bin Laden Reported Dead

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More to come.

Perhaps we can start returning our civil rights now that the major terrorist threat has been neutered.

Osama bin Laden dead: reports Simon Mann
May 2, 2011 - 1:11PM

US President Barack Obama is expected to confirm the death of the world's most wanted man about 1.15pm (AEST).

DNA tests are believed to have confirmed Osama bin Laden's death, although it was not immediately clear how he had been killed.

The Saudi-born leader of al-Qaeda had been hunted since a series of attacks on Western targets including the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington that levelled the twin towers of the World Trade Centre and hit the Pentagon.

US Department of State and FBI released this "age progressed" photograph of Osama Bin Laden last year.

Bin Laden was reportedly killed in a mansion with other family members outside Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, CNN reported, quoting US administration officials.

It has been nearly 10 years since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, which bin Laden was accused of masterminding.

Bin Laden, a Saudi national, is believed to have established terrorist group al-Qaeda, which means ''The Base'' in Arabic, in 1998.

He used his family's wealth - accumulated through Saudi Arabia's oil boom - to set up training camps in Afghanistan and to plan attacks against other countries.

He has been blamed for other terrorist attacks, including the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the 2000 bombing of the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen.


Read more: www.theage.com.au/world/osama-bin-laden-dead-reports-20110502-1e44h.html#ixzz1LA42Eb9y

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Apparently the USA has already disposed of bin Laden's body at sea. Convenient. Now we just have to trust a bunch of proven liars that this is all true.

[Pax]

Personally I think they should have buried him somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Pakistan or Afghanistan. They made us look for him in the desert for ten years. Let THEM look for him for a while.

[rubytuesday]

Yes Bin Laden killed in Pakistan , for the 7th time I believe, his body recovered by US troops taken to Afghanistan and "buried" within 24 hours, because of their respect for Islamic traditions, at the seaside, presumably via the Orient Express.
I presume they did a DNA test to stop conspiracy theorists.
All sounds very plausible to me.

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Perhaps Donald Trump will demand to see his death certificate.

[MacBeth]

As for the burial after DNA matching (there is nothing but reports that this happened, but there is proof that the tissue sample was provided to the team that went after bin Laden), what do you suppose the reaction of the Islamic world (moderates included) if this burial requirement of being buried within 24 hours of death had been ignored?



newsfeed.time.com/2011/05/02/why-was-bin-laden-buried-at-sea-so-quickly/

After spending many years hunting down the world's most wanted man, why did the U.S. bury Osama bin Laden at sea within 24 hours of killing him?
The reason is bound up within Islamic practice and tradition. And that practice calls for the body of the deceased to be buried within 24 hours, according to a U.S. official, who spoke Monday on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive national security matters.

"We are ensuring that it is handled in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition," confirmed the official. "This is something that we take very seriously. And so therefore this is being handled in an appropriate manner."

But the lingering question is why at sea? The official said that finding a country willing to accept the remains of the world's most wanted terrorist would have been difficult, so the decision was made to bury bin Laden at sea. Furthermore, one suspects that the U.S. would not have wanted there to be a physical grave site for fear of it turning into a place of worship for bin Laden's followers. There are rumors, however, that the U.S. asked Saudi Arabia to take the body (bin Laden was born in Saudi) but they allegedly refused.

It's also believed that DNA testing would have been carried out beforehand to verify that the body was that of bin Laden, as well as being proof against any conspiracy claims that could emanate to suggest that his death didn't take place. The exact location of the burial was not revealed

[rubytuesday]

According to Fox News, Osama bin Laden was killed over a week ago by a U.S. missile in Pakistan. CBS News, NBC News and CNN also said that Bin Laden's body is in possession of the United States.

www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/465305-osama-bin-laden-dead-usa-has-his-body/

[oskar]

If this report originated from the Pentagon...

[Pax]

It wouldn't shock me if his body is in a cooler somewhere and not on the bottom of the ocean... in fact, I think it's likely. If I were making that decision, I'd probably keep it around for a while just in case I needed it for something, though I can't imagine what.

