bin Laden's involvement=

Originally posted by TheFlash

Originally posted by Alfie1
reply to post by TheFlash

 

If you are "open-minded" why did you include Dick Cheney's slip of the tongue ? The clip you linked to was a silly attempt to con viewers.

Are you seriously saying, given the context, that he intended to refer to OBL ?

Perhaps you could be so kind as to point out what causes you to believe that any of the relevant part(s) of Cheney's words were a "slip of the tongue'?

(a) He was being questioned about Sadam Hussein and Iraq.

(b) He corrected himself later in the same interview.

On a related tangent here - what was Al Queda's exact reason for the 9/11 attacks anyway? Why do they hate us so much - and I am after documented facts here, not personal opinions. Cited references to support any answers are appreciated.

Originally posted by Billmeister
We agree that retaliatory action was taken, which involved a military campaign (still ongoing mind you) by NATO in Afghanistan.
My question is more toward the precise implication of Bin Laden to 9/11.
Did he plan the whole attack to the finest detail?
Did he bank roll the operation?
Was he an operational field commander following the actions from abroad?

No, the mastermind of the 9/11 attack was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He was the one who introduced Mohammed Atta to Bin Laden. OBL was the leader and main bankroller of Al Qaida so KSM couldn't buy a candy bar without OBL's say so.

What indictable offense did he commit?

It wasn't just the 9/11 attack we were after him for, it was a host of other issues. from the bombing of the USS Cole to the bombing of the embassies in Africa. He also gave an interview with a journalist where he bragged he sent fighters to Somalia during the international famine relief there, so that whole "Blackhawk Down" bit may have been his doing too. It was the 9/11 attack that showed he wasn't just instigating foreign terrorism. He was instigating domestic terrorism as well.

FYI Osama Bin Laden is/was sentenced to death in absentia in Saudi Arabia for trying to overthrow the royal family.

If, as you state, the evidence of Bin Laden's involvement is all classified then perhaps we will discover it in 50 years or so.

Oh, I'm sure. The problem is that in wartime a lot of things need to be kept secret because releasing it would compromise our intelligence collection. You can see right away why Bin Laden lived in a house that had no internet connnection nor telephone- all these experts in everything were going around blabbing how we could eavesdrop on Al Qaida's cell and telephone calls and track their internet communications. It's almost certainly the reason why it took so long to find him.

Here's the problem I have with these conspiracy people; the question isn't why we shouldn't release, say, the names of all our agents working in Al Qaida who helped finger Bin Laden. The question is, who are these people that we need to risk jeopardizing the lives of our agents working in al Qaida who helped finger Bin Laden?

Originally posted by TheFlash
On a related tangent here - what was Al Queda's exact reason for the 9/11 attacks anyway? Why do they hate us so much - and I am after documented facts here, not personal opinions. Cited references to support any answers are appreciated.

Lee Hamilton himself said the greatest failure of the 9/11 commission was never being able to determine why the hijackers attacked the towers. The only clues we have is that it was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's nephew Razmi Yousef who bombed the towers back in 1993, plus, Mohammed Atta was already an accomplished pilot by the time he even arrived in the US. While in Germany, Mohammed Atta told his fellow students that he considered NYC was the capitol of international Jewish world domination, and he wrote a college paper with the thesis that skyscrapers destroyed traditional city environments.

With all these individual factors put together, it's almost a neon sign pointing to the WTC being a target. I doubt we'll never know.

reply to post by GoodOlDave


I tend to agree.

The participation of Bin Laden seems to be that of a financier exclusively. Figurehead of Al-Queda in the West, most certainly, however, I doubt that this is an organization with much organization at all.

That said, there are questions of money trails from the Pakistani ISI to Atta. We now know how close Bin Laden was to official Pakistani government installations, and there is an historical cozy relationship between Pakistan's military and the Saudi royal family.
Because of this, and the fact that almost all of the hijackers were of Saudi origin, I suspect that members within both the Pakistani government and the Saudi royal family may have some dirty hands in all of this.

Perhaps the fact that members in the U.S. administration at the time had very close financial and personal ties to the oil industry and the Saudi royal family, did not encourage them to push the investigation too far in that particular direction. That said, I am a pretty hard-core cynic when it comes to politicians and their loyalty to their personal bank accounts over those of the people's interest they claim to be governing in favor of.

The sad reality is, I suspect that the whole "truth" of such a chaotic event will never be fully known.

Cheers,

the Billmeister

Saying Osama bin Laden was not responsible for 9/11 is like saying Al Capone was not responsible for any of the crimes committed by his organization.

Is Al Capone 'innocent' because he was never indicted for crimes carried out by his cronies?

They had to bust him for tax evasion just to get some kind of justice.

