Why did they shoot him? They should have taken him alive, there were only 18 people in the compound, mostly his women and children... and he was unarmed!

He should have bee tried, convicted and put in a special jail at ground zero, where visitors can see him and feed him like a zoo animal. I bet a lot of people would visit New York just to feed Osama some peanuts.

Better still - pork scratchings...

I can understand peoples resentment of this incident from several angles. But to fully appreciate the reasoning for murdering that sadistic murderer you really need to look at the issue from every angle - a few examples below - no doubt there are dozens of other questions, and viewpoints etc, but that just goes to prove that this is not a descision that would be easy to make, especially considering the the effects that will likely be felt around the world.

1,) Would it be better to the non-terrorist world dead or alive.?
2,) Would it be better to the terrorists dead or alive.?
3,) Would there be any point in a trial, after all, there is no doubt about his guilt, and would a trial be beneficial to terrorists in some way.?
4,) Would it have been better buried on land or at sea.?
5,) Should he have been shot as he was not armed, or taken as a prisoner and tortured for information whilst telling the world that he is dead (conspiricy theory 173,804).?
6,) Should every person not killed in that compound have been taken as prisoners.?

My answers.

1, Refer to answer five.
2, Keeping him alive would have been better for the recruitment of terrorists, dead means that he is just another name on a very long list of martyrs (arseholes).
3, No point at all, waste of time effort and money with the only exception that the world would see him alive - refer to answer five.
4, As he is dead, at sea at an unidentified location in the manner that was done - I think this was a sensible choice.
5, I cant imagine that he would have come quietly, so shooting him was perhaps the only option at that point in time (I dont know) - but I am sure that he would have been a better asset as a secret prisoner and used for information (everyones favourite conspiricy theory).
6, Ideally yes, but the logistics of this mission was very difficult anyway and this was likely not possible - lets hope the Pakistani authorities have them, and then put on trial for enabling a known mass murderer.

As far as the conspiricy theorists are concerned - why care about the answer at all.? Simply put - its good that he is not in a position to influence anyone else to his evil cause, so why be concerned as to whether he is alive or dead, and if he is alive no doubt he is secretly being tortured for information - either way that works for me. FYI, as a general opinion I dont care for torture unless the person being tortured deserves it - he does/would have depending on whether or not you believe the conspiricy theory - as pointed out I simply do not care.


Andy

ah yes, a balanced diet would be more humanitarian. I bet millions would line-up in NY to see him & have their photo taken as they throw Osama some peanuts and pork jerky.

Conspiricy theories over.

Al-Qaeda confirm that bastard is dead.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13313201


Andy

Since there is no such group as al-Quaeda, this is quite funny. It's probably another fake posting by the CIA who have already admitted to posting previous videos of Bin Laden. Makes sense, since Obama has had trouble selling his staged killing of Sunday night. Too many skeptics, and the story of what happened keeps changing everyday.

bin Laden's wife confirms that he is dead.

Idiot.

Sure, he's been dead for years.




Oh look!.... instead of an argument!

If someone wants to post something that goes against widely held beliefs then that person best present some kind of evidence. I am a sceptical person by nature, being a sceptic is a very sensible position to be in as I require some degree of evidence before believing something to be true. However I have seen nothing at all to persuade me that Bin Laden was not killed on the first of May 2011, and a fair amount of evidence that he was killed then.

If you want anyone to take you seriously you better show some evidence so us sceptics can make a descision or hold off on making one altogether, you currently have everything to prove as you have nothing to defend.


Andy

Sorry bud, that's not how it works. Widely held beliefs can be superstitious, in error, or factual. In this case the widely held belief was that OBL was either already dead or in hiding, with some highly prominent people believing the former:

The Taliban first claimed to have killed him (with just as little evidence):
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,41576,00.html

Pakistani President Musharraf thought he was dead:
http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiap ... .binladen/

FBI head of counter-terrorism thought he was dead:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/07/ ... 5468.shtml

Afghan president thought he was dead;
http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiap ... .binladen/

French Intelligence thought he was dead:
http://usliberals.about.com/b/2006/09/2 ... s-dead.htm

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto thought he was dead:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnychOXj9Tg

Former US Intelligence Officer thought he was dead:
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/03/1 ... -bin-elvis

Add to this the long and nefarious history of US Military Intelligence lying to Congress, the media and the world about so many other events and operations (from the Gulf of Tonkin, to Iran-Contra, Panama, WMDs, etc) and there is no rational reason to believe what the US State Department is saying now. Especially with zero evidence being provided.

You are willing to believe an institution that has lied to the world so many previous times based merely on their say-so by claiming to see "a fair amount of evidence that he was killed then". I submit in the name of skepticism that the burden of proof doesn't rest on me, but on the people within the US State Department CIA and Pentagon, who have a long history of lying and deceit. Let's see this evidence of yours.

