A new "Bin-Laden" tape...

[Makalakumu]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,584444,00.html

Two months before September 11 Osama bin Laden flew to Dubai for 10 days for treatment at the American hospital, where he was visited by the local CIA agent, according to the French newspaper Le Figaro.

The disclosures are known to come from French intelligence which is keen to reveal the ambiguous role of the CIA, and to restrain Washington from extending the war to Iraq and elsewhere.

Sorry, it was July.

 

[Makalakumu]

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO110A.html

"Now the Taliban will pay a price" vowed President George W. Bush, as American and British fighter planes unleashed missile attacks against major cities in Afghanistan. The US Administration claims that Osama bin Laden is behind the tragic events of the 11th of September. A major war supposedly "against international terrorism" has been launched, yet the evidence amply confirms that agencies of the US government have since the Cold War harbored the "Islamic Militant Network" as part of Washington's foreign policy agenda. In a bitter irony, the US Air Force is targeting the training camps established in the 1980s by the CIA.

 

[Mr. E]

Nope,

http://www.911myths.com/html/bin_ladin_met_the_cia.html

I think what the last article on that page says it best.

Copyright 2001 International Herald Tribune
The International Herald Tribune

November 1, 2001 Thursday

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 3

LENGTH: 537 words

HEADLINE: Dubai Clinic Denies Report Bin Laden Met With CIA

BYLINE: Joseph Fitchett

SOURCE: International Herald Tribune

DATELINE: PARIS

BODY:
A wave of skepticism and outright denials greeted a French newspaper report Wednesday that Osama bin Laden had been hospitalized in a Dubai clinic for kidney care for 10 days in July and met there with a U.S. intelligence operative -- just weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The report, published as the main story in Le Figaro, a leading conservative newspaper in Paris, suggested that the CIA had maintained direct contacts with Mr. bin Laden ever since the agency first extended covert assistance to him in the 1980s, when he was a Saudi volunteer for the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

At the time of the alleged meeting, Mr. bin Laden was being sought in a worldwide manhunt in connection with U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa in 1998. The United States was offering a $7 million reward for information leading to his capture.

The newspaper offered no independent confirmation for its story, which was based on a leak from someone "associated with the management team" of the American hospital in Dubai, where Mr. bin Laden allegedly underwent treatment.

"Osama bin Laden has never been here," Bernard Koval, the head of the hospital, said in Dubai.

The story -- of hospitalization and a visit from the local CIA chief -- is "utterly implausible," according to an Arab diplomat in Paris. Never, he said, would Mr. bin Laden have run the risks of prolonged medical treatment in Dubai, a free-wheeling Gulf city-state with an underworld of smugglers and mercenaries easily recruitable to assassinate the man listed as U.S. public enemy No. 1.

"If he had needed treatment, he would have chosen a place where he could count on draconian security like Baghdad or Damascus," the Arab official said.

According to the Figaro story, the head of the CIA post in Dubai "was seen" going into Mr. bin Laden's room. But the 100-bed clinic's boss, Mr. Koval, told reporters in Dubai that "this is too small a hospital for someone to be snuck through the backdoor" -- a phrase apparently applying both to Mr. bin Laden and the local CIA station chief.

Mr. Kovel said that no trace of the terrorist's presence had emerged from discussions with all members of the clinic's staff, including Dr. Terry Callaway, Canadian-born specialist who allegedly treated Mr. bin Laden.

"He's never been a patient here, he's never been treated here," Mr. Kovel said.

Officials in Dubai have not reacted to the report, and the U.S. Embassy in Paris said that it had a policy of never commenting on intelligence matters.

"Disinformation may have been planted on the paper to suggest a continuing covert linkage between the CIA and bin Laden," according to a French intelligence source.

