Obama announced that Osama is still dead. The search for a new bogeyman continues. Carry on.
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May 2, 2011
Obama: “Osama Is Still Dead”
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The interesting question, it seems to me, is why now? There are obvious advantages for Obama’s re-election campaign, for Panetta and Petraeus in their
most recent career moves, and, perhaps not least, a “useful” occasion to further exacerbate tensions between the U.S. and Pakistan. (Probably we will hear that Raymond Davis was working on this very “problem”. I hope that FB Ali will favor us with his take on the matter.) The vast majority of Americans will undoubtedly believe the official version of this story, but I suspect that most MOA users will see this as a major psy-op. Certainly, the “evidence” provided is sure to be both gruesome and graphic, and the mediatic circus surrounding the “event” is already in full swing. Needless to say, this will not be viewed as a suitable occasion to close down the GWOT and restore the rule of law in U.S. foreign and domestic “police operations”, nor in that spiritual no-man’s land which is Guantanamo.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | May 2 2011 5:08 utc | 1
spontaneous Firdos Square White House celebration! Stagecraft at it finest! Wonder if they used union actors?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 2 2011 5:32 utc | 2
he died late in 2001..Dr Griffin has written a book on this:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15601
Posted by: brian | May 2 2011 5:48 utc | 3
Wait! Brian! are you saying the body will have freezer burns?… Get in line, son. USA!USA!USA!
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 2 2011 5:53 utc | 4
why now? hmmm:
The news comes eight years to the day that President George Bush declared “Mission accomplished” in Iraq. As president, Bush declared he wanted bin Laden “dead or alive” – but it is now the unlikely figure of Barack Obama who announces the final triumph as the US commander in chief.
compare and contrast:
A.
This is a turning point in the global “war on terrorism” that has been waged since 9/11 – and the news will reverberate around the world.
B.
Mr. Obama made it clear in his remarks at the White House on Sunday that the United States still faces significant national security threats despite Bin Laden’s death.
“His death does not mark the end of our effort,” Mr. Obama said. “There’s no doubt that Al Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must and we will remain vigilant at home and abroad.”
Posted by: catlady | May 2 2011 5:59 utc | 5
too much conspiracies, these days – Gaddafi, OBL, all linked and prepared and set to go months or years on advance, etc
more modestly, I suggest that:
1) Obama was after OBL as a priority for his presidency, and that his personal, panicked and clumsy intervention on the Davis affair was probably a sign of this;
2) western leaders were after a chance to intervene on the “good” side of the “arab spring”, and put their seal on events that were unfolding outside their control, and erroneously thought that finally they could freely side with Libyan rebels against a hated Gaddafi (something they couldn’t do against their allies Ben Ali and Mubarak and in Bahrein and Yemen, etc): a gross miscalculation, which they wouldn’t repeat (not the Us, at least) if they could go back in time
just my 2c
Posted by: claudio | May 2 2011 6:17 utc | 6
New season, new anti-American Idol. Osama was voted off in favor of Gaddafi.
Posted by: Biklett | May 2 2011 6:33 utc | 7
… oh, and
3) now we are trying to scare Gaddafi and convince him to surrender, or else we’ll just have to bomb him, and after that destroy Libya in order to hold it, like Iraq – no way we can let a Bedouin win against us! but before, we are testing peoples’ reactions to an eventual assasination
(that makes it 3c?)
Posted by: claudio | May 2 2011 6:34 utc | 8
Yeah well in theory bin laden’s death should mean everyone gets outa afghanistan and leaves it to the citizens there to run their country as they see fit to, but no one seriously thinks that is going to happen do they?
I mean doing that would presuppose that USuk invaded afghanistan to fight gwot and the facts just don’t support that. There are innumerably more humans (especially from islamic societies) eager to rip the head off the nearest amerikan and shit down the resultant hole in the seppo’s shoulders now than there was back in 01 when the invasion kicked off, so even given the legendary incompetence of armies at achieving the outcomes given them by politicians, you’d have to say that is just too big a fuck up to be right.
Whatever the invasion of afghanistan was about – pipelines to central asia, strategic outflanking of Iran and all the other off the wall notions, one or more of them musta been the reason, cause a gwot favourable outcome is just too wide of where they are at now, to have ever been the cause.
It costs more than all the other armies in the world put together, kills more people each year than the sum total who died in the Punic wars between Rome and Carthage, and couldn’t hold on to a gnarly dried turd if you stuck a cork up its ass. That’s the amerikan military for ya.
Posted by: Debs is dead | May 2 2011 7:05 utc | 10
Ahhh….synergy
these….
osama-bin-laden-death-brings-timeliness-to-hollywood-film-projects
How Will Osama Bin Laden Death Impact Kathryn Bigelow’s ‘Kill Bin Laden’ Movie?
Posted by: holy_bazooka | May 2 2011 7:07 utc | 11
Bin Laden was on dialysis 10 years ago. No one lives that long on dialysis.
Posted by: hans | May 2 2011 7:07 utc | 12
Image of “dead” OBL. Anything obvious, looks like OBL was grooming his beard, and for somebody who was sick he looks remarkably well
Posted by: hans | May 2 2011 7:25 utc | 13
looks like the image was from a few months ago Did the ISI pull a fast one? Read what the chinese news agency are saying
Posted by: hans | May 2 2011 7:41 utc | 14
I’m inclined to go with ThePaper on this one. The timing, Sunday night primetime presentation, is almost laughable, and it took them almost 8 months to close in on the “tip” they got last August? Sure.
However, the politics of it all point to Obama closing up shop on both Iraq and Afghanistan going into the election cycle – which will in the next year (in the fall probably), find the country in the midst of a full tilt economic catastrophe. So he rolls out the closure of both as a rekindled hope and change by hanging the failure of both on the hapless 43 who both signed off on the end of the Iraq war and couldn’t find Osama when all the time he was lounging around in a Pakistani McMansion.
This all makes him look like he’s a cool operator, keeping promises, maintaining the exceptionalism, and pushing the republican alternative ever further too the lunatic fringe of the 43 on steroids called Trump.
Posted by: anna missed | May 2 2011 8:24 utc | 15
catlady wrote…
why now? hmmm:
The news comes five days after al cia duh announces:
‘Nuclear hellstorm’ if bin Laden is caught or killed: Al-Qaida
Al-Qaida terrorists have threatened to unleash a “nuclear hellstorm” on the West if their leader and world’s most wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden is nabbed.
A senior Al-Qaida commander has claimed that the terror group has stashed away a nuclear bomb in Europe which will be detonated if bin Laden is ever caught or assassinated, according to new top secret files made public by whistleblower website WikiLeaks.
After all we’ve seen, heard followed and know, this is just all to god damned contrived for me. I’d hit your local market tomorrow and pick up duct tape, plastic and potassium iodine.
