Talk:Al Qaeda

That State Department citation is misleading in it's title, because in reading it, it clealry answers the queastion as "no". RobS 00:55, 23 May 2007 (EDT)

The passage is "According to the 9/11 Commission Report, Osama bin Bin Ladin and his comrades had their own sources of support and training, and they received little or no assistance from the United States" (which answers NO), and the state department citation answers NO. The title is an ambiguously worded question, and does not infer yes or no. --Hojimachong^talk 01:04, 23 May 2007 (EDT)

Can we agree that A). The USA provided funding/training to indigenous Afghan mujaheddin, and that B). Bin Laden and his cronies were not indigenous mujaheddin, but foreign fighters. Can this be agreed upon? --Hojimachong^talk 01:05, 23 May 2007 (EDT)

A) yes but this may not be the place to do it. B) Definitely. I propose we use the 9/11 Report cited as this basis for this page. That document is more/less the definitve open source account up to that time. It is very interesting reading, and ambiguos in points. We should not accept all of it as doctrinaire, but serious students could learn much from a reading of that document about government secrecy, classifications, how to read reports of this nature, and when to investigate further. RobS 15:51, 23 May 2007 (EDT)

9-11 Report

Rob - if the part of the report that says that "cites Bin laden meeting with Iraqi intelligence officials in Khartoum as early as 1995" is citable, why is the part on page 66 saying that " . . . to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States" something that has no place in this encyclopedia? It's from the exact same document, after all. Sevenstring 12:21, 6 June 2007 (EDT)

Read what your cite says; while the early cite reports on a known fact, the later does not deny facts, it only refers to an unknown--they have seen no evidence. Hence, it is inconclusive. Obviously al-Qaede operates under secrecy, and it is very well known of America's intelligence incompetence, and failures. To include that reference from the 9/11 Report, implying a conclusion of no relationship, is false and misleading. In the immortal words on Don Rumsfeld, "There are things that we know, there are things that we don't know, and there are things that we don't know that we don't know". RobS 13:22, 6 June 2007 (EDT)

Some comments

Ok, some comments. This is the al-Qeade entry, it is not the 9/11 entry, nor the Incompetence of US Intelligence Community entry, nor the Criticism of the Bush administration and neo-con agenda entry. The value of the 9/11 report gives us what studied movements and contacts of al-Qeada are known to US intelligence agencies, and the citations that are either (a) accessible through FOIA, or (b) remain classified. Also, the compilers of the report were requiired by law to maintain operational integrity of on-going intelligence operations, i.e. the identity of sources. (Also, we must assume or allow for plausibility that some sources and/or documents were withheld from the 9/11 Report). So, the value of the Report as it pertains to this article simply gives us a very thorough picture of al-Qaeda operations and movements that were known to (a) US Intelligence, and (b) made public through this report. PERIOD.

It is not possible to make any claims of "conclusions", etc. because of the gapping holes that the Report itself admits exists. Therefore, when the report uses phrasing sucfh as, "there is no evidence", this DOES NOT IMPLY ANYTHING in the way of expunging or excusing or rehabilitating or denying or ANYTHING. It is simply an area where either (a) information does not exist because an event never occurred, or (b) we are waiting for the discovery of information, or (c) the event occurred but will never been known.

So, to attempt to make this article into some sort of criticism of policy will not happen. This is an article about al-Qeade, and what is known of its history. PERIOD. It is not a disguised vehicle for criticism of policymakers & intelligence failures. RobS 18:05, 7 June 2007 (EDT)