Such collusion -- based on Mr. bin Laden's role in the CIA-backed campaign against the Soviets in the 1980s -- has been a leitmotif of reservations voiced by some people in France about the U.S.-led military offensive in Afghanistan. French leftists often depict Mr. bin Laden as a fundamentalist fanatic manipulated by the CIA with the aim of creating conditions in which the United States can exploit terrorist violence to expand the U.S. military presence in Central Asia.

And if you have the courage to challenge your beliefs, you might want to read this as well.

http://www.911myths.com/html/bin_ladin_links_to_the_cia.html

The mind of a "true believer" would say that these explinations are part of the conspiracy and just keep chugging away with more theories as to why they just can't be wrong about their central belief.

 

[Makalakumu]

Mr. E, I hope you realize that "the mind of the true believer" swings in more then one direction. Perhaps you have so much emotionally invested in the official line that you will grasp at any factoid to make it so. This "reverse scientific method" is exactly the kind of psychosis the good doctor was describing and it is why I posted it in the first place.

In reality, what we have here is a report that Bin-Laden was in Dubai and several denials. There are actually several more separate accounts of this floating around, but the same people are reported denying at the same time. This was actually reported in the article that I posted.

So, what happened?

Based on the long history that the CIA has developed with Bin-Laden and Al-Qaeda, I would say that the meeting is plausible. Does that mean that I think this definitely happened, no. But you MUST consider the possibility that it did.

Especially when confronted with the evidence of his past CIA links.

 

[Makalakumu]

Other faked UBL tapes...

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/29/1038386299712.html

Paris: The latest audiotape statement attributed to Osama bin Laden is not authentic, according to a Swiss research institute.

The Lausanne-based Dalle Molle Institute for Perceptual Artificial Intelligence, IDIAP, said it was 95 per cent certain the tape does not feature bin Laden's voice.

 

[Makalakumu]

UBL confession faked...

http://www.rense.com/general18/ez.htm

The White House yesterday came under pressure to give more details of the video which purports to show Osama bin Laden admitting his part in the September 11 attacks. There was growing doubt in the Muslim world about the authenticity of the film while special effects experts said computer technology made it possible to fake such a video. Unless the US gives more information about how the tape was found or provides more technological details about it, doubts are bound to linger.

 

[Mr. E]

In reality, what we have here is a report that Bin-Laden was in Dubai and several denials. There are actually several more separate accounts of this floating around, but the same people are reported denying at the same time.

No, they all come back to one source, one article by a reporter from Le Figaro who heard a rumor and printed it.

No confirmation, no reasons, no credibility.

Especially when confronted with the evidence of his past CIA links.

No, you didn't read the second link I posted.

http://www.911myths.com/html/bin_ladin_links_to_the_cia.html

here are some interesting quotes from that page.

It is often said that bin Ladin was funded by the CIA. This is not true, and indeed it would have been impossible given the structure of funding that General Zia ul-Haq, who had taken power in Pakistan in 1977, had set up. A condition of Zia's cooperation with the American plan to turn Afghanistan into the Soviet's 'Vietnam' was that all American funding to the Afghan resistance had to be channeled through the Pakistani government, which effectively meant the Afghan bureau of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), the military spy agency.

The American funding, which went exclusively to the Afghan mujahideen groups, not the Arab volunteers [bin Ladin's groups], was supplemented by Saudi government money and huge funds raised from mosques, non-governmental charitable institutions and private donors throughout the Islamic world. Most of the major Gulf-based charities operating today were founded at this time to raise money or channel government funds to the Afghans, civilians and fighters. In fact, as little as 25 per cent of the monet for the Afghan jihad was actually supplied directly by states.
Page 59, Al Qaeda: The true story of radical Islam
Jason Burke

But were the CIA and the Afghan Arabs in cahoots, as recent studies have suggested? One author charges: "The CIA had funded and trained the Afghan Arabs during the war". Another refers to "the central role of the CIA's Muslim mercenaries, including upwards of 2,000 mercenaries in the Afghanistan war". Both authors present these claims as axioms, but provide no real corroboration.

