Osama Openly Mocks Bush in Tape

[langeweile]

In which part of my statement did I deny my previous comment?

Things are not always what they seem, especially on the net. Everyone knows that you are a professional agitator that says things just to get people pissed. Well, my good friend, two can play that game.

BTW I will not step down to your level and start calling you names. I let people judge for themselves.

 

[WoodPeckr]

Pakistan says it has cornered al-Zawahri

Pakistani troops yesterday surrounded and exchanged fire with a group of al Qaeda fighters who might be protecting Ayman al-Zawahri, trusted No. 2 man to Osama bin Laden.
As the fighting raged along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in the mountainous South Waziristan region, some Pakistani officials said al-Zawahri was cornered. An intelligence official told the Associated Press that captured fighters said al-Zawahri had been wounded.
The fighters stubbornly were holed up in two fortlike huts, refusing to surrender despite pounding from artillery and helicopter gunships.
"The kind of resistance that the troops are facing indicates that among the militants there may be a high-profile al Qaeda figure, possibly al-Zawahri," Information Minister Sheikh Rashid told Agence France-Presse.
There were no reports that bin Laden was in the area.
A Pakistani security official told Agence France-Presse that Pakistani troops were preparing early today to storm the villages.
"We are pounding the area with mortars and artillery to soften the stiff resistance before making a final push in the next few hours," the official said.
Killing or capturing al-Zawahri would be a major victory for President Bush in the global war against Islamic terrorists and would mark the most important elimination of an al Qaeda operative in a year.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf told CNN, "We feel that they may have a high-value target. I can't say who."
Gen. Musharraf, who had spoken to a commander, added, "He's reasonably sure there's a high-value target there."
Gen. Musharraf has come close to assassination recently, narrowly avoiding roadside bombs near his moving limousine.
Gen. Musharraf, in recent months, did something few Pakistan leaders have done: He sent thousands of troops inside the vast, ungoverned border areas with Afghanistan to attack al Qaeda and Taliban militants. Bin Laden and al-Zawahri are thought to move among the various tribes in seeking shelter and protection.
But the introduction of Pakistani troops and pressure from U.S. troops on the Afghan side have produced better intelligence and forced al Qaeda members to move out in the open.
The Pentagon shifted elements of the secret Task Force 121 to Afghanistan in recent weeks. The unit is made up of Delta Force and SEAL commandos, CIA paramilitaries and a deep-cover military intelligence-gathering unit that has used the code name Grey Fox.

link:
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040318-112340-7496r.htm

 

[WoodPeckr]

Osama's Taunting Continues..........

Bin Laden Tape Urges Stopping Oil to U.S.

Sat Dec 18, 4:22 PM ET

By DAVID McHUGH, Associated Press Writer

Osama bin Laden claims to have bled the Soviet Union into bankruptcy as an Islamic guerrilla fighter in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Could he do the same to another hated superpower — the United States?

The al-Qaida leader's latest purported communication drove home the point by calling on militants to stop the flow of oil to the West and praising a Dec. 6 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil producer.

In an audiotape posted on an Islamic Web site Thursday, a man who U.S. officials believe was bin Laden accused Westerners of subjugating the Middle East to plunder its oil.

"Go on and try to prevent them from getting oil," the speaker said. "Concentrate your operations on that, especially in Iraq and the Gulf."

It was believed to be the first time a purported bin Laden tape in effect called for attacks on the oil industry. But he has flaunted the economic theme before, recalling in his most recent video how Afghan mujahedeen "bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt" and taunting the U.S. government over the size of its budget deficit — which peaked at $413 billion last year.

Security and terrorism experts suggest bin Laden's claims to be undermining the United States economically are largely propaganda, noting the flexible, market-driven U.S. economy is a far cry from the creaky, bureaucratic Soviet giant that disintegrated in 1991.

Still, the economic argument gives bin Laden a tool he can use to rally his supporters and inflate his aura of success by claiming damage caused by other factors as his own handiwork.

Spurred by the new audiotape, Muslim radicals using chat rooms on Islamic Web sites debated Friday what weapons could be used to attack an oil tanker in the strait of Hormuz in the Gulf.

Bin Laden "sees us as poised on this precipice, and he's going to push us into the abyss," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Rand Corporation.

As Bin Laden put it in his video aimed at Americans just days before the Nov. 2 presidential election: "The real loser is you. It is the American people and their economy."

The al-Qaida leader cites the experience of Afghan mujahedeen fighters "in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers" to drive the Soviets out.

Bin Laden was among U.S.-supported Islamic fighters in Afghanistan, backed with money and weapons in hopes of weakening Russia, the United States' opponent in the Cold War.

The Soviet comparison is aimed as much at bin Laden supporters as at Americans, says Rand analyst Hoffman. "That's how he motivates and animates people and addresses morale — telling them, 'No one thought we could achieve that feat, and by the same token no one thinks we can achieve this feat of defeating the United States, but we will,'" Hoffman said.

