I just read that Iran has refused to be a party to anything the US is up to in regards to chasing down terrorists. One of their points (among many) is that they haven’t seen any evidence implicating UbL in the attacks. China has also made similar noises as has, of course, the Taliban in Afghanistan.
I’ve seen a bunch of stuff in the press the is certainly suggestive of UbL being the man behind the scenes and I have also heard for days now that the US will provide all of its evidence shortly.
So where is it (the master evidence document from the US)?
Why the big secret so far (why not let people in on what they have so far)?
Does anyone believe there is any evidence that will convince places like Iran and China or will they always manage to say there is some doubt and the evidence so far isn’t good enough (I won’t mention the Taliban since I’m guessing they’ll be recalcitrant no matter what)?
Do these countries just want to see the evidence that hasn’t been available in the media so they can get a peek into our intelligence gathering networks?
Are our allies (NATO) waiting for this stuff too or have they been in the loop the whole time? Do any of our allies still require better evidence?
So far what the press has released sure seems to point to UbL (with a lot of circumstantial evidence) and even if he didn’t perpetrate the WTC attacks he still nailed the USS Cole and two US embassies. That is to say, I won’t mind too much if UbL gets a missile up the keester and turns out to not have had a part in the WTC attack. Still, it would be nice to know that we are going after the right people.
Generally, the fear is that by revealing some types of evidence, you also reveal your sources and means of acquiring that evidence (and lack of means), which makes it that mucher harder next time, and can even put people’s lives in danger.
That said, the US is going to offer up proof this week:
I hope I can help. Basically ANY sharing of knowledge right now can be a breach of secrecy and contaminate any new information. You see, by letting the people know information you let the world know, and this could lead to letting them know stuff we don’t wnat them too, stuff that might impare the jobs of our armed servicemen or in other cases even lead to their deaths (for example, we may have soldiers penetrating Afganistan right now, if we let the US know then so would the Taliban and try to hunt them down). Secondly by reveling what secrets we have that could give away sources. If we say “blah blah blah” about this and that the Taliban might be like, “Well how did they find that out?” And trace the information back to a source we’re using inside Afganistan, and that could cost them their life. Those are only a few reasons, but in my opinion we have more then enough evidence against bin Laden even BEFORE what happened on the 11th to go at him with everything we have. We know he is responsible for the embassy bombings, as well as the first trade center bombings, and we think he is linked to the bombing of the USS Cole as well. So when you ask me, I have already seen all the evidence I need to go get him.
There’s already a warrant out on OBL. The current evidence has probably been at least partially shared with various foreign governments to get them on board but not the media. Why should it be presented in the media? The other point is operational security. I realize it requires a big step for some people, but you’ve got to trust that the US government had good enough evidence for the UN for the previous actions, and that is enough evidence for WTC even if they decide not to try the case on chicken noodle news first.
It’s funny that the government says that and you have programs like the History Channels "How they covered up Kennedy’s Assasination [I don’t believe this but that is another thread] coming out now.
Just gives the public pause to doubt.
Or the NBC rebroadcast of the local government using poor evidence against a couple of killing their kid.
And saying they had a strong case when it was nothing.
Could it also be that the evidence indicates that some of the concerned countries don’t have “clean hands”?
If the US is trying to gain the cooperation of country ‘X’ but the evidence implicates that country (e.g., They are harboring known terrorists), and the US makes its evidence public, it’s likely not to engender the desired result.