Al-Qaeda leader Bin Laden 'dead'. Again.

[Peter Lemkin]

The White House has just released a NEW proof it was OBL.....it seems the SEALS forgot their Swiss Army Knives and a measuring take [between 'killling' someone and dumping him into the sea (so they say)].....but a 6 foot SEAL lay down next to the corpse and his pals said the corpse was taller than the SEAL, so it had to be OBL.... That is magic bullet type forensics! :rofl:

[Jan Klimkowski]

The Bin Laden "home movies" (as PsyOp Central has termed them) are truly pathetic.

(As is the fact that you have to watch an advert for IBM's "smarter planet" prior to seeing Osama. Maybe IBM should sign up Bin Laden to endorse their computers....)

Here's the Approved Narrative For MSM as duly delivered by the Guardian:

Bin Laden videos give a remarkable insight into life in his lair

Clips from the al-Qaida leader's 'home videos' show him obsessively watching himself on TV news programmes

In fact, they provide no "remarkable insights" into Osama, nor "life in his lair". Nice bit of sneering alliteration there....

And one clip of some random old geezer in profile watching a portable TV and using a remote in a bed sit which could be in Camden, Moscow, Lima or Timbuktu, does not establish that Osama "obsessively watched himself". I enjoyed the dodgy pan though - nice touch by the PsyOp team.

OK. These "home movies" prove absolutely nothing. For starters:

i) There is currently no evidence that the interior location is the recently raided compound;

ii) There is no proof that old man in profile with grey beard is Osama;

iii) The videos of "Young Osama" delivering Pieces To Camera (PTCs) are likely to have been in the possession of US intelligence for years - if indeed they weren't originally filmed by Langley;

iv) The lack of audio on the "Young Osama" PTCs make them highly suspect.

The US Volkland Security clowns have just delivered another risible scene in quite possibly the worst War On Terror production yet.

[Peter Lemkin]

The Bin Laden "home movies" (as PsyOp Central has termed them) are truly pathetic.

The US Volkland Security clowns have just delivered another risible scene in quite possibly the worst War On Terror production yet.

They were worth a good laugh. An Arab journalist interviewed on Al Jazeera found it hard to believe that OBL could have aged and grayed as much as 'apparently', since he last interviewed him in person...and was suspect of the non-full-face in that home movie. The removal of the voice is a joke....in a few days all the Arab stations will have had lip readers telling what was said....but of course one will not be able to hear if the voice is like that of OBL....making things all that more suspicious. They also claim to have gotten Terabytes of electronic intelligence from the compound - possible, but VERY unlikely. I don't get the idea that those who knew and worked with or in parallel with OBL seem to be worried....but never forget from the beginning OBL was 'our' guy against the Ruskies.....and may well have always been 'our guy' in some way or other. Very odd [of so many odd things] is the silencing of the 17 captured persons at the compound and the whole bin Laden family's silence....some were known to still be close to him...and close or not, he was kin. The Bush Family [and select neo-cons] were 'kith'. Dead [and whenever dead] or alive - OBL has been made by Western Intelligence and Propaganda/PR into a mythical figure. I predict OBL T-shirts and posters, like Che T-shirts and posters in the Arab and Muslim world.

Oh, yes, the plan to kill him [no matter what - who] and to dump the body in the sea were all pre-scripted!...it has been so admitted. They keep leaking...and not to their advantage, IMO.

So, Jan, you don't think any of these or the earlier ones are up for Oscars? [Best supporting actor; best special effects?]

[Jan Klimkowski]

So, Jan, you don't think any of these or the earlier ones are up for Oscars? [Best supporting actor; best special effects?]

Peter - I'm happy to dish out Golden Raspberry Awards for:

Worst Screenplay in a Big Budget Production (to PsyOp Central)

Worst Supporting Actress (to Hillary Clinton for her look of horror as Osama is executed - now described as a "summer cough")

Worst Director (again to PsyOp Central for failing to give us the Money Shots)

And of course the Razzie Award for Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel (to US Volkland Security)...

[Jan Klimkowski]

Here's lawyer Michael Mansfield with an introduction to the legality or otherwise of this SEAL operation.

