CIA and fake Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein Videos

*groan* US foreign policy makes me imagine a toddler poking at a mains socket with a screwdriver.

To be honest, the 'plan' was likely one of dozens if not hundreds of ideas storyboarded in planning sessions, and probably didn't get further than a flash of inspiration from someone watching Paris Hilton, a scribbled post-it note and a brief memo.

In any normal company, one always sits down and comes up with all kinds of crazy ideas that never make it past this point. The ideas exercise is the point, so that you get your mind working to produce the really good ones.

Intelligence services are no different.

It says a lot really when the self appointed "Police man" of the world is discussing abusing children to get at their enemies.

Laminations wrote: »

I'm not concerned about Osamas reputation, nor am I concerned about the Dons reputation or Cullen and Keoghs reputation or that of any criminal. My 'way of life' is that you can protect yourself from defamation through the courts, if you have acted in a way that prevents you from doing this then that's on your head. There are intelligence agencies in almost every country, many of them engage in misinformation -it is a way of life. I would consider extraordinary rendition much more worrying than this.

So basically you are saying that engaging in paedophilia to make one of your enemies look bad is ok? Interesting......

btw for the record extraordinary rendition or as its known in non doublespeak kidnapping someone, moving them to a foreign country with dubious human rights and torturing the hell out of them is something that I find completely abhorrent as well. So I guess we do agree on something

Oh war on terror my bum. There is no such thing, unless, that is, states are constantly at war with their people and require constant aiming of deception and propaganda at their subjects to maintain legitimacy.

I am a terrorist if I decide to be. Who is the war aimed at, me? - or me when I decide to be a terrorist? - can this ""war"" ever end?

Eh, no. Complete codswallop.

Alright, to pull it apart a bit, "The war on the loose band of idealogically similar and dangerous fellows who committed, amongst other acts, the 1993 WTC bombings, the US Embassy in Yemen bombings, the 9/11 attacks in the U.S., the 7/7 attack in London and so on" - not the same ring to it, but I'll go with it.

It's rather difficult to define a war where states are rarely directly implicated (such as the Taliban government of Afghanistan, or the Libyan government) in any direct or indirect acts of terrorism. However, there is a war going on out there between the West, some moderate Islamic states the dispirate groups who identify themselves with AQ and would consider people like OBL to be leaders in spirit or idea.

To believe that, say, Osama's supporters would turn on him because of some faked video shown in the media is what I would call naive.

It is a highly simplistic view of exactly what terrorists are, and why they turn towards terrorism.

Besides, Osama does not have some type of command structire over Islamic terrorists, or an organisation for that matter, right across the globe, and that if he actually was a child abuser, that they would 'desert'.

Terrorists are terrorists because they believe in some set of principles. What Osama is has no bearing on them committing acts of terrorism.

I believe that for every terrorist who commits an act of violence, there is a network of people who actively support, indirectly but knowingly support, and/or know of these people and their actions without proffering support other than to remain silent towards the authorities who can prevent these actions.

Such individuals can be swayed, both with carrot and stick - for carrot, look to the efforts in the UK to reach out to disenfranchised Muslim communities. Similarly, for stick, they have upped their game in internal intelligence to root out the fundamentalists amongst them.

Such intelligence actions as the one referenced could be used to sway these people. If we move from this specific idea, which was never put into operation, to the general idea of this sort of misinformation leading to the eroding of terrorist support networks, I wholly agree with the practice.

Why?

Because I'd like to get on a bus or a tube in London without needing to look over my shoulder.

I disagree. It is aimed at anyone who is willing to believe it - islamic or otherwise.


Deception by the state against civilians is wrong. The types of deception you are taling about are indiscriminate, potentially decieving both terrorist and civilian alike.

States are meant to be the ultimate authority. If that authority is willing to decieve and falsify information - then that authority looses legitimacy and trust.

The State is there to protect its citizens as much as anything else. I agree there are lines which one must not cross, also.

In Robert Harris's book "The Ghost", and in the recent film adaptation, in which the author was being quite critical of the Tony Blair government for going to war in Iraq, there was a passage from the "former prime minister":

"If I could do it all again I'd go back and do one thing: I'd have two lines for two aircraft in airports. One line would have regular security. The other would have security aided by all the intelligence we gathered from rendition, torture and everything else. I'd like to see which line you'd put your children in."

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Yes, I know those sound like ludicrous Jim Corr conspiracy theories, but if we can't believe what the CIA are likely to show us in a video, how do we know they're telling the truth about Bin Laden himself ?

Just asking......

because the alternative is too unpalatable. it's basic psychology. we know the american military in the 60s came up with a plan to fly planes into building and blame it on Cuba as a pretext to justify a subsequent invasion of Cuba. now the question arises: why did kennedy veto this plot.
we would like to think it was on moral ground, that he felt it was morally reprehensible to endanger your own citizens as a pretext to invade another country.

you see as much as some people may need to believe in a guiding hands in events, there is also a great desire for humans to believe in the uncomplicated morality tales that are depicted in westerns.