Bin Laden under house arrest
September 12, 2001 6:09 PM   Subscribe

Bin Laden under house arrest Just read this article. I haven't seen this posted anywhere yet, so...
posted by crankydoodle (16 comments total)
 
Afghanistan must be very worried that the US forces will wipe them of the planet. An interesting move to say the least.
posted by jasonshellen at 6:27 PM on September 12, 2001


But a diplomat at the Taliban's embassy in Abu Dhabi said he could not confirm the report.
posted by phooey at 6:31 PM on September 12, 2001


I read this article linked from Fark about 20 minutes ago and haven't heard a word on television. I'm guessing they cannot confirm this.
posted by fresh-n-minty at 6:34 PM on September 12, 2001


I hope that Afghanistan knows what's good for them, it sounds like they do. So far they have seemed to be very diplomatic witht the United States, a nation with which they have no diplomatic ties (and thus no responsibility). I hope they stay on this course of cooperation. I really really do.
posted by raintea at 6:41 PM on September 12, 2001


fresh-n-minty: do you mean this article?
posted by crankydoodle at 6:45 PM on September 12, 2001


Libya kept the Locherbie suspects on ice for about seven years until their terms were met for what type of trial, venue, etc. This could just be a cynical move by the Taliban to buy time and hope that American resolve lightens up.

I say our intelligence assets should be directed at finding what house Osama is in and make it our business to have the SEALs drop in to "chat him up".
posted by MAYORBOB at 6:45 PM on September 12, 2001


Jason said:

Afghanistan must be very worried that the US forces will wipe them of the planet. An interesting move to say the least.

And I think that's pretty much right.
posted by a11an at 6:53 PM on September 12, 2001


MAYORBOB, nobody knows it was him. Nobody knows who planned and organised this yet. See for example the second page of this Salon article which suggests Islamic Jihad. A precipitate response that gets the wrong people (and there must have been a bunch of them) will only make things worse.

Take a deep breath, be patient, and remember that revenge is a dish best served cold. If it was him, there is plenty of time to get him.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 6:55 PM on September 12, 2001


ven if he was introduced to a few cruise missiles and turned out to be the wrong guy in this particular instance, I don't think that anyone in America would much care. They want that guy dead anyway.

Of course then we would need a new enemy.
posted by donkeymon at 7:06 PM on September 12, 2001


Wilt Bearden, an intelligence officer familiar with Afghanistan, was just on CBS News making some very valuable points to think of when looking at Bin Laden. The most interesting comment was that it's really easy to come to a snap judgement about Bin Laden and say that he's the only person capable of orchestrating such an attack. "Well, he's the only person you know capable of this," he said (rough quote). There is a chance that the people responsible for this have planted evidence making us think it was Bin Laden....

I'm not defending Bin Laden in ANY case, but we need to know more information before calling for someone's head.
posted by arco at 7:39 PM on September 12, 2001


I echo the calls for calm. Let's be sure we have the right person before we go in after him.

In the alternate, bin Laden is notoriously hard to track down, and the crimes he's committed in the past certainly warrant the death penalty... if it wouldn't make him a martyr, maybe we should save ourselves some terrorism down the road and kill him anyway while we have the chance.
posted by gd779 at 8:23 PM on September 12, 2001


nobody knows it was him [bin Laden]. Nobody knows who planned and organised this yet

That doesn't really matter since he's already under indictment here for the bombings in Africa and of the USS Cole. But I don't think we should send in the SEALs, or anyone else, to assassinate him. Swift and final righteous punishment is called for here, but "public" and "sure" must also be watchwords in this.
posted by MuadDib at 8:44 PM on September 12, 2001


i agree with arco. i think that some of this evidence is turning up too conveniently and too neatly. the car they found had writing in arabic, a copy of the qu'ran, airplane-related materials. shit. how easy is that? and the phone conversations? i hope this is all just easy and that they were messy...

but, really, if you were planning an attack of such scope, and if the logistics were so sprawling and intensive, then wouldn't there be a lot of consideration about the ramifications--i.e., whether it would help a certain cause, or whether the backlash would be fierce?

i just hope this isn't a trap. i hope that our "terrorist = the country that harbors that terorrist" equation is accepted the world over. i hope that it doesn't turn out that it -was- bin laden and that afghanistan is hiding him. i hope that when the us attacks, afghanistan doesn't say something like, "he ain't us, and we will retaliate." and i hope that afghanistan doesn't have some deeply secret access to pakistani nukes.
posted by prozaction at 10:05 PM on September 12, 2001


CNBC Europe reported that this has been denied by Afghanistan.
posted by hijinx at 10:42 PM on September 12, 2001


I say we kill all terrorist groups who might have any possible links to the tragedy as quick as possible. After all, these people are terrorists. They must be guilty of something.

If we kill five known terrorists for every attack, self-policing within the terrorist community will begin.

If Bin Laden is not guilty for this, he is considered the only suspect in the attack on the USS Cole and has even bragged about it. This is enough to have the American government seek him out and kill him. If it turns out that he was innocent, oh well, he wasn't exactly doing us any bif favors to begin with.
posted by ttrendel at 11:34 PM on September 12, 2001


It seems when one examines all the evidence and investigation leaks thus far, that MANY different groups were working together, and under the leadership and resources of Bin Laden. Quite frankly, he appears to not only be the poster boy for radical terrorism, but one who controls and directs much within this underground world.

Furthermore, I get the gut feeling that Bin Laden, and whoever his supporters are, are like the playground kid who has thrown a stone in a bully's direction in defiance, and accidentally struck him in the eye.

Does anyone else get the feeling that everyone involved instantly realized that this was much bigger, and much more devastating than actually planned?...that an international finger-pointing is about to happen?
posted by canoeguide at 2:11 AM on September 13, 2001


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