It's interesting to see the clash of civilizations brewing here. One one side you have the most technologically advanced and most deadly military fighting force the world has ever witnessed. On the other, a tribal system largely unchanged since the British tried to deal with them 150 years ago.

I think this quote is very telling about the relativism applied to cultures that we in the developed world would label as "backward" or "primitive".

Even before their earliest periods of outright colonization, beginning in the mid 1850s, the British made distinctions between the "settled" Pashtuns of the plains around Peshawar and the more troublesome "hill" Pashtuns of the Khyber Pass and Waziristan.

First question that comes to my mind in reading this article: Did we learn enough about the particulars of employing proxy troops from our failures at Tora Bora three years ago? Why do we believe that Bin Laden wont be once again snatched from underneath us by tribal militia loyal, or at least sympathetic to the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, or even just the idea of pulling for the underdog?

I don't want to diminish the words of a professional historian, but I disagree with Mr. Cloughley a bit on this point.


"The Americans do not realize that to the Pashtun tribesman, the average Pakistani Army soldiers are just as foreign as the British and the Americans," he says. "The way of modifying the approach is simple: Go slowly. You can't expect in places like this to have results overnight. Don't announce you're going to do something like capture Osama bin Laden, because if you don't do it, you're going to look silly. And if you do do it, you're going to offend lots of people. I don't know whether any of this has been thought through."

I think it has been thought through on many levels by the brains behind the brawn in both the Pakistani and U.S. defense departments. The Pakistanis realize that playing to the lowest common denominator is not going to advance their abilities to try and compete on a global scale in any arena. You simply can't let the Asian equivalent of a bunch of toothless hicks dictate foreign policy. We don't do it in the U.S. either. Thank goodness there in only one Robert Byrd.

My conclusion: This is it for OBL. I believe this is the final chapter in this hunt. The best elements of the best military in the world are finally mobilized with a singular purpose. We will prevail.

http://csmonitor.com/2004/0304/p01s02-wosc.html

Regardless of who you're pulling for in this fight, this article is very worthwhile.
If you're interested, you should probably read this one too.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0310/p01s03-wosc.html

You simply can't let the Asian equivalent of a bunch of toothless hicks dictate foreign policy.

Oh man, and people call liberals elitists. Look, no one LET Islamic militants dictate foreign policy, they are FORCING us to change foreign policy. They are the problem, and we need to do what is affective in dealing with them and that’s that. If you are suggesting that we should be able to march in wave our arms and yell "We are the greatest army that has ever walked the earth!" and have them fork over bin laden while winning their hearts and minds, your are an utter buffoon. Your writing style is dense, and full of obtuse propaganda, so maybe I incorrectly interpreted what you were trying to say, but if I got it right, I would like to say "Get a clue!" If we want these people to obey us instead of the militant Islamism ideology, then bullying them and marching into their land expecting them to conform to our expectations is an awful start.

these catches, when are made, are kept as secret as possible for strategic purposes.
if bin-Laden's capture is made public, his operatives will change their plans so any info he might give will be irrelevant.

a few weeks ago someone from the US army said "this year will be the year that we catch him for sure"
2 other sources said something similar, plus recent reports (and prompt denials) that he actually has been caught

considering these things, i think he's already been captured

Is he still alive? I know theres no doubt various hush hush ops going on, but surely we can get some idea of whether they think hes still alive for sure.
And being "the best military in the world" doesnt prove anything on the battlefield, especially when its not your home territory.

Bin Laden's signal went dead after Tora Bora, along with the man. Only death would have silenced that mediaphile Arabian revolutionary so profoundly. After the B-52 strikes, his remains will probably remain forever as elusive, and irrelevant, as Jimmy Hoffa's. Even the White House demonizers have tipped their hand, now crying "Zarkawi!" at each Iraqi and Afghan flareup. US forays in Pakistan likely have much more to do with couterinsurgency protection for Busharraf.

It's my understanding that the CIA has deemed the audio tapes issued by Bin Laden post-Tora Bora to be authentic. In one he specifically mentions the capture of Saddam Hussein. Hype, are you saying that the CIA is lying?

be nice to him. it's his birthday today.

Lets face it, with the CIA's record, us plebs wouldnt know if they were saying black was black or white.

"Hype, are you saying that the CIA is lying?"
Yes I am, and likely at the behest of the Vice-President. Bin Laden was gone much too soon for their liking, and now it's so hard to say goodbye, but they inevitably must, awkward as it may be. Time for a new villain.