I disagree with some of Mansfield's analysis, but at least it's an attempt to place the operation, as relayed by the White House to MSM, in an international legal context:

The Osama bin Laden operation must be made transparent lest it's seen as frontier justice

The US needs to clarify the thinking behind the operation that led to the death of the al-Qaida leader so others don't take the stance of might over right

Michael Mansfield guardian.co.uk, Sunday 8 May 2011 00.06 BST Article history

George W Bush's remark about wanting Osama bin Laden "dead or alive" reminds us that many people have not moved on from the concepts of "frontier justice". The events provide an important opportunity for re-examining the role and respect to be accorded to the rule of law and the principles of international justice. If they are to mean anything when applied to other people, everyone needs to know the basis upon which the operation was launched that led to the killing of Bin Laden.

There is a growing and conscientious feeling of "discomfort" that can be allayed only by a thorough and transparent revelation about the objectives and actions taken. Unless this happens quickly, the powerful forces that work in our world, whether nation states or otherwise, will interpret this as a licence to take the law into their own hands, circumvent international norms and convert "might" into right.

President Barack Obama made a measured and carefully drafted announcement . The terms he used are specific. He began his speech with the inevitable reference to 9/11 and stated: "We were … united in our resolve to protect our nation and to bring those who committed this vicious attack to justice". He then moved on to deal with the development of intelligence, and a lead that arose last August in relation to the location of Bin Laden. "And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action and authorised an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice."

It is noticeable here that there was nothing about an operation in self-defence against a commander in the field during armed conflict; nor any hint of an operation conceived in vengeance and in order to avenge the multitude of deaths in cities around the world. It was an entirely proper and judicious expedition against a man who was undoubtedly responsible for persistent crimes against humanity.

Since Obama spoke these words, however, different interpretations and discrepancies have unfolded. Many of the observations have come from American commentators. For example, Michael Scheuer (CIA) told the BBC World Service: "This operation was not a capture operation, it was meant to kill him." Daniel J Coleman, who in 1996 was the first FBI agent attached to the CIA's Bin Laden investigation, told the New York Times that in relation to the attack on the destroyer USS Cole in 2000 "that the deaths of those young men and women were never avenged".

What therefore needs to be ascertained are the rules of engagement and briefing given to the taskforce, because if its real objective was not to bring Bin Laden to justice but to kill him this begins to have the appearance of an extra-judicial killing or assassination.

The president had little more to say about the operation itself other than: "After a fire-fight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body."

For most listeners this gives a clear impression that the Navy Seals were caught up in an exchange of fire with an armed man or men wherein Bin Laden was killed as a matter of necessary self-defence. This description, however, is deficient in two important respects: there was no exchange of fire and Bin Laden was not armed.

How these errors could have arisen is perplexing, because the president, Hilary Clinton and many other officials were, unusually, watching the operation on a live feed through to the situation room in the White House.

While it is entirely understandable that there should be a reluctance to publish any images at the present time, the availability of film and photographic evidence must be preserved for the benefit of an independent judicial examination.

There are other discrepancies concerning the actions of Bin Laden's wife, which also need to be considered.

The principle of self-defence
Self-defence is a long-standing and well-recognised principle of domestic and international law. While the United Nations has a monopoly on the use of force internationally, Article 51 of the UN charter makes an exception to this in its preservation of the right of self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a member of the UN.

Article 31 (1) c of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague also excludes criminal responsibility for an accused whose actions might otherwise constitute a crime in order to defend himself or another.

Article 2 (2) of the European Convention of Human Rights contains similar provisions, with a proviso that no more force than "is absolutely necessary" is used.

Underpinning this body of law is a consistent prerequisite that the force of the attack or threatened attack to be resisted is imminent. Hence the need for and significance of the "dodgy dossier" and the "45 minute" warning in the case of the Iraq war.

It is far from clear that these preconditions have been satisfied in the Bin Laden case. Normally, one might expect the UN or its security council or its secretary general to have raised these matters, but the euphoric and unquestioning speeches in the council suggest once more that an independent judicial body should be appointed to investigate these issues. Without it, public confidence in the point and utility of international law will be severely undermined.

Beyond the law?

There are some who argue that Bin Laden was above and beyond the law and that his case was not susceptible to the complexities and dangers of bringing him to justice in the Hague or even for that matter in the US. It is worth remembering that a case against Bin Laden had begun in the federal district court in Manhattan on 10 June 1998 and has been on-going and substantially amplified since then. According to the New York Times (May 5th), the original indictment was kept secret at first, coming at a time when the CIA was considering a plan to capture Bin Laden and turn him over for trial either in the US or in an Arab country.

In any event, the whole thrust of international treaties and conventions has been towards ensuring "due process" on the basis that no one can be considered to be above the law. Hence there has been a string of international tribunals dealing with equally heinous crimes committed by equally vicious perpetrators, stretching from Nuremburg and Tokyo to Yugoslavia and Cambodia. The US has steadfastly refused to sign up to the ICC for fear, no doubt, of the risks that it might end up in the dock. Nevertheless there have already been significant and successful prosecutions in the universal endeavour to bring about accountability and fair trial.

We should not allow truth and justice to become victims to the law of retribution along with other innocent victims of terror.

[Magda Hassan]

I heard they also found porn lol. So, OBL is vain, with him watching himself on tv, dyeing his beard. He is stupid for fluffing his lines. He is a coward for using a woman as a human shield. No, scrap that one. He was armed and violent and engaged in a firefight with seals. No, scrap that one too, he was unarmed. We don't get to any photos of the dead Bin Laden but instead we get pictures of the live and vain Bin Laden or some old geezer, watching himself on tv and a group of sociopaths watching a snuff movie of Bin Laden which is apparently okay. We don't even get to listen to the voice of Osama. He is muted in more than one way. We are told his body was buried at sea because no nation would want it but we are never told which countries were asked or if they were asked. We know it belongs with his family. Then we are told that Bin Laden was buried at sea so his burial spot does not become a place of veneration, Mecca lite, even though most Muslims don't regard him highly. We are told he was buried at sea in accordance with Muslim burial practices though it is not permitted in Muslim law except under extraordinary circumstance and this not being one of them. We are told there will be no pictures because it would likely inflame too many people but since when have the US ever considered the sensibilities of any one else ever? All their words and deeds inflame the emotions of millions and not just Muslims. We had Che Guevarra as trophy on show, Saddam Hussein and his 2 sons, Mussollini and his mistress. Why not Osama? Is it because his ears and nose have already been taken as a trophy to hang on one of the 70 trained circus seals dog tag? Is it because they blasted the captured invalid's face off and don't wish to show evidence of their war crimes? Did he meet the same fate as Daniel Pearle? Will we see that it is just some poor dumb schmuck and not the legendary Osama at all?
:flypig::flypig::flypig:

[Jan Klimkowski]

I heard they also found porn lol.

:flypig::flypig::flypig:

PsyOp Central missed a trick there. They could have keyed some pornography into the TV screen. "Mohamad Atta Parties with Strippers Prior to 9/11" would have been a fine choice.

PS I just watched the "home movies" again to check a couple of details and, instead of the IBM "Smarter Planet" advert, I was subjected to a promotional film about Dubai claiming "in Dubai every day is an opportunity". Some bizarre shit....

[Peter Lemkin]

May 7, 2011
Author: Noam Chomsky
Source: Guernica

It's increasingly clear that the operation was a planned assassination, multiply violating elementary norms of international law. There appears to have been no attempt to apprehend the unarmed victim, as presumably could have been done by 80 commandos facing virtually no oppositionexcept, they claim, from his wife, who lunged towards them. In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial. I stress "suspects." In April 2002, the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, informed the press that after the most intensive investigation in history, the FBI could say no more than that it "believed" that the plot was hatched in Afghanistan, though implemented in the UAE and Germany. What they only believed in April 2002, they obviously didn't know 8 months earlier, when Washington dismissed tentative offers by the Taliban (how serious, we do not know, because they were instantly dismissed) to extradite bin Laden if they were presented with evidencewhich, as we soon learned, Washington didn't have. Thus Obama was simply lying when he said, in his White House statement, that "we quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda."

Nothing serious has been provided since. There is much talk of bin Laden's "confession," but that is rather like my confession that I won the Boston Marathon. He boasted of what he regarded as a great achievement.

There is also much media discussion of Washington's anger that Pakistan didn't turn over bin Laden, though surely elements of the military and security forces were aware of his presence in Abbottabad. Less is said about Pakistani anger that the U.S. invaded their territory to carry out a political assassination. Anti-American fervor is already very high in Pakistan, and these events are likely to exacerbate it. The decision to dump the body at sea is already, predictably, provoking both anger and skepticism in much of the Muslim world.

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush's compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden's, and he is not a "suspect" but uncontroversially the "decider" who gave the orders to commit the "supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole" (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country, the bitter sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region.

There's more to say about [Cuban airline bomber Orlando] Bosch, who just died peacefully in Florida, including reference to the "Bush doctrine" that societies that harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves and should be treated accordingly. No one seemed to notice that Bush was calling for invasion and destruction of the U.S. and murder of its criminal president.

Same with the name, Operation Geronimo. The imperial mentality is so profound, throughout western society, that no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders. It's like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It's as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes "Jew" and "Gypsy."

There is much more to say, but even the most obvious and elementary facts should provide us with a good deal to think about.

[Jan Klimkowski]

According to Pakistan's President Musharaff, shortly after 9/11, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage threatened to "bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age".

Looks like similar threats are immiment:

Barack Obama has ratcheted up the pressure on Pakistan, demanding that the Pakistani government investigates whether its own people were involved in a network to support Osama bin Laden in his Abbottabad hideout.

The US president's comments are his most direct yet on the subject of Pakistan's possible complicity with terrorism. He told the CBS show 60 Minutes that Bin Laden must have had "some sort of support network" inside the country.

"We don't know whether there might have been some people inside of government, outside of government, and that's something we have to investigate, and more importantly, the Pakistani government has to investigate," he said.

Obama's words add to a sustained verbal attack by the US administration on the Pakistani government in the wake of the raid on the al-Qaida leader's lair in the middle of a busy garrison town that is home to three regiments, a military academy and thousands of soldiers.

Last week the CIA director, Leon Panetta, told Congress that Pakistan had been "either involved or incompetent".

Tom Donilon, the national security adviser, said on ABC's This Week that there was no evidence Pakistan had foreknowledge of Bin Laden's presence. But he said the al-Qaida chief "was living, and we now know operating, in a town 35 miles away from Islamabad, a military town. So questions are being raised quite aggressively in Pakistan."

Pakistan is clearly worried. It's introduced new restrictions for foreign broadcasters, effectively declaring all foreign reporters as likely spies, and also retaliated by naming - "outing" - the CIA Station Chief in Islamabad.

Perhaps, as speculated earlier in this thread, based on non-western media sources, the "raid" was actually a Pakistani operation which met with unexpected resistance from deep covert, off the books, (ie illegal), US special forces.

Bin Laden: Pakistan instructs global media to stop 'illegal broadcasts'

TV regulator imposes new licence requirement after critical coverage from Abbottabad

Declan Walsh in Islamabad and Saeed Shah in Abbottabad guardian.co.uk, Sunday 8 May 2011 14.58 BST

The Pakistani government has introduced curbs on international media in the garrison town where Osama bin Laden was killed, ordering television stations to cease broadcasting and some reporters to leave town.

On Saturday night the television regulator, Pemra, ordered nine international channels, including the BBC, CNN and Fox, to stop "illegal" broadcasts from Abbottabad, where Bin Laden's house has been the subject of intense media coverage

It suggested the channels could not broadcast from Abbottabad or anywhere in Pakistan without obtaining a licence, a previously unknown requirement. Simultaneously, government officials contacted several British, Australian and American journalists, instructing them to leave Abbottabad because their visas did not permit them to stay.

The government also took measures to stop more journalists entering Pakistan. At diplomatic missions in London and New Delhi, Pakistani officials said there was a temporary hold on media visas.

The measures appeared to be part of a concerted government effort to stem a tide of critical media coverage over thorny questions about how Bin Laden lived for up to six years in a garrison town that is home to three regiments, a military academy and thousands of soldiers.

Implementation, however, has been haphazard. The BBC foreign editor, Jon Williams, said the station had not received the government letter instructing it to quit broadcasting, and a BBC reporter in Pakistan said operations were continuing as normal.

But a Channel 4 journalist said the station had been told to return to Islamabad and seek permission to work in Abbottabad. The broadcaster's crew left at lunchtime on Sunday.

Until now most western criticism has been directed at Pakistan's military and intelligence agencies. Some US officials have insinuated that the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) helped to harbour Bin Laden.

Now the ISI is hitting back with judicious media leaks. In a move bound to infuriate the US, on Friday several Pakistani television stations named the CIA station chief in Islamabad as Mark Carlton; the stations said he had been given a verbal roasting by the ISI chief, General Shuja Pasha.

The naming is sensitive because the previous CIA chief in Islamabad quit his position over security worries last December after being named in a court case and the national media. Some US officials blamed the ISI for the leak.

The military's other weapon in the media war has been leaked accounts of life with Bin Laden from his surviving wives and children, who are believed to be in military custody near the general headquarters in Rawalpindi.

Bin Laden's 12-year-old daughter, named as Safiya, reportedly told Pakistani investigators that she saw her father being shot by US forces. Local media have reprinted a copy of the passport of one of Bin Laden's wives, 29-year-old Amal Ahmed al-Sadah, a citizen of Yemen, although some versions of the image appear to have been digitally altered.

Other leaks have sent journalists on apparent wild goose chases. On Saturday the New York Times and the Pakistani paper Dawn, quoting Pakistani officials, said Sadah had claimed that Bin Laden lived for two and a half years in a small north-western village before moving to Abbottabad in 2005.

The news triggered a media stampede to Chak Shah Mohammad, near Abbottabad, where journalists discovered a hamlet of a few hundred houses and about 2,000 inhabitants with no internet or telephone connection. But at the time there was little sign of Bin Laden. Most houses were small, mud-brick dwellings, while the only one with high walls was that of the local mullah and still under construction.

As reporters swarmed the village, shops sold out of bottled water, one school closed for the day, and the villagers denied any connection with the Saudi. Some wondered whether there was a connection between a local cave complex and Tora Bora, Bin Laden's hideout in late 2001. "Bora means cave. So yes, both places have caves," one elder laconically told the Daily Times newspaper. "Will we be bombed now?"

[Ed Jewett]

John Stanton has a document for download at Cryptome.

First, the Wikipedia entry for John Stanton from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stanton_(journalist):

John Stanton is a journalist, analyst and teacher (national security) living in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area. He has written dozens of articles for online publications (non-compensated) such as Pravda (also publishes a broadsheet in Russia), Sri Lanka Guardian, Counterpunch, Cryptome, Dawn, Intel Daily, Security Management, Journal of Technology Transfer, Seoul Times and more. He has also written dozens of articles (compensated) for publications including National Defense Magazine, Defense Daily, American Behavioral Scientist (Terror in Cyberspace) and Convergence Magazine. He appeared on CBS, ABC and CNN immediately after 9/11 commenting on Homeland Security & Defense. He is a former radio talk show host, magazine editor, and deputy program manager. He appeared on Russia Today TV commenting on the US Army's Human Terrain System. His book on that subject is titled General David Petraeus' Favorite Mushroom--The Inside Story of the US Army Human Terrain System. That book is published by Wiseman Publishing, a print-on-demand (POD) editing and publishing firm (no fees paid by the author). Stanton has three other POD published books/collections of essays: America's Nightmare: The Presidency of George Bush II, A Power But Not Super, and Talking Politics with God and the Devil in Washington, DC.
His analysis and commentary has been carried in print and radio around the globe. He wrote extensively on cyberwar/information warfare in the 1994-2000 timeframe when the Bill Clinton Administration was pushing cyber defense initiatives. He has written articles on technical matters such as electromagnetic pulse affects, MOUT, training and simulation, and orphan nukes; presented papers on Asynchronous Transfer Mode, Strategic Cultural Analysis and Evolutionary Cognitive Neuroscience; along with authoring numerous articles commenting on media, culture, race and politics.
Stanton has authored roughly 30 articles over a two year period on the US Army's (TRADOC) Human Terrain System. Those articles are based on nearly 80 sources. All of them are available at Dr. Max Forte's Zero Anthropology and John Young's Cryptome. Intelligence Daily and Pravda have also carried the works.
The Sri Lanka Guardian first carried Stanton's 2010 piece titled USA Undermines Democracy in Turkey: It's Turkey Stupid, Not Israel. That piece discusses the internal dynamics of Turkey's efforts to maintain democratic reforms, a free press and an open culture. Pravda also carried the effort.
[edit]External links

http://www.counterpunch.org/stanton06182010.html
http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columni...al_decay-0
http://www.counterpunch.org/stanton11032009.html
http://cryptome.org/0001/hts-birth.htm
http://abs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/45/6/1017
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/a...d7117.aspx
http://www.springerlink.com/content/y322680tml37150x/
http://www.amazon.com/General-David-Petr...=1-1-spell
http://www.springerlink.com/content/y322680tml37150x/
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/A...ages/Rules 4391.aspx?PF=1
http://aerade.cranfield.ac.uk/shrivenham...m=b&sid=65
http://www.amazon.com/Talking-Politics-D...1424191246
http://www.amazon.com/America-2004-Power...1893302261
http://www.amazon.com/Americas-Nightmare...1893302296
http://www.fifth-estate-online.co.uk/com...evised.pdf
http://www.counterpunch.org/stanton11012003.html

The source: obl-kill-mmo.doc Bin Laden Kill a NatSec Media Manage Operation May 8, 2011

Lastly, the document itself (color and other emphasis by poster):

US National Security Information Operations:
Obama's Bin Laden Kill Sets Precedent

by John Stanton

According to the Army Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare, September 2008, "Information is a strategic resource vital to national security. Dominance of the information environment is a reality that extends to the armed forces of the United States at all levels. Military operations, in particular, are dependent upon many simultaneous and integrated activities that, in turn, depend upon information and information systems, which the United States must protect…With the free flow of information present in all theaters, such as TV, phone, and Internet, conflicting messages can quickly emerge to defeat the intended effects. As a result, continuous synchronization and coordination between Information Operations, Public Affairs, Public Diplomacy, and U.S. allies is imperative. It also helps to ensure that information themes employed during operations involving neutral or friendly populations remain consistent."

In short, the media in all its formsmass, blog, social, print, electronic, spoken wordis a physical element to be accounted for in national security operations just like the weather or inhospitable geographic terrain. And that means citizen consumers of information are absorbing content from providers who are accounted for and manipulated by national security commanders (civilian and military) in planning and executing operations.

Shaping the information environment means targeting the media not with violence but with logrolling techniques, trial balloons, trades/leaks, etc. The main stream media (MSM) is the focus of these efforts as the population/culture largely looks to the MSM for guidance on how to dress, think, travel, eat, listen, watch and speak. The Combatant Commands and the US Department of Defense News Services assist in shaping the consciousness of the nation as well.

I Shot Bin Laden, But I Didn't Shoot the Deputy

The National Security Operation approved by US President Barak Obama that ended Osama Bin Laden's was a gem in terms of Military Information Support Operations (though it should be renamed National Security Information Operations). Planning included meeting with editors of US publications like The New York Times, Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. CNN and FOX, and select allies, were likely briefed as well. These outlets transmit the voices and thoughts of those who take the country to war, set economic policy, and decide whether a Broadway play succeeds or fails.

Even though the original version of the Bin Laden story continues to crumble/change, it was wildly successful in stimulating US nationalism through the media's constant repetition of the matter. Even Hezbollah's website Al Manar carried wires stories from AP on Bin Laden's ignominious demise.

But it is far too early for anyone to speculate what the fallout will be from the targeted killing of Bin Laden and the use of the media to exploit his death and humiliate Pakistan. Kristen Eichensehr's Assassination Policy Under International Law--in the May 2006*issue of Harvard International Review-- cautions against the celebratory madness seen in the USA after Bin Laden's death. It reminds that retribution against US leaders should not be unexpected.

"Publicized US employment of targeted killings in the war on terror made a return to the previous era of credible moral superiority in rhetoric impossible. The preferable alternative to targeted killing of enemies should always be arrest and trial, but in cases where those alternative measures are not available, targeted killing may be the next best alternative. However, careful calculation of the risks and benefits of employing the policy must be weighed before it is implemented. The threat of reciprocity and repercussions for society are serious considerations that are often not given enough weight, and the policy should be re-examined continually to evaluate its effectiveness in decreasing the threat to the employing state's citizens. In some instances, targeted killings are both legal and effective, but for societies founded on principles of human rights, they should never be the first choice."

Higher on the list of tasks for the Navy Seals, than terminating Bin Laden, was to gather information/intelligence from Bin Laden's hideout that would allow further exploitation and shaping of the domestic and global information terrain; and, hence, public consciousness on matters of national security. Indeed, much appears to have been collected by the pickers on the Navy Seal Teams (designated shooters and pickers of information) in the form of hard drives and other electronic/print media.

This has provided the National Security System, led by President Obama, to "do a Wikileaks." Over the coming months (and years?) bits and bytes of Bin Laden's operation will be given to, or leaked to, favored media outlets. The Hollywood liaison offices at the Pentagon and elsewhere will be busy working with script writers for the Bin Laden story to further shape the information environment via the movie screen.

Cry Havoc! Let Loose the Electrons and Photons of War

Like their US counterparts in the national security machinery, The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has similar views on the importance of media exploitation. They are savvy too.

"Wars today cannot be won without media. Media is directed to the heart rather than the body. The weapon is directed to the body. If the heart is defeated the battle is won and the body is defeated. In the beginning, with the fall of the Islamic Emirate, the enemy thought that the field was completely open before them, and they spread their lies and falsehoods that they had destroyed the Islamic Emirate and its Mujahideen and that their victory in the land of Afghanistan was complete. All of their resources, especially their media were directed towards changing the ideas of Afghans and injecting defeatist thought into them and instilling in them a petrifying fear of the new occupiers. First through the grace of Allah,*subhanahu wa ta'ala, then through the victories of the Mujahideen and their rightly guided leadership; and after defeats were inflicted on the enemy on the field of battle, a media committee was established to contest with the enemy in the (media) field.

Among other committees, the Islamic Emirates established a special Media Committee to spread news about Jihadist activities in different fields and chase away the voice of the unjust enemy who, before the entire world, was distorting the image of the Jihad in Afghanistan and was claiming false victories here and there over the Mujahideen. Need called for the existence of a media agency to take responsibility for the Mujahideen in Afghanistan; speaking on behalf of the Islamic Emirate; delivering news of its victories on the battlefield to its friends and to the world; exposing the falsehood of its enemies and their media; responding to the claims and its daily changing deceptions; and delivering to the world the voice of truth and jihad and its point of view about current Jihadist events in the land of Afghanistan.

Our website specializes in conveying field reports from the combat zones and publishing the statements of the Ameer ul-Momineen and the statements of the Command Shura Council about different issues pertaining to Jihad, in addition to articles and official analysis. They have many sections: for example there's an Islam page, a magazines page, and a page for films produced by official studios. We also print magazines and statements and distribute them in popular circles at home and abroad. Additionally, we produce different publications and regulations and distribute them among the Mujahideen. There is also a "Voice of Shari'ah" that broadcasts news and official statements day and night."

Civil and Military Become One, Media a Tool

It now seems ridiculous to use the term "military operations" since the lines differentiating civilian and military practice have long since ceased to exist. The only notable difference between civilian and the military is in the clothing; one sports a Brooks Brothers business suit, the other military gear adorned with awards.

At any rate, President Barak Obama implied as much in his National Security Strategy of the USA. As a matter of policy, America has gone "beyond traditional distinctions" indicating that America's homeland defense, commercial activities and military operations have all fused together to defeat terrorists, drug lords, the black market, et al. The moniker selected for this is "Whole of Government, Whole of Nation" effort which the world will hear more of in the coming months and years.

Better now to think of the USA as a National Security System. National Security Operations are conducted on either the strategic or tactical level using any one or all of the USA's instruments of national power as excellently defined by the US Army's Unconventional Warfare manual cited above. Those elements of power are diplomatic, information, military, economic, intelligence, law enforcement, and financial.

So, where to turn to for the news? How to differentiate between news content of Al Manar (Hezbollah) and the New York Times? How to know whether the Washington Post or Press TV (Iran) has the right angle on the story? The "bad guys" at those publications are carrying items off the AP, Reuters' wires. They report on floods in the US Midwest like their US counterparts. Al Manar is a huge fan of NBA basketball and LeBron James. And what to make of the reporting style of Xinhua (China) or the Daily Star (Lebanon)?

The US Army Special Forces document cited above outlines the dangers of a centralized media. The hazards are real, the battlefield is everywhere now, and the mind, or heart, is the target.

Conspiracy Theorists: Take a Hike!

Understanding the operation of the National Security System is not hard if one is an educated information consumer, a student of the information terrain cognizant of the doctrines used by those who manipulate and attempt to shape individual and collective thought. Marketers selling soda and beer use techniques that are similar.

Before forming opinions based on information provided by the media be it Fox News, Press TV, Al Manar, the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post, beware the hazards of National Security Operations.

Hazards of centralized mass media include the following: 1.) A disproportion of power occurs and disproportionate informational power accrues to those who control centralized mass media; arguably, it is inherently undemocratic. 2.) An inability to transmit tacit knowledge; the context of content presented must either be explicitly explained or is assumed to be understood by the receiver. 3.) An inclination to focus on the unusual and sensational to capture the receivers' attention, leading to a distortion and trivialization of reality. 4.) The deliberate promotion of emotions such as anxiety, fear, or greed can be used to sell a particular agenda. 5.) An inability to deal with complex issues because of time and economic constraints leads to simplification, further distorting and trivializing reality.

John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in national security and political matters. Reach him at cioran123@yahoo.com.