Osama Bin Laden's widely publicized video address to the American people has a peculiarity that casts serious doubt on its authenticity: the video freezes at about 1 minute and 36 58 seconds, and motion only resumes again at 12:30. The video then freezes again at 14:02 remains frozen until the end. All references to current events, such as the 62nd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan, and Sarkozy and Brown being the leaders of France and the UK, respectively, occur when the video is frozen! The words spoken when the video is in motion contain no references to contemporary events and could have been (and likely were) made before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
The audio track does appear to be in the voice of a single speaker. What I suspect was done is that an older, unreleased video was dubbed over for this release, with the video frozen when the audio track departed from that of the original video.
The video may be downloaded as a 677 mb MPEG file here.
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website.
BIN LADEN NEVER MENTIONED IN McCHRYSTAL REPORT OR OBAMA SPEECH
"HUNT FOR BIN LADEN" A NATIONAL SHAME
By Gordon Duff/STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor
Conservative commentator, former Marine Colonel Bob Pappas has been saying for years that bin Laden died at Tora Bora and that Senator Kerry's claim that bin Laden escaped with Bush help was a lie. Now we know that Pappas was correct. The embarassment of having Secretary of State Clinton talk about bin Laden in Pakistan was horrific. He has been dead since December 13, 2001 and now, finally, everyone, Obama, McChrystal, Cheney, everyone who isn't nuts is finally saying what they have known for years.
However, since we lost a couple of hundred of our top special operations forces hunting for bin Laden after we knew he was dead, is someone going to answer for this with some jail time? Since we spent 200 million dollars on "special ops" looking for someone we knew was dead, who is going to jail for that? Since Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney continually talked about a man they knew was dead, now known to be for reasons of POLITICAL nature, who is going to jail for that? Why were tapes brought out, now known to be forged, as legitimate intelligence to sway the disputed 2004 election in the US? This is a criminal act if there ever was one.
In 66 pages, General Stanley McChrystal never mentions Osama bin Laden. Everything is "Mullah Omar"now. In his talk at West Point, President Obama never mentioned Osama bin Laden. Col. Pappas makes it clear, Vice President Cheney let it "out of the bag" long ago. Bin Laden was killed by American troops many many years ago.
America knew Osama bin Laden died December 13, 2001. After that, his use was hardly one to unite America but rather one to divide, scam and play games. With bin Laden gone, we could have started legitimate nation building in Afghanistan instead of the eternal insurgency that we invented ourselves.
Without our ill informed policies, we could have had a brought diplomatic solution in 2002 in Afghanistan, the one we are ignoring now, and spent money rebuilding the country, 5 cents on the dollar compared to what we are spending fighting a war against an enemy we ourselves recruited thru ignorance.
The bin Laden scam is one of the most shameful acts ever perpetrated against the American people. We don't even know if he really was an enemy, certainly he was never the person that Bush and Cheney said. In fact, the Bush and bin Laden families were always close friends and had been for many years.
What kind of man was Osama bin Laden? This one time American ally against Russia, son of a wealthy Saudi family, went to Afghanistan to help them fight for their freedom. America saw him as a great hero then. Transcripts of the real bin Laden show him to be much more moderate than we claim, angry at Israel and the US government but showing no anger toward Americans and never making the kind of theats claimed. All of this is public record for any with the will to learn.
How much of America's tragedy is tied with these two children of the rich, children of families long joined thru money and friendship, the Bush and bin Laden clans.
One son died in remote mountains, another lives in a Dallas suburb hoping nobody is sent after him. One is a combat veteran, one never took a strong stand unless done from safety and comfort. Islam once saw bin Laden as a great leader. Now he is mostly forgotten.
What has America decided about Bush?
We know this: Bin Laden always denied any ties to 9/11 and, in fact, has never been charged in relation to 9/11. He not only denied involvement, but had done so, while alive, 4 times and had vigorously condemned those who were involved in the attack.
This is on the public record, public in every free country except ours. We, instead, showed films made by paid actors, made up to look somewhat similar to bin Laden, actors who contradicted bin Ladens very public statements, actors pretending to be bin Laden long after bin Laden's death.
These were done to help justify spending, repressive laws, torture and simple thievery.
