LIES AND MYSTERIES SURROUNDING BIN LADEN’S DEATH

The men who executed Bin Laden did not act on their own: they were following orders from the US Government. They had gone through a rigorous selection process and were trained to accomplish special missions. It is known that the US President can even communicate with a soldier in combat.

A few hours after accomplishing that mission in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, home to the most prestigious military academy of that country as well as important combat units, the White House offered the world’s public opinion a carefully drafted version about the death of Osama Bin Laden, the chief of Al Qaeda.

Of course, the world and the international media focused their attention on the issue, thus pushing all other public news into the background.

The US TV networks broadcast the President’s carefully drafted speech and showed images of the public’s reaction.

It was obvious that the world realized how sensitive the matter was. Pakistan is a country of 171 841 000 inhabitants –where the US and NATO have been carrying out a devastating war for ten years now- that has nuclear weapons and is a traditional ally of the United States.

There is no doubt that this Muslim country cannot agree with the bloody war that the United States and its allies are waging against Afghanistan, another Muslim country with which it shares the troublesome and mountainous border traced by the British colonial empire. Common tribes live on both sides of the demarcation line.

The American press itself understood that the President was concealing almost the entire information.

The western news agencies –ANSA, AFP, AP, REUTERS and EFE- the press and important websites have published interesting reports about the incident.

The New York Times asserts that facts differed greatly from the official version announced on Tuesday by the White House and top intelligence officials, according to which Bin Laden’s death –who they finally recognized was unarmed, although they said he ‘resisted’- had occurred in the middle of an intense gun battle.

But, according to the New York daily, “the raid, though chaotic and bloody, was extremely one-sided, with a force of more than 20 Navy SEAL members quickly dispatching the handful of men protecting Bin Laden.”

The New York Times states that “the only shots fired by those in the compound came at the beginning of the operation, exactly when Bin Laden's trusted courier, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, opened fire from behind the door of the guesthouse adjacent to the house where Bin Laden was hiding."
“After the SEAL members shot and killed Mr. Kuwaiti and a woman in the guesthouse, the Americans were never fired upon again”, the newspaper states based on reports from said sources, whose identity was not revealed….

On Tuesday, the White House spokesman, Jay Carney, in an account of events, had asserted that in the early hours of Monday morning, the US commando “were engaged in a firefight throughout the operation.”

Leon E. Panetta, the director of the C.I.A., said, “there were some firefights that were going on” as these US elite military were clearing the upper floors of the residential compound where Bin Laden was hiding.

However, the newspaper asserts that, although Bin Laden had not raised any weapon when he was gunned down, the commandos that found him in one of the rooms “saw Osama bin Laden with an AK-47 and a Makarov pistol in arm’s reach.”

Today, May 6, news continue to pour in.

From Washington, one of the agencies reports that a sole gunman had shot against the US forces. It continues to report that, on Sunday evening, “several helicopters ferry 79 commandos towards Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, north of Islamabad, flying low to avoid detection by radar, as Pakistan has not been told of the raid in advance.

“Two helicopters deliver more than 20 US Navy SEALs to the residence, which has four-to-six meter walls covered with barbed wire. One of the choppers, an MH-60 Blackhawk apparently modified to evade radar, is out of commission due to "mechanical failure," according to initial reports from US officials.


“One group of commandos moves toward a smaller guest house next to the compound's main building. Bin Laden's trusted courier opens fire and is shot and killed, along with his wife.
The courier is the only man at the compound who fires on the Americans, contrary to earlier accounts from the White House that described a firefight throughout the nearly 40-minute operation.


“…Another US special forces team enters the main three-story house.”

“… They encounter the courier's brother…who was shot and killed”, according to a US official who offered no further details. According to NBC news, the man “has one hand behind his back” when the team entered the room, “causing the SEALs to suspect he may have a gun, which turns out not to be the case.“

The commandos move up the stairs and in one of the rooms meet up with Bin Laden's adult son, Khalid, who is also killed…”

“On the top floor, they find Bin Laden and his wife in the bedroom. She reportedly tries to move between her husband and the commandos, and is shot in the leg. Bin Laden, who gives no signal of surrender, is shot in the head, and some media say he is also struck in the chest. Earlier versions of the raid said Bin Laden "resisted" and that he had used his wife as a human shield, but the White House later acknowledges those details are incorrect.

“President Barack Obama, following events from the White House, is told the SEALs have tentatively identified Bin Laden. A Time magazine report, based on an interview with CIA Director Leon Panetta, suggests Bin Laden was killed less than 25 minutes into the raid.

-“In Bin Laden's room, the US team finds an AK-47 assault rifle and a 9 mm Russian pistol. Other weapons are discovered in the compound, but no further details are given".

“The special forces find cash and telephone numbers sown into Bin Laden's clothing...”