Bin Laden's signal went dead after Tora Bora, along with the man. Only death would have silenced that mediaphile Arabian revolutionary so profoundly.

hypewaders,
wouldn't their having captured him have the same effect?
I would not doubt for a minute that Bush would keep Bin Laden's capture a secret up until the most politically oppurtune time. If he was captured now there would still be time for people to get over it and start thinking about jobs, the environment etc. again. I think there's a fairly good chance that Bin Laden will be "captured" about a month before the election.

I hate Bush, but this "They captured him and are going to roll him out for the election" theory is really over the top. Bush isnt the only one who was affected by 9/11 and he isnt the only one who would be in charge of when his capture is publicly reported. I don't think that the armed services would keep this a secret even if ordered by the presedent, because his reasoning in this scenario would be so obviously petty. Once the capture is learned of Bush wouldn't dare reprimand anyone for revealing it, lest he expose his twisted plot. I just don't buy it.

They wouldn't risk it, and they know that something that sensational would uncontrollably leak.

It's a far more reasonable assumption that Bin Laden has long been a small amount of pulp under a pulverized mountain. Bin Laden put out more signals than a Mars Rover, until he suddenly didn't. The White house was not finished exploiting American public rage when it became obvious the B-52 strikes had been overkill, so "Mission Control" has had to keep up appearances.

I tend to agree Spy. Conspiracies are by nature, very difficult to pull off. The more people that must be involved to conceal a secret, the more likelihood there is that the secret will be revealed. If OBL were captured alive, it would next to impossible to transport him, detain him, or move him around without somebody seeing him, and knowing exactly who he was.

Despite the arguments to the contrary, I think OBL escaped from Tora Bora, he was spirited away into the lawless provinces of NW Pakistan, and has been constantly moving around those areas ever since Dec. 2001. He has been spotted numerous times in the provinces, and the spooks pursuing him have literally missed him by a few hours on several occassions. This is nothing new for Bin Laden. The CIA has had mission plans in progress to capture or eliminate him since late summer of 1998. He's very good at being elusive.

The endgame for OBL is here. The cooperation that was needed in '01 is finally onboard, and the assets are in place. The biggest question in my mind is can he be taken alive? We saw in the end, much to the chagrin of the Arab world, and to no surprise to me, that Saddam was a pussy, and not ready to go out in a blaze of glory. I tend to think OBL to be much the same. The legend of his battle prowess if largely the stuff of urban legend. He's a rare breed though. He's proven that he can live in caves for years now. Maybe he really is that Billy the Kid of the Muslim world, and just wont be taken alive. This certainly promises to be an interesting Spring.

Would a convenient capture 1 month for the elections not backfire?

I mean, even the more intellectual challenged voters could guess that they are treated like dumb cattle ?

...Maybe they dont care :eek:

Could it be that the endgame is truly at hand. Are you sticking to your story Hype? Could the French possibly be on the verge of their best military accomplishment in 200 years? Read and find out.

From the article: General Henri Bentegeat said on Monday about 200 French troops were operating with U.S. forces in southeastern Afghanistan against the Taliban and bin Laden's al Qaeda. The Saudi-born militant is thought to be there or just across the border in Pakistan


http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=476005&section=news

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/15/international/europe/15CND-FRAN.html

Hopefully the bin Laden mystery will be solved soon.

I think the nearest we'll get to a conspiracy theory is if the US has had a tip that he's dead and that played out and they're just holding their hand for the election.

But that would come apart quickly, especially in this day and age.

The only reason I can think of that bin Laden would be alive would be that I think the US estimates his sense of patience wrongly. He is prepared to hole up somewhere safe and give instructions to couriers who will walk the orders out and set them in motion somewhere away from him. The only way to catch him really is an "awareness network" designed to snare any sign of him.

Other than that, I think the bin Laden mystery may be a testament to the efficacy of terrorism.

15/19: "Are you sticking to your story Hype?...Read and find out."

There was absolutely nothing substantive in these or any other reports- instead only platitudes that security forces are doing marvelous work, and victory is at hand. My "story" is only an observation that Bin Laden savored the limelight as the notorious leader of mujaheddin, and relished taunting the West and Saudi royals with his survival. His present absolute obscurity, in an age of ubiquitous multimedia production and transmission, is impossible to explain any other way: Bin Laden emitted no verifyable signals after Tora Bora, and the most logical resulting conclusion is that he died without providing his enemies a satisfying spectacle.

The fixation on this vanished figure is symptomatic of a societies inept and desperate in grappling with the underlying issues of a decrepit and unstable Mideast power structure, that is being steadily undermined while the West responds ignorantly and self-defeatingly. Bin Laden has already made his mark; his work and damage is done. The USA's "War on Terror", especially when distracted into exalting and chasing OBL's ghost, will only further confound the West from more real and dangerous issues still ahead.