Obomba Trumps Osama…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 2 2011 8:34 utc | 16
Local man apparently live-tweeted Osama mansion raid
RAWKIN ROBIN..
tweet
tweet..
(W/apologies to the Jackson 5)
Remember folks, don’t believe it till you see the long form death certificate.
tweet…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 2 2011 8:59 utc | 17
8 years to the day, that 43 had his cod piece moment. Love that illusion of symmetry. Case closed.
Posted by: anna missed | May 2 2011 9:23 utc | 18
@hans – thanks for the Chinese link. Now that story is very different from the official one:
Osama Bin Laden killed in Abbotabad near Islamabad of Pakistan
Pakistani Urdu TV channel Geo News quoted Pakistani intelligence officials as saying that the world’s most wanted terrorist Osama Bin Laden was killed in a search operation launched by the Pakistani forces after a Pakistani army helicopter was shot down in the wee hours of Monday in Abbotabad, a mountainous town located some 60 kilometers north of Pakistan’s capital city of Islamabad.
At about 1:20 a.m. local time a Pakistani helicopter was shot down by unknown people in the Sikandarabad area of Abbotabad. The Pakistani forces launched a search operation in the nearby area and encountered with a group of unknown armed people. A fire exchange followed between the two sides.
When the fire exchange ended, the Pakistani forces arrested some Arab women and kids as well some other armed people who later confessed to the Pakistani forces they were with Osama Bin laden when the fire was exchanged and Bin Laden was killed in the firing.
Local media reported that after the dead body of Bin Laden was recovered, two U.S. helicopter flew to the site and carried away the dead body of Bin Laden.
…
Source: Xinhua
How convenient… CNN is now reporting that THERE IS NO BODY.
According to Top Government officials the body has been disposed of in a burial at sea. TeleSurTV seems to doubt the version being told on MSM. PressTV as usual parroting MSM version.
Posted by: hans | May 2 2011 9:55 utc | 20
Osama Bin Laden Body Headed for Burial at Sea, Officials Say
What no traditional Islamic burial? This just gets sillier by the hour.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 2 2011 9:57 utc | 21
Who cares what is the official story that they try to write on the fly (the usual incompetence? or confusion by design? doesn’t change much the outcome). No fear that an alive ‘real’ Osama Bin Laden pops up later to confront the ‘official’ story when it becomes finally ‘written’ and ‘fixed’ (they seem to be still working on the matter).
Other than some Iranian official that was quoted as saying that something is fishy everyone else ‘who matters’ is playing the ‘Boogeyman’s Demise’ script.
Is this a distraction for something? A required change of strategy to start ‘leaving’ Afghanistan before the 2012 presidential election? Time will tell, I guess. We are living a very interesting year.
Posted by: ThePaper | May 2 2011 10:44 utc | 22
I think it’s clear that OBL was a Navy Intelligence Officer, hence the burial at sea.
Posted by: Morocco Bama | May 2 2011 11:19 utc | 23
@16, very interesting angle. The Intelligence Services are perhaps hat-tipping their next phase of false flags. This next round, apparently, will make 911 pale in comparison. Of course, Fukushima is a “Nuclear Hellstorm” in and of itself….no need for al Qaeda when you have General Electric and Siemens.
Posted by: Morocco Bama | May 2 2011 11:32 utc | 25
one conspiracy theory I’d advance is that Obama knew OBL was pinpointed and ready to be killed before Petraeus was appointed to Cia – now his position there is quite less important; Obama is able to make strategical decisions on Afghanistan and Pakistan without having to consult him
Posted by: claudio | May 2 2011 11:40 utc | 26
Will Donald Trump’s hair survive the nuclear hellstorm? Personally, I wanted to see Obama bitch slap OBL, sadly we won’t get to see that; but wait, the movie version could change that.
Posted by: bluestar | May 2 2011 12:56 utc | 27
You people are so cynical. Why couldn’t the cover story be true this time? They’ve been looking for him for years, finally are sure that this is him, and now they take him out. And it’s the US gov’t’s great respect for Islamic tradition that leads them to bury him so promptly – and in the ocean, no less. It’s a win-win situation. Meanwhile, Americans are literally dancing in the streets. Sweeeet.
I just worry that maybe it’s a little too long between now and the election – eighteen months. A lot can happen. Oh well – che sera, sera.
Posted by: mistah charley, ph.d. | May 2 2011 13:11 utc | 28
I threw up a little in my mouth this morning as the vast majority of my Facebook “friends” buy this risible horseshit hook, line, and sinker.
We’re a nation of slack-jawed gullible morons, sadly.
Posted by: ran | May 2 2011 13:13 utc | 29
I think Obama’s being set up for a huge scandal.
According to Wikileaks, OBL is in Iran. Perhaps Iran will trot him out to the press in short order…..and Obama and Company will have some explaining to do. This is the kind of thing that can happen when you’re just a rubber stamp cheerleader.
http://featheredcocaine.org/?page_id=145
A number of people have expressed concern regarding credibility issues at hand in Feathered Cocaine. The filmmakers took nothing for granted in their research and used a journalistic approach to corroborate the facts put forth in the film, so as not to downgrade a serious documentary to the level of a conspiracy theory film. No speculations or theories are offered in Feathered Cocaine – the facts are presented to the viewer and it is left up to the individual to draw conclusions.
The recent Wikileaks documents have shed light on aspects of geopolitics that have hitherto remained obscured to the general public. What Wikileaks have published and what respected news services (such as Associated Press and others) have reported since Feathered Cocaine was premiered, support the film’s claims…..
Feathered Cocaine shows that Osama Bin Laden and family have been under Iranian house arrest for years. The filmmakers tracked down a first hand witness that met repeatedly with Bin Laden in Iran for the purposes of falconry hunting. Many say because Iran is predominantly Shiia and al-Qaeda is a militant Sunni group, an alliance between those two would simply be impossible due to deep theological differences.
The WikiLeaks documents show intelligence reports indicating collusion between al-Qaeda and Iran. The 9/11 Commission, Clinton-era federal prosecutors, and others have also found evidence of such cooperation. A State Department’s September 2009 cable, released by WikiLeaks, connects Iran and al-Qaeda. Documents posted online by the media in July 2010 contain persistent reports of collusion between Iran, the Taliban, al-Qaeda and their jihadist allies in Afghanistan. Respected journalists have said this for years, but the mainstream media did not pick it up. The Pakistani journalist, Hamid Mir, interviewed Osama Bin Laden three times (2 times before 9/11, 1 time after). He has bee saying since 2004 that Iran and al-Qaeda are connected. The American Conservative journalist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Kenneth Timmerman came forth in 2005 with another eyewitness that saw UBL in Iran around the same time as the first hand witness featured in Feathered Cocaine – in the same area of Iran. The US administration took no action upon this. The American journalist Richard Miniter stated in 2004 that Osama Bin Laden was living in Iran under the protection of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. His sources were former Iranian Intelligence personnel.