“The Navy SEALs hauled away everything that could offer a lead to further information: note pads, the five computers, 10 hard drives and more than 100 storage devices (CDs, DVDs, USB).

“…The U.S. team destroys the downed helicopter after moving the women and children in the compound to a safe area.

“…Thirty eight minutes after the start of the raid, U.S. helicopters fly away, carrying away the corpse of Bin Laden.”

The AP published information of political and also human interest:
“One of three wives living with Osama Bin Laden told Pakistani interrogators she had been staying in the Al-Qaeda chief's hideout for five years, and could be a key source of information about how he avoided capture for so long, a Pakistani intelligence official said Friday.”

“Bin Laden's wife, identified as Yemeni-born Amal Ahmed Abdullfattah, said she never left the upper floors of the house the entire time she was there.

“She and Bin Laden's other two wives are being interrogated in Pakistan after they were taken into custody following Monday's American raid on Bin Laden's compound in the town of Abbottabad. Pakistani authorities are also holding eight or nine children who were found there after the U.S. commandos left.

“Given shifting and incomplete accounts from U.S. officials about what happened during the raid, testimony from Bin Laden's wives may be significant in unveiling details about the operation.

“Their accounts could also help show how Bin Laden spent his time and managed to stay hidden, living in a large house close to a military academy in a garrison town, a two-and-a-half hours' drive from the capital, Islamabad.

“The Pakistani official said CIA officers had not been given access to the women in custody.”

“The proximity of Bin Laden's hideout to the military garrison and the Pakistani capital has also raised suspicions in Washington that Bin Laden may have been protected by Pakistani security forces while on the run.”

The EFE news agency inquired what Pakistan citizens thought about that.

According to that agency, 66 per cent of Pakistanis do not believe that the US Special Forces killed Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda; they think they killed another person, according to a joint poll ran by the British demoscopic institute, YouGov, and Polis, from Cambridge University.

The poll was said to have been carried out among Internet users, who usually have a higher educational level, in three big cities: Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore. The poll excluded rural demographic groups, which makes results to be all the more surprising, according to researchers.

Reportedly, 75 per cent of those polled said they also disapproved the violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty by the United States during the operation to capture and kill Bin Laden.

It was also reported that less than three fourths of those polled do not believe Bin Laden approved the 9/11 attacks against the United States, which justified the US invasion inAfghanistan and the war against Islamic terrorism.

According to the poll, 74 per cent think that Washington’s government does not have any respect for Islam and considers itself at war with the Islamic world; 70 per cent disapprove the Pakistani policy of accepting US economic aid.

Eighty six per cent are said to oppose also to the fact that the Pakistani government may in the future – and criticized the possibility that they may have done in the past - authorize attacks using drones against military groups.

Sixty one per cent of the Pakistanis who were interrogated said they sympathized with the Taliban or believed they could represent respectable viewpoints, against only 21 per cent who are radically opposed to them.

Reuters equally published some interesting reports:

“One of Osama bin Laden's wives told Pakistani interrogators that the Al Qaeda leader and his family had been living for five years in the compound where he was killed by U.S. forces this week, a security official said on Friday.
“The official, who identified the woman as Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah, the youngest of Bin Laden's three wives, told Reuters she was wounded in the raid.

“The security official said Abdulfattah told investigators: ‘We have been living there for the past five years’."

“Pakistani security forces took between 15 and 16 people into custody from the compound after U.S. forces removed Bin Laden's body, said the security official. Those detained including Bin Laden's three wives and several children.”

According to a report published by ANSA, a US drone killed today no less than 15 persons in Waziristan, north of Pakistan. Others were seriously injured. But, who would care about those daily killings in that country?

However, I ask myself one question: Why is there so much coincidence between the assassination that was carried out at Abbottabad and the attempt to simultaneously assassinate Gaddafi?

One of Gaddafi’s youngest sons, who was not involved with political issues, Sarif al Arab, was accompanied by his little son and two little cousins at the house where he lived; Gaddafi and his wife had visited him shortly before the attacks launched by NATO bombers. The house was destroyed; Sarif al Arab and the three kids were killed. Gaddafi and his wife had left shortly before the attack. That was an unprecedented event. But the world has hardly known about that.

Was it a mere chance that such an event coincided with the attack against Osama Bin Laden’s refuge, which was perfectly known by the US government, which kept a close watch on it?

News released today by Vatican City reported as follows:

“May 6 (ANSA) - Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli, Apostolic Vicar of Tripoli, said today to the Vatican’s agency FIDES: ‘I certainly do not want to interfere with the political activity of anyone, but I have the duty to declare that the bombings on Libya are immoral’.

“I am surprised that statements were made on the fact that I should deal only with spiritual matters and that the bombings have been authorized by the UN. The UN, NATO or the European Union doesn’t have the moral authority to decide to bomb Libya, he said.”

