UBL in Iran and other Conspiracies

Fox recently brought back the old story that a well-known Falconer who worked with many Arab shiekhs claims bin Laden has been hiding in Iran since 2003. Ken Timmerman and Michael Ledeen have made the claim, and yes, the 9/11 report says they should take a deeper look at Iran's possible involvement.

And yes, members of UBL's family were definitely in Iran, under 'house arrest', including his son Saad. But last year Saad was released (or escaped, or pushed out) and was promptly sent to Allah by an American drone when he reached southern Afghanistan, which doesn't seem to fit the narrative (unless Usama was being punished).

The last time we saw bin Laden on TV was beyond bizarre. The tape was poorly edited, parts of it with the shiekh frozen as if in a still picture while the audio rolled along (click pic above for alternate interpretation video). Back when Bush was in power the lefty conspiracists, including the late Walter Cronkite, blamed the CIA on the puppet strings of Karl Rove; now that Obama is in charge those claims can be seen as ludicrous so doesn't it make sense for the crazy Mullahs to be behind such klaptrap based on what we see in their media?

Right now Tehran is holding the leader of Jund'allah, a terrorist group based in Baluchistan the west was supposedly leveraging against Iran. Why would we do that? How embarrassing might his 'testimony' be if they put him on TV? They supposedly picked him off a flight with the help of Pakistan. Why would they help Iran?

Other circumstantial evidence exists. For instance, among the group who still argue about the anthrax letter attacks, attorney Ross Getman has long believed it was the work of terrorists, specifically AQ, and he points to some very compelling anniversaries. The first batch of letters were mailed around September 17, 18, 2001, and the second (and more powerful dust) was sent between October 6-9. The September days are close to the anniversary of the Camp David Accords, the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel signed by Anwar Sadat and Manachem Begen. The October dates are close to the anniversary of Sadat's subsequent assassination in 1981.

And guess whose group was involved in that? One of Getman's main culprits, Ayman Zawahiri and his al Jihad group, which morphed into Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ/Vanguards of Conquest). Zawahiri would later work with KSM and others to acquire WMDs for AQ dating back to the late 90s.

Meanwhile the trigger man in the Sadat attack was Khaled Islambuli, who had a street and stamp named after him in Iran:

Iranian animosity grew when Egypt backed Saddam Hussein's Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88). Approximately two thirds of Egypt's military exports went to support Iraq during the war. Concurrently, the Islamic Republic began celebrating the martyrdom of Khaled al-Islambuli, the army officer executed for the assassination of Egypt's President Sadat on October 6th, 1981. Shortly after President Sadat's assassination, Iran issued an official postage stamp bearing Islambuli's image, named one of Tehran's main thoroughfares in his honor, and posted a large scale mural on the side of a prominent building in Tehran, memorializing Islambuli as hero of the global Islamic resistance movement. Egypt also maintains that for years, Iran has been sheltering fugitive "members of violent Islamist organizations" convicted by Egyptian courts (Al-Ahram Jan.15-21, 2004).

Fast forward to the anthrax letters. The text used the old familiar chant heard in Tehran--"death to America, death to Israel". The FBI tried to dampen this by claiming Dr. Ivins left a message in the letters by darkening or overwriting several letters in the message, but this hardly seems conclusive since a few 'o' s are clearly overwritten that were not counted. Otherwise their lone wolf theory is quite solid (except for someone actually seeing him make or mail the powder) but like everything else to do with this war nothing is ever 100 percent solid.

But for the sake of argument let's say Getman is correct, would something like bin Laden hiding in Iran ever come out formally? Not likely. Obama would not want it out since he's currently hamstrung in his ability to affect any change there vis a vis their nukes, and such a revelation might force immediate pressure for someone to attack. That's likely the same reason Bush wouldn't have wanted it out, not to mention it ruining their political narrative of no attacks after 9/11. But Bush did at least manage to surround them.

MORE 5/5/10

One advantage of having the leftist media around is that occasionally they can coddle dictators enough to get them to do interviews, whereupon there's a chance some things can be learned. George Stephanapolous did the honors with A'jad and asked about the bin Laden in Iran story, which produced this idiotic back and forth:

AHMADINEJAD: Our position is quite clear. Some journalists have said Bin Laden is in Iran. These words don't have legal value. Our position towards Afghanistan and against terrorism is quite clear.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Is it true or not?

AHMADINEJAD: Maybe you know, but I don't know.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I'm asking you. You're the President of Iran.

AHMADINEJAD: I don't know such a thing, you are giving news which is very strange.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, let me ask it a different way. If you did know that Osama bin Laden was in Tehran, would you show him hospitality? Would you expel him? Would you arrest him?

AHMADINEJAD: I heard that Osama bin Laden is in the Washington, D.C.

STEPHANOPOULOS: No, you didn't.

AHMADINEJAD: Yes, I did. He's there. Because he was a previous partner of Mr. Bush. They were colleagues in fact in the old days. You know that. They were in the oil business together. They worked together. Mr. Bin Laden never cooperated with Iran but he cooperated with Mr. Bush--

The entire interview sounded like a conversation off a message board. Wonder if A'jad is out there in cyberspace somewhere, debating anonymously, maybe on Sean Hannity's site? He argues just like some American liberal college professors.

As to the question, it was edgy and his reply couldn't have been any more juvenile and truthery but clueless George botched the entire gotcha by not mentioning bin Laden's family being there under "house arrest". After the idiot has already railed about border laws and bin Laden being in Washington it would have been fun hearing him defend housing bin Laden's family in a compound other than a jail, and how they came to be in Iran in the first place.

Anyway, after hearing his wild answer the conspiracy seems a lot more convincing than before, but then again, maybe that's what he wants us to believe!