Osama Dead, Again?

A French regional newspaper has published what it says is a French intelligence report suggesting that the Saudis believe Osama bin Laden died of typhoid in Pakistan earlier this month. Bin Laden has a knack for surviving his "deaths", so handle with care.

Update: More doubts being expressed here.

Comments

Don Coyote | September 23, 2006, 10:34am | #

Osama bin Laden is dead if, and only if, Osama bin Laden is dead.

walter66 | September 23, 2006, 11:09am | #

What, you didn't get the memo from rove......prepare for an October surprise

walter66 | September 23, 2006, 11:11am | #

here's another October surprise.....http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/092006.html

Ron Hardin | September 23, 2006, 11:45am | #

It has an effect chiefly on Democratic talking points.

The strategy isn't get bin Laden but to make the world unfriendly to Islamonutballism wherever it is, so it doesn't grow freely.

Evidence is that bin Laden has had to scramble around pretty much exclusively, since 9/11.

As has everybody of such a mind.

Anvilwyrm | September 23, 2006, 12:01pm | #

I thought we were going to get an October surprise last election. And the one before that.

And that the CIA would plant WMDs if we didn't find any in Iraq.

I am *so* disappointed in the dirty tricks department of this whitehouse. If Bush wants my vote, I need to see some sharks, with frickin laserbeam in their heads!

Mark B. | September 23, 2006, 12:34pm | #

So - a French newspaper leaks a French security memo quoting an unnamed source as saying that another security service (the Saudis') are convinced that Bin Laden died in an area where they have no direct intelligence sources, other than what the Pakistanis feed them.

Sounds bona fide to me - start the fireworks!

happyjuggler0 | September 23, 2006, 12:55pm | #

I wonder if bin laden and castro "died" on the same day? Now that would make for quite a holiday!!!

FXKLM | September 23, 2006, 1:28pm | #

Quite a dilemma for Republicans. Should they believe Osama is still alive or should they trust the French?

joe | September 23, 2006, 1:36pm | #

Not buying it. Osama bin Laden required kidney dialysis, and he's survived for years in western Pakistan. If they can get him his dialysis treatments, they can get the antibiotics they need to treat typhoid fever.

As far as the sudden conviction of bin Laden's irrelevancy on the part of administration defenders: if a guy who needs dialysis is able to survive for years in that area of the world, he's not hiding in a cave without access to the outside world. If they can get him the equipment, power, and medical expertise necessary to keep him alive, then he's sitting pretty with a high degree of administrative and operational capacity.

walter66 | September 23, 2006, 1:40pm | #

Anvilwyrm....you saying Newsmax is wrong?

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/9/20/141615.shtml

Paris | September 23, 2006, 4:23pm | #

I think this is true.
But president say "We can't confirm information".

Rick Barton | September 23, 2006, 5:35pm | #

He's "Spock dead". And Wasn't it kinda weird how Osama just popped up only a day or two prior to the last election to warn us that if we re-elected King George, that he would be most displeased? This event no doubt imperiled Bush's chances given the warm regard most Americans have for Osama.

(Disclosure: In the last election, I voted Libertarian for pres. and mostly Republican for the other offices. I didn't vote for any Dems.)

Brian Courts | September 23, 2006, 6:49pm | #

Osama's deader than George Harrison and probably has been for just about as long. We used to see routine, unequivocal evidence of him and since then only bizarre messages by audio tapes that the (Iraqi WMD certifying) CIA assures us is him. I call bullshit. Even that '04 video clearly wasn't him as can be seen if you put a known picture of OBL up beside the purported video OBL.

Osama bin Laden required kidney dialysis . . . If they can get him his dialysis treatments, they can get the antibiotics they need to treat typhoid fever.