This could get very interesting.
Posted by: Morocco Bama | May 2 2011 13:18 utc | 30
And I agree with hans and U$…
I’m glad I don’t live in Europe today. I imagine when the PTB say the terrorist are going to blow-up the big one in Europe, then I guess they know what they’re talking about.
I know terrorist have the bomb already, they’ve just disguised themselves as countries.
Something I wrote elsewhere today:
As an aside; how is it that so many bloggers who think the U.S. government is BS, buy all the feces that same organization throws at them.
Case in point is the bozos at the Market Ticker who are cheering the ‘news’ that Obsama (rhymes with Obama) is dead, yet they’re going-over BO’s supposed Birth Certificate with the finest-toothed comb they can find?
They don’t believe anything out of the White House except those ‘facts’ that allow them to support their knee-jerk greedhead belief system that war=peace and prosperity. How can seemingly intelligent people think like this?
I understand the greed, the hate and all the emotions the naco’s feel. Mi sustantivo es rojo también. And hence, I comprende, but feces, can’t they see the disconnect between their belief systems?
The Real Rednecks don’t trust ANY government, let alone their American one. The scars of the Whisky Rebellion are still pretty fresh in their minds. The rest of the posers who call themselves red are just so many geeks that attempt to hide their lack of everything with big trucks, big guns and big women. Unfortunately, the smallness of their minds is only rivaled by their petite souls.
I’m pretty sure the announcement of the ‘great satan’ dying and goofy Americans dancing in the streets (need any more proof we’re a banana republic?) is the beginning of the end. I can’t wait until political artist start imagining Americans with the same stupid looks that they drew when representing Africans or other ‘dumb’ folk.
I’m not sure but I’m pretty sure we’ve got bread lines forming already, so it shouldn’t be too much longer before lines form in front of Selective Service building and the official start of the next great war. HooHaw!
Peace?
a mini-conspiratorial conjecture of mine (I’m not up to task with the grand-conspiratorial theories which are filling MoA’s commentaries):
1) OBL probably was a “burnt” Cia asset, or better a neocon asset; look at the people who have wanted us to believe, over the years, that OBL was dead: Oliver North, Israeli intelligence, Michael Ledeen, and their foreign assets: Karzai, Bhutto, Musharraf, etc; Dale Watson isn’t a neocon, as far as I know, but guided the Fbi investigation on 911, so was in on their secrets; the most important of these is probably that OBL wasn’t responsible for 911 (or wasn’t alone)
(just like Mohammed Atta; but Atta got the possibility of a new identity, OBL was needed as the scapegoat)
2) probably after 2001 OBL “retired”, with Pakistani protection and part of the Us “security” “community” consent;
3a) OBL, already ill, died of kidney failure a few days ago; so now the Us and or Pakistan can take the opportunity to waive its scalp to the masses
or
3b) Obama renegated on the pact signed by Bush with the Pakistani, and really started hunting for OBL; once OBL was found, Osama assigned (got rid of) Petraeus to the Cia, then killed OBL (tremendously reducing Cia’s role in the Afpak theatre)
footnote: nobody ever wanted OBL alive; can you imagine hearing his version of 911 in a public trial, either guilty or not?
@MB: I wouldn’t consider even for a moment that OBL is now still alive, let alone in Iran; only the neocons that wanted to attack Iran asserted that; but I haven’t seen the documentary you cite; is it on the net?
Posted by: claudio | May 2 2011 14:03 utc | 32
The American appetite for mutilated corpses is, if anything, even more insatiable that our appetite for hamburger.
Obama has peaked far too early. By the time the election rolls around, the Repugnant Scum will be making limp-dick jokes about his puny kill-ratio and promising to show us avalanches of slaughtered “terrorists” every day.
Obama’s only recourse will be start shooting his favorite fish-in-a-barrel, the benighted progressives who voted for him in 2008.
He can put a McDonald’s sign in front of the White House with the current body count.
h/t Salon
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/05/01/obama_2012_bin_laden/index.html
Posted by: Cynthia | May 2 2011 14:14 utc | 34
I tend to agree with Cynthia’s link to Salon that the spike in Obama’s ratings won’t do him much good by Nov. 2012. And catlady’s offering from the POTUS,
“There’s no doubt that Al Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must and we will remain vigilant at home and abroad.”
followed up by Uncle’s catch,
Al-Qaida terrorists have threatened to unleash a “nuclear hellstorm” on the West if their leader and world’s most wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden is nabbed.
give me a very queasy feeling.
What comes to mind is the dire predicaments the PTB find themselves up to their eyeballs in. Enough tripping points have been triggered that there are no happy endings even plausible. The latest, Fukushima, is being so downplayed and covered up that I fear we all in the Northern Hemisphere (carry on Debs, the future might be in your hands) had better be growing our food under glass and not going out in the rain. This Empire is on a fast track to the dustbin of history and in desperation the cornered rats are becoming very dangerous indeed.
Along with MB, my fear/hit is we are being set up for more false flag scenarios. A lot more simple and effective than a bomb are the relatively easy targets of some 500 reactors world wide (it is estimated that there is about 100 times the radioactivity in one cooling pond of spent fuel rods than is released in any thermonuclear explosion). My question is, how do the psychopaths in the elite class expect they will survive? All moving to the Southern Hemisphere? (Again, carry on Debs and good luck.)
I find it not hard to imagine that it is not just the end of Empire but the demise of Homo along with most other species on the planet. But then again, I’ve been in a real doom and gloom mood since Fukushima started going up in radioactive steam so I’m probably overacting. For the sake of my progeny and their contemporaries, I hope so.
Posted by: juannie | May 2 2011 15:31 utc | 35
It is touching that even those amerikans who claim they “don’t believe in the empire” are such amerikan exceptionalists that they imagine the empire can manufacture iron clad conspiracies of 100% fantasy, featuring many actors and get away with it.
What they forget is that the amerikan empire has always been an adherent of the Goebbels/Hilter school of deceit which teaches ‘every good lie is woven from truth’.
Now there are few checkable facts as yet but the area will be teeming with journos and freelancers for the next year or so and then will always have inquisitive types dropping in to uncover exactly what did happen last night.
That means I have no doubt that bin Laden had been living in that house (which I might add is a good haul from the afpak border where Davis’s turncoats had their base of operations & a distance from Lahore where Davis himself was operating). If it were a lie and bin laden was not an occupant, the truth will surface quikly and oblamblam cannot afford that.
Abbottabad locals have already told journos of being disturbed by a pair of low flying helipcopters over their town during the night. Those who slept through that were woken by the crash when one of the helicopters was shot down by someone from the house or estate they were approaching (a shoulder launched SAM no doubt).
