Oi, bin Laden, what’s your game?

Let’s start with a simple premise: the ‘official’ version of events is broadly accurate.

Now, I want you to put yourself in bin Laden’s shoes pre-9/11. What on earth are you thinking?

You plan to attack the twin towers, the Pentagon and the Capitol Building. If successful, you know US will have no option but to respond on a massive, never-before-seen scale.

You know the US has long-standing ambitions in the Middle East – this has been its declared foreign policy in one way shape or form for decades. You recognise that you will give the Bush administration the perfect opportunity to force its way into the region, confident that it will have the almost universal backing and good will of all non-Muslim countries, and little if any resistance from some Muslim ones.

Given the above, what is your motivation? What are you hoping to achieve?

If some sort of military engagement comes into your reckoning, can you realistically expect to win? If so, then what constitutes a victory? If not, what do you get from defeat?

Looks like the fog of despair has lifted! Man you are gettin' prolific!
I just started a second job today, 14-hours put in all told, so too tired to think terribly well now, but this is a key question here that few ask. With so much proof, why bother even making a circumstantial case, huh?

Alright then...

Originally posted by coughymachine
Let’s start with a simple premise: the ‘official’ version of events is broadly accurate.

Now, I want you to put yourself in bin Laden’s shoes pre-9/11. What on earth are you thinking?

Yes... for the sake of argument, it seems possible he knew this would provoke the PTB very wel, and in fact the PNAC people and Anglo-British imperialists might treat is like gold, which might mean he's too useful a boogeyman to be killed. The payoff would be increased friction, growing rifts, anger on both sides, the fulfillment of his prophecies... IF the Muslim world and perhaps some allies could be brought on board, and they kept up the pressure with clever, bold attacks everywhere, maybe he thought he could win and bring down another superpower - not with the one blow, but in the long run.

However, of course, there's a lot mitigating against that. An awful lot, that was just sake of argument.

BTW: The version of MIHOP I find most likely, BTW (remote control and assisted colapses) is nigh-impossible to prove smoking gun style, but this very issue of motive, the psyop effect of the attack, and other such clues actually forms IMO THE BEST evidence towards that case, though it's still not provable.

Please. You know that little 5'6" Laden last time didn't even look like the original 6'2". CIA pyop pal. And there's 1000 more Ladens behind him so what's the point. Futile at best. Guess we just gotta killem all. That seems to be the mindset.

Something I wrote a while back, related:

War: a Threat or a Promise?
As talks began to unravel in mid-July, U.S. representatives allegedly threatened the Taliban “either accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we’ll bury you under a carpet of bombs.” Tom Simons, the former ambassador to Pakistan whose belligerence in the region is legendary, specified to Naik on the 21st “either the Taliban behave as they ought to, or Pakistan convinces them to do so, or we will use another option... a military option.”
In reality, this seems to have been the plan all along. Central Command (CENTCOM) Commander General Tommy Franks had already toured the region, going to the Tajik capital Dushanbe on May 16, where he told the government that the U.S. considered Tajikistan “a strategically significant country.” This was both provocation and preparation. Niaz Naik said that at a meeting in Berlin in July he was informed that 17,000 Russian troops were poised to strike, involvement was expected from Uzbekistan, and that U.S. bases were already functional in Tajikistan. According to the Manchester Guardian, By May “U.S rangers were also training special troops in Kyrgyzstan,” and there were “unconfirmed reports that Tajik and Uzbek special troops were training in Alaska and Montana” in preparation for fighting in the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan.
And the anti-Taliban coalition was apparently growing; Great Britain was also positioning itself for a conflict in the region, sending the “biggest naval task force since the Falklands war” to Oman, within operational distance of Afghanistan, just eight days before 9-11. According the Guardian, this was for a rapid-response training exercise called Swift Sword II, created by planners at the Northwood-based Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ), “from where every major British deployment of the last 30 years - from the Falklands to the Gulf war - has been master-minded.”
The Guardian piece, dated September 3, 2001, further reported that 24 surface ships and two nuclear-powered submarines had been deployed that day. 24,000 British troops, nearly a quarter of the entire army, were expected to be in Oman by the end of September. “They will be supported by 400 armoured vehicles, squadrons of fighter-bombers, and a Commando brigade,” the paper added.
This was clearly a very big deal in the works, and everything was getting into place. War seemed inevitable – the question was when. According to Naik, U.S. representative Karl Inderfurth told him the idea was, if the military action went ahead, it would happen before the first snows started falling on Kabul. The BBC’s reporter seemed confident in estimating this as “around the middle of October.”