Exactly, and if they can get him his dialysis and other treatment without getting him caught they can damn sure get him in front of a video camera on a regular basis.

aspendougy | September 23, 2006, 7:16pm | #

The original Bin Laden is a left-handed, thin faced, dour ascetic who denied any involvement in 9/11 and never mentioned El-Qaeda prior to 9/11. The post 9/11 videod "Bin Laden" is jovial, fat faced, right handed guy who outweighs the original by about 50 (according to foreign intel. experts) and talks about El Qaeda all the time. I wonder which one has typhoid?

If you consider that (1) The FBI lacks enough evidence linking him to 9/11 to put him on a wanted poster & says that evidence linking Israelis to 9/11 is "classified" (2) He denied it immediately after, being involved, (3) Israelis were found videoing and celebrating the 9/11 attacks (4) The white van with a Koran and a flight manual conveniently placed is an obvious ploy (5) MOSSAD tailed the 9/11 hijackers in Florida (6) At least seven of the supposed hijackers are still alive, having been victims of identity theft (7) Mohammed Atta metamorphosed from a quiet, anti-social ascetic into a violent outgoing party animal with a strong sex drive (8) The FBI has had great difficulty unearthing much in the way of El-Qaeda cells, but found an abundance of Israeli spys after 9/11,

So, whoever this guy is, whether he is dead or alive, the evolution of the story in the main stream media will depend upon how they want to milk it and use it for propaganda.

Stay tuned for more Bin Laden - El Qaeda boogy man stories as we approach the November elections.

shecky | September 23, 2006, 7:39pm | #

Osama is the walrus?

Stevo Darkly | September 23, 2006, 7:44pm | #

Darn. I was looking forward to the November 1 White House press conference where they wheel out Osama in a cage.

Joe | September 23, 2006, 8:01pm | #

Osama has worked for Mossad from the beginning.

APL | September 23, 2006, 8:14pm | #

Osama is the walrus?

No, the eggman.

Drew W | September 23, 2006, 8:18pm | #

Pope Benedict. His words were denounced. He turned the other cheek. Raging fundamentalists called for his head. He apologized and apologized and apologized again.

But push him too far . . . and it gets personal. Pope Benedict has turned renegade -- and there isn't a power in Christendom that can stop him now in his crazed quest for vengeance.

Well, it's a theory.

Zach | September 23, 2006, 8:22pm | #

Pope Benedict. His words were denounced. He turned the other cheek. Raging fundamentalists called for his head. He apologized and apologized and apologized again.

But push him too far . . . and it gets personal. Pope Benedict has turned renegade -- and there isn't a power in Christendom that can stop him now in his crazed quest for vengeance.

Funniest thing I've read all day. :D

joe | September 23, 2006, 9:22pm | #

"Osama has worked for Mossad from the beginning.

Comment by: Joe at September 23, 2006 08:01 PM"

1. My email address is "[e-mail]," not "[e-mail]"

2. I don't capitalize my name.

3. You're a real dick.

Chevy Chase | September 23, 2006, 11:05pm | #

This just in; Generalísimo Francisco Franco is still dead!

Twba | September 23, 2006, 11:30pm | #

Osama bin Laden required kidney dialysis...

I'm not buying that. Just 'cause the guy was once treated for kidney stones does not mean he hauled a dialysis machine around the mountains of Pashtunistan.

Buck Smith | September 23, 2006, 11:41pm | #

Osama dying in a cave of typhoid fever is OK news for me. I would prefer to have seen him captured and fed to pigs. Oh well, we have Khalid Sheik Mohammed...

Phileleutherus Lipsiensis | September 24, 2006, 12:38am | #

Brian Courts,

The Beavers are up 24-0 over Idaho!

GILMORE | September 24, 2006, 1:46am | #

Osama has worked for Mossad from the beginning.
Comment by: Joe

[phew - for a minute i thought you were the other joe]

I'm impressed with the success of the mossad's operations if so. Through attacking us, they destabilized their own region, inadvertantly helped bring to power the most extremist palestinian opposition, helped provoke a major unsuccessful conflict with one of the only neighboring countries that was democratizing, in doing so empowering the most extremist element in lebanon...all while their greatest threat in Iran has used the regional conflicts to hasten their moves to become a nuclear power, and a significant threat to Israels existance. i mean, wow, this thing fell together like clockwork!

