May 3, 2011

We are told that Osama bin Laden is dead. I hope they publish the death certificate. A little DNA checking would be good, too. We are told this was done.

I hope all of his personal papers get published. I am waiting to find out who paid the bill for the Dubai hospital where he was treated in July 2001.

Wednesday October 31, 12:03 PM

Bin Laden underwent treatment in July at Dubai American Hospital

Osama bin Laden underwent treatment in July at the American Hospital in Dubai where he met a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official, French daily Le Figaro and Radio France International reported.

Quoting "a witness, a professional partner of the administrative management of the hospital," they said the man suspected by the United States of being behind the September 11 terrorist attacks had arrived in Dubai on July 4 by air from Quetta, Pakistan.

He was immediately taken to the hospital for kidney treatment. He left the establishment on July 14, Le Figaro said.

During his stay, the daily said, the local CIA representative was seen going into bin Laden's room and "a few days later, the CIA man boasted to some friends of having visited the Saudi-born millionaire."

Quoting "an authoritative source," Le Figaro and the radio station said the CIA representative had been recalled to Washington on July 15.

Bin Laden has been sought by the United States for terrorism since the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. But his CIA links go back before that to the fight against Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

Le Figaro said bin Laden was accompanied in Dubai by his personal physician and close collaborator, who could be the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahari, as well as bodyguards and an Algerian nurse.

He was admitted to the urology department of Doctor Terry Callaway, who specializes in kidney stones and male infertility. Telephoned several times, the doctor declined to answer questions.

Several sources had reported that bin Laden had a serious kidney infection. He had a mobile dialysis machine sent to his Kandahar hideout in Afghanistan in the first half of 2000, according to "authoritative sources" quoted by Le Figaro and RFI.

Britain's Guardian reported on it.

The translation still exists in a few places on the Web, but under half a dozen. Here is one location:

Then there were the gigantic caves, described by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld in December 2001.

No such cave was ever discovered.

We paid Pakistan to help find him. Here is the Google map of where he was found. Point B is where he was living on an estate worth $1,000,000. That's not chump change in Pakistan. Point A is the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA). He was hiding in plain sight.

Isn't it time to bring home the troops? There were in Afghanistan to get him. They did not get him. American troops in Pakistan got him. So, why not bring them all home?

If we were in Afghanistan to get Osama, then we have achieved the long-sought victory. It is therefore time for the troops to pack up and come home.

We will see if Obama agrees. We will see if the conservative Republicans agree.

I don't think he will command it. He said in 2008 that Afghanistan is the central focus of the war against terrorism.

But must American troops remain there? If they must, are we to believe that Osama bin Laden created a permanent international threat, based in Afghanistan, where he had not been for nine years?

Why is Afghanistan still a hotbed of terrorism? Does the Taliban's Mullah Omar have terrorist Afghan cells in the U.S.?

Are we also to believe that, with Osama dead, terrorism in Iraq cannot be contained without 50,000 troops, plus 100,000 mercenaries and hired staff on the American payroll? How did this man, who disappeared in late 2001, create a permanent terrorist threat to the USA?

If the USA must keep 50,000 troops in Iraq and 100,000 in Afghanistan, then what is the metric of victory in this war? How will voters know when the USA has won? Rumsfeld said on March 8, 2011, that there are no metrics.

Doug Casey calls this the forever war. It therefore is the forever deficit -- "forever" meaning "until the Federal government goes bankrupt."

Not forever.

Sooner than the voters think.