He was useful to have in the background as a bogeyman to cite every time America wanted to use the fear of terrorism as an excuse to go and invade somewhere, or increase military spending.charlieb wrote:Agree that it's very fishy he was killed, identified and disposed of, all prior to being made public.
What would be the reason to hide the fact that he'd been killed if it happened a long time ago though?
I'm not really buying that, surely in this age it would be massively difficult to keep his 'actual' death under wraps for even the shortest period of time?jamesmcdonnell wrote:He was useful to have in the background as a bogeyman to cite every time America wanted to use the fear of terrorism as an excuse to go and invade somewhere, or increase military spending.charlieb wrote:Agree that it's very fishy he was killed, identified and disposed of, all prior to being made public.
What would be the reason to hide the fact that he'd been killed if it happened a long time ago though?
Could say the same about Bush and Blair IMOBomber 1 wrote:Good riddance to him!! He was an evil man! He killed thousands and thousands of innocent people and children! I hope he rots in hell!!
That bit in bold cracked me as it just highlighted your own ignorance of political stategy rather then other peoples. If he'd announced this in October 2012 during the last weeks of the American Election not even the biggest Obama supporter would have bought it and it would have been Political suicide. As the saying goes “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” You only ever get one 10th anniversary and for the 9/11 attacks this was going to be the occasion when the American and worlds media are going to give the day the same level of media coverage as the original attacks so timing was everything and i have to say they got it just right to announce Bin Ladens capture/death...just a few months before the anniversary is perfect and sellable without coming across as too cynical or convenient. Obama will be all over the 10th Anniversay of 9/11 as the man who brought Bin Laden to justice and that'll carry through to 2012 and his re-election year so no matter what else he does in office for the next 18 months he has at least 'one thing' to hang his hat on. This will also give him a level of trust from a significant amount of Americans if he did want to 'Go to War' with another country so don't be surprised if something like this happens in the next 6 months.Carbo wrote:
Further, the idea that this has just been released for the benefit Barack Obama's reelection is preposterous to anyone who knows anything about politics. Obama is running for reelection, so the most beneficial time to have released the news would have been in late October 2012 just days before the election, to give him a sudden surge in popularity and stop the opposition from responding. That he would do it now, 18 months out, if he had a choice, is laughable.
You do know that he didn't actually kill any one in the 9/11 attack? we also know he had no part in the planning of the attacks or the orchestration of it. The real question has always been whether he funded it and so far there hasn't been anything close to evidence of this, infact the only real money link between the hijackers and their funders points us in a different direction as this link i posted earlier shows usBomber 1 wrote:Good riddance to him!! He was an evil man! He killed thousands and thousands of innocent people and children! I hope he rots in hell!!
Yes, why would he have denied it if he'd done it?exittored wrote:That bit in bold cracked me as it just highlighted your own ignorance of political stategy rather then other peoples. If he'd announced this in October 2012 during the last weeks of the American Election not even the biggest Obama supporter would have bought it and it would have been Political suicide. As the saying goes “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” You only ever get one 10th anniversary and for the 9/11 attacks this was going to be the occasion when the American and worlds media are going to give the day the same level of media coverage as the original attacks so timing was everything and i have to say they got it just right to announce Bin Ladens capture/death...just a few months before the anniversary is perfect and sellable without coming across as too cynical or convenient. Obama will be all over the 10th Anniversay of 9/11 as the man who brought Bin Laden to justice and that'll carry through to 2012 and his re-election year so no matter what else he does in office for the next 18 months he has at least 'one thing' to hang his hat on. This will also give him a level of trust from a significant amount of Americans if he did want to 'Go to War' with another country so don't be surprised if something like this happens in the next 6 months.Carbo wrote:
Further, the idea that this has just been released for the benefit Barack Obama's reelection is preposterous to anyone who knows anything about politics. Obama is running for reelection, so the most beneficial time to have released the news would have been in late October 2012 just days before the election, to give him a sudden surge in popularity and stop the opposition from responding. That he would do it now, 18 months out, if he had a choice, is laughable.
