YEARS OF DECEIT: US OPENLY ACCEPTS BIN LADEN LONG DEAD

[Demeter]

http://www.veteranstoday.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=9641

Conservative commentator, former Marine Colonel Bob Pappas has been saying for years that bin Laden died at Tora Bora and that Senator Kerry's claim that bin Laden escaped with Bush help was a lie. Now we know that Pappas was correct. The embarassment of having Secretary of State Clinton talk about bin Laden in Pakistan was horrific. He has been dead since December 13, 2001 and now, finally, everyone, Obama, McChrystal, Cheney, everyone who isn't nuts is finally saying what they have known for years.

However, since we lost a couple of hundred of our top special operations forces hunting for bin Laden after we knew he was dead, is someone going to answer for this with some jail time? Since we spent 200 million dollars on "special ops" looking for someone we knew was dead, who is going to jail for that? Since Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney continually talked about a man they knew was dead, now known to be for reasons of POLITICAL nature, who is going to jail for that? Why were tapes brought out, now known to be forged, as legitimate intelligence to sway the disputed 2004 election in the US? This is a criminal act if there ever was one.

MORE AT LINK

...We spent 8 years chasing a dead man, spending billions, sending FBI agents, the CIA, Navy Seals, Marine Force Recon, Special Forces, many to their deaths, as part of a political campaign to justify running American into debt, enriching a pack of political cronies and war profiteers and to puff up a pack of Pentagon peacocks and their Whitehouse draft dodging bosses.

How many laws were pushed thru because of a dead man?

How many hundreds were tortured to find a dead man?

How many hundreds died looking for a dead man?

How many billions were spent looking for a dead man?

Every time Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld stood before troops and talked about hunting down the dead bin Laden, it was a dishonor. Lying to men and women who put their lives on the line is not a joke.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

1. It doesn't really say anything about the U.S. "openly accepting Osama Bin Laden is dead"

It says he wasn't mentioned...but that's it. It talks about how McCrystal doesn't mention him in 66 pages and how Obama didn't mention him at Westpoint. But if the standard of proof is that Osama bin Laden wasn't mentioned, this is canceled out by the fact that Secretary Clinton (as the author points out) DID mention him.

[pundaint]

11. Exactly! It would be troubling if true, and it may be, but where's the proof?

[AllyCat]

2. So Michael Moore was right too about the guy on dialysis in a cave

He also said he was dead.

The point was never to find the dead man. The point was to spend money and get us to go along with it for terra!

So, no. No one will get so much as a slap on the hand.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DCKit]

4. Nice segue. You have a future at Faux Snooze or AM radio. n/t

[kickysnana]

7. They didn't you just have not been paying attention. n/t

[pnorman]

5. "...puff up a pack of Pentagon peacocks and their Whitehouse draft dodging bosse..."

If I get nothing else out of that article, at least I have that wonderful alliterative quote!

[HughMoran]

6. He might be dead, but the proof is not contained within the article posted

:shrug:

[glitch]

8. Why do you think they call war "in theater"

Exactly what part of the political rationale for the wars on (insert Middle East/Central Asia country here) is TRUE? And not just said to be true, demonstrated reasonably to be true.

[NJmaverick]

9. 8 recs for an article taken from a freeper site

that praises "conservative commentator Bob Pappas":puke:

[JoeyT]

25. You mean Free Republic isn't a trustworthy source?

We're not heading down the road to "oligarhy", SOCIALISM, and "facism"?
Damnit! They got my hopes up.

If nothing else the random shot at Kerry should be a clue for people to check the source.

[winyanstaz]

10. I have been trying to tell the world he has been dead for years now...

glad to see the news is getting out there finally.
Lying to the men and women who put their lives on the line is not a joke...it is treason.

[billh58]

12. I enjoy a good

conspiracy theory as well as the next guy, but if OBL has been dead since Tora Bora, how was he able to release an authenticated audio tape in January of this year?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/14/bin-laden-urges-jihad-aga_n_157755.html

The OP's headline is an outright lie, as NO American official has even come close to "openly accepting" that OBL is dead. In fact, the opposite is true, and this is an old story being given new exposure for sadly apparent reasons.

Parroting the biased opinions and lies of a right-wing pundit isn't very becoming on a Democratic discussion board, nor is it likely to gain much traction. Unless, of course, there are ulterior motives involved, such as attempting to undermine the Democratic leadership, mislead grassroots Liberal Democrats with propaganda and lies, and work in concert with other disrupters.

