Edited podcast now posted.
This week's podcast features Michael K. Busch, who teaches international relations at the City College of New York, where he is also program coordinator at the Colin Powell Center for Policy Studies. He has been covering the Gitmo Files in detail. He has also covered released cables on his site WikiBlogged, and he is listed as a resource in the back of Greg Mitchell's published book, "Age of WikiLeaks," which you can purchase in print on Blurb.com or in e-book form off of Amazon. [Follow him on Twitter @michaelkbusch]
On the program, we discuss the killing of Osama bin Laden in the context of the Pakistan Cables that one media organization, The Hindu (in India), covered extensively. We also talk about the files Busch has covered extensively and what his thoughts are on the release in general. And, the show discusses the Journal's newly launched SafeHouse, a WikiLeaks-imitation website it hopes "sources" will "leak" to like "sources" have leaked to WikiLeaks. [For more on this, WL Central coverage can be found here.]
Finally, Busch has been following the Kushner Crisis closely, which the Advocate blog explains is "a recent situation of political purging at CUNY involving Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner, who was denied an honorary degree from John Jay College by the CUNY Board of Trustees." Why does this denial merit discussion and a crisis blog? Kushner supposedly does not have politically correct views on Israel and is being punished. Busch takes a few minutes to discuss this scandal. And while this has little to do with WikiLeaks, it is an issue of free speech that definitely merits discussion.
To hear the show, click play on this embedded widget:
You can also listen to the show by going to this page. Click on the download button next to the latest episode, which is titled, "This Week in WikiLeaks - Bin Laden, Gitmo & the Pakistan Cables." You'll be able to listen to the entire show. (You can also download this off iTunes by searching for "CMN News" and then the latest WikiLeaks show will appear.)
All previous episodes (there have been more than ten now) can be downloaded as well off of iTunes or from the link provided above.
Any ideas for future guests? Shoot me a message on Twitter [@kgosztola] or to my email, which is kgosztola@hotmail.com.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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Osama Bin Laden's death as US Military Strategy
Based on several conspiracy theories and my understanding of how the military has learned to sway public opinion thru Psy-Ops (psychological warfare), I believe Osama Bin Laden was shot and killed several years ago (probably 2001 or 2002) and instead of show off our victory, the US Military decided to "keep him on ice" until what was deemed a better opportunity to use such a victory to direct public opinion.
The reason why is this:
From 2001-2008 the George W. Bush administration needed military and US contractors to remain in Iraq and Afghanistan to complete their control of government and oil (if possible) using the "Search for Bin Laden" as a reason to be occupying (and controlling) the Middle East. If they caught him in 2001 or 2002, they would've had to pull out, leaving that territory (and Saddam Hussein) unattainable.
Whether he was literally "put on ice" (body saved as proof) or just shot and buried is moot at this point. He couldn't survive for a trial, because there is no evidence linking him to 9-11 (Saddam Hussein had plenty of war crimes, and he was taken alive to be put to death in front of the world) so a trial for OBL would've been problematic for those who actually pulled off 9-11, because they would have to cover up lots of "actual facts".
The knowledge of killing him was power enough to withhold from the public until it was deemed advantageous to US Military policy...i.e.: We've got most of our plans, plants and people in the right places in the Middle East, we can now get out of Iraq and Afghanistan...btw, we caught and killed Osama Bin Laden. GO USA!
P.S.
Remember how John Kerry kept phrasing that statement during the 2004 US Presidential elections? "I will capture and kill Osama Bin Laden"...think that was random phrasing?