As for whether he was killed a week ago or today, who cares. It's not likely they lied about the timing anyway given the alleged short delay... what possible advantage would there have been in lying about whether it had just taken place an hour ago or a week ago? If the accusation was that bin Laden had been killed SIX months ago, sure, then you could argue that Obama is trotting this out to bump up his favorability rating just ahead of the debt ceiling vote. But a week is too short a time to make that kind of difference. It doesn't make sense. Sure, the government lies. But they don't lie just for the fun of it. There has to be a reason to.

[patchoulli]

I don't know if we're keeping it in a cooler somewhere although that would be tempting (I guess so we could haul it out for proof if any really serious questions arrose). If that were true then the Islamics would have legitimate reason to be upset (the 24 hour thing). Seems to me that someone trusted by the top dogs of Islam had to have been in on this in order to verify that burial practices were observed and to verify he had actually been killed.
I also think this is horribly grating to the right. The black guy did it and he did it within months and without bombs. Brains not brawn. Ha!

[Pax]

Throwing something out reduces one's options... one may not be able to think of a reason why one might need something, but it's astonishing how often it is that you end up needing something shortly after you got rid of it. As well, 24 hours isn't enough time to think of all the ways that you MIGHT need something, and it's not like everyone involved has nothing else to do. I'd want to keep it around until I was sure I didn't need it anymore.

As far as the world will ever know, that's what they did -- bury it at sea. To have that not be true now, especially after Obama's making a big deal about respect for Muslim burial practices, even for this murderer, would backfire doubly if it came out that they'd kept the body after all.

This is all ripe for conspiracy theories anyway. if 45% of Republicans can believe that Obama was not born in Hawaii despite the mountain of evidence, you could produce the body and his entire family to identify it and millions of Americans (and islamists) still will believe it's a US government hoax. For that matter, I predict that within the next day or two someone will come out with a video or other "proof" that Osama's still alive and well.

Oh, yeh, the Right must be gnashing their teeth. It'll be harder to claim that Obama's weak on terror and national security, and that he makes America weaker. Trust me, though, they're working overtime to figure out ways to remove Obama in the public mind as much as possible from any involvement in this. And this causes a bump in his approval rating, which makes him a more difficult target to attack on virtually every other issue as well. Though, it's an effect that won't last long. Maybe a month or two. I'm sure it does kill them though that it was a bleeding-heart Democratic president who got this guy, and not one of their own.

[patchoulli]

"they're working overtime to figure out ways to remove Obama in the public mind as much as possible from any involvement in this"

Yup. Many of them refused to even utter Obama's name when they were asked to comment about the event. Many of them praised Bush for a job well done. Huffington Post has some of the comments. Unbelievable.

[Pax]

Yeh... not surprised.

[MacBeth]

I have found no source to support the claim poster on the board link posted concerning the ealier death of bin Laden. I think someone got carried away with that one.

[rubytuesday]

No body, no photographs, no wife human shield, no weapon and now no live video footage. So what was Obama , Clinton etc supposed to be watching, an episode of "Friends"?
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/al-qaeda/8493391/Osama-bin-Laden-dead-Blackout-during-raid-on-bin-Laden-compound.html

The head of the CIA admitted yesterday that there was no live video footage of the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound as further doubts emerged about the US version of events.


Leon Panetta, director of the CIA, revealed there was a 25 minute blackout during which the live feed from cameras mounted on the helmets of the US special forces was cut off.
A photograph released by the White House appeared to show the President and his aides in the situation room watching the action as it unfolded. In fact they had little knowledge of what was happening in the compound.

In an interview with PBS, Mr Panetta said: "Once those teams went into the compound I can tell you that there was a time period of almost 20 or 25 minutes where we really didn't know just exactly what was going on. And there were some very tense moments as we were waiting for information.

"We had some observation of the approach there, but we did not have direct flow of information as to the actual conduct of the operation itself as they were going through the compound."

