13 May 2011 21:00:25 — Strategic Culture Foundation

Disposable: Osama

As more ‘facts’ emerge about the assassination of Osama bin Laden, one thing is clear: that there has been active collaboration between the Empire and the media in suppressing the true nature of the events surrounding bin Laden’s death[1]. For starters, are we to believe that the army of corporate media mavens swarming around Islamabad didn’t know about the following?

The CIA maintained a safe house in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad for a small team of spies who conducted extensive surveillance over a period of months on the compound where Osama Bin Laden was killed by U.S. special operations forces this week, U.S. officials said. — ‘CIA had secret outpost in Abbottabad‘, Washington Post, 6 May 2011

And what of bin Laden’s ‘army’? what was it doing whilst the gringos were skulking around Abbottabad? It stinks. The entire obscene event reeks of a Hollywood-prepared script, right down to Obama’s performance at Ground Zero. Nothing on the scale of moving a US president to downtown Manhattan is done on the fly, such trips are prepared weeks, if not months in advance.

And of course, the presentation. The para following the one above is a classic:

The secret CIA facility was used as a base of operations for one of the most delicate human intelligence gathering mission in recent CIA history, one that relied on Pakistani informants and other sources to help assemble a “pattern of life” portrait of the occupants and daily activities at the fortified compound where bin Laden was found, the officials said. (ibid)

Not a hint of a question from the Washpost about the fact that the Empire has quite obviously known where bin Laden’s been hanging out for months if not years, so why now? Instead the WP tries to wax eloquent describing the run-up to the illegal assassination as the “most delicate human intelligence gathering mission in recent CIA history”. “Delicate”? With CIA operatives tramping all over Abbottabad?[2]

Thus it’s clear that bin Laden could have been ‘taken out’ at pretty much any time over the past few months at the very least and, given that the CIA and Special Forces have been camped almost outside his (overpriced) mansion, and that he was unarmed, he could have been captured, not blown away and dumped in the ocean like so much garbage.

One can only draw the conclusion that the Empire had decided that now was a ‘propitious’ time to remove a valuable ‘asset’, it seems for short-term gains in Obama’s approval ratings and of course to take peoples’ minds off more pressing issues, like how to feed the kids. After all ‘al-Qu’eda’ goes on, how can you destroy something that doesn’t in any real sense of the word, exist, by taking out its putative leader?

Moreover, a live and captured bin Laden is even more dangerous than when he was hanging out in his Abbottabad mansion ‘leading al-Qu’eda’ and no way was he going to be captured alive to talk.

Expendable: The Liberal Democrats

Closer to home, a comparable ‘dumping of assets’ has been taking place in the local elections with the Liberal Democrats sent scuttling back whence they were back in 2007 with 15% of the total vote. Not surprisingly (though the BBC seemed bemused) the Tories gained seats but the biggest winner (not surprisingly) was Labour (though in Scotland, traditionally almost solid Labour, has been trounced with the Scottish National Party taking an overall majority).

So why was the BBC so bemused that the Tories gained ground? Clearly, those who had previously voted Lib-Dem decided that they’d had enough of the vapid and hypocritical Lib-Dems so I’m pretty sure that those who switched to the Tories were probably Tory voters (35%) before and ditto for those who switched to Labour (37%). It explains why the Tories made small gains. It ain’t rocket science BBC pundits.

“Nick Clegg has said the Lib Dems are being “blamed” for coalition spending cuts as the party suffers heavy losses in English local elections.” — BBC News, 6 May 2011

Do you wonder why voters deserted the Lib-Dems in droves when it can’t even admit to being nothing more than a spare wheel to the Tories? Of course it’s going to get blamed for the cuts, it helped make them! Who else do they think the voters should blame? Do these bozos in Parliament have any inkling of what it’s like out here? Obviously not.

Even worse, because the Lib-Dems betrayed their electors, they have given what appears to be a green light for the Tory government’s destruction of our social infrastructure. Hopefully, this means the end of the Liberal Democrats and not a century too soon.