As I wrote earlier I have no doubt that amerika picked the time to take down Bin Laden as best they could the distraction from the mess in Libya was one plus for it happening now, another would be if Osama were close to death from natural causes. Now that would not have been a good look for oblamblam. In fact if I had to put money on it my belief that a deal was cut with the bin Ladens back in 2001, not to kill OBL in return for his agreement to back off, would also have included an arrangement that OBL doesn’t die of natural causes.
If he was close to karking it anyhow the bin laden family would have been told to accept reality and Osama’s execution. In return they probably got the body back immediately to put in their private cemetary. If that deal had been cut, the bin laden’s had managed to keep it quiet for 10 years when Osama was alive so there wouldn’t have been any worries about keeping things quiet once he was dead.
As for the resistance, in all likelihood te deal was made with bin laden’s father or brothers, not bin laden himself, consequently he didn’t go quietly.
What gets me is the way that everyone just accepts this as the way of the world, when there has never been suficient evidence presented anywhere to show OBL’s involvement in any actins and certainly not the WTC actiion which was planned and implemented by some extremely smart egyptian engineers, far smarter than the so called brains who bombed the USS Cole or the amerikan embassy in Kenya, which were both pretty lame affairs that exploited adolescent fantasy, and which made a lot of noise but did very little real damage to the evil empire.
Yet in 2011 no one asks if the soldier who shot bin laden when he was in custody, is going to be tried for murder. Osama must have been captive when he was executed – by amerika’s own admission the ‘kill shot’ was given at point blank range with hand gun. A mafia style execution of the sort amerika always used to claim the old USSR committed daily is now an accepted part of the land of the free’s foreign policy, eh?
Posted by: Debs is dead | May 2 2011 15:37 utc | 36
It’s another texture in the spectacle of GWOT, among the longest-running reality television shows. Ratings were down. I think the producers of the show probably bailed at the right time. And this will help to kick some life into the whole genre with some entertaining spinoffs. The Gadhafi show suffered from the competition as well as lackluster plotting in spite of last episode’s exciting murder of the star’s children. We’ll see in a week or two, how it does during sweeps month.
Posted by: slothrop | May 2 2011 15:50 utc | 37
It is touching that even those amerikans who claim they “don’t believe in the empire” are such amerikan exceptionalists that they imagine the empire can manufacture iron clad conspiracies of 100% fantasy, featuring many actors and get away with it.
Who are you addressing with this post? First off, I don’t recall anyone posting to this site saying they “don’t believe in Empire.” In fact, that’s a rather odd way to phrase it, even. I, for one, believe Empire is alive, well, and fully functioning, but unlike a number of people posting here, I don’t believe that the Empire is the U.S. The U.S. is just the strong arm of it, but it isn’t it in its entirety, by any means. Also, I am not an “amerikan,” I am a U.S. Citizen, and as Noirette mentioned on another thread, good luck attempting not to be one once you are. I do not refer to myself as “American,” nor do I use that term. It’s not fitting for U.S. citizens, regardless of their Nationalist pride, or lack thereof. Also, many South Americans and Latin Americans find it insulting when U.S. Citizens refer to the U.S. as “America” because they consider it dismissive and exclusionary.
Posted by: Morocco Bama | May 2 2011 16:00 utc | 38
From AngryArab
On the Muslim side, I can report to you that wild conspiracy theories are already circulating on Twitter and Facebook and Arab websites: it will be like the conspiracy theories about Sep. 11. People are saying that either he was not killed, or that the US had him for a long time, or that he was dead even on Sep. 11. Those unfounded conspiracy theories trouble me: because we–as leftists–need to distinguish between crazy and non-crazy conspiracy theories.
Man this “clown” knows no bounds!
Posted by: hans | May 2 2011 16:20 utc | 39
@U$ #16 –
The news comes five days after al cia duh announces:
‘Nuclear hellstorm’ if bin Laden is caught or killed: Al-Qaida
so I’d say the killing was decided around 5 days ago; they just had to ensure that the GWOT wouldn’t be shut off; in particular, that the europeans didn’t relax too early (i.e, withdrawal from Afghanistan before a SFA is signed with the US)
Posted by: claudio | May 2 2011 16:41 utc | 40
the link cited by U$ @16 concerns information extracted in Guantanamo:
The documents are secret details of the background to the capture of each of the 780 people held at or have passed through the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, along with their medical condition and the information they have provided during interrogations.
shame on whoever “extracts” it, uses it, or believes it
this “information” is just what the interrogators want us to believe, i.e. that the world still needs Us mafia-protection from “terrorism”
Posted by: claudio | May 2 2011 16:46 utc | 41
” cause a gwot favourable outcome is just too wide of where they are at now”
Actually debs, with the greatest respect, I think the gwot outcome is quite favourable and exactly what the USUK PTB want.
1) an endless welfare spigot for the military industrial old boys’ club, fat profits for all who have dinner tickets
2) an endless well of Us/Them fearmongering to keep the USUK electorate scared and clinging to “strong daddy” political poseurs (well connected to same old boys’ club of course)
what’s not to like?
and of course 3) a pulverising of the economies and political infrastructures of nation-states which — so unfairly, golly gee — happen to be sitting on large reserves of crude oil. wouldn’t want them able to defend or control such an essential resource now would we?
and 4) a poverty draft siphons off a lot of restless and potentially angry young men of the permanent underclass, with a fairly good chance of (a) disposing of them in combat, (b) brainwashing them into lifelong loyalty to the flag, (c) rendering them disabled for life and hence less likely to make trouble (yes I know, Ron Kovic, but he’s kind of an outlier, no?)
it’s just win, win, win 🙂
we have to get our heads around the unpalatable fact that — up to a certain tipping point which TPTB are flirting with dangerously — a state of war is more profitable than a state of peace, a state of fear and anxiety is more profitable and manipulable than a state of security and calm. panicky, spooked populations tend to go for the cheap shots, the witch-hunt, the purge, the putsch, the petty dictator making big promises. the PTB all dream of being the petty dictators, so getting the public “in the mood” is a winning proposition.
hence debs I think the USUK geopolitical game is a fiasco measured against its *stated* goals but a rousing success measured against its actual, realpolitikisch goals. the public is still buying it and that’s the main thing: to package a political product that the public will buy at any price, to keep its salesmen in business and in (sort of) control.
my hyperverbal brain cannot help but construct a new word here: real-politi-kitsch — to describe the alternate bathos and bombast of USUK political kabuki.
Wasn’t Osama’s pre 9-11 fatwa a demand that US remove bases from the land of mecca? If so, didn’t he succeed?
As for next moves on the game of Risk checkers board. On word -Syria:
U.S. And NATO Allies Initiate Libyan Scenario
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com
/2011/05/01/u-s-and-nato-allies-initiate-libyan-scenario-for-syria-by-rick-rozoff/
On April 29 the White House issued an executive order to enforce new and more stringent sanctions against Syria and appealed to European North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies to follow suit.
