Swiss Experts say bin Laden tape a fake

[SINthysist]

95% sure.

Increased chatter led us to anticipate more attacks. Well, we see what they are and where they occurred. They weren’t big, they weren’t spectacular, and they were at isolated spots.

Several captures and killings of top leadership in Al Qada have been reported recently with one of them killed some time back finally being identified.

If you don’t think we’re doing well in the war on terror, or that we’re not having a profound effect, then you’re purposely looking beyond the facts. Further evidence of their growing weakness is our new pressure on the Saudis to end their funding of the extremists and their organizations. If they were still that strong, we would not push the Saudis for they have been engaged in a very dangerous balancing act.

 

[Coolville]

Yeah, and the Swiss said, "nobody will notice if we take the Jews money..."

Your mention of Saudi is just plain silly.
Here's something from today's Guardian. I've selected the choice bits. The link to the full article is at the bottom:

Sleeping with the Enemy
The Saudis have "played a duplicitous game", says US senator Charles Schumer, by effectively buying off terrorists and turning a blind eye to their activities. Richard Lugar, the incoming chairman of the senate foreign relations committee, says "disturbing issues" have been raised, and that the US must insist on a Saudi crackdown on terror financiers.

One well-known American columnist, reflecting a tide of anti-Saudi feeling, has even urged George Bush to invade Saudi Arabia and turn it into a giant US "self-serve gas pump".

Last summer, an explosive classified intelligence briefing to the Pentagon's defence advisory board was surreptitiously made public. "The Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader," the report stated.

As the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, quickly pointed out at the time, the report did not reflect official US policy. Indeed, each flurry of anti-Saudi agitation in the US has usually been followed by placatory and conciliatory statements from the Bush administration.

The US also downplays Saudi Arabia's appalling human rights abuses, its lack of democratic freedoms and of a free press, and its denial of women's rights - all key justifications, by the way, proffered for the US overthrow of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

This is actually quite amazing, if US reactions to other countries in similar circumstances are considered. If the state in question were Iran, for example, it would probably have been attacked by now.

This smacks of appeasement. So what is really going on here?

Why indeed is the current focus of US military and diplomatic efforts on Baghdad, not Riyadh? Why, in other words, does Bush, not known for being a man who bites his lip when it comes to terrorism, look at the Saudis and turn the other cheek?

... the Bush administration is operating a double standard. It could be that the US government is only too aware of the Saudi terror connection, but is not prosecuting it vigorously on behalf of the September 11 victims and the American people because it has other priorities.

What might they be? One easy answer is oil. Saudi Arabia provides 17% of daily US oil needs and, more important in strategic terms, controls about 25% of global reserves. Despite attempts to diversify America's supply, US dependence on Persian Gulf oil is projected to increase, not decrease, in the next 20 years. Without Saudi Arabia, it is no exaggeration to say the US economic motor could quickly conk out.

Another priority is Israel. Without US protection, military aid and financial backing, Israel's very existence would be in continuing doubt. As it is, with the rulers of Saudi Arabia (and Egypt and Jordan) on America's diplomatic team, the enmity of rejectionist Arabs and hardliners in Iran can be kept at bay and the illusion of a peace process maintained.

Another priority is Iraq. The US has large military bases in Saudi Arabia and will want to use them in any attack on Iraq. Whether or not it gets permission to do so, it still needs to keep the Saudis on board during a war. If the Saudis, guardians of Mecca and the holy shrines and the heartland of Islam, made a stand against war, the peoples of the whole Gulf region and Egypt and Jordan might follow in opposing the US and its allies. It would not just be a military logistics problem then.

Like Bush, the Saudis have a score to settle with Saddam Hussein. They fear him for what he did in 1990 and might, one day, do again. They want him gone. And let us not forget: Iraq's oil is important, too. It has 11% of known world reserves and (even now) the US continues to be the biggest single purchaser of Iraqi oil. The US and Saudi governments have a shared economic interest in, shall we say, regulating that supply. The US will also need help in paying for any war and subsequent occupation.

There are other reasons, too, for the Bush administration's appeasement of the Saudis. One is the concern that the weak Saudi monarchy, while objectionable in many ways, could be replaced by something far worse - such as an Islamist fundamentalist regime of the type that seized power in Iran in 1979. Better the devil you know, as they say in Christendom, than the devil you don't.

