“Chasing Osama” is a portion of the “September 11th, 2001” chapter of my next book, Serve No Evil.
CHASING OSAMA
On March 15th, 2001 Jane’s Defense News reported that the United States planned on invading Afghanistan later that year. Then in June of 2001, our own government told India that an invasion of Afghanistan was planned for October of 2001. (19) The United States invaded Afghanistan on October 7th, 2001, supposedly to hunt down Osama bin Laden “dead or alive” for masterminding the 9/11 attacks.
The Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan from December 1979 until February of 1989 after the Mujahideen rebelled against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) government in the 1970s. The Mujahideen was made up of opposition groups who fought against the soviet-backed DRA and eventually Soviet troops as well. During the occupation, under Operation Cyclone, the CIA indirectly gave millions of dollars each year to the Mujahideen through Pakistan’s ISI. The funding continued on after the Soviets left Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden was in Afghanistan during the occupation, assisting in anti-soviet activity. Osama bin Laden became the leader of al-Qaeda (The Base) – a conglomerate of quasi independent Islamic terrorist cells spread across at least 26 countries – in 1988.
In the Global Research.org article, Al Qaeda: the Database, former French military intelligence agent Pierre-Henry Bunel explained al-Qaeda was originally a database, “In the mid-1980’s, al-Qaeda was a database located in a computer and dedicated to the communications of the Islamic Conference’s secretariat. Al-Qaeda remained the database of the Islamic Conference.” Bunel also wrote about Osama bin Laden’s ties to the United States, “When Osama bin Laden was an American agent in Afghanistan, the al-Qaeda Intranet was a good communication system through coded or covert messages. Al-Qaeda was neither a terrorist group nor Osama bin Laden’s personal property…The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called al-Qaeda. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the ‘devil’ only in order to drive the ‘TV watcher’ to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the U.S. and the lobbyists for the U.S. war on terrorism are only interested in making money.”
The 9/11 Commission stated there was a CIA unit assigned to Osama bin Laden well before the events of 9/11. This unit’s staff would rise from “a dozen staff,” according to Ian Henshall’s 9/11 Revealed: The New Evidence & the 9/11 Commission Report, to “forty or fifty” people by 9/11. So what did the CIA know of bin Laden’s plot to fly airplanes into buildings? Former Director-General of Pakistan’s ISI Hamid Gul once said Osama bin Laden was “fondly nurtured by the CIA” adding that the CIA admired him. Bin Laden was always invited to “garden parties at the embassy.”
Declining Health
Osama bin Laden met with local CIA agents in July of 2001, according to a French newspaper article written by Alexandra Richard and translated by Tiphaine Dickson. Le Fargo ran the story one month after the World Trade Center attacks with the headline, The CIA met Bin Laden while undergoing treatment at an American Hospital last July in Dubai. The author of the October 11th, 2001 article discovered that while receiving medical care in an American hospital in Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Osama bin Laden was visited by local CIA agents. The claim was made by “a partner of the administration of the American Hospital in Dubai” who said bin Laden was there between “July 4th and 14th, 2001. Bin Laden started this journey to Dubai from an airport in Quetta, Pakistan. Once in Dubai, bin Laden was admitted to the American hospital with his personal physician, bodyguards and others. Osama bin Laden “was admitted to the well-respected urology department run by Terry Callaway, gallstone and infertility specialist. Dr. Callaway declined to respond to our questions despite several phone calls.” Alexandra Richard, the writer of the article, points out that back in March of 2000 Asia Week ran a story about the declining health of Osama bin Laden. Suffering from a “kidney infection that is propagating itself to the liver” that “requires specialized treatment” it seems bin Laden’s health has been an issue for quite some time. “According to our sources,” Alexandra Richard explained, “bin Laden’s “travels for health reasons” have taken place before. Between 1996 and 1998, bin Laden made several trips to Dubai on business.”
Two weeks after the attacks of September 11th, 2001 the United States government pressured the Central Bank of the Arab Emirates to “freeze assets and investments of 26 people or organizations” suspected of having on-going contact with bin Laden’s organization. The local CIA agent reportedly bragged about meeting with bin Laden. The day after Osama left the hospital, the well known agent who bragged about the encounter to locals in Dubai was called back to headquarters in the United States. “According to Arab diplomatic sources as well as French intelligence,” Alexandra Richard wrote, “very specific information was transmitted to the CIA” about possible terror attacks inside and outside of the United States. “A DST report dated 7 September enumerates all the intelligence, and specifies that the order to attack was to come from Afghanistan.” An emergency meeting between the French foreign intelligence service, the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE), and senior United States officials was then held in August of 2001 at the U.S. embassy in Paris. Richard reported the Americans were extremely worried and requested very specific information from the French about Algerian activists, without advising their counterparts about the reasons for their requests.