“Let me stress that bombing is not dictated my moral or social conscience of the West or humanity in general. Bombing is always an immoral act.”

Another news published by ANSA on May 6 reports that the governments of China and Russia expressed their deep concern about the war in Libya and said they will work together to call for a cease fire.

According to the Chinese Foreign Minister Jechi Yang, they strongly believed that the most important goal was to achieve an immediate cease fire.

Truly worrying events are happening.

Human right is for the Righteous human

A letter sent by brokenhearted mother to another mother in São Paulo after watching the TV news:

FROM MOTHER TO MOTHER:

I saw your heart-rending protest before the TV cameras today as you protested against your son – a juvenile offender – from the dependencies of FEBEM (the Brazilian punitive institution for minors) São Paulo to another FEBEM facility within the state being transferred to.

I saw you complaining about the distance that will not be separating you and your son. In addition, of all the difficulties as well as the cost of having to travel to visit him among other inconveniences due to your beloved son being transferred.

I also saw all of the media coverage on the matter as well as that other mothers, like you, are supported by the church as well as some other human rights organizations that support mothers in such conditions

See I am a mother, too, just like you and I can understand your protest very well. Moreover, I want to join in the protest because great is the distance that separates me from my son.

I work hard and make very little money and have to go through some of the same difficulties you face and I also have to spend a lot of money to visit my son. With a lot of effort, I can visit him every Sunday because I work even on Saturdays help out in the education and support of the rest of the family.

Fortunately, I can count on the support of my inseparable partner who is more like a councilor and spiritual guide.

In case you do not know yet I am the mother of that young man your son stupidly killed in a strong-arm robbery at the video store where he – my son – used to work during the daytime to pay off his studies at night.

Next Sunday, while you are holding your son in your arms, and kissing him and giving him your love I will be visiting mine and leaving some flowers on his humble grave in the city’s cemetery.

Oh, yeah! I almost forgot. In spite of making little money and having to support the rest of family, I am obliged to help pay the brand new mattress your son burned in the latest riot at the FEBEM facility.
At the cemetery, however, no one - from any of these organizations that support and help the hopeless mothers such as your - has EVER come to comfort me or to offer a a helping hand. No has ever shown what “rights I can claim”!

If you agree with this letter please pass it along and maybe we will be able to change this inversion of values. Because human rights is for righteous humans.

Translation from Portuguese:

César Melo

@caninz

LIFE LESSON - THE WESTERN WORLD

Translator’s note:

The first part of this message was copied from http://click-a-japan.com/. My translation starts after Ha Minh Tahn signs the letter. The story is beautiful and worth reading.

THIS letter, written by Vietnamese immigrant Ha Minh Thanh working in Fukushima as a policeman to a friend in Vietnam, was posted on New America Media on March 19. It is a testimonial to the strength of the Japanese spirit, and an interesting slice of life near the epicenter of Japan’s crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. It was translated by NAM editor Andrew Lam, author of “East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres.” Shanghai Daily condensed it.

Brother,

How are you and your family? These last few days, everything was in chaos. When I close my eyes, I see dead bodies. When I open my eyes, I also see dead bodies.

Each one of us must work 20 hours a day, yet I wish there were 48 hours in the day, so that we could continue helping and rescuing folks.

We are without water and electricity, and food rations are near zero. We barely manage to move refugees before there are new orders to move them elsewhere.

I am currently in Fukushima, about 25 kilometers away from the nuclear power plant. I have so much to tell you that if I could write it all down, it would surely turn into a novel about human relationships and behaviors during times of crisis.

People here remain calm – their sense of dignity and proper behavior are very good – so things aren’t as bad as they could be. But given another week, I can’t guarantee that things won’t get to a point where we can no longer provide proper protection and order.

They are humans after all, and when hunger and thirst override dignity, well, they will do whatever they have to do. The government is trying to provide supplies by air, bringing in food and medicine, but it’s like dropping a little salt into the ocean.

Brother, there was a really moving incident. It involves a little Japanese boy who taught an adult like me a lesson on how to behave like a human being.

Last night, I was sent to a little grammar school to help a charity organization distribute food to the refugees. It was a long line that snaked this way and that and I saw a little boy around 9 years old. He was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of shorts.

It was getting very cold and the boy was at the very end of the line. I was worried that by the time his turn came there wouldn’t be any food left. So I spoke to him. He said he was at school when the earthquake happened. His father worked nearby and was driving to the school. The boy was on the third floor balcony when he saw the tsunami sweep his father’s car away.

I asked him about his mother. He said his house is right by the beach and that his mother and little sister probably didn’t make it. He turned his head and wiped his tears when I asked about his relatives.