I also hear bin Laden had just been declared supreme commander of Afghanistan's armed forces before 9/11, as he madee calls to family members letting them know something was happening soon and he'd have to disappear. NSA interceptd the calls, but all. didn't translate them until after 9/11. It seems everyone knew this was coming except the people in the planes and the towers, and us.



Sources if needed

reply to post by Caustic Logic

...either accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we’ll bury you under a carpet of bombs...

I haven't got time to verify this, but wasn't this threat issued by the US after the Taliban either withdrew from a pipeline agreement with Unocal or else awarded the pipeline contract to an Indian company?

If your post wasn't referring to this, then a seperate but similar threat was made in mid-2001.

And of course, whilst debunkers will flock to dismiss the idea, it all centres around the need for the US to diversify its energy sources in the face of Peak Oil, and the increasing importance of the Middle Eastern and Caspian Regions.

I wrote a high level piece about this some time ago, if anyone's interested. It's a little lengthy but has some really interesting facts about the changing nature of global energy supply and demand.

Maybe he was trying to provoke the US into a war in the Middle East. Then by chance the Middle Eastern nations would be tired of Western meddeling, as they see it, and rise up united and fight back forcing the west out of the Middle East once and for all.

Thier culture is alot different the the west. They tend to look at things in the long term....20 or 30 years (maybe longer) down the road. Where as we in the west look more short term and tend to be terrible at the long term.

Then again he could, just as any other terrorist, want to stike fear into the hearts of his enemy. Thinking that such a massive blow to the symbols of capitalism would scare we the people into forceing our goverment out of the Middle East. All the while striking a blow to capitalism, freedom, and christianity.

reply to post by six

...and rise up united and fight back forcing the west out of the Middle East...

I can't see this. I believe that, given its need for oil, the US would be prepared to engage in a full blown nuclear war in order to protect its energy interest in the Middle East and Caspian Region. Energy is that critical to the US.

It cannot be overstated: the rates of oil production from the US's traditional energy suppliers is in decline. The rate of production in the Middle East and Caspian Region is still growing. By 2011 or thereabouts, the Middle East will produce more oil than the rest of the world combined - known as the crossover event. At the same time, the growth rates of the populations of China and India are outstripping the global rate by a significant factor; and their demand for energy, as the result of rapid industrialisation, is growing at an even faster rate, relative to world growth.

In other words, with the geographical shift in the relative importance of energy-producing regions switching to the Middle East; and the disproportionate increase in competition for energy from countries geographically closer to this region that the US, the Bush administration had little choice, as it would see it, but to establish a strong, unambiguous presence.

ETA - tidy up

[edit on 18-10-2007 by coughymachine]

reply to post by coughymachine

Dont get me wrong. I understand what you are saying. But...You have to look at through the eyes of O. He does not want the West in the Middle East. He sees us as infidles. He wants Isreal to cease to exisit as a nation. Now granted he would sell the world oil. ..but on Middle Easts terms with out Western influence. He has called for OPEC to price oil at above $100 per barrel. I just dont think that he wants christians meddeling in the affairs of those nations that subscibe to the islamic faith.

reply to post by six


I re-read my earlier post and realised that, having rambled, I didn't really make the final connection I had in mind when I set out. Sorry.

I know that the reason bin Laden is said to be 'angry' with the US is becasue of their presence in the Middle East, specifically Saudi Arabia. But however true this might be, he would know that the US would not, under any circumstances relinquish its energy interests in the region. He would know that the US would be prepared to engage in a full scale nuclear war if neccessary, such is the importance to the US of oil and such is the importance of the Middle East and Caspian region to oil consumers.

Further, given the amunt of publicly available material regarding US foreign policy, he would have been very well-aware that the US was just waiting for the right provocation in order to justify further regional interference.

On that basis, what on earth did bin Laden expect to gain?

Originally posted by coughymachine

On that basis, what on earth did bin Laden expect to gain?

He's trying to do what other weak forces do to force America out, inflict massive casualties. Think of our response to the lost of over 200 Marines in Lebanon. Or the Battle of Mogahdishu. Forcing American govt. to pull out after seeing casualties posted on the media.
www.pbs.org...