A January 28th, 2002 CBS news article titled Hospital Worker: I Saw Osama reported Osama bin Laden was at a hospital in Pakistan on September 10th, 2001. “Pakistan intelligence sources tell CBS News that bin Laden was spirited into a military hospital in Rawalpindi for kidney dialysis treatment.”
Tora Bora
“The biggest and most important failure of CENTCOM leadership came at Tora Bora when they turned down my request for a battalion of U.S. Rangers to block bin Laden’s escape.” – Gary Berntsen (Jawbreaker)
Commander of all CIA forces in Eastern Afghanistan Gary Berntsen was sent into the country for one purpose in December of 2001. Berntsen was ordered by Director of Counterintelligence Cofer Black to find and kill al-Qaeda, and to bring him Osama bin Laden’s head in a box. Berntsen and his Jawbreaker team, aided by Afghan forces, found Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora.
Berntsen found bin Laden “hiding among the millions of Pushtuns who live along the mountainous Afghan-Pakistan border.” Osama bin laden was being protected by the Pushtuns, who believed “it’s their tribal duty to protect him from outsiders.” According to Jawbreaker, a large number of the Afghan forces’ “foot soldiers were followers of local religious leader Maulaiw Mohammed Younus Khalis, who had instructed them to allow al-Qaeda to escape” the Tora Bora Mountains as Berntsen’s teams tried to “pin Bin Laden’s forces against the mountains.”
One of those soldiers was Haji Zahir, the son of Afghanistan Vice-President Haji Qadir; who was assassinated in July of 2002. The London Telegraph wrote, “The death of Haji Abdul Qadir, the Afghan vice-president, yesterday was the second assassination of an Afghan minister within four months and a major blow to a government that many see as the last chance for a peaceful Afghanistan.” Qadir’s son, Haji Zahir told Susan B. Glaser of the Washington Post that he “left for Tora Bora with seven hundred soldiers…but I didn’t know what for.” On July 31st, 2002, Commander of the U.S. Central Command Tommy Franks told the Senate Armed Services Committee that “it was the Afghans who wanted to attack in the Tora Bora area. We had Special Forces troopers with those Afghans, to be sure. We had linkage with the Pakistanis, who some would say, although not much reported at the time, had in the vicinity of 100,000 troops on the western Pakistani border along a great many points of exfiltration.”
Berntsen’s three U.S. teams “codenamed Black, Silver, and Red established posts on the ridges [of Tora Bora] and began calling in air strikes.” Constant strikes came from B-52s, B-1 bombers and AC-130 Spectre gunships. Numerous times, Berntsen recommended that U.S. Army rangers “be dropped behind al-Qaeda positions to block their escape to Pakistan.” Berntsen’s recommendations fell on deaf ears. During the “fall” of the Taliban and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, Pushtun warlord Nuruddin became one of the Afghan allies of the United States. According to page 280 of Jawbreaker, “most of [Nuruddin’s] men were from the local Khungani tribe and many of them had been on bin Laden’s payroll in recent months, hired to dig caves.”
One of these men was Haji Nazir, who told reporters he was sent into the mountains to warn al-Qaeda forces about the U.S.-Afghan force that was coming for bin Laden. Nazir also told Anthony Loyd of the London Sunday Times that he told one member of al-Qaeda “he had three days to leave with his men, surrender or get ready to fight.” This was part of his “Pushtun responsibility” to warn the Arab. “Now it is fulfilled and we shall fight” were Nazir’s parting words. Three days would be enough time to give Osama bin Laden and his forces options for what to do next. Spin Gul was a Nuruddin sub-commander who held a grudge against the Americans, but was being paid to fight on the side of the United States. He told the Christian Science Monitor he will never forgive the Americans for an airstrike on a Taliban trench, of which he was a part of. 30 men were in the bunker and only five lived through the bombing.
Another man on the ground in Tora Bora with the Jawbreaker team was Bilal. A former Master Sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps., he was a big part of Berntsen’s plan to wipe out al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Bilal was a Shiite Muslim born in west Beirut, whose parents immigrated to Detroit when he was seven. While hunting for terrorists in the mountainous caves near Milawa, Afghanistan, Bilal recovered a hand-held radio tuned to an al-Qaeda frequency. In Arabic he heard chatter over the radio stating “kill the Americans” as well as requests for food and water. The al-Qaeda forces could not believe how quickly their position was located. Time was running out for al-Qaeda and for Osama bin Laden, whose voice was heard over the radio.
There is an Iran Press Service report that states al-Qaeda forces wanted to surrender to “United Nations officials” as long as “foreign observers” were present. Gary Berntsen constantly thought about the need for United States soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan, especially to keep al-Qaeda from retreating into Pakistan. Berntsen wrote, “I repeated to anyone who would listen: We need Rangers now! The opportunity to get bin Laden and his men is slipping away!!” Even though CENTCOM Commander Tommy Franks insisted the Afghan allies “wanted to get into Tora Bora,” Berntsen’s reports made it clear that the Afghan allies were not “anxious” to get al-Qaeda or Osama in the Tora Bora mountains.
