Osama Bin Laden Dead (According to America)
General Discussion

This could have been sorted nearly a decade ago. How sad this is.

From 2001

One unfair stereotype justifies others? Outstanding logic there.



I'm not making assumptions. The US government announced they performed the burial to proper religious specifications.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/05/02/bin-laden-given-religious-funeral-prior-sea-burial/

But I suppose we can't believe anything they say. In fact, we should automatically assume because the source is the US government that the body was sodomized brutally before finally being fed to captive lions. Right?



I don't think you really understand the purpose of the War on Terror. OBL was a chief reason, but killing him was far from the only goal. If the US takes the Taliban offer and calls it quits without going to war, someone else just steps into his shoes. al-Quaeda, while losing an important and charismatic leader, will replace him and continue the offensive.

That's not what the US wanted. The US wanted to utterly destroy terrorism from the world. You can argue whether that's even possible, or whether we would have just been better off taking Osama from the Taliban and calling it quits, but you have to understand that the US mission was never centered entirely on one man.

Just as now, even though we finally got him, the War on Terror is not over.

( Edited 02.05.2011 23:48 by Jacob4000 )

Sorry bro, but it's a war on people who have oil reserves. Osama was a figurehead to keep you interested in this mythical 'War on Terror'. That's one version of events, at least. Your government's version of events is just that - merely another version.

It can't be trusted any more than the conspiracy theories, especially given your government's past history with lies and atrocities. No government can be trusted, but yours less than most.

I suppose I missed the vast oil reserves in Afghanistan.

Oh wait...

That's not to say there aren't any natural resources in the country that we would want. Just that the massive cost we've incurred in this war would hardly justify the return.

Anyhow, I don't intend to continue a debate about whether its all about oil. We can set up a conspiracy theory thread for these sorts of things later, if you like.

( Edited 03.05.2011 00:19 by Jacob4000 )

Oh, so they're only backing terrorist states such as Israel to secretly infiltrate and destroy them? It makes so much sense now.

I love how you only have one sentence of my post to reply to, and the response is only to change the subject to another issue.

They will never be able destroy terrorism from the world, if they keep participating in terrorism themselves. If you think Bush not accepting a peaceful agreement to hand over Bin Laden and saving thousands of innocent lives in the process isn't worth it, then I guess your government have brainwashed you?

No war is good and I absolutely detest it. I have no idea how anyone could support it.

Marzy -- the point of my response wasn't to start an argument of what a just war is, whether there is such a thing, or whether terrorism can be destroyed.

Centrally, my point is that the war was about more than just OBL. Simply handing him over wouldn't have been enough. Depending on who you ask, we were trying to root out terrorism, take control of the world's oil, or kill the Easter Bunny.



I think saving the people (especially the women) of Afghanistan from the control of radical governments was worthy. But maybe I'm just brainwashed. I consider a new Afghanistan without the Taliban a gain, despite the sacrifices made to get there. Iraq these days is doing pretty well too.

( Edited 03.05.2011 00:40 by Jacob4000 )

Fine.



I merely wanted to bring to light how widely accepted Islamic stereotypes are. The fact remains that the "American stereotypes" made on in this topic are fact based. We have witnessed the thousands of "patriotic" citizens screaming USA to celebrate the death of a person, and we're all to familiar with the conduct of the American forces stationed abroad. We are all to familiar with the misconduct of armed forces in general.




As Martin already pointed out, governments are never trustworthy. So without more fair and unbiased reports on the matter you are just assuming your government is speaking the truth.

I wasn't trying to start an argument...

I'm not getting involved in something I don't have full knowledge of. I don't really follow what has been going on in the East and such, so therefore I have limited knowledge on what I know about it.

I'll just make myself sound like an idiot or probably already have done. I'll just let everyone else discuss it and keep out the way and read.

I'll admit I'm too lazy to read in depth into this thread, but Jacob, not trusting a governments word outright is perfectly, perfectly reasonable.

Check your history books.

Yeah, it's all been swept under the carpet a little bit. All we have as proof of Bin Laden's death is one clearly 'shopped image of a destroyed face with no eyes. Then they throw his body out to sea immediately, apparently to honour his beliefs? Seems rather wishy-washy. Let's not forget, the US gave OBL a lot of aid/arms in the past.

