Psy Ops At Their Finest
If I had a nickel for every time President Bush claimed that sensitive information has to be withheld from the public for national security reasons given the ambiguities of the War On Terror, I’d be having drinks surrounded by super models on some private island the size of a small continent. That said, the Washington Post has revealed some rather interesting information regarding Osama Bin Laden’s most recent video message…
“A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release.
Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company’s Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide.
The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group’s communications network.
“Techniques that took years to develop are now ineffective and worthless,” said Rita Katz, the firm’s 44-year-old founder, who has garnered wide attention by publicizing statements and videos from extremist chat rooms and Web sites, while attracting controversy over the secrecy of SITE’s methodology. Her firm provides intelligence about terrorist groups to a wide range of paying clients, including private firms and military and intelligence agencies from the United States and several other countries.
The precise source of the leak remains unknown. Government officials declined to be interviewed about the circumstances on the record, but they did not challenge Katz’s version of events. They also said the incident had no effect on U.S. intelligence-gathering efforts and did not diminish the government’s ability to anticipate attacks.
While acknowledging that SITE had achieved success, the officials said U.S. agencies have their own sophisticated means of watching al-Qaeda on the Web. “We have individuals in the right places dealing with all these issues, across all 16 intelligence agencies,” said Ross Feinstein, spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
But privately, some intelligence officials called the incident regrettable, and one official said SITE had been “tremendously helpful” in ferreting out al-Qaeda secrets over time.
The al-Qaeda video aired on Sept. 7 attracted international attention as the first new video message from the group’s leader in three years. In it, a dark-bearded bin Laden urges Americans to convert to Islam and predicts failure for the Bush administration in Iraq and Afghanistan. The video was aired on hundreds of Western news Web sites nearly a full day before its release by a distribution company linked to al-Qaeda.
Computer logs and records reviewed by The Washington Post support SITE’s claim that it snatched the video from al-Qaeda days beforehand. Katz requested that the precise date and details of the acquisition not be made public, saying such disclosures could reveal sensitive details about the company’s methods.”
Fear. Four letters, a world to infect, one man’s face to broadcast, no questions asked. It’s been six years since Bin Laden’s face was first blasted across television screens around the world and the planet’s most sophisticated military and intelligence community still hasn’t been able to find him. Suspicious? Given the successes of the CIA over the last half century I would say that it certainly is. The fact of the matter is that, as a propaganda tool, Bin Laden is worth more alive than dead or captured. His continued existence justifies too many initiatives, not to mention that it reminds all of us of the event that has since turned the world upside down and prompted many of us to willingly shove our heads in the sand.
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October 9th, 2007 at 9:54 am
Bush and bin Laden are two sides of the same coin. Their families have had close ties for years, reportedly it was Osamas oldest brother that helped finance some of George juniors early business misadventures.
Both grew up in wealthy families with a sense of entitlement and act as if the entire world is their plaything.
October 9th, 2007 at 10:27 am
Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if they aren’t looking for him. Like you said, he’s used to justify whatever Bush and his friends have in their crazy heads.
October 9th, 2007 at 10:38 am
I see Bush’s hunt for Osama about as legitimate as O.J.’s hunt for “the real killers”
October 9th, 2007 at 10:39 am
Interesting to note that Osama was alledgedly trained by the United States. He proves to be quite the asset for the Bush Administration, and definitely helped fuel the support for the invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq. I don’t see him completely disappearing from newscasts for some time.
October 9th, 2007 at 10:50 am
Although I do agree that having Bin Laden alive is a far greater propaganda tool, i’m not totally convinced that the U.S. could catch him. I realize they are the “greatest” military power and they have an insanely large, complex, and quite effective (however you define those terms in this context, i mean it in the most narrow of ways since “effective” can mean good at killing, which is not what i intend) secret service. That being said, we *hear* about the successes, we don’t *know* how many failures they have. It appears that they are incredible effective, but im not sure how we would measure this. Certainly the CIA has overthrown plenty of governments, killed thousands of people over its long history but there have been people who have been able to defy the United States. Take Castro for example, at last count, they tried to kill this guy 638 times, all failures. Sure he has not killed Americans like bin Laden’s network has, but in reality, bin Laden is no longer the real figurehead of al Qa’ida anyway. They are a series of cells who work independently, Osama gives them the outline of the ideology and the cells perform the terrorist acts that are most relevant to their country and their abilities. In a way, their like copy-cat killers, only the original practicer of this method encourages copy-cat killers, unlike most serial killers who only want their own glory to hit the newsstands.
October 9th, 2007 at 10:54 am
Wow. A small piece, as performed by me.
“We didn’t get it from those losers, they just ride our coattails anyway.”
“Oh…they were the CIA source?”
