Osama Hunter Wanted to "Boost" bin Laden For Justice

CIA Director Leon Panetta gave a sobering interview with ABC's "This Week" yesterday, in which he said the US has had no solid intelligence on Osama bin Laden's whereabouts for years. While being interviewed on the program, Panetta summarized the difficulties with the war in Afghanistan, and with the hunt for bin Laden, saying that the last "precise information" US officials had on the terrorist leader was in "the early 2000s": "Since then, it's been very difficult to get any intelligence on his exact location. He is, as is obvious, in very deep hiding ... He's in an area of the tribal areas of Pakistan." But in that case, maybe the CIA should be outsourcing their intelligence to the Osama Hunter.

Gary Faulkner, the 50-year-old "kooky" Colorado construction worker who was caught in Pakistan attempting to hunt down bin Laden earlier this month, appeared on CBS's "The Early Show" to discuss how he could do what the US government has been unable to do thus far. Faulkner, who was caught by authorities armed with a pistol, sword, Bible and night-vision goggles, claimed to have inside help from a wide-net of people, including operatives inside the Pakistani government and military ("Let's put it this way: It's not a 'me.' It's a 'we.'"). He also said he wasn't out to kill bin Laden: "I want to capture him alive and bring him into justice. Just like Saddam [Hussein], who was insane. He went down like a dog, because he was in a hole. He came out. Then he had his big boast in front of the courts and the world and stuff, and he got hung."

Faulkner also boasted that he plans on going back to Pakistan again, and wouldn't stop till he finished the job: "I'm a thief, I'm there to boost him. I don't plan on doing a job because I want to get caught. I'm there to get something. So whether it's to get into someone's house, or a bank or whatever, I'm there to get him." Faulkner has previously been arrested 10 times in Greeley, CO for crimes including burglary and domestic violence. You can see the whole interview below, including some of Faulkner's other philosophical tidbits, such as, "Chicken isn't nothing but a bird, and God hates a coward."

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By Ben Yakas in News on June 28, 2010 4:15 PM

Comments [rss]

BDS=(Boycott.Divest.Sanction)

out of curiosity I checked what the estimated civilian death toll in Afghanstan is at...

20-30K

thats 20 to 30K people just like you me.

anyway you slice it thats a pretty major fck up. invade a country cause you say you know bin laden is there. we dont find him but 30K people get killed.

Sort of like Iraq. We're going to invade cause they have WMDs! Dont find them. 100K civilians wind up dead.

I can accept that Americans will never be able to view these civilian deaths in anyway similar to the deaths of americans on 9/11. Ones Us and the others them. I dont agree, but I get that. I know that will never change.

What I dont understand is how for there is no call for accountability. If you dont care about the lives, what about the $$? a trillion dollars. thats a lot of money spent looking for one man or WMD that never materialized.

Where is the fallout for the fck up that is these two wars? Where?

BDS=(Boycott.Divest.Sanction)

I wonder what Americans would call it if someone from Pakistan was found crawling around in the woods in the US with a pistol, sword, Koran and night-vision goggles.

How do you think someone like that would be described?

eitan

If there was a powerful, billionaire foreign born individual who took up residency in our country , hiding in the mountains to plan and execute mass casualty terrorist acts across the world, I would join your hypothetical pakistani in looking for him.

BDS=(Boycott.Divest.Sanction)

well Dick Cheney does lives near mountain range in Wyoming...but I doubt thats what you meant.

Just for the fun of it...keeping in mind what you said about

'plan and execute mass casualty terrorist acts across the world'

read this article about the people involved in planning the Iraq war.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/white-man-s-burden-1.14110

'The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals...and goes on for how they decided to force changes in goverments in the middle east...in Afghanstan, Iraq, soon to be Iran and on and on.

Just for fun, imagine at what point if any do those people cross over from being good americans to know better than someone who is

'planning to execute mass casualty terrorist acts across the world'

maybe its never, and if thats the case, why? cause we're a state? cause we have powerful weapons, more legititimacy? then ask yourself if you werent american, would you see it differently?

I'm not trying to argue or be condesending. I'm just suggesting an alternate pov

eitan

I know you think your point of view is new and enlightening, and you just have to share it with all us idiots who have never had this occur to us, but let me counter with this:

The world is an incredibly compex place, and at the same time, it is incredibly simple.

We do what we do because in the end, if someone else could, they would do it to us. And the day we stop doing what we do, will be the day that they start to grow strong enough until they and us have quickly switched places. No one said the world is fair, or even a nice place. Its not. Can you wrap your mind around that?

JacqueMehoff

You forgot God Bless America in your rant.

farleft

They'd be described a hero, just like Faulkner. Duh.

Polite New Yorker

Saddam Hussein was hanged. If he was hung, I'd rather not know.

That said, I don't think this man has the qualifications we're looking for in hunting for Osama Bin Laden, but I join most Americans in thanking this man for his efforts. He's putting in a more focused effort than three presidents.