Hypothetically, let's pretend for a moment that OBL is still alive. Let's pretend he's been on the US payroll since the days we know that America was giving him aid and weapons. Let's imagine that 9/11 was orchestrated by the American government in order to induce public support for a war which had the sole purpose of securing valuable non-renewable resources.

Imagine the US gets pissed off after ten years of trying to make out like they were hunting him, and instead decided to fake his death. They do some kind of op, release the 'shopped photo that we've all seen, hey presto. Vote-winning move and not having to pretend like they're hunting the guy forever more, have a fake funeral out at sea, done and dusted.

I'm just pointing out another possibility. I don't exactly believe the above.

For the record, your military has killed scores and scores of innocent civilians in the last few wars you've had. Literally, women and children (the ones America was apparently rescuing) have had their bodies blown to pieces. Flesh torn from innocent bones by American bombs.

You mention the three thousand-odd that died in the towers. Their deaths are apparently tragic, but the deaths of countless more thousands of innocents at the hands of American forces (and their allies) don't matter? I know you will say of course they do, but the numbers do not add up.

3,000 dead Americans = unspeakable tragedy
x,000 dead Afghanis and Iraqis = meh.

?

Bare in mind that these people only died because of our wars. They might have lived under the rule of an iron fist otherwise, but at least they''d have lived. Instead a mis-placed bomb with an American flag on it tears through the roof of their home and kills everyone in the building. Nothing is left but chunks of meat.

You're missing my point. Sure Bin Laden deserved it, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't lose the right to a fair trial. A fundamental basis of modern (western) society is that you're innocent until proven guilty.

John Cena Announces Osama Bin Laden's Death To Crowd - Watch more Sports

God bless America...

"WOOOOOOP!!"
"USA!! USA!! USA!!"

When some steroid-junkie who will blatantly die of a heart-attack in his 40s/50s tells the idiotic/patriotic crowd of a fake sport event that OBL has been killed.

"Tonight, I feel DAMN proud to be an American!" - John Cena.

You really put the button on that speech with that line, Cena! Guaranteed cheers from your overweight crowd.

I'm not advocating that the government is beyond reproach and even beyond lying to its people. I'm arguing for common sense. You don't lie about killing OBL. It would be idiotic to do so, and if the 'truth' came out, complete political suicide. You wouldn't risk it. If they're lying, what happens when Osama makes a tape a week from now? It doesn't make sense to lie about his death, because he could easily show them to be wrong.

What I have argued strongly against, however, is stereotyping our soldiers. We have roughly 3 million men and women spread across the services both active and reserve. It is wrong to generalize all of them to the lowest common denominator.

They'd simply debunk it as video filmed before his death. Except I think that if it is all a lie, OBL and the US government were working together. If true, OBL would not 'come out' as he would be a willing participant in a conspiracy.



He could easily go about like that and nobody would know. My main reason for thinking it may all be a big fat lie is the fact that the photo of his dead body is clearly photoshopped.

I reproduce it in the spoiler field below. This is a faked image of Bin Laden's dead body (almost everyone agrees on this), but nonetheless is derived from an actual photo of some random guy killed by gunfire.

I know we're not really supposed to post stuff like this on C3, but it's definitely very on-topic, and is the one single piece of actual media that we have regarding OBL being dead. Thus you have been sufficiently-warned. Don't come crying to me if you find the image disgusting/offensive.



^ Clearly 'shopped. Why would the only image of his corpse be a badly-done photoshop of an apparent corpse? You can totally see that someone has taken two photos. One of a dead man that has had something horrid happen to him, and one of an alive and well OBL. They've taken OBL's nose and lower face from some image of him, and badly pasted it on the dead guy.

So, I think we can all agree that the only real 'proof' we have of his death is in fact totally fake. There is a dead man in that photo, but it's not OBL. The severe trauma displayed to the eyes/brain cavity is not reflected in the lower part of the face. In reality, such trauma would totally blitz the human skull, resulting in displaced teeth and blood from orifaces (mouth, nose).

Even if we ignore all that, though, it's still obviously two faces 'shopped together. In light of the fact that our proof of his death is actually fake, what are we left with? Merely your government's assurance that he is dead (matched with DNA from dead sister), and has been buried. Nice and tidy. No-one will ever find the 'body', and it's about as simple as that.

