No direct link between 9/11 + OBL?

stevejazzx

civdef wrote:

If it was such an obvious fake - why hasn't the proof it was fake been all over the shop rather than on some obscure conspiracy sites?

Do you really think no-one would seize this perfect opportunity to nail the Bush administration if it was so easy to show as a fake?

Well the video has been highlighted by various causes but to prove in a court of law that the video is fake is an impossiblity. The Bush administration has ignored everything thus far, do you really someone can nail them over a video when the untied nations and the reat of the world has failed to 'nail'(your word!) them over an illegal war

stevejazzx

civdef wrote:

Boo hiss, down with democracy!

what do you think of Iraqs current democracy?

Is it legal/just?
Are people happy?
Is it recognised internationally by anyone apart from america as actually being a functional democratic state.
Does America have the right to froce a political system on a contry even if they believe they acting the best intrests of that people?
Do you think it will last?

civdef

Just look at the WMD in Iraq thing. Every little inconsistency in the Bush administration's case was torn to shreds by the world media. The same with Gitmo.

The media wouldn't have to prove beyond resonable doubt that the video was fake in a court, just point out inconsistencies, but they haven't. They have plenty of people who would be experts in video analysis, and it's inconceivable that plenty of them weren't looking at the video with a view to picking holes in it.

stevejazzx

SkepticOne wrote:

I'm in Malaysia at the moment. They like shopping here. The shopping malls are far better than anything you would see in Ireland. I'm writing this from outside a Starbucks for the free wifi.

Yeah freedom is great, well done, but at what price? The perpetual dumbing down of generations into perfect consumers?

Hobbes

civdef wrote:

Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity for the FBI.

Like I said. A senior person within the FBI. Not just some random lacky.

If it was such an obvious fake - why hasn't the proof it was fake been all over the shop rather than on some obscure conspiracy sites?

Funny you should say that.

Remember the whole Niger/Yellowcake incident. The documents that turned out to be fake, were so badly faked that a school child could of told they were fake. However after this was found out one of the senior heads of the CIA said "Why are we not investigating who faked these documents?".

Or another example, Karl Rove said on interview on TV that he didn't name Plames wife by her actual name so he couldn't be convicted of treason despite him saying that an email backing it up to said reporter he is still roaming free and part of the Bush Administration.

Or prehaps when it went from WMD in Iraq to maybe we will find a program of planning to make WMD to "Hes a bad man". Why wasn't the president investigating for straight out lying?

Its not just one lie, or one faked document. There are numerous instantces in relation the Bush Administration.

You are asking the right question though, why isn't anyone pulling him on this crap?

The guy in the OBL video if you ignore the fact it is the wrong hand used, different dialect you are still left with the fact that he doesn't even remotely look like OBL and that is the only evidence to date the administration have pulled out to say that OBL was connected to 9/11.

civdef

Answering your questions:

what do you think of Iraqs current democracy?

Is it legal/just? Yes it is, the people of Iraq voted in an election that was judged open and transparent by independent observers

Are people happy? Happy that their government was freely elected, with the overall political situation, with the price of bread, or with the certain knowledge inner peace is achievable? Very broad question.

Is it recognised internationally by anyone apart from america as actually being a functional democratic state. Eh, the UN and pretty much every other country in the world

Does America have the right to froce a political system on a contry even if they believe they acting the best intrests of that people? No, but the fact that large numbers of Iraqis freely turned out to vote suggestes to me that they weren't having democracy forcibly imposed.

Do you think it will last? I'm an optimist. So yes.

stevejazzx

civdef wrote:

Just look at the WMD in Iraq thing. Every little inconsistency in the Bush administration's case was torn to shreds by the world media. The same with Gitmo.

So if you accept this why so hard accept the video could be a fake, I'm not it is, just that there is every possibility that it is.

civdef wrote:

The media wouldn't have to prove beyond resonable doubt that the video was fake in a court, just point out inconsistencies, but they haven't. They have plenty of people who would be experts in video analysis, and it's inconceivable that plenty of them weren't looking at the video with a view to picking holes in it.

