pragmatic reasons. At the very least, they did not resist our efforts to kill him on their territory, and we need to be grateful for that. They still appeared to want to be our friends and are working with us.” Is that worth a lot, Col. Macgregor?
MACGREGOR
10:52:13
Well, I’m not sure it’s worth $4.2 billion a year. That’s very much open to debate. And I think that we can continue to cooperate at lower levels with people that are willing to work with us that share our views. We’ve got to understand, most of these Muslim states are not states as we understand them in the West. They’re very complex. They’re not unitary. They’re not perfectly integrated. There are many, many different actors. That’s going to be the case in the future no matter what we do.
MACGREGOR
10:52:40
You know, to follow up on Michael Scheuer, one of the issues that we might want to consider is whether or not just containing this (sounds like) bacillus is not a better solution rather than intervening everywhere. We practice containment against communism. That seems to have worked rather well. We should think about a containment strategy in the future.
REHM
10:52:57
Col. Douglas Macgregor. And you’re listening to “The Diane Rehm Show.” Let’s go now to Baltimore, Md. Alex, you’re on the air.
ALEX
10:53:11
Good morning. Quick point, I believe they should have captured bin Laden rather than kill them in terms of, you know, we have guys in Guantanamo that are supposedly, you know, third runner — third string or fourth string operatives for al-Qaida. And we torture these guys. And bin Laden, who is the mastermind, supposedly, of all this stuff, and we killed him rather than secured his — I mean, they could have used nerve gas or something to anesthetize him or the people in there and take them and interrogate them or get information, rather than kill him. Because I believe that he was, at one time, the CIA trained him, and they wanted to shut him down. And that’s why they killed him rather than captured him…
REHM
10:53:47
Michael Scheuer.
SCHEUER
10:53:48
You know, I think they made the right decision, Diane. Killing him was the way to go. That’s just the way I believe it. And if Mr. Clinton had given the CIA the same authority that he gave the SEALs in 1998, bin Laden would have been dead in 1998. So, sometimes, killing is a wonderful solution to your problem.
REHM
10:54:10
Michael Hirsh.
HIRSH
10:54:11
I don’t think you can second-guess the split-second decisions made by Navy SEAL Team Six when they went in there. And it doesn’t really matter if he was armed or not. There were a lot of means he had to harm these guys, including the possibility of a suicide vest. You simply can’t second-guess the decision that was made at that moment when they entered his room.
REHM
10:54:35
Can we ever really know until years later? I mean, you think about the Pentagon papers coming in regard to Vietnam. Can we ever really know whether the comments made after the killing are simply to protect Pakistan from perhaps being complicit in this assassination, Col. Macgregor?
MACGREGOR
10:55:04
Well, Diane, you’re right. I mean, we just don’t know.
REHM
10:55:07
We don’t.
MACGREGOR
10:55:07
And, in fact, the best history comes out anywheres between 20 and 50 years after the event.
HIRSH
10:55:14
Or sometimes a couple of hundred, if you look at the reputation of John Adams.
REHM
10:55:16
Yeah.
HIRSH
10:55:17
It is true.
REHM
10:55:18
What do you think, Michael Scheuer?
SCHEUER
10:55:23
You know, I don’t know, Diane. I really don’t. There’s a lot of truth there, that the Pakistanis are duplicitous and look after their own interests, which I think is perfectly legitimate for them to do. I’m not sure the United States government is clever enough, especially the Congress, to be conducting a disinformation campaign. So I, you know — I don’t know. We’re dependent on the Pakistanis. This thing is going to blow over. They’re going to continue to get aid. And that’s kind of the whole story, I think. They certainly are better allies than, for example, the Israelis. They’ve done far more for us in the last decade than anything the Israelis have ever done.
HIRSH
10:56:06
Well, I don’t know if I’d want to make that comparison, but it is true that they have killed a lot of terrorists, as John Brennan, the counterterrorism coordinator for Obama, said in that first briefing. And this is, again, part of the double game, and we do need them. We just simply have to keep pressuring them in the way we’ve been doing for the last 10 years.
MACGREGOR
10:56:26
Well, we need to be careful about this pressure. The presence of our forces in Afghanistan has really made it very, very difficult for the Pakistanis to simply hold their country together. They’re dealing with tens of millions of people that hate us, hate our presence, hate out influence, and they’re trying to contain that.
