If you can't read the text, click on the image to enlarge it. Permalink

From a new AP story about the Patriot Act:

From its inception, the law's increased surveillance powers have been criticized by both liberals and conservatives as infringements on free speech rights and protections against unwarranted searches and seizures.

"From its inception"...?

We've certainly heard numerous libertarian arguments against the law during Obama's presidency, and even during Dubya's second term. But when the law was signed in October 2001 (a very short while after September 11), the few voices raised against it were -- as I recall -- all liberal.

In the Senate, the only vote against the Patriot Act was cast by Russ Feingold.

In the House, only three Republicans voted against the act; 211 voted in favor. 145 Democrats voted in favor, 66 voted against. Those who can honestly recall the hysteria of the times will have to admit that those 66 congressfolk showed remarkable courage.

Think back to late 2001-early 2002. Does anyone recall any major right-wing pundit making an argument against the Patriot Act? What were we hearing back then from Ann Coulter? Rush Limbaugh? The Fox team?

Here is Ann Coulter on Patriot Act opponents, from early 2003:

Manifestly, there is no civil-liberties crisis in this country. Consequently, people who claim there is must have a different goal in mind. What else can you say of such people but that they are traitors?

She pretty much spoke for the entire conservative movement when she spoke of the need "to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too." Richard Perle called Sy Hersh a terrorist. That was the language conservatives routinely used at the time.

For a reminder of how things played out in that period, take a look at this timeline:

December 2001: In response to Democratic plans to question parts of the USA Patriot Act during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, John Ashcroft suggests that people who disagree with the administration's anti-terrorism policies are on the side of the terrorists.

Right-wing think tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation and the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, argued in favor of the Act. Conversely, warnings against Patriot Act abuses came from the ACLU, the NAACP, the Federation of American Scientists, Amnesty International, The Electronic Frontiers foundation, Michael Moore and (once the great unpleasantness in Iraq began) a host of anti-war activists.

I've been taking a brief look at the usenet discussions of the Patriot Act between September, 2001 and March, 2002. (Usenet provides an interesting way to revisit the give-and-take of old battles.) So far, I've not found a single non-liberal voice raised against it -- with the possible exception of this guy, whose politics seem hard to classify.

Yes, you can point to conservatives who came out against this legislation eventually. But that's not what I'm talking about. The AP story spoke of the bill's inception.

The press agency's misleading rewrite of history only can aid those tea partiers who now seek to recast the Patriot Act as a liberal assault on liberty. As I've said before: History is not Calvinball. You can't make up the rules as you go along.

Not all liberals opposed the Patriot Act in 2001 (although many who voted Aye did so for fear of losing their jobs). But for the first year or two, there were no non-liberal opponents -- at least, none who came to the media's attention.

The "strange bedfellows" phenomenon did not begin until mid-2003, when some libertarian groups came out against the act. So did former Republican congressman Bob Barr (who had voted in favor of the legislation), Phyllis Schlafly and Grover Norquist (who is married to a Palestinian). To the best of my recollection, none of those people spoke up in late 2001 or early 2002.

If you can recall an exception, please correct me. But don't play any unfair games with the chronology: The key phrase here is "From its inception." Permalink

John Yoo, of all people, is telling some truth about the Osama Bin Laden raid.

But he also went further, suggesting that the Navy SEALs sent to Abbottabad were not given the option of taking bin Laden alive. "If they were going in with no options other than to kill [bin Laden], then I do think that's a problem -- and that's what it's starting to sound like from the information that's coming out of Washington right now."

"It does seem from the initial reports that a deliberately small force was sent in and there wasn't a lot of thought given to the idea of capturing him."

Let's draw a comparison. Khaled Sheik Mohammed, the presumed planner of the 9/11 attacks, was captured. The circumstances surrounding his capture were decidedly odd -- for one thing, he was widely reported as killed on September 11, 2002, some four months before his capture on March 1, 2003. (Also see here.) Nevertheless, the raiders on that occasion clearly wanted their man to stay alive. It is also the case that the CIA and the Pakistanis worked hand-in-hand on that occasion. At that time, it seems, no-one worried that Al Qaeda sympathizers within ISI would snitch.

So if it was possible to get KSM alive, why couldn't they grab Osama alive? Frankly, KSM seems a tougher customer -- it's not as though the guy had a history involving dialysis machines. Although reports are contradictory, there seems to have been armed resistance in 2003. By comparison, only one person at the Abbottabad compound tried to defend himself.

If it was possible for Pakistan and the U.S. to work together in 2003, why not in 2011?

Allow me to suggest one possible scenario. Let us suppose the Bin Laden daughter Safia was correct when she said that her father was captured and then executed. (Frankly, I think that's a fairly good bet.) Both the body and the post-mortum photos would provide evidence of the execution. A close-range shot leaves powder burns and other evidence.

This hypothesis would also explain the changing stories about whether Obama and Clinton watched the operation on video in real time. (I feel certain that they did.) I suspect that they realized belatedly that they would need plausible deniability if the truth of the execution ever came out: "I am shocked, shocked to learn about this. At the time, I had no idea..."

The official line still needs some straightening. At this moment, the line holds that the body was flown to the USS Carl Vinson, which was about 500 miles away. That's not within the range of a Blackhawk helicopter -- unless the chopper has external tanks, in which case it might just barely get there and back. The ship was, however, within the roughly 1,200 mile range of a Chinook.

Ah...but were Chinooks involved? The Defense Tech site (as noted in earlier posts) has said that there were two dual-rotor Chinooks as well as two Blackhawks. As near as I can tell, the official story restricts us to two Blackhawks, which may have been little-known stealth models. At this stage, I know of no eyewitness reports of Chinooks.

Incidentally, our friend Red Dragon points to this article which pretty thoroughly unravels the official story of no U.S.-Pakistan cooperation in the Osama raid. And here is the report cited:

“It’s a no-fly zone,” said a Pakistani intelligence official, referring to the area around bin Laden’s mansion and the nearby military compound. “It is impossible for U.S. helicopters to fly over there without our knowledge and permission.”