Mr Panetta also told the network that the US Navy Seals made the final decision to kill bin Laden rather than the president.

He said: "The authority here was to kill bin Laden. And obviously, under the rules of engagement, if he had in fact thrown up his hands, surrendered and didn't appear to be representing any kind of threat, then they were to capture him. But they had full authority to kill him.

"To be frank, I don't think he had a lot of time to say anything. It was a firefight going up that compound. And by the time they got to the third floor and found bin Laden, I think it - this was all split-second action on the part of the Seals."

The President only knew the mission was successful after the Navy Seals commander heard the word “Geronimo” on the radio, a code word from commandos reporting that they had killed bin Laden.

The absence of footage of the raid has led to conflicting reports about what happened in the compound. According to Pakistani authorities one of bin Laden’s daughter’s, who was present during the raid, claimed that her father was captured alive before he was killed.

There was also growing doubt about the US claims that Pakistan’s intelligence agencies involved in the raid.

Lieutenant General Asad Durrani, former head of the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence service, said it was "inconceivable" that his government was unaware of the US raid on Osama bin Laden's compound.

He claimed his country was forced to deny any knowledge of the raid to avoid a domestic backlash. The ISI's official line has been that bin Laden's compound had "slipped off our radar" after it raided the building in 2003 while hunting for another senior al-Qaeda operative.The agency claims it was unaware that bin Laden was hiding there.

Lieutenant General Durrani, however, said that the denial was a "political" maneuver by the intelligence services to avoid claims that they were working too closely with the US.

He said: "It is more likely that they did know [about the raid]. It is not conceivable that it was done without the involvement of Pakistani security forces at some stage. They were involved and they were told they were in position.

"The army chief was in his office, the cordons had been thrown around that particular place. The Pakistani helicopters were also in the air so that indicates that it was involved.

"[There are] political implications back home. If you say that you are involved there is a large, vocal faction of Pakistani society that will get very upset because we are carrying out repeatedly these operations with the Americans."

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May 2, 2011 15:04:03 GMT -5 MacBeth said:

I have found no source to support the claim poster on the board link posted concerning the ealier death of bin Laden. I think someone got carried away with that one.

This article sums up some of the "bin Laden dead" theories:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1212851/Has-Osama-Bin-Laden-dead-seven-years--U-S-Britain-covering-continue-war-terror.html

One of the main sources I see quoted for evidence that bin Laden died years ago is former US Government employee Dt Steve Pieczenik.

Natalie Mannering

Wed, 2011-05-04 10:31

Top US government insider Dr. Steve R. Pieczenik, a man who held numerous different influential positions under three different Presidents and still works with the Defense Department, shockingly told The Alex Jones Show yesterday that Osama Bin Laden died in 2001 and that he was prepared to testify in front of a grand jury how a top general told him directly that 9/11 was a false flag inside job.

Parts 1-7 at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj0pM5FoYbs&feature=player_embedded
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeMlL3ANprI&feature=player_embedded#at=55
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nSpWaN7CEo&feature=player_embedded#at=251
www.youtube.com/watch?v=r36tfTsS7To&feature=player_embedded
www.youtube.com/watch?v=74dxhpsFrQc&feature=player_embedded
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KjH49jm0vE&feature=player_embedded
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxl9YSm57RY&feature=player_embedded

