Bin Laden's tape intercepted by Bush Co. in Sept. and only released Thurs?

[skip fox]

Bin Laden says now "we have started the 4th year after 9/11" which could be much more contemporary a reference than has been read (that two-and-one-half months is still a "start").

Could bin Laden's message have been intercepted (CIA, NSA, ?) in Sept. and only dropped off on Thursday in order to get the missing explosives off the front page??

[shelley806]

1. I think you are probably right...How to prove it?

I heard yesterday that this video was to be timed to fit the 9/11 anniversary...

Also, that it had been edited...

Rove took a desperate last minute fear tactic which backfired, maybe?
Only to be used as a last resort?

[LiberalFighter]

10. Don't need to prove it....

Just use the words "we have started the 4th year after 9/11".

Of course, you have to make it clear as mud for those unable to grasp it.

[KittyWampus]

16. He Mentions 1000 Dead Soldiers... That Milestone Happened

in August, I think...

[skip fox]

2. How to prove it, indeed. . .

:toast:

[AmerDem]

3. This tape DOESN'T help shrub.

Enough with this corporate media bullshit spin. This tape shows Bin Laden still alive. Nothing about this is good for shrub. Kerry needs to get himself and his team out there beating this over shrub's head! It's the knock out punch!

[girl gone mad]

18. Not only is he alive,

but he looks healthy and well-rested. he doesn't look like a man on the run or in a cave somewhere surrounded by our troops.

One day after 9/11 was one day too many for Osama. I think this is a point Kerry could make. It cuts at Bush for not making his capture a priority without directly attacking him.

[The Magistrate]

4. You Raise An Interesting Possibility, Mr. Fox

Delusory ideas of collaboration between Rove and Bin Laden need not concern anyone at all, but your suggestion is an interesting one.

Bin Laden is clearly located in some remote fastness, and conducts his communication by couriers, doubtless with several cut-outs in a chain of transmission, which necessarily takes a good deal of time for any message to be delivered. Something recorded in mid-September, the start of the fourth year after the attacks, might well take several weeks to reach such a civilized place as Islamabad. But it does not strike me as inconceivable that a courier in the chain, most likely near its final stages, might have been intercepted, and the tape thus come into U.S. hands while in transit, with the timing of its eventual delivery to its intended destination thus being under the current administration's control.


"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[skip fox]

7. As always, well put and thought through.

But Sean, below, has a very interesting point.

[The Magistrate]

8. A Couple Of Points, My Friend

First, as you are doubtless aware, recognizing the thing is possible does not mean it strikes me as true it was actually done, but only that, as is the case with much naive conspiracist speculations, it cannot be ruled out of hand. If it did not actually occur, then there is no need to account for timing from the point of view of the administration.

Second, if it was done, then it would necessarily be part of a fairly complex intelligence operation that was primarily aimed at back-tracking the courier chain to as near its point of origin as possible. The political considerations would have taken a second seat, at least among the operatives involved. It would probably have been difficult to time the eventual release precisely, and the decision of when to pass it on would have been made well in advance of the actual doing. The intent would not be so much to mask any particular news story, which might not even have yet been on the popular mind when the operation was set, but rather to have as much effect as possible, whatever was going on at the time. That consideration would always dictate a release just before the last weekend of the campaign.

Of course, that is probably about the time Bin Laden would have desired the thing to be released himself, if it were his desire to affect our electoral process. It does not take much sophisticated knowledge of our society and culture to perceive that would be about the most effective timing for release of this tape to the world, and while he may not understand us any better than we understand his world, even we know, for instance, to be a little careful around the start and end of Rammadan, and to keep infidel soldiers in boots out of mosques. It does remain to my view the most likely explaination still that the transport and release of this tape was Bin Laden's operation only, and played out about as he had planned, with the possible exception of the reports that al'Jazeera turned the thing over to U.S. intelligence before broadcasting it.

The tape itself, it seems to me, is a devestating indictment of the current administration, not in anything particular that it says, but simply by its existance, confirming that the man whom our citizenry most devoutly wishes to see skinned alive and strung up by the testicles for roasting to death over a slow fire is still rather hale and hearty and living unmolested in a security from which he can lecture us on just why he saw fit to murder several thousands of our countrymen and women. Clearly all the cowboy blather about "Dead or alive" and "Smoke him out" and "He can run but he can't hide" was mere pose and posture, the "wolf-tickets" of an incompetent and cowardly cheer-leader, who neither man, woman, nor child could possibly now trust to avenge the murder of our fellow citizens. After all, there the arch-criminal stands, behind a lectern, after three years of this failure's rule best efforts to catch him....