A Pakistan Air Force official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, rejected reports that U.S. special forces had jammed Pakistan’s radar system in order to circumvent the no-fly zone.

“This is totally untrue. Neither our radars were jammed nor was any scrambling of any air force plane recorded,” the official said, referring to the practice of launching aircraft in the event that the airspace has been breached.

Residents in the area confirmed that the Pakistan army appeared to have at least some knowledge of the operation well before it began. Several residents said that two hours before the United States launched its attack, Pakistani army personnel ordered them to switch off their lights inside and outside their homes and remain indoors until further notice.

“The army personnel cordoned off the entire area long before we heard the sounds of helicopters hovering over the area,” said Zulfikar Ahmed, who lives in the Abbottabad neighborhood of Bilal Town, where bin Laden’s compound is located. Locals interviewed by the BBC and several other local and international media outlets made similar statements.

“Gen. David Petraeus paid an extraordinary visit to Islamabad on April 25,” said a senior military official said. The official said Petraeus held a one-on-one meeting with Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Pakistan’s army chief of staff, in which they discussed the details of the operation.

We also have an interesting paragraph published by the Arabic news source Asharq Alawsat:

However Abbottabad residents, speaking anonymously to Asharq Al-Awsat, claimed that Pakistani authorities warned them, prior to the beginning of the military operation, not to leave their homes and to turn off their lights. US Navy Seals carried out the operation to kill or capture Bin Laden, breaching the compound with 4 helicopters, one of which was forced to crash-land in a field nearby, reportedly due to mechanical failures

Despite the clear evidence of Pakistan/U.S. cooperation, the official story has lawmakers and pundits screaming against Pakistan. The Chicago Tribune asks: "Is Pakistan a friend?" while congressfolk are talking about aid reductions. Methinks the cover story is having some unforseen consequences -- as cover stories often do.

I think that the Pakistani officials are just dying to spill the beans as to what really happened. That is certainly one justifiable between-the-lines reading of this piece.

I believe that Osama is dead -- although I'd feel much more secure in that assessment if we had witnesses to the body who would not be open to treason charges if they told a story contrary to the official one. The main questions are:

1. Why was it necessary to execute Osama?

2. Was his location truly unknown to Pakistan?

3. If (as many believe) the location was well-known to Pakistan, how could it remain unknown to the United States? Isn't that sort of thing what we pay the NSA to find out?

4. Where was Osama Bin Laden between the invasion of Afghanistan and the building of that compound in 2005?

5. Why were so many Al Qaeda personnel allowed to escape in the first place, after the invasion of Afghanistan?

6. What secrets -- in particular, secrets about the drug trade -- did Osama Bin Laden take to the grave? Permalink

Fellow blogger Red Dragon offered a response to a previous post about Osama Bin Laden's daugher Safia, who claims that her father was captured alive.

Why do I find that suspicious? Coming from a "Pakistani source" I would be inclined to believe that there would be a motive for spreading this story. Wouldn't you agree Joe? As we have been told over and over again, there are elements within the ISI that are BFF's with the " Cave dwelling, Red Bearded,Dentally challenged, woman hating Virgin seekers Club for men" and would like nothing more than to see the USA with a little "Doo-Doo" on it's face.

There's something to this point of view, of course. Here is my problem:

All the Americans involved in the raid could be charged with treason if they revealed anything about the incident which goes against the wishes of the White House. Thus, any objective information about these events will have to come from others.

How can we trust the official White House line when the story has changed fundamentally? At first, we were told that Osama wielded a gun and used a woman as a human shield. Now we hear that he was unarmed and that he did not use a human shield.

Nevertheless, it is the case that we may hardly consider the other witnesses in that compound "objective." They are family members of Osama Bin Laden. Making matters worse, what they have to say (so far) comes filtered through the Pakistanis.

That said, I'm inclined to find the word of Safia credible -- if she really did say the words attributed to her. No matter who her father might have been, she's just a twelve-year-old girl. A twelve year old is perfectly capable of lying, of course -- but would a twelve year old be able to lie convincingly, under harsh interrogation lasting days?

That said, we really don't know if the words attributed to her are accurate. But consider this: Eventually -- and fairly soon -- Safia will be released. She will be free to give interviews to anyone (if her custodians permit). The Pakistan government will emerge with a blackened eye if she says that the Pakistanis put false words in her mouth.

As for Pakistan's possible animus toward the U.S. -- well, here is where the matter becomes extremely confusing. The Pakistanis seem very pissed off by some of the things being said in America right now, especially by Panetta's impolitic remarks. In earlier posts, we've made the case for the proposition that Pakistan knew about and participated in the raid. It must rankle the Pakistanis to be called incompetent by the very people they secretly helped.

There are hints that Pakistan also knew about Bin Laden's location. If so, the Americans probably also knew. I doubt that the ISI has many secrets that the NSA cannot penetrate.

The connection between the ISI and Al Qaeda primarily involved drugs. That's the factor which everyone keeps forgetting about. Yet it is key.

It should also not be forgotten that the ISI has strong links to the CIA. America was perhaps the primary market for Afghanistan's poppy product, and thus it was necessary for the Bin Laden network to maintain ties with powerful people in this country.

I haven't yet formulated a proper theory about all of this. But it seems to me that the answer to the mysteries surrounding the life and death of Osama Bin Laden may revolve around the drug connection. Permalink

Daniel Barenboim, long a champion of peace and reconciliation in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, conducted a concert in the Gaza strip last week. Barenboim is such a decent human being -- I wish I could call him my favorite conductor. (He takes a lot of flack for conducting Wagner, yet his way with Wagner often strikes this listener as being somehow "off.".)

That said, I certainly admire his resilience in the face of horrendous, ugly attacks. This fellow calls him a "neo-fascist":

Daniel Barenboim, orchestra conductor and a leading example of an anti-semitic Jew, has just been given honorary palestinian citizenship.

For this traitorous act, taking citizenship of a non-existant nation, not to mention how he supports terrorism and racism, he should have his Israeli citizenship revoked

Israeli education minister Limor Livnat called Barenboim "A real Jew-hater, a real anti-Semite."