And the referendum on whether to change the electoral system has also gotten nixed (68% No, 32% Yes). No surprise there, it was after all a creation of the ruling political class who were divided over it. The problem was that although the AV system did offer a few advantages over the existing ‘first past the post’ system, like yours truly who didn’t vote this time, it reveals an almost complete cynicism in the political process. So why would a small change to voting process (but more complex to complete) persuade voters that it was a step forward? Better the devil you know…

Thus even those in government who supported AV (the Lib-Dems and a sprinkling of Labour, the Tories officially opposed it) were true to their wishy-washy ‘liberal’ pretensions and campaigned in a very lacklustre manner for the AV system. No wonder the voters said no, making a few changes as to how we vote for our entrenched mafia was not going to alter the almost total disconnect between the state and the citizen.

The upshot reveals the total confidence trick played on the voter by the alleged Tory/Lib-Dem coalition with the Lib-Dems paying the price for wanting—not to represent the voters needs—but joining the ‘coalition’ being nothing more than a lusting after power.

Changing the voting system might well have led to a more ‘representative’ parliament but would do nothing to alter the fact that in reality we have a choice between Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle Dum, or not much choice at all.

Note

1. Apparently ‘al-Qu-eda’ has issued a press release acknowledging the death of Osama bin Laden. “Al-Qaeda has confirmed the death of its leader, Osama Bin Laden, according to a statement attributed to the group and posted on jihadist internet forums.” (BBC 6 May 2011) Though who knows? There have been so many of these ‘jihadist’ Websites, one that I discovered was run out of an office in High Holborn, London and quite easy to track down though I didn’t see any signs of the anti-terror squad hammering on the doors of Al-ansar Net, 184 High Holborn, London WC1V 7AP. Thus even this ‘admission’ has to be taken with a very big pinch of salt. (See, ‘From ‘al-Qu’eda’ to ‘Abductions’-the deceptions continue‘ by William Bowles, 17 May 2007)

2. There are now numerous reports from people in the neighbourhood concerning the comings and goings. It’s inconceivable that the Pakistan government, let alone the CIA did not know of his presence. Apparently bin Laden had been living in Abbottabad for at least five years!

13 May 2011

An update on the ludicrous assumptions being made by the mainstream media concerning the alleged death of bin Laden. Here for example, is Channel 4 News’ latest ‘take’ on the aftermath of the bin Laden assassination:

“Our International Editor Lindsey Hilsum, just back from Pakistan, will be examining how the country is being squeezed from both sides. The US is placing them under intense pressure after the Bin Laden attack, with suspicions high that intelligence has been found in the compound that reveals the extent of the support network President Obama has already referred to. It could be very awkward yet for people in Pakistani intelligence and/or the military. And on the other front the Taliban is pushing – accusing the Pakistanis of colluding with the Americans.” — Channel 4 News email, 13 May 2011

The media and the state have this unwritten rule: never state the obvious, that the US and Pakistan have known where bin Laden has been for years (elsewhere it’s called Occam’s Razor)! So the MSM goes through the farce of ‘reporting’ the ‘news’ knowing full well that the Taliban have been supported by Pakistan’s ISI just as bin Laden had been supported by the US. These two relevant facts blow Channel 4’s assumptions about Pakistan being caught between two fires right out of the window.

In fact, the contradictions and paradoxes of US-Pakistan relations are irrelevant to the main objective of the US in the region which is to maintain a state of chaos and instability, just as USNATO’s presence in Afghanistan is not about winning but simply about being there. Let the occupation go on for years, money is being made, economies are being held hostage and kept in a permanent state of dependence on the Empire. And all the while the Empire moves ever closer to its two main rivals, Russia and China. This is what Empire-building is all about.

So, in the meanwhile Lindsey Hilsum goes through the motions of analysis, all of it based upon false assumptions about what the US knows or doesn’t know. It’s ludicrous, yet this juvenile nonsense is being written by university graduates and is considered serious journalism would you believe. But how can it be if it omits from the equation the real relationship between the US and Pakistan and US objectives in the region?

The way Channel 4 paints the picture, it’s all about ‘the war on terror’, getting revenge for 911 and eliminating its arch-enemy personified by the myth called Osama bin Laden/al-Qu’eda, made real by the likes of Lindsey Hilsum.