The latest piece of overwrought effluent from Kurt Nimmo once again exemplifies the fundamental flaw with the Conspiracy Industry. Those sources from the mainstream media which support the Conspiracy Theory are taken as gospel truth; those which point the other way are dismissed as disinformation. It is a fundamentally dishonest as well as pathetically transparent propaganda trick. Alas, the Conspiranoids' legions of true believers never seem to get it. Nimmo writes [2], July 14 (emphasis added):
It is politics as usual. In order to hype the "war on terror" angle over what is perceived as a floundering effort in Iraq—in fact, the effort in Iraq is a smashing (no pun intended) success, as it has destroyed the country—the "U.S. Senate on Friday voted to double the bounty on Osama bin Laden to $50 million and require President George W. Bush to refocus on capturing him after reports al Qaeda is gaining strength," according to Reuters. "By a vote of 87-1, the Senate set the reward for the killing or capture, or information leading to the capture, of the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States."
Of course, there is no evidence Osama bin Laden had anything to do with nine eleven and the government refuses to provide any, beyond pointing to a handful of obviously faked video and audio tapes.
Moreover, as the Arab and Asian media reported years ago, Osama bin Laden died in December, 2001, in Afghanistan. "A prominent official in the Afghan Taleban movement announced yesterday the death of Osama bin Laden, the chief of al-Qa’da organization, stating that bin Laden suffered serious complications in the lungs and died a natural and quiet death. The official, who asked to remain anonymous, stated to The Observer of Pakistan that he had himself attended the funeral of bin Laden and saw his face prior to burial in Tora Bora," al-Wafd, an Egyptian newspaper, reported on December 26, 2001.
It should be recalled that even the neocon-infested Bush administration admitted on January 18, 2002, that bin Laden "needs dialysis every three days," as reported by CNN, and "that could be an issue when you are running from place to place, and facing the idea of needing to generate electricity in a mountain hideout," according to an unnamed U.S. official. As any doctor will tell you, hemodialysis, or renal dialysis, "is something that really is reserved for patients in end-stage renal failure. That means their kidneys have just completely shut down," as Dr. Sanjay Gupta notes. It is, to say the least, absurd to believe "al-Qaeda" would be able to keep a dying Osama on a complicated dialysis machine in a cave situated in a remote mountainous area of one of the most backward countries in the world. It is not, as the above quoted Bush factotum indicates, an "issue," it is rather an impossibility.
It seems Kurt missed this one. From the National Review Online [3], Nov. 3, 2005:
Everything you know about the war on terror is false? Well, not quite. But Rich Miniter has homed in on 22 myths, which comprises his new book, Disinformation: 22 Media Myths That Undermine the War on Terror. He recently talked about some of them with National Review Online editor Kathryn Lopez.
Kathryn Jean Lopez: Osama isn't on dialysis? How the heck would you know? Seen him lately? Care to draw a map to the cave?
Richard Miniter: I tracked down nearly everyone who met bin Laden in the past 20 years. Every one that I was able to speak to said that bin Laden has no kidney troubles. My investigation took me to Egypt, Sudan, and put me in touch with leading journalists and officials in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
In Khartoum, I interviewed a man who lived with bin Laden for six years in both Sudan and Afghanistan. He emphatically said bin Laden had no health problems of any kind. He thought the dialysis story was propaganda put out by the CIA to depress the spirits of Muslims.
Bin Laden's personal physician, Dr. Amer Aziz, was arrested in Pakistan on October 21, 2002, and interrogated extensively by Pakistani intelligence officials as well as by CIA and FBI officials. When he was released in November 2002, he wasn't shy about talking to reporters. The doctor said that he had given bin Laden a "complete physical." "His kidneys were fine. If you're on dialysis, you have a special look. I didn't see any of that . . . I did not see any evidence of kidney disease . . . I didn't see any evidence of dialysis. . . .When I see these reports I laugh. I did not see any evidence."
Indeed the first reporter to write that bin Laden was on dialysis was Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir, who said his sole source for that nugget was Pakistani intelligence. They provided him with no evidence. Even Mir seems to doubt the story now.
In chapter three of Disinformation, I give the surprising reason that Pakistan wanted to spread rumors about bin Laden's health in 1998.
Does Kurt Nimmo care to draw a map to Osama's grave?
We can hear Kurt's response already. If he takes note of this (he will more likely conveniently ignore it), he will dismiss the source as "neocon"—even though National Review is more paleo than neo. Note that when "neocon-infested" sources say something Kurt wants to hear, this is taken as an imprimatur of legitimacy—that it is coming from the horse's mouth, so to speak. Yet he is just as quick to use the "neocon" epithet to shoot down inconvenient reports.
For daring to point out this contradiction, Kurt will probably also attack us as part of the "pro-zionist media" (again [4])—which is also pretty absurd [5].
Why doesn't Kurt Nimmo either get real or get lost?
See our last posts on Osama bin Laden [6], Kurt Nimmo [7], al-Qaeda [8] and the Conspiracy Industry [9].