For years, we attacked the government of Pakistan for not hunting down someone everyone knew was dead. Bin Laden's death hit the newspapers in Pakistan on December 15, 2001. How do you think our ally felt when they were continually berated for failing to hunt down and turn over someone who didn't exist?
What do you think this did for American credibility in Pakistan and thru the Islamic world? Were we seen as criminals, liars or simply fools? Which one is best?
This is also treason.
How does the death of bin Laden and the defeat and dismemberment of Al Qaeda impact the intelligence assessments, partially based on, not only bin Laden but Al Qaeda activity in Iraq that,not only never happened but was now known to have been unable to happen?
How many "Pentagon Pundits," the retired officers who sold their honor to send us to war for what is now known to be domestic political dirty tricks and not national security are culpable in these crimes?
I don't always agree with Col. Pappas on things. I believe his politics overrule his judgement at times. However, we totally agree on bin Laden, simply disagree with what it means. To me lying and sending men to their deaths based on lies is treason.
Falsifying military intelligence and spending billions on unnecessary military operations for political reasons is an abomination. Consider this, giving billions in contracts to GOP friends who fill campaign coffers, and doing so based on falsified intelligence is insane. This was done for years.
We spent 8 years chasing a dead man, spending billions, sending FBI agents, the CIA, Navy Seals, Marine Force Recon, Special Forces, many to their deaths, as part of a political campaign to justify running American into debt, enriching a pack of political cronies and war profiteers and to puff up a pack of Pentagon peacocks and their Whitehouse draft dodging bosses.
How many laws were pushed thru because of a dead man?
How many hundreds were tortured to find a dead man?
How many hundreds died looking for a dead man?
How many billions were spent looking for a dead man?
Every time Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld stood before troops and talked about hunting down the dead bin Laden, it was a dishonor. Lying to men and women who put their lives on the line is not a joke.
Who is going to answer to the families of those who died for the politics and profit tied to the Hunt for Bin Laden?
Veterans Today Senior Editor Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran and regular contributor on political and social issues.
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website.
The US military missed an opportunity to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, when he was "within grasp" in the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan in December 2001, a US report has concluded.
The Senate foreign affairs committee report, released on Sunday, said that the failure to move in on Bin Laden when he was at his most vulnerable had "enormous consequences".
"Removing the al-Qaeda leader from the battlefield eight years ago would not have eliminated the worldwide extremist threat," the report said.
"But the decisions that opened the door for his escape to Pakistan allowed bin Laden to emerge as a potent symbolic figure who continues to attract a steady flow of money and inspire fanatics worldwide.
"The failure to finish the job represents a lost kill Osama opportunity that forever altered the course of the conflict in Afghanistan and the future of international terrorism."
Troop decision
The report comes just days before Barack Obama, the US president, is due to announce his decision on whether tens of thousands more troops will be sent to Afghanistan in an attempt to quell resurgent Taliban forces.
Eight years on from the 2001 invasion that forced the Taliban from power, up to 35,000 extra US troops are likely to ordered to Afghanistan to "finish the job".
The committee's report criticises Donald Rumsfeld, the then-US defence secretary, and General Tommy Franks, the US general who commanded the invasion of Afghanistan, for not sending more US troops to Tora Bora to block the mountain paths to Pakistan, which were bin Laden's only means of escape.
Fewer than 100 commandoes were on the scene with their Afghan allies and their calls for reinforcements to launch an assault were rejected, the report said.
"The vast array of American military power, from sniper teams to the most mobile divisions of the Marine Corps and the army, was kept on the sidelines," it said.
"Instead, the US command chose to rely on airstrikes and untrained Afghan militias to attack bin laden and on Pakistan's loosely organised Frontier Corps to seal his escape routes."
Bin Laden 'unmolested'
Bin Laden was apparently convinced that the sustained bombardment of the mountains, where he was believed to be hiding with about 100 followers, with up to 100 air raids a day would leave him dead.
On December 14, 2001, he wrote a will, the reports says, instructing his wives not to remarry and apologising to his children for devoting himself to jihad.
But just days later he was able to walk "unmolested" out of Afghan territory into Pakistan's tribal areas, where he is widely believed to still be living.
Rumsfeld had expressed concerns at the time that ordering many more troops into the area to hunt Bin laden would create an anti-American backlash and fuel support for al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
The report was based on reviews of existing literature, unclassified government records and interviews with participants.
