Go Back to the B3 Home Page
Complaints, compliments, arguments? Email me.
[<< "ACLU Action Alert"] [Archive Index] [>>"Another day, another rehearsal...."]
03/18/2004 Archived Entry: "Hmm. Could they be dragging Osama out early?"
Hmm. Could they be dragging Osama out early?
CNN's Aaron Brown is reporting that Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf says that a 'high-value target' has been surrounded near Islamabad.
Is Bush desperate enough to 'capture' Osama bin Laden 8 months out from the election?
And if OBL is captured, will Americans view the event to be the end of the War on Terror? I'm thinking so.
Interesting side-development:
The United States will reward Pakistan for its support in the war on terrorism with an elite military status despite concerns about nuclear proliferation, US Secretary of State Colin Powell revealed.
Something is most definitely going on here.
Replies: 7 people speak up
Nope, from what I'm hearing, it's #2, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
The special status of Pakistan is something else, but also troubling in its own right.
Posted by Stentor @ 03/18/2004 02:07 PM NY
I agree that's an indication that something's definitely going on here.
I find it revolting we are "rewarding" Pakistan for their "commitment" to fighting terrorism... Thats BULLSHIT! Bush has bought the support of Musharraf, a guy that came to power through a coup, in exchange of support to his regime. Pakistanis are overwhelmingly on the other side of the equation, and under Musharraf the Pakistani government has SOLD nuclear weapons to third world countries and potential enemies of the US.
What the fuck are we rewarding Pakistan for? Who's next? The Saudi royals?
Posted by Julius Civitatus @ 03/18/2004 02:30 PM NY
The bitch of it is even if we get that scumbag Osama, it might have very little impact on terrorism. It would be a huge psychological boost, but like the many-headed Hydra, chopping off one head results in two more replacing it.
The War on Terra might ultimately settle down into a low-level, modern-day version of the Cold War.
Posted by Metropolitan99 @ 03/18/2004 04:27 PM NY
Just heard on NPR that Congress has doubled the reward for OBL to $50 mil. Hmm, how much of a fighter-bomber aircraft does that buy these days?
Posted by Malchik @ 03/18/2004 06:09 PM NY
Cozy, yes. Suspicious, definitely. But new? Not.
Far from being America's "new best friend", Pakistan has been the US cat's paw for over a decade, starting with overseeing the CIA-established terrorist training camps that trained bin Laden and others to fight in the Afghanistan-USSR war.
No conspiracy theorist I, but still...General Mahmoud Ahmad, the ISI Chief who wired Mohammad Atta the $100,000 that financed the murderous little 9/11 project was in meetings at the Pentagon from Sept. 6 through the 11th and in fact on the morning of the 11th was at a breakfast meeting on Capitol Hill hosted by Senator Bob Graham and Porter Goss. What's up with that?
Posted by Maezeppa @ 03/18/2004 07:42 PM NY
I'm an everyday reader here at blah3, but I've not posted here before. I followed this url from a story by Ira Chernus at Common Dreams. Like him, I don't know the 'Truth' of it, but if something like this comes to pass shortly (before the election, of course), you can say you saw this back 'when'. In the meantime, true or not, could be a good idea to have this story in the hands of as many of _us_ as possible. Obviously, I'm hardly surprised if it does turn out to be true…
http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=3/13/2004&Cat=4&Num=011
U.S. Unloading WMD in Iraq
TEHRAN (Mehr News Agency) – Over the past few days, in the wake of the bombings in Karbala and the ideological disputes that delayed the signing of Iraq’s interim constitution, there have been reports that U.S. forces have unloaded a large cargo of parts for constructing long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the southern ports of Iraq.
A reliable source from the Iraqi Governing Council, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Mehr News Agency that U.S. forces, with the help of British forces stationed in southern Iraq, had made extensive efforts to conceal their actions.
He added that the cargo was unloaded during the night as attention was still focused on the aftermath of the deadly bombings in Karbala and the signing of Iraq’s interim constitution.
The source said that in order to avoid suspicion, ordinary cargo ships were used to download the cargo, which consisted of weapons produced in the 1980s and 1990s.
He mentioned the fact that the United States had facilitated Iraq’s WMD program during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq and said that some of the weapons being downloaded are similar to those weapons, although international inspectors had announced Saddam Hussein’s Baath regime had destroyed all its WMD.
The source went on to say that the rest of the weapons were probably transferred in vans to an unknown location somewhere in the vicinity of Basra overnight.
“Most of these weapons are of Eastern European origin and some parts are from the former Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. The U.S. obtained them through confiscations during sales of banned arms over the past two decades,” he said.
This action comes as certain U.S. and Western officials have been pointing out the fact that no weapons of mass destruction have been discovered in Iraq and the issue of Saddam’s trial begins to take center stage.
In addition, former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix has emphasized that the U.S. and British intelligence agencies issued false reports on Iraq leading to the U.S. attack.
Meanwhile, the suspicious death of weapons inspector David Kelly is also an unresolved issue in Britain.
------Occupation Forces Official Claims to Have No Information About Transfer of WMD to Iraq -------
A security official for the coalition forces in Iraq said that he has not received any information about the unloading of weapons of mass destruction in ports in southern Iraq.
Shane Wolf told the Mehr News Agency that the occupation forces have received no reports on such events, but said he hoped that the coalition forces would find the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction one day.
Coalition forces and inspectors have so far been unable to find any Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. invaded Iraq under the pretext that Iraq possessed a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.
~~~~~~~~~~
And, the url to Ira's story: http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0318-04.htm
Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. chernus@colorado.edu
Posted by Jesse828 @ 03/18/2004 08:25 PM NY
Oh yeah. Just what we need - someone else shooting off depleted uranium anti-tank rounds.
The story said Major non-NATO allies of the United States are eligible for priority delivery of defense material and the purchase, for instance, of depleted uranium anti-tank rounds.
...
Pakistan's neighbor and nuclear rival India, long an ally of the US, does not enjoy "major non-NATO ally" status.
Oh great. We are arming the competitor of the largest democracy on the planet. And not one peep.
For me, agricultural, educational, machinery, or medical systems assistance would be ok - but no weapons should be the order of the day. Of course, that would cut out some of those Bush Pioneers from new profits, wouldn't it?
What would happen if we were to wage peace upon the world?
Posted by RealDCC @ 03/19/2004 01:24 AM NY
