The Agendas Behind the bin Laden News Event

Paul Craig Roberts
May 5, 2011

The US government’s bin Laden story was so poorly crafted that it did not last 48 hours before being fundamentally altered. Indeed, the new story put out on Tuesday by White House press secretary Jay Carney bears little resemblance to the original Sunday evening story. The fierce firefight did not occur. Osama bin Laden did not hide behind a woman. Indeed, bin Laden, Carney said, “was not armed.”

The firefight story was instantly suspicious as not a single SEAL got a scratch, despite being up against al Qaeda, described by former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld as “the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth.”

Every original story detail has been changed. It wasn’t bin Laden’s wife who was murdered by the Navy SEALs, but the wife of an aide. It wasn’t bin Laden’s son, Khalid, who was murdered by the Navy SEALs, but son Hamza.

Carney blamed the changed story on “the fog of war.” But there was no firefight, so where did the “fog of war” come from?

The White House has also had to abandon the story that President Obama and his national security team watched tensely as events unfolded in real time (despite the White House having released photos of the team watching tensely), with the operation conveyed into the White House by cameras on the SEALs helmets. If Obama was watching the event as it happened, he would have noticed, one would hope, that there was no firefight and, thus, would not have told the public that bin Laden was killed in a firefight. Another reason the story had to be abandoned is that if the event was captured on video, every news service in the world would be asking for the video, but if the event was orchestrated theater, there would be no video.

No explanation has been provided for why an unarmed bin Laden, in the absence of a firefight, was murdered by the SEALs with a shot to the head. For those who believe the government’s story that “we got bin Laden,” the operation can only appear as the most botched operation in history. What kind of incompetence does it require to senselessly and needlessly kill the most valuable intelligence asset on the planet?

According to the US government, the terrorist movements of the world operated through bin Laden, “the mastermind.” Thanks to a trigger-happy stupid SEAL, a bullet destroyed the most valuable terrorist information on the planet. Perhaps the SEAL was thinking that he could put a notch on his gun and brag for the rest of his life about being the macho tough guy who killed Osama bin Laden, the most dangerous man on the planet, who outwitted the US and its European and Israeli allies and inflicted humiliation on the “world’s only superpower” on 9/11.

When such a foundational story as the demise of bin Laden cannot last 48 hours without acknowledged “discrepancies” that require fundamental alternations to the story, there are grounds for suspicion in addition to the suspicions arising from the absence of a dead body, from the absence of any evidence that bin Laden was killed in the raid or that a raid even took place. The entire episode could just be another event like the August 4, 1964, Gulf of Tonkin event that never happened but succeeded in launching open warfare against North Vietnam at a huge cost to Americans and Vietnamese and enormous profits to the military/security complex.

There is no doubt that the US is sufficiently incompetent to have needlessly killed bin Laden instead of capturing him. But who can believe that the US would quickly dispose of the evidence that bin Laden had been terminated? The government’s story is not believable that the government dumped the proof of its success into the ocean, but has some photos that might be released, someday.

As one reader put it in an email to me: “What is really alarming is the increasingly arrogant sloppiness of these lies, as though the government has become so profoundly confident of their ability to deceive people that they make virtually no effort to even appear credible.”

Governments have known from the beginning of time that they can always deceive citizens and subjects by playing the patriot card. “Remember the Maine,” the “Gulf of Tonkin,” “weapons of mass destruction,” “the Reichstag fire” – the staged events and bogus evidence are endless. If Americans knew any history, they would not be so gullible.

The real question before us is: What agenda or agendas is the “death of bin Laden” designed to further?

There are many answers to this question. Many have noticed that Obama was facing re-election with poor approval ratings. Is anyone surprised that the New York Times/CBS Poll finds a strong rise in Obama’s poll numbers after the bin Laden raid? As the New York Times reported, “the glow of national pride” rose “above partisan politics, as support for the president rose significantly among both Republicans and independents. In all, 57 percent said they now approved of the president’s job performance, up from 46 percent.”

In Washington-think, a 24% rise in approval rating justifies a staged event.

Another possibility is that Obama realized that the the budget deficit and the dollar’s rescue from collapse require the end of the expensive Afghan war and occupation and spillover war into Pakistan. As the purpose of the war was to get bin Laden, success in this objective allows the US to withdraw without loss of face, thus making it possible to reduce the US budget deficit by several hundred billion dollars annually – an easy way to have a major spending cut.

