This link gave me some further insight into bin Laden and how his group(s) operate : http://www.msnbc.com/news/627355.asp
If the US was unable to pinpoint Saddam's exact location during the Gulf War, finding bin Laden in the caves & mountains will be even more difficult. Mango
I heard a contradictory report about Saddam Hussein, that in fact we had him in our sights several times and could have taken him out but that the Saudi's didn't want us to. The report claimed that our decision not even to march to Baghdad was a promise made to the Saudi's who helped finance the war. Don't know what is the truth.
If our government knows the 'area' he's in, and he stays in the open for an extended period of time, then we'll pin point his exact location. Until you've seen our military's capabilities up close, you have no idea. I've seen it, granted I was young, and know of NSA operations, and it's pretty damn amazing. This was just prior to the Gulf War; I don't even know what kind of capabilities they have now. Let's not forget that it's not only US sattellites focused on Afghanistan, but British, French, etc....
DOD , thanks for the post. I've never looked at MSNBC on te web. Liked it so much I've made it my home page atl east for awhile.
I can't wait till we find him. I hope we don't even put him on trial. We should just execute him right away.
tpl: What sort of work did you do? I had a professor who used to be very high up in the state department, and he said that they have less tech than most people would imagine. Said that the Epsilon business, et cetera, was probably untrue. And this guy had more clearance than the President on some issues.
haven, It was my father that had the clearance to see these things, not me. His company worked with the air force to develop the smart/cluster bombs that were used in the Gulf War. Maybe it's not so impressive to some, but reading license plates in Dallas from space was pretty amazing at the time to me, not to mention that they could rotate the view of the shot so you could see the front and back of the object you were looking at. Also, just the fact that the NSA can listen in on any phone call anywhere in the world is impressive. I'd wager they have technology we're not even aware of.
Trust me, the United States know where he is. I was looking at Fox, I believe Thursday, and a military official said that the United States had Saddam where they wanted and could have taken him out if they wanted like Rich said. And what Rich said about the Saudis make sense now because he said that they couldn't take Saddam out for "political reasons". I agree with TPL, the United States technology is being SEVERELY underrated.
The problem which people always seem unable to comprehend when it comes to computing power is not the sheer volume. You can do X billion opperations per second, but the real problem is the sorting of the data. These things which are so easy for people to do are really difficult for a computer, which is pretty much the reason that there's no such thing as 'artificial inteligence' in the 'Robbie the Robot' mold. It's also why aquiring the data is not a problem, but sifting through it to find what you need is. In fact it's a huge problem. The fact that we have an idea where he is helps, but it's still really difficult.
I've got a FAQ about Bin Laden that is not on that site: How do you have all these "followers" or suicide squad take an oath for you and then like the big p***y he is, he hightails it out of there to go hide in the hills?
A little bit of both. Somebody, I think Behad had posted earlier this week about how Bin Laden had all these followers and that they took a death oath and then he leaves them to fight for him. Now WTF is that?? If he's really innocent like he says he is, then why did he feel compelled to flee on horseback? I guess it really is venting, Mango. Man, you get to the point about things, don't you?
Manny, Yes and it has been that way for about two years. Schwarzkopf wasn't in combat during the Gulf War, so why should bin Laden sacrifice himself? Mango
the reason why we didnt kill Saddam is because he supposedly kept other terrorists from going overboard...he kept them in check. I know that sounds like an oxymoron beig that he himself is one, but he spent money as well as time and troops making sure that it didnt get out of control (crazy as that sounds) Basically, the US took the lesser of two evils. At least thats how it was presented to me from everything i have gathered.