The "anti-Semitic Jew" canard is an utterly disingenuous manipulation trick, and an increasing number of Jews can see right through it. In a similar vein, Dubya supporters in 2003 would call you "anti-American" if you did not support the invasion of Iraq. These shoddy rhetorical devices simply won't fly anymore.

All of that said, I disagree with Barenboim on the key issue: A two-state solution is no longer viable, given Israel's indefensible history of military incursion into Lebanon. I favor a single-state solution. The idea of a "Jewish state" was always a sick and inherently racist dream. It was a racist conception in Biblical times, and it remains so today. That dream must end. The replacement must be single, secular state where all who have family roots in the land are considered citizens, and all citizens have equal rights.

A growing number of Israelis favor a single-state solution. But in America, that idea is considered unthinkable -- and those who do dare to think such thoughts are considered bigots. Why are certain concepts permitted to an Israeli but forbidden to me?

The democratization movement in the Middle East means that Israel will no longer be able to claim to be the only democracy in the region. Hell, it's not a true democracy now. The new Egypt will not deny voting rights on the basis of ethnicity. Permalink

The problem facing the Alex Jonesian "fake raid" theorists is the same problem facing Obama: The witnesses.

Osama Bin Laden's daughter has claimed he was captured alive in his Pakistani hideout and then shot by U.S. special forces, it was reported today.

Arabic news network Al-Arabiya quoted 'senior Pakistani security officials' who said the 12-year-old saw her father executed and his body dragged to a helicopter.

I've seen the "captured alive" story in the British and Indian press, but not in the American press. From the Times of India:

An Arabic television station went further, saying, "a source in Pakistani security quoted the daughter of Osama bin Laden that the leader of al-Qaida was not killed inside his house, but had been arrested and was killed later".

It seems that capture was never an option. This was an execution. I think that he was killed because, if tried, he would reveal the names of his former partners in the drug trade.

Think about it: If a Navy SEAL picked off Osama Bin Laden at a distance, thinking that Bin Laden was going for a weapon, that SEAL would be famous now. His name would be released. He'd be an insta-hero. But if a captured and helpless Osama were executed at point-blank range -- well, that's a different story.

The drug angle may also explain Pakistan's involvement in this. If they allowed Osama to reside in that military community, how could they have done so without knowledge of the Americans? Was Osama, in effect, under house arrest? Permalink

In the post below, I noted that the compound wall shown in photos of the downed helicopter does not resemble the walls seen in other (helicopter-free) shots of compound. Well, here's a non-chopper photo of the wall -- and it looks very much like the one seen in shots of the downed helicopter.

The photo is odd, nevertheless. The wall is charred -- indicating that there was an explosion. Some have scoffed at the suggestion that Americans set off bombs.

Could the SEALs have used stealth helicopters? That's the claim made here, and it is based on the difficulty of identifying the tail section seen in various photos.

Bill Sweetman, editor of Aviation Week said the pictures show a 'stealth-configuration' on the wrecked rotor housing.

This would explain why they tried to destroy it. At any rate, we can be sure now that it was not a Pakistani craft.

I'd still like to know how the thing crashed: Judging from the photos, it seems to have landed right on top of the wall, splitting the craft apart.

Incidentally, here is a first-night report from a Pakistani newspaper. This was published before it was announced that Americans had gone after Osama Bin Laden. I reproduce it in full:

Chopper crashes, three blasts heard near PMA Kakul

News Desk
Monday, May 02, 2011

ABBOTTABAD: Three loud blasts were heard near the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) Kakul Road late Sunday night and a military helicopter also crashed. Sources told Geo News that heavy firing was heard in the area before the chopper crashed.

Windowpanes of the nearby buildings and houses were smashed due to the intensity of the blasts, the sources said. Eyewitnesses said first sound of heavy firing was heard and then there was a huge blast. Fire erupted at the scene of the occurrence and according to latest reports police and fire brigade teams were rushing towards the blast scene. Security forces cordoned off the entire area and military helicopters were also hovering over the area.

Note that one sentence: "Security forces cordoned off the entire area..." This, before the fire brigade showed up.

I'd say that this story goes a long ways toward confirming the account in The Nation (the Pakistani newspaper), which said that Pakistan and the U.S. operated jointly, with the Pakistanis handling crowd control. (That article is discussed in detail below.)

I wonder if both the Pakistani and American government can continue to keep the truth of the matter under wraps?

One aspect of the tale that everyone forgets is this: Osama Bin Laden was once in control of much of the world's heroin supply. Those who worked with him in the drug trade may be glad to know that a potential squealer won't go to trial.

Perhaps this fact explains why a guy with no weapon was shot. Permalink

Cable news is barraging us with propaganda. The Fox Newsers want everyone to believe that Bush-era torture cracked the Bin Laden case (not true) -- while Ed Schultz, I am sorry to say, acted like a smarmy salesman tonight, sounding very much like Joe Isuzu as he relentlessly pushed the Democratic brand. Well, I suppose we should expect the spinners to spin; that's their job. The current euphoria will pass and Obama's poll numbers will soon sink -- hell, 56% approval is nothing to crow about, given these circumstances.

Congressmen are calling for a reassessment of our relations with Pakistan. This troubling development is based on what may be a wrong-headed understanding of the raid. I'm writing this post to suggest an alternative scenario.

The Pakistani government, for its part, has offered pro-forma denunciations of America for conducting a military operation in their country without their knowledge. The Pakistanis claim that they had no awareness of the raid until it was a fait accompli.

What surprises me is how many people in this country, Democrats and Republicans, accept this construction on its face. Two posts down, I linked to some fascinating evidence that America and Pakistan worked hand-in-hand on this operation. Alas, those links came toward the end of a massive post, which few read in its entirety.

So let's recap.

The Nation, a leading Pakistani newspaper, offers a persuasive picture of US/Pakistani cooperation in the raid. (Again, I have added paragraph breaks for readability.)

