Yemen: Video of USS Cole Blast,..Damage Outward October 2000 rumormill
Port of Aden authorities videotaped USS Cole blast!
Copyright American Freedom News
By Rick Wiles

Yemen seaport authorities at the port of Aden are in possession of videotape of the USS Cole explosion.

The Yemen Times reported last week on October 16 that “official authorities say they possess a documentary film showing the destroyer since entering the port until the incident took place.” The Yemen Times report also said the video is what prompted Yemen authorities to initially deny the possibility of terrorism because the “explosion was caused from inside.”

The US Navy and Pentagon have never disclosed to the American public that Yemen authorities had cameras in the port of Aden. There is no indication who is now in possession of the videotape.

If such videotape does exist, it would answer many of the troubling inconsistencies that have risen from statements of officials at the White House, the Pentagon, and the U.S. Navy. The most puzzling inconsistency was the Pentagon’s curious admission of an incorrect timeline in the events of the blast. On Friday, the Pentagon admitted that the USS Cole had already been moored in the port of Aden for two hours when the blast occurred. The NavyTimes newspaper discovered the discrepancy. Until the discovery of the two-hour time difference, the Pentagon and White House had steadfastly stood by their story that a rubber raft that was helping to moor the ship had approached the USS COLE.

A photograph by the Yemen Times shows the USS Cole shortly after the attack. On the lower right side of the photo, a large chunk of steel appears to be in the water away from the hull of the ship, indicating the blast came from inside the ship.

USS Cole
EXCERPT:
who put a hole in the uss cole?
by Preston Peet (ptpeet@cs.com) - November 19, 2000

The little boat seemed harmless to the US sailors on deck as the craft pulled alongside their mighty warship. The sailors waved down at the two men inside, who returned the gesture, then stood at attention, just before they and their little boat blew into smithereens, driving human bodies and shrapnel across the 66 foot-wide interior of the USS Cole, killing 17 US sailors, and injured 39.
US officials originally stated that on October 13th, 2000, the tiny manned boatbomb mingled with other tiny boats that were assisting the mooring operation in Aden Harbor, Yemen, as the USS Cole, an Aegis-class guided missile destroyer, was too large to manoeuver without guides. The US Navy admitted on October 20th, 2000, that the USS Cole had already been moored for two hours before the bombers approached. Why did they lie about this? Perhaps it is simply a machismo thing - not wanting to admit that a big, bad US warship was taken by surprise. But this isn�t the only unanswered question regarding the USS Cole bombing. Where did the terrorists get their C-4? Why have no credible claims of responsibility been called in?

According to a London Times report by Ian Brodie (October 23rd, 2000), the bombers used up to 500 pounds of C-4 in their white, fiberglass skiff/bomb. Another mystery, which Brodie notes, is why the Cole, part of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington Battle Group, had to stop for refueling in the dangerous Aden port, when its oil tanks were allegedly still half-full, leaving enough fuel to reach its planned destination, the port of Bahrain?

Brodie points out that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have denounced military spending cuts, that left only eight tankers available for refueling US warships outside of port. Which begs the question: if the US military is in such dire financial straits, why are the Joint Chiefs calling for future assembly line projects such as the multi-billion dollar F-22 Stealth plane?

Brodie also reveals that US sailors stationed on the USS Cole's deck may have been relieved of their duty. They were no longer on armed watch when they may have done some good. Why would these sailors be dismissed when the ship was operating on "Threat Condition Bravo," the second-highest state of four US Navy alert/security modes?

The Washington Post (November 3rd, 2000) speculated that because such large amounts of C-4 was used, a government hostile to America may have been involved and/or responsible. US officials now speculate that rogue Yemeni military and law enforcement officials may have colluded with the bombers, helping them obtain false papers, use government cars and safe houses, and providing information-in-advance about the USS Cole's movements. Suspected Yemenis may have been in combat, like the bombers with Afghanistan Muhajedeen, veterans of the Afghan/Soviet war.

The Washington Post (November 17th, 2000) reported that Yemen's Prime Minister, Abdel-Karim Ali Iryani, claimed there was no evidence linking the most infamous Afghani war veteran and Yemeni citizen, Osama Bin Laden, to the Aden bombing, although you can find Bin Laden's biography at most of the Web sites reporting on the bombing attack.

Bob Blitzer, former head of the FBI's counter-terrorism efforts told the Washington Post (November 3rd, 2000) that it was difficult to track down C-4, even though it is manufactured with a chemical tracer to help track the trail of the plastic explosives in these very circumstances. Blitzer said that, "it requires a lot of shoe leather to [find out] where it was made, when it was made and who it was sold to . . .Was it something that went to Russia and wound up in Afghanistan? You don't know. There are a thousand scenarios."