If you want to be taken seriously on here, you might do well to take the rational road to your conclusions, and save the sanctimonious clap-trap for others whom might care less about logic and reason.

Though I am highly skeptical of the announcement from the White House given its history over the past 60 years, I am not closed off to the possibility that they might have indeed carried out what they say they have done. Again, the burden of proof lay with those making the extraordinary claim that after ten years (and millions of dollars, personnel and surveillance) that the elusive fugitive has been finally disposed of, and not with those of us who have every right and reason to be highly suspiscious of any announcments coming from an institution with a history of lying. Wouldn't that be in keeping with true skepticism?

POST EDITED - the first word that is highlighted in RED used to be the word "after", this is obviously an error, the second word in RED I have inserted for clarification and accuracy.

I agree with your scepticism, and I understand your point of not believing what the US government tell the world - due to their long history of telling lies and distributing false information.

However if you can't bring yourself to believe this information from the US government, why would you not then believe "Al Quaeda's" admission that Bin Laden is dead - they could otherwise deny it, and if they had have done done so I would then have expected the US government to release more proof.

Additionally, just before September the 11th almost no-one knew of Al Quaeda existed, and there were a lot of people who were saying that Al Quaeda and Bin Laden were "invented" by the US government. So why would you not hold that belief.?


Andy

I would think that most governments, particularly the American government would have learnt by now that if they make things up or lie about things such as those listed by whispercat, the truth will eventually come out and they will be left looking like fools.
I can't see any reason why this killing of Bin Laden should be made up - the consequences for the Obama administration would not be good if it was shown to be a lie. What would be their motivation for making this up, knowing that there would be a number of journalists out there who would do their utmost to disprove the story? Why would they take that risk?
I find it quite plausible that Bin Laden escaped from Afghanistan and hid in plain sight in Pakistan, with at least some of the Pakistani authorities knowing full well that he was there. It also seems to me to be inevitable that eventually, after much effort, the Americans would get a lead as to where he might be and go in after him.
There seem to be so many people who just cannot bring themselves to believe anything that a government tells them and I will just add this to the long list of ridiculous conspiracy theories floating around on the internet.

Well, the killing could be made up to conceal the fact that Bin Laden is in custody and being interrogated.

First, it would save the U.S. from the sh!tstorm of suicide bombers around the globe who would start exploding themselves to pressure the release of Bin Laden. Now that he's dead, there will be revenge attacks sooner or later, but nothing hasty and nothing sustained.

Second, it would possibly give secret agencies a bit of an advantage, as the enemy is led to believe Bin Laden cannot be a source of information. Perhaps that would make them more complacant in changing their style, make them less urgent to change codes or passwords or strategies. But that's gambling. If Bin Laden was known to be interrogated, everything he knows must be assumed to be known to the US now. And that's assuming Bin Laden was knowing anything of relevance, which I highly doubt.

But yeah, it is a conspiracy theory. I'm pretty sure he's dead.

I am back to take apart your arguments that he was already dead.



Apart from the obvious point that the news story mentioned that he was supposed to have died of a lung problem, and not by the Taliban, it is also from a member of the Taliban which you seem to have more trust in than the US government.



The Pakistani authorities also believed that he was in Afghanistan. Also note that some US Authorities "claimed" that he was on dialysis and others including Rumsfeld rebuked that.



From the news article. "Watson, speaking at a conference of law enforcement officials at a downtown hotel, quickly emphasized that he had no evidence that bin Laden was dead, but his comments suggest that the FBI has no intelligence that proves bin Laden is alive." I dont need to add any more.



From the news article. "The more we don't hear of him, and the more time passes, there is the likelihood that he probably is either dead or seriously wounded somewhere." He WAS heard from again, thus mooting the validity of this article.



From the news article. "The regional newspaper l'Est Republicain on Saturday printed what it described as a copy of a confidential document from the DGSE intelligence service citing an uncorroborated report from Saudi secret services that the leader of the al-Qaida terror network had died." I shall just mention one word "uncorroborated".



I couldnt be bothered to watch it - although take note of her governmental position - "former" that is.



That is just funny, its almost as if that is a parody newspaper. I will just point out the first sentence "All the evidence suggests Elvis Presley is more alive today than Osama bin Laden." Hilarious.

Many of these are reliant on hear-say, totally unverified evidence if you can even call it that, rumours and obviously people who cant be trusted at all.

Additionally pathetic arguments along the lines of we havent seen him for a few years so he must be dead, tell that to a religious person - "we havent ever seen God therefore (s)he cant exist" and on goes that stupid argument that never gets anywhere near the truth.

