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How We Found Bin Laden: The Basics of Foreign Signals Intelligence

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Re: How We Found Bin Laden: The Basics of Foreign Signals Intelligence

#11

Post by adrianpike »

zeroCalories wrote: post #3

Wild that the NSA has a podcast. Part of me always wanted to work for them, and I still dream of cyber warfare, but the allure of big tech money and the Virginia location always pushed me away. Maybe some day.

Same dream here - they work very interesting problems at very interesting scale, but I can see 3-4x the comp while working from anywhere? Not even a chance. I do sometimes fantasize about making a career shift when the cash comp isn't that important to me and the kids are out of the house, but as of now I value afternoon coffee breaks with my kids just too darn much.

Re: How We Found Bin Laden: The Basics of Foreign Signals Intelligence

#12

Post by dataflow »

jmyeet wrote: post #6

From the NSA, this seems like historical revisionism as it contradicts the bin Laden story widely accepted. The short version is: 9/11 happens. The Taliban offer to hand over bin Laden and George W. Bush refuses [1]. Bin Laden escapes into Pakistan. We then start a completely pointless war in Iraq against someone who played no part in 9/11. There was a letter from many conservative leaders prior to 9//1 calling for t…

> The short version is: 9/11 happens. The Taliban offer to hand over bin Laden and George W. Bush refuses [1]

I looked at your link. It seems you missed a huge asterisk on that from your own article:

> the third most powerful figure in the ruling Taliban regime told reporters that the Taliban would require evidence that Bin Laden was behind the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US

Re: How We Found Bin Laden: The Basics of Foreign Signals Intelligence

#13

Post by rtsil »

jmyeet wrote: post #6

From the NSA, this seems like historical revisionism as it contradicts the bin Laden story widely accepted. The short version is: 9/11 happens. The Taliban offer to hand over bin Laden and George W. Bush refuses [1]. Bin Laden escapes into Pakistan. We then start a completely pointless war in Iraq against someone who played no part in 9/11. There was a letter from many conservative leaders prior to 9//1 calling for t…

They don't claim that NSA found Bin Laden. They say that they were part of a multi-agency effort that took 9 years to find him. And they say that human intelligence led them to who the courier was.

Re: How We Found Bin Laden: The Basics of Foreign Signals Intelligence

#14

Post by speakfreely »

jmyeet wrote: post #6

From the NSA, this seems like historical revisionism as it contradicts the bin Laden story widely accepted. The short version is: 9/11 happens. The Taliban offer to hand over bin Laden and George W. Bush refuses [1]. Bin Laden escapes into Pakistan. We then start a completely pointless war in Iraq against someone who played no part in 9/11. There was a letter from many conservative leaders prior to 9//1 calling for t…

George W. Bush did plenty of bad things, so much so that your misleading point about him not accepting the surrender of Bin Laden was unnecessary to fabricate and only serves to destroy the credibility of everything else you wrote. Sometimes you need to let peoples' misdeeds speak for themselves, not embellish to add to your narrative.

Re: How We Found Bin Laden: The Basics of Foreign Signals Intelligence

#15

Post by dyauspitr »

zeroCalories wrote: post #3

Wild that the NSA has a podcast. Part of me always wanted to work for them, and I still dream of cyber warfare, but the allure of big tech money and the Virginia location always pushed me away. Maybe some day.

I wonder why they don’t pay more, it’s not like the government is shy about spending money on defence.

Re: How We Found Bin Laden: The Basics of Foreign Signals Intelligence

#16

Post by jmyeet »

jonnybgood wrote: post #8
jmyeet wrote: post #6

From the NSA, this seems like historical revisionism as it contradicts the bin Laden story widely accepted. The short version is: 9/11 happens. The Taliban offer to hand over bin Laden and George W. Bush refuses [1]. Bin Laden escapes into Pakistan. We then start a completely pointless war in Iraq against someone who played no part in 9/11. There was a letter from many conservative leaders prior to 9//1 calling for t…

Iraq was never about 9/11. The error of Iraq happened because the US followed one HUMINT source Saddam was developing WMD. Considering bin Laden was in Pakistan, it would presumably require a multi-source confirmation.

The invasion of Iraq was sold in part by manufacturing a connection to 9/11. This is confirmed by public opinion [1]:

> In the months leading up to the war, sizable majorities of Americans believed ... that Iraq was closely tied to terrorism – and even that Hussein himself had a role in the 9/11 attacks.

Believing one source is simply looking for justification for what you were going to do anyway. There was plenty of evidence to the contrary, not th eleast of which was the UNSCOM inspections.