About 200 Pakistan Army men provided ground support, top level official sources told The Nation. During the operation, four helicopters of the Pakistan Army hovered over the fortress-like hideout of al-Qaeda chief at Thanda Choh, a relatively isolated area of Abbottabad’s otherwise posh locality Bilal Town that is barely a kilometre away from the Pakistan Military Academy, Kakul.

After completing aerial assessments, the four Pakistan Army helicopters were replaced by two US helicopters, ten minutes later.

Initially, the US military personnel opened fire at the outer wall of Osama’s hideout, which was retaliated by the house inmates with heavy gunfire. After almost twenty minutes of cross-firing, the US forces directly targeted the house with sophisticated bombs, eventually killing Osama, his eight bodyguards, seven close aides and an unspecified number of family members including a young son, children and two wives.

When the residents of the area, upon hearing heavy gunshots and explosions, came out of their homes or went up to the rooftops of their houses, Pakistani soldiers in helicopters threw search lights, instructing them to stay indoors. Besides initial aerial support, the Pakistan Army provided ground support by deploying ground troops within a radius of one kilometre of the operation area.

Is this account credible?

TalkLeft, one of the few American sites (right or left) to note the account in The Nation, calls it an "alternative reality." Perhaps it is "realer" than the reality we're getting from the American media. TalkLeft makes the usual snide remarks about the "rumor mill" being in overdrive -- but isn't that a rather ethnocentric assessment? After all, when a major American newspaper quotes unnamed high-level military sources, we don't make snide comments about "the rumor mill." (Although perhaps we should.)

Consider this: Bin Laden lived within (or near) a heavily populated area. American military planners would not have wanted to carry out a raid of this sort -- it lasted over an hour -- with neighbors pouring out of their homes and wandering into a war zone. Innocent casualties would have made the administration look monstrous, especially if Osama was not in the compound. (Many news accounts have emphasized that the raiders were not 100% certain of his presence.) So it would have made sense to use Pakistani soldiers for crowd control.

A new story in the U.K.'s The Mirror confirms that the neighbors were told to stay indoors. But in this instance, the tale is "conformed" to fit the official narrative of no U.S.-Pakistan cooperation.

SHADOWY men ordered Osama bin Laden’s neighbours to stay indoors minutes before the raid.

Residents believe the Pashtun-speaking visitors were CIA agents, recruited from Pakistan, who wanted to ensure no civilians were hurt.

Ali Bokhari, a Lincolnshire A&E doctor, originally from Abbottabad, said friends were visited in the night, adding: “Somebody came an hour before the operation started.

“They knocked on the door and said ‘there is going to be an operation against a drug dealer – stay inside as there is a chance of a gunfight’.”

I wonder how many residents believed that the visitors were CIA.

Then there's the mystery of the downed helicopter. Our government says that it was an American chopper. The Nation says that it was a Pakistani helicopter. Which version is right?

From the Nation version of events:

Till Monday morning, PMA officials maintained that a Pakistan Army helicopter had crashed near Bilal Town while carrying out routine strategic exercises.

PMA stands for Pakistan Military Academy. (They have a song, and it's pretty catchy.) Bilal Town is the suburb of Abbottabad where Bin Laden lived. You may or may not want not want to read something into the use of the word "near."

Oddly enough, this story is partly confirmed by -- of all publications -- the Albuquerque Express.

The two crashes have come less than 48 hours after the death of Osama bin Laden.

Two Pakistan military aircraft have crashed in separate incidents less than 48 hours after the world's most wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden was targeted and killed at a mansion in Abbottabad, 65 kilometres north of Islamabad.

A Pakistani army helicopter crashed on Tuesday night about 30 kilomtres from Abbottabad. There were a number of casualties including at least one fatality, according to local Urdu TV channel, Samaa.

That's awfully coincidental. At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist -- perish the thought! -- I should point out that, if a Pakistani helicopter did crash during the raid, the Pakistani military would have to come up with a quick cover story to explain the loss of life. Hypothetically speaking, of course.

Eyewitness Sahir Elahi, who lived yard away from Bin Laden's mansion, says that he saw no helicopter crash.

The American media has been downright strange when it comes to giving a straight story about the downing of this aircraft. Earlier tonight, I caught a cable news report which said that it came down due to an "unexpected updraft from a wall." I didn't know that hovering over a wall could bring down a Blackhawk, but apparently that event is possible.

We are now told that the helicopter was an MH-60 Blackhawk. The most in-depth account of the crash comes to us via Defense Tech, which notes that there have been no reports of American casualties -- "which is impressive given the image above."

In any case, a chopper on final approach to a raid insertion could have been forced down by small arms fire (a lucky shot to the gearbox), brownout conditions where dust kicked up from the rotor wash interfere with the pilot’s ability to see, or it could have clipped some of the nearby power lines you can see in these pictures of the site (although there don’t appear to be any downed lines) or a combination of all factors. Or maybe, it really was mechanical failure. Keep in mind the raid was conducted around 1:00 in the morning so they were using night vision goggles. This goes to show just how tough missions like this are, even for the pilots of the 160th, whose skills are legendary in the helo community. Those pilots have also had weeks, at the minimum, to practice the mission at a site that was built to reflect the compound and its environs. So they probably knew where any potential obstacles were and how to avoid them.

That article evinced some interesting commentary:

One question so far unanswered: how did four helicopters enter and exist Pakistan without alerting air defense systems? I know that twin rotor Chinooks make a lot of noise, and OBL's compound was not in the middle of nowhere like Vietnam's Son Tay prison or Desert One in Iran. Given the proximity to the Pakistani military college, I'd assume that air defense missiles were around to ward off Indian air strikes. Is it possible that the Pakistani military was told to stand down in some way?

All of those speculating on this as if this was some "hidden from Pakistanis" sort of episode are mistaken. Some simple facts are as such that had the Pakistanis wanted to stop this operation (not that they wanted to), they have enough capability to saturate the airspace in and around the region with upwards of 250-300 fighter aircraft in a very short amount of time (I have seen this during the last Indian-Pak flare up). While the USAF and USN/USMC assets can handle this threat, the conduct of a unilateral 60 minute plus operation would have become impossible in these circumstances.