REHM
10:56:44
Col. Douglas Macgregor, Michael Hirsh, Michael Scheuer, thank you all so much.
HIRSH
10:56:51
Thank you.
MACGREGOR
10:56:52
Thank you.
REHM
10:56:52
And thanks for listening, all. I’m Diane Rehm.
ANNOUNCER
Hi K,
Anyone, anybody and any person, living within the borders of the United States of A-proper, who thinks Israel should be protected at all costs, should move out of here, lose their right/s to carry a passport and become a true ‘card-embracing’ neo-Mc’s.
Love this: “We’re dependent on the Pakistanis. This thing is going to blow over. They’re going to continue to get aid. And that’s kind of the whole story, I think. They certainly are better allies than, for example, the Israelis. They’ve done far more for us in the last decade than anything the Israelis have ever done.”
Yet Israel gets at least as much direct foreign aid from the US as Pakistan, where we are, after all involved in a fight with troops on the ground, and way more in indirect aid, virtually a bottomless pit for US tax dollars.
The only non-arms length relationship the US has with any foreign state is the one the US has with Israel. How much longer will this go on to the detriment of the US before Joe Doe wakes up? It’s the ultimate question for our times.
“We’re dependent on the Pakistanis. This thing is going to blow over. They’re going to continue to get aid. And that’s kind of the whole story, I think. They certainly are better allies than, for example, the Israelis. They’ve done far more for us in the last decade than anything the Israelis have ever done.”
Yes, if you’re Chas Freeman, that just about says it all. Pakistanis have sold nuclear secrets to our enemies, collaborated with the Taliban, possibly concealed the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, launched a terrorist attack in Mumbai, and served as a home to many of the extremist madrassas in the Islamic world. We trust them so much that we were not willing to tell them before launching this attack on their soil.
I agree that it will blow over, not because the Pakistanis are good allies (they clearly are not) but because they are the only ones we can work with.
Pakistan did not sell nuclear secrets to “your” enemies. A rogue scientist did. France also sold nuclear technology illegally, (or gave it for free?) to Israel. Don’t forget that. Also, what do you mean “our” enemy? Aren’t you an Israeli?
When people talk about terrorism and Pakistan, why do they forget the hundreds that have been killed in terrorist attacks inside Pakistan itself? there have been attacks on the police, on the army, on the government. Clearly, it’s not the military and the government attacking their own interests.
I seriously doubt, even with all the stealth and jamming that was used, that the Pakistan government was in total ignorance of US military presence there. They may not have known the target or the mission, but they couldn’t have been in the total dark. Just doesn’t make sense.
Pakistan has a highly porous border with Afghanistan and people come in and out of there every day in the hundreds and thousands. Knowing the terrain, and knowing the culture, it’s understandable how Osama could have escaped detection.
As for the “secret” compound, it fits very well with the surroundings. Virtually, anyone who can afford it will build high walls around their homes and property. My parents debated doing same with theirs, but then ditched the idea since they don’t live there. And expensive SUVs are not a rare sight in Abbotabad, one of the richest places in Pakistan.
IDs and finger-printing came into wide use after 9/11. It’s easy to get commit a crime and “disappear.”
If anyone’s been a good friend to the US, it’s been Pakistan, who has gone against the wishes of it’s people time and time again in order to please the US. They have gone out of their way to put into harm their own soldiers to fight America’s war on terror. On the other hand, when their own people die in terrorist attacks, nothing is really done about it. No one pursues that.
In order to be such good friends with the US, Pakistan has sold out its people.
“Pakistan did not sell nuclear secrets to “your” enemies. A rogue scientist did. ”
As I understand it, these were Pakistani secrets anyway. It is Israel that sells U.S. secrets.
And technology as Israel sold US technology to China in violation of agreements.
And Chinese have in turn sold plenty of it to Pakistan.
“I seriously doubt, even with all the stealth and jamming that was used, that the Pakistan government was in total ignorance of US military presence there. They may not have known the target or the mission, but they couldn’t have been in the total dark. Just doesn’t make sense. ”
Classified black stealth helicopters and all but they still had to fly low so the chance that the Pakistani military discovered them simply from visual reports is pretty high but still they couldn’t do anything about it, they’d be crazy if they started shooting at them. So yes, they weren’t totally in the dark, although I doubt they knew about the mission.
