Posted on 06/24/2008 5:05:47 AM PDT by K-oneTexas
Barack Obama Hasn’t a Clue: Here’s Why Osama Bin Laden Hasn’t Been Captured Yet
by Gregory D. Lee
It has been six-and-a-half years since the 9/11 attacks and Osama Bin Laden still hasn't been captured.
Is Barack Obama correct when he claims that President Bush lost sight of OBL when military operations shifted to Iraq? Or is OBL dead from liver disease or from the intense bombing of Tora Bora during the Afghanistan offensive?
From my personal experiences living and working in Pakistan for four years in the mid-1990s as a Supervisory Special Agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration, I'm convinced OBL is alive and well, hiding somewhere in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Provence (NWFP). If the U.S. Air Force was raining daisy cutters on your head, and you were only within 100 miles of the international border with Pakistan where U.S. operations are prohibited, isn't that where you'd go?
The NWFP, which borders Afghanistan, is a semi-autonomous region that is populated by tribes that have never been completely subjected to the rule of an established government. Tribal elders, drug lords and mullahs are essentially in charge. None of them are fond of the United States, and all of them are sympathetic to the Taliban, Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Infrastructure is almost nonexistent. There is no reliable electricity, running water, government housing, schools or law enforcement. The literacy rate is near zero. When you are there, you get the eerie feeling that you have suddenly been transported 2,000 years back in time.
What about the $25 million reward the U.S. is offering for OBL's head? Isn't that enough money for someone to give up where he is?
The short answer is no. The reward could be $25 billion and it wouldn't produce any more credible leads on OBL's location.
I can guarantee you that very few, if any, NWFP tribesmen have any idea there is a reward. There simply is no way for the U.S. to effectively advertise. Forget about the Internet, and television and radio stations are scarce and would be reluctant to take on the U.S. State Department as an advertiser. Even if planes dropped leaflets about the reward, no one could read them. Those few who could simply wouldn't believe it. And those that did believe there was a reward have no expectation of ever collecting it. They're convinced the U.S. government would renege on its promise because that's what the Pakistani government would do. Or, because kidnapping is common place, their kin would inevitably be held hostage by criminals for extortion money.
Also, is the money worth your life and the lives of your family members? There is no question you'd be targeted for death once it became known you were responsible for OBL's capture.
Let's assume all these obstacles are somehow overcome, and someone gives up OBL for the reward. What will he do with it? Where will he spend it? He couldn't even get a visa to travel somewhere to open a bank account, and the Pakistani government wouldn't allow that much money to leave the country.
Then there's the issue of corruption. If you were fortunate to find a scarce government official to report your sighting of OBL, he'd most assuredly hit you up for a bribe to pass on the information.
The likelihood of your identity being kept secret by Pakistani authorities until a CIA case officer met you to pay you the reward is nil. Virtually no one would consider you a hero or understand why you would forsake your religion and spy for America.
I could go on, but I think you get the drift.
So when Barack Obama says that President Bush and the U.S. military aren't doing everything they can to capture OBL, he has absolutely no idea what he's talking about.
Family Security Matters Contributing Editor Gregory D. Lee is a retired DEA Supervisory Special Agent. In 2001, as an army reserve officer, he served at the Pentagon's Army Operation's Center's Anti-Terrorism Operations Intelligence Cell. He writes a weekly syndicated column for North Star Writers Group and can be reached through his website: www.gregorydlee.com.
If OBL is still alive, he had many years to plan his escape up until the 911 bombings.
It seems to me that's the environment where Islam seems to thrive. It's a warrior's "religion" where the womans' role is to be kept in the house to have warrior babies and serve her master...where the Koran says it's okay for the husband to beat his wife? Is it by accident that this cult thrives among illiterate people?
It would do well if folks would read with vernacular perspective.
We could have had him in our hands or dead at least three times under Clintoon but nnnoooo.!!!!!!!!!!!
