January 8, 2008
Though Bush indignantly defended the authenticity of a videotape released in December 2001 in which someone who resembled bin Laden confessed to masterminding the 9/11 attacks, the FBI apparently doesn't think much of the tape. Neither does it give much credence to "confessions" made by al Qaeda operatives to CIA interrogators, it would seem, and hence gives the 9/11 commission narrative little support.
These points are the more disturbing in light of the recent disclosure by Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton that the White House had signed off on a decision to prevent the 9/11 commission from questioning al Qaeda captives. That disclosure came in a statement by the former commission co-chairmen, who assailed the CIA for obstructing the 9/11 probe by hiding and then destroying videotapes of al Qaeda captives being interrogated.
In 2006, the Muckraker Report stirred up a little tempest when it disclosed that the FBI's "Most Wanted" website failed to list bin Laden as a suspect in the 9/11 attacks and quoted FBI spokesman Rex Tomb as explaining there is no hard evidence linking bin Laden to the attacks.
The Washington Post's Dan Eggen responded with a story saying that the omission was "fodder for conspiracy theorists" and quoting Tomb as saying the FBI had "no need" to add the 9/11 attacks. A lawyer was then quoted to the effect that since bin Laden hadn't been indicted [the administration wanted "enemy combatants" kept away from U.S. juries] that perhaps the FBI was uncomfortable with listing him as a suspect.
If you'll go to the FBI "Most Wanted Terrorists" site today, you'll see that the situation hasn't changed. The FBI refuses to list bin Laden as a suspect in 9/11 [before he was reputedly killed by U.S. commandos]. He's a suspect in the bombing of two American embassies in Africa prior to 9/11 and generally in terrorist attacks around the world.
Not one word about 9/11.
Assuming Tomb was initially quoted accurately -- and the Post does not say otherwise -- one is left to the conclusion that the FBI does not consider the Pentagon's videotape as "hard evidence."
Bush played up this tape thus: "For those who see this tape, they'll realize that not only is he guilty of incredible murder, he has no conscience and no soul, that he represents the worst of civilization."
Questioned about the tape's authenticity, Bush responded, "It is preposterous for anybody to think that this tape is doctored. That's a weak excuse to provide a weak support for an incredibly evil man."
U.S. forces allegedly stumbled across the tape in the city of Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
Yet, the FBI seems not to regard this Pentagon intelligence find as "hard evidence" of bin Laden's connection to the 9/11 attacks.
Knowing how Bush and Cheney were eager to override objections of intelligence professionals and use rigged Pentagon intelligence linking Saddam to WMDs and 9/11, it seems quite likely that the White House and Pentagon steamrollered the FBI into playing along with a false 9/11 narrative but that the bureau is letting anyone with eyes to see know that it really doesn't buy that story.
The Muckraker is archived at
http://www.teamliberty.net/
A useful roundup of tape facts and observations can be found at
https://web.archive.org/web/20080727023118/http://whatreallyhappened.com/osamatape.html
Similarly, if the FBI believes there is a lack of hard evidence linking Osama to 9/11, then the bureau does not accept CIA reports of the confessions of Osama lieutenant Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other al Qaeda operatives. It has been reported that the FBI pulled its agents from CIA interrogation sessions over concerns about the value of statements obtained under duress.
On the other hand, it should be noted that the FBI "played the game" by not throwing cold water on what was obviously planted evidence to identify the purported 9/11 hijackers.
The lid
June 19, 2006
The fact that bin Laden is not wanted by the FBI for the 9/11 attacks has generated a small stir online (but not in the "real" media).
The FBI confirms by omission that bin Laden was not wanted in connection with the 9/11 attacks. The bureau's "most wanted" list reads:
Meanwhile, al Qaeda bigs are being held overseas as "enemy combatants" and might face a military tribunal -- some day. Notice that by putting off court adjudication indefinitely, the government can carry out aggressive actions -- including the various national security gimmicks used to KO the Bill of Rights during wartime -- without having to prove anything about the alleged conspiracy.
