[Note - you might have to widen your window here, or open the image in a new window. My apologies. Raw intel can be inconvenient.]
From CNN:
WASHINGTON (CNN) — U.S. intelligence officials say they are trying to determine whether Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenant was attending a dinner in a remote Pakistani village and whether he was one of the people killed by a CIA airstrike.
The killings sparked demonstrations across the country, with tens of thousands of people marching against Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and the United States.
The officials said Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s No. 2 man, was invited to the Damadola dinner celebrating the end of the Muslim holiday of Eid.
Indeed. According to my source in the Pentagon, the problem this time wasn’t bad intel, it was bad analysis. And even though it’s a new medium, the basic intel principle remains the same: Always, always, always wait for the RSVP.
Fanny Roborat
27 comments
tim
January 17, 2006 at 4:44 pm
1Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Eid.
Eid who?
Eid hope we didn’t have somewhat sketchy intelligence from the Pakistani authorities that Ayman al-Zawahari was coming over for dinner tonight if I were you.
KER-BLAM!
This is a sterling example of the little known CIA communique type known as the knock-knock-air-strike joke.
David
January 17, 2006 at 4:53 pm
2When Adam decides on a rapier thrust, his aim is deadly accurate, and the thrust is deadly. Apparently the CIA has mastered only the latter.
madbard
January 17, 2006 at 5:41 pm
3well obviously he didn’t show up: it was in protest against the Victoria Secrets advertisement!!! come on, google ad sense, you couldn’t find Burkas for Less?
Maximum Bob
January 17, 2006 at 7:08 pm
4I have it on good authority that al-Zawahiri now eats only at the Olive Garden, after numerous friends told him that they wouldn’t be caught dead there.
Murray
January 17, 2006 at 7:33 pm
5I think it may have been the Pork Tar-Tar appetizers or the free bowl sized glasses of Maker’s Mark that tipped him off.
tess
January 17, 2006 at 7:38 pm
6Hmm, I always did wonder why I didn’t like Evite . . . now I’ll need another way to organize my “kill the president (any of them)” weekend brunch.
dee
January 17, 2006 at 10:53 pm
7He really would have been there, but it went into his spam filter and well…you know…sometimes you just forget to check.
hedera
January 18, 2006 at 1:46 am
8I wondered about the Victoria’s Secret ad too, somehow it doesn’t seem like something a dedicated Wahhabist like al-Zawahiri would appreciate.
Come on, Adam, did you make this up?
Murray, how do you know what’s on the menu? I can barely see the lines of type. Or are you making that up too?
Ann
January 18, 2006 at 5:15 am
9It doesn’t look as though anyone accepted! How embarrassing! I’m surprised that Khursheed didn’t just cancel—I know I would have.
Ann
January 18, 2006 at 5:16 am
10Also embarrassing, I don’t know how to use tags yet.
cooper
January 18, 2006 at 8:28 am
11Knight-Ridder reported that al-Zawahiri did receive an invitation to this gathering, but sent representatives instead of attending himself, so the intelligence seems to have been good for once. Some innocent women and children also seemed to have been killed. No doubt many more Pakistanis will die at the hands of al-Zawahiri as he tries to find out who set him up for the hit. It’s a tough world out there.
David
January 18, 2006 at 2:08 pm
12I never actually doubted that there was some intelligence indicating something was afoot re al Zawahiri. I just doubt we can ever be successful using this strategy and the assets we are dependent on. All we are likely to do is get played for suckers and further fan flames of hatred for the United States.
We are trying to solve low-tech, labor-intensive problems with high-tech bedazzlement. We are also, as always, trying to get by on the cheap, even as our military industrial complex puts staggering amounts of taxpayer dollars into the pockets of corporate executives and high-roller investors.
The drones sound like just the thing to a society enraptured with technology, but I will be surprised if we accomplish anything besides lots of civilian deaths and continued diminution of our stature in the eyes of the Muslim world, which people were on our side right after 9/11.
We do stupid with real panache.
