If the US knew that Bin Laden died a few years ago (whether by natural causes or by assassination) do you really think Bush would have kept it quiet? I'm not in a position to say whether US troops killed him on Sunday. However I am prepared to accept that they believe that they did. In other words, they killed someone who they are convinced was Bin Laden. Let's face it, they'd look pretty stupid if Al Jazeera started showing a video of Bin Laden holding a newspaper proclaiming his death and saying "Cooee, I'm still here" so they're not likely to take that risk lightly.

If the US knew that Bin Laden died a few years ago (whether by natural causes or by assassination) do you really think Bush would have kept it quiet? I'm not in a position to say whether US troops killed him on Sunday. However I am prepared to accept that they believe that they did. In other words, they killed someone who they are convinced was Bin Laden. Let's face it, they'd look pretty stupid if Al Jazeera started showing a video of Bin Laden holding a newspaper proclaiming his death and saying "Cooee, I'm still here" so they're not likely to take that risk lightly.

 

Of course he would, it suited Bush to have the big bad "woogie man" running around, taking the p!ss, it justifies just about everything Bush did in relation to his "war on (t)error" if you have an identifiable face to pin all the blame on and make your scapegoat and excuse for eroding civil liberties at home (eg the Patriot Act)....

 

Never, EVER underestimate the power of fear....

 

Of course he would, it suited Bush to have the big bad "woogie man" running around, taking the p!ss, it justifies just about everything Bush did in relation to his "war on (t)error" if you have an identifiable face to pin all the blame on and make your scapegoat and excuse for eroding civil liberties at home (eg the Patriot Act)....

 

Never, EVER underestimate the power of fear....

He might have kept it quiet until a suitable moment. But surely some time in the months leading up to the last presidential election would have been that moment.

You're not the only to smell a very big rat here Chris... I'm highly dubious about this whole "burial at sea" thing... Apparently, burials at sea are NOT in-keeping with Islamic custom, so that reason is blown out of the water, and all of a sudden we're expected to believe that the US are all "sympathetic" towards Islamic sensibilities when they're still torturing and detaining people in GITMO without any chance of a trial on the horizon... If the US have killed Bin Laden this weekend, I WANT TO SEE SOME REAL EVIDENCE... Call me Mr Picky.... TBH, I suspect Bin Laden actually died some years back, which would explain why over the past several years he'd taken a step back from any prominent role in planning and organising operations... It would suit both the US and AQ to keep up a pretence that he WAS still alive...

 

But now, things are different, Obama is taking an absolute hiding at home, he needs to have a big scalp to put on the wall, so, enter this "execution" of Bin Laden.... All we've got to go on is a photograph that could have been photoshopped, and even if it wasn't, it could've been taken at any time... There's no body for anyone to examine (the afore-mentioned burial at sea), so if the FBI or the NYPD wanted to do their own forensic examinations, they're sh"t out of luck, because, apparently, we're now all "sensitive" to the dignity of Bin Laden in death.... This dog don't hunt as the Americans would say....

 

As for the idiots in America celebrating.... I mean, come on, WAKE UP, do you imagine that terrorism is going to suddenly stop...? It's not like we destroyed the other guy's army here, because, there is no army, Bin Laden was no General.. This isn't like some James Bond movie where if you kill the "big baddie" the organisation suddenly collapses into dust....

http://www.al-islam.org/laws/burial.html

 

Rule 624: If it is feared that an enemy may dig up the grave and exhume the dead body and amputate its ears or nose or other limbs, it should be lowered into sea, if possible, as stated in the foregoing rule.

 

 

http://www.al-islam.org/laws/burial.html

 

Rule 624: If it is feared that an enemy may dig up the grave and exhume the dead body and amputate its ears or nose or other limbs, it should be lowered into sea, if possible, as stated in the foregoing rule.

 

But, again, you're not addressing the core issue - are we honestly expected to believe that the US military is all of sudden "sensitive" to Islamic culture...? It's stretching credulity just a bit, especially when you consider GITMO, torture of terror suspects and the fact that there is casual racism endemic in the US military with regards to the almost routine use of terms such as "sand n*****" and "rag-head" while troops have been serving in Iraq and Afghanistan....

 

Frankly, I would rather they were more sensitive to the ordinary Iraqi and Afghan civilians than to someone like Bin Laden, who should be put on public display like Uday, Qusay and Saddam were in Baghdad.... The rather indecent haste by which he has been apparently disposed of is just asking for people to be suspicious....

But, again, you're not addressing the core issue - are we honestly expected to believe that the US military is all of sudden "sensitive" to Islamic culture...? It's stretching credulity just a bit, especially when you consider GITMO, torture of terror suspects and the fact that there is casual racism endemic in the US military with regards to the almost routine use of terms such as "sand n*****" and "rag-head" while troops have been serving in Iraq and Afghanistan....

 

Frankly, I would rather they were more sensitive to the ordinary Iraqi and Afghan civilians than to someone like Bin Laden, who should be put on public display like Uday, Qusay and Saddam were in Baghdad.... The rather indecent haste by which he has been apparently disposed of is just asking for people to be suspicious....

