Sept. 11, 2001
POSTED BY: Hero
UPDATED: Saturday, May 13, 2023 22:40
VIEWED: 8201
PAGE 8 of 11
rue
Yeah, you're naive beyond all comprehension if you think the Taliban would have given OBL over to anyone, and second, as mentioned already, the US wasn't a treaty party to the ICC, so it's all moot.
People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy. - Joss
" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "
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LeadB and Fletch2
I think you're missing the logic.
I hope I'm not making this overly complicated - BUT - if Iraq had had even a few WMD all of the illogic leading up to the attack would have been swept under the rug. By way of comparison, even though that did happen with bin Laden, it doesn't mean he was the real reason to attack Afghanistan. And you can see that by examining facts and timetables.
Assuming the US had bona fide evidence bin Laden was behind 9/11, the US could have had him if it had agreed to turn him over to the ICC. The US refused.
The US attacked Afghanistan October 7, 2001, toppled the Taliban and installed Karzai as interim chairman December 22, 2001.
During that period bin Laden slipped away from Tora Bora. Not only did the US not send in the elite troops requested by the military on the ground to capture bin Laden, it failed to guard escape routes "Pir Baksh Bardiwal, the intelligence chief for the Eastern Shura, which controls eastern Afghanistan, says he was astounded that Pentagon planners didn't consider the most obvious exit routes and put down light US infantry to block them", and trusted their paid allies (warlords) to capture and contain him. Unfortunately the 'allies' were for sale to the highest bidder and bin Laden simply outbid the US. Could the Three Stooges have been any worse ?
Bush, having the Iraq agenda already in play and anxious steer attention from bin Laden to Iraq came up with the statement "I don't know. I don't really think about him very much. I'm not that concerned." -President Bush, March 13, 2002
At that point I think you can clearly see neither 9/11 justice nor bin Laden were, and never had been, major concerns of the administration.
On December 28, 2002 the Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan inked a pipeline agreement.
And on March 20, 2003 the US attacked Iraq.
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Quote:
Originally posted by BigDamnNobody:Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
From www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10639901/
... The Afghans were less than reliable and this is why I was calling for ground forces. And I called for, you know, 600-to-800 rangers to be inserted in there, and had 600-to-800 rangers been inserted, we probably would have ended the thing.
So willing to accept conjecture as dogma when it fits your preconceived notions. Well, since it's an EXPERT conjecture of a MILITARY person who was THERE - yeah, I think I'd take it over yours -.
And you have ... what ? Bush's word on it that his intentions were honorable ? HA HA HA HA HA HA HA - what a tool.
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Ya should'a used protection.
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Rap, it doesn't matter if the US was or is treaty to the ICC or not - the ICC still had jurisdiction over Usama bin Laden.
And if the Taliban had failed to turn bin Laden over, the US and its allies (it really did have them back then) still did have the invasion option.
But look what happened afterward - Bush dropped the bin Laden issue like a hot potato as soon as it became inconvenient. Do you think Bush was REALLY after bin Laden ?
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'hero'
"Likely they could have surrendered bin Ladden to the ICC and met the spirit if not the letter of our demand." The Taliban offered to do so.
"the United States of America is not a party to the ICC's treaty and are thus not bound by its jurisdiction" The ICC was set up for just such an occasion (non-members protecting accused war criminals). It did have jurisdiction over bin Laden.
See above
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"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."
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So what you are saying is not that a commander on the ground decided not to risk 700 of his men to a hunch from a CIA operative, or that political considerations in Washington meant that the US played it's usual game of letting allies (in this case the Northern Alliance) take the heavy casualties at Tora Bora but that the administration fearing that capturing Bin Laden would mean "game over" in the war on terror let him go?
I see what you are saying. Getting Bin Laden in 2001 means no Iraq in 2003 but this is getting very heavily into "pirate" territory.
Reality is that in almost every war there are miscalculations. There are times when you think you have good intel and you're wrong, there are times when you decide intel is bad and you find out later you would have been right. Remember that the guy you are quoting doesn't KNOW that he is right about OBL, he in his own mind is sure but he could have gone to where he thought Bin Laden was and not found him.