Pieczenik cannot be dismissed as a “conspiracy theorist”. He served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under three different administrations, Nixon, Ford and Carter, while also working under Reagan and Bush senior, and still works as a consultant for the Department of Defense. A former US Navy Captain, Pieczenik achieved two prestigious Harry C. Solomon Awards at the Harvard Medical School as he simultaneously completed a PhD at MIT.
Recruited by Lawrence Eagleburger as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Management, Pieczenik went on to develop, “the basic tenets for psychological warfare, counter terrorism, strategy and tactics for transcultural negotiations for the US State Department, military and intelligence communities and other agencies of the US Government,” while also developing foundational strategies for hostage rescue that were later employed around the world.
Pieczenik also served as a senior policy planner under Secretaries Henry Kissinger, Cyrus Vance, George Schultz and James Baker and worked on George W. Bush’s election campaign against Al Gore. His record underscores the fact that he is one of the most deeply connected men in intelligence circles over the past three decades plus.
The character of Jack Ryan, who appears in many Tom Clancy novels and was also played by Harrison Ford in the popular 1992 movie Patriot Games, is also based on Steve Pieczenik.
Back in April 2002, over nine years ago, Pieczenik told the Alex Jones Show that Bin Laden had already been “dead for months,” and that the government was waiting for the most politically expedient time to roll out his corpse. Pieczenik would be in a position to know, having personally met Bin Laden and worked with him during the proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan back in the early 80?s.
Pieczenik said that Osama Bin Laden died in 2001, “Not because special forces had killed him, but because as a physician I had known that the CIA physicians had treated him and it was on the intelligence roster that he had marfan syndrome,” adding that the US government knew Bin Laden was dead before they invaded Afghanistan.
Marfan syndrome is a degenerative genetic disease for which there is no permanent cure. The illness severely shortens the life span of the sufferer.
“He died of marfan syndrome, Bush junior knew about it, the intelligence community knew about it,” said Pieczenik, noting how CIA physicians had visited Bin Laden in July 2001 at the American Hospital in Dubai.
“He was already very sick from marfan syndrome and he was already dying, so nobody had to kill him,” added Pieczenik, stating that Bin Laden died shortly after 9/11 in his Tora Bora cave complex.
“Did the intelligence community or the CIA doctor up this situation, the answer is yes, categorically yes,” said Pieczenik, referring to Sunday’s claim that Bin Laden was killed at his compound in Pakistan, adding, “This whole scenario where you see a bunch of people sitting there looking at a screen and they look as if they’re intense, that’s nonsense,” referring to the images released by the White House which claim to show Biden, Obama and Hillary Clinton watching the operation to kill Bin Laden live on a television screen.
“It’s a total make-up, make believe, we’re in an American theater of the absurd….why are we doing this again….nine years ago this man was already dead….why does the government repeatedly have to lie to the American people,” asked Pieczenik.
“Osama Bin Laden was totally dead, so there’s no way they could have attacked or confronted or killed Osama Bin laden,” said Pieczenik, joking that the only way it could have happened was if special forces had attacked a mortuary.
Pieczenik said that the decision to launch the hoax now was made because Obama had reached a low with plummeting approval ratings and the fact that the birther issue was blowing up in his face.
“He had to prove that he was more than American….he had to be aggressive,” said Pieczenik, adding that the farce was also a way of isolating Pakistan as a retaliation for intense opposition to the Predator drone program, which has killed hundreds of Pakistanis.
“This is orchestrated, I mean when you have people sitting around and watching a sitcom, basically the operations center of the White House, and you have a president coming out almost zombie-like telling you they just killed Osama Bin Laden who was already dead nine years ago,” said Pieczenik, calling the episode, “the greatest falsehood I’ve ever heard, I mean it was absurd.”
Dismissing the government’s account of the assassination of Bin Laden as a “sick joke” on the American people, Pieczenik said, “They are so desperate to make Obama viable, to negate the fact that he may not have been born here, any questions about his background, any irregularities about his background, to make him look assertive….to re-elect this president so the American public can be duped once again.”
Pieczenik’s assertion that Bin Laden died almost ten years ago is echoed by numerous intelligence professionals as well as heads of state across the world.
Bin Laden, “Was used in the same way that 9/11 was used to mobilize the emotions and feelings of the American people in order to go to a war that had to be justified through a narrative that Bush junior created and Cheney created about the world of terrorism,” stated Pieczenik.
During his interview with the Alex Jones Show yesterday, Pieczenik also asserted he was directly told by a prominent general that 9/11 was a stand down and a false flag operation, and that he is prepared to go to a grand jury to reveal the general’s name.
“They ran the attacks,” said Pieczenik, naming Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Stephen Hadley, Elliott Abrams, and Condoleezza Rice amongst others as having been directly involved.
“It was called a stand down, a false flag operation in order to mobilize the American public under false pretenses….it was told to me even by the general on the staff of Wolfowitz – I will go in front of a federal committee and swear on perjury who the name was of the individual so that we can break it open,” said Pieczenik, adding that he was “furious” and “knew it had happened”.
“I taught stand down and false flag operations at the national war college, I’ve taught it with all my operatives so I knew exactly what was done to the American public,” he added.
Pieczenik re-iterated that he was perfectly willing to reveal the name of the general who told him 9/11 was an inside job in a federal court, “so that we can unravel this thing legally, not with the stupid 9/11 Commission that was absurd.”
Pieczenik explained that he was not a liberal, a conservative or a tea party member, merely an American who is deeply concerned about the direction in which his country is heading.