Berntsen asked some serious questions which should have been answered a long time ago, way before the publication of his book. “Why was the U.S. military looking for excuses not to act decisively? Why would they want to leave something that was so important to an unreliable Afghan army that’d been cobbled together at the last minute?” Just as Berntsen was closing in on Osama bin Laden, he got the call to turn over his reigns and come home. “Now that we finally had bin Laden and his al-Qaeda cadres in the White Mountains,” Berntsen wrote on page 298 of Jawbreaker, “why was headquarters pulling us out? And why was Washington hesitant about committing troops to get bin Laden?”
“It was a twenty-four hour climb through the White Mountains from Tora Bora to Pakistan. Yet, General Dailey and CENTCOM continued to ignore my request for eight hundred U.S. ground troops.” – Gary Berntsen
Berntsen adds that Bilal estimated that half of the thousand al-Qadea fighters with bin Laden in the mountains had been killed during the constant U.S. air raids. With the aid of Rangers, Berntsen was certain he could have prevented any escape from the mountains. The potential threat of escape into Pakistan was always on Berntsen’s mind. He knew that 40 Joint Special Operations Command soldiers and a dozen Special Forces troops “could not cover all the escape routes across hundreds of miles of cave and mountain passes.” To escape the Tora Bora mountains into Pakistan, Berntsen wrote, bin Laden split his forces into two groups. “One group, numbering 135 men, headed east into Pakistan.” Bin Laden escaped with over 200 Saudi and Yeminis al-Qaeda members and supporters through the cold snow of the mountainous terrain, into Parachinar, Pakistan, controlled by the Pushtuns. According to Berntsen’s book, bin Laden “was guided by members of the Pushtun Ghilzai tribe, who were paid handsomely in money and rifles.” (pg. 307-308)
Gary Berntsen told Newsweek, “He was there,” referring to Osama bin Laden. In his book Jawbreaker, Gary Berntsen says there were intelligence operatives tracking bin Laden in Tora Bora. Bin laden was “holed up” in the Tora Bora Mountains. Berntsen and other U.S. commanders had definitive intelligence that bin Laden was there and could have been caught. Mr. Berntsen does not agree with Former CENTCOM commander General Tommy Franks, when the general said, “Bin Laden was never within our grasp” in an op-ed for the New York Times on October 19th, 2004. Berntsen disputed the quote, telling Newsweek that General Franks “was not on the ground out there. I was.” (20) Author Ron Suskind wrote that CIA briefer Henry Crumpton cautioned President Bush that bin Laden was in a position to escape from Tora Bora. (21) The New York Times reported that Buzzy Krongard – retired from the CIA in 2004 – said the United States may be better off with bin Laden at large, acknowledging that bin Laden’s capture “might prove counterproductive.” Krongard was the number three in the chain of command at the CIA in 2004. “Several US officials privately admitted it may be better” to keep bin Laden alive, trapped between the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan “rather than make him a martyr or put him on trial.” (22)
Al-Qaeda Leader Dined At the Pentagon After 9/11
Based on an interview by the FBI that took place after the Fort Hood shooting in November 2009, Fox News reportedly received “exclusive documents” that al-Qaeda leader, Anwar al-Awlaki, “dined at the Pentagon just months after 9/11.” (23) If true, what was Awlaki doing there? According to Fox News, he was brought to the Pentagon as part of a military “outreach” designed to be “a push within the Defense Department to reach out to the Muslim community.”
After a current Defense Department employee heard Awlaki speak, condemning al-Qaeda and the terror attacks, he was vetted by the proper authorities. Awlaki was “invited to and attended a luncheon at the Pentagon in the secretary of the Army’s Office of Government Counsel.” Was he really vetted? Concerning the vetting process, a former high ranking FBI agent said, “They vetted people politically and showed indifference toward security and intelligence advice of others.”
Awlaki was interviewed by the FBI four times within a week of the September 11th terror attacks. He allegedly had ties to at least three of the 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Hani Hanjour. Yet, he was still allowed to enter the Pentagon just months after the terror attacks that claimed over 3,000 lives, promoted a war in Afghanistan and eventually helped sway public opinion to illegally invade Iraq. Fox News reported, “Former Army Secretary Tommy White, who led the Army in 2001, said he doesn’t have any recollection of the luncheon or any contact with Awlaki.” White added that just because he didn’t know about it, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Army spokesman, Thomas Collins, told Fox News, “The Army has found no evidence that the Army either sponsored or participated in the event described in this report.” Collins did say that he believed the meeting was sponsored by the office of the Secretary of Defense, under Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Fox News then asked a spokeswoman from the Pentagon about the luncheon and was basically told, “We’ll get back to you on that.”