I'm not going to go all-out and say that it is all a cover-up and the guy is still alive. I'm just saying that the American government are not to be trusted, we have no evidence that they did what they say they did, and are left wondering what to make of the whole thing.

Is he dead? Is he alive? Is this all fake? Is it true what they say? Has this been done to bolster the next election campaign and/or further wars? The reaction of the dumb American populace to the news of OBL's death validates the latter point at least a little.

Your government is not to be trusted in anything it says, and certain things just don't add up. I don't particularly believe (in whole or in part) most of what I've said, but it's all totally plausible and adds up. What doesn't add up is ten years of searching bookended by a quick "Oh, we found him in a house, killed him and put his body to sea the next day" with only an obviously-faked photo of his corpse to confirm the US government's claims.

( Edited 03.05.2011 04:17 by Martin_ )

Easy, in this new video he holds up a copy of the New Yorks Times with the front page celebrating his death.

Sure, they'd say it was false. But again, why risk it. It would be political suicide.



Have you followed up on any of the reports that have come up today? Again, this is according to the government so you're probably not going to believe them because it doesn't suit your theories, but they say they've been following this lead for (I think) five years. Last year they followed it to the house. This February the CIA managed to confirm OBL was in the house. Then they started planning their move.

I'm glossing over a lot here, but you might actually want to look into this a bit before you start coming up with theories.



I'd also like to point out that the US has not released any photos whatsoever. So yeah, what you're showing is fake. Here's a little background on that picture:
http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/us-may-have-to-release-photo-of-osama-bin-ladens-body/story-e6frg12c-1226049110905

The warnings came as a photograph broadcast on Pakistani TV purporting to show Bin Laden's corpse was exposed as a fake.

The photo, which depicted a bloodied head with a strong resemblance to the al-Qaeda leader, was widely used on TV networks and newspaper websites after news of his death broke.

Online users of websites such as Twitter soon exposed the image as a hoax which had reportedly been in circulation as early as 2009.

Again, come on man, do some research.



Hooray! More stereotypes!





( Edited 03.05.2011 05:36 by Jacob4000 )

Exactly. If people have been following this, you'll know that the above photo is fake, and that soon, the U.S will release photo confirmation.

Now again, people are going to say, "What took them so long, this has to be a conspiracy of some sort".

Before going on, I have to say this. After Wikileaks came out, and after I started listening to Lupe Fiasco, I have grown to distrust governments. And it's not just the U.S. government, it's pretty much every single government.

I've tried to rewrite this next paragraph multiple times but every time it doesn't come out right. What I'm trying to say is that in this instance, I'm trusting Obama. I can't grasp why. But it's just a gut feeling. Idk.

If any of this was legit by Geneva convention laws pertaining to enemy combatants, the US government would have released photos and footage alongside the statement. It removes doubt, taking an extended time frame to release photographic and film evidence increases the possibility that either forms of evidence down the line could have been doctored, to such a high standard that they leave no traces what so ever.

@Jacob

Lions, I had sharks in mind, there are many species in the Indian ocean. When you chum the water you can see loads. I went diving in the Maldives some years ago.

Some stereotypes are based on ample truth.

( Edited 03.05.2011 06:45 by Squidboy )

From what I understand, they haven't released photos because its a bit gruesome. The man got shot in the head by high powered weapons.

They said DNA confirmed it, hoping that would be enough. Obviously it wasn't, so people are expecting they'll have to come out with the photos. They're also expected to release the video of his sea burial ceremony soon.

Hopefully that time frame is long enough to give you guys room for some more fun theories, eh?



Not calling you out as one, but that's every bigot's favorite excuse for his stereotypes.

Stereotype was the wrong word to use here, it has too negative a connotation. What he's trying to say is that, statistically speaking, you can assume an outcome. Yes, it is still an assumption but it is not unfounded. It's the same reason that young male drivers will pay higher insurance. It's not discrimination, it's statistical fact that young male drivers are more likely to cause an accident.

That's one logical possibility. Here's another. This is one of the most important moments in modern history, they don't want to screw it up at all. This is the same reason Obama delayed his speech a couple times, he did it to make sure everything he said was precise, accurate, and also wouldn't backfire. One word can ruin an entire message. At least they aren't handling it like dumb and stupid sony who announced to everyone that personal info was compromised 2 days after the hacks!

( Edited 03.05.2011 17:46 by bornforthis43 )

Dumb move Obama.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13287977