However, don't you think that if there were strong evidence against bin Laden that the government would have rushed head-over-heels to obtain an indictment?
The desire to avoid indictments stems from the desire to short-circuit the freedoms that define America as a free country while not drawing attention to holes in the White House conspiracy theory.
Simulating Osama?
September 21, 2007
How does the CIA identify a recorded voice as Osama's?
It uses a program that digitally compares the recording to a voiceprint taken from a sample of his voice considered to be authentic. There has been a lot of research into voiceprints, with numerous proprietary methods invented by telecommunications companies. For example, Cellmax says its voiceprint technology is so good it can discriminate between close relatives with similar voices and can identify a speaker whose voice is altered by a cold.
We must expect that the CIA's technical services division is using the latest, state-of-the-art classified voiceprint technology.
So, does that mean their identification of bin Laden's voice on various internet videos since 9/11 is reliable? Sure, it might be. But advanced voiceprint technology also implies the possibility of near-perfect voice counterfeiting. In fact, implementation of speech authentication security schemes have been slowed because crooks are becoming increasingly sophisticated at fooling such technology, according to some reports.
Another thriving industry is voice simulation. For example, AV Voice Changer Software Gold boasts that "unlike other voice changers, Voice Changer Software Gold changes your voice over the internet in real time and provides an unlimited number of new voices. You can modify your voice by changing voice pitch, voice timbre, applying effects, adjusting advanced tuner and setting equalizer."
So then, how hard would it be to create a program that inputs the voiceprint numbers into a simulator, which then makes you sound like Osama and -- since it is based on Osama's voiceprint -- fools voiceprint analyzers?
We do know that the Osama tapes all seem to have something wrong with the visuals. Either old footage or use of possible lookalikes. But the feds say they rely on the voiceprints. And the press reports that "Osama bin Laden said in his latest video..."
In one case, there was the possibility of lip-synching by a guy in a black beard.
My point is that the news media should be a bit more cognizant of the problem of authenticity. This morning's New York Times kept the Osama tape to four graphs and the headline qualified the bin Laden link with a "said to be." That's progress, maybe.
Bush jumped at the opportunity to say of the "blackbeard" tape that Iraq was mentioned and that al Qaeda's targeting of Iraq was a serious concern. But Bush's judicious phrases showed that he thought it best to avoid saying flatly that the video was an authentic bin Laden broadcast. However, he was happy to play along with those broadcast media that did flatly assert that bin Laden had spoken on the tape.
Another concern: how about the possibility of framing people with phony tapes of voices that sound just like them? The courts need to take notice.
See articles by David Jastrow, June 1, 2007, Speech Technology, Olga Kharif, April 20, 2005, Business Week, and Greg V. Hulme, Oct. 28, 2002, Information Week.
Osama didn't mind whether brother died on 9/11...
May 02, 2007
Osama bin Laden was "estranged" from his brother. So thus Osama really didn't mind whether his brother was within the target zone of the al Qaeda hijackers.
That seems to be the suggestion of ex-CIA chief George Tenet in his new book, At the Center of the Storm, which is evasive and fishy enough to be worthy of a top spook.
Tenet notes that when Flight 77 struck the Pentagon [I'm using the government's silly storyline here], Shafiq bin Laden was representing his billionaire family interests at the annual investor conference of the Carlyle Group at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, just a few blocks from the White House.
Didn't the feds tell us that an intended target of Flight 93 was the White House or the Capitol building (likewise not too far down the Washington mall from the conference)?
Well, sure some brothers ARE spiteful enough that they would not to find a way to give a brother a heads-up to stay away from D.C. and New York on Sept. 11. BUT, Osama had good relations with his mom, whom he chit-chatted with on his cell phone shortly before 9/11, the government claims. Had Shafiq been killed or injured in the attacks, what would his mother have thought of Osama? In fact, what would his al Qaeda comrades thought of him?