The Fox News report concluded with a former high-ranking FBI agent telling them, “At the time Awlaki went to lunch at the Pentagon, there was tremendous ‘arrogance’ about the vetting process at the Pentagon.” Paul Watson of Infowars.com takes it one step further, “American-born cleric Awlaki’s role as a key figure in almost every recent terror plot targeting the United States and Canada, coupled with his visit to the Pentagon, only confirms our long stated position that Awlaki is a chief terrorist patsy-handler for the CIA – he is the federal government’s premier false flag agent.” (24)
Anwar Awlaki has been linked to the shooting spree in Fort Hood Texas in November 2009, the Christmas day bombing attempt of December 2009, and a failed bombing attempt in Times Square, New York, in May of 2010. (25) “Following the Fort Hood shooting,” wrote Paul Watson, “it was also revealed that shooter Major Nidal Malik Hasan had been in contact with Awlaki before the rampage. Awlaki preached to both Hasan and the 9/11 hijackers at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Virginia in 2001.” As for Awlaki being in contact with the Christmas day bomber?
“The Delta Flight 253 incident was staged from start to finish,” Paul Watson reported. “The U.S. State Department allowed Abdul-mutallab to board the plane, aided by a well-dressed Indian man, despite the fact that he was on a terror watch list and had no passport.” In Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki was charged with “plotting to kill foreigners and being a member of the terrorist group, al-Qaeda. Since he was a Yemini citizen, Yemen kept him in their country and did not hand him over to U.S. authorities. In April of 2010, Barack Obama placed Awlaki on a CIA terrorist kill list. After at least two attempts by U.S. drones, Anwar al-Awlaki was finally killed by a drone attack on September 20th, 2011.
“On [August 26th, 2011] Fox News reported that the State Department is protecting the privacy of terrorists by refusing to release documents about Anwar al-Awlaki, the Muslim cleric who became the first American on the CIA’s kill or capture terrorist list. In response to a Fox News FOIA request for al-Awlaki’s passport records, the State Department replied, “The release of this information to you would be an invasion of personal privacy of another person, without written authorization from that person.” It’s official: The feds have lost their minds, this time at the cost of forgetting the heart of 9/11 and all the sacrifices made to fight militant Islam since. Ten years after 9/11, the federal government has become an acute enabler of terrorism.” – Chuck Norris
Where In the World Is Osama bin Laden?
On June 27th, 2010, despite the fact that CIA Director Leon Panetta told ABC’s This Week, “We are engaged in the most aggressive operations in the history of the CIA in that part of the world,” he also said only 50 to 100 militants were operating in Afghanistan. Panetta expressed his belief that al-Qaeda was relying on “operatives” living in the United States and those who had no criminal background. Panetta also said the CIA has not had good intelligence on Osama bin Laden since the “early 2000s.”
Osama bin Laden is on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List for multiple U.S. embassy bombings back in 1998. He is the alleged leader of “The Base,” better known as al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda stems from the self-proclaimed freedom fighters, the Mujahedeen. The Mujahedeen was made of loosely-aligned groups of Afghan opposition to the Soviet installed DRA (Democratic Republic of Afghanistan) back in the late 1970s. The CIA not only funded the Mujahedeen, but they trained them as well, giving them rocket-propelled grenades to shoot down Soviet helicopters. The Soviet occupation ended in the late 1980s, just before the full collapse of the Soviet Union about ten years later.
Working for the CIA at the time, Zbignew Brzezinski (a campaign advisor for Barack Obama during the 2008 Presidential Election) understood the global chess game and how to win it. How could the CIA accomplish what the Soviet forces could not do, which was to conquer Afghanistan? How could the United States Government get the American people to go along with the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan? Brzezinski once said, “The public supported America’s engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.” On September 11th, the public was given a reason to invade Afghanistan; to find Osama bin Laden. Yet, somehow chasing Osama bin Laden became secondary to overthrowing Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
On November 11th, 2011 Ethan A. Huff of Natural News.com wrote about the increase in opium production since the invasion of Afghanistan, “Afghanistan is, by far, the largest grower and exporter of opium in the world today, cultivating a 92 % market share of the global opium trade. But what may shock many is the fact that the US military has been specifically tasked with guarding Afghan poppy fields, from which opium is derived, in order to protect this multibillion dollar industry that enriches Wall Street, the CIA, MI6, and various other groups that profit big time from this illicit drug trade scheme. Prior to the tragic events of September 11th, 2001, Afghanistan was hardly even a world player in growing poppy, which is used to produce both illegal heroin and pharmaceutical-grade morphine. In fact, the Taliban had been actively destroying poppy fields as part of an effort to rid the country of this harmful plant, as was reported by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on February 16th, 2001, in a piece entitled Nation’s opium production virtually wiped out. But after 9/11, the U.S. military-industrial complex quickly invaded Afghanistan and began facilitating the reinstatement of the country’s poppy industry. According to the United Nations Drug Control Program (UNDCP), opium cultivation increased by 657 percent in 2002 after the U.S. military invaded the country under the direction of then-President George W. Bush.”