Also, it's just plain illogical for Saddam to have WMDs. Let's say he has WMDs. If the US invades, would he use them? Probably not because it wouldn't change the outcome and it would invite further retaliation. So if he's not going to use them, why not give them up to save his regime?

This isn't historical 20/20 hindsight either. These discussions were being had prior to the invasion.

[1]: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/03/14/a-look-back-...

Re: How We Found Bin Laden: The Basics of Foreign Signals Intelligence

#17

Post by jmyeet »

dataflow wrote: post #12
jmyeet wrote: post #6

From the NSA, this seems like historical revisionism as it contradicts the bin Laden story widely accepted. The short version is: 9/11 happens. The Taliban offer to hand over bin Laden and George W. Bush refuses [1]. Bin Laden escapes into Pakistan. We then start a completely pointless war in Iraq against someone who played no part in 9/11. There was a letter from many conservative leaders prior to 9//1 calling for t…

> The short version is: 9/11 happens. The Taliban offer to hand over bin Laden and George W. Bush refuses [1] I looked at your link. It seems you missed a huge asterisk on that from your own article: > the third most powerful figure in the ruling Taliban regime told reporters that the Taliban would require evidence that Bin Laden was behind the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US

So how did the alternative course of action work out?

EDIT: instead of rejecting the Taliban's offer outright and, say, negotiating and acceptable outcome, we chose to go to war, spend trillions of dollars, kill countless people and ultimately still leave the Taliban in power.

The Taliban saying they need proof is a negotiation. There is no court of law. We could've simply bribed them. Imagine how much cheaper and how many lives would've been saved if we'd simply given them $1 billion to hand over bin Laden.

But no, instead we started a war we could never possibly win. And again, that's not hindisght being 20/20. The US has not won a war since 1945. We watched the USSR, who had far more tolerance for losses, lose a war in Afghanistan. Like in what world did we think we would ever "win"? The outcome was entirely predictable and foreseeable. Irony of ironies, it was our material support to Afghanistan in the Soviet invasion that quite literally created bin Laden.

Re: How We Found Bin Laden: The Basics of Foreign Signals Intelligence

#18

Post by Arubis »

dyauspitr wrote: post #15
zeroCalories wrote: post #3

Wild that the NSA has a podcast. Part of me always wanted to work for them, and I still dream of cyber warfare, but the allure of big tech money and the Virginia location always pushed me away. Maybe some day.

I wonder why they don’t pay more, it’s not like the government is shy about spending money on defence.

They’re not, but they are shy about defying their own regulations around pay scales. The real money in defense is in private contracting.

Re: How We Found Bin Laden: The Basics of Foreign Signals Intelligence

#19

Post by jmyeet »

khuey wrote: post #10
jmyeet wrote: post #6

From the NSA, this seems like historical revisionism as it contradicts the bin Laden story widely accepted. The short version is: 9/11 happens. The Taliban offer to hand over bin Laden and George W. Bush refuses [1]. Bin Laden escapes into Pakistan. We then start a completely pointless war in Iraq against someone who played no part in 9/11. There was a letter from many conservative leaders prior to 9//1 calling for t…

> The Taliban offer to hand over bin Laden and George W. Bush refuses A bit disingenuous to say that and leave out that the most generous version of that offer was to hand Bin Laden over to a third country .

So what's the goal here? To exact vengeance on one individual? To remove his ability to further act in this capacity?

Because what we chose instead was to spend $8 trillion on a 20 year war killing millions in Iraq and Afghanistan and still to objectively lose militarily, politically and in terms of the ability for the US to project power in the region. The Taliban control Afghanistan once again.

All while doing absolutely nothing agains the actual regime that provided material support to the 9/11 hijackers, the same regime from which the majority of the 19 hijackers (and bin Laden himself) actually came from.

Re: How We Found Bin Laden: The Basics of Foreign Signals Intelligence

#20

Post by PNewling »

jmyeet wrote: post #17
dataflow wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The short version is: 9/11 happens. The Taliban offer to hand over bin Laden and George W. Bush refuses [1] I looked at your link. It seems you missed a huge asterisk on that from your own article: > the third most powerful figure in the ruling Taliban regime told reporters that the Taliban would require evidence that Bin Laden was behind the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US

So how did the alternative course of action work out? EDIT: instead of rejecting the Taliban's offer outright and, say, negotiating and acceptable outcome, we chose to go to war, spend trillions of dollars, kill countless people and ultimately still leave the Taliban in power. The Taliban saying they need proof is a negotiation. There is no court of law. We could've simply bribed them. Imagine how much cheaper and ho…

I don't fully understand your question...
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