Other commentators have reported that bin Ladin himself was aided by the CIA. A report in the respected British newspaper The Guardian states: "In 1986 the CIA even helped him [bin Ladin] build an underground camp at Khost [Afghanistan] where he was to train recruits from across the Islamic world in the revolutionary art of jihad"...Bin Ladin, meanwhile, had expoused anti-American positions since 1982, and thanks to the fortune derived from his family's giant construction business had little need of CIA money. In fact, the underground camp at Khost was built in 1982 by an Afghan commander, with Arab funding.

A source familiar with bin Ladin's organisation explains that bin Ladin "never had any relations with America or American officials... He was saying very early in the 1980's that the next battle is going to be with America... No aid or training or other support have ever been given to bin Ladin from Americans." A senior offical unequivocally says that "bin Ladin never met with the CIA."

While the charges that the CIA was responsible for the rise of the Afghan Arabs might make good copy, they don't make good history. The truth is more complicated, tinged with varying shades of grey. The United States wanted to be able to deny that the CIA was funding the Afghan war, so its support was funneled through Pakistan's military intelligence agency, Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI). ISI in turn made the decisions about which Afghan factions to arm and train, tending to fund the most Islamist and pro-Pakistan. The Afghan Arabs generally fought alongside those factions, which is how the charge arose that they were creatures of the CIA.

Former CIA officer Milt Bearden, who ran the Agency's Afghan operation in the late 1980's, says: "The CIA did not recruit Arabs," as there was no need to do so. There were hundreds of thousands of Afghans all too willing to fight...

Moreover, the Afghan Arabs demonstrated a pathological dislike of Westerners. Jouvenal says: "I always kept away from Arabs [in Afghanistan]. They were very hostile. They would ask, 'What are you doing in an Islamic country?" The BBC reporter John Simpson had a close call with bin Ladin himself outside Jalalabad in 1989. Travelling with a group of Arab mujahideen, Simpson and his television crew bumped into an Arab man beautifully dressed in spotless white robes; the man began shouting at Simpson's escorts to kill the infidels, then offered a truck driver the not unreasonable sum of five hundred dollars to do the job. Simpson's Afghan escort turned down the request, and bin Ladin was to be found later on a camp bed, weeping in frustration. Only when bin Ladin became a public figure, almost a decade later, did Simpson realise who the mysterious Arab was who had wanted him dead.

Page 67/68, Holy War Inc,
Peter Bergen

There you go, indepedent authors and journalists taking apart a very common myth and key to your debate.

 

[Mr. E]

Other faked UBL tapes...

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/29/1038386299712.html

One group claims it is faked and we are supposed to take it's word for it? This group just can't be mistaken, the rest of the world must be? If it was so easy to figure out, why have not other, more credible sources touched it?

This type of thing has been dealt with.

http://www.911myths.com/html/fake_video.html

read and challenge your convictions.

 

[Mr. E]

UBL confession faked...

http://www.rense.com/general18/ez.htm

That article does not say the the article was faked. It talked about how it might be possible to fake a tape like this. The following is the only person in the article who tries to say the tape is faked.

Riaz Durrani, a spokesman for Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, which spearheaded pro-Taliban rallies in Pakistan, said: "This videotape is not authentic. The Americans made it up after failing to get any evidence against Osama."

Wow! He is not someone who has an agenda, is he?

Instead of presenting things like this as if they said what you want them to say, how about opening up your mind and admiting that the latest tape of Bin Laden talking about one of the hijackers is the final nail in the coffin to the idea that the government was behind 9-11? You would not have to keep making more and more eleberate conspiracy theories if you only opened your mind to the idea that it really was a bunch of Islamic terrorists.

Here is a much better article on Bin Laden and his accepting blame for 9-11.

http://www.911myths.com/html/responsibility.html

Of course, some might try to hide behind the idea that the "gubmint" would shut up anyone who told the real truth about tapes like this- but would that stop folks in Venuzuela and China?