If this is the agenda, then more power to it. However, if this was Obama’s agenda, the military/security complex has quickly moved against it. CIA director Leon Panetta opened the door to false flag attacks to keep the war going by declaring that al Qaeda would avenge bin Laden’s killing. Secretary of State Clinton declared that success in killing bin Laden justified more war and more success. Homeland Security declared that the killing of bin Laden would motivate “homegrown violent extremists” into making terrorist attacks. “Homegrown violent extremists” is an undefined term, but this newly created bogeyman seems to include environmentalists and war protesters. Like “suspect,” the term will include anyone the government wants to pick up.

Various parts of the government quickly seized on the success in killing bin Laden to defend and advance their own agendas, such as torture. Americans were told that bin Laden was found as a result of information gleaned from torturing detainees held in Eastern European CIA secret prisons years ago.

This listing of possible agendas and add-on agendas is far from complete, but for those capable of skepticism and independent thought, it can serve as a starting point. The agendas behind the theater will reveal themselves as time goes on. All you have to do is to pay attention and to realize that most of what you hear from the mainstream media is designed to advance the agendas.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is the father of Reaganomics and the former head of policy at the Department of Treasury. He is a columnist and was previously an editor for the Wall Street Journal. His latest book, “How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds,” details why America is disintegrating.

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U.S. Government: Historically a Pathological Liar

Can you believe anything that comes out of any U.S. government official? Only the gullible public could.

By Luis R. Miranda
The Real Agenda
May 2, 2011

This article would be an op-ed if it wasn’t because there is so much proof that the United States government has lied its way into building the Empire that is now collapsing. I do not need to justify why there are so many people who do not trust anything the government says, because history is the most faithful witness that governments lie when they have to, use fear when their lies don’t work, and murder when fear is no longer effective.

Sunday, president Barack Obama interrupted regular television programming to announce the death of Osama Bin Laden, the ghost that had eluded intelligence and military assets for a decade. Obama didn’t only take credit for Bin Laden’s death, but he also arrogantly spoke as if we had to take his word for it. The announcement came at a suspiciously convenient time, exactly when Obama needed it the most.

So the question is, do we take the announcement at face value? Only the gullible public would and could. Only the minority that still believes government is good, honest and straightforward with the people have the guts to believe any official version of the facts. Only the men and women who are afraid of learning the facts about history and who rely on the main stream corporate media would.

The rest of us know better. The rest of us, the majority, know that when government controls the information that sees the light, there is zero chance to expect the truth. When the government is the judge, jury and executioner, as it happens often, there is no room for trust.

American government lies abound and have stained history for decades. From the Gulf of Tonkin to the Bay of Pigs. From the Weapons of Mass Destruction excuse, to Al-CIA-eda. From Bin Laden to the War on Terror.

A country and a government that allows its president to be murdered (John F. Kennedy) in plain daylight for the sake of empire building does not have credibility.

A government that false-flag attacks its own troops (Gulf de Tonkin) to take the country into war does not have credibility.

A government that creates boogie-men (Bin Laden) to terrorize its own people and the world does not have any credibility.

A government that murders a million people (Iraq 1991 y Iraq 2003) in one single country does not have credibility.

A government that experiments with foreign (Guatemala) and its own people (Tuskegee), does not have credibility.

A government that invades countries for humanitarian reasons while bombing its people with depleted uranium, does not have credibility.

A government that says it killed the supposed head of a terrorist organization that is of its creation while showing no proof of it, does not have credibility.

A government that invites terrorists to dine in the Pentagon while accuses them of being terrorists, does not have credibility.

A government that operates in secrecy while spying on everyone cannot be trusted.

Nothing short of seeing Osama Bin Laden’s body and conducting an independent forensic analysis would probe enough for anyone in their right mind to believe the United States announcement that it captured and killed Bin Laden. Unfortunately, the United States government conveniently disposed of his body so that no one can ever find out if it was him or not  -just as it did with the rubble of the World Trade Center Towers- but has only shown a doctored picture with Photoshop. A government that has lied throughout its whole history wants us to believe what it has to say regarding the capture and murder of the greatest boogie-man of the 21st century? I don’t think so!

“The very word secrecy is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.”

– John F. Kennedy