Raise Your Hand, Icon, Avatar, Kick, Rec, Whatever... If You Are Cynical Enough To Believe...

[WillyT]

That the Bush Administration was perfectly Ok with letting Osama Bin Laden escaping Tora Bora and living... because it would be a perpetual boogie-man to justify their re-election, and our continued assault upon our on laws, beliefs, and our Constitution.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

1. I'm most definitely cynical enough to believe that

And given the wide corridor that was apparently left open for him, there's good reason for cynicism.

[alfredo]

7. The order to stand down came from the suits in Washington. Our soldiers were

ready to take OBL down

Read this book "Jawbreaker" by Gary Berntsen.
http://www.amazon.com/Jawbreaker-Al-Qaeda-Personal-Account-Commander/dp/0307351068/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335922438&sr=1-1




OBL was worth more alive and a potential thread, than dead to Bush/Cheney. They ruled by fear, and they needed a scary enemy.

[AnotherDreamWeaver]

59. I think Cheney was involved in 9/11 along with the comptroller of the Pentagon

The comptroller owned a company that manufactured devices to take control of a plane, and the pilot couldn't do a thing about it. The purpose he was paid for such devices, so that a plane could be safely landed and a hijacker couldn't take control. Rabbi Dove I believe his name was...

[AlbertCat]

73. I think Cheney was involved

Anything goes. Machiavellian is the Cheney way.

[alfredo]

83. Read the book "Imperial Hubris" and you will see it was stupidity and arrogance that

led to 9-11. What makes people think bush/cheney was involved was the speed at which they exploited the disaster to their political advantage.

[loudsue]

93. That's bullshit. FEMA told the talking heads that they had been set up in NY for over 24 hours

to be ready for the attack. I watched him say it. It was taken off the news and never shown again.

The stock puts on American and United Airlines. Bush & Cheney KNEW, and there is a lot of evidence that they knew.

[alfredo]

98. I guess in time the truth will come out, but there is enough info putting

The blame on the Saudis and gross stupidity on our part.

[rhett o rick]

96. Too many things came off like clockwork to be stupidity. Too many people profited. nm

[alfredo]

100. The profit came after the fact.

[rhett o rick]

103. Not the insurance coverage on the WTC towers. nm

[crunch60]

104. I read that as least three key witnesses to 9-11, "committed suicide" before they could testify.

Does anybody have any more information on this?

[KeepItReal]

110. Already read it!

Someone said that it was almost as if there were people in the Bush administration that were helping the other side....

[Cleita]

2. Raising my hand.

There's enough early eye-witness evidence that this is exactly what happened until it was all nicely scrubbed from the sources. I still have some articles, however, from those days of Afghans who were there telling reporters that they had him cornered but needed the Americans to back them up to finish the job. They never showed up and OBL then got away.

[alittlelark]

3. I'm logical enough to believe it.

[gateley]

4. Yep. And although I'm not a "truther", I really think that when 9/11 occurred,

Cheney, et al, dropped to their knees in gratitude for the "opportunity".

[pa28]

5. I've always believed it.

From calling off the troops at Tora Bora to telling us outright that Bin-Laden was not a priority to closing the CIA unit responsible for hunting him down.

When I hear Republicans complain about the President "spiking the football" I start to believe they are sorry the mission succeeded. That they'd much rather be criticizing him as an inept bungler rather than acknowledge Obama actually did something right.

[rurallib]

20. what he said!

[WillyT]

26. + 1,000,000,000... What You Said !!!

Yep...

[Whiskeytide]

39. Observation of the day...

... "they are sorry the mission succeeded". Boy, are they ever.

[WilliamPitt]

69. ...and having an Emmanuel Goldstein running around alive and free

was very helpful. To them.

[Mz Pip]

74. The GOP wanted to be the ones

spiking the football. They had their chance but it didn't occur at a convenient time.

The GOP has shown an incredible lack of class regarding the killing of their favorite boggieman.

[Initech]

92. Yup - Bush was a president by and for the Military Industrial Complex.

And boy did they get it. And they want Romney because he'll keep it going to Iran and Syria. We just arrest the whole fucking lot of them and we can start holding our own Nuremberg style trials - that's the only feasible way to end the war on terror.