Staff members for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Democratic majority prepared the report at the request of the chairman, Senator John Kerry.
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The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website.
Titled "Message to the American People," the video -- released on Sunday by the As-Sahab media production branch of Al-Qaeda -- features a still image of bin Laden and an audio statement, said IntelCenter, based outside Washington.
It came two two days after the United States marked the eighth anniversary of the attacks by bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network in which hijacked airliners were flown into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people.
Bin Laden said that among "some other injustices," US support to Israel motivated Al-Qaeda to launch the September 11 attacks, IntelCenter reported.
He also stated that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were driven by the pro-Israeli lobby in the White House and corporate interests, and not by Islamic militants.
"If you think about your situation well, you will know that the White House is occupied by pressure groups," he said, according to IntelCenter.
"Rather than fighting to liberate Iraq -- as Bush claimed -- it (the White House) should have been liberated."
He was referring to former US president George W. Bush, who ordered the March 2003 invasion of Iraq that overthrew Saddam Hussein's regime.
If Americans want to end their confrontation with Al-Qaeda, bin Laden continued, they must reconsider their attitude toward the Jewish state.
"Put the file of your alliance with Israelis on the discussion table," he stated, according to IntelCenter's translation of the address.
"Ask yourselves to determine your position: is your security, your blood, your children, your money, your jobs, your homes, your economy, and your reputation dearer to you than the security of the Israelis, their children and their economy?
"If you choose your security and cessation of war, and this is what the polls have shown, this requires you to work to punish those on your side who play with our security," Bin Laden said.
"We are ready to respond to this choice on aforementioned sound and just bases."
According to bin Laden, current US President Barack Obama is powerless and unwilling to change the course of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Obama's retention of US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other individuals from the Bush administration is confirmation of the president's weakness, the Al-Qaeda leader said.
"It will become clear to you in days that all you have changed in the White House are faces," he is quoted by IntelCenter as saying.
"The bitter truth is that the neo-conservatives continue to cast their heavy shadows upon you."
Bin Laden urged Americans to pressure the White House to cease the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and US support to Israel, rather than succumb to what he called "the ideological terrorism" exercised by neo-conservatives.
If the wars are not ended, "all we will do is to continue the war of attrition against you on all possible axes, like we exhausted the Soviet Union for 10 years until it collapsed with grace from Allah the Almighty and became a memory of the past," bin Laden said.
IntelCenter said bin Laden typically releases such a statement annually around September or October.
The last audiotape by the Al-Qaeda leader was released on June 3. In that missive he scorned Obama's overture to the Islamic world and warned of decades of conflict ahead.
That audiotape aired on the Al-Jazeera satellite news channel less than an hour after Obama landed in Saudi Arabia, bin Laden's home country, at the start of a Middle East tour.
Bin Laden has a 50-million-dollar bounty on his head and has been in hiding for the past eight years.
Intelligence officials, US military analysts and other experts have long believed he is hiding in either Pakistan or Afghanistan near the remote mountainous border between the two countries.
In March, an audio attributed to bin Laden accused some Arab leaders of being "complicit" with Israel and the West against Muslims and urged holy war to liberate the Palestinian territories.
The same month, he urged the overthrow of the Somali president.
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website.
A videotape purportedly showing Osama bin Laden confessing to the 9/11 attacks was made public on December 13, 2001:
The tape bore a label indicating it was made on November 9. Administration officials wouldn't reveal exactly how or when they got it, except to say it was found in a house in Jalalabad after anti-Taliban forces moved in. [Online NewsHour]
The videotape was supposedly physically located.
The size of a standard VHS videotape is 7.5 inches wide by 4.2 inches deep by 1 inch high - if you look in a video cabinet you'll see they're not very big. The satellite photograph on the right shows Jalalabad - it is very big and it contains a lot of buildings (not all single storey).
Don't you find it somewhat fortuitous that a very small video tape of Osama confessing to the 9/11 attacks was found in this very big city? Were squads of video watchers sent in to view every tape found just in case one showed Osama confessing?