Geraldo Rivera was on Fox News trying to justify the fact that U.S. soldiers are guarding the poppy fields in Afghanistan, “We are tolerating the cultivation of the opium because we know that if we were to destroy it now, the population would turn against the marines and it would be a real security risk.” Ironic isn’t it? In the United States we put people in jail for using narcotics, but in Afghanistan, our soldiers are guarding them. Afghanistan not only has vast poppy fields, but it also has enough Lithium to be labeled the Saudi Arabia of Lithium. Lithium is used in just about every modern battery today. The New York Times reported that the Pentagon “discovered” nearly $1 trillion worth of mineral reserves in Afghanistan. Bolivia has a lot of Lithium too, so let’s see what happens to them in the next ten or twenty years.
In late 2001, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah was considering cutting its ties to the American empire. The paper reported that Abdullah wrote a letter to George W. Bush in August of 2001, saying that “a time comes when peoples and nations part…it is time for the United States and Saudi Arabia to look at their separate interests. Those governments that don’t feel the pulse of the people and respond to it will suffer the fate of the Shah of Iran.”
The last Shah of Iran was Mohammad-Reza Shah Pahlavi. He was the emperor of Iran from September 16th, 1941 to February 11th, 1979. He was overthrown by the Iranian Revolution, after being labeled a puppet of the U.S. Government. Zbigniew Brzezinski was President Jimmy Carter’s National Security advisor at the time. The Shah was overthrown and sent into exile, until his death at age 60, on July 27th, 1980.
If They Really Wanted Osama bin Laden
On February 26th, 1993, terrorists loaded a Ryder van with explosives and parked it in the basement of the World Trade Center. At 12:17 p.m. the van exploded. Six people were killed in the bombing and an additional 1,042 people were injured. Infowars.com writer Paul Watson explained what happened at the World Trade Center in 1993, “The first World Trade Center bombing was provocateured by the government. In 1993 the FBI planted their informant, Emad A. Salem, within a radical Arab group in New York led by Ramzi Yousef. Salem was ordered to encourage the group to carry out a bombing targeting the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers. Under the illusion that the project was a sting operation, Salem asked the FBI for harmless dummy explosives which he would use to assemble the bomb and then pass on to the group. At this point the FBI cut Salem out of the loop and provided the group with real explosives, leading to the attack on February 26 that killed six and injured over a thousand. The FBI’s failure to prevent the bombing was reported on by the New York Times in October 1993.” (26)
If the United States really wanted to capture Osama bin Laden for allegedly orchestrating the 1993 World Trade Center bombing they had the perfect opportunity in March of 1996. Back then, the Sudan Government offered to hand over bin Laden to the United States. Sudan did not want Osama in their country at that time. Webster Griffin Tarpley described bin Laden as “an embarrassment to the rulers of that country, General Bashir and Hassan Turabi.”
In his book, 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, Webster Griffin Tarpley explained that when Sudan made Secretary of State Madeline Albright the offer to deliver Osama bin Laden to the United States, “instead of gratefully accepting the extradition of the man who was already one of the world’s top terrorists,” Secretary Albright “chose this moment to provoke a new wave of tensions with Sudan, even contriving – no doubt as a clever diversion – to shut down the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum because of alleged terrorist threats.” The deal was available to the United States “until May 1996” when bin Laden left Sudan under growing pressure and entered Afghanistan.
“The Sudanese offer was documented by Barton Gellman in the Washington Post soon after 9/11,” wrote Tarpley. He paraphrased what Gellman wrote in the article, that through a back-channel from the Sudanese President to the CIA, Sudan offered to “arrest Osama bin Laden and place him in Saudi custody, according to officials and former officials in all three countries.” In defense of the Clinton administration, Gellman added, “[The] Clinton administration struggled to find a way to accept the offer in secret contacts that stretched from a meeting at a Rosslyn hotel on March 3, 1996, to a fax that closed the door on the effort ten weeks later. Unable to persuade the Saudis to accept bin Laden, and lacking a case to indict him in U.S. courts at the time, the Clinton administration finally gave up on the capture.” (27)
OSAMA BIN LADEN IS DEAD
“Today…the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.” – President Barack Obama (May 1st, 2011)
The official story goes something like this…a small helicopter-borne strike team entered the compound where Osama bin Laden was hiding, and completed their mission within 40 minutes. When they located bin Laden, he resisted capture and was shot in the face. After being positively identified by both the strike force and family members, bin Laden’s dead body was transported with the strike team out of Pakistan. Islamic tradition requires that the body be buried within 24 hours of death. So in order to respect the custom, the decision was made to bury the body at sea. Is that really in accordance with Islamic tradition?
