Gates admits that it's been years since the US had any reliable

[malaise]

information about Osama Bin Laden's whereabouts.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8397684.stm
<snip>
The US has had no reliable information on the whereabouts of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in years, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has admitted.

Mr Gates told ABC News in remarks to be broadcast on Sunday: "Well, we don't know for a fact where Osama Bin Laden is. If we did, we'd go get him."

A Taliban detainee in Pakistan told the BBC last week that he had information Bin Laden was in Afghanistan this year.

However, Mr Gates said he could not confirm that information.

When asked by ABC's This Week programme when the US last had any good intelligence on the whereabouts of the al-Qaeda leader, Mr Gates said: "I think it's been years."

----------------
I'm assuming Benazir Bhutto was not credible. She told David Frost he was dead.

[omega minimo]

1. Now she is, too

Benazir Bhutto is dead. And the former head of the CIA is Defense Secretary.

What interesting times we live in.

[malaise]

2. Indeed

Funny how they always managed to find Bin Laden tapes when Bushco needed them.

[SpiralHawk]

10. "Yeah, funny about that. Smirk." - xCommander AWOL

[Cobalt-60]

3. He appears to have been dead since '03

I couldn't dredge up a link now to save my life, but it was in an Egyptian newspaper.
That would track, an older man in poor health roughing it out in the caves without
dialysis probably wouldn't last long.
The insultingly clumsy fake Osama messages released just before every election
by Pukes have convinced me that Osama is long gone.

[malaise]

4. I remember that

I have it saved on another computer.

[B Calm]

5. They have to keep their boogeyman alive, even if he is dead! If it

wasn't Osama, it would be somebody else. We have to have a reason to waste billions of our tax dollars enriching the war profiteers.

[Echo In Light]

6. "I think it's been years." Very Reagan-esque: "I think I don't remember."

[tekisui]

7. All those tapes that have been released in those years,

and our military and intell services got nothing?

Either they suck at their jobs, or the tapes are phony.

[malaise]

8. I've always believed

that the tapes were phony.

[shadowknows69]

9. Now comes the big back stab that Obama should have been expecting

Bush holdovers like Gates who, now that he's made the call and owns this escalation, will proceed to put doubts in American's mind about why we are there? Not me I already hate it, but rest assured this will be used against him now. Something we've all known for years. You can sell sheeple America a war based on "We're going to get the boogeyman", but now that Gates is going to help take that away people will just feel resentment for their loved ones being deployed.

Reason #3942 why we need to BRING THEM HOME NOW!!!

[stray cat]

11. Why would a Pakistan leader say he was dead and not in their country?

Duh.

[stray cat]

12. How about the "good doctor" who was probably more the real thinker than Bin Laden

[AllentownJake]

14. Tell me what Kennedys, Bushs and Roosevelts are involved in the war effort on the ground

not literally but their equivalents and I'll measure the threat to the empire of this criminal.

[4_TN_TITANS]

13. Bin Laden Bin Dead

It's been posted many times before and is pretty common knowledge in the Middle East. If I remember right, he croaked just a few months after the initial US invasion.

[Echo In Light]

15. Bump

[Selatius]

16. Perhaps it is best for our leaders that Osama remains hidden and uncaptured.

If Osama were to ever get to a fair trial, he will be convicted of murder, but he will also give up the names of the people who have supported him over the years, given him weapons, and even taught him how to be a more efficient killer. He will give up the names of some of the people who benefited politically and financially from 9/11 and the Iraq War, and they do not want that kind of information entering the popular imagination because it could lead to a break down of order because the illusion of a functioning republic would be irreparably damaged or destroyed.

They do not want to see that happen. The Mullahs in Iran made the mistake of destroying their illusion of democracy by blatantly rigging an election to favor Ahmadinejad, and they were almost overthrown when Iranian citizens rebelled in the streets.

[mmonk]

17. She mentioned his son running one of the groups as well

as mentioning bin Laden's death.

[Orsino]

18. Have they thought about asking Sen. McCain? n/t