Seymour Hersh's sources tell a more believable story than the self-serving official White House narrative
Some might argue that knowing exactly how Osama bin Laden was killed really doesn’t matter. Some might even argue that he is still alive, which, if nothing else, would demonstrate the persistence of urban legends relating to conspiracies allegedly involving the U.S. government. JFK’s assassination has the grassy knoll and second gunman, plus Mafia, CIA,...
Read MoreA nuclear deal with Iran? An organized retreat from Afghanistan? The eurozone picking up a little bit of steam? Stable oil prices? Forget it. The crucial foreign elector recruited for Obama II at the White House is one Osama bin Laden. Call it the “Obama nails Osama” winning strategy. No wonder the winning strategy has...
Read MoreA nuclear deal with Iran? An organized retreat from Afghanistan? The eurozone picking up a little bit of steam? Stable oil prices? Forget it. The crucial foreign elector recruited for Obama II at the White House is one Osama bin Laden. Call it the "Obama nails Osama" winning strategy. No wonder the winning strategy has...
Read MoreIsolated, Delusional, Ridiculed by His Men
The story behind the tracking down and killing of Osama bin Laden remains a puzzle despite the torrent of documentaries and articles appearing on the anniversary of his death. An absurdly high number of American political leaders, generals, security officials and former CIA and FBI agents have given interviews claiming a central role in the...
Read MoreWhy was I named in alleged al-Qaida letters last week as a recipient for documents about 9/11? Al-Qaida was not founded by Osama bin Laden, as many wrongly believe, but in the mid-1980’s in Peshawar, Pakistan, by a revolutionary scholar, Sheik Abdullah Azzam. I know this because I interviewed Azzam numerous times at al-Qaida HQ...
Read MoreThe American media has again been complaining about perfidious Pakistan over the report that five men had been arrested for helping the United States kill Osama bin Laden. The complaining is ridiculous. It was inevitable that Pakistan would try to identify and arrest those Pakistanis who had been recruited by CIA and were working as...
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Bin Laden is dead, but his strategy still bleeds the United States.
Osama bin Laden predicted long ago he would die a martyr at the hands of U.S. forces, and so it has come to pass. Americans are rejoicing that the man credited with the monstrous crime of 9/11 has been killed after a 10-year search. Neocons and far-right Republicans claim it was all thanks to the...
Read MoreCounterPunch Diary
Pinko terror-symps and the “rule of law” gang may cavil and whine at the lack of legal propriety in the execution of Osama , but it’s not cutting much ice with liberal America. For long years what might be called the “progressive” segment of American voters have chafed at Republican gibes that their guy Obama...
Read MoreMy Pakistani security intelligence sources told me five years ago that Osama bin Laden was hiding in an urban area in Pakistan. If I, a humble journalist, had a good idea where OBL was, why did it take CIA so long to find one elderly man who had brazenly set out to defeat the mighty...
Read MoreThe tale of how the CIA found bin Laden would appear to be a lot more complicated than the media has been suggesting. That they picked up his trail due to NSA interception of a phone call made by one of his couriers is almost certainly correct. But consider what the subsequent steps would have...
Read MoreCounterPunch Diary
Barack Obama, who pledged to restore ethical honor to the White House after the Bush years, is now burying himself under an active volcano of lies, mostly but not exclusively concerning the assassination of Osama bin Laden. There was scarcely a sentence in the President's Sunday night address, or in the subsequent briefing by John...
Read MoreShow us the Navy SEALs hero who did the double-tapping on Osama bin Laden - the one-two in the head to make sure the target of a hit job is out - after a "firefight" the signs of which are virtually absent in that squalid "mansion" in Abbottabad. Show us the greatest hero of modern...
Read MoreThe assassination of bin Laden has been celebrated as a great strategic victory by the White House, the European capitals and all the major mass media outlets throughout the world. The killing has served as a major propaganda tool to enhance the standing of the US military in the eyes of the domestic public and...
Read MoreThe Sheikh he drove his Cadillac He went a-cruisin' down the ville The Muezzin was a-standin' On the radiator grill The Clash, Rock the Casbah It's irrelevant. It may be a rockin' Hollywood thriller - an Osama/Obama double bill (directed by Kathryn "Hurt Locker" Bigelow). But the targeted assassination - allegedly with an iconic American...
Read MoreFrom Gitmo to the Assassination of Bin Laden
What does the assassination of Osama Bin Laden have in common with Guantanamo Bay? They're both intended to send a message that the United States has sunk deeper into savagery and abandoned any commitment to conventional norms of behavior. That's the message, and we hear it "loud and clear". We don't need our Harvard-educated president...
Read MoreThe assassination of Osama bin Laden by US Special Forces in Abbotabad, Pakistan will likely assure Barack Obama's victory in the 2012 presidential race. Republican hawks will have a hard time pressing their claims that Obama is "soft on terrorism." Details about the killing of bin Laden remain obscure. The mission, a joint operation between...
Read MoreTo better understand why Osama bin Laden is so far winning his struggle to oust the western powers from the Muslim world, let us go back to 1986, when I was covering the anti-Soviet war in then almost unknown Afghanistan. I called on the grandly titled "Afghan Information Center" in Peshawar, Pakistan. Peshawar was a...
Read MoreThe significance of Robert Gates' comment yesterday about al-Qaeda has not been noted by the mainstream media. Gates said that "I think it has been years" since the US government has had any solid information about Usama bin Laden, adding that US intelligence believes that the fugitive terrorist might well be moving about in the...
Read MoreFor those who harbored any doubts, the Barack Obama administration's adoption of the George W Bush framework of the "war on terror" - it does feel like a back-to-the-future "continuity" - here are two key facts on the ground. Obama has officially started his much-touted Afghanistan surge, authorizing the deployment of 17,000 US troops (8,000...
Read MoreThe conviction is growing in intelligence circles that Usama bin Laden's days might be numbered, but his demise will likely have nothing to do with Bush Administration efforts to kill him, which continue to be inept, unfocused, and overly reliant on allies like Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to do the heavy lifting. Many officers within...
Read More"And among the most important items contained in [President George W] Bush's speeches since the events of the 11th [September 11, 2001] is that the Americans have no option but to continue the war. This tone is in fact an echoing of the words of neo-conservatives like [Vice President Dick] Cheney, [former defense secretary Donald]...
Read More"Your security does not lie in the hands of Kerry, Bush or al-Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands. Each and every state that does not tamper with our security will have automatically assured its own security." - Osama bin Laden, October 30 Osama bin Laden's alleged cave in Afghanistan comes complete with room...
Read More"And again, I don't know where he is. I - I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him." - President George W Bush, March 13, 2002 "Gosh, I don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. That's kind of one of those exaggerations." - President Bush,...
Read More"If you don't stop your injustices, more blood will flow and these attacks are very little compared with what may happen with what you call terrorism." - Abu Dujan al-Afghani, purported military spokesman for al-Qaeda in Europe, claiming responsibility on video for the Madrid bombings. The "al-Qaedization" of terrorism in Europe is a political "big...
Read MoreSpain's 3-11 - 10 coordinated bomb explosions in 4 suburban trains arriving in Madrid at the morning rush hour, leading to almost 200 dead and more than 1,400 injured - was also Europe's 3-11: exactly two and a half years after America's 9-11, this is the largest terrorist attack perpetrated on European soil in modern...
Read MoreAsia Times Online has learned from tribal-connected sources in Peshawar in Pakistan that Osama bin Laden is believed to have left southeastern Afghanistan late last week for South Waziristan in Pakistan. According to the sources, and as has been reported in sections of the Pakistani Urdu Press, bin Laden is said to be under the...
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