Stratfor Emails: Bin Laden Brought to US Before Sea Burial
In several of the latest emails to emerge from Wikileaks’ Global Intelligence Files release, Stratfor CEO George Friedman and Vice President of Intelligence Fred Burton speculate on the fate of Osama bin Laden’s corpse, with Burton suggesting that a sea burial wasn’t likely [“I don’t see the FBI nor DOJ letting that happen”] and then later confidently stating that the body was being transferred to Dover, Delaware and then on to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Bethesda, Maryland. [Email 1097638 | Email 1102718]
In another email 10 hours later, Burton indicates that the body was in fact buried at sea:
Question About American Enemies
One reason Endless War is endless is because the US is so adept at creating and strengthening the Enemies who then need to be dispatched (and that’s independent of how American actions are the principal cause of the anti-US animosity which ensures the War continues). Orwell famously highlighted the propaganda that “we’ve always been at war with Eastasia,” but does the US ever have any enemies that it did not at some point in the recent past fund, arm and/or cooperate with extensively?
Who Is Rich Blee?
Despite threats of prosecution from the CIA, the makers of 9/11: Press For Truth have released their new documentary podcast Who Is Rich Blee?
DoD Covered Up Intelligence Unit's Work Tracking Terrorists
Senior Pentagon officials scrubbed key details about a top-secret military intelligence unit’s efforts in tracking Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda from official reports they prepared for a Congressional committee probing the 9/11 terrorist attacks, new documents reveal.
Alec Baldwin Asks "What is Amalgam Virgo?"
Actor Alec Baldwin, considering a run for mayor of New York City, recently caused a stir by tweeting a number of questions about 9/11, including “Do you think Bin Laden was behind 9/11”? New York Magazine reported that Baldwin said his tweets were “absolutely not casting doubt on the issue of Osama Bin Laden’s role in 9/11.” He also took to Twitter to talk about last night’s vague messages: “As the 10th anniversary of the attacks approaches, I am keenly interested in what public opinion is re the aftermath of 9/11.”
Baldwin also tweeted “What is Amalgam Virgo?”
For those unfamiliar with the Amalgam Virgo wargame, here are two relevant entries from History Commons:
What's Behind the "Official History" of the Bin Laden Raid?
The establishment media just keep getting worse. They’re further and further from good, tough investigative journalism, and more prone to be pawns in complicated games that affect the public interest in untold ways. A significant recent example is The New Yorker’s vaunted August 8 exclusive on the vanquishing of Osama bin Laden.
Tin-Foil Hat Time: The Richard Clarke Edition
I believe in what the great muckraker I.F. Stone said, that all governments have one thing in common: They lie. I think within the broad contours of what we know about 9/11, there’s a lot that we don’t know, and a lot of baloney that’s been put out there. Even the chief counsel of the the 9/11 Commission believes there was a cover-up related to the failed air-defense response that morning. There are still valid questions about whether it was Cheney or Bush calling the shots in the initial moments. We don’t know everything we should about what our government knew about what Pakistan or Saudi Arabia knew before 9/11. In that context, Richard Clarke’s “conspiracy theory” seems highly plausible.
I think that will be one positive aspect to the upcoming 10th anniversary overload — the passage of time will make it less taboo to talk about some of those issues. Hopefully by the 15th anniversary, we’ll have a better understanding of 9/11 than we do today, on the eve of the 10th.
Huckabee Cartoon Attempts Woeful Retelling of 9/11 Attacks
In a new “history” cartoon aimed at children, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, now a Fox News personality, spins an animated, less-than-nuanced retelling of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., with a distinctly pro-Bush, pro-torture spin.
CIA Organized Fake Vaccine Drive to Get Bin Laden DNA
The CIA organised a fake vaccination programme in the town where it believed Osama bin Laden was hiding in an elaborate attempt to obtain DNA from the fugitive al-Qaida leader’s family, a Guardian investigation has found. As part of extensive preparations for the raid that killed Bin Laden in May, CIA agents recruited a senior Pakistani doctor to organise the vaccine drive in Abbottabad, even starting the “project” in a poorer part of town to make it look more authentic, according to Pakistani and US officials and local residents. The doctor, Shakil Afridi, has since been arrested by the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) for co-operating with American intelligence agents.
US Drop Charges Against OBL, Still "No Evidence" for 9/11
Nobody seems to have noticed, but in the nearly two and a half years of the Obama administration at least three commonplace phrases of the George W. Bush era have slipped into oblivion: “regime change,” “shock and awe,” and “imperial presidency.” The war in Libya should remind us of just how appropriate they remain.