Maybe Osama was enough of a probabilist to figure that the chance of his brother being struck was fairly low. Yet, surely Osama would have realized the possibility of death or harm from secondary effects, such as getting crushed by a panicked crowd.
Well, before Shafiq could be questioned publicly, he was spirited out of the country on White House orders.
Tenet vouches for the 9/11 yarn told by the 9/11 commission, but seems to be trying to put the lion's share of the blame for the Iraq war on a few now-well-known neocons, specifically Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and Scotter Libby.
He says that initially Bush and his top aides had little enthusiasm for striking Iraq in retaliation for 9/11.
So, if the poop does hit the fan with respect to 9/11, Tenet will be able to say it was some neocons in the Pentagon that outplotted the CIA.
Let's think back to June 2002. That's when public disclosures put the CIA and the entire security apparatus in great danger of being torn apart limb from limb. Soon thereafter, Bush made a big show of "doing something" about security with his "homeland security" reorganization plan.
But, that wasn't quite enough and as Bush mulled with advisers during the hot Texas August in Crawford, we began to hear intimations that war with Iraq was brewing. Once September rolled around, it had become inevitable, with the war tom-toms going full blast. Nothing like a war to save the system, as occurred following the JFK murder.
As Tenet says, "everything changed" after 9/11 and so the official policy of regime change in Iraq was now translatable into a war of offense.
So then, what was the real motive for 9/11? Very likely "the group" feared losing power under a weak (before 9/11) president and favored a powerplay to control the nation with a greatly-strengthened Pentagon as its base.
Though Bush indignantly defended the authenticity of a videotape released in December 2001 in which someone who resembled bin Laden confessed to masterminding the 9/11 attacks, the FBI apparently doesn't think much of the tape. Neither does it give much credence to "confessions" made by al Qaeda operatives to CIA interrogators, it would seem, and hence gives the 9/11 commission narrative little support.
These points are the more disturbing in light of the recent disclosure by Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton that the White House had signed off on a decision to prevent the 9/11 commission from questioning al Qaeda captives. That disclosure came in a statement by the former commission co-chairmen, who assailed the CIA for obstructing the 9/11 probe by hiding and then destroying videotapes of al Qaeda captives being interrogated.
In 2006, the Muckraker Report stirred up a little tempest when it disclosed that the FBI's "Most Wanted" website failed to list bin Laden as a suspect in the 9/11 attacks and quoted FBI spokesman Rex Tomb as explaining there is no hard evidence linking bin Laden to the attacks.
The Washington Post's Dan Eggen responded with a story saying that the omission was "fodder for conspiracy theorists" and quoting Tomb as saying the FBI had "no need" to add the 9/11 attacks. A lawyer was then quoted to the effect that since bin Laden hadn't been indicted [the administration wanted "enemy combatants" kept away from U.S. juries] that perhaps the FBI was uncomfortable with listing him as a suspect.
If you'll go to the FBI "Most Wanted Terrorists" site today, you'll see that the situation hasn't changed. The FBI refuses to list bin Laden as a suspect in 9/11 [before he was reputedly killed by U.S. commandos]. He's a suspect in the bombing of two American embassies in Africa prior to 9/11 and generally in terrorist attacks around the world.
Not one word about 9/11.
Assuming Tomb was initially quoted accurately -- and the Post does not say otherwise -- one is left to the conclusion that the FBI does not consider the Pentagon's videotape as "hard evidence."
Bush played up this tape thus: "For those who see this tape, they'll realize that not only is he guilty of incredible murder, he has no conscience and no soul, that he represents the worst of civilization."
Questioned about the tape's authenticity, Bush responded, "It is preposterous for anybody to think that this tape is doctored. That's a weak excuse to provide a weak support for an incredibly evil man."