I'm pretty sure Bush thought he would find WMD in Iraq, because going in and finding nothing seriously destroys his credibility going forward... something he wouldnt chose to do. Likewise just like Bush this guy believed he knew where Bin Laden was. Had he made a similar mistake, had he gone in taken heavy US casualties and OBL not been there, right now you'd be telling us what an idiot he was because YOU knew OBL wasn't there all along.... yes 20/20 hindsight is a beautifull thing.
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I guess Hell must be freezing over, because I find I must agree with Rue on the Osama issue.
It was a gross derelection of duty by Bush not to use every means available to capture Bin Laden. The entire Afghanistan "effort" was a pathetic response and poorly executed. Why the hell did Bush wait 30 days? I would have lobbed some offshore shells into Kabul on Day 2 after the ultimatum to the Taliban. The invasion force should have been much, much, larger...we should NEVER have paid off mercenaries to do the job for us, and as Rue pointed out...the miltary blunder of allowing him free access to escape is in itself unforgivable. I believe it all again goes back to idiot Rumsfeld....he was wrong on every single action we took there and Iraq as well.
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Well, I'm not making convoluted conspiracy claims, just asking for a healthy dose of reality checking. The claim is that bin Laden was not the focus of the attack on Afghanistan. And that's why I asked you to look at the data and logic both before and after Afghanistan, which, if I may add, is the same type of data (observations of the US) and logic that predicted no WMD. And to not limit yourself to a singular focus on Tora Bora but to look at the ENTIRE set of data I posted.
All commercial flights were grounded September 11- 14, 2001. On September 14, 2001 bin Laden family members started evacuating from the US. It's not until the next day that Bush announced Usama as the prime suspect:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010915-4.html
September 15, 2001
Q
Sir, are you satisfied that Osama bin Laden is at least a kingpin of this operation?
Bush
There is no question he is what we would call a prime suspect. And if he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he will be sorely mistaken.
In the non-public response, within hours of 9/11 Bush asked for and received approval from Congress to use military force against countries, despite the overwhelming evidence that the attack was perpetrated by 'stateless' terrorists. And as we know from already released memos, within hours Bush was already intent on tying Hussein in with 9/11 as an excuse to attack. As further evidence of his intent to attack countries of choice, during the time between 9/11 and the attack on Afghanistan, Bush continually escalated his rhetoric from 'bin Laden dead of alive' to "whoever is responsible', to the Taliban, to Afghanistan to any country that supports terrorists, to 'you're either with us or you're with the terrorists'. By the end of the rhetorical escalation, bin Laden was already a footnote.
Bush had the opportunity to have Usama turned over to the ICC and refused. He had the opportunity to capture Usama and blew it so badly it looked like a clownish pratfall. I can't imagine any way in which it could have been worse. And as the pipeline negotiations were winding to a close and he was turning US opinion to Iraq, Bush was only too happy to dismiss bin Laden from any consideration at all.
Usama bin Laden who ??? Whatever.
And finally, after months of searching for and failing to find the 'proof' he had already said he had in September 2001, it became a dead-end topic.
Justice for the tragedy of 9/11 was never a goal. Afghanistan was an adventitious tidbit demanded by the logic of the situation and dropped as soon as humanly possible. Bin Laden was never truly on the radar.
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"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."
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Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Rap, it doesn't matter if the US was or is treaty to the ICC or not - the ICC still had jurisdiction over Usama bin Laden.
Afghanistan did not ratify the ICC treaty until Feb 10, 2003. The ICC had no jurisdiction since the plot was planned and executed by persons who were not in ICC countries. The ICC has no jurisdiction in the United States.
He could theoretically be turned over to the ICC now (if he's captured by someone other the the US), but he would still be subject to extradition to the US from whichever country he is held in or captured by. I doubt the ICC would even contest the issue.
H
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Usama would have been and is now under the jurisdiction of the ICC:
"Like the United Nations or the World Trade Organization, the ICC is trans-national not supra-national. This means it is a voluntary association of countries -- no nation is forced to participate.
The ICC, however, can prosecute individuals regardless of their nationality. Even if Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia failed to ratify the ICC treaty, someone like Osama bin Laden could still be prosecuted by the ICC if no other legal authority (including the American courts) stepped forward to take care of it."
"Hero" - would you PLEASE go get a law degree instead of just pretending to have one.
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"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."
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