[Baitball Blogger]

108. I always wondered if there was some political favor he was extending to one of the

Saudi princes?

[Old and In the Way]

113. Saudi Arabia provided the hijackers (17 of 19)

and this is what they got in return-

(1) Safe passage for House of Saud and bin Laden family members when the US air transportation was completely down.
(2) Exiting of US military bases in SA
(3) Take out of SA's #1 neighbor enemy - Saddam Hussein.
(4) Increase in oil revenue because the #2 producer, Iraq, went off line.

Not a bad pay-off for the country who supplied their citizens for the 9/11 attack.

[stlsaxman]

6. And I am also cynical enough to believe...

that IF McCain had killed OBL (highly, highly unlikely) today would be nothing less than a National Holiday.

[LASlibinSC]

8. Yep

thats me. God knows thats an awful thought but there it is

[freshwest]

9. Since the only thing they had to sell was 'fear itself,' and couldn't come up with a cogent reason

For destroying a former ally and his family business partner, OBL was a convenient excuse to start a war.

No matter what the arguments about the death of OBL, seeing he was the public justification for the war, the announcement said plain and clear to me, now we have an excuse to end the war.

It was a turning point and I didn't rejoice in that act; any more than the war itself, but the beginning of the end, the first step back from PNAC.

So if he's swimming with the fishes, living his life in an undisclosed location with Darth Cheney, or whatever, I don't care, no matter how outrageous that sounds. Obama announced the USA isn't going to keep going this road after OBL. Although the MIC is by no means slain at this point. It will take a transformation of world societyto end that, it's not over yet.

[varelse]

10. I always thought that

so did a fair number of other people I know...

[deutsey]

66. Same here n/t

[Archae]

11. Don't blame malice...

When simple stupidity sounds more plausible.

And in the case of Bush and Bin Laden, it was simple stupidity.

[OnyxCollie]

77. Don't blame stupidity (a form of innocence theory),

when a class interest, i.e., an objective monetary incentive, leads rationally-motivated behavior.

Do you think Halliburton, et al. are stupid? They made billions.

[Archae]

84. Cheney and Halliburton exploited Bush.

Bush was too stupid to realize he was being used, by Halliburton and Cheney.

I don't think Bush made any money off of the Iraq invasion.
But he was just-too-willing to be led around by the nose by Cheney and Cheney's goons.

[Dont call me Shirley]

90. Sorry bush is no dummy, he just created his supid act so he wouldn't be saddled

with all the blame for the evil he caused. He is a criminal genius, just like the rest of his family and his best friends, cheney, rummy, condy, brownie, eta,l ad nauseum.

[Archae]

94. Bush burned out his brain on cocaine.

That's no act.
The cocaine and booze burned him out, without his Daddy and Daddy's cronies, not to mention Rove and Cheney, Bush would have died face down, broke in the gutter.

"Gentlemen's C" in college, = a degree bought by rich parents.

He was always bailed out by his family.

This is a evil genius:



This is not:

[Old and In the Way]

114. Obviously, a lot of people have bought the "stupid" argument. I agree with you.

His moronic personna has paid off well in executing the greatest Treasury financial heist in US history.

[CoffeeCat]

119. Bush junior had no role

In planning or carrying out the nefarious PNAC/neocon agenda. Bush Jr was electable; the guy you'd "like to have a beer with". He was the likable, little mutt that would be the face, while the PNAC crowd pulled the levers behind the curtain. Daddy Bush, Baker, Kissinger, George Schultz, and corporate/banking overlords decide who is President and they're the ones with the true power.

Eisenhower warned us of the MIC. Jimmy Carter said he was astounded at how little power the president actually has. And President Obama--how many really believe that he's calling the shots? We're supposed to believe that a Constitutional scholar--and someone who spoke out against Habeas Corpus being gone--is willingly violating the Constitution and kow towing to the corporations because that's what he's always wanted to do?

Oh please. The presidency and the election are theater for the masses.