We could have had him in our hands or dead at least three times under Clintoon but nnnoooo.!!!!!!!!!!!
“so when Barack Obama says that President Bush and the U.S. military aren’t doing everything they can to capture OBL, he has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about.”
and that will become clearer throughout the campaign, and is the reason he will not do the townhall debates with McCain
Either this author is wrong, or then his arguments also explain partly why OBL couldn't have been brought in under toon as reported.
If we believe what this author says that it's impossible to get people to turn on obl now in BFE, then many of these same arguments applied pre-911 in toons time.
Bush may have missed him with moabs in tora bora, but clinton missed with the tomahawks. Either way, both Presidents are likely to end up not capturing him alive.
Either he can be captured and Bush has also failed to make it happen as Obamanation says, or he can't be captured as this article says and it didn't matter if toon gave the go ahead or not.
You know what all this talk of “getting Bin Ladin” is about from leftists?
They’re still in “prosecute the criminal” mode, not in WAR on terrorism mode.
Once we “get Bin Ladin”, the whole 9/11 attack thing is a closed case, and they can go on about their sociofascist lives, trying to control the rest of us.
One of the other complaints out of the left has been that “people haven’t had to sacrifice much on the home front to conduct this war on terror”. Pulling back the veil, and looking at leftists who have supported war footing in the past, we find that their true disappointment in the war on terror is that the war footing hasn’t been used to further collectivist fascism domestically.
I suspect that Osama will turn himself in if Obama is elected. The only thing that is holding him back is that he doesn’t feel he’ll get a fair trial under Bush. I’m sure he’ll want to present his story to Americans in a courtroom, where he’ll can get a fair shake.
He’s just misunderstood...
He’s dead, Jim...
I think we tend to forget that just because we aren't hearing any news from the region that the hunt has been slowed or abandoned. Persistence is the key to their task.
Even if he hasn't be killed or captured, his ability to direct his minions in the discharge of their war has been seriously damaged.
Even if the CIA spirited the informant back to a "safe" location, the N.Y. Slimes would eventually reveal his identity, home address, license plate number, credit card number, and photograph, along with those of all the CIA agents involved.
“’The likelihood of your identity being kept secret by Pakistani authorities until a CIA case officer met you to pay you the reward is nil.’
Even if the CIA spirited the informant back to a “safe” location, the N.Y. Slimes would eventually reveal his identity, home address, license plate number, credit card number, and photograph, along with those of all the CIA agents involved.”
You forgot the family members, children and know associates the NYT would happen to mention. Oh. Did I say that?
I sent Pinch Sulzberger a hearty F*CK YOU yesterday after they named that CIA interpreter.
A bullet and a noose for that a-hole.
The difference is that Sudan actually HAD him under their control and had the ability to deliver him to us (and wanted to), but clinton declined the offer.
X42 refused, with a lame excuse, because of his muslim Indonesian connections/money.
Don't forget, OBL is from the house of Saud. (at least, that's the way I understand it)
When these countries said "they had him to give over" this author says there'd have been lots of internal concerns about tipping off, bribes, paybacks that would've made "handover" a lot less simple.
Proof? Toon did lob cruise missiles which would've killed him...but he was tipped off. So I just really doubt that if the Saudis or Sudanese were setting up LIVE handoff that it would've turned out much better, because surely someone loyal-or-bribed would've warned OBL.
For all we know, the Saudi or Sudanese offers were just so much con-games to squeeze the US for some quick cash.
Now if the author's wrong, and OBL could've been captured alive all this time without anyone ratting out the setup, then both Toon and Bush have been unable to get him handed over alive.
(I think OBL's still dead, Jim, BTW.)
What you are ignoring is the basic diffences between that was then and this is now. At that time, OBL was much more out in the open and not hiding in a cave somewhere. It wasn’t a matter of having to search and find him for Sudan. To say if it is impossible for a reward scenario to result in his capture now it had to be impossible to have captured him then is simply a false premise.
Osama is dead.
+1
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