"Order is not restored till the head of the rebel prince is on a pike at the gate of your Capitol."

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[shelley806]

21. Interesting points from both you and Sean....guess i'm a little less

skeptical about Rove involvement and timed release, but he is known for doing these kinds of underhanded shenanigans especially right before an election, when the opponent has no time to respond. Rove has done this even when it's to smear his own candidate to make it look like the other guy did it.


You might want to read Karl Rove in a Corner, The Atlantic Monthly if you haven't. I had nightmares over it!

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200411/green.

P.S. The Magistrate! Are you a spy? Undercover CIA agent? Government employee?

[The Magistrate]

23. That Is An Excellent Article, Ma'am

But note from it that he really is more a regional than a national player: the whole country is not one big amalgam of texas and Alabama, much as Republicans would like it to be. Rove is not quite up to his press releases, he is no more tweve feet tall than were the Soviets. This sort of thing being suggested is not mere political manipulation but treason, and just as all his earlier tricks soon enough saw the light of day, this one could not possibly be kept secret long enough for escaping the consequences of discovery to be certain....

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[shelley806]

24. Thank you...

and

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[Sean Reynolds]

5. No....why wait a full week to let the explosives story sink it?

The explosives story broke MONDAY morning, the bin Laden story broke FRIDAY evening. That's 4 days of the explosives story. Why would Bush be stupid enough to wait that long when he could have released it around Wednesday? Then he'd have three days to fearmonger...instead of just one (since most people don't pay attention to the news on the weekend.....that and it being HALLOWEEN weekend!).

[skip fox]

6. Now there's a good question!

All I can say is that it was delivered (dropped off) in Pakistan in the evening on Thurs. It might take a day
to kick this into operation, especially assuring the tape would be dropped off unseen, etc.

That might take it to a Weds. night decision.

(Best I can do, Sean.)

[girl gone mad]

22. 2 reasons.

1. They know that the blip they get from releasing the tape could be short-lived.

2. They needed something to knock the explosives story off the front page of the Sunday papers, and dominate the talk shows.

I think muddying the waters on the weapons story was just a way to stall for time until the tape was aired. I had been wondering why their response was so lame, and this is one possible explanation.

[tibbiit]

9. Its Rove's Hail Mary

This tape could backfire for them, but they know they are lost so on the chance they can scare people One More TIME! They release it because absolutely everything else has failed.
My take. I bet you are right about how long they have had it!
tib

[Eurobabe]

17. Let the plane roll....

[0007]

11. That's interesting observation

This tape thing can be spun either way. I've bought into the Walter Conkrite spin and now am spinning back the other way. The more I hear about this tape and when it was released puts many questions into play. I absolutely don't know what to think!

[MileHiStealth]

12. Last night , while flipping thru channels...

there was a middle eastern lady that was an analysist
or something like that saying that the tape was timed
for the aniversary of 9/11 and didn't understand why
it took so long to hit the media. Did anyone else see
that ... around 8:30 PM mountain time ...

[The Magistrate]

13. Yes, Sir

Her name unfortunately escapes my recollection but she seemed quite a sound thinker....

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[MileHiStealth]

14. Proves someone had this bottled up for at least a month ...

[The Magistrate]

20. It Is Far Short Of Proving That, Sir

You have to take into account the operational difficulties that would be encountered in transporting such an article from its point of origin to its destination. These are certainly formidable, as a genuine dragnet is on, and the al'Jazeera locations must be watched very closely. The weakest pont of the chain of courier communication is in the cities, where police and informants are thickest, and where most of the important arrests in these matters have been secured. You must also remember that we can only guess at the time the thing was recorded and dispatched.

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[Bossy Monkey]

15. My mistake

Edit: I had thought he referred to "next Tuesday's election"; will check transcript and get back to you; apparently not: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3966817.stm

[lockdown]

19. They've had advance copies before

Remember when Powell announced al-Jazeera would be playing a bin Laden audio tape before al-Jazeera had even received it?

There were discrepancies about when Washington first knew of the tape. Mr Fleischer said the White House had received a transcript on Monday evening. But al-Jazeera said in a statement that they were given the 16-minute tape only on Tuesday evening, a few hours before it was broadcast.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-576036,00.html