[bread_and_roses]

13. That is an ugly and unwarranted accusation to make of the OP

who has been a member since '03, has over 30,000 posts here, and posts the popular (at least with some of us) Weekend Economist Thread in this forum every week. I, for instance, only clicked on this thread because I saw who posted it - OBL's wherabouts and status do not interest me, as I am convinced they are irrelevant to what we are doing in AfPac, and I would normally have ignored it.

I don't follow the issue, as I said, but just in the amount of scanning I do, I am sure I recall that this particular commentator is hardly the only one who is of the opinion that OBL is dead? And that among that group are progressives of impeccable credentials?

Nor can I see anything in the OP to cause such an accusation as yours? I suppose that here someone could make a federal case over Clinton being criticized, but I've seen far worse said of her here, and I myself have said worse of her. Or is it that there is an implicit criticism of Obama and his administration and their escalation in Afghanistan? Well, there's been plenty of that, too, both here and elsewhere by, again, progressives of impeccable credentials. Not to mention that much of the quoted material seems to be referring to '04, not the present.

So none of your last paragraph, as far as I can see, applies to the OP - whatever the source of the quote- here, and amounts to nothing but a gratuitous slam.

[billh58]

14. I stand by my post,

although most of it was directed toward the original right-wing author. If anyone can point to some factual information that the US Government is deliberately keeping OBL's death a secret, or covering up his demise, then I challenge them to post reliable sources to it. Yes, there is unsubstantiated speculation about OBL's death at Tora Bora, but there is also very convincing evidence, and confirmed sightings as recently as March, 2009, that he is still alive and living near the Pakistan/Afghanistan border.

I do not believe that deliberately re-posting, and apparently supporting, right-wing propaganda on a Democratic discussion board is protected from criticism (or the calling of "bullshit" on the OP) by time spent on DU, number of posts, or the size of the readership of an unrelated weekly posting. This is clearly a direct accusation of malfeasance at the highest levels of our government, and needs to be sourced with other than obviously biased right-wing supposition and opinion.

As for your complaint about my post, I consider all spurious and unfounded accusations against our military and its leadership as "ugly and unwarranted." I place this piece of bullshit right up there with the Far Left 9/11 conspiracy theory, and the Far Right claims of the Birther movement.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, and are free to present them as such. When something is stated as a fact, however, different standards of proof and veracity are required. This OP does NOT meet the standards warranting presentation as a fact, and therefore the motives for re-posting this old unsubstantiated opinion masquerading as the verifiable truth are questionable, at the very least.

[bread_and_roses]

15. criticism of the POST was not my objection - the accusations against the POSTER was

these are two different things. Criticize the POST all you want. However, I do think that tenure, posting history, and most especially EVIDENCE warrant consideration before throwing around accusations such as:

Parroting the biased opinions and lies of a right-wing pundit isn't very becoming on a Democratic discussion board, nor is it likely to gain much traction. Unless, of course, there are ulterior motives involved, such as attempting to undermine the Democratic leadership, mislead grassroots Liberal Democrats with propaganda and lies, and work in concert with other disrupters.

(italics added).

As far as

As for your complaint about my post, I consider all spurious and unfounded accusations against our military and its leadership as "ugly and unwarranted."

the problem all too often has been that accusations against "our military and its leadership" turn out to be all too well founded, or hadn't you noticed? Not to mention that the OP seems to express a concern for "our military" - one I admit I don't much share. While I pity those that are forced to join by lack of any other opportunity, I admit to being far more concerned about the infants and children they regularly manage to dismember and incinerate at the orders of the "leadership" - including now Obama, alas.

Which is my last word on the topic. I don't much like all the witch-hunting that seems to go on here, and in this case spoke out since it was directed at a poster of whom I have some familiarity. But please yourself. You're in a lot of company - the accusations around here are a dime a dozen, to be trite, these days.

[billh58]

16. I posted nothing about

the poster that was not taken directly from her OP, or the article she championed. It is up to other Liberal Democrats to draw their own conclusions about the qualifications of an apparently "Sainted" 30K+ poster to regurgitate right-wing talking points on a Democratic discussion board without being questioned. And, yes I DID make a few obvious assumptions about her intentions by re-posting and highlighting this drivel.