www.truth-out.org/gop-house-chooses-big-oil-over-granny/1304518949

No idea whether this guy is reliable or a crackpot.

[MacBeth]

Simple solution to the "bin Laden is alive" problem these people have - get a photo of him or a verified audio that includes references applicable to things happening today.....

I don't know how i feel about all these theories, only that almost everyone that has been proposed in my lifetime turned out to be complete hokum.

[rubytuesday]

bit.ly/bAbOvV

[rubytuesday]

Well there's no body and since this story broke we have also have no photographs, fictitious claims his wife was used as a human shield, fictitious claims he was armed, now it appears that there's no live video footage because of a "blackout" presumably recorders haven't been invented yet.

And what was Obama & Clinton and the rest of the muppets supposed to be watching, Desperate Housewives?

Obama & the US Gov must be aware of their lack of credibility before this story broke, you would have thought they would have made plans to nail this one before it went ahead

[patchoulli]

If George Bush had done the deed there would be a national holiday declared and we would all dress up in those little costumes like he wore when he proclaimed "mission accomplished" and dance in the streets.
But the black guy killed the bogeyman and that is too incredible and disgusting for the right to even consider so it must be a lie.

[rubytuesday]

May 6, 2011 5:28:19 GMT -5 patchoulli said:

If George Bush had done the deed there would be a national holiday declared and we would all dress up in those little costumes like he wore when he proclaimed "mission accomplished" and dance in the streets.
But the black guy killed the bogeyman and that is too incredible and disgusting for the right to even consider so it must be a lie.

OK but I hope you are not suggesting that my hostility to Obama is anything at all to do with the fact he's black. Myself like most of the world, welcomed his election based on the slogan "change". But what change has there been , he's simply Bush mark 11, he's done nothing about illegal occupations of Iraq & Afghanistan, Guantanamo, he has continued to finance & support apartheid and even embarked on more wars of aggression.

[Pax]

I'm disappointed that it turned out that the original claims were that Osama was armed, and that he used his wife as a human shield. Well, I can see where one might assume the first, but the second must have been a lie... who uttered it to begin with, I couldn't say. Just disappointed.

[patchoulli]

realdealtalk.com/2010/11/09/what-has-president-obama-accomplished-in-2-years/

I was going to post the article but it's way too long. It's a list, with links to docs, of what Obama has accomplished.

Rubytuesday, I am not all that happy with Obama either because it seems he is very much controlled by corporations and he would have to be very far left to satisfy me. But in the case of his bringing down bin Laden, it was evident that many on the right were jealous and unwilling to, just for once, offer sincere praise to Obama for a job well done. Some even made sure to congratulate Bush on getting the job started but didn't say much about Obama.
As far as I can see there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for the right not to give Obama his due. Unless it's because he's black.
I live in a small, Indiana town where racism is the norm. Obama is hated by many because he is black. It would not matter if he turned water into wine and fed all the people with one fish. He's still black and that is not what a United States president should be.