In a letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives President Barack Obama wrote, “I have determined that the Government of Syria’s human rights abuses….constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States, and warrant the imposition of additional sanctions.”
snip
The post goes on the explain this is the exact same move which initiated all actions in Libya.
Posted by: Eureka Springs | May 2 2011 18:44 utc | 43
constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States
I thought the Us exported weapons and torture instruments, how can human rights abuse be bad for its economy?
Posted by: claudio | May 2 2011 18:49 utc | 44
Al Quaida exists in the sense that it has become a brand name or catch phrase to label presumed perps of events, participants in happenings, which by the wildest stretches of the imagination or outright lies might be attributed to: Muslims, “Arabs”, anybody from the ME, anybody arrested by almost any authority (Russia, Indonesia, Europe, Saudi, Kadhafi, etc. etc.) on any kind of ‘terrorism’ charges, as well as anyone connected to any of these, be it very indirectly.
Bogey-man and scape-goat, the appellation also serves to completely cover up what is really going on. It is home grown – in the US. (Perhaps at one time the term was used by some small group of jihadists.)
Google history of the term shows it is dying out. The peak was shortly after 2001.
http://tinyurl.com/5ulk4ga – the first reference was in 1980.
Binny, the Poster boy terrorist, who appeared on all the major US TV networks, an actor playing his part, the presumed Head of the Hydra, is finally put to rest.
Obama needed a boost, he didn’t kill Saddam, attack Iraq, the war on terra was getting stale, everybody dislikes him, he needs some triumph – what a laugh.
Now, there is! an upside: OBL’s family and wives and children will finally, finally, be able to claim he is dead (without a long form birth or death certificate), and get on with their lives! Until now they have been terrified of even hinting at the possibility.
Posted by: Noirette | May 2 2011 19:12 utc | 45
@DeAnander
the USUK geopolitical game is a fiasco measured against its *stated* goals but a rousing success measured against its actual, realpolitikisch goals
yes; but it’s worse: it’s a fiasco by any “traditional” political parameter; our new world disorder would be appalling for any politician of the past;
it’s significant that some of the harshest criticisms at this new kind of imperialism have come, these years, from retired military and diplomatic personnel
Posted by: claudio | May 2 2011 19:34 utc | 46
“It is not an event; it is an item of news”.
— Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, on hearing of the death of Napoleon, 1821
Posted by: hilerie | May 2 2011 20:06 utc | 47
Juannie,
Apparently Empire Obama failed to learn from his Roman predecessors that you can’t win over the masses by numbing their minds with circus tricks without first filling their bellies with breadcrumbs. Otherwise, he would know to feed the masses a happy meal before showing them this flying trapeze act straight out of Abbottabad, Pakistan.
Posted by: Cynthia | May 2 2011 20:09 utc | 48
thoughts on NYT’s account
The compound, only about a third of a mile from a military academy of the Pakistani Army
…
Pakistan scrambled jets to respond to a military operation that its military had not been informed was taking place.
“They had no idea about who might have been on there, whether it be U.S. or somebody else,” said President Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, in a briefing on Monday. “So we were watching and making sure that our people and our aircraft were able to get out of the Pakistani airspace, and thankfully there was no engagement with Pakistani forces.”
The Us should be happy to acknowledge any Pakistani help, shouldn’t it? Instead, it stresses their abscence and clearly insinuates complicity; instead, the Chinese news agency cited by hans @14 gives the greatest part of merit to the Pakistani, in an irreconcilable version, probably inspired by the Pakistani themselves;
is this the first chinese show of support of Pakistan in its brewing war with the Us?
that hot place is getting hotter still!
“If we had the opportunity to take him alive, we would have done that,” he said. The killing ended any hope of prosecution
stun bombs, anyone? shoot at the leg? no way to capture alive an old, sick man? c’mon …
Posted by: claudio | May 2 2011 20:57 utc | 49
the BIG question, is why has the US now decided to go public with OBLS death? what are they up to?
Posted by: brian | May 2 2011 21:54 utc | 50
http://redantliberationarmy.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-corpse-photo-is-fake/
also:(courtesy of Monty Python)
‘MORTICIAN: Bring out your dead!
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
[clang]
CUSTOMER: Here’s one — nine pence.
DEAD PERSON: I’m not dead!
MORTICIAN: What?
CUSTOMER: Nothing — here’s your nine pence.
DEAD PERSON: I’m not dead!
MORTICIAN: Here — he says he’s not dead!
CUSTOMER: Yes, he is.
DEAD PERSON: I’m not!
MORTICIAN: He isn’t.
CUSTOMER: Well, he will be soon, he’s very ill.
DEAD PERSON: I’m getting better!
CUSTOMER: No, you’re not — you’ll be stone dead in a moment.
MORTICIAN: Oh, I can’t take him like that — it’s against regulations.
DEAD PERSON: I don’t want to go in the cart!
CUSTOMER: Oh, don’t be such a baby.
MORTICIAN: I can’t take him…
DEAD PERSON: I feel fine!
CUSTOMER: Oh, do us a favor…
MORTICIAN: I can’t.
CUSTOMER: Well, can you hang around a couple of minutes? He won’t
be long.
MORTICIAN: Naaah, I got to go on to Robinson’s — they’ve lost nine
today.
CUSTOMER: Well, when is your next round?
MORTICIAN: Thursday.
DEAD PERSON: I think I’ll go for a walk.
CUSTOMER: You’re not fooling anyone y’know. Look, isn’t there
something you can do?
DEAD PERSON: I feel happy… I feel happy.
[whop]
CUSTOMER: Ah, thanks very much.
MORTICIAN: Not at all. See you on Thursday.
CUSTOMER: Right.
Posted by: brian | May 2 2011 22:06 utc | 51
here’s a map detailing the locations of the military academy and OBL’s compound
they seem at least a mile away to me, why did the NYT say “less than a third of a mile”? to stress the implausibility of denial of knowledge on Pakistani’s side? I think they are in for a rough treatment; at the least, the Us will try to get the upper hand and extort more concessions concerning Afghanistan
will the Pakistani cave in? could China have something to say?
csmonitor speaks of “800 yards”, about half the real distance
ok, petty details in the grand scheme of things, but they made me curious
Posted by: claudio | May 2 2011 22:28 utc | 52
Claudio,
If Obama and his generals are so confident that armed drone are far more accurate and cause far less collateral damage than manned fighters, then why didn’t they conducted a series of drone attacks on the bin Laden’s compound? And why would they be so cold and heartless as to use our soldiers as cannon fodder?