I too am finished with this inane, non-factual, non-issue, and I wish you and yours the very Happiest of New Years ever...;-)

[winyanstaz]

17. so..you would rather believe the same people that have been using bin ladin...

as an excuse for wars and that have also claimed all the other tapes were real (you know..all the ones that have been proven fake) that that tape was real...then believe the rest of the world.

[billh58]

18. Nice try, but not

a shred of "fact" in your response, especially the unsourced "believe the rest of the world" part, as it is quite evident that at least the Jihadists sincerely believe him to be alive and kicking. I have seen no verified reports of his death from any world news source -- only supposition. Would you also care to provide some evidence of all those "other" OBL tapes that have been proven to be "fake?" Why on earth would Islamic-owned and operated (and primarily anti-American) radio and TV stations falsely verify OBL tapes to further some cause to continue war on themselves? Boggles the mind doesn't it? If you want to side with the right-wing liars and believe any bullshit being fed to you, by all means be my guest.

If, on the other hand, you want to keep an open mind and choose to consider just how many disloyal American (and European) military and other government employees it would take to conceal a conspiracy theory of this magnitude (about the same as 9/11) in order to prolong an unpopular war, then maybe we could talk. From almost any standpoint, it makes absolutely no sense to deliberately cover up the death of America's (and arguably the world's) number one enemy. That is unless, of course, one has ulterior motives for deliberately spreading disinformation.

One purpose of rehashing this old, tired, conspiracy theory on DU I suspect, would be to further the premise that the previous Neoconservative Dubya administration, and President Obama's administration are somehow in cahoots to create a PNAC-type world empire and enslave humanity. Spooky stuff, and straight out of extremist fantasy-land, but if true someone should inform Dick Cheney as he appears to be off-script.

I have no way of knowing whether OBL is still living, or not, but then again neither do you, the Freepers, or the anti-military Far Lefties. When dealing with extreme terrorists who are willing to commit suicide in order to further their radical cause, it is best to err on the side of caution, and assume the worst. I would be willing to bet, however, that if someone could come up with the remains of OBL, or some type of credible DNA evidence, the Obama Administration would shout the news far and wide.

[winyanstaz]

19. ok..I stand corrected....

You would rather believe the pentagon and the Jihadists.
As to the tapes being fake....noses dont grow wider and flatter and tall people dont shrink.
Try looking at them.
As to knowing he is dead...yes I do have a way but since you wouldnt belive it if I told you it is useless to go into it.
However, news reports all over the world have reported his death and funeral.
If you want a link...I suggest trying google.

[billh58]

20. Uh, we are talking about

an audio tape bubba, with confirmation by those who know OBL's voice, and broadcast by Islamic news outlets and Al Qaeda militant websites. I have been all over Google, Bing, and other search engines and there are absolutely NO (nada, zilch, zero) confirmed and verified accounts of OBL's death, or funeral -- no body, no grave, and no DNA evidence.

You would think that since the FBI alone is still offering $25 million (with the Airline Pilot's Association offering an additional $2 million) for information leading to his whereabouts or capture, someone would have come up with at least a finger or a toe by now. No? Unless, of course, he's pulled a Jesus on us and has risen from the dead. Maybe we should ask the talking snake. Or it could be that OBL, as reported by reliable witnesses, is in hiding along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, and is being protected by the Taliban.

As for "believing" the Pentagon and the Jihadists, you have just made my argument for me. Why on earth would a sworn enemy of the Great Satan collaborate an alleged lie, and support a coverup by the United States? When you get the same information from diametrically opposed sources, most people would call that a highly reliable confirmation, and probability of fact.

[winyanstaz]

21. because they are using him just like the pentagon...

to recruit for wars.

[billh58]

22. Sigh...

If you're not going to answer any questions, I don't want to play anymore. Since DU has become a place where logic and fact are ridiculed as "slavish devotion" and "cheerleading," honest debate has taken a back seat to hyperbole and woo-woo tin-foil hat conjecture.

Have a great New Year, and here's hoping that sanity and civility can return to DU (AND the Democratic Party) soon...;-)

[bhikkhu]

23. How many times did the CIA "verify" his video messages?

That's one thing that gets me: OBL puts out some new video that every independent looks at and says is bogus, while our CIA says it passes scrutiny. The one before the 2004 election sticks out, and that's the kind of crap we call third world dictators out for.

[yurbud]

24. k & r