I'll admit it, I was wrong:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/122ebd22-7c7c-11e0-b9e3-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1M8gTxeNU

I had made the assumption that Osama Bin Laden was a figurehead at most and that his control of the various splinters of Al-Qaeda was ephemoral at the most. Instead as this evidently shows he *did* direct Al-Qaeda and had a lot more power over it than I credited him for having. So I'll say it: I was wrong, Osama bin Laden really did direct Al-Qaeda the way people said he did. Perhaps his death really will break up Al-Qaeda and render that particular terrorist group irrelevant, as without a singular guiding hand the movements will be exactly that: movements, plural.

Your thoughts?

As per requests, the key passage of the article reposted in italics:

 

They said the haul – which US officials have lauded as possibly the greatest intelligence success of a generation – showed the al-Qaeda leader’s desire to launch an attack comparable in size to the September 11 atrocity 10 years ago, seeing this as the only way to persuade the US to withdraw from the Arab world.

Only a body count of thousands, something on the scale of the attacks on New York and Washington, would shift US policy, he believed.

He told his followers to aim to strike on significant dates, such as July 4, US Independence day, and the forthcoming 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

US officials said on Wednesday that bin Laden’s writings showed him to be more than just an inspirational figurehead, and that he was involved in helping to plan every recent significant al-Qaeda threat the US is aware of, including plots in Europe last year that had travellers and embassies on high alert.

The leaks came as Eric Holder, US attorney-general, said the mission that killed bin Laden “was not an assassination ... his surrender would have been accepted”.

Speaking on the Today programme, he said: “It was a kill-or-capture mission. And as I said, if the possibility had existed, if there was the possibility of a feasible surrender, that would have occurred.”

“Anybody can decide to surrender, can be taken alive,” he said. “But given the specific circumstances that those Navy Seals faced, on that evening, the decision that they made was an appropriate one.”

It was important for the US to act consistently with moral values, he argued.

Comments

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

I was in the same camp; I thought he was irrelevant, a rallying point and figurehead at best. Apparently this is based on the CIA's determination (http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/05/cheney-returns.html), which in turn is based on tortured evidence that Osama was only in contact with the outside world every few months. Yeah. So they tortured a guy who knew about the information network, and it totally backfired - they determined that Osama wasn't guiding AQ anymore, and gave up looking for him.

Not to turn this back into a torture debate, but it looks like (from that article) torture did the exact opposite of what Cheney and the Right are claiming - it helped bin Laden hide.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Well, this just shows that torture doesn't work.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

"That's good work there Lou"

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Good points.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

My thoughts are I can't wait to hear from the 'he was a feeble old man' people.

I too originally saw his death as strictly symbolic and felt Al Qaeda would go on in his absence. I still do, I think there will be a successor, we'll just have to wait and see if the various splinter groups accept this man as their overall leader.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I think there will be a successor

I wonder how important his wealth was; it's not like Al Qaeda can shake cans on street corners to fund raise, losing a multi-millionaire patron would be quite the blow.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

If you were in the Old West, and for 10 years you were chasing this gun fighter who supposed to be the baddest meanest man alive. Then you find him at the Bar-U ranch compound, old, weak, feeble and had long since retired from the gunfighting game. I mean this was the plotline for John Wayne's 1976 movie The Shootist.

Well this might have been the plotline of SEALs killing Osama bin Laden too. The Whitehouse has to justify denying Justice to all the countries who have a warrant out for him. And they have to justify the kill order. They can't very well say he retired five years ago. They have to make him out to be a still very active mastermind endangering all the world. Diary is a fake.

By not capturing him and putting him on trial they created this Grassy Knoll syndrome. This is exactly what the Internation Criminal Court was designed to deal with.

[stewstewstewdio.livejournal.com]

Diary is a fake.

And your evidence that the diary is a fake is what?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Have you actual evidence the diary is a fake? Is it really that hard to believe with modern technology one man can actually control such disparate movements, especially from a million-dollar-compound as opposed to a cave?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I mean if the Soviet Union could direct an entire slew of communist parties across the globe (if you disbelieve that they did, remember that when the USSR backed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that Communism was always at peace with Fascism in the First World, that's why they opposed WWII in the democracies then. Post Barbarossa communism was always at war with fascism, and there was no prior peace between the two, this because Moscow's party-line changed with them. If the USSR could do this in the pre-computer age, it's perfectly possible for Fourth-Generation Warfare to be waged in the modern era via computer links).

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Rupert Murdoch is 80, is this so hard to believe?

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

Personally, I don't think the White House has to justify shit.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

I can't read the damn link you provided without registering?

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

Here's the money shot.

They said the haul – which US officials have lauded as possibly the greatest intelligence success of a generation – showed the al-Qaeda leader’s desire to launch an attack comparable in size to the September 11 atrocity 10 years ago, seeing this as the only way to persuade the US to withdraw from the Arab world.