The boy was shivering so I took off my police jacket and put it on him. That’s when my bag of food ration fell out. I picked it up and gave it to him. “When it comes to your turn, they might run out of food. So here’s my portion. I already ate. Why don’t you eat it?”

The boy took my food and bowed. I thought he would eat it right away, but he didn’t. He took the bag of food, went up to where the line ended and put it where all the food was waiting to be distributed.

I was shocked. I asked him why he didn’t eat it and instead added it to the food pile. He answered: “Because I see a lot more people hungrier than I am. If I put it there, then they will distribute the food equally.”

When I heard that I turned away so that people wouldn’t see me cry.

A society that can produce a 9-year-old who understands the concept of sacrifice for the greater good must be a great society, a great people.

Well, a few lines to send you and your family my warm wishes. The hours of my shift have begun again.

Ha Minh Thanh

Now see some interesting facts. While 15 thousand people died, helplessly, in Japan in two natural disasters, floods in Brazil can be avoided with a little bit of responsibility. What can we learn from Japan?

TEN THINGS TO BE LEARNED FROM JAPAN

1 – THEIR COOL
There was no image of people crying over or lamenting that that “had lost everything". Sadness itself sufficed it.
2 – THEIR DIGNITY
There were very well organized lines for water and food. There was no harsh word or outraging gesture.
3 – THEIR ABILITY
Fantastic architects, for instance. The buildings were shaken but did not crumble.
4 – THEIR SOLIDARITY
People would buy only what they really needed for that moment. That way everybody could get something.
5 – THEIR ORGANIZATION AND ORDER
There was no looting. No honking and heavy traffic on the roads. Just understanding.
6 – THEIR SACRIFICE
Fifty workers stayed behind to pump ocean water into the Fukushima power plant reactors. How could they get paid?
7 – THEIR KINDNESS
Restaurants cut their prices down in half. ATM’s were not attended to. The strong watched over the weak ones.
8 – THEIR TRAINING
Senior citizens and youngsters alike knew what to do and did exactly what they had been trained to.
9 – THEIR PRESS
They were very discreet in the news bulletin. No sensational news reports by reporters who are just stupid. They only showed facts.
10 – THEIR CONSCIENCE
Whenever one store’s electricity would be cut off, people would place the goods back in the shelves and then leave the store calmly.

"Word belongs to time, silence belongs to eternity."

English translation by:
César Melo
@caninz
+55(61)82507715
caninz@gmail.com

simultaneous interpretation

Bin Laden lost. And nobody won

Let me see if I got this thing straight. 
The world is celebrating the death of a barbarian assassin terrorist who was assassinated in Pakistan by a special elite force of the United States of America.

Hidden in a compound where there was no telephone or internet, unarmed - as the White House admitted - the master brain of the 9/11 attack that killed over 2600 people was no longer the commander in chief of his organization.  He made use of a trustworthy courier to transmit his messages. The identity of this courier was obtained by torturing the prisoners who are kept under severe vigilance in an American military facility in Guantanamo, Cuba. 
In addition, it was by monitoring this courier the American intelligence was able to disclose the secluded location of Bin Laden's hideout.

The elite force that broke into his hiding shelter had received order to kill him and then dispose of his body in the ocean. The Pakistanian government was not consulted about the invasion of its territory by another country and only learned about it afterwards.

In a nutshell: people celebrate torture - a crime; they celebrate the killing of an idle terrorist - a crime; and the well succeeded military operation that implied violating the sovereignty of a country - a crime likewise.

This is the same as saying, in some cases - and there'll be many of them not just a few -  “torturing can be justified. Assassinating can be justified. Invading another country can be justified”. We repel violence when it affects us. We accept it when it is against those we hate.

Shall we dance on the streets? 

To hell with scruples, the western model of democracy and the basic consensual values of all religions. 

A former CIA member, the American spying agency, told The New York Times that the manifestation of jubilation of his fellow compatriots over Bin Laden's death reassures the methods used by the CIA in defense of its country's interests. A retired Brazilian Army Official, who during the 19664 dictatorship tolerated and stimulated torture and even death of those who opposed the regimen, would be capable of doing such a thing.

The world will not be safer or less safe with Bin Laden's death. At this point, his importance was merely symbolic. "With his death justice was done", proclaimed President Barack Obama.

George W Bush at least captured, tried and only then hanged the former Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein. In what we call civilized societies justice is done differently. It is consecrated the Israeli doctrine that justifies selective assassination for the Enemy of the State. This was an act of vengeance that served Bin Laden well.

Nevertheless, we do not deserve that because of him international agreements that treat as crime torturing, assassinating and the violation of a country's territory by foreign troops be torn apart.

Bin Laden lost. And nobody won.



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English translation by:
César Melo
@caninz
+55(61)82507715      
caninz@gmail.com