Is Bush blocking this plan or waiting until he can initiate the plan in his last days in office and dump the consequences in the lap of the next president? M

Is White House Blocking Search for Bin Laden?
Pentagon Would Use Special Forces to Nab Bin Laden in Pakistan, New York Times Says

By MARTHA RAATZ
June 30, 2008

RSS The Pentagon has drafted a secret plan that would send U.S. special forces into the wild tribal regions of Pakistan to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, but the White House has balked at giving the mission a green light, The New York Times reported today.

New leaked reports have exposed U.S. covert operations in the Middle East. The Bush administration, which has seven months left in its term, gave the go-ahead for the military to draw up the plan to take the war on terror across the Afghan border and into the mountains of Pakistan where bin Laden is believed to be hiding, according to the newspaper.

Intelligence reports have concluded that bin Laden has re-established a network of new training camps, and the number of recruits in those camps has risen to as many as 2,000 in recent months from 200 earlier this year.

Although the special forces attack plan was devised six months ago, infighting among U.S. intelligence agencies and among White House offices have blocked it from being implemented, the Times reported.

Go to this link to read the entire article:
ABC News: White House Blocking Search for Bin Laden?

simple answer: yes.
Same reason US is in Iraq...but ignoring Pakistan region where Al Queda is training.

why? cannot figure that one out.

We are militarily overstretched in Iraq. Cheney is fixated on airstrikes on Iran. That's on the front burner. Pakistan is on the back burner.

Why?

How about because it would provoke even more anger from Pakistan for sending in US troops into

I mean look at what a few limited airstrikes did, they got mad at that--sending in special forces battalions across the border would raise a few eyebrows, and I doubt Pakistan would give it a green light.

Cooperation with the new Pakistani government is the best way to go, as hard as it is. They also didnt know Bin Laden was there for sure, we dont now. We have ideas, but thats all weve got. He could be anywhere in the world, hypothetically.

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"...Follow the crystal star to the pyre of the flame; there exists the dwelling of the spreading fire. The heart of this life rests upon the fate of that place, and what begins there sends a contagion to the rest of the universe.
As long as the fire burns we shall never be free..." (The Shadows of Yavara, Final Reclamation)

we should have ignored pakistan several years ago at tora bora. pretty much think bin laden was there. by letting the pakistanis do it, they let him get away

had we done true shock and awe and leveled the top of that mountain immediatley, chances are we would have had bin laden. sure, maybe a little uproar, but it was still close to 9-11 and by now the ramifications would probably have blown over

I think we are really paying for our disinvestment in human intelligence.

For years, the CIA has been screaming, begging, pleading for more investment in agents, and training, but the government has a hard-on for computers and electronics. Not that computers aren't good, far from it, but our ability to have people on the ground....okay spying.....has atrophied.

OBL should have been no problem, if we hadn't hamstrung our own capabilities. With the Plame revelation, it's only going to get worse, I think. And, when the gadgets fail, our ability to respond creatively will have been so unused that I am skeptical of our capabilities.

Maybe this is more of a philisophical tangent, but we can't even get a simple, outdated, routine shuttle into orbit, now. If you watch a movie like Apollo 13, you'll see people actually doing hands-on creative problem solving. Our reliance on tech has killed all our instincts.

OBL should have had a sniper's bullet in his brain by December 2001. Instead, we've gotten into two stupid, crushingly expensive wars, and look like total fools to the rest of the world.

Am I off base, here?

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This is what happens when we have panderers instead of leaders...

Oh we couldve just sent in the special forces to go and take out bin laden, allied with local forces and never even gotten involved with large ground operations. But it wouldnt have changed anything except killed Bin Laden. You have to remember everyone was screaming for blood--even though it was not the reason for the war--but thats what they wanted, revenge. They wanted big explosions on Tv and they wanted to see lots of bad guys blow up. Then...people start dying...what? How is it possible that people are dying in war? Were America! How could our leaders let our men die? Why did they drag us into this? Why didnt we just nuke them or something?

Thats about the understanding of the general public.


The CIA couldve provided better data on Bin Laden and other things like Iraq, but unless we had acted quickly there would have been a revolution on our hands "why is our country doing nothing?".

In reality our response was justified to make a statement: "dont mess with us" but it also ensured that there would be less ground for future terrorist and extremist breeding and plotting. Afghanistan is right in the center of a deadzone of Islamic extremism, and giving its populace the chance to fight that and place a democracy in the center of an ex-tyranny has and will continue to positively affect the region forever.


Your comments about technological dependency are absolutely correct as well. Its a major flaw of advancing civilization that will probably bring us to our knees. In fact, the entire advancement of civilization will probably crumble us under our own weight...

__________________
"...Follow the crystal star to the pyre of the flame; there exists the dwelling of the spreading fire. The heart of this life rests upon the fate of that place, and what begins there sends a contagion to the rest of the universe.
As long as the fire burns we shall never be free..." (The Shadows of Yavara, Final Reclamation)

I would express it as a government fixation on bureaucratic overkill. We have had surveillance on everyone on all calls and internet transactions in mass, and I would trade that for one decent lead from quality intel. Don't forget that field agents were onto one of the 9/11 terrorists in flight school and put in a request for follow up. There boss seems to have been a political crony appointee and disallowed follow up. We could have prevented 9/11 and blew it.