 

[Makalakumu]

There you go, indepedent authors and journalists taking apart a very common myth and key to your debate.

Unfortunately, congressional testimony contradicts the above. Check citations next time.

 

[Mr. E]

Unfortunately, congressional testimony contradicts the above. Check citations next time.

Oh? You might want to give sources and exact quotes if you want to pursue that line of argument. If you do, I am certain that I can find things that shoot what you want to say down like I have so far. Much better for someone trying to protect their sense of superiority to stay non-specific. After all, after all the effort certain people have put into trying to say that they know better than everyone else about the truth, it would be a great blow to their sense of superiority to admit that they were wrong all the time. :lol:

Oh my- congress working off of flawed testimony and intelligence... what a new concept for those that want to oppose the war on terror.

:lfao::lfao::lfao::lfao::lfao::lfao::lfao:

 

[Makalakumu]

how about opening up your mind and admiting...

All of this is part and parcel of the "True Believer Syndrome." Even the quasi-religious intonation above.

Here is something that I think needs to be said. According to certain polls, 36% of Americans believe the the US government was either fully or partially behind some aspects of 9/11. 86% have doubts regarding the official dogma.

What we have on the internet is a very vocal minority who supports every aspect of the official dogma in exactly the same way that people who think that the government was 100% behind 9/11. The same conspiracy psychosis is displayed on both sides.

So, here is my question to you (and anyone else who would like to answer this question) and I'm going to bring this discussion back to the UBL tapes. What would it take for you to believe that these tapes may have been faked? Note that this is not 100% affirmation that they are faked. What would it take? I'm really curious...

 

[Makalakumu]

Oh? You might want to give sources and exact quotes if you want to pursue that line of argument.

They were already posted in the articles presented. Check them.

 

[Mr. E]

Here is something that I think needs to be said. According to certain polls, 36% of Americans believe the the US government was either fully or partially behind some aspects of 9/11. 86% have doubts regarding the official dogma.

So if a majority of the population thinks that Hussein was involved in the planning of 9-11 as a good percent polled responded does that mean that we should treat it as fact?

:lfao::lfao::lfao::lfao::lfao::lfao::lfao::lfao:

So the majority still thinks that there was no plot by thge government. If you try to say that we should follow the majority, you are still considered outside the norm.

If we deal with the facts and ignore the people that voted that Iraq was involved in 9-11, you are still wrong.

No appeal to authority to be found in your argument.

 

[Mr. E]

They were already posted in the articles presented. Check them.

Go ahead and make it real easy for me and give the exact quotes, etc. I will be back in about 12 hours to show how they are wrong.

After all... there was testimony before congress to say that there was no link between tabacco and cancer.

So if you want to say that someone testified before congress saying that Iraqi soldiers took babies off of life support that it is proof that it happened...... well you have to deal with all the objective sources saying that it was a bit of a agenda foisted on congress.

:lfao::lfao::lfao::lfao::lfao::lfao::lfao::lfao::lfao::lfao::lfao::lfao::lfao::lfao::lfao::lfao:

 

[OUMoose]

After reading the thread (and the pixelated poo-slinging going on), I am one of the "wackos" that believes the tape is a fake.

For all the intellectuals who are much better with facts and dates than I care to be at the moment, why did the tape get played on CNN, or even mentioned? Would it not be in the best interests of the government, if it were real, to keep it so under wraps that anyone coming out saying "Hey, I've got a new tape" would be looked at like a looney since we have thing so well under control with our "surge"? (I know that was a runon, but *shrug*) You're trying to tell me the "most powerful nation in the world" can't squelch one little tape? Or, was is it in their interests to actually promote this tape, to provide more fuel for the terrorism-phobic populous and keep our brave men and women in harms way? Or, what if it was made up, to drum up more support for the most disliked president in this history of the USA?