You do know that he didn't actually kill any one in the 9/11 attack? we also know he had no part in the planning of the attacks or the orchestration of it. The real question has always been whether he funded it and so far there hasn't been anything close to evidence of this, infact the only real money link between the hijackers and their funders points us in a different direction as this link i posted earlier shows usBomber 1 wrote:Good riddance to him!! He was an evil man! He killed thousands and thousands of innocent people and children! I hope he rots in hell!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6YgmhBvwCo
Bin Laden made for a great 'villain' though and ticked all the boxes for the Media to label him as the instigator of the 9/11 attacks with no questions asked. Call me old fashioned but i'd like some solid evidence to be presented to me before i make up my mind about someones Guilt or Innocense and there has only ever been one grainy video that came out months after the attack where he admitted to being involved in the 9/11 attacks, a video that almost every international intelligence agency have said was falsified. The fact that he denied having any part in the 9/11 on three occasions following the attacks are always been quite telling to me...a man whose just pulled off his biggest 'Triumph' of his life as twisted as that sounds, isn't suddenly going to start being all shy and innocent about it and say he had no part in it. He may just have been an easy patsy(scapegoat. red herring. person accused of a something as a cover for a bigger more elaborate crime) to deflect attention from the real perpertrators. Alas we will never know now and yes we'll probably get 1001 conspiracy theories, some crazy ones and some half truths but never the real answer.
I heard they were celebrating John Cena regaining the WWE Championship.Syntax Error wrote:It was a joy to see the American people celebrating when news that Bin Laden was now squid bait filtered through.
There's been so many po-faced people that have called radio stations in the UK pontificating about that, but they need to ask themselves whether they would have celebrated the killing of Adolf Hitler at the end of WW2, or the killing of the top man in the IRA in the 1970s etc.
I have no problems with the fact that many Americans were jubilant about the killing of Bin Laden.
At least they're honest & show their emotions, which is not a bad thing in my book.
Apologies for not making myself clear, but I don’t think that I ever said that this victory wouldn’t provide Obama with, generally, a great boost in popularity, and some kind of boost come election time. My central point was this: If, indeed, Osama Bin Laden is not dead, and this whole thing is a fake, the effect of this fact being exposed would be utterly devastating (likely impeachment for Obama, crushing electoral defeat for the Democrats, prison for many of those involved, extreme national embarrassment for America, etc). Given those extraordinary risks – which I doubt any president would be crazy enough to take – then if you were willing to do this for political gain, you would also want, and be brazen enough, to maximize that political gain.exittored wrote:That bit in bold cracked me as it just highlighted your own ignorance of political stategy rather then other peoples. If he'd announced this in October 2012 during the last weeks of the American Election not even the biggest Obama supporter would have bought it and it would have been Political suicide. As the saying goes “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” You only ever get one 10th anniversary and for the 9/11 attacks this was going to be the occasion when the American and worlds media are going to give the day the same level of media coverage as the original attacks so timing was everything and i have to say they got it just right to announce Bin Ladens capture/death...just a few months before the anniversary is perfect and sellable without coming across as too cynical or convenient. Obama will be all over the 10th Anniversay of 9/11 as the man who brought Bin Laden to justice and that'll carry through to 2012 and his re-election year so no matter what else he does in office for the next 18 months he has at least 'one thing' to hang his hat on. This will also give him a level of trust from a significant amount of Americans if he did want to 'Go to War' with another country so don't be surprised if something like this happens in the next 6 months.Carbo wrote:
Further, the idea that this has just been released for the benefit Barack Obama's reelection is preposterous to anyone who knows anything about politics. Obama is running for reelection, so the most beneficial time to have released the news would have been in late October 2012 just days before the election, to give him a sudden surge in popularity and stop the opposition from responding. That he would do it now, 18 months out, if he had a choice, is laughable.
Sorry, but this is a ludicrous distinction you've made. It's like saying that Eisenhower had nothing to do with the orchestration of Operation Market Garden, because it was Montgomery's baby. Well, hell, yes, but Eisenhower was the figurehead of that organization, Montgomery worked for/with him, and was funded with soldiers and materiel that was under Eisenhower's ultimate command.exittored wrote:You do know that he didn't actually kill any one in the 9/11 attack?Bomber 1 wrote:Good riddance to him!! He was an evil man! He killed thousands and thousands of innocent people and children! I hope he rots in hell!!
The Lone Wolf wrote:Whether he was killed on Monday, last week or died in 2001 it is irrelevant.
What is relevant is that Bin Laden won! In less than 10 years he was a catalyst in destroying our civil liberties and sending the UK and America into recession due to funding wars throughout the Middle East.
You're quite right, but two Nobel Laureate economists (I think Joeseph Stilglitz was one) put the cost of the war in Iraq at over 3 trillion dollars. That's pushing 20% of American annual GDP -- so not an insignificant amount.Chambers2 wrote:The Lone Wolf wrote:Whether he was killed on Monday, last week or died in 2001 it is irrelevant.
What is relevant is that Bin Laden won! In less than 10 years he was a catalyst in destroying our civil liberties and sending the UK and America into recession due to funding wars throughout the Middle East.
The banking crisis had 1000 more times effect on the Worlds economy than the wars in the middle east
The Syrians are looking favourites going on how they're treating their protestersDes1 wrote:Who's going to be the next 'big Middle Eastern threat to the West' now?.....