"For those who see this tape, they'll realise that not only is he guilty of incredible murder, he has no conscience and no soul, that he represents the worst of civilisation," said President George W Bush. US Senator Ron Wyden, who has also seen the tape, says he hopes it will remove suspicions in countries such as Pakistan that the 11 September attacks were an Israeli plot aimed at drawing the US into a war with Islamic countries. [BBC News]
The quality of the video was very poor and the authenticity of the tape was questioned. This annoyed President Bush:
"It is preposterous for anybody to think that this tape is doctored," he said during a brief photo opportunity with the prime minister of Thailand. "That's just a feeble excuse to provide weak support for an incredibly evil man." [CNN]
Okay, let's take a closer look at bin Laden and his views.
The following is an extract from bin Laden's September 28, 2001 denial of involvement in the 9/11 attacks...
"This system is totally in control of the American-Jews, whose first priority is Israel, not the United States. It is clear that the American people are themselves the slaves of the Jews and are forced to live according to the principles and laws laid by them. So, the punishment should reach Israel. In fact, it is Israel, which is giving a blood bath to innocent Muslims and the U.S. is not uttering a single word." [Public Action]
...and his views were the same in 1998:
"We say to the Americans as people and to American mothers, if they cherish their lives and if they cherish their sons, they must elect an American patriotic government that caters to their interests, not the interests of the Jews." [American Free Press]
The above demonstrates that bin Laden publicly aired very strong views about Israel and Jews when he was given the chance.
Below are still images from bin Laden videos released in 2001. The images are in chronological order. A point to note about bin Laden is he was suffering renal failure...
Renal dialysis -- talking about hemodialysis -- is something that really is reserved for patients in end-stage renal failure. That means their kidneys have just completely shut down. The most common cause of something like that would be something like diabetes and hypertension. Once that's happened, if you're separated from your dialysis machine -- and incidentally, dialysis machines require electricity, they're going to require clean water, they're going to require a sterile setting -- infection is a huge risk with that. If you don't have all those things and a functioning dialysis machine, it's unlikely that you'd survive beyond several days or a week at the most. [CNN]
...therefore his health in the videos is very relevant.
The "bin Laden" in video #3 has the wrong beard color, and his views and health are inconsistent with those of the real bin Laden. Also, if video #3 was a true bin Laden confession then why didn't he attribute 9/11 to avenging the suffering of Muslims, especially since America was attacking the country in which he was living?
The poor image quality of video #3 stands out when compared to the genuine bin Laden videos. There is also excessive noise on the video's audio track, making it impossible to really hear what is being said. Given that the tape was recorded in an area supposedly devoid of audio urban signature there should have been little ambient noise, yet the speech is masked with a great deal of noise.
There is clearly good reason to doubt the November 9 tape.
[Video] footage, to which the Telegraph obtained access in the Middle East yesterday, was not made for public release via the al-Jazeera television network used by bin Laden for propaganda purposes in the past. ... The video will form the centrepiece of Britain and America's new evidence against bin Laden, to be released this Wednesday. [Telegraph 11/11/01]
...and this never-to-be-seen video also appeared right on cue:
Emergency powers to imprison suspected international terrorists indefinitely using special closed courts will be announced this week. The measure, which will require exemption from human rights legislation, will be used to round up about 20 suspects hiding in Britain beyond the reach of existing laws. [Telegraph 11/11/2001]
Even hard line secular Pakistanis were unconvinced by the released bin Laden video tape. Iqbal Haider, a former senator from the party of ousted prime minister Benazir Bhutto, said he found it hard to believe that bin Laden would allow himself to be filmed confessing to the crime. "It is hard to believe that a man who masterminds the September attacks with such secrecy and finesse could be that stupid and imprudent," he said. "I hate Osama and the Taliban because they inflicted incalculable damage on Muslims ... but it is hard to digest that he can be such a fool."
When asked why there is no mention of 9/11 on Bin Laden's Most Wanted web page, [Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity for the FBI] said, "The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden's Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11." [Muckraker Report]
The above demonstrates the bin Laden "confession video" was a propaganda exercise created to justify the pursuit of a preplanned war.
BIN LADEN NEVER MENTIONED IN McCHRYSTAL REPORT OR OBAMA SPEECH
How much of America's tragedy is tied with these two children of the rich, children of families long joined thru money and friendship, the Bush and bin Laden clans.