Various media sources all over the world questioned it authenticity. After 9-11 not many publications would permit material said to anti amercian in content or sentiment so most of the unbiased coverage commetned only on it's questionable origins

SkepticOne

stevejazzx wrote:

Yeah freedom is great, well done, but at what price? The perpetual dumbing down of generations into perfect consumers?

I will pass on your suggestion that they should go back to the fields and lead a decent non-consumerist lifestyle.

civdef

Like I said. A senior person within the FBI. Not just some random lacky.

No, you said CIA, have a look and check if you like.

civdef

Various media sources all over the world questioned it authenticity. After 9-11 not many publications would permit material said to anti amercian in content or sentiment so most of the unbiased coverage commetned only on it's questionable origins

Feel free to produce evidence of the above.

stevejazzx

civdef wrote:

Are people happy? Happy that their government was freely elected, with the overall political situation, with the price of bread, or with the certain knowledge inner peace is achievable? Very broad question.

Is it recognised internationally by anyone apart from america as actually being a functional democratic state. Eh, the UN and pretty much every other country in the world

Does America have the right to froce a political system on a contry even if they believe they acting the best intrests of that people? No, but the fact that large numbers of Iraqis freely turned out to vote suggestes to me that they weren't having democracy forcibly imposed.

Do you think it will last? I'm an optimist.

[/QUOTE]


Don't you find war an unusual climate for a general elction?
Iraqi people are not happy, only Fox news can imagine such a prospect.
International opinion is that Americans have created a mess.

stevejazzx

civdef wrote:

Feel free to produce evidence of the above.

You want to produce evidence that media sources have questioned the BIn laden tape? talk about shooting fish in a barrel....

Hobbes

civdef wrote:

No, you said CIA, have a look and check if you like.

Oh right so I make a mistake in a post and we should just ignore the evidence? :rolleyes:

Or where you trying to make some point?

civdef

Yep, go for it. I'm interested to see what inconsistencies they identified.

stevejazzx

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1711288.stm

I hope the bbc is ok a source

civdef

Hobbes wrote:

Oh right so I make a mistake in a post and we should just ignore the evidence? :rolleyes:

Or where you trying to make some point?

Evidence?

Anyway, I was just pointing out your apparent confusion between the FBI and the CIA. No point was intended at the time, but I suppose if I wanted to, I could say it draws attention to a certain carelessness with the facts or a potential inability to process the facts in the original article.

RedPlanet

Hobbes wrote:

The guy in the OBL video if you ignore the fact it is the wrong hand used, different dialect you are still left with the fact that he doesn't even remotely look like OBL and that is the only evidence to date the administration have pulled out to say that OBL was connected to 9/11.

In fairness, he doesn't look like OBL to those that are paying attention.
Some folks here in the west just see the white cap and long greying beard on an Arab looking man and therefore automatically believe it's OBL.
If you scrutinize the facial features, and pay attention to how fat the face in that video is, then the differences become apparent.

Remember during the Tsuami disaster when this Swedish child was missing from hospital? And this Thai doctor reportedly saw the child leaving w/ and adult male and the press were going bananas?
Later, when the child was found safe, the Thai doctor admitted that all white children look the same to him.
Just like you might hear a white person claim that black people look the same or that asians look the same and they find it hard to tell one from the other.
I think it's that very thing that makes westerns see "OBL" in that video.

civdef

I hope the bbc is ok a source

Oh definitely, I like the way the do balanced reporting. Now are any of the experts qouted actually questioning the video's authenticity?

stevejazzx

civdef wrote:

Oh definitely, I like the way the do balanced reporting. Now are any of the experts qouted actually questioning the video's authenticity?

what do they call that river in egypt?

oh time for lunch....

Hobbes

civdef wrote:

Evidence?

Anyway, I was just pointing out your apparent confusion between the FBI and the CIA.