The simple explanation is the correct one which is that this was a joint operation. There was no choice but to give the Paks the ability to plausibly deny their participation for fear of blowback from TTP extremists within the country.

Some of the Defense Tech commenters have expressed doubt about the identification:

Does anybody else think that the tail section does not look like an MH-60. The tail planes are canted rearwards and the MH-60's are basically square.

It's an MH-60, no doubt.

But from the looks of the tail section wreckage... It might be the angle of photo but the Horizontal Stab looks a bit small to be a UH MH 60.

Now viewing more pic,s i don't believe it was a black hawk, stabilizer is swept and tail not cantered and wide on the photo shown on other sites.

We'll have to leave that discussion for the experts. All I can do is link to this page, which shows a variety of S-60s used in covert operations. I'm guessing that the MH-60k would be a likely candidate. Correction or confirmation from those in the know would be very much welcomed. I'd also like to know what kind of choppers are used by Pakistan's elite forces.

Although (arguably) only those in the military or aerospace should play the game of "identify the chopper," everyone is qualified play the game of "identify that wall." Compare the wall in the photo above to the walls seen in other shots of the Bin Laden compound.

(Click on the image to enlarge.) To my eyes, the differences between the walls are pronounced. I've seen several photos of the downed chopper. In none of them do I see any unambiguous visual reference to the now-familiar Bin Laden compound.

That said: Our visual data is, at present, quite limited. More photographs, and more video footage from the scene, may explain what now looks like a visual anomaly.

Let's look at a final issue. What happened to Bin Laden's family?

As you know, six sons, a daughter and a wife (identified as Amal al-Saddah) were captured at the compound. They are now in Pakistani hands. To the best of my knowledge, the only published account about the actual capture is here:

The US Special Forces only took two bodies with them in the military chopper; one is said to be bin Laden’s and the other his son’s. By the time Pakistani security agencies and soldiers arrived at the spot, the US commandos were flying over the mountains in the Pakistani tribal belt, well on their way to Afghanistan.

"The" chopper? We've received varying reports as to just how many were involved. (Although many reports say that only two took part, Defense Tech speaks of an indeterminate number, including Chinooks.) But let that pass.

What concerns me here is the image of the sons of Osama Bin Laden -- completely unguarded -- just hanging around the compound for long minutes, waiting for the Pakistani military to show up. No attempt to escape.

Well, maybe they were playing Quake.

Or maybe -- just maybe -- the Pakistanis had arrived along with the Americans.

All in all, I would say that the preponderance of the evidence available at this time suggests that the government of Pakistan not only was aware of the raid, they participated in it. I may be wrong -- and of course, I'm perfectly willing to modify this view as new information comes in.

The motive for lying about Pakistani cooperation is obvious: America remains unpopular in that part of the world. Permalink

Hate to admit it, but this is a good line:

I swear if Obama turned water into wine his critics would accuse him of being an alcoholic.

Of course, the Republicans will treat any Democratic president that way, even a sell-out like Obama.

By the time summer rolls around, bin Laden's death will be a distant memory, but the unemployment rate and gas prices will still be here, fresh in our minds.

What will Democrats have to say?

I hope they'll say that they need a Democratic president who acts like a Democrat.

Incidentally: I don't care what any of my readers have to say. Sarah Palin was vile and unforgivable when she gave credit for the raid to Bush, not Obama. Permalink

Many questions surround the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. Foreign sources are giving accounts of the raid -- and of Pakistan's role -- which differ markedly from the version prepared for U.S. consumption.

Some of this material is rather disturbing...

Update: Was Osama's wife killed or not? Many news reports said that a woman, presumed to be Osama's wife, was killed after he tried to use her as a human shield. See here...

A White House spokesman last night revealed Bin Laden tried to use his wife as a human shield when US Navy SEALs stormed his compound.

But a bullet to the head ended the 10-year hunt for the 9/11 monster. His wife was killed too.

But this AP video (scroll down) tells a very different story. In essence, the video claims that another woman was killed in the raid -- and that Osama's wife identified him after death! (No-one has spoken of more than one wife being present.) Another White House official has confirmed that the slain woman was not Bin Laden's wife.

Did the Pakistani government know about Bin Laden's location? A lot of people are saying that they had to have known all along.

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, hinted that the Pakistani state itself was complicit in sheltering the terrorist leader, saying Bin Laden had "hidden himself in the military bases of Abbottabad".

Ironically, only 10 days ago Pakistan's army chief addressed cadets at that town's military academy – the equivalent of Sandhurst in the UK or West Point in the US – claiming the army had broken the back of militants linked to al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Bin Laden was about half a mile away, living large. The Telegraph says that Wikileaks releases reveal that Pakistani services protected top Al Qaeda personnel living in that country

American diplomats were told that one of the key reasons why they had failed to find bin Laden was that Pakistan’s security services tipped him off whenever US troops approached.

Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISID) also allegedly smuggled al-Qaeda terrorists through airport security to help them avoid capture and sent a unit into Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban.

The Pakistani press is fretting about this:

“Pakistan has found itself in quite the embarrassing situation. Whilst we have been allies of the US, we have been very trying partners, picking and choosing the militants we wanted to root out and the ones we wanted to protect,” the Daily Times said.

This writer for Dawn reminds us that Pakistani officials routinely became infuriated whenever anyone suggested that Osama Bin Laden was in Pakistan.

Why, yours truly has been called a traitor deserving of death when I suggested that only given what the establishment itself told us about Osama’s failing kidneys and need for regular dialysis there was no way he was living in a cave on some remote mountain. Why indeed, did the Commando puff out his chest and glare at Hamid Karzai when the Afghan president suggested that Al Qaeda’s top leadership was hiding in Pakistan? Why the stout denial all these years?

Actually, we had a similar situation in this country. The official line placed Osama Bin Laden in a wild, un-policed territory -- and anyone who suggested otherwise was considered something of an oddball.