[man4allcats]

12. I'm not sure I'd call it cynical.

I think it's just a logical extension of what BushCo was and is. Is you say? "Is" not because BushCo per se is still in power but rather because BushCo as an ideology has become the personification of today's Republican party - greed, corruption and winning at any costs including the total abandonment of morality, ethics and democratic principles. And so yes, I agree. That could well have been their game plan. Junior was probably not smart enough to think of it, but Darth Cheney certainly was, and he definitely wouldn't have hesitated to utilize it as a strategy.

[Motown_Johnny]

13. I can't speak to the motivation but it does appear that he allowed the escape

Maybe he really was that incompetent but the other people in the chain of command weren't.


I'm not convinced either way but I do believe the possibility exists.

[pacalo]

14. Bin Laden was Bush/Cheney's political tool for raiding the U.S. Treasury & for getting their

extreme totalitarian policies passed in Congress.

[Old and In the Way]

115. +1 nt

[lady lib]

15. Of course they were. n/t

[jp11]

16. I'm cynical enough to think the administration did what it could

to essentially tie the hands of the military, perhaps even withhold certain intelligence, not just to ruin our country through our laws/freedom but so they could do what they wanted for real profit. I think they the war machine and profiteering of two wars, had we killed him and routed the al-qaeda along with the taliban in Afghanistan which we did a pretty good job of in the beginning 'invasion' then pretty much pissed away, they would have had a harder time selling the Iraq war WMD BS or not.

How are you going to say Iraq is a 'threat' when OBL was responsible, we just killed him, essentially destroyed his group and the government in Afghanistan that allowed him the stay there? It could have been sold as 'the terrorists' are still out there, fear fear fear they might get WMD from Iraq fear fear fear but it might have been too much of a risk if OBL was dead.

I think the larger motivation was the huge pile of american gold that invading Iraq would net defense contractors.

Had we stayed on track in Afghanistan we could have left much sooner(2008-10 at the latest) and had as much of a 'stable and secure' country there as we are really ever going to have minus a generation of people there who see us as nothing but invaders/occupying forces as well as avoiding losses like the people we killed and the soldiers we lost.

[nevergiveup]

17. You got a big K&R here.

[Brother Buzz]

18. There's an old saying in Tennessee

"There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee...that says, fool me once, shame on...shame on you. Fool me...you can't get fooled again."- G W Bush, 2002

[TheKentuckian]

19. I resemble that remark

[derby378]

21. Wouldn't put it past the guy

Then again, he did too many things that all seemed to ridiculous to be accidental. I never did trust him.

[pasto76]

22. No cynicism needed to believe it

clearly. and I mean CLEARLY, the right needs various boogeymen to justify their insanity. Not a single gun control thing has come up, even after Giffords was shot in the head. People I know are still screaming about Obama trying to take their guns.

anyway, somebody had convinced Bush that OBL wasnt that big of a deal, and of course the Romney line of "going into pakistan after OBL is naive"...seriously. No cynicism needed to believe it. They told us in plain english

[ZombieHorde]

23. I am cynical enough to believe that, however, I don't really know if that is true. nt

[irisblue]

24. yeah

both of us here can believe it.

[Alcibiades]

25. It's not just that he escaped Tora Bora

You also have to believe that US intellegence had no idea that bin laden was in Pakistan, when the press was reporting this as a possibility for many years.

You also have to ask why it was that the Bushies demonstrated so much respect for the sovereignty and terrirorial integrity of Pakistan, when they pretty much did everything they wanted anywhere else in the world.

You also have to ask why the US trusted the Pakistani government so much, and cooperated so much, even when an idiot could see that they were playing, at best, a two-sided game.

But I do think it's incompetence here. In order to get bin Laden, we had to stop cooperating so much with Pakistan, because the folks who were helping him (and by the way, how come we never hear about them?) would have let him know if the US was on its way to get him. It is an irony of history that, in this instance, the folks who loved unilateral military action were outdone by a Democrat in an instance when unilateral action was absolutely warranted.

Watch the video, which you have seen before, of Bush admitting that he had no idea if we got even close to getting bin Laden.

Anyone who says "I'm not trying to hide anything" is being deceptive. He seems honest enough for once about the rest of it, but the key truth he seems to be withholding is that we were not even looking in the right place and he knew it.