Unless present US policies are completely revised, US credibility and leverage will continue to suffer damage that no amount of military superiority can repair. This is not the subject of this thread- but the fixation on OBL is indicative of the unfortunate and perilous obsession of US policymakers, and most of the public, in avoiding the big picture.

I want some clarification from you on this point hype. We've been dancing around the issue for a while now. You said in a thread a few months ago that the U.S. should have provided a more of police action than a military response. I don't really understand what this means?

As for hunting down Bin Laden, you think he's dead. Fair enough. Neither one of us can say for 100% either way, but I think he's still alive. Regardless, don't you agree that it's imperative that the coalition hunt down all remnants of Al-Qaeda?

Al-Qaeda has never stated publicly that they have any desire to sit down for a parlay and call of the dogs. When that's the sort of organizational mindset that you are combatting, how can you do anything short of eradicating the threat?

"Police action" is a confused term, I wish I knew a substitute for it. What I mean by it is pursuing terrorists through the difficult, unglamorous process of following the leads and taking down the entire organization one link at a time, as opposed to ham-fisted military invasions and fixations on personalities for tangential reasons. The "War on Terror" as the Bush cabal is prosecuting it is analogous to going after flies in a crowded room with grenades, harming and alienating many potential allies while exaggerating and distorting the importance of particular elusive flies.

Because of the reckless response, and diversion into other agendas, that have corrupted the "War on Terror", the critical work that remains mostly undone is going to become exponentially harder. There never existed a possibility to somehow completely eradicate any strain of terrorists, but there always remains the imperative to consistently and deliberately do the international police and diplomatic work necessary to restore maximum possible security. For Israel's fans in Washington, the model of the capture of Eichmann was a far better example to follow, than the model of the Occupied Territories, in dealing with this set of problems.

The absolute worst thing that governments confronted with terrorism can do is to escalate such conflict into assymetrical warfare and foreign occupations. Over the coming years, I am convinced that we are all going to witness why this is extreme folly. I'm often accused of being a pessimist, or morbid, because of this expectation, but from my perspective it's just basic realism, like the knowledge that fire burns.

There is no magic bullet for eradicating terrorism, but there are many alternatives to the response my country initiated and is now persisting with. Inevitably after many warnings, failures, and disasters, the wrong-headed "counterterrorism strategy" (which on the inside is not even intended as such) now being applied from Washington will continue to become tragically obvious as compounding disaster to more people everywhere, until the policy will ultimately be abandoned, after much horrific and unnecessary carnage and destitution. This is not a smug prediction, so much as an increasingly common contemporary observation. My opinion is not by any means original, and there is no vindication in watching tragedy multiply.

I'm hesitant to start a thread again on alternative, or true counterterrorism if you will. Such a topic mostly bores and/or antagonizes those with personal issues regarding exceptionalism, fear, and rage. That's really the heart of it: More effective counterterrorism, and avoidance of underhanded diversions of public sentiment by corrupt leadership, requires frank recognition of the human fear and rage that fatally clouds our judgement so often in these situations. Terrorism seeks primarily to enrage, and counterterrorism can only be effective by acting first to deal with the internal battle with blind rage, and then to externally act deliberately and responsibly.

History is full of conspiracys. Its true that most conspiracy theories don't amount to anything, but a theory shouldn't be dismissed simply because it involves a conspiracy.
There are all kinds of way that his capture could be orchestrated to benefit Bush's election. Perhaps they haven't captured him yet, but know where(or have a good idea of where) he is, and are delaying sending troops to that specific area. As to the military not listening to Bush's petty demands to keep his capture quiet until the election, he(or his advisors) wouldn't tell them that its for that reason, but rather that revealing his capture at this time would be too dangerous, as it would lead his followers to strike out to avenge his capture, and we need to wait until we either find out their plans from him or are better prepared.
However,I think the most likely scenario is really that they've had a general idea of where he is for a long time now, and are only now dedicating the necessary resources to capturing him, so as to have it occur at the most oppurtune time.

Thankfully, the concept of Washington meddling in war on a tactical level was shitcanned after Vietnam. The Generals run the wars now, as it should have always been. Some people need to believe conspiracy theories because, much as Stokes explained in another thread, the reality of much of the day to day life of military operations just doesn't make good press, and so some of us like to imagine crazy, Tom Clancy-esqe scenarios to make the whole story more readable.

http://csmonitor.com/2004/0316/p06s01-wome.html

More pertinent reading. Enjoy.

" We will prevail"

Translation into WWII GERMAN propaganda:

----DER SIEG IST UNSER!----

The only reason why those story's pop up is because they are being leaked.

the only reason why those story's are not bullshit, is because of the sane logics behind it.