Did Bush know about Osama's location in 2005? I seem to be the only one who recalls that former CIA chief Porter Goss once cryptically remarked that he had an "excellent idea" about Osama's location. Said Porter, back in 2005:

But when you go to the very difficult question of dealing with sanctuaries in sovereign states, you're dealing with a problem of our sense of international obligation, fair play.

In light of recent events, Goss's statement indicates that a similar raid could have been carried out five or six years ago.

Has capturing/killing Osama Bin Laden always been a political problem, not an intelligence problem? Precisely what has changed, politically?

Did Pakistan cooperate with the American raid? Many articles in the Western press indicate that the American team went to great lengths to keep their operations a complete secret from the Pakistanis.

Mark Ambinder of the Atlantic asked:

How did the helos elude the Pakistani air defense network? Did they spoof transponder codes? Were they painted and tricked out with Pakistan Air Force equipment? If so -- and we may never know -- two other JSOC units, the Technical Application Programs Office and the Aviation Technology Evaluation Group, were responsible. These truly are the silent squirrels -- never getting public credit and not caring one whit.

When one encounters a passage like this, one does not have to squint very hard to read between the lines. Obviously, Ambinder is here more-or-less admitting that he has been told that transponder codes were spoofed. Just as obviously, he has been told not to say so directly.

Okay. But why not say so directly? Why the wink wink, nudge nudge?

In Pakistan, many believe that their government was complicit. Indeed, this seems to be the question over there.

Dawn said the operation raises a slew of questions about the level of cooperation with Pakistani intelligence and the military.

“Were they taken into confidence? If so, at what point? Were they consulted or simply informed? Did they play any role in the operation?”

Yep. They did.

At least, such is the purport of this article on the Pakistan Defence Blog, headlined "Osama killed by American troops. Pakistan Army provided ground support."

Forgive the long quotation, but this one is definitely worth reading. (So don't skim!) I'm adding paragraph breaks to increase readability:

About 200 Pakistan Army men provided ground support, top level official sources told The Nation. During the operation, four helicopters of the Pakistan Army hovered over the fortress-like hideout of al-Qaeda chief at Thanda Choh, a relatively isolated area of Abbottabad’s otherwise posh locality Bilal Town that is barely a kilometre away from the Pakistan Military Academy, Kakul.

After completing aerial assessments, the four Pakistan Army helicopters were replaced by two US helicopters, ten minutes later.

Initially, the US military personnel opened fire at the outer wall of Osama’s hideout, which was retaliated by the house inmates with heavy gunfire. After almost twenty minutes of cross-firing, the US forces directly targeted the house with sophisticated bombs, eventually killing Osama, his eight bodyguards, seven close aides and an unspecified number of family members including a young son, children and two wives.

When the residents of the area, upon hearing heavy gunshots and explosions, came out of their homes or went up to the rooftops of their houses, Pakistani soldiers in helicopters threw search lights, instructing them to stay indoors. Besides initial aerial support, the Pakistan Army provided ground support by deploying ground troops within a radius of one kilometre of the operation area.

That's not the way they're telling the story in the U.S. media!

If the cooperation was that close, then obviously there was no need to spoof transponder codes. Which means that someone lied to Ambinder.

Did a helicopter crash? There have been widespread reports of a crash, and even grainy video footage of a burning helicopter. There are conflicting accounts as to whether gunfire from the compound brought the chopper down.

The above-quoted story from the Pakistan Defence Blog says that it was a Pakistani helicopter that crashed. That possibility has been kept out of the U.S. press, which is hewing to the line that Pakistan was kept entirely in the dark about the operation until after the fact.

However, we also have this:

Meanwhile, Sahir Elahi, an eyewitness who lives a few yards from the place where the operation took place, doubted if any helicopter had crashed. “We were the first to reach the spot – by that time the security forces had not cordoned off the area. The wreckage of any helicopter was nowhere to be seen. I think it was a bomb that was dropped by the US forces,” he said.

(Emphases added.) This is all very strange. How could a close neighbor, on the scene at that early stage, miss a thing like a helicopter crash?

But if there was no crash, then why on earth would so many accounts speak of one? I can see no reason to fib about such a thing.

Unless...unless it really was a Pakistani chopper that went down -- not on the scene of the raid, but some ways away. The fib was motivated by American determination to keep Pakistan's part of the operation secret.

So far, that's the only theory that seems to cover the facts.

Update: More on the chopper crash. The AP video referenced above gives us a photo of the crashed chopper, identified as American. If we are to believe this story, then the Americans evacuated their personnel -- and the captured members of Osama's entrouage, and the Bin Laden body -- in but one helicopter.

That doesn't seem terribly likely to me.

Perhaps this photo will help us identify just where the helicopter went down, and whether it is Pakistani or American.

What about the missing years? It seems that Osama moved into this residence in 2006. Where was he before?

Is there a photo? Dawn says that photographic evidence of Osama's corpse exists -- and this isn't the hoax photo discussed earlier.

Still-secret photos of the dead Osama bin Laden show a precision kill shot above his left eye, a US official said...

The administration weighed whether to release photos of bin Laden’s corpse and video of his swift burial at sea. Officials were reluctant to inflame Islamic sentiment by showing graphic images of the body. But they were also eager to address the mythology already building in Pakistan and beyond that bin Laden was somehow still alive.

US officials say the photographic evidence shows bin Laden was shot above his left eye, blowing away part of his skull.

This is ridiculous. We've all seen brutal and disturbing photographs of Iraqi corpses. We recall the video record of Saddam Hussein's execution. We also recall the videos (some of them questioned) of Al Qaeda personnel beheading Nick Berg and other Americans. Suddenly, the American government is acting squeamish about Osama Bin Laden?

It doesn't make sense. Not to me, at least.

I'll have more, later on today -- including a look at some of the wilder theories offered by Alex Jones and the "deathers." As always, we can count on Alex to bring discredit to anyone asking questions of authority.

Update: Here's a cute piece from ABC on the need for "death proof."

It may have been those very rumors [of Osama's death years ago] that led Obama to pass up an opportunity to bomb bin Laden's compound. As ABC News' Jake Tapper reported earlier today, Obama recognized that kind of destruction would leave no trace of bin Laden's death.