My guess is that Obama and his generals were out to show the world how tough and fearless our soldiers are by having an elite team of them engage in face-to-face combat with the most famous terrorist in the world. But if they want to show the world how tough and fearless all of ours soldiers are, both elite and non-elite alike, then they should go back to having all of them fight up close and personal with terrorists at all level of fame and drop their cowardly-driven drone program altogether!
Posted by: Cynthia | May 2 2011 22:56 utc | 53
There are two things that I feel about 99% sure of.
One is that we will never know the truth.
And two is that the only time the PTB and MSM tell us the truth is when it just happens to coincide with their agenda, or as Deb pointed out,
the amerikan empire has always been an adherent of the Goebbels/Hilter school of deceit which teaches ‘every good lie is woven from truth’.
I listened to NPR this afternoon just to learn what it is that the PTB want us to believe. We all have a pretty good idea of what that is but the question is why do they want us to believe all this OBL crap; just how will it serve them?
I can’t specifically answer my question but I know (with 99% confidence level) that it will not be to serve the well being of myself or my neighbors or any of the rest of us here trying to figure things out. So my next question is how can this knowledge of such high certainty, in my mind, serve me/us? My only answer is to prepare myself even more so for a complete breakdown of everything I have believed in and depended upon since I was acculturated into this reality back in the 1940’s onward.
If we are to survive and maybe become part of a culture more closely approximating what I believe to be our potential destiny as Homo Sapiens, I think we must be prepared to live completely apart from the paradigm of seeming security and certainty that our society offers. The bifurcation is happening and let’s hope we’re smart enough to recognize and adapt. After all, we are known to ourselves as the totally adaptable species. Good Luck to me and you!
Sorry, more doom and gloom but at least this time with a little bit of optimism.
Posted by: juannie | May 2 2011 23:45 utc | 54
Cynthia, I suppose that if the Us really were after OBL, which I think it’s true, than they needed to see who they killed – up to now, they haven’t really cared for such “details”, but this time they needed his corpse
not really “cannon fodders”: they were just supposed to kill everybody (OBL’s wife they said they killed her because she was “shielding his husband”!) and so didn’t risk much (a stun grenade, then shoot …)
I agree that the conclusion – real or faked – must involve, by Us mentality, an elite team (Hollywood rules); remember the show they put up in Iraq to rescue the female soldier from a hospital in Nassirya, after having shot at the ambulance with which the Iraqis were trying to carry her to their enemies?
back in the Us, she refused to endorse the official version of a heroic rescue, and thanked the Iraqis for having taken care of her (can’t remember her name now)
I think the main problem is the Pentagon’s strategy; easy wars, long-distance attacks (missiles, bombs, snipers, etc), really few risks taken because that’s the tacit pact with the people: a sanitized war, few Us casualties, some Hollywood-type scenes, confirmation of America uber alles; in exchange for that, the Pentagon (and the military-industrial complex) enjoys a limitless budget with which to play
in normal circumstances, I guess a Us soldier is as brave as anyone, if properly motivated, am not expert on this; certainly it must take much much more guts to play the part of the Sunni or Pashtun or Palestinian insurgent, nowadays
Posted by: claudio | May 2 2011 23:52 utc | 55
@juannie
we will never know the truth
that’s why I try to keep a “minimalist” attitude
I simply think Obama has made a major bid for reelection; and that he personally was after OBL
the theme of OBL will be forgotten soon, but then it will resurface during the campaign against some nutty and unreliable republican, and it will prove decisive (and already it has prevented any attempt by Clinton to torpedo his candidature using polls, etc)
of course there might be much more to it, but that we can’t know, we can only judge by the effects as they unfold
prepare myself even more so for a complete breakdown of everything I have believed in and depended upon since I was acculturated into this reality
yes, that’s what I felt I went through some time ago; it’s as if we are inside a movie, I said a few days ago to r’giap; a bad movie, he specified; these guys live in a different, dehumanized reality, but aren’t so difficult to understand; we only have to put aside any principle from the motives of corporations (they simply believe they have the right to act as they do), and resign to the fact that for the most part politicians and intellectuals actually believe in what they say; takes some practice and quite a dose of cynicism to accomplish this, it’s difficult; most people are trapped inside an ideological bubble that, among other things, compels them to believe that someone, somewhere, is in control of events; someone would alerts us if things really got that bad, etc; I find myself constantly struggling against my human tendency to rely on some sense of responsibility by our “elites”
that “someone must be in control” is also the base for conspiratorial theories, once you realize that governments aren’t; but such theories are so desperate; if I started to believe them, I wouldn’t read blogs or news anymore, I’d just forget about politics (many people do that);
the big political question is: on which principles is it possible for us to base a fight for reasserting our reality against their dehumanization? it’s about 30 years that neoliberals, neocons, theocons, etc dominate public discourse; maybe we should be able to do something better
Posted by: claudio | May 3 2011 0:25 utc | 56
the big political question is: on which principles is it possible for us to base a fight for reasserting our reality against their dehumanization?
I’m not looking for rhetoric but real answers that may give us a chance.
On the principles of personal and local autonomy? There’s a chance there.
If we understand, as you assert, that they (TPTB) are really not in control but as desperate as the conspiratorial theorists, it gives us a chance to challenge them here at home in our own back yards. The corporate monsters appears insurmountable but if I keep in mind that even the corporatists are desperate, then it gives me the impetus to fight on. I’m desperate, I’m searching, I don’t want to give up. But mostly I feel so alone. Thanks for goading my thought processes.
Posted by: juannie | May 3 2011 0:52 utc | 57
Who would’ve thought that a Nobel Peace Prize winner would enjoy watching war porn…
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/05/02/obama-watched-bin-laden-raid-in-real-time/
Just more evidence that Orwell was right when he said something along the lines about how war loves to disguise itself as peace.
Posted by: Cynthia | May 3 2011 1:45 utc | 58
what if that was a show to get the presidential buy-in and propel the propaganda for other ends – recalling the fake somali terrorist threat prior to his inauguration, which was used to transition from one presidential security crew to another – and that the same seal crew was involved in the staged assassination of the three somali’s on the life support boat w/ cap’n philllips where it was spun that it only took three shots to take out the three while instead there was a reported firefight after that boat had been towed back out into open water and all negotiations terminated in order that blood could be spilled and a msg delivered
Posted by: b real | May 3 2011 2:21 utc | 59
@juannie
they (TPTB) are really not in control but as desperate […]
I think they aren’t in control but not desperate; the most responsible (I still give them some credit!) are vaguely uneasy, the others as blissfully unaware; also, arrogance, cynicism, herd instincts, etc help people not to pose themselves in question
Posted by: claudio | May 3 2011 5:49 utc | 60
It depends on the definition of control. If it’s control as in every event is carefully orchestrated down to the very last detail, then no, they are not in control. However, if it’s control as in we are at the top of this pyramid, and regardless if things don’t pan out the way we always intended, we will benefit from any permutation, regardless, then they are most definitely in control.