Link to rest of article:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...p/20041218/ap_on_bi_ge/bin_laden_economic_war

 

[WoodPeckr]

Osama doesn't plan on asking OPEC to stop oil shipments, he is asking for his mujahedeen fighters to stop, sabotage and disrupt the oil shipping and pipelines. This they are very effective at.

 

[WoodPeckr]

Security can't be doubled to protect oil, we are pretty overextended right now and more forces are being sent to Iraq just to try to secure the upcoming Iraqi elections. Osama is playing a chess game and knows he has position on the US here. By tipping his hand Osama shows that the US will have to send many more troops and spend much more money in Iraq, knowing this won't play well back in the States.

Osama points out it took 10 years to beat the USSR in Afghanistan, knowing the US public won't stand for another 10 year war in Iraq. Where would we get the troops to fight? The military said last friday recruitment goals are down by 1/3 which is no surprise. Watch for the 'draft talk' to start again.

 

[WoodPeckr]

I didn't think Osama's comment was meant just for Iraq either. It's that Iraq is where all the action is presently.

5, 10 or more years who knows about how long the US will be in Iraq. I'm not sure the upcomings elections will matter all that much as long as we are still there and viewed as calling the shots. Based on what is going on in Afghanistan presently why should Iraq be any different. Open Civil war is still very possible, that is if it has not already begun. Civil war fears are another reason for a long US occupation in Iraq.

 

[onthebottom]

Originally posted by WoodPeckr Osama doesn't plan on asking OPEC to stop oil shipments, he is asking for his mujahedeen fighters to stop, sabotage and disrupt the oil shipping and pipelines. This they are very effective at.

What would you use as evidence of your last sentance?

OTB

 

[WoodPeckr]

What would you use as evidence of your last sentance?

OTB

News radio, NPR, has done several reports showing the great difficulty Iraq is having getting oil production flowing again to the levels it was before Saddam was removed. Right now oil production levels are a mere trickle compared to what they were before and are subject to constant sabotage even in broad daylight at the same places repeatedly at times. There just is not the security forces needed in place to protect those oil lines. They claim maybe another 100,000 troops would be needed just to secure most but not all of their oil facilities. Local Iraqis are scared away from these jobs because the word is out over there that if you take one of these oil security jobs you along with your families will be killed.

This is just in Iraq and before Osama got into the mix to encourage even more of this sort of sabotage in other oil producing countries. Osama saw how successful and cheap this tactic is for the amount of damage it will cause.

Here's a link to some of those reports:

http://search.npr.org/search97cgi/s...s&how_long_ago=all&collection=ALL02&x=50&y=10

 

[Ranger68]

Osama and the rest of the Islamists have been threatening to use oil as a weapon for decades.
It's not going to work.
That's all there is to it.

 

[onthebottom]

News radio, NPR, has done several reports showing the great difficulty Iraq is having getting oil production flowing again to the levels it was before Saddam was removed. Right now oil production levels are a mere trickle compared to what they were before and are subject to constant sabotage even in broad daylight at the same places repeatedly at times. There just is not the security forces needed in place to protect those oil lines. They claim maybe another 100,000 troops would be needed just to secure most but not all of their oil facilities. Local Iraqis are scared away from these jobs because the word is out over there that if you take one of these oil security jobs you along with your families will be killed.

This is just in Iraq and before Osama got into the mix to encourage even more of this sort of sabotage in other oil producing countries. Osama saw how successful and cheap this tactic is for the amount of damage it will cause.

Here's a link to some of those reports:

http://search.npr.org/search97cgi/s...s&how_long_ago=all&collection=ALL02&x=50&y=10

Pecker,

Good point on Iraq, but it will take more than that to damage economies, they will have to attack SA, Iran.... where much of their funding comes from I would think. Can't bite the hand that feeds you can you.

If you want to see the US "control" the entire Middle East this would be the way to make it happen.

OTB

 

[WoodPeckr]

Pecker,

Good point on Iraq, but it will take more than that to damage economies, they will have to attack SA, Iran.... where much of their funding comes from I would think. Can't bite the hand that feeds you can you. OTB

Don't forget Osama is one of them fundamentalist religious wackos who is on a 'mission from Allah' as he leads his Jihad. In this respect Osama thinks alot like Dubya and his posse of fundamentalist religious wackos who are on their own 'mission from God' as they go about their 'Crusade for Crude'.............and oh yea, god.

_________________________________________________

Originally posted by onthebottom
If you want to see the US "control" the entire Middle East this would be the way to make it happen.

__________________________________________________

I'm sure Texaco, Mobil, Exxon et al., are salivating at the thought of just that happening. That has always been their fantasy, for the US to 'control' the entire Middle East......just the mention of that to them will probably provoke a "Massive Simultaneous Orgasm" amongst them!