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May, 2011:

Implications of Bin Laden’s Extermination

May 5th, 2011
by EdTroy.
1 comment

Now that bin Laden has finally been exterminated, it is time to look at the many implications. Of course, the most glaring implication is that the Pakistan ISI knew all along where bin Laden was hiding. Of course, we knew they were duplicitous right along, but this treachery is beyond the pale. Of course, we should have known they were hiding people like bin Laden (and probably al-Zawahiri) after they said that they were going to protect him if he was living “peacefully” in Pakistan. According to a 2006 ABC News report, Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan, press secretary to the president of Pakistan, said, in 2006:

“If he is in Pakistan, bin Laden ‘would not be taken into custody,’ Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan told ABC News in a telephone interview, ‘as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen,” report Brian Ross and Gretchen Peters at ABC’s blog, The Blotter (http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/09/bin_laden_gets_.html).

“No, as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen, one would not be taken into custody,” said Khan. “One has to stay like a peaceful citizen and not allowed to participate in any kind of terrorist activity.”

“The surprising announcement comes as Pakistani army officials announced they were pulling their troops out of the North Waziristan region as part of a ‘peace deal’ with the Taliban.”

It is significant to note that the house in which bin Laden was exterminated was in existence in 2005, although not in 2001, as the following images from Google Earth show.

 

It was reported in some places that the house was custom built for bin Laden, although others say that it was used by the ISI as a safe house (for al Qaeda?). One account stated that the ISI had raided the house in 2003 because they believed that Abu Faraj al-Libbi, number 3 in al Qaeda’s management structure after Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was captured, was hiding there. This story was another fabrication by the ISI, since, as the US pointed out, the building did not exist in 2003. (It is unfortunate that Google Earth does not have a more complete set of images. It would be interesting to know if Google was forced to remove images by the US government, since they only show a 2001 and a 2005 image.)

No matter the past history, it is becoming clear that bin Laden had been living there for 5 or even 6 years. This compound is located in a location that is affluent, although the house is significantly larger than other houses in the area. The fact that bin Laden lived here while much of the population of this affluent area consists of retired high military officials and it is located within a short walk of Pakistan’s equivalent to West Point, indicates that bin Laden had absolutely no fear about being arrested or attacked. The presence of his neighbors, in fact, must have given him comfort, further pointing to the corruption in the ISI. In fact, the most recent reports indicate that he was not armed when he was shot, although he might have been going for a weapon. Significantly, he did not have much in the way of security. It is hard to believe that every adult in the house was not armed for bear and firing everything from pistols to RPG’s when they were awoken by the helicopters unless they had been so assured of the security provided by the neighboring military compound and neighbors. (Did the fact that bin Laden had a considerable garden of marijuana contribute to the lack of preparation? One of his body guards appears to have gone to a gun fight with the SEALS armed with a squirt gun!) Imagine, bin Laden a stoner! (But, remember, the export of drugs, primarily heroin, is one of Pakistan’s only sources of income, other than our financial aid, which must obviously be stopped….IMMEDIATELY….along with taking possession of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.)

I suspect that he located there because the ISI had promised to protect him. And, with the large military base only a stone’s throw away, they certainly had the firepower to protect him if they had been given advanced warning of the raid. Plus, in a pinch, he could be rapidly relocated to the military installation for protection and relocation. It is interesting that he had a couple of phone numbers sewn into his clothes, along with a few hundred Euros. (Again, he must have known that he had a lot of help only a taxi and a phone call away, since that is not much money. There was also an airport a short walk from his house. I wonder if he had a plane stationed there.)

Of course, the fact that our military was able to swoop in, kill him, and remove his body, along with 5 computers, 10 hard drives, and hundreds of other print and electronic records without any response from the Pakis indicates that we have capabilities far beyond what Pakistan ever imagined. This fact must have Iran a bit nervous. It also gives us hope that perhaps we can swoop in and disassociate the Pakistan government from their nuclear devices; something that I think we need to do. (Of course, we also need to cease all military and financial aid to Pakistan. After all, didn’t we learn anything about arming your enemy from our experience with arming Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union in the 1980’s?)

