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Is
bin Laden in Tora Bora Caves?
Suspicions
are high that bin Laden, and a cadre of up to two thousand of
his closest defenders, are in and around a mountain fortress
at Tora Bora, 35 miles southwest of Jalalabad. Excerpts from
articles detailing those suspicions:
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If
bin Laden is in the mountain fortress of Tora Bora, he is protected
by caves as enduring as the rock from which they are carved.
...
Today, by all accounts, it is an al-Qaeda redoubt, the hideout
of some 2,000 Arab fighters devoted to Osama bin Laden. Many
of them fled the city of Jalalabad, 35 miles across the tawny
plain to the northeast and traditionally the fortress’s
main supply point.
American
jets have been bombing Tora Bora, trying to drive an explosive
wedge into the rocks, just as the Russians did; trying to demonstrate
that even if it is well protected and formidable, it is not
impregnable.
...
Bin Laden is believed to be moving by night between caves in
the honeycombed mountains, protected by a loyal band of Arab
al-Qaeda fighters.
US
Special Forces have been gathering as much information as possible
from local people - or possibly captured Taleban fighters -
on where Bin Laden could be hiding.
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Defence sources are increasingly sure that bin Laden is
in the Tora Bora complex.
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“We’re now convinced this is where he is and where
the 1,000 or so al-Qaeda fighters with him will make their last
stand,” said one.
...
Although American and British intelligence analysts realise
that bin Laden may have devised a deception plan, there is now
so much material, covertly and overtly acquired, pointing to
Tora Bora as his hideout that military planners are likely to
be focusing much of their effort on drawing up a plan to attack
the mountain stronghold.
Defence
sources said that bin Laden no longer had the ability to switch
from one part of Afghanistan to another because of the Northern
Alliance advances and the increasing presence of US Marines
in the south, and that Tora Bora provided him with a seemingly
impenetrable fortress.
The
conviction that bin Laden is at Tora Bora, a complex of deep
caves carved more than 1,000ft into the 13,000ft mountain, has
come after analysis of all the accumulated intelligence, human
as well as technical.
Bin
Laden Tunnel Complex
(click for large size image)
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The United States military will be deploying its best men and
slickest technology to search for signs of Osama bin Laden in
the mountaintop hideout of Tora Bora. If they find him, it will
mean a fight to the death.
Arab
fighters in the base have said they have no intention of surrendering
or of escaping across the nearby border and through snow-covered
passes into Pakistan.
Gen
Tommy Franks, commander of the US campaign, said Tora Bora was
one of two places in which bin Laden could be hiding. "These
are the two areas that we are paying very, very careful attention
to," he said.
An
Afghan reporter who travelled incognito to Tora Bora described
a vast, wooded highland redoubt which offers good defensive
possibilities. ...
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Sources:
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Therapeutic
Cloning Ethics
Excerpts
from articles describing some of the seldom discussed facts
of the first two weeks after a human conception has occurred,
ethical issues associated therewith, therapeutic cloning techniques,
and what the future may hold as a result of research into cures
for diseases, reduction of human suffering, and the prolonging
of human life:
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Scientists
have finally cloned a human embryo
The breakthrough promises cures for terrible diseases. Here's
the inside story:
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The source of the hysteria is a widespread misunderstanding
of just what an early embryo is ... "If you ask the average
person, they will tell you it's a tiny little person with buggy
eyes," says West. "But, in fact, these are just a
few reproductive cells, not much different than eggs or sperm.
They are the raw materials of life, but they are not a person."
Most
scientists agree. During the first 14 days after an egg is fertilized,
the group of cells is known as a "preimplantation embryo."
In
nature, the majority of these pass from the body without ever
attaching to a woman's uterus and developing further.
If
one truly believed that these were individual human lives being
lost, ... then this should be considered a huge public-health
crisis, and there would be a massive medical campaign launched
to save these "lives."
Moreover,
these preimplantation embryos often split off to become two
or more entities or, conversely, two groups of the cells sometimes
merge together.
And
currently, there are an estimated 1 million of these early embryos
left over worldwide from in vitro fertilization procedures,
poised to be discarded.
...
many medical developments have been at least temporarily halted
because of ethical qualms.
Religious
leaders found vaccines objectionable because they interfered
with God's plan for who should get sick, and in vitro fertilization
was condemned in the 1970s by many of the same conservative
ethicists who today oppose therapeutic cloning.
Organ
transplants were once seen as objectionable.
And
recombinant DNA technology-the ability to create synthetic genes-was
banned from top universities like Harvard and MIT for years,
for fear that horrible and dangerous creatures would be produced.
But much of the opposition melted when the technology was used
to create a synthetic form of insulin to treat diabetics, and
today recombinant DNA is used in virtually every research lab
in the world.
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Cures without qualms ... Because it is harder to view as a potential
human life, a
parthenogenetic embryo might be a more acceptable source of
stem cells, the versatile cells that promise to provide replacement
tissue for ailing patients.
Perfect
match. Yet for now, parthenogenetic embryos could supply perfectly
matched stem cells only to women of childbearing age, because
only they could provide the eggs that would generate the cells.
Ultimately,
Cibelli thinks men who produce viable sperm could also be helped:
An egg's DNA could be replaced with genes from sperm, and the
egg could then be activated to become a "parthenote."
Advanced
Cell Technology has a patent on file for yet another technique
that could ease ethical concerns, though its therapeutic promise
is far less certain.
The
jellylike material inside an egg contains thousands of proteins
that make the parents' old DNA young again, ready to develop
into an embryo.
By
dropping bits of that material into a body cell, scientists
might be able to take the cell back in time to an embryonic
and moldable state without actually creating an embryo.
But
the true revolution will come, says Cibelli, when scientists
finally understand how an egg works its rejuvenating magic.
At
that point, they will be able to synthetically reprogram patients'
cells, converting them directly into stem cells.
"The
ultimate goal is to move beyond cloning," Cibelli says.
"It's a transitional step that will teach us how the egg
works so that we can eventually stop using eggs." In other
words, the only way out of cloning is through it.
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Sources:
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