I dunno. :idunno: There's alot of what-ifs there, and I know it's against governmental policy to "think", but I can't help it.

 

[grydth]

After reading the thread (and the pixelated poo-slinging going on), I am one of the "wackos" that believes the tape is a fake.

For all the intellectuals who are much better with facts and dates than I care to be at the moment, why did the tape get played on CNN, or even mentioned? Would it not be in the best interests of the government, if it were real, to keep it so under wraps that anyone coming out saying "Hey, I've got a new tape" would be looked at like a looney since we have thing so well under control with our "surge"? (I know that was a runon, but *shrug*) You're trying to tell me the "most powerful nation in the world" can't squelch one little tape? Or, was is it in their interests to actually promote this tape, to provide more fuel for the terrorism-phobic populous and keep our brave men and women in harms way? Or, what if it was made up, to drum up more support for the most disliked president in this history of the USA?

I dunno. :idunno: There's alot of what-ifs there, and I know it's against governmental policy to "think", but I can't help it.

I don't think a simple belief one way or the other about the authenticity of this al-Qaeda tape makes somebody a "wacko".... in fact, you highlight a major problem in our society and on this forum. We can't reasonably differ anymore with each other - now, if you disagree with anyone they say you are insane, illiterate or a traitor.

No, I do not think our government can control the world media, most especially not the Internet. We can't control Iraq, for heaven's sake. The so called surge of troops in Iraq has no connection to any ability to control world media outlets. The Chinese, too, are learning the Internet is hard to tame.

Various media outlets have played authentic al-Qaeda tapes for years. Some here showed the Virginia Tech murderer's sick manifesto. I have no idea why the media chooses to assist killers. None of those were kept from publication - though I wish they could have been.

You think the tape helps Bush? I think it highlights his failures.

One of us must be crazy.

 

[Makalakumu]

I happened to find this on Wiki today and I think it provides a pretty good videography of UBL tapes. I'm not sure if its all of them, but I think its most of them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videos_of_Osama_bin_Laden

I found this part interesting...

On December 20, 2001, German TV channel "Das Erste" broadcast its analysis of the White House's translation of the videotape. On the program "Monitor", two independent translators and an expert on oriental studies found the White House's translation to be not only inaccurate, but also manipulative saying "At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of Bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic" and that the words used that indicate foreknowledge can not be heard at all in the original Arabic. Prof. Gernot Rotter, professor of Islamic and Arabic Studies at the Asia-Africa Institute at the University of Hamburg said "The American translators who listened to the tapes and transcribed them apparently wrote a lot of things in that they wanted to hear but that cannot be heard on the tape no matter how many times you listen to it."[7]

 

[Mr. E]

I happened to find this on Wiki today

Wiki is not accepted as a good source anymore. If you use it for most serious uses, you have to check with the facts independent of wiki.

There is link to the German article, but my German is not up to figuring out if it is just another whacky internet conspiracy theory site or something more serious.

Here is a better source for Bin Laden accepting blame for 9-11. They give page numbers, references and everything!

http://www.911myths.com/html/responsibility.html

 

[Carol]

Devout Wahhabis see the trimming of beards and the dying of hair as a violation of Islamic law.

So...here is a broadcast of Bin Ladin with dyed, trimmed hair....and wearing clerical robes.

It could be psycholocial warfare by "our side". But...Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya are not crying foul. There is no outrage over the appearance of Bin Laden. No accusations of sacrilege or foul play.

"When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, naturally they like the strong horse." Osama Bin Laden, late 2001.

While not part of Wahhabiism, there is a Sunni school of thought that permits use of hair dye for male jihadist warriors, the logic being a younger, stronger appearance is more intimidating to the enemy.

Is this Bin Laden (or his sympathizers), still trying to prove that he's a strong horse? While the logic isn't strong, its the option that makes the most sense to me.

I don't know if the tape is real or not, but if it is fake, I don't think it was faked by us.