U.S. forces allegedly stumbled across the tape in the city of Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
Yet, the FBI seems not to regard this Pentagon intelligence find as "hard evidence" of bin Laden's connection to the 9/11 attacks.
Knowing how Bush and Cheney were eager to override objections of intelligence professionals and use rigged Pentagon intelligence linking Saddam to WMDs and 9/11, it seems quite likely that the White House and Pentagon steamrollered the FBI into playing along with a false 9/11 narrative but that the bureau is letting anyone with eyes to see know that it really doesn't buy that story.
The Muckraker is archived at
http://www.teamliberty.net/
A useful roundup of tape facts and observations can be found at
https://web.archive.org/web/20080727023118/http://whatreallyhappened.com/osamatape.html
Similarly, if the FBI believes there is a lack of hard evidence linking Osama to 9/11, then the bureau does not accept CIA reports of the confessions of Osama lieutenant Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other al Qaeda operatives. It has been reported that the FBI pulled its agents from CIA interrogation sessions over concerns about the value of statements obtained under duress.
On the other hand, it should be noted that the FBI "played the game" by not throwing cold water on what was obviously planted evidence to identify the purported 9/11 hijackers.
The lid
June 19, 2006
The fact that bin Laden is not wanted by the FBI for the 9/11 attacks has generated a small stir online (but not in the "real" media).
The FBI confirms by omission that bin Laden was not wanted in connection with the 9/11 attacks. The bureau's "most wanted" list reads:
Usama Bin Laden. 6/7/1999. 5/1/2011.It seems that the decision to seek a (supposed) al Qaeda small fry's conviction and death was meant to appease the public (though it hasn't).
Bin Laden was wanted in connection with the 1998 bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya. These attacks killed over 200 people. Bin Laden was shot and killed during a US Government/Military operation in Pakistan.
Meanwhile, al Qaeda bigs are being held overseas as "enemy combatants" and might face a military tribunal -- some day. Notice that by putting off court adjudication indefinitely, the government can carry out aggressive actions -- including the various national security gimmicks used to KO the Bill of Rights during wartime -- without having to prove anything about the alleged conspiracy.
However, don't you think that if there were strong evidence against bin Laden that the government would have rushed head-over-heels to obtain an indictment?
The desire to avoid indictments stems from the desire to short-circuit the freedoms that define America as a free country while not drawing attention to holes in the White House conspiracy theory.
Simulating Osama?
September 21, 2007
How does the CIA identify a recorded voice as Osama's?
It uses a program that digitally compares the recording to a voiceprint taken from a sample of his voice considered to be authentic. There has been a lot of research into voiceprints, with numerous proprietary methods invented by telecommunications companies. For example, Cellmax says its voiceprint technology is so good it can discriminate between close relatives with similar voices and can identify a speaker whose voice is altered by a cold.
We must expect that the CIA's technical services division is using the latest, state-of-the-art classified voiceprint technology.
So, does that mean their identification of bin Laden's voice on various internet videos since 9/11 is reliable? Sure, it might be. But advanced voiceprint technology also implies the possibility of near-perfect voice counterfeiting. In fact, implementation of speech authentication security schemes have been slowed because crooks are becoming increasingly sophisticated at fooling such technology, according to some reports.
Another thriving industry is voice simulation. For example, AV Voice Changer Software Gold boasts that "unlike other voice changers, Voice Changer Software Gold changes your voice over the internet in real time and provides an unlimited number of new voices. You can modify your voice by changing voice pitch, voice timbre, applying effects, adjusting advanced tuner and setting equalizer."
So then, how hard would it be to create a program that inputs the voiceprint numbers into a simulator, which then makes you sound like Osama and -- since it is based on Osama's voiceprint -- fools voiceprint analyzers?
We do know that the Osama tapes all seem to have something wrong with the visuals. Either old footage or use of possible lookalikes. But the feds say they rely on the voiceprints. And the press reports that "Osama bin Laden said in his latest video..."