On May 2nd, former Pakistan General Hamid Gul asked Alex Jones, “Why don’t they show the body” and “have a descent Islamic burial? Why hasn’t this been done?” According to the Los Angeles Times on May 3rd, bin Laden was given an opportunity to surrender before troops opened fire on him “at least one time,” shooting him “in the head.” As evidence, “a photo of his face was transmitted to analysts, who confirmed the identification.” (28)
On May 4th, we were told the government had photographs of a dead Osama bin Laden. However, White House Press Secretary James Carney told the public they can’t see the photographs that depict parts of bin Laden’s skull blown away and a gunshot wound around his left eye. President Obama felt the images were too gruesome. President Obama told 60 Minutes’ Steve Kroft he was certain Osama bin Laden was dead, “We’ve done DNA sampling and testing and so there is no doubt we killed Osama bin Laden.” Allegedly the DNA of Osama bin Laden was taken during the 40 minute raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan and compared against DNA samples from bin Laden’s mother and three sons. (29)
We were lied to about what happened on September 11th, about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and the connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. The government lacked sufficient evidence of their claims each time. Yet many Americans still believe that Osama bin Laden was killed by SEAL team 6 on May 1st, 2011. The day after bin Laden was killed, Chief Counterterrorism adviser John Brennan was at the first press conference to answer questions about the operation that allegedly led to the death of Osama bin Laden. The first question asked was about “the specific goal of the raid.”
Did the U.S. Government target bin Laden for death, or would they try and take him alive if they could? “Absolutely,” Brennan said during the press conference on May 2nd. “It was to prepare for all contingencies. If we had the opportunity to take bin Laden alive, if he didn’t present any threat, the individuals involved were able and prepared to do that. We had discussed that extensively at a number of meetings in the White House and with the President. The concern was that bin Laden would oppose any type of capture operation. Indeed he did. It was a firefight. He, therefore, was killed in that firefight, and that’s when the remains were removed. But we certainly were planning for the possibility [of taking bin Laden alive], which we thought was going to be remote, given that he would likely resist arrest, but that we would be able to capture him.”
President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates were all in the White House Situation Room as the raid on the Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound began. What was it like in the situation room? Brennan explained, “When the operation did get underway, then the President rejoined the group and we were able to monitor in a real-time basis the progress of the operation from its commencement to its time on target, to the extraction of the remains, and to the egress off of the target. It was probably one of the most anxiety-filled periods of time, I think, in the lives of the people who were assembled here yesterday. Minutes passed like days and the President was very concerned about the security of our personnel…it was clearly very tense. There was a fair degree of silence as it progressed, as we would get the updates, and when we finally were informed that those individuals who were able to go in that compound and found an individual that they believed was bin Laden there was a tremendous sigh of relief that what we believed and who we believed was in that compound actually was in that compound and was found, and the President was relieved once we had our people and those remains off target.” Brennan refused to go into details about what they were able to see in real-time.
CIA Director Leon Panetta told PBS, “Once those teams went into the compound, I can tell you that there was a time period of almost 20 or 25 minutes that we really didn’t know just exactly what was going on.” The CIA-led operation to “capture or kill” Osama bin Laden was hailed as a huge mile-stone in the war on terror. Director Panetta watched the raid live from the 7th floor of CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. On Sunday, May 1st, 2011 Panetta gave the order “to capture or kill” the al-Qaeda leader inside the Abbottabad compound. Panetta then adds that “Under the rules of engagement,” Panetta added, “if he had in fact thrown up his hands, surrendered and didn’t appear to be representing any kind of threat, then they were to capture him. But they had full authority to kill him.”
According to The Los Angeles Times, an unnamed U.S. official claimed Osama bin Laden was shooting back at the strike force that entered his hide-out in Pakistan. Bin Laden “was shot while shooting back, the official reported.” This same official added that the purpose of the mission was not to execute bin Laden. “If [bin Laden] decided to lay down his arms, he would have been taken captive.” (30)
On May 3rd, White House spokesperson James Carney admitted that Osama bin Laden “was not armed” when Navy Seals stormed his compound, two days before. James Carney added that bin Laden was shot and killed when his wife rushed the Seal team. CIA Director Leon Panetta later told PBS NewsHour he did not think bin Laden was armed, but he was shot because of “threatening moves” made towards the SEALs. “That’s the reason they fired.” Yet according to the Middle East news channel, Al-Arabiya, someone in Pakistani security claimed bin Laden’s 12 year old daughter said U.S. forces captured, and then killed her father in front of family members. (31)
United States Senator Saxby Chambliss hoped the Navy Seals entered the compound to kill, not capture, Osama bin Laden. According to Political Insider with Jim Galloway, Chambliss told Galloway that as bin Laden poked his head out of a room on the third floor, Seals shot and missed, as the alleged 9/11 mastermind went back into the room. Chambliss had no problem telling Galloway what the real purpose of the mission was, “We needed to take this guy out and I know that’s what the executive order said.” (32) Chambliss also claimed to have seen the dead photograph of Osama. He said it looks like “what you would expect from somebody who’s been shot in the head.” Of course that was Wednesday morning.