So, for the sake of all of the above, it appears that - when it comes to Saudi Arabia - the Bush administration is fighting its "war on terror" with its right hand tied behind its back, its left eye closed, and shackles round its ankles. But those constraints are entirely self-imposed. It is for the American people to judge whether this is a wise or honourable policy and whether, in Bush's endlessly repeated phrase, it truly serves "freedom's cause".

Sleeping with the Enemy

 

[p_p_man]

95% sure.

Yeah but a country that can only show cuckoo clocks, chocolate and numbered bank accounts as it's entire history's achievements isn't going to be at the cutting edge of technology.

They probably said that just to show the rest of us they haven't gone to sleep...

ppman

 

[celiaKitten]

Yeah, and the Swiss said, "nobody will notice if we take the Jews money..."

LOL - this is nearly exactly what I thought when I read the title.

 

[SINthysist]

Your article is on the mark only where it mentions, or hints at the dire position the House of Saud is in. It is their country that hosts the Wahabies, and THEY are the apocalyptical underpinnings of Al Qada. Very early on the two entered into an unholy alliance where religion and laws are issued from Mecca while the House of Saud is allowed to be the Guardians of Mecca and Medina. They have been financing the Jihad because they must to survive, else the Imams will simply do what they did in Tehran. What holds the Imams back is the United States Military Might. The Saudis are in a position very much like the one described in Ishmael’s thread about the village leader that I read earlier.

 

[Coolville]

Reiteration:

Your article is on the mark only where it mentions, or hints at the dire position the House of Saud is in.

One easy answer is oil. Saudi Arabia provides 17% of daily US oil needs and, more important in strategic terms, controls about 25% of global reserves. Despite attempts to diversify America's supply, US dependence on Persian Gulf oil is projected to increase, not decrease, in the next 20 years. Without Saudi Arabia, it is no exaggeration to say the US economic motor could quickly conk out.

And let us not forget: Iraq's oil is important, too. It has 11% of known world reserves and (even now) the US continues to be the biggest single purchaser of Iraqi oil. The US and Saudi governments have a shared economic interest in, shall we say, regulating that supply. The US will also need help in paying for any war and subsequent occupation.

So it's similar to China in 1989. "We'll pretend Tianamann Square never happened because you have something we want..." In China's case - a market of 1 billion people. In Saudi's... oil.

 

[SINthysist]

So what. They decide, we'll embargo. Russia, et. al., recognizing a much need business opportunity, will jump in to get some much needed dollars. The "Persian Gulf" oil will go to the former consumers because the one lesson they learned onthe last embargo was that it hurt them as much financially as it did the US. Not only did their profits go way down, but their investments took a nose-dive...

It is one big interconnected world and we can let it be dominated by thugs or we can go get them.

Oil is the REDHERRING of the debate...

 

[SINthysist]

Furthemore, to continue to quote from an article that I consider kind of bogus for the unrefuted, as of yet, reason that I gave just tells me you're not discussing, you're shouting...

If you can make me believe in the article's premiss, then I can see the logic of your conclusion, elsewise, BUPKISS!

 

[Coolville]

Furthemore, to continue to quote from an article that I consider kind of bogus for the unrefuted, as of yet, reason that I gave just tells me you're not discussing, you're shouting...

If you can make me believe in the article's premiss, then I can see the logic of your conclusion, elsewise, BUPKISS!

I never shout!
And as for your bupkiss - I'm rubber, you're glue, bounces off me and sticks to you!

red herring.... hmmm, now I'm hungry...

 

[weed]

We've had to work hard for this "war on terrorism" aka the war for energy control so that the excesses of America can be supplied for. I wonder how many behind the scenes deals are being made to acquire the cooperation and support that we have gained globally. And how we will pay for those deals later.

Unless you expect me to believe we've actually learned something from our past dealings with Hussein that have helped get us into the situation we are now in.

"War on terrorism".....I would like to think it were all so humanitarian.

As for success....I think you're jumping the gun. Don't get me wrong...I would prefer success to the alternatives but I think it's way too soon to tell and I think the true costs may not be known for quite a while.

 

[weed]

OBL has shown his ability to disappear before. He may be dead, certainly. But he may also be alive. Without a body or reliable witness we will never know for sure.

Does it really matter at this point?

al-qaida lives on without him if he's dead

 

[weed]

Gee, and I thought the Saudi's had us by the balls.

Until we get control of someone else's oil, that is.

 

[weed]

I feel like SIN.

 

[Guest]

I feel like SIN.

To the wise citizens of USA:

Buy a car which run on desel and follow the example of the Welish who substitute gas with salad oil.

Tax free, you know.

