The Northern Alliance is responsible… they did it because they knew the US would assume it was Bin Laden, they knew the Taliban wouldn’t give him up, and that the attacks were so unforgivable that the US wouldn’t hesitate to destroy the Taliban to get at bin Laden.
This idea came to me while reading this
After all, what solid, irrefutable evidence have we heard of that couldn’t easily be faked?
Something to think about…
If something like that was the case then the Taliban would probably be itching to provide evidence that that was the case. So far they haven’t even proposed it. If the Taliban could prove that the Northern Alliance did it then the Northern Alliance would be crushed by the US.
Why and how would the Taliban ever know? It’s entirely possible, even likely that they don’t know for sure who did it. Osama doesn’t ever take direct responsibility for anything.
Ya gotta admit…if you don’t give a shit who ya kill to get what you want, it’s the smart move.
Not really Stoid.
Bin Laden has already mounted an attack upon the World Trade Center once before. Scads of other evidence gathered points directly at him and not the Northern Rebels.
…AND the USS Cole…
…AND the embassies in Africa
the kind of organization and moola needed, if nothing else, points to Bin-Laden…and yes it appears that the U.S. does have specific evidence that it will show allies as part of the coalition building process.
Considering that the Northern Alliance is fighting for it’s life right now, I doubt that they have the resources to mount an attack like this. Besides, several of the actual hijackers have already been identified and they come from Saudi Arabia; it’s difficult to see how they could have been connected with rebels in northern Afghanistan.
The Northern Alliance isn’t coordinated enough to find its own ass with two hands tied behind its back, let alone to pull this off.
Definitely not, IMHO. 9/11 was the product of a long curve of a very particular kind of experience and knowledge: The sheer ‘quality’ of the recruiting, training, sleeping, ID’s, money, co-ordination, the fanatical, educated suicides …the whole damn vision exceptionally well planned over months, probably nearer two years.
The more you think about it, the fewer are the people capable putting it all together, IMHO.
And given that the Northern Alliance’s leader was killed by a suicide bomb very shortly after Sept. 11, the modus operandi seems to point to the Taliban and OBL.
See, this is why Bush, et al., need to present their proof that bin Laden is responsible. If the Bush administration is so concerned that providing the proof will reveal state secrets and put intelligence operatives in jeopardy, then the evidence should at least be presented to a grand jury.
Far-fetched, yes. But I always have trouble dismissing this stuff across the board. But still. . . .
It is my understanding that when a murder occurs police trying to solve the case ask the question “Who gains from this death?”. In a similar vein, alot of people stand to gain from this “war” against terrorsism. Weaponsmakers, Oil companies (who will now have even more of a reason to drill in pristine ecosystems in Alaska), Bush’s popularity has gone up, the President’s power has gone up, the rights of the american people regarding search and seizure/wiretapping rules are about to get tighter, and I’m sure there is more. Never mind folks who may have known being able to short the market.
All of this seems crazy, and I suspect it really IS Bin Laden and his cohorts. Greed, however, is the most powerful force in the world it would seem. There are many people who would kill 10,000 if they thought they could make $10 Billion. Hell even $10 Million. Some would do it just for power. So I cannot wholly disregard these thoughts, for fear of being taken advantage of.
The reality: I will probably never know one way or another. America will present it as a war against terrorism, they don’t have to show proof of any one person being involved, they will perform “covert” military actions that are probably immoral, and they will probably just make the problem worse. I guess this is just how the world works. It is unfortunate that I can’t trust politicians, buisness leaders, or the media. Luckily sites like http://www.salon.com and http://www.disinfo.com provide a counterpoint to all the rally-round the flag rhetoric that seems to fill the news since the tragedies. While I too am angry and feeling especially Patriotic, I am aware that America and it’s companies have commited many fouls across the world. Our government is not a gleaming beacon of virtue in a corrupt world. We live in a grey land and many instances of corruption can be cited. We have fucked alot of people, and perhaps we should own up to that.
This “war” will go on no matter what because the American people demand blood. I am bloodthirsty right now myself. But killing thousands of more people will solve nothing if we don’t “End the desperation that inspires terrorism” as I saw on banner at the memorial in Union Square here in New York. I don’t claim to have any great ideas about how to go about this, but more blood, I fear, could be a bad move. Like the war on drugs . . .
How’s that for a loaded post?
DaLovin’Dj
Huh? What kind of a grand jury? An American grand jury? And this would accomplish what…?
The trouble with the Israeli theory, or the China theory, or the CIA theory, or the Northern Alliance theory, is that in order to carry out this attack you would need to have at least 20 people willing to commit suicide and kill thousands of innocent people. Finding people willing to betray their country is easy. Finding people willing to kill thousands of innocent people is easy. Finding someone willing to commit suicide while doing it is not.
You would have to recruit genuine Islamic ghazis willing to die to attack the US. How could the CIA or the Israelis do that? How could they motivate these people? How could they keep it secret? The Northern Alliance wants to get help from the outside world. How could they think they could keep this secret?
Oh…and we cannot present our information to the government of Afghanistan because Afghanistan has no recognized government. And no Taliban “grand jury” would turn over bin Ladin, any more than the Gotti family would turn over John Gotti.
And anyone who thinks a grand jury is something that will be accepted as a neutral arbiter doesn’t know about the favorite saying amongst lawyers “a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich…”
Stoid wrote:
Nonsense. We all know that Gary Condit is behind the whole thing, as a way to draw attention away from the “missing intern” scandal. 
I wasn’t suggesting we turn over evidence to Afghanistan, but certainly the better case that our government makes that bin Laden actually is responsible, the more support from European and Islamic countries we can expect. Right now, no matter how much countries say they deplore the terrorist attacks, many of those same countries aren’t going to do shit for us, unless we provide some proof. I don’t think many Islamic countries, nor most of their citizens, are going to trust Bush at his word.
And, frankly before I support military action, as a citizen of These United States, I want to see some proof, too. Yeah, it’s out of the ordinary, but this is going to be a very different war.
So, however it can be done, the proof must be laid out.
Lawyers say a lot of things that you can’t believe.
I will bet any amount of money that in the entire history of the republic, you can’t prove even one instance of a grand jury indicting a ham sandwich.
This is further proof that lawyers are not to be trusted under any circumstances.
My Mom thinks that Israel did it, because sympathy for the Palestinians has been rising in the U.S. and more people are beginning to think that Israel is out-of-line with their treatment of the Palestinians. I told her that if that was the case, I don’t think the Mossad would be saying that Iraq was behind it, they would claim to have found evidence that it was some Palestinian group and immediately started bombing the hell out of them.
I highly doubt this is the case; however, the Northern Alliance seems to be trying to profit by it.
In this article http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/23/international/23CND-STAN.html?searchpv=past7days&pagewanted=all
the foreign minister of the Northern Alliance said that that he was “sure Mr. bin Laden was hiding out with Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban’s spiritual leader.” (Must be hoping for a few cuise missiles to be lobbed that way.)
In order to implicate the Northern Alliance, you also have to account for the murder of the Northern Alliance’s leader, Ahmed Shah Massoud, on September 9th.
Otherwise, you have to believe that Massoud has gone to extraordinarily great lengths in order to conceal his guilt.