February 25, 2004
PAKISTAN has sent helicopter gunships, ground troops and paramilitary forces to its remote northwest frontier provinces to hunt down al-Qa'ida fugitives, and perhaps Osama bin Laden.

The move comes after British reports that bin Laden had been cornered in the area and is likely to be captured or killed in the next few days.

At the same time, in the US, President George W. Bush told a meeting of governors that "we are on the hunt for al-Qa'ida ... we're going pretty good, better than pretty good".

Previously, Pakistan has claimed its military could not operate in the lawless tribal areas where both al-Qa'ida and the deposed Taliban from neighbouring Afghanistan have widespread support.

That claim would make the regime of General Pervez Musharraf one of the only military dictatorships to find a key piece of its own territory beyond its influence. This would be doubly odd given Pakistan's ability to operate beyond its borders.

Its notorious Inter Services Intelligence directorate effectively created the Taliban in Afghanistan, and has financed, supported and at times directed terrorist operations in several parts of the world.

But Pakistan under Musharraf has become the wild card of international politics. No one, but no one, knows which end is being played against which in Pakistani politics.

However, it may be that the two recent assassination attempts against Musharraf have convinced him that he has to destroy al-Qa'ida and the Taliban in his own country or they will destroy him.

There are other intriguing and mysterious dynamics at work. We have just learnt that Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, has sold nuclear weapons technology and materials over many years to Libya, North Korea and Iran. The Pakistanis have claimed Dr Khan did this without government knowledge.

Yet Washington and even New Delhi have more or less accepted this ludicrous explanation at face value, although privately both US and Indian officials scorn it.

Thus, the greatest and most destructive act of nuclear proliferation in the history of the human race has gone largely unprotested, largely unremarked.

The reason Washington and New Delhi have taken this benign attitude is that they believe Musharraf, for all his spectacular history of duplicity and military adventurism, is their best bet in turning Pakistan against terrorism, Islamist extremism and nuclear proliferation.

As a result, right now Musharraf owes Washington big time.

What better way to repay such a debt than by producing bin Laden?

The capture of bin Laden would totally transform the dynamics of the US presidential election.

It would vindicate virtually everything Bush has done since 9/11.

While the intricate conspiracies within conspiracies that constitute Pakistani military politics are beyond external analysis, there has always been a minority view, especially in Indian intelligence, which knows Pakistan better than anyone, that the Pakistanis either have bin Laden in custody or would be able to lay their hands on him if they really wanted to.

At the very least, they're making a new show of trying to help the Americans by fighting the terrorists. At the most, they could be offering a much bigger prize indeed.

Timing is everything!

Bush had him in the White House closet all along. He just let him out so he could chase him across the White House lawn and tackle him in front of the press for the publicity.

"It would vindicate virtually everything Bush has done since 9/11. "

Where ARE my waders?

What is the secret plan for the economy...or the environment/fish restoration..?

I wonder if Osama knows where the WMDs are?

Today is the 24th right??

paki

what rock you been hiding under dude... It is safe to come out now... Clinton is out of office!

:p

Did you invent a time machene? Cause today is the 24th.

Its the twent fifth in Pakistan, brotha.

That pesky international dateline....

I'll bet you didn't invent the dictionary... it's spelled "machine"

It is the 25th in Bagdad

Anyone else notice a suspicious, yet significant, country's absence from that list?


...Pakistan has no oil.


Yes, timing is everything in politics. Rove's got bin Laden in his back pocket just waiting for the right moment. To me, it still goes back to how many American's lives we could have saved, plus the billions of dollars, if we'd remained focused on capturing bin Laden and then concentrated on Iraq with International support.

Not when you posted it, it was still the 24th


Baghdad, Iraq
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq
The native name of Iraq is Al Iraq

Current time Wednesday, February 25, 2004, at 12:14:28 AM
UTC/GMT Offset Standard time zone: UTC/GMT +3 hours
No daylight saving time at the moment

Daylight Saving Time DST starts on Thursday, April 1, 2004, at 3:00 AM local standard time
DST ends on Friday, October 1, 2004, at 4:00 AM local daylight time

Sun Sunrise at 6:37 AM
Sunset at 5:55 PM

International country code: + 964 (Iraq)
Area code: 1


Latitude: 33° 14' North
Longitude: 44° 22' East

Love the avatar harley! LOL

One question though. When do you suppose the US is finally going to start stealing some oil from Iraq?? I am really getting sick of paying these prices and the US has been over there for just over ten years.

Can't stop laughing about that av

Can you quote the source? API, Reurters, Drudge? I've looked at the news wires and can't find anything about it.

The post seems like this article.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,8784132%255E2703,00.html

Dang, Pmartin, you're all over it.