In one case, there was the possibility of lip-synching by a guy in a black beard.
My point is that the news media should be a bit more cognizant of the problem of authenticity. This morning's New York Times kept the Osama tape to four graphs and the headline qualified the bin Laden link with a "said to be." That's progress, maybe.
Bush jumped at the opportunity to say of the "blackbeard" tape that Iraq was mentioned and that al Qaeda's targeting of Iraq was a serious concern. But Bush's judicious phrases showed that he thought it best to avoid saying flatly that the video was an authentic bin Laden broadcast. However, he was happy to play along with those broadcast media that did flatly assert that bin Laden had spoken on the tape.
Another concern: how about the possibility of framing people with phony tapes of voices that sound just like them? The courts need to take notice.
See articles by David Jastrow, June 1, 2007, Speech Technology, Olga Kharif, April 20, 2005, Business Week, and Greg V. Hulme, Oct. 28, 2002, Information Week.
Osama didn't mind whether brother died on 9/11...
May 02, 2007
Osama bin Laden was "estranged" from his brother. So thus Osama really didn't mind whether his brother was within the target zone of the al Qaeda hijackers.
That seems to be the suggestion of ex-CIA chief George Tenet in his new book, At the Center of the Storm, which is evasive and fishy enough to be worthy of a top spook.
Tenet notes that when Flight 77 struck the Pentagon [I'm using the government's silly storyline here], Shafiq bin Laden was representing his billionaire family interests at the annual investor conference of the Carlyle Group at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, just a few blocks from the White House.
Didn't the feds tell us that an intended target of Flight 93 was the White House or the Capitol building (likewise not too far down the Washington mall from the conference)?
Well, sure some brothers ARE spiteful enough that they would not to find a way to give a brother a heads-up to stay away from D.C. and New York on Sept. 11. BUT, Osama had good relations with his mom, whom he chit-chatted with on his cell phone shortly before 9/11, the government claims. Had Shafiq been killed or injured in the attacks, what would his mother have thought of Osama? In fact, what would his al Qaeda comrades thought of him?
Maybe Osama was enough of a probabilist to figure that the chance of his brother being struck was fairly low. Yet, surely Osama would have realized the possibility of death or harm from secondary effects, such as getting crushed by a panicked crowd.
Well, before Shafiq could be questioned publicly, he was spirited out of the country on White House orders.
Tenet vouches for the 9/11 yarn told by the 9/11 commission, but seems to be trying to put the lion's share of the blame for the Iraq war on a few now-well-known neocons, specifically Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and Scotter Libby.
He says that initially Bush and his top aides had little enthusiasm for striking Iraq in retaliation for 9/11.
So, if the poop does hit the fan with respect to 9/11, Tenet will be able to say it was some neocons in the Pentagon that outplotted the CIA.
Let's think back to June 2002. That's when public disclosures put the CIA and the entire security apparatus in great danger of being torn apart limb from limb. Soon thereafter, Bush made a big show of "doing something" about security with his "homeland security" reorganization plan.
But, that wasn't quite enough and as Bush mulled with advisers during the hot Texas August in Crawford, we began to hear intimations that war with Iraq was brewing. Once September rolled around, it had become inevitable, with the war tom-toms going full blast. Nothing like a war to save the system, as occurred following the JFK murder.
As Tenet says, "everything changed" after 9/11 and so the official policy of regime change in Iraq was now translatable into a war of offense.
So then, what was the real motive for 9/11? Very likely "the group" feared losing power under a weak (before 9/11) president and favored a powerplay to control the nation with a greatly-strengthened Pentagon as its base.
Surely some neocons found such a scenario appetizing. But there are others, whom Tenet is shielding (including to a great extent, Bush). For example, a shadowy element of the hard left is running interference for the 9/11 murderers. What group do you suppose that might be, given the history of the 20th century and the maneuvers to rob democracies of liberty?
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