... clearly 'the mossad' must work for Allah, who in works freelance for Galactus, devourer of worlds.

JG

Don Coyote | September 24, 2006, 7:08am | #

Don't believe everything you think or imagine.
The mind is a dangerous thing.

wazoo | September 24, 2006, 8:40am | #

aspendougy: The post 9/11 videod "Bin Laden" is jovial, fat faced, right handed guy who outweighs the original by about 50 (according to foreign intel. experts) and talks about El Qaeda all the time.

Actually, I don't think OBL has ever mentioned the phrase "al-qaeda" on any tape at all, even the latest ones.

Thomas Paine's Goiter | September 24, 2006, 11:36am | #

So - a French newspaper leaks a French security memo quoting an unnamed source as saying that another security service (the Saudis') are convinced that Bin Laden died in an area where they have no direct intelligence sources, other than what the Pakistanis feed them.

And somehow, again, this one is on Bush.

Tin Foil hatters, unite!

MainstreamMan | September 24, 2006, 12:16pm | #

aspendougy

I am sure you are taking evidence from places like this

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/osamatape2.html

at face value (pun intended).

Just a quick note about facial morphology (I use careful analysis of facial features in my work with children with disabilities--dysmorphology can be an important clue to underlying syndromes).

If you look at the morphing pictures presented, you will notices that Osama's facial expression is quite different in the two still chosen. Smiling or grimacing or pursing your lips will radically change the apparent shape of many facial features, particularly the eye-brows, nose and cheeks, the very areas where these two stills change the most.

Looking carefully at this example confirms for me that they are the same man. Be skeptical of both the government and people with wild conspiracy theories. You will have a better shot at knowing the truth.

? | September 24, 2006, 1:51pm | #

Quite a dilemma for Republicans. Should they believe Osama is still alive or should they trust the French?

Osama's death would be bad for Republicans unless, perhaps, he was directly killed by our troops. It would make national security less of an issue in the upcoming elections, which would cost most Republicans votes. It might be good for *Bush*, assuming he got credit for the death (unlikely in the extreme if Osama died of typhus). But Bush isn't running for reelection; he doesn't need an "October surprise".

The kind of surprise that would help Republicans would be the discovery of a new, foiled, terrorism plot.

crimethink | September 24, 2006, 2:40pm | #

A little off-topic, but

"Intelligence Services report says Iraq war spreading terror"

Why does the intelligence community hate America?

Osama Lama Lama | September 24, 2006, 7:15pm | #

Die... I hate it when I do that to myself.
(My wives and children are not crazy about it either.)
Look on the sunny side of life. Whistling I am now.

Bob | September 24, 2006, 7:43pm | #

Joe (capital J) is actually Rick Barton floating results of his conspiracy analysis.

joe | September 24, 2006, 8:08pm | #

Apparently, we're fighting them in Baghdad because we're really hoping to fight them in Baltimore, too.

Out of curiosity, did any of the pro-war regulars who spouted the "flypaper" theory actually believe in it?? Or did you realize is was bull, even as you spent two years flogging it?

joe | September 24, 2006, 8:18pm | #

Actually, Bob, it's almost certainly PapayaSF, still pissed off that I blew a hole in the little victim act he tried to pull on the George Allen thread.

avocado diaboli | September 24, 2006, 9:52pm | #

Actually, joe, since it's inevitable that we will have to fight the terrorists here eventually, doesn't it make sense to force them to show their tactics in Iraq so that we can better prepare to fight them here?

walter66 | September 24, 2006, 10:10pm | #

hey avocado, it seem that the latest NIE is suggesting we are allowing terrorists to perfect their tactics in Iraq that they will use here.

just think of the "gangbangers" the Army has trained in modern warfare back on the streets and in our neighborhoods.