Emmarie
January 18, 2006 at 8:24 pm
13I see no one else has commented on “Muhajaparty” and “Alqizzle.” Let me.
Ha. Ha ha ha.
Etienne
January 18, 2006 at 8:28 pm
14Uhm, no wonder they missed… Saturday, January 13th?
cooper
January 18, 2006 at 9:18 pm
15I believe that if Mr. Kursheed al-Zuhari had thought to include that famous party animal, Sheik Yabuty, in his Evite, then more guests would have accepted, forcing most of the innocent by-standers into other buildings away from the blast site and the world would be a better place for it. In my humble opinion, that is.
On a completely apolitical topic, it’s been 3 days now and I have comported myself in a quite restrained manner and it is with the utmost civility and good taste that I humbly bring to your attention - HOW ‘BOUT DEM CAROLINA PANTHERS!!!! Yeeeeeeeeeeeee-Haw!!! I mean they do put on a ripping good show, don’t you think, old sport?
SeattleDan
January 18, 2006 at 9:20 pm
16We’ll see,cooper,We’ll see.
Jay
January 18, 2006 at 10:05 pm
17Doesn’t matter anyway, the Steelers are going to take it all this year. First wild card to make it to the divisional playoffs! On the flip side, a tackle by the quarterback (!) and a missed field goal are all that kept Jerome Bettis from ending his career with a season stopping fumble. Perhaps I should not make rash predictions.
Cheers,
Jay
David
January 18, 2006 at 11:55 pm
18Cooper and Seattle Dan,
I am a figurative house divided. Western North Carolina is my other home, but it is a Gator catching those passes for Seattle. Orange and Blue blood is way thicker than water, so I’ll almost surely find myself cheering for a Gator. Both quarterbacks are worthy opponents. Seattle vs. Charlotte is a tough call, dammit.
Cooper, I can only beseech understanding. I am certainly ok with How ’bout them pammed Danthers?
On the other hand, how can one not love The Bus?
When I lived in NYC, I used to catch the Bettis. It was the downtown on Madison, as I remember it, and on the late night run the damned thing sometimes got airborne. What a ride (I ain’t makin’ this up).
Gator basketball team on a roll like we’ve never seen before!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Duke v. Florida in the championship game…
cooper
January 19, 2006 at 8:56 am
19David, the Panther’s Center, Jeff Mitchell is from U of Florida. He has his hands on the ball every offensive play of the game - the very nexus of the team - famous for his Orange and Blue underwear on game day - has often opined his fondest wish is to have retirement homes in both Goldenrod and the Green Swamp (what are the chances?) - is working on a book in the off-season on how his teachers in High School turned his life around from car-jackings and Heroin addiction to working for World Peace, one orphan at a time - credits his 98 year old grandfather with keeping the family together through thick and thin by selflessly selling his prize winning sculpture on the street for pennies on the dollar so he could put bread of the table and send his children and grandchildren to school with a full stomach and a thirst for education - hardly touched by the blowback from the Panthers steroid scandal. But you go ahead and cheer for whomever you must. I know in my heart that Jeff’s grandmother (did I mention her contributions to Save The Children Foundation and her pending nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize?) will understand and try to hold on to life.
Pete IVDL
January 19, 2006 at 9:56 am
20You gotta be frelling kidding. The CIA drops a PartyBuster on a bunch of civilians, and people in America protest because some intelligence indicated that “someone” might have been invited but certainly didn’t bother showing up? That’s like… like… well, it’s certainly convoluted, that’s fer sure.
Intelligence (with a capital ‘I’) and intelligence don’t seem to have an awful lot in common these days.
Ann
January 19, 2006 at 11:31 am
21Thanks, Pete, for changing the topic from (American) football! Talk about hijacking a thread…
David
January 19, 2006 at 12:40 pm
22Pete IVDL and Ann,
We need (and progressives include) football fanaddicts, but I’m ok with the gridiron diversion being shortlived, even though it was fun to momentarily kidnap the thread (but not rendite it).