Only a body count of thousands, something on the scale of the attacks on New York and Washington, would shift US policy, he believed.

He told his followers to aim to strike on significant dates, such as July 4, US Independence day, and the forthcoming 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

US officials said on Wednesday that bin Laden’s writings showed him to be more than just an inspirational figurehead, and that he was involved in helping to plan every recent significant al-Qaeda threat the US is aware of, including plots in Europe last year that had travellers and embassies on high alert.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Sorry about that. Added the key points of the article in the OP.

A good patriot always questions his government.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

I would like to read the context of your source, but I don't feel like giving up any more private info in order to read an article I probably find dubious. Would you consider paste the text of the important bits?

I bet somewhere on JL or wordpress there is a blog with OBL's 'name' on it.

Guess what? The government lies. This is the same system that brought you the State Dept Wiki Leaks.

The Truth is there, but it's not always where you first look.

Let me repeat this: the government always lies on subjects only the government can verify. ESPECIALLY the intelligence community. A scam needs a distracting move, and OBL fit the role of a "villain" perfectly.

If he had the means and resources to completely masterminded 9-11 without any inside help and was still sitting high and dry 10 years later, why has he not struck again? Even the most simple one-man operations were not noted,

And if you excuse with: well, we did fight two wars," I will throw my shoes at you.

I am with you up to the point where you say, "I am wrong". what you should say is "I am still skeptical, but this is interesting if true."

Always assume it is not Truth. A good patriot always questions his government.

Re: A good patriot always questions his government.

[stewstewstewdio.livejournal.com]

A good patriot always questions his government.

But not nearly as much as a radical conspiracy theorist does. If what you are saying is true, why hasn't Wikileaks revealed your conspiracy fantasies? If you are so "into the truth", why hasn't there been widespread evidence of this worldwide? Or are you just going to fling more conspiracy theories.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Some of us don't have subscription to the Financial Times.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1000302.html?thread=78186862#t78186862

[existentme.livejournal.com]

Ah, if only one FT.com article, quoting anonymous government sources and US Officials, and with no more presented evidence than just those things could change the hearts and minds of the world, eh?

For now, I submit that the only "money quote" in the linked article is this bit:

"British officials said the Americans had shared some information with them about the bin Laden cache, but that there had been nothing yet to indicate that he had been involved in any of the recent terror plots in Britain."

and the value of that limited only to a coin heavy enough to balance an otherwise still quite empty scale.

If the evidence does indeed exist, and I am neither saying it does or does not exist, I will wait for science, rather than politics to make its judgment upon the veracity thereof, and only then decide what my heart feels and mind thinks upon the matter.

So that no one bothers trying to extrapolate this into interpreting mine as some crazy conspiracy theory, or me as a theorist of the same, if there is paper, and words written down upon that paper, then there are analysts and experts in the world which are not anonymous government officials is all I am saying, period.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Most government sources quoted in articles are anonymous and are so because of reprisal, this never stops people from accepting other kind of articles. So I'm-a call skepticism on the sudden rush not to trust anonymous sources here when they are elsewhere.

You're giving up awful fast, on very little evidence

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

I don't get it. What makes you so sure you were wrong?

Let's take a look at the evidence that's changed your mind.

An anonymous U.S. government leak — conflict of interest, much? Said leak claims that bin Laden "desired" a big attack on the U.S., and the he "told his followers" as much.

Who are these followers? How many of them are there?

I'm actually in the agnostic camp as to whether or not bin Laden was a figurehead or an active leader, but I don't see any actual hard evidence in what you quoted to sway me one way or another. God knows I take with a gram or three of salt that which comes out of the Pentagon or the White House on official letterhead, so triple the amount from a convenient leak.

In any event, it doesn't much matter. As with the drug trade, where removing the head man or even taking down an entire gang won't end the problem so long as there is a market for the drugs, so the Western problem with terrorism won't end until Western imperialism does.

Re: You're giving up awful fast, on very little evidence

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

People have changed their entire views on what the government does on far less than this. What makes me sure of it is that the government *did* capture his computers and I'm fairly sure the leader of Al-Qaeda didn't spend his time in that Qaedabunker playing World of Warcraft.

Free Kool-Aid

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

Media Scrambles as bin Laden Story Crumbles (http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/7387-media-scrambles-as-bin-laden-story-crumbles)

American "intelligence" keeps more information from Americans than it keeps from the enemy. Let us go out and execute or assassinate Bradley Manning and Julian Assange while taking the word of politicians, such as Erik Holder, as gospel? By the way, which version of "the truth" should we believe out of our politicians? I'm just such failure at double-think...