By Wednesday evening his story changed as well. Eventually Chambliss admitted the photo he saw was not official. It was shown to him on an electronic device. He had no idea where the photograph came from. A freshman Republican on the Armed Services Committee Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) also saw the photograph of a dead bin Laden with a facial wound. She is in favor of releasing the photographs to the public. Like Chambliss, she was shown the photo on an electronic device and doesn’t know if it’s authentic. Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) told reporters he didn’t know if the photo he saw was real or not. Later he would clarify that the photograph he saw “and that a lot of other people saw is not authentic.” (33)
Asked if Osama bin Laden was living in the house under the protection of the ISI, former director of its Osama bin Laden unit, Michael Scheuer told Wall Street Journal.com “it’s a given.” Scheuer was certain at least part of Pakistan’s ISI was involved harboring Osama bin Laden in some way. (34) Just two days earlier, Obama told the nation, “It’s important to note that our counterterrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound where he was hiding.” So here we have reports that some within the Pakistani ISI or military were helping harbor Osama bin Laden. While at the same time, Pakistani forces were participating in the raid to capture Osama.
John Brennan also said, “The last time that we had actionable, and [what] we thought was very credible, information about where” Osama bin Laden “was located, was in Tora Bora.” Yet we all know how that incident turned out. In the mountains of Tora Bora, Osama bin Laden was cornered by U.S. forces. There is evidence that suggests bin Laden was allowed to flee the mountain region, and that U.S. forces were ordered to not pursue him.
On May 3rd, Infowars.com reported, “During an interview with Imtiaz Tyab of Aljazeera, a man who lives in the Abbottabad neighborhood where Osama was supposedly killed said he never saw him. “If somebody new comes on your street,” the man said, “you always know.” He said he never saw the six foot four Saudi and does not believe he lived there.” (35)
“At the end of the day, this was still a 55/45 situation. I mean, we could not say definitively that bin Laden was there. Had he not been there, then there would have been significant consequences.” – Barack Obama (60 Minutes interview) (36)
Bin Laden’s Been Dead
“I found out through my sources that he had had kidney disease, and as a physician I knew that he had to have two dialysis machines and he was dying.” – Steve Pieczenick (37)
In December of 2001, Fox News reported – based on an article by the Pakistan Observer – a Taliban leader was at the funeral of Osama bin Laden in mid-December of that year. Their Taliban source cited lung complications as to the reason bin Laden died and was buried “in the vicinity of the Tora Bora mountains” in December of 2001. “About 30 close associates of bin Laden in Al Qaeda, including his most trusted and personal bodyguards, his family members and some “Taliban friends,” attended the funeral rites.” (38) An article by Kurt Nimmo and Alex Jones of Infowars.com reads, “In 2003, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told Fox News Channel analyst Morton Kondracke she suspected Bush knew the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and was waiting for the most politically expedient moment to announce his capture.” (39)
On November 1st, 2001, Le Fargo, a French newspaper, reported that two months before September 11th, 2001, Osama bin Laden flew to Dubai, one of the seven emirates of the United Arab Emirates, for treatment at an American hospital. The American hospital and the Bush White House denied the claim. While reportedly being treated in the Urology Department, bin Laden was visited by family members, Saudi notables, and two CIA agents. The 10 day stay adds speculation to bin Laden’s kidney complications. If bin Laden was being treated for kidney dialysis back in 2001, skeptics point out it is highly unlikely that bin Laden would still be alive in 2011. (40)
On May 2nd, 2011, The Corbett Report ran a story titled, “Osama Bin Laden Pronounced Dead…For the Ninth Time.” The pronouncements came from various political figures throughout the years. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said in January 2002 he thought bin Laden was dead. Dale Watson was the FBI Counter-terrorism chief, before retiring in 2002. While speaking at a conference in July of 2002, he asked law enforcement officials in the audience if bin Laden was dead. Watson’s view was, “I personally think he is probably not with us anymore but I have no evidence to support that.” (41) Likewise, the President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai was interviewed in October of 2002 by CNN, where he told them he thought bin Laden was “probably dead.” (42) In 2005, Senator Harry Reid was told that bin Laden might have died during a 2005 October earthquake in Pakistan. (43) A year later, French intelligence leaked a report which suggested bin Laden had died in Pakistan. (44) In 2007, Benazir Bhutto, former Pakistani Prime Minister, told David Frost of Al-Jazeera that Omar Sheikh had killed Osama bin Laden. (45) Then in 2009, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari didn’t think Osama was alive and claimed he hadn’t heard chatter about bin Laden through his sources in U.S. intelligence agencies in over seven years. (46)
Abbottabad, Pakistan is a northwestern city known to heavily include Pakistani ex-military soldiers and training facilities for the Pakistan military academy. One man who has lived in the area all his life did not believe Osama was in the compound. “We are a closed net community. At least we would have seen him once.” “We are not fools,” another resident told CCTV News about the alleged death of bin Laden. “Whenever they want to take control of an area, they act this way. Osama was never here.” Some early questionable reports suggest that bin Laden and his wife had not left the compound in five years. It’s believed the compound is only about 6 years old. 130 kilometers from the federal capitol, near a military academy, contractor Jahangir was “shocked” when he heard on the news that Osama bin Laden was captured in his home town. Jahangir said new residents would have to show an ID card before they’re allowed to move into the area. “Osama is not the bird who can fly inside” the compound, Jahangir told the reporter in Abbottabad.