Originally posted by GoodOlDave

Originally posted by TheFlash
On a related tangent here - what was Al Queda's exact reason for the 9/11 attacks anyway? Why do they hate us so much - and I am after documented facts here, not personal opinions. Cited references to support any answers are appreciated.

Lee Hamilton himself said the greatest failure of the 9/11 commission was never being able to determine why the hijackers attacked the towers. The only clues we have is that it was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's nephew Razmi Yousef who bombed the towers back in 1993, plus, Mohammed Atta was already an accomplished pilot by the time he even arrived in the US. While in Germany, Mohammed Atta told his fellow students that he considered NYC was the capitol of international Jewish world domination, and he wrote a college paper with the thesis that skyscrapers destroyed traditional city environments.

With all these individual factors put together, it's almost a neon sign pointing to the WTC being a target. I doubt we'll never know.

That would imply that there was no goal in mind when planning and executing this elaborate, multi-faceted, one-of-a-kind attack. So let's get this straight - although we continue to battle Al Queda today and many of its members still live NONE of them ever made any demands or gave any reasons for the historic attack? So they overlooked the aspect of making any sort of communication to the 'victims'. The attack was more of a 'venting' for them or something? Personally, I am hardly a criminal mastermind, but if I were to make a masterful, one-of-a-kind attack of this nature I would have a detailed list of grievances ready to hand over with the implied threat that there was more to come if those grievances were not addressed. Am I the only person to whom this doesn't seem to make sense? As Judge Judy says "if it doesn't make sense, it's usually not true".

Originally posted by TheFlash
That would imply that there was no goal in mind when planning and executing this elaborate, multi-faceted, one-of-a-kind attack.

Not true. There was certainly a goal behind the attack. We just don't know what it is, or more likely, we don't understand it. Personally, I think Mohammed Atta was a sociopath who used Al Qaida for his own demented agenda just as much as Al Qaida used him for theirs. Seriously, what kind of sick in the head [censored] would dismembers somebody's kittens?

So let's get this straight - although we continue to battle Al Queda today and many of its members still live NONE of them ever made any demands or gave any reasons for the historic attack?

No, Bin Laden released a taped message o n Al Jazeera stating it was in reprisal to the west's attacks on muslims, and he threatened to continue the attacks until the west gets out of the mideast. Al Qaida are religious fanatics who want to bring the fringe tenets of Islamic fundamentalism to the rest of the Islamic world and the west's progressive ideas are getting in their way. Heck, they even murdered the captain of the Iraqi Olympic tennis team a few years back for the "crime" of wearing shorts.

The conspiracy people were just so busy trying to look for new and interesting ways to accuse the taped message of being secret CIA disinformation that they didn't even bother to listen to what bin Laden was actually saying in the message.

Originally posted by GoodOlDave
Seriously, what kind of sick in the head [censored] would dismembers somebody's kittens?

Never happened anyway.

IIRC the story came from an exotic dancer, who claimed that Atta was her boyfriend. After an interview with FBI, she recanted her story and claimed she had made it up.

Originally posted by roboe

Originally posted by GoodOlDave
Seriously, what kind of sick in the head [censored] would dismembers somebody's kittens?

Never happened anyway.

IIRC the story came from an exotic dancer, who claimed that Atta was her boyfriend. After an interview with FBI, she recanted her story and claimed she had made it up.

If that's the case then all these side accusations the conspiracy people are using- Atta being a coke snorting, pork chop loving party boy- as being suspicious contradictions that support a conspiracy are likewise all being made up since all that came from Amanda Keller as well. Is that correct?

Originally posted by GoodOlDave

Originally posted by roboe

Originally posted by GoodOlDave
Seriously, what kind of sick in the head [censored] would dismembers somebody's kittens?

Never happened anyway.

IIRC the story came from an exotic dancer, who claimed that Atta was her boyfriend. After an interview with FBI, she recanted her story and claimed she had made it up.

If that's the case then all these side accusations the conspiracy people are using- Atta being a coke snorting, pork chop loving party boy- as being suspicious contradictions that support a conspiracy are likewise all being made up since all that came from Amanda Keller as well. Is that correct?

Yup.

Among other things, the government checked Atta's phone records and found the two had never called each other.

In 2002, Keller granted an interview with Daniel Hopsicker, a Venice self-published writer who maintains the government has covered up facts about 9/11.

In a taped interview that has circled the Internet, Keller casually discusses intimate details about her relationship with "Mohamed." She claimed it was Atta, but changed her story soon after.

"It was my bad for lying," Keller said. "I really didn't think about it until after I did it."

www.heraldtribune.com.../20060910/NEWS/609100466/1007/BUSINESS