[guitar man]

27. Here!

I've thought that all along, he was a useful prop and propaganda tool for them

[Marie Marie]

28. You forgot to mention the increase in the Bottom Line of Haliburton and Blackwater.

That Boogie Man helped feed the Industrial Military Complex. Wouldn't you just love to know how much money Cheney received from his interests in Halliburton? It is all just so sick and now they complain that Obama is politicizing 9/11. Shameless.

[Diclotican]

29. WillyT

WillyT

Off course they was given Osama Bin laden a "free pass" true Tora-Bora.. Or more to the point, they let the pakistanis give Osama Bin Laden a free pass true Tora-Bora as the Administration of GWB was not giving the soldiers on ground the ability to go after Bin laden either to catch him, or to kill him. And for 8 year, they played americans - and the rest of the world with expertise no one have seen for years and years..

And most americans was just to scared to think for them selfs so they could put 2 and 2 to be 4, and not whatever the Republican Administration wanted it to be...

You dosen't need to be synical to get it - just to try to follow the treads in the web... Not that difficult really..

Diclotican

[RainDog]

30. I thought it was to keep the fear alive to justify the invasion of Iraq

after that - who knows - ask the ISI in Pakistan.

[northoftheborder]

31. Hand up here for above possibilities.

[robinlynne]

32. A CIA agent testified on TV that they were ordered to let Osama through. no need to be cynical. it

happened.

[Blue_In_AK]

33. Oh, I could believe that.

There's not much I would put past the Republicans and their dirty tricks. It's amusing that they accuse President Obama of playing politics with Osama bin Laden -- what on earth have they been doing all these years since 9/11? The Republican leaders are consummate hypocrites, and the rank-and-file members of the party are either willfully ignorant or extremely narrow-minded. I know of several principled Republican legislators in Alaska's state senate, but I don't know how they can still affilate themselves with the party.

[The Wizard]

34. K&R

[ErikJ]

35. Bin Laden 1st escape in October 2001?

I think I remember something about Bin laden escaping in Oct 2001 shortly after the US attacked Afghanistan. I cant remeber the details. Anybody?

[Hippo_Tron]

36. Strategically it doesn't make any sense

If your recall back to 2004, one of the major weaknesses against Bush that the Democrats worked to exploit was his decision to divert the focus from Afghanistan to Iraq and implicitly tried to argue that they failed to get Bin Laden because of it. This flaw was probably the only reason that Kerry was able to come even close to winning.

Had they captured Bin Laden, Bush would've won by 10 points. And as for continuing the permanent war on terror, we've captured Bin Laden and we still have....

GITMO open, troops in Afghanistan, drones firing a-plenty in Pakistan, and much of the Patriot Act and increased government surveillance powers that we got after 9/11.

That's not meant as a slam on the current President, BTW. It's more illustrating the point that we now have a President who is visibly lukewarm on the war on terror and yet it's still going quite strong. If we still had the Bush cabal who were gung-ho about that, shit imagine where we'd be today even if Bin Laden were captured.

[RZM]

37. I don't believe that. At least not exactly

Bush was in office for over 7 years after 9/11. I think that after Tora Bora, they were already looking towards Iraq. But once the 2004 campaign got going, it would have been quite politically expedient to get Bin Laden and bring his body home as a trophy. I think that holds for his second term, especially towards the end, when his numbers were in the toilet and he was beginning to think about legacy.

[Crunchy Frog]

38. It was always my assumption that was the case. I didn't really see how any other conclusion

was possible.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

40. I've been cynical since about 1979

It only gets worse with time.

[Jamaal510]

41. I've been thinking about this today,

and now I'm wondering how * was still re-elected on the theory that the nation would be safer with a Republican president, even though 9/11 occurred under a Republican's watch. I just find it amazing that *'s presidency wasn't harmed enough by that to cost his re-election bid.

[Skittles]

58. EASY!!!

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201107140027

[Canuckistanian]

42. Not much of a conspiracy buff

But I believe this to be the truth myself.

[ErikJ]

44. Me too

Never did believe in 911 conspiracy but I DO believe in Bush team letting him escape several times to serve as usefull bogeyman for RW idiots.

[ErikJ]

43. Randi Rhodes said something about 2005 today too

But I tuned in too late.

