LeftyBassist.com

Seems to me you have to be fairly organized to pull off flying two planes into the Twin Towers and one into the Pentagon!

Bin Laden was the PR zealot of Al Qaeda, he wasn't an operations man, at the time of 9/11 there were around a hundred original 'members' of the group, which has shrunk greatly to less than fifty with little funding, but now, since the invasions, there maybe thousands of 'followers' across the Arab world but it's not a networked organisation as has been reported, it's a fundamentalist franchise and that's why it can't be beaten. Killing one part of it won't matter to any fanatic(s) who decide to pick up the mantle, hence the British natural citizens involved in the London attacks. Bin Laden's death means relatively nothing strategically and won't stop revenge attacks by angry men who decide to assume the mantle of Al Qaeda -in any of the Mid-East countries- it's a guerilla philosophy. The 19 men who flew the planes didn't care if they died, their ideology was what mattered to them and their objective of dragging the US into a long war that would over-extend the military and bankrupt the country. They won't achieve their fantasy of a new Muslim Caliphate though. The current revolutions in the Mid-East are completely at odds with the philosophy of religious fundamentalism and Western military and political influence in the region. The actual 'change' in the Middle-East arrives as both these influences have failed but devastated countries like Iraq and Afghanistan now struggle to rise collectively as a people at all since invasion.

To say Al Qaeda are an 'international' network is simply not true. Much the same as Tim McVeigh was not part of any real 'terrorist network' but he caused a huge amount of damage. It's how random guerilla terrorism works and thrives, to amass invasions to fight it makes it worse. Afghanistan is known as 'the graveyard of empires' for a reason, no one could beat the guerillas.

Osama's execution at this stage is now a symbolic act that may have the reverse effect to what was intended. He's now a martyr.

I don't necessarily disagree with you over any of this, I question you over the semantics of the definition of the word "organization":

or·gan·i·za·tion
   /ˌɔrgənəˈzeɪʃən/ Show Spelled[awr-guh-nuh-zey-shuhn] Show IPA
–noun
1.
the act or process of organizing.
2.
the state or manner of being organized.
3.
something that is organized.

or·gan·ize
   /ˈɔrgəˌnaɪz/ Show Spelled [awr-guh-nahyz] Show IPA verb, -ized, -iz·ing.
–verb (used with object)
1.
to form as or into a whole consisting of interdependent or coordinated parts, especially for united action: to organize a committee.

Whether there's 1000, 100, or 50 individuals basing their actions on a common religious philosophy, if they're capable of grouping, networking, and acting upon a common goal, they can be considered an organization. Al Qaeda may not be a singular organization, but rather pockets of organizations basing their actions on a common belief system. They're still organizations by definition if they're acting in cooperative with one another or within their own core groups.

Your definition is a semantic one rather than a specific concrete, effective, tangible one as it is intended. A dictionary definition is far from the reality of their actual ability to act concertedly, which was limited, they may have had the ability to 'talk' as a limited branch of their 'loose' belief but they could do little practically and Bin Laden wouldn't have been a prime-mover. The 100 or so Al Qaeda of 9/11 are not the Al Qaeda of 2011, it's a 'loose' idea in the minds of certain men rather than a 'collective' that can organize and act together, this fact seems to escape the news media over the course of the last 10 years at war.

Al Qaeda is not an 'networked' terrorist organization, it's a belief, that's 'primarily' what it is, if it were an organization in the 'business' sense of terrorism, you could go destroy it's HQ/infrastructure and it would effectively be gone. This seems to still be how Obama and the Military treat it. As if taking out BL is some kind of effective tactic.



This is my point, they were incapable of doing this as a 'communicating' network. They couldn't summon all followers effectively or 'organise' them at will to act in the achiement of a common goal. This is the fantasy aspect. So defining them as an organization is not really primarily what 'they' in loose terms are.

It is not an 'international' network which is how Al Qaeda is usually sold, as if it were an 'army'. It does not have fund connected branches throughout the world as if it were a corporation. The 'connections' are abstractions.

Going back to my original point, Bin Laden as a practical force with the ability to fund and plan attacks is a fantasy. He was effectively defunct and broke, the Pakistan military intelligence knew where he was and knew it was an Al Qaeda safehouse -near a military facility- they could have taken him out if they so desired.

I do agree that tactically, Bin Laden's death probably doesn't mean much.
But I am glad he is gone and the thought of a bullet tearing through his brain is a nice one. That motherfucker needed to go down. And for a lot of people's sakes, I'm glad he did.

Definitely. I don't celebrate it, but he deserved it. My own suspicion though is that he was dead either before the SEALs entered or as soon as they did. A Pakastani intelligence analyst proposes that Osama had given orders to his lieutenant not to let him be captured alive- he didn't want to 'go the way of Saddam Hussein'. It's likely his lieutenant shot him as the SEALs entered and they shot him in return. Maybe that's why we've seen no video or pictures of BL and why his body was 'disposed' of so quickly?

I wish I had another joke to crack about Bin Laden to close this thread (it's getting old in my opinion) but I really don't...

And, in a sense, I kind of miss Bin Laden...with him the world used to be more simple, there was the good guys in one side (us) lead by the President of The United States and the bad guys on the other side (the "axes of evil" or pretty much everyone else) lead by their boss Bin Laden. Now I wake up in the morning freaking out feeling like Batman without the Joker or Spiderman without the Green Goblin. It's confusing as hell!

Come again?..

http://xfinity.comcast.net/video/pentag ... 911296536/

Wow, that's a reality check. Even the most infamous terrorist in the world makes shitty boring home videos. And just look at the joint. What a slob.

That's a different point though and a misdirection from what I actually said, as in we've seen no footage/pictures of BL from the 'actual raid' not the home-movies they picked up along the way -which give no indication of what happened at his death- and they won't let us hear the audio of. They are avoiding and attempting appeasement with this rather banal and incomplete release. No freedom of info here.

Sorry, I posted the wrong link. (Or I should say it's one link for multiple clips). Refer to the video entitled, "US releases video of Bin Laden" - second one after the first silent one of the compound footage.

http://xfinity.comcast.net/video/pentag ... 911296536/

Key points from this report (as quoted):

"Intelligent sources say the cash (cache/catch?) found in the compound shows that Bin Laden was in strategic and operational control of Al Qaeda"

and the compound was:

"An active command and control center for Al Qaeda"

Furthermore, in tonight's 60 Minutes interview, President Obama not only referred to Bin Laden as the "chief head of Al Qaeda" but also Al Qaeda as "an organization".

Reluctant as I am to disagree with my fellow lefty brethren, I'm gonna have to go with the President and the Pentagon's assessment here: Al Qaeda IS an organization and Bin Laden WAS very much in active control.