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.
The piece, trumpeted as the most detailed account to date of the May 1 raid in Abbottabad Pakistan, was an instant hit. “Got the chills half dozen times reading @NewYorker killing bin Laden tick tock…exquisite journalism,” tweeted the digital director of the PBS show Frontline. The author, freelancer Nicholas Schmidle, was quickly featured on the Charlie Rose show, an influential determiner of “chattering class” opinion. Other news outlets rushed to praise the story as “exhaustive,” “utterly compelling,” and on and on.
What is interesting is that the U.B.L. raid was watched by so many in “real time”; Obama, Gates, Biden, Mullen Clinton and many others.
So why did it take almost 2 full days to clarify that he was not armed, and why did that story gain so much traction?The official blundering that is happening right now is reminiscent of the Bush era.
U.S. officials issued a revised version of the nighttime raid that killed the world’s most-notorious terrorist, including additional details that revealed other options were on the table before settling on the assault.
The 40-minute raid early Monday in Pakistan left Osama bin Laden dead, along with four others in the complex that sits on a mountainous region near the capital.
Bin Laden was not armed during the raid, but he put up resistance when U.S. forces entered the compound, the White House said. Officials had earlier said that bin Laden was an active participant in the firefight, implying that he was armed and gave the U.S. Navy SEALs little choice but to shoot him down.
According to an AP press release and a CNN blog update it is being reported that the body of Osama Bin Laden has been dumped at sea in accordance with Islamic tradition.
A U.S. official says Osama bin Laden has been buried at sea.
After bin Laden was killed in a raid by U.S. forces in Pakistan, senior administration officials said the body would be handled according to Islamic practice and tradition. That practice calls for the body to be buried within 24 hours, the official said. Finding a country willing to accept the remains of the world’s most wanted terrorist would have been difficult, the official said. So the U.S. decided to bury him at sea.
The official, who spoke Monday on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive national security matters, did not immediately say where that occurred.
Osama bin Laden’s body was buried at sea according to Islamic law because no country was willing or able to take his body for burial on land, senior Defense officials said.
“When there is no land alternative, Islamic law dictates that the body be buried within 24 hours, and that was the basis,” one official said. “
A second senior Defense official said there was no country willing or able to accept the body for burial, and U.S. forces “took pains to observe Muslim law.”
“Today’s religious rites were conducted on the deck of the USS Carl Vinson in the Arabian sea. The ceremony started at 1:10am and finished at 2:10am ET,” the second official said. “Procedures for Islamic body were followed. The body was washed and placed in a white sheet. A military official read prepared remarks, which were then translated into Arabic by a native speaker. The body of Osama bin Laden was placed on a flat board, which was then tipped up, and allowed to slide into the sea.”
That report is from 2006. The FBI still has “no evidence” directly linking Bin Laden to 9/11 and that brings up the question, ” on what grounds was this operation ordered?”
Looking at the FBI webpage today I find that they have updated his profile to “deceased”, yet there is still NO mention of 9/11. (Disclaimer: this links to the FBI web-page for Bin Laden)
It is worth noting the 2010 story about the FBI using a Spanish lawmakers web-photo as a “Bin Laden 10 years later” photo. Worth noting so we remember the level of credibilty that officials have in regards to Usama Bin Laden and the war on terror in general.
The news of Bin Laden being killed is unlikely to help, or soothe these 9/11 family members:
As a preface to the “news” of Osama Bin Laden’s death I have gathered headlines carried here on Nor Cal Truth and other respected bogs over the last few years detailing the saga of Osama Bin Laden. Please review these articles and become familiar with more details of this very complex story.
Announcing that “al Qaeda leaders have been killed in Pakistan drone strike” is like a reset button. People seem to forget all the civilians killed that it took to get another “leader.” And as the article below is pointing out; do we really know if this is happening with all these smoke and mirrors?
The next time you consider voicing opposition to the illegal bombardment of Pakistan with drone delivered U.S. missiles, consider this – the drones are effective. So effective, in fact, that they can kill terrorists who have already previously been killed.
Once again this week we have been reliably informed by U.S. officials via the ever present SITE intelligence group via the terrorists themselves, that a drone delivered missile has successfully taken out Al Qaeda’s number three man:
The operational leader of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan was killed in an American missile strike in Pakistan’s tribal areas in the last two weeks, according to a statement from the terrorist group issued late Monday that American officials believe is correct.
This video was published to YouTube on March 26, 2010, clipped from Russia Today.
By Stephen Webster source: Raw Story March 28, 2010
Whistleblower Web site WikiLeaks is planning to release a video that reveals what it’s calling a Pentagon “cover-up” of an incident in which numerous civilians and journalists were murdered in an airstrike, according to a recent media advisory.
The video will be released on April 5 at the National Press Club, the group said.
They also noted their members have recently been tailed by individuals under State Department diplomatic immunity, and that “one related person was detained for 22 hours” while authorities seized computer equipment.
London, England (CNN) – There are “compelling reasons” to believe the Israeli government was responsible for forging British passports used in a plot to kill a Hamas leader in the United Arab Emirates earlier this year, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Tuesday.
“Such misuse of British passports is intolerable,” Miliband said, adding that the fact that Israel was an ally of the United Kingdom “only adds insult to injury.”
The passports were “copied from genuine British passports” in a “highly sophisticated operation,” indicating a government was behind it, Miliband told the House of Commons.
Posted by Brian 