[Rex]

45. Well the M$M sat on a story that worked in his favor

so much for free fucking press and all that. I believe a lot of shit about the BFEE and some of the crazier, nastier shit is true.

[yourout]

46. Oh yeah......most definitely.

[alp227]

47. 10 years later, their new source for cheap points is the recession

Mitch Mcconnell's goal was to make Obama a one term president, and he and his fellow CONgresscritters are blocking ANYTHING that might bring back jobs...otherwise, Romney can't talk about unemployment!!!

[emulatorloo]

48. Yes, I am cynical enough to believe that.

[abelenkpe]

49. Our daily two minutes hate nt

[AndyTiedye]

50. Bush** Admitted That "He Was Not Very Concerned About Osama Bin-Ladin"

No need to call it cynicism or conspiracy theory when you have it straight from the horse's ass mouth.

[teewrex]

51. Oh hell yeah!

[DonCoquixote]

52. sadly, yes

And if mitt wins, i think they will do so again. Hell, I would not be surprised if some attack was the october surprise, something to make us support Israel as it attacks Iran, or something to say 'see Obama did not let us bomb Iran, now New York gets another bomb."

[movingviolation]

53. I totally believe this.

Not only that, but I believe they let 9 / 11 happen on purpose for the same political reasons. And I'm also cynical enough to believe that our modern democracy is a ruse, a sham, and a racket. Big money rules the world, always has, always will. We are all someone elses property, like monkey servants that have developed the power of speech.

I'm just a hoot at parties.

[LibDemAlways]

54. You don't have to be a cynic to believe it - just a realist.

The Bushes and Bin Ladins had business connections. No way was junior going to seriously go after him.

[leveymg]

55. You want cynical? Try believing the official account. Everyone in gov't is incompetent.

Now, that's cynical.

[joshcryer]

56. I can do you one better. Bush was the king of LIHOP.

[Zorra]

57. I'll see your LIHOP, and raise you one

MIHOP.

[byronius]

60. Duh.

[usrname]

61. Not cynical at all

That was precisely the game plan. It's also why Roe v Wade will never be overturned (but at the same time, it would be effectively gutted by defunding programs, creating laws that restrict abortion to only the most outlandish situations...)

The GOP is masters of creating boogie-man situations. Guns, God, and Gays are also from the same game plan. No one really wants to strip people of their personal guns. But they raise the "we'll be defenseless!" claim as red meat. Similarly, no one is starting a war on Christmas. But every year, we get the "Oh no! There's a War on Christmas!" Gays? Half the GOP are closeted gays, but they throw the gay-baiting claims of child sex perverts, destroying the family and so on.

Another one? War on Drugs. The only way the war on drugs will end is when the big Pharmas get enough of a handle on marijuana to become a profitable enterprise, they will then tell congress to end the war.

[Vidar]

62. No doubt.

[GeorgeGist]

63. This might be a clue ...

[CanonRay]

64. I'm so cynical that was my first thought at the time.

[Javaman]

65. He was my governor...

there is nothing here to be cynical about.

of course he let him escape.

read up sometime via the Austin Chronicles reporting of how george w. moron* got the stadium for the Texas Rangers.

Nothing will surprise you then.

[lunatica]

67. Well, this is the first election they haven't been able to drag Bin Laden out to terrify us

Although Guilliani and Romney tried to do something desperate yesterday in NY to remind us. It ended up making them look really lame being upstaged by Obama the way they were. Poor Rudy. His whole reason to exist is dead and gone. I'd almost feel sorry for him but I'd have to be a nasty ass teabagger to do that, and no matter how I try I can't force the tears out.

Oh well, I guess I just have to face the fact that anything that makes Rudy look like the shit he is makes me feel good. My bad.

[mopinko]

68. as the great lily tomlin said-

i get more and more cynical the older i get, but it is never enough to keep up.

[shcrane71]

70. I heard that HW Bush and members of the bin Laden family were

watching the WTC crumble on the same television. Seems they were both board members of the Carlyle Group. Is this just a conspiracy theory? Seems that it was a fact.

[Arkansas Granny]

71. Raising hand. The RW thinks it's always a good thing to have some issue to drag out and use to

whip their base into a frenzy. They have a whole closet full of them.