Instead, Obama opted for a far more difficult mission with a Navy SEAL team...

Ah. So the administration passes up the bombing scenario and goes with a more dangerous raid scenario, because they want to make sure that they have an identifiable body. They need the body to scotch rumors spread by conspiracy theorists. And then what do they do? They dump the body into the ocean!

Does that make sense to you? Permalink

Six inside witnesses. As expected, many bloggers are wondering about "wag the dog" scenarios. (Classical music buffs may prefer to call it a "Lieutenant Kijé" scenario.) The primary evidence against all "fake raid" theories is the report that six of Bin Laden's sons were nabbed alive. If this whole thing were a hoax, then official accounts probably would not have included that detail.

Eventually, someone is going to interview one or more of those six.

Who was that woman? Here's another detail which tells me that the raid really did occur as described: One of the bodies was that of a woman (perhaps Osama's wife) being used as a human shield. When you think about it, her death does not exactly redound to the credit of the SEAL team.

We've entered a grim world indeed when the old "Back off coppers, or the dame gets it" ploy results only in a hail of gunfire.

On the other hand... We have a fake photograph alleged to be that of Osama Bin Laden. Who engineered this con, and why? Was the photo prepared before the raid, or after?

The photo was published by a number of news agencies shortly after the raid. This fact tells me that the job was not a simple matter of hijinx perpetrated by a snickering civilian Photoshopper. The parties responsible for this hoax appear to have had serious journalism connections.

I consider the fake photo worthy of investigation. Don't let this mystery slide by.

When did the raid take place? Officially, Osama Bin Laden died on May 2. At least, that's what Wikipedia says. An on-site Twitter user confirms this time period. But there are rumors that he was killed earlier, perhaps on Friday.

The announcement was withheld in order to pose no conflict with coverage of the royal wedding -- at least, so runs one version of the rumor. Another version holds that Obama wanted to announce the deaths of Ghaddafy and Osama Bin Laden on the same day, but the former refused to co-operate.

Lest we forget... Anyone else out there recall this elaborate graphic depicting Osama Bin Laden's "Dr. No" hideaway? That hoax should remind us that the government does use the media to lie to us.

Some Pakistanis beg to differ. According to the International Business Times, two Pakistani television stations insist that Osama Bin Laden is still alive. The apparent source for this claim is a Taliban-affiliated group in Pakistan.

Bodies. If Osama had to be buried at sea because no country would take the corpse, then what happened to the bodies of his son and the woman presumed to be his wife?

What did Pakistan know? Steve Coll of the New Yorker has written an excellent piece addressing this topic.

Abbottabad is essentially a military-cantonment city in Pakistan, in the hills to the north of the capital of Islamabad, in an area where much of the land is controlled or owned by the Pakistani Army and retired Army officers.

It stretches credulity to think that a mansion of that scale could have been built and occupied by bin Laden for six years without its coming to the attention of anyone in the Pakistani Army.

The initial circumstantial evidence suggests that the opposite is more likely—that bin Laden was effectively being housed under Pakistani state control. Pakistan will deny this, it seems safe to predict, and perhaps no convincing evidence will ever surface to prove the case. If I were a prosecutor at the United States Department of Justice, however, I would be tempted to call a grand jury. Who owned the land on which the house was constructed? How was the land acquired, and from whom? Who designed the house, which seems to have been purpose-built to secure bin Laden? Who was the general contractor? Who installed the security systems? Who worked there? Are there witnesses who will now testify as to who visited the house, how often, and for what purpose?

The standard counter-conspiracy article: Read it here. Parts of this piece by Damian Thompson are boilerplate, but some of it demonstrates actual original thought, which surprises me. Like this:

No body. No photograph or DNA evidence – at least, not yet. [Update: The White House now says there was a DNA match between the body and tissue taken from bin Laden's dead sister's brain.] Conspiracy theorists are an ingenious bunch, but at the moment the White House is making this ridiculously easy for them.

Moreover, why did it allow bin Laden’s body to be dropped into the sea? Is the US really so sensitive to Islamic burial practices that it is prepared to hand conspiracy theorists such a gift?

Thank you for that, Damian. We'll probably never catch an American journalist making that (rather obvious) observation.

This article notes that conspiracy theories are even more prevalent in the Middle East than in the United States. I have no doubt that, even in Islamic countries, a lot of people are asking why there was no autopsy.

I do have a bone to pick with Thompson...

We’ve also seen young, Left-wing disciples of Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore happily draw on 9/11 “truther” theories constructed in the American fascist underground.

In a very technical sense, this statement is true. The author is correct to note that the "controlled demolition" nonsense first picked up steam on the right -- that is, on the fascist ultra-right, which has always been opposed to the Bush family and to the (pro-Israel) neocons. (In previous posts, we've looked at the origins of the "controlled demolition" meme.)

It is also true that these fascist musings were later picked up by some very naive (and very annoying) lefties, some of whom may also be fans of Chomsky and Moore. However, the wording of this passage might lead some to believe that Chomsky and Moore themselves believe in "CD" theories. That simply is not the case.

Many of the "truthers" are young people whose political views are rather vague, inchoate and contradictory. The same ninnies used to praise Ron Paul on the Democratic Underground boards.

Right now, CD-ism is primarily a right-wing phenomenon. (Example: Alex Jones, David Icke and Jim Marrs.) Correct me if I'm wrong, but to the best of my knowledge, no-one on the American left holding any position of responsibility has endorsed that silliness. Permalink

By now, you've heard the news. Osama Bin Laden has been killed.

Despite the tone of the preceding post, the thought has occurred to me (and probably to you as well -- admit it, you bastards!) that this death was staged to rescue the President's poll numbers.

Everyone knows that Dubya disdained the importance of catching Bin Laden. All of America will be comparing Obama to Bush -- and the comparison will work to Obama's favor. That fact alone will have many people muttering about "wag the dog" scenarios.

OBL was hiding, it seems, in a mansion in Abbottabad, Pakistan. For years, we've been told that he was hiding in the wilderness, in caves, in a very primitive part of Pakistan. Turns out he was in a nice, big house in what looks to be a rather well-populated suburb near Islamabad -- within walking distance of the Pakistani military academy!

