As we come round to the 5-year mark, what scares me is a confluence of events that may HIT us FAST, ones that Bush & Co. is preparing us for with a ferocious preemptive round of political broadsides. Oh, and also with a new law he says he wants, one that will pull judges out of the loop.
I'm talking about /1/ al Qaeda and /2/ a verbal slingshot counteroffense.
Amanpour told us (in a special CNN aired 3x in August) that bin Laden has overcome 2 hurdles. Motivational hurdles that he has mounted.
Amanpour surprised me by saying bin Laden took heat from his admirers and followers for 9-11 because the attack he launched overlooked one sacred precept and mandate of the Muslim faith.
Jihadists believe they are obliged to warn in advance their adversary and targets, and
make an offer to them to convert to Islam. By the doctrine, the Islamists cannot attack unless they have made the offer and had it spurned.
Mike Scheuer [the 1st head of the bin Laden unit of the CIA] told Christiane Amanpour this, and further that bin Laden has fulfilled now the precondition for his next round. Here's that part of the interview.
AMANPOUR: Criticized by fellow extremists for not following, as they see it, the guidance of the holy prophet Mohamed for attacking an enemy.
SCHEUER: So he's spent the last four years very much addressing those issues with his audience. From the Muslim perspective, the prophet always demanded that before you attack someone you warn them and you offer them a chance to convert to Islam.
AMANPOUR: And that's exactly what bin Laden later did.
BIN LADEN: (speaking foreign languages)
GRAPHIC: I'm calling you to the path of happiness on Earth. To rescue you I'm calling on you to follow Islam.
SCHEUER: Bin Laden on three occasions, Zawahiri on two occasions, have offered to be our guides in a conversion to Islam, saying that everything is forgiven if you convert.
Note - Since this was recorded, Zawahiri has repeated his cynical proposition; 5 days ago a jihadist website posted the latest "offer."
The 2nd obstacle was obtaining a holy man's blessing. Here's Scheuer and Amanpour:
AMANPOUR: Scheuer says bin Laden also believed he's fulfilled the prophet's last requirement for launching another, even more massive attack, a religious blessing to kill millions of Americans with weapons of mass destruction.
SCHEUER: A judgment from a young cleric in Saudi Arabia which authorizes the Mujahideen, written large, to use nuclear weapons against the United States with -- with capping the casualties at 10 million.
AMANPOUR (on camera): He's had an approval, a religious approval for 10 million deaths?
SCHEUER: Yes.
Why didn't we catch this man when he was cornered in Afghanistan? This interview gives the answer; maybe an ABC producer should put this in his pipe and smoke it.
Hear the words, direct (no docu-drama), of the man who commanded the CIA paramilitary unit that chased bin Laden after he fled Kabul – Gary Bernsten. ( - Amanpour has good inside sources.)
BERNTSEN: In the first two or three days of December, I would write a message back to Washington, recommending the insertion of U.S. forces on the ground. I was looking for 600 to 800 Rangers, roughly a battalion. They never came.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): Also hunting bin Laden in Tora Bora, then Afghan militia leader, General Mohamed Zahir (ph).
(on camera) Do you have any idea how many American soldiers were at the battle of Tora Bora?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was not more than 50, 60, I think. There was not more than that at that time.
. . . .
AMANPOUR: ...[Dec. 2001] now the CIA was sure it knew where he was, thanks in large part to a radio taken off a dead al Qaeda fighter.
BERNTSEN: We listened to bin Laden for several days using that radio, listened to his communications among him and his men. We listened to him apologize to them for having led them into this trap and having led them into a location where they would be having airstrikes called on them just relentlessly.
AMANPOUR: More than two weeks of bombing, solid intelligence, the U.S. had thrown its biggest bombs, ... but somehow, some way, it wasn't enough. ...
BERGEN: By my calculation, there were more American journalists than American soldiers at the battle of Tora Bora, and that fact kind of speaks for itself.
We can hope Amanpour and Mike Scheuer don't know what they're talking about, that the transAtlantic plane plot was the end of the line.
Still, it's good to know that as operatives overseas plot demolition and mayhem, our ideological leadership in the White House has passed over chances to: secure nuclear materials; harden protection around hazardous and nuclear facilities; deploy available commercial airliner anti-missile technology.
On numerous occasions, the Administration refused to OK adequate funding of protective measures. (Sen Bob Byrd ticks off each instance on the floor of the Senate, Oct. 10, 2002, in an impassioned speech. Click the link; go to item 7, then to pg S10278.)
Better to cut taxes than pay for our safety. Ideology blesses the policy. Sanity be damned.
Keep in mind what Bush & Co. may know now when you listen to the new drumbeat of namecalling of people like us who need safety measures, concrete ones, instead of legalistic removal of our civil rights.
Note - all the quotes from the cnn episode at the transcript link are found at the very bottom of the transcript.
When you've thought about this, read also Wilbur's diary too >>> Less than 3 days to understand what is happening.
It's about the fascist uproar timed with the Disney project this week.