If the C-4 explosives ended up with Afghanistan's extremists and terrorists, perhaps it was given to Afghan fighters by the Central Intelligence Agency, as they helped arm the Muhajedeen against their Soviet invaders. This scenario would explain why, almost six weeks after the USS Cole bombing, there was still no explanation on where the C-4 was manufactured. We wouldn't want to embarrass the CIA, would we? The bomb was a shaped charge, meaning that it was designed and built by someone who knew what they were doing, not by a weekend warrior.

Who else could have profited from an attack upon a US warship? Thomas Mountain, a private researcher in Hawaii, speculates that Israel may have engineered the incident. While there is no proof of Israeli involvement, any more than Bin Laden, they were facing a drastic drop in US public support, due to growing perceptions that Israel is savagely repressing the Palestinian people. What better way to distract America's public than with pictures of dead and wounded US sailors, killed in a sneak attack by alleged Palestinian supporters? This hypothesis may be propaganda, but Israel does possess the capability to carry out such bloodthirsty tricks, has killed enemies using C-4, and has previously attacked a US warship with no provocation, when it served their purpose.

Mainstream news reports never mentioned that in previous terrorist attacks on US targets in which C-4 was used, such as the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia (1996), where 19 US servicemen were killed, is that in 1977 CIA agent Edwin Wilson sold 42,000 pounds of C-4 Libyan dictator Muammar Quaddaffi. Green Beret soldiers were hired to train the Libyans in how to make bombs.

Was the USS Cole bombed simply by terrorists? Or was there some nefarious plot to draw the US into some conflict, as historians insist the USS Maine, which was blown up in Havana Harbor in 1898, was used to bring the US into war with Spain over Cuba? Are the culprits possibly even US allies, rather than an enemy? Do we rely on the US military and government to tell us the whole truth about this case?

Unfortunately, we do, and they have a terrible track record of repeated and blatent lying to the American public.

Hmmmmmmmmm, is the article below how the elites are framing Obama's decision to drop the charges? After reading the above, what do you think?

Obama drops prosecution of USS Cole
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Obama Drops Prosecution of USS Cole
Obama is dropping the case against the Cole bombing, a jihadist act of war. In October 2000, the Cole was attacked by Muslim terrorists in a homicide attack in the Yemeni post of Aden. Seventeen sailors were killed and thirty-nine were injured, and the ship was damaged.

Today we hear they are dropping the case. Another big fat lie, to what end? To advance what agenda? Whose interests? Certainly it's not America's.

Obama Administration Halts Commission Trial Against Cole Bomber NRO

It’s a sleepy Friday in late August, the president is on another vacation, Congress is out of town, no one is paying much attention. What better time for the Obama administration to pull the plug, once again, on military commissions? This time, it has halted the case of top al-Qaeda operative Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who was to be prosecuted by a military court for the Cole bombing. The Washington Post report is here, and Jen Rubin has thoughts at Contentions.

None of this is terribly surprising. Prosecuting the Cole case by military commission sticks in the Left’s craw because it shows the incoherence of the Obama/Holder position. They want to treat the war like a crime and endow our enemies with all the rights and advantages of civilian courts; yet, they went military in the Cole case, despite the fact that there is a pending Justice Department civilian indictment addressing that attack. There can be only one explanation for that: they are afraid the case against Nashiri is weak and might not hold up under (slightly) more exacting civilian court due process. That is, the Obama/Holder position is not principled — for all their “rule of law” malarkey, they are willing to go where they have the best chance to win. But there were no military commissions when the Cole was bombed, so what is the basis for trying it militarily? Answer: the 9/11 attacks and the ensuing war . . . except the Left doesn’t accept that it’s a war and the administration wants to prosecute the 9/11 plotters in civilian court. None of it makes any sense.

I have been saying for a while now: Keep your eye on the civilian prosecution against Ahmed Ghailani, one of the embassy bombers. That case is now pending in Manhattan federal court before Judge Lewis Kaplan, who has made significant rulings in favor of the government — declining to throw the case out on the grounds of “torture” and delay. As I said back in May:

It is . . . worth noting that Ghailani is not charged just with blowing up the embassies. The indictment against him alleges the overarching al-Qaeda conspiracy to murder Americans — going back to 1991. The same indictment, with a few tweaks to add the terrorist rampages that occurred after the embassy bombings, could easily be used to charge the 9/11 plotters, as well as other enemy combatants.

Despite all the outrage it stirred, Attorney General Holder has not abandoned his push for a civilian trial of [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other 9/11 plotters] in New York. Don’t be surprised if the Justice Department uses the Ghailani ruling to argue that the naysayers’ concerns about giving KSM a soapbox are overblown. Don’t be surprised if Justice tries to slide the 9/11 attacks right into the embassy-bombing indictment. That would land KSM squarely before Judge Kaplan.

More Andy McCarthy here.