[tallahasseedem]

72. I believe they did.

I guess that makes me cynical!

[mahatmakanejeeves]

75. I have never believed otherwise.

.

[ieoeja]

76. I do not believe so. However, it proves that Romney's "any President" comment was incorrect.

The last Republican President knew O bin Laden was there and did *not* make the allegedly "slam-dunk" call to send in American troops.

Therefore, we don't even have to speculate on whether "any President" would make that call. It is already a matter of historical fact that one President chose *not* to make that call.


I believe W failed to make that call out of simple political cowardice. Cleaning out those caves was not going to be done without some loss on our part. And before you say "Iraq", let me remind everyone that only happened after months of propaganda getting the American people behind it and polling to verify that they were. They did not have that luxury at Tora Bora.

Ultimately, W put his career ahead of America.

[raouldukelives]

78. Kickety Kick!

Gotta keep those defense dollars flowing up to the top. An integral part of the Wall St/Military/Govt fusion that so many Americans, even some liberals, would rather profit from than protest.

[dreampunk]

79. Back then when it happened

any who watched teevee news with ANY sort of thinking mind could see that...they let MUCH of the surviving A-K get away....I thought it was treasonous then!

[lastlib]

80. Yeah, me!! me!!

I am convinced of it. If he didn't have bin Laden, he could never have won election.

[FlyByNight]

81. Yup

Hand raised here.

[Yavin4]

82. There Was No Money To Be Made for Capturing Bin Laden

But there were tons of money to be made from going into Iraq and later Iran.

[jwirr]

85. I have always believed that.

[RitchieRich]

86. makes me feel like I'm crazy, but...

absolutely. It just makes sense.

[SalviaBlue]

87. No question about it. He did just that.

[zeemike]

88. Yep that cynical...and more...but I don't like being in the dungeon.

[TBF]

101. +1 nt

[Uncle Joe]

89. I am.

Thanks for the thread, WillyT.

[KansDem]

91. I also wonder about the beheadings in and around the summer of 2004

Georgi Lazov, beheaded body was found on July 14, 2004

Shosei Koda, a tourist, was confirmed beheaded on October 30, 2004.

Kim Sun-il, a translator, was kidnapped on May 30, 2004. He was beheaded in a video released June 22, 2004.

Kenneth John Bigley, a civil engineer, who was kidnapped September 16, 2004. The two Americans kidnapped with him were beheaded and Bigley was beheaded around October 7.

Nicholas Evan Berg, a businessman went missing on April 9, 2004. His widely-publicized beheading was shown in a video May 11, 2004.

Eugene Olin "Jack" Armstrong, a contractor for the construction firm Gulf Supplies Commercial Services of the United Arab Emirates,[28] was kidnapped on September 16, 2004. He was beheaded on 20 September 2004

Kenneth Bigley, unless the United States met their demands to free all women prisoners in Iraqi jails. Bigley was beheaded in October 2004.

Mohammed Mutawalli, a purported "Egypt spy", was beheaded in a video on August 10, 2004

Maher Kemal, a contractor, was reported beheaded on October 11, 2004

Durmus Kumdereli. Kumdereli was beheaded on August 17, 2004.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_hostages_in_Iraq

I wondered why all these beheadings with many videotaped taking place during this time...

[Old and In the Way]

116. Interesting...did Al Qaeda get tired of beheadings?

Timing is interesting...the run-up to the 2004 elections...then they stopped. I wonder why? Our presence in Iraq didn't change and lots of bad shit went down after the elections...but for some reason, those beheadings stopped. I also recall the Berg video and how people here wondered about where it might have occurred. As far as I know, none of these people or their stories about Berg have ever made it out publicly. Just sort of disappeared down the memory hole.

[KansDem]

120. I thought the same thing...

As far as I know, none of these people or their stories about Berg have ever made it out publicly. Just sort of disappeared down the memory hole.

It seemed like the beheadings started just before summer and ended just before the election of 2004. I've mentioned this over the years to friends and colleagues who shrugged it off as "conspiracy theory," but now that we know about secret CIA prisons in faraway lands, GitMo, waterboarding, Saudi involvement in 9/11, and the killing of American citizens suspected of "terrorism," who's to say?

