"We already know that seeing isn't necessarily believing, now I guess hearing isn't either." -- " Dan Kuehl, "chairman of the Information Operations department of the National Defense University in Washington, the military's school for information warfare, 1999.
I will here make the case that common sense and logic, not "tinfoihattiness" dictates extreme skepticism in the case of any Osama bin Laden tape, whether it be audio or video.
I will show that they have made fake tapes in the past, and that such technology is not only available, but is commonly used in Hollywood, and that the U.S. government Psyops researchers have bragged publicly in the past about having exactly this technology.
If you can read this and still firmly want to hold onto your belief that the Osama bin Laden "tape" is real, well ....
First, I will show you a Washington Post article from way back in 1999 whereby the powers-that-be were
bragging about their ability to "morph" audio, whereby they could have anybody say anything. To test their
sysem they created a tape of Colin Powell saying: "I am being treated well by my captors."
the link is here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
(for some reason HTML formatting isn't working for me at all today, so bear with me)
Here is the quote from the article:
By William M. Arkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, Feb. 1, 1999
"Gentlemen! We have called you together to inform you that we are going to overthrow the United States government." So begins a statement being delivered by Gen. Carl W. Steiner, former Commander-in-chief, U.S. Special Operations Command.
At least the voice sounds amazingly like him.
But it is not Steiner. It is the result of voice "morphing" technology developed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
By taking just a 10-minute digital recording of Steiner's voice, scientist George Papcun is able, in near real time, to clone speech patterns and develop an accurate facsimile. Steiner was so impressed, he asked for a copy of the tape.
Steiner was hardly the first or last victim to be spoofed by Papcun's team members. To refine their method, they took various high quality recordings of generals and experimented with creating fake statements. One of the most memorable is Colin Powell stating "I am being treated well by my captors."
"They chose to have him say something he would never otherwise have said," chuckled one of Papcun's colleagues."
Ah yes, fun and games with modern technology! Of
course this wasn't fun and games, this was all about PSYOPS: (as the article continues):
"For Hollywood, it is special effects. For covert operators in the U.S. military and intelligence agencies, it is a weapon of the future.
"Once you can take any kind of information and reduce it into ones and zeros, you can do some pretty interesting things," says Daniel T. Kuehl, chairman of the Information Operations department of the National Defense University in Washington, the military's school for information warfare.
Digital morphing -- voice, video, and photo -- has come of age, available for use in psychological operations. PSYOPS, as the military calls it, seek to exploit human vulnerabilities in enemy governments, militaries and populations to pursue national and battlefield objectives.
To some, PSYOPS is a backwater military discipline of leaflet dropping and radio propaganda. To a growing group of information war technologists, it is the nexus of fantasy and reality. Being able to manufacture convincing audio or video, they say, might be the difference in a successful military operation or coup.
Pentagon planners started to discuss digital morphing after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Covert operators kicked around the idea of creating a computer-faked videotape of Saddam Hussein crying or showing other such manly weaknesses, or in some sexually compromising situation. The nascent plan was for the tapes to be flooded into Iraq and the Arab world.
The tape war never proceeded, killed, participants say, by bureaucratic fights over jurisdiction, skepticism over the technology, and concerns raised by Arab coalition partners."
And don't think these Pentagon types don't have a wild imagination:
"But the "strategic" PSYOPS scheming didn't die. What if the U.S. projected a holographic image of Allah floating over Baghdad urging the Iraqi people and Army to rise up against Saddam, a senior Air Force officer asked in 1990?
According to a military physicist given the task of looking into the hologram idea, the feasibility had been established of projecting large, three-dimensional objects that appeared to float in the air.
But doing so over the skies of Iraq? To project such a hologram over Baghdad on the order of several hundred feet, they calculated, would take a mirror more than a mile square in space, as well as huge projectors and power sources.
And besides, investigators came back, what does Allah look like?
The Gulf War hologram story might be dismissed were it not the case that washingtonpost.com has learned that a super secret program was established in 1994 to pursue the very technology for PSYOPS application. The "Holographic Projector" is described in a classified Air Force document as a system to "project information power from space ... for special operations deception missions." "
Now moving onto Hollywood. We've all seen Forrest Gump, where Forrest shakes hands with JFK. That, by today's standards, isn't even new anymore.
Oliver Reed died while filming "Gladiator". Yet his voice and face were synthesized in order to put him in scenes not yet shot at the time of his death.
Nancy Marchand, the woman who played Tony Soprano's Mom on "The Sopranos" also died before her scenes were completed. They did the same thing with her, using the visual and audio information they already had of her to synthesize her image and place her in scenes shot after her death.
And the biggest reason to doubt the veracity of this latest "tape:"
They've faked us out before with OBL.
Here's an excellent link which demonstrates it:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/...
Yes, most Americans think they saw Osama Bin Laden confess to the 9/11 attacks. However, what they actually saw was a look-alike (and not a very good one, actually!):
As you can see, "Osama E" is definitely not our old buddy Osama Bin Laden.
Furthermore, in this tape there are many other non-OBL things going on:
(I can't do any kind of formatting today for some infuriating reason, so I'm just gonna drag a big-ass quote over into this box):
"Even Mr Magoo would have to say that Osama 'E' stands out like a sore thumb, and this is the man confessing on the "lucky find" tape. Between the nose and the cheeks it is clear that this man is NOT Osama.
In the video Osama 'E' appears to write notes with his right hand, yet the FBI's description of Osama indicates he is left-handed. Osama 'E' wears a ring on his right hand which does not appear on other confirmed photos of Osama (e.g. Osama 'B'). Another man is seen wearing a large gold ring in the video. Since the wearing of gold rings is forbidden by Islam it shows neither he nor Osama 'E' has any devotion to this faith.
On December 27, 2001, a second video containing the pale skinned and very real Osama 'C' was broadcast on al Jazeera. The tape was reportedly made on November 19, 2001 - that's ten days after the "lucky find" tape was reportedly made. Are we supposed to believe that Osama's skin, hair and beard changed color in ten days?
The broadcast of the tape caught the US government completely off-guard:
The recording was dismissed by the Bush administration ... as sick propaganda possibly designed to mask the fact the al-Qa'eda leader was already dead. "He could have made the video and then ordered that it be released in the event of his death," said one White House aide. [Telegraph]
This was a very telling response.
Also, his comments caused quite a stir because because they contradicted the "confession" video:
American officials argued that bin Laden's frequent references to US support for Israel were a bogus justification for his terrorism because in the "dinner party" tape of a private conversation there was no mention of the Middle East. [Telegraph]
This is very odd indeed because in bin Laden's September 28, 2001 denial of involvement in the 9/11 attacks he had plenty to say about the US and Israel:
This system is totally in control of the American-Jews, whose first priority is Israel, not the United States. It is clear that the American people are themselves the slaves of the Jews and are forced to live according to the principles and laws laid by them. So, the punishment should reach Israel. In fact, it is Israel, which is giving a blood bath to innocent Muslims and the U.S. is not uttering a single word. [Public Action]
And his views were the same in 1998:
"We say to the Americans as people and to American mothers, if they cherish their lives and if they cherish their sons, they must elect an American patriotic government that caters to their interests, not the interests of the Jews." [American Free Press]
Not only do the real Osama and the "lucky find" Osama look totally different, they also write with different hands and have different faiths and priorities."
So there you have it. Need I mention this administration's track record as far as telling us lies? Need I mention the CIA's record in telling us lies? Need I mention that the CIA works under the jurisdiction of the Executive Branch?
If you still want t cling to your belief that this latest OBL tape is authentic, I have miles of tinfoil I'd like to sell you.