 

[Problem Child]

The Saudis are backstabbing motherfuckers? Gee, that's a newsflash.

You guys ridicule the Swiss as a nation of underacheivers and expect that to pass as an argument as to why one scientist's opinion is invalid? Not too convincing.

I think he's dead too. If he wasn't we would have seen "Death to the Infidels!" on videotape up to about chapter fifteen by now.

 

[Guest]

up to about chapter fifteen by now.

Must have been enough time for conflicts in Osama's feeling. Got to be the Anal First time category.

I think I missed this one.

 

[SINthysist]

The Saudis are backstabbing motherfuckers? Gee, that's a newsflash.

You guys ridicule the Swiss as a nation of underacheivers and expect that to pass as an argument as to why one scientist's opinion is invalid? Not too convincing.

I think he's dead too. If he wasn't we would have seen "Death to the Infidels!" on videotape up to about chapter fifteen by now.

Right on!

 

[mbb308]

I suspect that most, if not all, of the bin Laden tapes have been fakes. Their existence is too coincidental.

 

[p_p_man]

I suspect that most, if not all, of the bin Laden tapes have been fakes. Their existence is too coincidental.

As were all those tapes that kept turning up showing al Qaida's complicity with 11 September...

ppman

 

[teddybear4play]

As were all those tapes that kept turning up showing al Qaida's complicity with 11 September...

ppman

You've got a better and more valid, provable theory?

Let's hear it, genius.

TB4p

 

[p_p_man]

You've got a better and more valid, provable theory?

Let's hear it, genius.

TB4p

Only that despite George's promises and our Tony's promises not one shred of evidence has been produced showing al Qaida's involvement.

Lots of heresay, lots of 'the finger points at' statements, lots of confessions from people who are no doubt mentally unbalanced in the first place...

But not one shred of evidence. George said he had it and would produce it at the right time...

Our Tony said he would produce a Government dossier showing proof which in the end turned out to be nothing more than the same speculation we had all been reading in the newspapers for months...

Both promised evidence...

Where is it?

Ergo: the two leaders don't keep their promises, therefore there is no real evidence and thus the tapes too must be false...QED

Your call.


ppman

 

[miles]

Only that despite George's promises and our Tony's promises not one shred of evidence has been produced showing al Qaida's involvement.

Lots of heresay, lots of 'the finger points at' statements, lots of confessions from people who are no doubt mentally unbalanced in the first place...

But not one shred of evidence. George said he had it and would produce it at the right time...

Our Tony said he would produce a Government dossier showing proof which in the end turned out to be nothing more than the same speculation we had all been reading in the newspapers for months...

Both promised evidence...

Where is it?

Ergo: the two leaders don't keep their promises, therefore there is no real evidence and thus the tapes too must be false...QED

Your call.


ppman

pp, go suck a Donky Dick. Hee-Haw

 

[SINthysist]

YO p_p_!

Saturday Nov. 30, 2002; 12:58 p.m. EST
Terror Expert: Al Qaeda Too Weak for Another 9/11

Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terror network is concentrating on overseas targets because heightened security precautions have made it too difficult to pull off another 9/11-like strike within U.S. borders, a Heritage Foundation global terrorism expert said Saturday.

"I think they're looking for soft targets and that's a sign that the war on terrorism is going pretty well," Dr. John Hulsman told Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends" morning show. "They can't attack the United States in a massive manner as they did (on) 9/11."

Hulsman said he views al Qaeda as "an evil multinational corporation" that has been hobbled by U.S. strikes on its "home office" in Afghanistan.

"That they can't attack America, that they can't do a big Sept. 11-style attack, that they have to do these midlevel attacks," he contended, "is actually, ironically, a pretty good sign that the war on terror is going as well as one can expect."

The Heritage analyst warned, however, that al Qaeda is still capable of major strikes against "midlevel soft targets such as in Bali (Indonesia)," where more than 200 people were killed in a bomb blast last month.

He also cited the Thanksgiving Day attacks in Kenya, "where there aren't the security concerns that there are in the United States."

The terror network's biggest challenge right now, said Hulsman, is to find vulnerable targets "to prove that they're still viable."

But the U.S. is far from out of the woods.

"The key is that they have to keep striking the United States to be a rallying cry for anti-Americanism," he warned.

Hulsman said he expects al Qaeda to attack soft targets in the U.S., such as hotels, shopping malls and other places with weak security that are hallmarks of U.S. commerce, predicting, "I think that there may very well be an attack between now and Christmas."

 

[Guest]

 

[SINthysist]

I feel like SIN.