Again - where is the evidence he was involved?Carbo wrote:Apologies for not making myself clear, but I don’t think that I ever said that this victory wouldn’t provide Obama with, generally, a great boost in popularity, and some kind of boost come election time. My central point was this: If, indeed, Osama Bin Laden is not dead, and this whole thing is a fake, the effect of this fact being exposed would be utterly devastating (likely impeachment for Obama, crushing electoral defeat for the Democrats, prison for many of those involved, extreme national embarrassment for America, etc). Given those extraordinary risks – which I doubt any president would be crazy enough to take – then if you were willing to do this for political gain, you would also want, and be brazen enough, to maximize that political gain.exittored wrote:That bit in bold cracked me as it just highlighted your own ignorance of political stategy rather then other peoples. If he'd announced this in October 2012 during the last weeks of the American Election not even the biggest Obama supporter would have bought it and it would have been Political suicide. As the saying goes “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” You only ever get one 10th anniversary and for the 9/11 attacks this was going to be the occasion when the American and worlds media are going to give the day the same level of media coverage as the original attacks so timing was everything and i have to say they got it just right to announce Bin Ladens capture/death...just a few months before the anniversary is perfect and sellable without coming across as too cynical or convenient. Obama will be all over the 10th Anniversay of 9/11 as the man who brought Bin Laden to justice and that'll carry through to 2012 and his re-election year so no matter what else he does in office for the next 18 months he has at least 'one thing' to hang his hat on. This will also give him a level of trust from a significant amount of Americans if he did want to 'Go to War' with another country so don't be surprised if something like this happens in the next 6 months.Carbo wrote:
Further, the idea that this has just been released for the benefit Barack Obama's reelection is preposterous to anyone who knows anything about politics. Obama is running for reelection, so the most beneficial time to have released the news would have been in late October 2012 just days before the election, to give him a sudden surge in popularity and stop the opposition from responding. That he would do it now, 18 months out, if he had a choice, is laughable.
If you understood American politics, you would understand two things: first, that while this will be a popular move among all Americans, it will be most popular among folks who will probably vote Republican anyway. Core Democrat voters are more likely to believe that Osama Bin Laden was trumped up by a war mongering president to justify his curtailment of US civil liberties in the Patriot Act and his wars of adventure in the Hindu Kush and Mesopotamia. (Please note the relative terms “most”, “more” before you construct a reply). Second, there is so, so long to go before the US election. Before people step into the voting booth, there’s going to be a hysterical partisan fight about the raising the US debt ceiling, which will dominate all coverage of the president, then there’s going to be the Republican Primaries, which, given the President won’t face a primary challenge himself, will likely get most of the coverage. If they’re anything like the last primaries, they’ll dominate the news for months. Then you have the election itself, which, if recent Republican party behavior is anything to go by, will be filled with almost mass hysteria. The fight over Paul Ryan’s budget, reducing the deficit and debt, Medicare and Medicaid, and economic performance is likely to reach a pitch that we in the UK are wholly unfamiliar with. Between now and then, there'll be a range of, as McMillan said when asked about the hardest thing in politics "Events, dear boy, events" -- scandals, arguments, international crisis, natural disasters, financial calamities, etc.
The point I’m trying to make is that there is now in politics a 24 hour news cycle which turns over stories at an incredible rate. Sure, you could finesse the timing of the announcement (if you could announce it at any time because it was a lie) of Bin Laden’s death, so I'm willing to concede that two weeks before the election isn't the best time; however, the general point stands: you would certainly want a better, more advantageous time than now, if you were going to take those extraordinary risks.
Sorry, but this is a ludicrous distinction you've made. It's like saying that Eisenhower had nothing to do with the orchestration of Operation Market Garden, because it was Montgomery's baby. Well, hell, yes, but Eisenhower was the figurehead of that organization, Montgomery worked for/with him, and was funded with soldiers and materiel that was under Eisenhower's ultimate command.exittored wrote:You do know that he didn't actually kill any one in the 9/11 attack?Bomber 1 wrote:Good riddance to him!! He was an evil man! He killed thousands and thousands of innocent people and children! I hope he rots in hell!!
Maybe Bin Laden wasn't the direct commander of, or brains behind, that operation, but he sure was involved, and given that it's his organization, I think that counts.