Everything you have mentioned @60 doesn’t preclude this most basic fact, claudio, but no doubt you will argue otherwise, and tell us about all those wise retired generals filled with utter dismay. Those poor dears. Afterall, according to you, they were the “best” this Civilization had to offer, and their innumerable skills of furthering Empire benevolently with a smile and a wink have been wasted.
Posted by: Morocco Bama | May 3 2011 10:57 utc | 61
brian @50, after stepping out of the fray for 24 hours, or more, and taking a deep breath and reflecting on it, I think it’s a big Nothing Sandwich. As De mentioned, this won’t affect the GWOT, or the march of Empire, one bit. It will continue to be business as usual and the announcement of OBL’s death, real, or not, is just a side show for what Obama describes as the “Carnival Barkers.”
For those who claim is was timed for one reason, or another, and then give those reasons, I say bullocks. The same could be said any time OBL was announced dead, whether that would have been four years prior, or three years from now. You could always rationalize it as a distraction from the abusive “blunders” of Empire’s rapacious march to the abyss.
Posted by: Morocco Bama | May 3 2011 11:03 utc | 62
Nuremberg trials: verifiable
Kennedy, Kennedy, King, Malcolm X heads blown off (by someone): verifiable
Milosevic in kangaroo court: verifiable
Invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq: verifiable
Economic restructuring of New Orleans: verifiable
Devastation and Economic restructuring of Haiti: verifiable
Ecological devastation of Gulf: verifiable
Ecological devastation of Japan: verifiable
The theory that “radical” muslims are attempting to conquer and subjugate the “free” west: confection
The “War on Terror” justified by that theory: confection
Osama as the head of such a movement: confection
Osama as evil mastermind of 9-11: confection
All information about Bin Laden since son’s wedding, including beliefs, powers, illnesses, whereabouts, videos, demise etc.: Unverifiable
Simply put, the brand name Osama Bin Laden has been a trademarked marketing tool — and image — of the largest marketing campaign of our generation. All uses, updates, installments, rumours, etc. are part of the campaign, or have otherwise served the campaign.
Now, here’s a reason no one else has evinced for why the campaign has been retired with as little fanfare as possible:
The tenth anniversary of 9-11 is rapidly rolling around, and with it, the potential for greater public examination of the myth: buildings falling for no reason, endless occupations, diminished security, freedom and welfare, etc., all leading to a case of big-time buyer’s remorse.
And so the old threadbare campaign has been unceremoniously retired and a brand new shiny hopeful campaign ushered in: Democracy and the emergence of the “Arab Spring”© And what’s best is that most of the “progressive” commentators, Chomsky, Amy Goodman, Night Owl, etc. are on board this time.
(Others, despite the public outlay of $600M, see the new campaign as “tribal warfare,” or “Sarkosy’s Folly,” or simply as misguded actions that could be set right by smarter politicians — a common liberal conceit. I am reminded of the Kissinger quote that… “The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.” And, I might add, foolish public faces like Bush, Obama, and Sarkosy. Over 70 years ago, Frankin Delano (still an important and revered surname in my neck of the woods – SE Massachusetts) Roosevelt stated: “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.” If history were simply trivial or accidental, or a series of impulsive actions by bufoons, why follow it, analyze it for meaning, and make predictions?)
With the old campaign put out to pasture and the new campaign sufficiently introduced to the public (by “catapulting the propaganda”), when the tenth anniversary of 9-11 rolls around, the message becomes one of “Hope” and “Change” and looking forward to a better future because of the brave actions taken in the past: The “War on Terror” was necessary to usher in a new age of Liberty and Democracy.
(And all those star-struck ingenues who voted for Obama know just how empowering this new brand of Democracy really is. “What, politicians lie? Impossible! Not our ….fill in the blank…Obama!”)
So — with the tenth anniversary, and any probing questions and penetrating insights around the corner — the old campaign is conveniently over and any mournful dredging up of old ghouls has been pushed back until Oct. 31st, when the villainous Osama just might reemerge as this year’s most fashionable Halloween costume.
Bin Laden, like Hitler, has become a comical figure, destined to be relegated to the role of Opéra bouffe”
Springtime for Osama
and the Middle East…
Zero Mostel, if he were still alive, would play the role of Richard Perle, and the wildly popular Jewish comedian, Sacha Baron Cohen would, of course, play the ridiculous Osama.
Nyuk, nyuk… Laugh heartily, because the joke, of course, was always on you.
The “War on Terror” storyline was suited to its day: A massive incrase in computing power, and new generation of weaponry, leading to the myth of smart, surgical justice meted out by a lone gunman like Bush.
The “Arab Spring” storyline is suited to a time when new “social” technology has been roled out, theoretically enabling everyone to connect with and “help” everyone else. “Hope” and “Change.”
(CIA’s ‘Facebook’ Program Dramatically Cut Agency’s Costs
Over 50 years ago, Marshall McLuhan stated that, “The global village is a world in which you don’t necessarily have harmony. You have extreme concern with everybody else’s business and much involvement in everybody else’s life. It’s a sort of Ann Landers column writ large… huge involvement in everybody else’s affairs.
So the Global Village is as big as a planet and as small as the village post office.” (He missed predicting the demise of the village post office.)
As Orwell recognized, public propaganda effortlessly turns any belief on its head: “We hated those dirty Arabs; now we love them and their noble aspirations so much, we simply must help them.”
It should be noted that the metaphor of disease — mysterious new germs and biowarfare — AIDS, SARS, swine flu, etc., plays well with the new “concerned meddling.” Like the “War on Terror,” it promotes fear and restricts freedom, without any fractious ideological baggage. So too, the corporate control of food — indeed all of nature — agenda, quietly marching on, — with its GMOs, terminator seeds, and transgenetic organisms, plummeting conception rates — is a movement “concerned” with the problems posed by our interconnectedness.
Always the prescient observer, McLuhan rapidly intuited the uses which would be made of the new technologies. Within ten years he was forced to amend his initial comment: “The satellites, as a new garbage or climate surround around the planet, are moving information at speeds that the planet can not cope with and have created not a global village but a Global Theater. I no longer use the phrase global village, it’s global theater now, and everybody out here, and me too, we’re all out to do our thing. Jobs are finished, jobs are over, role playing comes in.”
And so, as I have written previously (not sure if I posted it) “As in a “reality” TV show, there are lovable characters and loathable ones. We all know the names of Wael Ghonim, Asmaa Mahfouz, and Mona Seif, who we let into the intimacy of our living rooms as we once did Jack Benny and Doris Day.
Like soap operas, we have daily installments to catch up with; and like the edifying morality plays they are meant to be for the rabble, there are easily digested moral lessons: good overcomes evil — that is, if after peeking behind the happy manufactued minute, the 15 second media “actuality” clip with the ideal quote delivered by the smiling actor to the global audience in “localized” English, you define “good” as a flat tax and the unrestricted rights of investors to move billions of dollars around the world in the blink of an eye while leaving the local population to deal with those pesky ‘externalities.'”