But they're under a different Commander In Chief from the one at the time Saddam and his sons were captured. A CiC who has the intelligence to realise that, by being more sensitive to Islamic culture, he can claim that the US military are somehow better than the likes of Bin Laden. Some of the relatives of victims of the September 11 attacks don't think Bin Laden should have been treated with any respect for Islamic culture as he showed no respect for human life. As far as I'm concerned, that brings them down to somewhere nearer his level.

But they're under a different Commander In Chief from the one at the time Saddam and his sons were captured. A CiC who has the intelligence to realise that, by being more sensitive to Islamic culture, he can claim that the US military are somehow better than the likes of Bin Laden. Some of the relatives of victims of the September 11 attacks don't think Bin Laden should have been treated with any respect for Islamic culture as he showed no respect for human life. As far as I'm concerned, that brings them down to somewhere nearer his level.

 

It was the Iraqis themselves who put them on display, nothing to do with Bush Jr.... And shooting an unarmed prisoner that was already in their custody from what I've been hearing...? That's us being "better" than them, really...? And, why hasn't Obama closed down GITMO yet...?

It was the Iraqis themselves who put them on display, nothing to do with Bush Jr.... And shooting an unarmed prisoner that was already in their custody from what I've been hearing...? That's us being "better" than them, really...? And, why hasn't Obama closed down GITMO yet...?

But you can't deny that Bush would have been far less sensitive to Islamic culture than Bush. They have admitted that Bin Laden was unarmed. While I don't particularly condone it, it's pretty obvious why they shot him. The security problems of putting him on trial and the possibility of hostages being taken in order to try and secure his release would have been immense.

 

As for Guantamo Bay, you know the reasons for this as well as I do. The main difficulty is finding a State willing to accommodate them and put them on trial. The whole thing is now a complete mess. None of them will be able to give any information which is remotely useful. Even if they knew anything at the time of capture it would be hopelessly out of date by now. Similarly, Bush's inactivity has made it almost impossible to put them on trial even if some of them are guilty of terrorist activity. OTOH, Obama is a politician who wants to be re-elected. Therefore he's obviously going to be reluctant to release them all.

But you can't deny that Bush would have been far less sensitive to Islamic culture than Bush. They have admitted that Bin Laden was unarmed. While I don't particularly condone it, it's pretty obvious why they shot him. The security problems of putting him on trial and the possibility of hostages being taken in order to try and secure his release would have been immense.

 

As for Guantamo Bay, you know the reasons for this as well as I do. The main difficulty is finding a State willing to accommodate them and put them on trial. The whole thing is now a complete mess. None of them will be able to give any information which is remotely useful. Even if they knew anything at the time of capture it would be hopelessly out of date by now. Similarly, Bush's inactivity has made it almost impossible to put them on trial even if some of them are guilty of terrorist activity. OTOH, Obama is a politician who wants to be re-elected. Therefore he's obviously going to be reluctant to release them all.

 

Hardly a good excuse for keeping people prisoner though, is it...? So, we're basically just going to have this whole massive "Dreyfuss-esque" thing going on here.. Keep them prisoner indefinitely for no discernible reason, just because...

 

"security problems" are no excuse for not allowing someone their day in court, even if the eventual sentence is death anyway... Nah, it's more like they feared what Bin Laden might have revealed had he got up in open court and testified....

Hardly a good excuse for keeping people prisoner though, is it...? So, we're basically just going to have this whole massive "Dreyfuss-esque" thing going on here.. Keep them prisoner indefinitely for no discernible reason, just because...

 

"security problems" are no excuse for not allowing someone their day in court, even if the eventual sentence is death anyway... Nah, it's more like they feared what Bin Laden might have revealed had he got up in open court and testified....

I agree with you. I'm just saying I can understand why we are where we are. The best hope for them being released would be for Obama to do it early in his second term. However, even that would allow four years for something to go horribly wrong so would he want to risk it?

The fact is, Bin Laden was a CIA asset all throughout the 80s and 90s... And Bush Jr was up to his neck with the Bin Laden family anyway in various dodgy deals... Once you're a CIA asset, you're always a CIA asset, and frankly, I think Bin Laden remained a CIA asset up til the day he died.......

Bin Laden is just one of many people to be befriended by the Americans on the basis that "My enemy's enemy is my friend" before they decided that wasn't such a good idea after all. Marcos, Noriega, Saddam, Pol Pot. The list goes on and on.

The White House has said they won't be releasing photos of Bin Laden before he was buried. I think it's a sensible decision - photos now wouldn't convince anyone who's determined it's a hoax anyway (they'd say they'd just been photoshopped), and additionally it could really provoke a reaction from Islamic extremists.

 

Despite all the wild conspiracy theories, I do still think we can say for certain that Bin Laden is definitely dead - Obama would be finished politically if he resurfaces now. I guess it's PLAUSIBLE that he died years ago, and that the US government only just found out and wanted to take the credit ... but I'm not just going to believe it for the sake of it.

 

I do think, though, that this claim that the CIA got valuable information from torturing Guantanamo inmates is probably bs, and just a way of trying to justify still using them. In fact, a former CIA operative said the other day that it was highly likely this whole "courier" story is completely false - the CIA never like to give away the leads even after successful/completed missions, so they often just completely make up a story to stop journalists digging, he said.