After our victory in Afghanistan and the defeat of the oppressors who had killed millions of Muslims, the legend about the invincibility of the superpowers vanished. Our boys no longer viewed America as a superpower. So, when they left Afghanistan, they went to Somalia and prepared themselves carefully for a long war. They had thought that the Americans were like the Russians, so they trained and prepared. They were stunned when they discovered how low was the morale of the American soldier. America had entered with 30,000 soldiers in addition to thousands of soldiers from different countries in the world. ... As I said, our boys were shocked by the low morale of the American soldier and they realized that the American soldier was just a paper tiger. He was unable to endure the strikes that were dealt to his army, so he fled, and America had to stop all its bragging and all that noise it was making in the press after the Gulf War in which it destroyed the infrastructure and the milk and dairy industry that was vital for the infants and the children and the civilians and blew up dams which were necessary for the crops people grew to feed their families. Proud of this destruction, America assumed the titles of world leader and master of the new world order. After a few blows, it forgot all about those titles and rushed out of Somalia in shame and disgrace, dragging the bodies of its soldiers. America stopped calling itself world leader and master of the new world order, and its politicians realized that those titles were too big for them and that they were unworthy of them. I was in Sudan when this happened. I was very happy to learn of that great defeat that America suffered, so was every Muslim. ...

[edit on 18-10-2007 by deltaboy]

OBL = Timmy Osmond -- check it: answers.yahoo.com...

Originally posted by anhinga

OBL = Timmy Osmond -- check it: answers.yahoo.com...

And I can google that Osama never existed. Same crap. It goes both ways, Osama is a boogeyman, or he works for the CIA.

Originally posted by six
reply to post by coughymachine

 

Dont get me wrong. I understand what you are saying. But...You have to look at through the eyes of O. He does not want the West in the Middle East. He sees us as infidles. He wants Isreal to cease to exisit as a nation. Now granted he would sell the world oil. ..but on Middle Easts terms with out Western influence. He has called for OPEC to price oil at above $100 per barrel. I just dont think that he wants christians meddeling in the affairs of those nations that subscibe to the islamic faith.

This is worth considering of course, as I mentioned the idea up top, but to presume what Osama was really thinking is, well... presumptuous. The whole point of this thread is 'what was he thinking?' As in, let's question his rationale, motives, alleigances, and possibly guilt for 9/11.
So let's just say he may've thought he could win this war, but so far it seems if so he miscalculated badly. Neither the US nor any other power will likely tolerate a unified Muslim Capliphate uniting the major oil reserves of the Persian Guf, Caspian, and North Africa under one Islamist umbrella, which we're told is his goal.

Perhaps it's Osama's delusions that make him so useful? Leading those in the Muslim world towards suicide and intervention-justifying provocations?

And yes, CM, that 'carpet of bombs" quote was from C. Rocca during talks about (in part) the Unocal/CENTGAS pipeline. The caspian thing is very interesting, and is what led me into looking at the 'Color Revolutions' in the former USSR, which started in Caspian exporter Georgia. It's the big time.

[edit on 18-10-2007 by Caustic Logic]

Originally posted by deltaboy

Originally posted by coughymachine

On that basis, what on earth did bin Laden expect to gain?

He's trying to do what other weak forces do to force America out, inflict massive casualties. Think of our response to the lost of over 200 Marines in Lebanon. Or the Battle of Mogahdishu. Forcing American govt. to pull out after seeing casualties posted on the media.

Sure, but there's a huge difference. These forces were overseas. The USS Cole and 98 bombings fit this model. People see anger, murderous rage, and that it's working, so they say let's pull back. Of course they largely ignore the rage until it kills Americans, but then anti-Imperialism gains a hand and we pull back.

So they hit us hardest of all right at home on 9/11. Where the hell are we supposed to retreat to then? Nothhing left but give up (fat chance) or lash out. It's PNAC types who mist staunchly push the 'they want us to giive up' line, becuase these guys want us to lash out, for decades.

And we're to believe this historic-minded Muslim Caliph-to-be thought we would even consider giving up?

reply to post by Caustic Logic

You know there is really no way of know just exactly what Osama thought or is thinking. It really could be just as simple as what was stated before. Or is the real motive buried under layers and layers of planning and operations. Like I said ..They look decades into the future, not just the next ten years. He may never have thought we could have gone into Afghanistan and accomplished what we did. After all they did drive the USSR out after 10 years. Maybe he under estimated just what we would and could do.