Around 1 a.m. Pakistan time, Jahangir saw an Apache helicopter over the compound. Jahangir lives a few minutes away from the compound. He went to the roof of his house and in pitch black he heard shooting for about two minutes. Then, at about 1:15 a.m., “We hear an explosion, like, big noise…Then I hear the people was crying there, or somewhere. Then we run there, because my cousin is living there, right? It’s a five minute walk if I run from my house to there.” Jahangir owed the house next to bin Laden’s compound. When Jahangir and his “brother and a few other people” ran to the scene, the Pakistan Army arrived and took over the compound. Jahangir remained on the scene until 4 a.m. “The next house is my other house, which I rent to my cousin’s friend, and every day in the evening we went there by walk, with my wife, for the, just, walk. I [have] never seen anything like that. I can’t believe that, and to be honest, it’s not true.”
President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari said Pakistan didn’t know bin Laden was there. The Pakistani Anti- terrorist Squad could not confirm Osama bin Laden’s death. (47)
Heightened Security After bin Laden Dies
“The terrorist threat to the homeland is in many ways at its most heightened state since 9/11.” – Janet Napolitano (2011)
Once Osama bin Laden was pronounced dead to the world the U.S. Department of State issued a world-wide caution alert to all United States citizens. Due to the alleged death of Osama bin Laden, “U.S. government facilities worldwide remain at a heightened state of alert.” America was already on a heightened state of alert before announcing bin Laden’s death. After his death, we are told the threat of terrorism has increased, not decreased. We allegedly captured the #1 terrorist in the world and were then told we were in more danger after doing so. It reminds of Marvel Comics’ Hydra organization, whose motto was “If a head is cut off, two more will take its place.”
On July 26th, 2011 the State Department issued a global warning that U.S. citizens should “maintain a high level of vigilance and to take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness.” With September 11th right around the corner, the message was meant to reinforce the fictitious danger we face from al-Qaeda and “affiliated groups.” In short, the message to the world from our government is to be afraid, be very afraid. “The Department of State believes there is an enhanced potential for anti-American violence given the death of Osama bin Laden in May 2011. Current information suggests that Al-Qeada and affiliated organizations continue to plan terrorist attacks against U.S. interests in multiple regions, including Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East…Extremists may elect to use conventional or non-conventional weapons, and target both official and private interests.”
The terrorist’s potential targets range from “residential areas” such as your own home or your church, “high-profile sporting events,” places of business, restaurants, hotels, clubs, and “other tourist destinations both in the United States and abroad where U.S. citizens gather in large numbers, including during holidays.” So what do they base this new “enhanced potential for anti-American violence” on? Like the death of Osama bin Laden, we were “reminded” to trust the government and take them at their word. I would assume that this “current” and “credible” information came about from the Abbottabad, Pakistan raid, where Osama bin Laden allegedly died in a firefight with U.S. forces.
“Current information suggests that al-Qaeda and affiliated organizations continue to plan terrorist attacks against U.S. and Western interests in Europe…Credible information indicates terrorist groups also seek to continue attacks against U.S. interests in the Middle East and North Africa.” We were warned not to participate in demonstrations abroad. I wonder how long it will take for this threat “abroad” to become a threat inside the United States. In some cases, and rapidly expanding, it is becoming more and more difficult to peacefully demonstrate inside the United States. One only needs to research “free-speech zones” to understand how demonstrations in general are frowned upon and seen as a threat to the establishment. We the People are a threat to those who are trying to control the world. “U.S. citizens are warned that demonstrations intended to be peaceful can escalate into violent clashes. U.S. citizens are reminded that demonstrations and riots can occur with little or no warning. U.S. citizens are urged to avoid areas of demonstrations if possible and to exercise caution if within the vicinity of a demonstration.”
To put it into proper context, the State Department is referring to threats abroad, for now. “The events of the last few months in many countries in the Middle East, including Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, and Syria, have resulted in civil unrest and large-scale protests and demonstrations.”