Sunday I read from a UK paper that the Brits and US had bin Laden cornered in a 100 square mile area and being tracked by satellite. Then yesterday I read from the AP that Pentagon and Whitehouse officials deny the whole thing. So who knows.

I hate sounding like a conspirisist, but I still think Rove's got him, or his body, hid.

If they do I sure hope they kept him REAL cold!!!

PMartin: I thought you wanted these posts on the other board? I moved mine at your suggestion. Are you consistent on this?

PMartin didn't start the thread Dave, but I'm going to move it.

And yet... the death of another interesting topic...

Damned the NFR board!

Piper,

Ain't folks smart enough to get from there to here?

I don't get it.

Pipe/Slab

I'm with ya, maybe we need a road map

Thad be oem if we caught him! All the time i thought he was dead, hmm we will see soon hopefully!

Please note the date of the original post. Must have been a BIG corner. I guess.

DV,

If I recall correctly, the British "report" was in one of those tabloids that they are so famous for.

Probably sandwiched between stories of the alien abduction of Prince Charles and poparazzi pics of boobs.

SQ: The quote was from our president. My point was there seems to be a consistent drumbeat telling us about things that are about to happen that don’t. i.e. how many times were we told that it looks like we have found WMDs, only to be told it was a false alarm? Same with Bin Laden and this other guy we have had cornered for about three days now.

I don't totally blame the administration for this. No doubt they were clutching at straws to prove their allegations of WMDs, but another part of this is the media seemingly trying to make the war and the battle against terrorism, which are two VERY different things, into some sort of spectator sport.

Fox and CNN seem the worst with their constant "breaking news” stories. The news folks can get a lot more mileage out of something if they tell us what is about to happen, what is happening and what did happen. If they cry wolf too long we get turned off. I imagine we will find Osama one day. I sure hope we do. But by the time we do the press and the administration will have us believe it is a huge victory. I don’t think so. I think this Al Quida monster has too many cells to ever stop totally. Too bad we wasted so much time and energy in Iraq when we could have been fighting the real threat - Al Quida.

I think that we have been doing both and in the long run you will see that ridding the world of the Hussain family was a good thing.

My best friends' son is comming home from Bagdad at this very moment and I hate the fact that he has to hear this kind of BS about how he wasted his time.

We can rehash this over and over again and I will back our policy and you will hate GWB. Put a politcal sign in your yard, enjoy your freedom, go fishing, and vote in November.

PS: I am a disabled veteran. I am so very proud of our men and women in uniform and truly appreciate their sacrifices. Nothing is more tragic than seeing a 19 or 20 year old die so young, in service to their country. I also think our country is the finest in the world. If I could, I would shake your friend's son's hand and tell him thank you!

But, that sure as heck wont keep me from that very American tradition of questioning our politicians and wanting our country to do the right thing. My patriotism does not extend to the point that I must always believe our president is right. Do you think good patriotic Americans should have always backed whatever Clinton did? I sure don't! Wouldn't it be awful if your friend’s son came home to a country where there was no open dissent, no freedom of speech and only one, government sanctioned, set of opinions? A country like that would not be one I want to live in.

Dave..I didn't know you were a veteran. I can't imagine how it would be to actually shoot people and get shot at and also watch your buddies get blown away. It is so sick that the world is populated by so many people that want to kill each other. When I was at the Unioversity of Washington in the 70s I was surrounded by protest and it turns out for good reason. My most clear memories are of friends who had to go fight and die in Viet Nam. Some of them came back pretty scarred by what they did and saw. One friend was in on what you saw in Apocolyps Now..Heads on sticks and scalps on their belts...running PT boats up the Mekong Delta...That sucks bad. We are pretty darn lucky that we have young men and women willing to go through that kind of thing so we can sit here and complain about everything.

I suppose those that ran Nixon out of office were also anti-americans?

...and likely communists as well!

Plunker-

Forgive my skepticism. Goharley and I discussed several months ago his idea that Osama would somehow be produced at election crunch time. At first I was skeptical....but the writing is on the wall for just exactly that to happen. When they do find him, I wouldn't be surprised if he was sittin on every WMD 'iraq had', for the double political Coup De Gras...

H2O....that would be cool

DV,

So you're telling me that GWB said we had OBL cornered?


h2o,

oooh, I hope you're right....that would be more than cool.

Maybe they could save OBL and his cohorts in caskets until a little later in the year then have Bush land on another aircraft carrier where he could open the caskets for a photo op! Then he could high five all the troops assmbled on the deck....Take all the credit for the war on terror and call Kerry a pinhead....blame 911 on Bill Clinton wohooooo bring it ONNNN

GP, WHAT ARE YOU DOING??!!! You let the sinister republican secret out of the bag... Oh man. Now all the leftist (oopps meant lefties) are gonna think the whole thing was planned from the get go... :rolleyes: