*U.S. Contradictory on Bin Laden - Spinmeisters Do Damage Control*
By Victor Thorn
If authentic, the killing of Osama bin Laden would stand as a monumental
achievement for the Obama presidency. But in actuality, this staged
event more closely resembles the propaganda campaigns surrounding U.S.
soldiers Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman. Unforgivably, both of these
individuals were used for propaganda purposes by the Bush administration
to create feel-good moments of patriotism.
Yet again, Barack Obama is reading from the Bush-Cheney play book in
regard to chicanery. According to the original story told by Deputy
National Security Advisor John Brennan, two dozen elite Navy
Seals---with shoot-to-kill orders---stormed bin Laden's home in
Abbottabad and engaged in a chaotic fire-fight that lasted 20 minutes.
Once the gunmen reached the third floor, Brennan claimed, they
encountered an armed bin Laden hiding behind a female human shield,
presumed to be his wife. "He was firing behind her," Brennan stated.
Brennan, who claimed to have watched the entire episode live, in
real-time transmitted via helmet mini cameras, boasted, "He [bin Laden]
was engaged in a fire-fight with those that entered the area . . . bin
Laden went down firing at the Navy Seals."
Yet, by the next day, White House officials backtracked, admitting that
bin Laden, or the man they are calling bin Laden, had not been armed and
no wife or any other woman was used as a human shield.
Still, White House spokesman Jay Carney insisted bin Laden "resisted
arrest without a weapon."
Supposedly frail and sickened by kidney failure, how could a 53-year-old
man resist 24 of the best trained Seals in the U.S. Navy?
Of all the countless media reports and tours of "bin Laden's home," why
didn't any of them mention a dialysis machine on the premises?
Allegedly, bin Laden---portrayed as the world's most dangerous
terrorist---was the last person encountered inside the compound. He'd
conceivably heard helicopters, explosions, gunfire and screams, yet
didn't pick up a gun to defend himself?
Another added element of strangeness involves the Obama administration's
refusal to identify precisely whom the Seals battled for 20 minutes in
the intense fire-fight, especially since they admitted no guards stood
outside the mansion.
It's now been proven that Brennan lied about bin Laden going down in a
blaze of glory. Either a 20-minute gun battle ensued, or it didn't.
Plus, it's also been established that only one man present at the
compound, a courier, carried a weapon, and he was immediately shot.
During a May 2 speech, Obama asserted that bin Laden had been "captured,
then killed." However, if bin Laden had been in U.S. custody, what did
he say, if anything?
He had been, after all, America's premier bogeyman for nearly a decade.
To cover this quandary, CIA Director Leon Panetta contradicted Obama by
saying that bin Laden had been killed instantly.
To further increase the dramatics of this event, the White House
released an iconic photograph of Obama's entire Cabinet purportedly
watching the fire-fight unfold. So there is no mistake, Seattle's King 5
TV described the scene: "Faces of the president's Cabinet members showed
intense anxiety and shock as they kept close watch over the fire-fight
in Pakistan that led to Osama bin Laden's death."
Initially, reports actually had Obama seeing bin Laden being shot
through the eye. For her part, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is
seen with a hand held over her mouth, gulping with apparent panic at
what she's seeing. Clinton noted, "Those were 38 of the most intense
minutes."
But Panetta yet again revealed the truth about what transpired. "There
was a 25 minute blackout during which the live feed from the camera
mounted on the helmets of the U.S. Special Forces was cut off."
Did White House officials stage the entire photo-op? Did all those in
attendance stare at a blank screen while making it appear they were
witnessing an actual assassination? Afterward, Mrs. Clinton blamed her
melodramatic reaction on a "spring allergic cough."
As AFP chronicled in the May 9 and 16 edition, there is a plethora of
evidence indicating that bin Laden died some 10 years ago, and that the
operation on May 1 was merely an attempt to revive a failing presidency.
Or, as antiwar protester Cindy Sheehan so adroitly emphasized, "I am
sorry, but if you believe the newest death of bin Laden, you're stupid.
Just think for yourself . . . this lying, murderous empire can only
exist with your brainwashed consent---put your flags away and think."
--
Freedom is always illegal!
When we ask for freedom, we have already failed. It is only when we
declare freedom for ourselves and refuse to accept any less, that we
have any possibility of being free.
"Why should we bother with 'realities' when we have the psychological
refuge of unthinking patriotism?"
Gary Leupp - Professor of History, Tufts University
--
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