Any soldier will try to downplay this for obvious reasons: otherwhilst their tactic wouldn't play the right cards into their hands.

ANY reason to downplay these, in every aspect of the way valuable arguments, is granted: it's like the virgin is loose on a field chased by horny inmates, set free especially for this occasion.

"Shoot the birdy, kule-kule-kule!!"

pff, so obvious.

Too early to tell for sure, but it looks like Pakistani forces may have Zawahiri surrounded and engaged in a protracted firefight. This might do as much to cripple what's left of Al-Qaeda as capturing Bin Laden. From what I've always understood, Zawahiri was the organizational brains of the operation. Once again, it's going to be an interesting spring.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,114571,00.html

If only it were that simple. Busharraf's forces fighting Al-Qaeda is like hitting a raging grease fire with water: Islamic militancy in violent opposition to US intervention & collaborators is rapidly spreading far beyond Al-Qaeda.

Thankfully the literate citizenry of Pakistan is behind Musharraf in this endeavor, and that's all that really matters. When a nation like Pakistan, that has made significant strides in becoming more than just another third-world country, starts making policy based on what a handful of illiterate, provincial hill-people favor, then all hope for that nation is lost. The people of the NW Provinces may choose an agrarian, 12th century existence, and on principle there is nothing wrong with that. But when they harbor terrorists, they expose themselves to the realities of the 21st century world that the rest of us live in.

If the Amish communities of Ohio and Penn. were harboring terrorists, they would feel the wrath of the FBI, and rightly so. Who would be defending their right to do so?

If Russia is invading Pennsylvania to hunt Amish terrorists in a very twisted parallel univers, you can be sure that every red-blooded, or at least red-necked, alternate-universe American is intent on killing Russians in lots of nasty ways, and that the more pacific Americans are none to happy about the psycho-Amish or Russia's Coalition Forces.

You didn't read any of these links, did you Hype?

Pakistani troops are rooting out terrorists in Pakistani territory. Your comparison is non-sensical.

Hmm, I just checked again, and yes, I had read all the links in this thread. As reported, there is much risk of blowback for Musharraf for such a heavy-handed campaign to apprehend Zawahiri and other extremists. As usual, the attempt is being made to compensate for miserable intelligence with overwhelming force. I will of course be glad if Zawahiri is apprehended or killed, but I am sceptical because the price in terms of instability in Pakistan will be very dear. This was a job for a greeedy turncoat AlQaeda member, at the very least to get a sniper, or other surgical weapons platform, a shot at the bad guy. This is just more overkill that will breed more trouble than it eliminates.

Of course they put up a big show,...

Duh!

Thankfully the literate citizenry of Pakistan is behind Musharraf in this endeavor, and that's all that really matters.
Would this be the same Pakistan that employs Abdul Qadeer Khan (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3343621.stm)?
The one who is
regarded as a national hero for helping Pakistan become a nuclear state.?
The same Abdul Qadeer Khan who was
promoted to the inner circle of the country's military leadership as special science and technology adviser to President Pervez Musharraf. ?
You know the fella. The guy who went on to realise that he could sell his expertise elsewhere (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3481499.stm).
Lets face it President Bush himself laid out some of the evidence....
Libya showed the Americans and British a design for a nuclear warhead, which is believed to have originated with Dr Khan. Mr Bush said the Khan network even sold raw uranium at one stage, though to whom is not clear.

Guess it must be the same Dr Khan.
So what happened to him after that? Oh yea
The Iran operation pre-dated the one with Libya and was less sophisticated because it seems that Dr Khan simply gave the Iranians surplus equipment. He had over-ordered some parts for his own needs, so he had something to sell. He had also developed new centrifuges which meant that the old ones could go on the market.
then
He is believed to have helped North Korea, which supplied Pakistan with missiles. Such an exchange could hardly have taken place without government to government contacts.
This is pretty shocking if you ask me! I only believe it because He said he took full responsibility for proliferating nuclear weapons to Iran, Libya and North Korea. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3459617.stm).
Well we all know what happens to evil proliferators (yes you know too Saddam even though you had nothing to proliferate) they have to apologise on TV then we err... give them their jobs back and let them go!

and you support these people in their 'endevours' 15/9?
How could you do that!

Oh I see The US Secretary of State Colin Powell says Washington will elevate its military ties with Pakistan, making it a major ally outside of Nato. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3522174.stm)

Well if your government is in love with a nuclear proliferating Islamic dictatorship then I can understand how it is your thankfull for their help in trying to catch one cavebound, hairy muslim on dialysis.

Sorry to have bothered you 15/9
Dee Cee