Rick Barton | September 25, 2006, 1:51am | #

Joe (capital J) is actually Rick Barton floating results of his conspiracy analysis.

Wrong. I don't find evidence that: "Osama has worked for Mossad from the beginning."

But that kind of senario is possible. The Israeli government was instrumental in the ascendancy of Hamas. They sought to foster a quieter religious competitor with the other organizations for Palestinian liberation. Talk about blowback!

Also, the only other name that I post under is "Rickey Ramone". I use that screen name cuz I'm punk enough (old school style)...Well ok, except for an independent nature and sometimes iconoclastic leanings, I'm not really discernibly punk but I do quite dig the music and the vids.

Genghis Kahn | September 25, 2006, 3:18am | #

Evidence is that bin Laden has had to scramble around pretty much exclusively, since 9/11.

Only until recently, if this is true.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/738ijawx.asp

According to this article, AQ and the Taliban just got themselves a brand new home. You know, real estate has cooled off so it's a good time to buy. An excerpt:

INTELLIGENCE ANALYSTS woke up on September 5 to unsettling news. The government of Pakistan, they learned, had entered into a peace agreement with the Taliban insurgency that essentially cedes authority in North Waziristan, the mountainous tribal region bordering Afghanistan, to the Taliban and al Qaeda. Just ten days later, the blow was compounded when the government of Pakistan released a large number of jihadists from prison....sharia law was declared in South Waziristan, and the Taliban began to rule openly.

This (terrorists have a safe haven to work in) has always been the real threat, not OBL per se. But the shrills on both sides of the aisle are more worried about the next election than they are about thinking.

And what do you expect? The system is rigged to make them that way.

Exactly what we should do about this beats me. If we invaded, the terrorists would probably take over all of Pakistan.

Oh, but I forgot -- it's all GWB's fault. That election stealing jerk, idiot, liar, fool. If only we'd had a president who'd groveled willingly at the shrine of the UN, none of this would ever have happened.

Genghis Kahn | September 25, 2006, 3:24am | #

Osama dying in a cave of typhoid fever is OK news for me. I would prefer to have seen him captured and fed to pigs.

No, if we caught OBL we'd probably give him his own private care facility. He's probably safer in a US prison than anywhere else on the planet.

If we ever get wind of where he really is, it would be far less infuriating if we took him out on the spot. Kill the SOB and be done with it. All getting him alive is going to do is run the national debt up a little higher.


Osama's death would be bad for Republicans unless, perhaps, he was directly killed by our troops. It would make national security less of an issue in the upcoming elections, which would cost most Republicans votes.

Do you really think the Democrats are going to be more rational about this whole mess than the Republicans? If you do then you're a lune.

Democrats oppose Republicans for the simple reason that Republicans are not Democrats. There's "my team" and "your team", and without this construct the whole house of cards comes down.

The Democrats have yet to lay out a plan that makes any more sense than what the Republicans are doing. Neither side knows its ass from a hole in the ground.

So chill, all you closet Democrats (to varying degrees) who claim to be libertarians. It's "be afraid of the terrorists" vs "be afraid of Bush, Father of Evil".

Both lines are BS. And I might, remotely possibly, consider voting for the Democrats if they can offer up a plan of action that amounts to more than "well, I don't know but godDAMNIT we're not going to FIGHT about this terrorism thing".

Not that I can vote for Republicans either, because while they're willing to fight, they aren't willing to think. They're in the knee-jerk "do something even if it's wrong" mode. Nobody should be surprised that most of what they do seems to come out wrong....


I've always thought this whole terrorist business was the perfect opportunity for a libertarian candidate to sweep the stage. Just put a rational approach up on a banner.

Instead, way too many of the libertarian candidates I've seen in recent history sound more and more like they come from some subset of the Democratic party.

Come to think of it, some libertarian publications have sounded more and more that way, too.... So much for a relevant voice coming from alternate direction.