“Please give us some information. Wait, those aren’t the rates we were getting before.”
“My fellow Americans, we had no warning…..”
Annnnd……fin.
I am hardly an authority on super secret spy stuff (despite my cereal box accreditation in sleuthing), but I was under the impression that the idea was not to hack and slash your way to information, alienate your sources…and especially not compromise them.
October 9th, 2007 at 11:26 am
I stumbled upon this video the other day and found it rather interesting……
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhs64JnfC8c&eurl=
October 9th, 2007 at 11:52 am
Anyone remember Tora Bora ?
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.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0304/p01s03-wosc.html
October 9th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Matt said:
“The fact of the matter is that, as a propaganda tool, Bin Laden is worth more alive than dead or captured. His continued existence justifies too many initiatives…”
I knew there was something fishy about it all, and you articulated my own thoughts on it so well with this bit above. If anyone seriously thinks that six years is not sufficient time in order to catch a guy who is actively releasing tapes and other recordings/ statements to our media as well as their own then…I don’t know…I just don’t know.
Like I said before…
they found Saddam Hussein in a fucking hole in the middle of the street ( what else can I say?)
he was in hiding for way less time than Bin Laden has been. Since this whole ‘War on terror’ was founded on the belief that Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban were going to further threaten the security of our Western World via terrorist means, you would think that it would be treated as a priority, but no, they wanna wait that one out whilst picking fights with two or three other nations, and sop up all the cash they can before they’re outta office….of course the CIA could get him, but the Bin Laden family is a very very very wealthy oil family straight out of Saudi Arabia, and we wouldn’t want to disrupt the under the table deals of the US government in order to put all this fighting and dying and killing to rest now would we?
October 9th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
the national geographic channel has had a few very good documentaries on the taliban, osama, etc. it is definitely worth checking out. the program interviews many close to the taliban that said bin laden was very much quieter and low-key compared to the person he’s made out to be now. making no mistake - he’s still a leader of an extremist organization, his role in 9/11, etc - but he’s definitely worth more alive to the current administration than he is dead.
also, the lovely democrats are getting ready to capitulate yet again to the administration and turn into law the wiretapping and invasion of civil rights by the NSA all because they don’t want to be seen as weak on fighting terrorist. we voted many of them in hoping they’d grow a backbone but they remain weak and divided no matter how you slice it… pathetic.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/washington/09nsa.html?ref=washington
October 9th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
The leak was probably some flunky staffer trying to get some female reporter tail who he believed would otherwise be legally impossible to tap.
October 9th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
[quote comment="28833"]the national geographic channel has had a few very good documentaries on the taliban, osama, etc. it is definitely worth checking out. the program interviews many close to the taliban that said bin laden was very much quieter and low-key compared to the person he’s made out to be now. making no mistake - he’s still a leader of an extremist organization, his role in 9/11, etc - but he’s definitely worth more alive to the current administration than he is dead.[/quote]
Osama isn’t part of the Taliban, he’s the leader of al Qaeda. While the Taliban allowed al Qaeda to operate in Afghanistan for religious and political reasons the two organizations are seperate.
October 9th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
Just about every book written on years of terrorism says you STFU and secretly go after the source.
Even when asked to be quiet, the Bush admin STILL manages to “leak” the information.
Have they no strategy to anything at all? Or is that their strategy?
October 9th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
Supermodels? Really?
October 9th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
I wouldnt be shocked if osama was on the CIA payroll.
americans trained him to fight russians, and now americans allow him to help them fight eachother for control of thier national assets.
he is the trump card in pockets of the hawks.
he is a neocons best friend. as was said in the documentary the power of nightmares, america needs an unbeatable enemy inorder to survive.
a man that cannot be found is the perfect enemy.
kinda like Carmen Sandiego.
Where in the world is Osama Bin Laden?
i smell a syndicated television show/
we should get captian planet on the case
October 9th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
Interesting theory Matt. Indeed he is a great propaganda instrument. However, given everything that’s happened over the last several years, i would just as likely account the failure to find Bin Laden as sheer incompetence by this admin.
October 9th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
Was is Bruce Cockburn who called both Bush and Beardo “Spoiled oil brats no one elected”?
October 10th, 2007 at 5:58 am
Mr. Good quoting the Washington Post said:
“A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month”
Okay, so somebody goes out and gets Halo 3 a few hours before the official release, and the store gets a huge fine…where’s the fine for this “small private intelligence company?” And how does one have an official release of an Osama bin Laden video? It’s not like you can walk into a store and there’s a sign that says “Tuesday releases: The White Stripes, Radiohead, Osama bin Laden”, is there?
It reminds me of how the US government knew there would be anthrax attacks before they happened.
Strange.