An example for you. I used to believe that NASA never landed people on the moon. This was because I had "seen" more evidence to show that no-one had landed on the moon than evidence to show that they had. I was actually put right by people on these very forums, each and every one of my arguments were destroyed - I changed my viewpoint totally, and I admit that I was wrong. I was primarily wrong because the evidence I had seen that claimed that man had not put their boots on the surface of our moon totally ignored evidence to the contrary - I was hooked and ignored any evidence to the contrary.

I am now a sceptic of anything that has not been proven one way or the other, in the case of Bin Laden the primary evidence must come from simple words. The US government say that he is dead, Al Quaeda say he is dead, the Taliban say he is dead - what more proof could you possibly want than the admission of his own Jihadist groups that he is dead.

He is either dead or captured by the US government plain and simple - either one will do for me, I could not care which one of those is true but I think that it is far more likely that he is dead.


Andy

To be fair, it is tough to get reelected after having been assassinated

That's how I believe the killing of Bin Laden happened:

Night Stalker: I have Bin Laden in my crosshairs, he is unarmed. What do you want me to do?
Command Center: Uh, unarmed you say? But is there any weapon in the room?
Night Stalker: Yes, there is an AK on a piece of furniture. Bin Laden is looking at it, but he seems undecided about picking it up.
Command Center: Ok, just pretend to look elsewhere for a split second, and then ... you know what to do.

On a more serious tone, I think this article at Aviationweek is interesting:
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/ ... %20Stealth

It takes more than someone claiming to make a statement on behalf of an organization to convince a skeptic that this statement has indeed been issued by that organization or even that the organization exists and is functional.
The US government has official channels to release statements which conveniently allows us to know which statements have been authentificated as having been issued by that government. Some terrorist organizations have more flimsy but still mostly reliable arrangements to authenticate their statements. Whatever AQ is, does it to your knowledge have any such arrangements which are still functional today? Have they been used to authenticate the statement you're referring to?


Not so: http://cns.miis.edu/reports/binladen.htm


Whoever said that OBL was invented? That would be bizarre.
What people said is that organized terrorists may have seized upon a brand created by the US government. If there was an invention, it was not likely the work of the government itself. It's more likely that the government chose to spin dubious intelligence as fact.
So when people say it was a US invention it does not mean that there never was a group self-identifying as AQ.

So why worry about whether or not a fictional leader of a fictional terrorist group is dead or alive.? I mentioned this in a previous post that there are a lot of people who doubt the existance of Al Quaeda at all, as they did not seem to exist before Sptember the 11th, then suddenly the US government knew all about them - if you have not already done so watch Farenheit 911 - please note that some of the information in this film is true, some is not, some has been invented, and some that is still unanswered - this last point should be pointed out as "unanswered" from any angle - therefore it does not count in favour or against anything whatsowever.



To be honest, I simply dont know the answer to that. The most likely group would be the Taliban, as they are also a political group. This is how the IRA used to get their information out about who they had just ruthlessly and randomly murdered, likewise the nutters in the Israeli occupied areas, and possibly ETA - although I dont know a lot about them so I cant confirm this. The standard way of doing this from a terrorists point of view is to give the information to an untouchable affiliate e.g. an insider in another organisation, or an affiliated political group.



Invented, as in blown out of all proportion, some say that the man existed (exists still) and that AQ exists but couldnt arrange a fuck in a brothel - but that he (they) were essentially a scapegoat for the US government because they really had no idea who did it - that is no less bizzarre - and as for proof, that is another story that I wont talk about in this post at all.

I will leave you with this happy thought; if the US government had no idea who was behind September the 11th, and no group claimed responsibility. Would the US government, its people and the rest of the world be more scared or less.? I dont need to tell you the answer there - hence a scapegoat is better than nothing at all - but that as I say is another story, and another conspiricy theory.


Andy

I hear reports bin Laden was responsible for JFK's assassination. He also master minded and financed Lincoln's murder, but since we don't have Lincoln's death certificate the conspiracy nuts suspect he may still be alive.

bin Laden was able to see the White House, from his tent!


That would be Mr & Mrs bin Laden.

Andy

I have provided you with documentation. Please stop making false claims.
A skeptic should understand that the link I gave you has more weight than whatever Moore put in his movie (I do not intend to watch it, thanks). More documentation can be Googled easily if you care.


Then I think it would be prudent to wait on a statement by the best-known AQ leader besides OBL, al-Zawahiri. The guy has apparently seen fit to make statements about the new governments in Egypt and Tunisia. So it's not a stretch to expect he will at some point comment on OBL's fate. I have no idea who would actually recognize him as a leader but he at least has some credibility.


The US government claimed to have identified an individual as the one who plotted the 911 attack and it wasn't OBL. Whatever role OBL had, he plays a supporting role in the official conspiracy theory. The involvement of any kind of formal organization is not a necessary part of that theory as I understand it.