No confusion. Just a mistype. As for evidence, the evidence was that a high up official said it. Not some random lacky, which you appeared to be trying to infer.

but I suppose if I wanted to, I could say it draws attention to a certain carelessness with the facts or a potential inability to process the facts in the original article.

Or it could just mean a typo based on the fact that I had read the document I linked to just under a month ago.

Of course when you have some facts I would be more then happy to read them.

banaman

The whole thing is just a continuation of "the Great Game" for control of a region that is not only strategically important geographically but also contains the most significant reserves of oil and gas. Its not just coincedence that the US is builing bases along the route of the gas pipeline from the North of Afghanistan to the Indian ocean. The recent wars in Iraq, Bosnia and Afghanistan have given the Us bases scattered throughout the region in all the ex-Soviet -Stans, eg Khazakstan. Interesting piece in todays Irish Independant comparing the latest situation in Afghanistan with previous attempts by foreign nations to impose and control the place.
History threatens to grimly repeat itself in Afghanistan

Wednesday July 5th 2006

British and Nato forces are being drawn into a war they cannot win, says Philip Hensher

THE war in Afghanistan has been surrounded by such evasions and rewritings that, you have to conclude, no one has any idea what the aim is any longer.

I seem to be the only person to remember that when the British troops went in, in 2001, the primary aim was not to topple the Taliban but to extract the leaders of al-Qa'ida.

When that proved unsuccessful, the primary aim was declared always to have been to get rid of an oppressive regime.

Very quickly, the war was claimed to have been a great success. We were asked to believe that the entire troubled country was now united after the liberation, the Taliban decisively defeated, when, in fact, it had mostly disappeared.

The world's attention turned elsewhere, and Afghanistan, we were told, was now OK.

Newspapers started running articles about intrepid tourists venturing back to Kabul for the first time in years. A little knowledge of Afghan history would have revealed that the Taliban were simply following the same tactics Afghans had always followed when faced with a foreign invader.

Having written a novel about the First Afghan War, 'The Mulberry Empire', this was perfectly obvious to me four years ago. Why, only now, as Taliban forces have started picking off Western soldiers in regions like Helmand, have people started thinking that a bit more attention to the country might be necessary?

This is how Afghans defend their country, whether against the British in the 1830s, the Russians in the 1980s, or now against the coalition forces. At the first strike, they abandon Kabul, and take to the mountains where no outside force stands any chance of finding them. They lay low for two or three years, allowing the outside forces to establish themselves in urban centres.

Then guerrilla action starts up in earnest, escalating from skirmishes to full-scale bloody encounters, the perpetrators melting away afterwards into the impenetrable landscape.

In the First Afghan War, this culminated in the mass slaughter of 16,000 over a week. That isn't likely to happen now, but it's not because we have any greater chance of rounding up our enemies in this wild country. It's largely because, when it comes to the point, we can evacuate in shame and dishonour.

What the West has underestimated is the degree to which our interventions look to many Afghans like history repeating itself.

Another foreign invasion, and if, to us, Hamid Karzai looks like an admirable, free-spirited leader, it is easy for the Taliban to make him look like yet another puppet, of which Afghanistan has seen many.

ANOTHER Najibullah under the Soviets; another Shah Shujah-ul-mulk under the British. It's not a matter of reality, and these comparisons are grotesque, but of perception.

Now the war is entering a new phase, and it is idiotic to suppose it will do anything but escalate, Britain and Naton have no choice.

The eye left the ball in Afghanistan two or three years ago, and the Taliban have taken the advantage.

There is no alternative to a substantial reinvestment of troops, and, more importantly, substantial investment in the substance of the country to show every Afghan the advantage of a non-Taliban future.

Without that, Britain and Nato are steadily sliding towards the same horrific experience as the Soviets.

They only have the advantage that they are not proposing to impose a similarly oppressive regime on the country.

But that, to a substantial number of Afghans, may not prove a sufficiently powerful point. They know what they think of foreign-backed governments. (© Independent News Service)

© Irish Independent
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/ & http://www.unison.ie/