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic, and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State."
— Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels

"But the state lies in all the tongues of good and evil; and whatever it says it lies; and whatever it has it has stolen. Everything in it is false; it bites with stolen teeth, and bites often. It is false down to its bowels."
— Friedrich Nietzsche, from Thus Spake Zarathustra

"Violence has nothing with which to cover itself except the lie, and the lie has nothing to stand on other than violence. Any man who has once acclaimed violence as his method must inexorably choose the lie as his principle."
— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Re: Free Kool-Aid

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

So the citation includes the Nazi German propaganda boss, a Neo-Tsarist to beat all Neo-Tsarist and a man suffering from Syphilis? No dice. And your source is the same people who thought Milton Eisenhower controlled his brother via a Soviet tooth implant? Sorry, I'm just going to ignore that one.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I'm never wrong. I just don't hold any strong opinions either way.

[existentme.livejournal.com]

Crap. Playbook theft.

[okmewriting.livejournal.com]

I was wrong, Osama bin Laden really did direct Al-Qaeda the way people said he did. Perhaps his death really will break up Al-Qaeda and render that particular terrorist group irrelevant, as without a singular guiding hand the movements will be exactly that: movements, plural.
In the absence of independently verifiable evidence I don't know how you can come to that conclusion. All you've got is a load of leaks and rumours originating from one source - the US government.

It is in their interest to make it seem like Bin Laden was important to Al-Qaeda and killing him, getting his hard drive will get rid of Al-Qaeda. They're trying to convince the public and Al-Qaeda that they have this info. Do they have it? Was he important? Nobody really knows except the US government. Can we really trust governments to tell us the unvarnished truth? I'll believe he was important when they prove he was important by rounding up Al-Qaeda.

Although you have to think that if they actually had this information they wouldn't be going around blabbing that they had it, they'd be going around quietly arresting/assassinating folk before they had a chance to hide their network.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

People accept much more flamboyant claims than this on far more superfluous elements. And forgive me if I'm a bit skeptical about how in today's de-centralized information age it's impossible to replicate what the Comintern and like organizations did in far more low-tech ages. Bin Laden doesn't have to be Cobra Commander or Dr. Doom to pull this off.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

showed the al-Qaeda leader’s desire to launch an attack comparable in size to the September 11 atrocity 10 years ago, seeing this as the only way to persuade the US to withdraw from the Arab world.

They hate America for their freedom, or something... I wonder if we're going to be able to finally give up on this myth that 9/11 was somehow "random" or "unprovoked".

As for the info, I'm not as skeptical as some others here, but the current administration seems to be just as adept as the last one at saying one thing and then releasing a quiet "correction" a few weeks later. The truth doesn't matter in the 24 hour news cycle; it's all about getting out the sound bite for maximum impact wrapped in enough ambiguity for plausible deniability later. Remember this info is coming from the same agencies that gave us "WMDs in Iraq".

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Are you ready to answer my question about whether or not the Soviets produced an Afghan refugee crisis in the 1980s or not from which sprang the Taliban, a war the USA had nothing to do with?

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

I question bin Laden's thinking that another act of terrorism on the scale of 9/11 would "shift U.S. policy". He didn't know us very well; it would just piss us off more.

[existentme.livejournal.com]

Yes, and see, this statement alone in the report of the findings is one that struck me as incongruous. Was OBL really this naive? I don't think so. So one's first conclusion might be, well then, the report of the findings is a fabrication. However, he may very well have said it.

The thing that would tilt my thinking in one direction or another on that particular matter, is if the report cited whether that bit was written in missives to his minions, or as part of his personal journal. The former would be easily believable, since OBL would likely know that those minions needed some real hope for change, no matter how big a lie. But if the report says that's a part of his journal and actual thinking, I would be like, gtfo.

At that point, I would have to see the LONG FORM journal written in whatever language OBL uses, and that analysed by a handwriting expert!

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

It's in our (USA) best interest to maximize the rumors about how much intel we've gleaned from Osama Bin Laden's lair. Creating FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) within al-Qi'ada's ranks seems to only our benefit. The only exception would be if the FUD reports end up forcing their hand because they feel they must act hastily. But that is coming anyway.

Another hope is that the infighting and vying for power within al-Qi'ada (Who will replace OBL?) will hamper and hinder their terrorism efforts, perhaps even nullify some attacks.

the al-Qaeda leader’s desire to launch an attack comparable in size to the September 11 atrocity 10 years ago, seeing this as the only way to persuade the US to withdraw from the Arab world.

Withdrawl? I thought he wanted us engaged so we drained ourselves ala the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Odd.

I am very skeptical that surrender was ever a serious option, but we'll never know because that's not the type of thing we'd go around bragging about, rather the type of thing we'd just do and move on. (setting aside Bush's "dead or alive" public rhetoric in 2003)