I believe that you missed my point from an earlier post in this thread, I am not trying to claim that the US government "created" Bin Laden or Al Quaeda, but simply that that is what a lot of people seem to believe, and one of the things that those believers often state is that no one had heard of Al Quaeda before September the 11th. I am not trying to push this as a fact, but instead am trying to point to this notion as something that is believed by many people.



I am with you there. A video by him would certainly put this whole topic to bed.



Please add some more to this (links ideally), it sounds like it could be an interesting read.


Andy

Would that be sufficient?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_Sheikh_Mohammed

Let's quit the "a lot of people" facade, and admit these are your own beliefs.

Maybe you are not aware of US President Clinton trying to assassinate OBL (from Wikipedia):

.

The actual Wikipedia article provides links to support the above:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_ ... nistration

Here is one such link, but there are others:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/09/ ... 1490.shtml

It appears fairly obvious that when you look at the time line of the 9/11 event, and when the perpetrators came to the US for flight training, etc, it corresponds to shortly after the time frame when Clinton tried to kill him.

I have not once stated that as a belief that I have ever held, if you re-read my posts this will become very clear.

As far as the "a lot of people" is concerned - state a number of people that you condider "a lot of people", I am going to go with the number 100, I bet you $1,000,000 that there is 100 people in the USA that hold this view - go on, be an idiot and try and dig yourself out of that hole rather than being brave and bold and admitting that you are making unjust accusations without evidence about a subject that involves an arbritary number.



Nope, not heard of that (that is not to say that it is not true, and/or that I done believe it to be true - I had to add this so you dont try and put words into my mouth).



So as not to sound vindictive towards yourself due to you trying to accuse me of things that I did not say and do not believe to be true, I will try to word the following carefully and try not to antagonise you

So you are blaming 9/11 on Clinton


Andy

Obviously a lot more than a 100, maybe millions since there are millions of Muslims of in the US, and also millions on the far-left like Noam Chomsky (professor at MIT who was an author that OBL like to read based on info captured in the raid). But a million people is not really "a lot" in a country with 310 million population. There are a million people who believe just about anything (pick your own theory on any subject).

I find that shocking that you didn't know that Clinton tried to assassinate OBL. I would recommend your do some research on the subject. There is plenty of evidence that OBL and al Qaeda were both well-known before 9/11.

I don't blame Clinton for going after OBL, considering that OBL masterminded attacks on the USS Cole, a US embassy in Africa, and other US assets in the 1990's. I do blame Clinton for not following up on the failed attempt. Keep in mind that Clinton authorized the attack on OBL during the height of the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit when Clinton was forced to give a sworn deposition that was later the cause of his impeachment, and loss of legal license (ruled by a Federal judge) due to his perjury during the deposition.

So bottom line is that if Monica Lewinsky had her dress cleaned (instead of storing it away in a plastic bag with Clinton's semen on it), then most likely Clinton would not have tried to assassinate OBL to divert attention away from his legal problems, and 9/11 would likely not have happened. Obviously, this is my theory, but I believe it to be reasonably sound.

Criminal Charges against OBL prior to and after 9/11 per Wikipedia:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_ ... al_charges

Here is the actual 1998 US Federal Grand Jury indictment against OBL and others for acts prior to 9/11. It includes background history of Al Qaeda back to 1989.
http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com ... laden1.pdf

Folks, please go back through this thread and see who posted what -- I think the first person to post that Al Qaeda is somehow faked or trumped up by the US is... go look for yourself.

Meanwhile, keep it civil, please.

That is an odd thing to do...... trying to dismiss 1,000,000 people as "not a lot" because they are in a country of over 300,000,000. You might as well say that Ford dont make a lot of money ($129 Billion revenue for 2010) because as a whole the US GDP was $14.6 Trillion - there is a large distinction between "a lot of people" and "a high percentage of people".

I dont know the best place to look up any mention of Al Qaeda in the past, the only place I know where to look is on the Google news archive section.

As an example pre USS Cole attack, a 1-year section of time using the most common speling of "Al Qaeda" gets 58 results.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q= ... f06985065c

Yet if you search within that same time period for "Osama Bin Laden" you get 2,080 results.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q= ... f06985065c

If within the same time period "IRA" is looked at you get 10,700 results.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q= ... f06985065c

If within the same time period "ETA" is looked at you get 2,300 results.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q= ... f06985065c

Using this rather crude method it does look like "Al Qaeda" was barely mentioned hence why many people find it surprising to know that this group was being hunted by the US government much earlier than most people had known simply because of a lack of mention in the press. The odd part is that Bin Laden was mentioned far more times in the same time period.


Andy