P.S. My neighbor was an elite Army Ranger on 9-11. His unit parachuted into Afghanistan 7 days BEFORE 9-11. Wet work completed, they were evacuated on 9-10.
(When I gently ask him what this implies, he swiftly retorts, “I don’t want to go there.”)
His viewpoint is very conventional: America, rah, rah! Camel jockeys and towelheads, bad! He not only buys into the “War on Terror,” he enjoyed it — relishing his role as “point man” on a team that broke into Iraqi houses and mowed down everyone in sight — all in the service of his country.
But, lest you be repulsed by what I am saying, you can be assured that he loves Democracy, eagerly voted for Obama (despite the fact that he hates “niggers”), and is in favor of us supporting the “Arab Spring” in “any way we can.”
Now he is a proud family man and devoted father to a young girl who he zealously over-protects.
Not to try and channel Joe Bageant, but I, unlike many posters, live in, and deal on a daily basis with, the real America.
P.P.S. Saif Gaddafi, like very few world leaders — Castro, Chavez, Putin — was going around and giving a series of very articulate and revealing interviews in the media. Such behavior, quite naturally, had to be stopped at once. It is far preferable that leaders be clowns or bufoons — or drone on in pointless psuedo-religious drivel, like Bin Laden — so that the inexorable logic of their actions can be plausibly denied.
P.P.P.S. There have been some great contributions around here lately. Debs, Monolycus, Noirette come to mind. This salon has again become fun to frequent.
Posted by: Malooga | May 3 2011 15:50 utc | 63
@MB
all those wise retired generals filled with utter dismay
of course! they saw an undisputed world hegemony gratuitously put in question by the “crazies”; Russia, China, Iran, Turkey, Latin America – all those centrifugal forces in motion while the Us had its hands tied in the Iraqi disaster; and the Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib PR disasters (well, that’s how I think they judged it); etc
(more later on your post, MB)
Posted by: claudio | May 3 2011 16:11 utc | 64
Blood can be seen on the floor from where Bin Laden was reportedly surrounded by three men, including his son, and a woman who formed a human shield against U.S. troops
from the pictures and the captions, it could be a cold blooded execution of residents cuddling together
after all, who’d want OBL alive?
Posted by: claudio | May 3 2011 16:25 utc | 65
@Malooga
I believe in chance, in life and in politics, and was intrigued by your FDR’s quote, since he was in my opinion a great politician; but this is what I found:
FDR did NOT say “In politics, nothing happens by accident.”
wikiquotes: Misattributed (which also reports the speech from which the quote was probably taken, but grossly distorted)
Posted by: claudio | May 3 2011 16:34 utc | 66
one widely spread conspiracy that should be put to rest concerns the “Arab spring” being a Us-led act
many said that that the Us actually wanted to oust an unpopular Musharraf and substitute him with more reliable clients
the new egyptian military junta has restored diplomatic ties with Iran, sponsored a Hamas-PNA unity government, announced a revision of favorable gas pricing to Israel, officially invited the Us to recognize the (virtual) palestinian state, and above all announced a permament reopening of the Rafah crossing with Gaza
see: Egypt shakes up Middle Eastern order
not bad for new, more reliable Us puppets!
Posted by: claudio | May 3 2011 16:57 utc | 67
I think the reason Chomsky, Goodman, etc are on board the Arab spring express is that, more than anything it’s a sure sign of withering empire. The WOT has run its course and it’s a total bust. The WOT was generally predicated on erroneous notion that the ME was dying (literally) for a chance to revamp their society into the shiny new democracy=modernity=capitalism paradigm. There were of course, going to have to be wars, but once the bad guys were eliminated, the oppressed would throw off their chains and transform themselves by the magic of the marketplace, into complicit but rugged individualists. This was believed to be the American exceptionalist version of the unstoppable “tide of history” whereby things could be counted on to take care of themselves like some kind of Galtian perpetual motion device, once the table was cleared of backwater tribal trash.
So they paraded their war machine around, took over the palaces, popped open the government in a box, and iced the cake with literally endless hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of shrink wrapped billions of dollars, for nearly a decade.
And for the most part, nothing much changed. Sure, they took the money and let US set up our toy forts, but now the money is gone and they want US to go home.
.
Posted by: anna missed | May 3 2011 19:13 utc | 68
@MB, part 2
It depends on the definition of control.
ok
If it’s control as in every event is carefully orchestrated down to the very last detail, then no, they are not in control
obviously
However, if it’s control as in we are at the top of this pyramid, and regardless if things don’t pan out the way we always intended, we will benefit from any permutation, regardless, then they are most definitely in control.
ok – in this sense, they, the people at the top of the pyramid, are in control, but only of their individual lives and destiny.
But I was speaking from a political point of view, that is, regarding society as a whole; and about the political class in a broad sense, including journalists, intellectuals, etc: all those who have a voice in the “public discourse”. They are quite distinct, as a group, from “the people at the top of the pyramid”.
It is this group that I characterize as irresponsible, AWOL with respect to its duties regarding the government of a society, as out of control with respect to its ability or willingness to foresee (and therefore take responsibility for) the consequences of their actions or omissions. And it is this group that the people believe, deep down in their hearts, takes stances and decisions with at least “some” sense of responsibility, as a natural consequence of their social role.
So we can agree on the fact that the elites are very much in control; how could it be otherwise, with a political class that holds them as models and heroes of the modern (neoliberist and neodarwinist) society, and a police state, secret services, propaganda means and a powerful military at their disposal?
But our societies are out of control, in the sense that those who should foresee the effects of the use of state power are subjugated by ideology, rhetoric, mythologies, on top of greed, fear, herd instincts – just like “ordinary” people, btw!
But of course I’m not writing all this just to propose a consensual use of the term “in control”, but because I’d like to go to the root of our differing views concerning politics and conspiracies (or what I define as such). I think conspiracies are somehow incompatible with a certain conception of politics.
(more later – I’m trying to clarify my ideas as I write, and it’s quite wearing! And it seems that I can only advance in my efforts at self-clarification if in dialogue with someone – what better place for this than MoA?)
Posted by: claudio | May 4 2011 22:08 utc | 69
claudio, thanks for your clarification. I don’t really disagree with anything you have written in 69, so I don’t think we are that far apart. I call what you describe as the Technocratic Class, formerly the Bourgeoisie. Essentially, the bootlickers of the Aristocracy/Plutocracy.
I agree that this System we operate under is one with a self-destruct mechanism built into it, so yes, it is out of control and headed straight into the Abyss.
Posted by: Morocco Bama | May 5 2011 0:36 utc | 70