The neighborhood is teeming with retired Pakistani officers, and is surrounded by restricted areas. In other words: Spook city, Pakistan-style. Did Pakistani officials know where Bin Laden was? In this story, an unnamed senior American intelligence official says that they must have known.

Are there reasons for normal, rational-minded blokes who are non-fans of Alex Jones to express at least some skepticism toward the official story coming out of the White House?

Yes, I think so. Check this out:

A U.S. official told CNN that bin Laden was buried at sea. The official said his body was handled in the Islamic tradition, but did not elaborate.

Buried at sea? So soon?

Thereby making forensic analysis impossible? No dental check, no fingerprint check, no DNA check?

Come on. They couldn't keep the body on ice for a day or two?

According to this AP story, the administration was concerned about offending Muslims, who insist on speedy burial. Plus, no Islamic country would take the remains, or so we are told.

I don't see why the American government is so concerned now about offending Muslim sensibilities. We didn't seem so very concerned about that sort of thing when we embarked upon that great unpleasantness in Iraq. If Obama had shipped the Bin Laden cadaver to the U.S. and kept it on ice for a few days -- well, honestly, what would have happened? Do you think Abu Dhabi would have broken off diplomatic relations? Would Saudi Arabia have announced an oil boycott?

As a matter of fact, Islamic custom dictates washing the body of the deceased and placing it in a shroud, saying certain prayers, then burying the body near the site of death, placed in the grave without a coffin. Burial at sea usually only occurs if a Muslim dies onboard a ship. However...

If it is feared that an enemy may dig up the grave and exhume the dead body and amputate its ears or nose or other limbs, it should be lowered into sea, if possible, as stated in the foregoing rule.

Islamic countries do allow autopsies to be performed when identity or cause of death is an issue.

Yeesh. It's as though someone in the White House intended to rile up the conspiracy theorists.

Aside from all that, the story as we have it seems a little too pat, a little too Hollywood. We're told that the SEALS gave Osama a chance to surrender, and when they didn't, they shot him in the head. I wonder who will get credit for the kill?

More importantly, was there video of the operation? How could there not be video?

The Slate account is the fullest I've seen so far.

In June 2009, Obama directed his CIA director to "provide me within 30 days a detailed operation plan for locating and bringing to justice" Osama Bin Laden. By August 2010 intelligence officials had identified the suspicious compound where Osama lived. Thirty-five minutes outside Islamabad, the walls were up to 18 feet high and topped with barbed wire. The largest structure, a three-story building, had very few windows. Though the house was valued at $1 million, it had no Internet or phone service.

Wouldn't it be amazing if cell phone GPS really did crack the case?

If Panetta was able to do this job so rapidly, then why couldn't Bush? That's the most obvious question. A lot of Americans will be asking it. Obama must want them to ask it.

The timing is a bit odd. Just a month before the identification of the compound, Panetta was saying something very different:

June 27 [2010]: CIA Director Leon Panetta, speaking on ABC News' This Week, stated that that last time the CIA had "precise information" on bin Laden was "the early 2000s." Panetta states that "He is, as is obvious, in very deep hiding. He's in an area of the tribal areas of Pakistan, that is very difficult. The terrain is probably the most difficult in the world...All I can tell you is it's in the tribal areas...we know that he's located in that vicinity."

Ah, but in October of that year, we had this:

A senior NATO official tells CNN claims that bin Laden is alive and well, living comfortably in a house in the north-west of Pakistan and being protected by local people and elements of Pakistani intelligence. Stating that "Nobody in al Qaeda is living in a cave," the official stated the bin Laden was likely to have moved around in recent years in areas from the mountainous Chitral region in the far northwest, near the Chinese border, to the Kurram Valley bordering Tora Bora in Afghanistan. The official stated that Ayman al-Zawahiri is believed to be hiding close to bin Laden in houses in northwest Pakistan, but are not together. Another U.S. official sated that bin Laden and Zawahiri are "somewhere in the tribal areas of Pakistan near the Afghanistan border," but that their exact locations are unknown: "If we knew where he was -- in a house, an apartment, a villa or an underground cave or bunker -- we would have gotten him; we can't rule out he may be in a cave one day and a house in a city on another."

The first bit -- the quote from the UN official -- sounds more or less congruent with the current story. However, Abbottabad is in the northeast.

I'd like someone to identify the "U.S. official" who seemed so certain of the "tribal area" location. Was that a deliberate deception? Was the official himself (or herself) deceived?

Here's another obvious question: Why the seeming inaction between August, 2010 and today?

Detainees being held at Guantanamo provided some of the strongest information about those who were trusted by Bin Laden.

Okay, this detail strikes me as being a little too good. How would the Gitmo detainees know such intel? Isn't it just a bit conveeeeeenient that this justification for Gitmo should crop up at this particular time -- right after Wikileaks revealed that 150 of the prisoners were innocent?

By the way, six of Osama Bin Laden's sons were captured. That factoid definitely works against "wag the dog" theorists. One of the sons was killed. Will the surviving six sons be able to tell us which Bin Laden recordings are real? (If you're wondering, Osama had 19 children from four wives.)

Osama isn't the first high-level Al Qaeda figure arrested in Abbottabad. There was the strange case of Umar Patek in January of 2010. Poor Umar lived rather less regally than did the Bin Laden family. One wonders: Did Umar provide the intelligence which fingered Osama's location?

Take note: I've learned the hard way that whenever the topic of Osama Bin Laden comes up, there will always be some arrogant young conspira-tard who will sneer: "Cannon, you fool! Don't you know that Osama Bin Laden died years ago?" No, I do not know that -- and neither do you. If you have actual evidence for that proposition, by all means share with the rest of the class. But first, please consult a dictionary to make sure you are clear on the difference between "surmise" and "evidence."

I don't mind a moderate amount of surmise (as this very post demonstrates), but I insist on drawing a careful distinction between speculation and that which we know.

More to come... Permalink