If you want to understand what is happening in that part of the world I highly recommend listening to what Scheuer has to say
Well, let me say, Diane, that I think that somehow we’ve missed a little bit of growth since 2001. Bin Laden had always planned not to live to see the end of the war. He had written several times and spoken about it that this would be a generational struggle. And in the last four or five years, his organization has been dispersed, whereas on 9/11, we had been facing a threat only or primarily from Pakistan in terms of planning, training and launching operations. They now have a slice of Pakistan — a slice of Afghanistan. They have a good position in Pakistan. They’re in Yemen and Somalia. They’re growing — regrowing strength in Iraq. They’re in the Levant. The Israelis say they’re in Gaza. And they’re in North Africa and Somalia.
SCHEUER
10:32:48
So the expansion of the organization, geographically, has been striking since 9/11. And I think the number — certainly, the number of jihadists in the field fighting us or the allies or other governments is much greater today than it was at 9/11. So it’s a pretty big organization with pretty big allies.
“without solving Palestine issue, terrorist activities will not disappear in that region”
Said by a questioner in the middle of a question, not by the White House. You should make that clear.
You should make that clear.
i’m not certain what you think you’re insinuating, but it’s clear to anyone who can read english and hasn’t suffered a recent traumatic head injury. the relevant portion of a transcript of the conversation, identifying the speakers, is provided below the headline in a highlighted box. d’ya see it? did anyone not see it? there, another ‘controversy’ solved.
Why, hophmi, of course it’s clear that the WH would never say such a thing. It’s been that way since Truman was literally bought off by the Jewish Zionists, and simultaneously, bought off emotionally by his own Christian Zionist Baptist upbringing. Never doubt the power of the bible freak combined with hard cash to get, or keep one powerful.
I have always considered politicians, regardless what colour or shape, to be the lowest class of the human beings. Our president lied to us, or the director of the CIA is lying, giving opposing facts about the involvement of pakistani forces in this shameful act.
According to european sources the pakistanies were not informed, they have eggs on their collective faces and have problems explaining to their people how can foreigh troops invade the country, kill several persons, and get away with all it.
How many millions of tax payers money was wasted on this action, when a sharpshooter could have done the same job. Naturally, in that case Obama would not have ww coverage and to be reelected is the only interest he has now. It seems since 2005 we knew the location where OBL was hiding, so why wait six years? Perhaps so we can continue with the war in Afghanistann and lately Pakistan?
A very influancial german journalist wrote today: “when it comes to the national interests of the USA, they will ignore the moral, international laws and human rights”!
Now I certainly do not know what interests were served with this wild, cowboy style saloon shootout, with 25 best fighters of the world on one side and an old man, several women and 25 children on the other side.
The picture of WH bosses watching the event is a disgrace to our nation.
This is how Crazy Horse was killed . There was no trial either :
link to nybooks.com
Crook and Clark met secretly with scouts and other Indians opposed to Crazy Horse and made plans to kill him that night. Crook then left for the railroad. News of the plan quickly got back to Crazy Horse, who gave his guns to a follower and spent the night waiting in his tipi armed only with a knife—surely one of the loneliest vigils in our history. Black Shawl Woman was still with him (the new wife had departed sometime before), and for bravery in extremis you have to hand it to Black Shawl Woman, too.
The endgame proceeded. The plan to kill Crazy Horse was countermanded, replaced by an order to arrest him at dawn. Sheridan intended to have him sent east on the railroad, to be imprisoned in Fort Marion, Florida. A small army of scouts rode to Crazy Horse’s camp in the morning, but he had ridden off for the Spotted Tail Agency, about thirty miles away, with Black Shawl Woman and two followers. At Spotted Tail, the agent, Lieutenant Jesse Lee, knew of the arrest order. Lee talked to Crazy Horse, who was now in a terrible mental state, and persuaded him to go back. He left Black Shawl Woman with her parents at Spotted Tail.
After a night of being watched, Crazy Horse set out for Red Cloud with Lee and a guard of Indian scouts. Lee told him he could make his case to the post commander when they arrived, but of course he couldn’t—orders were orders. At Camp Robinson, the post near the agency, while resisting being put in the jail, Crazy Horse was bayonetted twice in the back. He died on the floor of the adjutant’s office later that night.
Captain James Kennington, the officer of the day in charge of putting Crazy Horse in the jail, who was heard shouting “Stab the sonofabitch!” during the struggle, suffered from testicular pain for the rest of his life.