Regarding the horror at the homicidal terrorist attack on a party, it seems to me to be the equivalent of being told Al Capone and some of his henchmen were invited to a party and blowing the building and the attendees to smithereens. On this score, I’m still trying to figure out the substantive difference from the attack on the Twin Towers. Seems to me the difference is essentially numerical, even if we did take out some al Qaida militants. I can already hear all the rationalizations regarding the differences, but I don’t buy them. This was a misguided terrorist attack, whether or not we had intelligence indicating we might take out some al Qaida leader resulting from misguided addiction to whiz bang technology and amateurish intelligence gathering.
Maybe we could just hit the entire region with some neutron bombs.
cooper
January 19, 2006 at 1:02 pm
23Uhh, David, neutron bombs? Please - don’t be giving the boys with the toys any ideas, okay?
Ann, sorry to hijack the thread. I’ll try never to do it again. It’s just that it seemed to need a little shot of energy. Speaking of which -
The dynamic duo of *Steve Smith* and *Jake Delhomme* is coming to your Football Dome (Doom?) this weekend. DON’T MISS!!! your chance to tell your future ***grandchildren*** that YOU saw them in the FLESSSSSH!!!
Oh, sorry, I guess I did it again, didn’t I?
David
January 19, 2006 at 4:00 pm
24Cooper,
You do it with such elan. That’s got to count for something. ‘Course they’ll also see Hasselback/Jackson.
I guarantee the boys with the toys have run any number of wargames with “tactical” neutron bombs, and since we have a huge black budget, I would shocked to learn that we don’t already have the damned things, if not at least all the precursors. Only reasons for not using them are either pr related or some other consideration I’m not aware of. Just think, eliminate all those pesky people without destroying any infrastructure.
OK, back to envisioning Gators chowing down on Blue Devils (kind of like oddly colored habeneros, I hear, and Gators like it piquant) in the title game.
Pete IVDL
January 19, 2006 at 5:23 pm
25Pakistan’s secret service is riddled with sympathisers of the Taliban and al-qaeda. Goes with the territory, I guess. But Americans suddenly protesting? That’s like Sicilians protesting Al Capone being at a birthday party for relatives. I’m not sure that the Untouchables would have bombed said party just to get rid of him… Hmmm, could the CIA indict al-Zawahiri on tax evasion?
I wonder when the CIA got so desperate to be seen to be doing ’something’, anything, that 80% collateral damage became acceptable. But you’re right, David - it was a US terrorist attack. Utterly unacceptable by pre-Bush standards. Kinda like Iraq all over again, in miniature.
When we stoop to their tactics, then we’ve lost something really important, even if we did pop their media organizer. I wonder just how Bush/Cheney/Rice think al-Jazheera have played this - imperialist terrorism? or the good ol’ US of A surgically lancing a boil? Or do BCR just see al-Jazeera as Towelhead Saturday Nite Live?
David
January 20, 2006 at 1:10 pm
26Pete IVDL,
Towelhead Saturday Night Live? Love it.
Keep going back to “Billy in the Darbies” (Billy Budd): But aren’t it all sham?
David
January 22, 2006 at 11:42 am
27Cooper,
I cannot believe I missed your post on Jeff Mitchell. I also cannot believe I lost track of where he went to play pro ball. So now I’m in a win-win situation. And Darrell Jackson is injured, although he’ll play. This should be the super bowl game. I will be thinking about you (and my several friends in Hendersonville who would likely draw and quarter me if they had any idea I wasn’t simply cheering on the Panthers, no questions asked).
I had been wondering who the mystery person is who’s building the big house over on a lake in an orange grove here on the edge of the Green Swamp (one of the last groves not yet completely bulldozed out this way). Jeff is about as orange and blue as a human being can be. The Goldenrod place must be over on Bear Gully. For any Felbernaut who doesn’t understand how important this can be, even to liberals who understand what is being done to our civil liberties, the globe’s ecosystems, and any vestiges of sanity in US foreign policy, I can only say (well, hell, I have no idea what to say).
Sorry, Ann. At least I put on a ski mask while I’m typing posts like this one.