The extreme confidence in his security that bin Laden apparently had gives me great hope that the records recovered in the raid will indeed be useful. In a way, it would have been nice to have been able to take him alive so that we could have found out what he knew. But, under Obama and the Holder Justice Department, there is no chance that we would have been able to extract useful information from him. We would have been forced to simply give him a comfortable retirement in Guantanamo. That is the last thing we needed. Hopefully, the fact that he was so confident in his security led him to not securely encrypt much or all of the information that was on the captured documents and computer drives.

I’m sure that there has been a lot of movement among the various terrorist leaders, like Ayman al-Zawahiri, since the raid. After wetting his diaper Sunday night when he heard about the raid, I’m sure al-Zawahiri separated himself from his residence, even if he was comfortably ensconced in Iran or some country other than Pakistan. It’s interesting how the legend of these barbarians living in caves has persisted, in spite of statements by several people that bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, and others were living in comfort in various locations such as Iran and Pakistan. In “The Secret History of the Iraq War” Yossef Bodansky reported that bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, and others were hosted by Iran in special Revolutionary Guard guesthouses north of Tehran and in Torbat-e Heydariyeh northeast of Tehran in the 2002-2003 time frame. Additionally, In February 2002, Meg Lauglin reported seeing bin Laden while stalled in traffic near the Red Mosque in Islamabad, Pakistan.

As the car stopped in traffic, Carl yelled, “Look! There’s Osama bin Laden!”

We couldn’t believe our eyes. There, in front of us was the most wanted man in the world, the face on countless posters offering a reward of $25 million for information on his whereabouts. There was no mistaking him. Towering over the men with him, he was lanky with olive skin and that scraggly long beard, those sad brown eyes and that splayed nose.

The three of us began screaming, “It’s Osama bin Laden! Osama bin Laden!”

He wore a white shalwar kameez, the loose long shirt and pantaloons that are traditional clothing in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and a white turban. He walked slowly with a cane, flanked on each side by a man holding on to him.

They emerged from the wrought-iron gates at the red brick mosque, crossed to the wooded median on the boulevard, took a right turn and walked in our direction.

So, apparently, bin Laden has been “hiding” in plain site for most of the last decade. Pakistan has been proven, conclusively, to not be our friend (although, by the simple dictates of Islam, no Muslim nation can be our friend.) We need to cut off ALL financial and other aid to Pakistan, refuse to sell them any military equipment (unless it comes with a kill switch so that we can stop them from using the equipment against “infidels” like us or India.) We should also cancel all visas that have been issued to Pakis, and refuse to issue any more until they abandon political Islam and Sharia.

 

Now That bin Laden’s Dead, Bring Troops Home, Cancel Visas To People From Muslim Countries

May 2nd, 2011
by EdTroy.
1 comment

Now that bin Laden is finally dead, it is time to stop pissing away trillions of dollars on wars in Muslim nations. We are not going to create democracies; we will only piss money and lives away. And, after bringing the troops home, it is time to get serious with Muslim countries. We should cancel all aid and all visas until those countries come into the 21st century. That means, basically, dumping Islam. They have to admit that Islam was founded by an insane, epileptic, barbarian, misogynist, megalomaniac, pedophile and that it has no place in today’s world. This goes especially for Sharia law, which turns women into second class citizens and non-Muslims into third class citizens.

If the Muslims want to pray 5 times a day and practice their “religion” without supporting Sharia, that is their business. We can’t do much about personal stupidity. But, Sharia law, or political Islam, must be abolished. Until that happens, we should not give them any financial or other aid, and we should not grant visas permitting them to come into the United States. Currently valid visas should be canceled and the holders forced to return to their native countries until those countries dump political Islam and Sharia. Furthermore, we must give serious consideration to instituting travel bans on United States citizens as far as travel to Muslim nations is concerned, similar to the travel ban that we had instituted on South Africa to encourage them to abolish their barbaric apartheid policies. The reason for this is to prevent US Muslim “citizens” from going to Muslim nations like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen to be trained to carry out terrorist attacks after they return to the United States.