One thing that always struck me as odd was the physique of the Al Qaeda members in the beheading videos:



...compared to a random photo of Al Qaeda members (who we can assume are living in the open mountain regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan and eating meals reflecting that kind of life):


http://tribune.com.pk/story/180830/hunting-terrorists-pakistanus-to-form-joint-intelligence-team/

I always thought the "terrorists" in the Berg photo looked like they could be the defensive line of a college football team.

I realize this is a bit of a stretch, but I always thought something wasn't quite right with those photos.

Add:

Bush's lack of response when told we were under attack on 9/11:


The fact he first said he saw the first WTC hit, then said later he was told about it:

I was sitting outside the classroom...waiting to go in...and I saw an airplane hit the tower...the TV was obviously on...I used to fly myself and I said 'There's one terrible pilot.’
YouTube (0'26&quot

I had been notified that a plane had hit the world trade center.
National Geographic promo (0'50&quot

Also:

Bush's statement that he wasn't interested in OBL:
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/05/02/162774/bush-bin-laden/?mobile=nc

...and his scraping of the Tora Bora raid that would have netted OBL
http://www.antiwar.com/sperry/?articleid=10981

Not to mention the close relationship between the Bush Family and the Saudi Royal Family and finally, 7 years of failing to get OBL.

So many questions and damn few answers, but you are correct, the beheadings stopped after the 2004 election...

[bvar22]

95. Osama Bin Laden was a member of the Saudi Royal Family.

The Bush Family, Oil Corporations, and the Saudi Royal Family have been doing business for decades.
In the Kabuki Theater of PR, Bin Laden was an outcast from his "Family",
but he was STILL "Royal Blood", and still financed exclusively by Saudi Money.


It would be a severe breach of Royal Protocol for Bush to Take Out anyone with "Royal Blood".
Osama was "Family".
President Bush had his orders.

[rhett o rick]

97. Cheney was involved and bin Ladin was a close family friend of Bushy. nm

[librechik]

99. of course--they were politicising it from the Megaphone Moment on.

I have been in knock down drag out fights with Rs who think it was more than OK for Bush to do THAT (which IMO was craven, politicizing and totally inappropriate.)

If they think it was OK for Bush to do that, I can't imagine why they object to Obama's somber recognition of the final resolution of Osama's fate. What hypocrites they are!

[Romulox]

102. 2012 is about the economy. Bin Laden is old news. nt

[NoMoreWarNow]

105. of course they did, and 9/11 was a fucking inside job

[felix_numinous]

106. Yes!!

<---not really necessary anymore, because everything Bush&Co did behind the scenes is now common knowledge. Not that it matters, they redefined law and order to suit themselves and maimed this country beyond recognition.

[zeemike]

109. Which explains why

Everyone started using the phrase "moving forward"...because there is no looking back...they got away with the crimes and we all know it.

[ailsagirl]

107. I agree

I also think that the "official" story of 9/11 is as true as the assertion that President Kennedy was murdered by "lone gunman" Lee Harvey Oswald, and no conspiracy existed. How gullible do The Powers That Be think we are?

[Old and In the Way]

111. I think he paid Pakistan to keep him under wraps.

The Bush administration boosted the anti-terrorism money we gave to Pakistan in the years after 9/11. Wouldn't surprise in the least if there was a "quid pro quo" attached to these funds. OBL was more valuable, on the loose, to the Bush administration than he was dead. Remember, Bush had the same basic military, analysts, and intel network that PBO had....what was different? The guy calling the shots at the top of the chain. I wonder if Bush declined any OBL kill missions after Tora Bora? Sure would be interesting to know that.

[EFerrari]

112. Of course.

And the side issue is that militarism is profitable for some folks who are not us and that although Bush is gone, the militarism rolls on.

[FedUp_Queer]

117. There's Always This...

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[obxhead]

118. The Bush admin stopped looking for OBL the day after they

announced they were looking for him.

They NEVER wanted him found.

[rury]

121. Kicked, recommended and believed!!

[Rhiannon12866]

122. K&R and checking in...

[WillyT]

123. Kick !!!