James, I’m not being funny, but have you ever bothered to read into this? I mean, as far as I can see, the evidence is pretty clear and plentiful -- but you need to actually go and read it, rather than relying broadsheet opinion columns and leaders and news programs (which don't have the time to list all the evidence, so just state matters as fact). I’m not saying that you’re one of these rambling loons who bases all their views on hokey, slack-jawed YouTube videos -- although there are a few posting here, clearly -- but the evidence is clear.jamesmcdonnell wrote:Again - where is the evidence he was involved?Carbo wrote:Apologies for not making myself clear, but I don’t think that I ever said that this victory wouldn’t provide Obama with, generally, a great boost in popularity, and some kind of boost come election time. My central point was this: If, indeed, Osama Bin Laden is not dead, and this whole thing is a fake, the effect of this fact being exposed would be utterly devastating (likely impeachment for Obama, crushing electoral defeat for the Democrats, prison for many of those involved, extreme national embarrassment for America, etc). Given those extraordinary risks – which I doubt any president would be crazy enough to take – then if you were willing to do this for political gain, you would also want, and be brazen enough, to maximize that political gain.exittored wrote: That bit in bold cracked me as it just highlighted your own ignorance of political stategy rather then other peoples. If he'd announced this in October 2012 during the last weeks of the American Election not even the biggest Obama supporter would have bought it and it would have been Political suicide. As the saying goes “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” You only ever get one 10th anniversary and for the 9/11 attacks this was going to be the occasion when the American and worlds media are going to give the day the same level of media coverage as the original attacks so timing was everything and i have to say they got it just right to announce Bin Ladens capture/death...just a few months before the anniversary is perfect and sellable without coming across as too cynical or convenient. Obama will be all over the 10th Anniversay of 9/11 as the man who brought Bin Laden to justice and that'll carry through to 2012 and his re-election year so no matter what else he does in office for the next 18 months he has at least 'one thing' to hang his hat on. This will also give him a level of trust from a significant amount of Americans if he did want to 'Go to War' with another country so don't be surprised if something like this happens in the next 6 months.
If you understood American politics, you would understand two things: first, that while this will be a popular move among all Americans, it will be most popular among folks who will probably vote Republican anyway. Core Democrat voters are more likely to believe that Osama Bin Laden was trumped up by a war mongering president to justify his curtailment of US civil liberties in the Patriot Act and his wars of adventure in the Hindu Kush and Mesopotamia. (Please note the relative terms “most”, “more” before you construct a reply). Second, there is so, so long to go before the US election. Before people step into the voting booth, there’s going to be a hysterical partisan fight about the raising the US debt ceiling, which will dominate all coverage of the president, then there’s going to be the Republican Primaries, which, given the President won’t face a primary challenge himself, will likely get most of the coverage. If they’re anything like the last primaries, they’ll dominate the news for months. Then you have the election itself, which, if recent Republican party behavior is anything to go by, will be filled with almost mass hysteria. The fight over Paul Ryan’s budget, reducing the deficit and debt, Medicare and Medicaid, and economic performance is likely to reach a pitch that we in the UK are wholly unfamiliar with. Between now and then, there'll be a range of, as McMillan said when asked about the hardest thing in politics "Events, dear boy, events" -- scandals, arguments, international crisis, natural disasters, financial calamities, etc.
The point I’m trying to make is that there is now in politics a 24 hour news cycle which turns over stories at an incredible rate. Sure, you could finesse the timing of the announcement (if you could announce it at any time because it was a lie) of Bin Laden’s death, so I'm willing to concede that two weeks before the election isn't the best time; however, the general point stands: you would certainly want a better, more advantageous time than now, if you were going to take those extraordinary risks.
Sorry, but this is a ludicrous distinction you've made. It's like saying that Eisenhower had nothing to do with the orchestration of Operation Market Garden, because it was Montgomery's baby. Well, hell, yes, but Eisenhower was the figurehead of that organization, Montgomery worked for/with him, and was funded with soldiers and materiel that was under Eisenhower's ultimate command.exittored wrote: You do know that he didn't actually kill any one in the 9/11 attack?
Maybe Bin Laden wasn't the direct commander of, or brains behind, that operation, but he sure was involved, and given that it's his organization, I think that counts.
This has links to source material too. http://www.911myths.com/index.php/Conne ... en_to_9-11Carbo wrote:Wikipedia would probably be a great place to start, as it has links to source material, etc.
They'll hate it if they do a live broadcast from South Yorkshire when Thatcher croaks it......they'll have bunting out in Barnsley.Syntax Error wrote:It was a joy to see the American people celebrating when news that Bin Laden was now squid bait filtered through.
There's been so many po-faced people that have called radio stations in the UK pontificating about that, but they need to ask themselves whether they would have celebrated the killing of Adolf Hitler at the end of WW2, or the killing of the top man in the IRA in the 1970s etc.
I have no problems with the fact that many Americans were jubilant about the killing of Bin Laden.
At least they're honest & show their emotions, which is not a bad thing in my book.