And, we have a precedent for pressuring people to give up some of their “religious beliefs”. After WW2, we forced the Japanese to stop worshiping their emperor and to stop thinking of him as a god. And, the result of that pressure is present day Japan; one of our best allies and trading partners.

If we do these things, and then take serious measures to seal our borders, we will prevent much of the Muslim violence that would otherwise be committed against us. Will this stop all future terrorist attacks? Of course not. But, at least we won’t be wasting money and lives on impossible military missions that accomplish nothing for our relations with Muslim nations, and that certainly do not encourage Muslims to realize the falsity of their “religion”.

To those who fear that these policies might lead to a lack of trade with Muslim countries and that would severely damage our economy, I really can’t think how anything could have been more seriously damaging to our economy than the $3 trillion dollars that we have stupidly squandered in the last 10 years in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. What did we get for it? We got rid of Saddam Hussein (a good thing), and we got rid of bin Laden (a very good thing.) But, other than that, we have accomplished nothing other than to rebuild (or try to) the infrastructure in Iraq. This rebuilding has certainly not been appreciated by the Iraqis, but it will be a big help to Iran when Iraq basically becomes an Iranian satellite state after we leave. (In fact, it could end up that Iran essentially swallows up Iraq after we leave.)

Lets face it; what do we get from Muslim countries (other than terrorists)? Well, from Afghanistan, we get heroin. Besides that, not much. So, what is the loss? From Pakistan, I can’t think of anything that we get other than terrorists. Maybe a few rugs. That’s about it. From Iraq? Nothing. (They have oil, but the country is so dysfunctional, which is typical of Muslim countries, that we don’t get much of that.) Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Lebanon produce nothing of value to our economy. And, now that those countries are going to become, at best, Islamist republics, and at worst, Islamic theocracies, they will be totally antagonistic to our interests. (And, since Egypt depends heavily on tourism for it’s revenue, a travel ban might be especially useful to pressure them to see the falsity of Islam.)

Now, what about oil? Well, the United States does not actually get that much oil from Saudi Arabia. We get most of our oil from Canada, Mexico, and the United States. So, lets “drill, baby, drill” and develop our own oil deposits to the point where we don’t need any oil from Muslim countries. Let the rest of the world deal with them. Plus, we have incredible reserves of coal and natural gas which should be utilized to meet our power needs and to lessen our dependence on oil. Of course, oil is needed for some things, like aviation fuel, but coal and natural gas can be used to produce most other mobile energy needs. Coal can be cleaned to the point where it does not cause acid rain, and since we now know (or should know) that global warming, or climate change, caused by CO2 is nothing more than a scam designed to transfer wealth, we should not worry about the CO2 emissions from clean coal. Natural gas can be used to power vehicles, especially trucks, buses, and delivery vehicles. Furthermore, with an investment into some infrastructure, natural gas could be used to power other vehicles.

Thinking back to the $3 trillion that has been pissed away, one has to shake their head at the opportunity cost of that wasted money. How many advances in alternative energy could have been made with that money? How many nuclear power plants could have been built? How many jobs could have been saved or created? The biggest problem with nuclear power is the “not in my back yard” factor, as well as the danger posed when nuclear plants are located in stupid locations, such as on fault-lines and in areas prone to tsunamis. (The San Onofre nuclear plant in the Los Angeles, California, area comes to mind as an extremely stupid location to build a nuclear plant.) Both of those problems can be resolved by using superconducting technology which allows electricity to be transported over long power lines without a loss of power. The technology already exists; it is just a bit expensive. But, more use of the technology, as well as more research, will bring the cost down. With such transmission lines, nuclear plants could be located in sparsely populated areas that are far from oceans and fault lines.

The bottom line is that it is now time to give up on the Muslim nations. Let them fight among themselves and lessen that gene pool. Let other countries deal with the problems that permitting Muslim immigration creates for their own futures.