Genghis Kahn | September 25, 2006, 4:07am | #

Here's a simple plan: force the issue.

Goad the terrorists verbally, force them to go to their own (idealogical) logical conclusion. They really want an Islamic theocracy? Good, pull the plug on Pakistan. Let the lunatics take over and impose. And goad them verbally every inch of the way. The pope just showed us that it's really easy to do that.

Who were those guys who came up with the Mohammed cartoons? We could start by asking them if they've got any ideas for some feature length cartoons. Islam can't stand being satirized, which is why our satire machines should be running full tilt.

When the terrorists have gotten the power they so clearly want, then they'll be forced to come out in the open. Then they'll have to start fighting our kind of war.

You can't hide all of Pakistan in a cave.

If we let these lunatics take control over some country, and let it play out -- let the Muslim world see what the real end result will be -- I'm not so sure the terrorists will come out the other end with the kind of tacit support they now seem to enjoy.

And if Islam still supports the terrorist regimes, even then? Well, then we've got clear targets. Which we proceed to bomb back to the stone age, after which we walk away. Until there's a need to drop a few more bombs.

We do not, however, engage with regular ground troops. There's no need for that level of control over the situation (though maybe some commado raids here and there). We can ruin their infrastructures, economies, etc, well enough to effectively shut them down, with air attacks and cruise missiles.

Bush's Preemption Doctrine isn't all wrong. Our message should be: any nation that supports, advocates, or engages in terrorism, may be targeted by US air strikes any time there is a terrorist attack on Americans -- and it isn't necessary to prove which (Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, etc) was the bad guy in any particular case. We may bomb any and/or all of them indiscriminately if they sponsor terrorism in any way.

Note: I did not say "invade" indiscriminately, nor did I say "we will convert you to democracy" indiscriminately. I said "we will bomb you back to the stone ages indiscriminately. Civilian casualties and all."


Instead we're playing idiot games in Iraq. We should pull the plug on Iraq and Pakistan at the same time. Some Democrats like to believe if we leave the ME, they won't hate us anymore. I consider Pakistan proof positive that this isn't true, but I'm willing to be proven wrong....so try it. Reel in the US from all over the ME.

Not that the Democrats or Republicans either one would go for this approach in a million years.

Uri ben Tzvi | September 25, 2006, 4:39am | #

Rick Barton dosn't need evidence for Israel-bashing. Anti-Semites never do.

joe | September 25, 2006, 10:47am | #

"Actually, joe, since it's inevitable that we will have to fight the terrorists here eventually, doesn't it make sense to force them to show their tactics in Iraq so that we can better prepare to fight them here?"

Since the tactics used against military units with military equipment are so drastically different from those used against civilian populations, and since terror attacks in the United States have always been of the latter variety, no, the information gained on how insurgents in Iraq operate is completely useless to question of how to protect against terror attacks in the US.

Pro Libertate | September 25, 2006, 11:18am | #

What's the current bounty on bin Laden? If he's really dead, all I have to do is find his grave and dig up some DNA samples. Sounds safer than hunting down the living version, evading his security, knocking him out, and dragging him to the White House. Though the latter approach would have a much more dramatic effect, wouldn't it?

I'm sick of my job, so a little bounty hunting sounds like a nice change of pace. Besides, I could use tens of millions of dollars at this point of my life.

Pro Libertate | September 25, 2006, 11:22am | #

Okay, I think it's still $25 million. But I forgot to consider the endorsements and the almost certain movie offer and reality television series. I think the capture of bin Laden is easily a billion dollar payoff, in total.

"I was wearing Adidas when I chased down bin Laden. Adidas. The Official Shoe of the War on Terror."

joe | September 25, 2006, 3:32pm | #

Pro Libertate, you just captured the most dangerous terrorist mastermind on the planet. What are you going to do now?

huh | September 27, 2006, 12:08pm | #

You liberal fucks can suck my dick. Pussies