Osama Bin Laden is dead!!!

[Coss]

Photoshop, nose and mouth/teeth out of focus, area of (his) left eye indistinct but sharp pixels.

[cavanami]

No worries, around the time of the US Prez election, all kinds of things will get accomplished!

 

I'm sure this will add a few points to the plus side of Prez. O's ratings.

[Hugh_Hoy]

Those pictures look like he was hit with a photoshop gun. Surely there must be some better documentation out there.

 

I heard that the DoD may release ONE official photo; no time was provided. Maybe 2nd and 3rd thoughts are being weighed?

 

HH

[Flashermac]

The Pakistani papers carried a quite different photo of a deceased OBL, one that was more believable.

 

 

.........

 

 

One Unwary Phone Call Led US to Bin Laden Doorstep

 

 

 

When one of Osama bin Laden's most trusted aides picked up the phone last year, he unknowingly led U.S. pursuers to the doorstep of his boss, the world's most wanted terrorist.

 

That phone call, recounted Sunday by a U.S. official, ended a years-long search for bin Laden's personal courier, the key break in a worldwide manhunt. The courier, in turn, led U.S. intelligence to a walled compound in northeast Pakistan, where a team of Navy SEALs shot bin Laden to death.

 

The violent final minutes were the culmination of years of intelligence work. Inside the CIA team hunting bin Laden, it always was clear that bin Laden's vulnerability was his couriers. He was too smart to let al-Qaida foot soldiers, or even his senior commanders, know his hideout. But if he wanted to get his messages out, somebody had to carry them, someone bin Laden trusted with his life.

 

In a secret CIA prison in Eastern Europe years ago, al-Qaida's No. 3 leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, gave authorities the nicknames of several of bin Laden's couriers, four former U.S. intelligence officials said. Those names were among thousands of leads the CIA was pursuing.

 

One man became a particular interest for the agency when another detainee, Abu Faraj al-Libi, told interrogators that when he was promoted to succeed Mohammed as al-Qaida's operational leader he received the word through a courier. Only bin Laden would have given al-Libi that promotion, CIA officials believed.

 

If they could find that courier, they'd find bin Laden.

 

[color:red]The revelation that intelligence gleaned from the CIA's so-called black sites helped kill bin Laden was seen as vindication for many intelligence officials who have been repeatedly investigated and criticized for their involvement in a program that involved the harshest interrogation methods in U.S. history.[/color]

 

[color:red]"We got beat up for it, but those efforts led to this great day," said Marty Martin, a retired CIA officer who for years led the hunt for bin Laden.[/color]

 

Mohammed did not reveal the names while being subjected to the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, former officials said. He identified them many months later under standard interrogation, they said, leaving it once again up for debate as to whether the harsh technique was a valuable tool or an unnecessarily violent tactic.

 

...

 

 

 

Link

 

 

 

[Nervous God]

Why would he use a woman as a shield when the USA wanted him alive?

 

Err - you did want him alive didn't you?????

[Steve]

Ballsy call by Obama. Frankly, given the same info I'd have waited. 50%-80% wouldn't have been enough for me. I'd have tried to gather more info. Had people watch that place 24/7. Glad it worked out in the end. I wonder which way Hillary voted?

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20110502/us_time/httpswamplandtimecom20110502insidethesituationroomweveiddgeronimoxidrssfullnationyahoo

The intelligence professionals said they did not know for sure that bin Laden was in the compound. The case was good, but circumstantial. The likelihood, officials told the President, was between 50% and 80%. No slam dunk. Obama went around the table asking everyone to state their opinion. He quizzed his staff about worst case scenarios - the possibility of civilian casualties, a hostage situation, a diplomatic blow-up with Pakistan, a downed helicopter. He was presented with three options: Wait to gather more intelligence, attack with targeted bombs from the air, or go in on the ground with troops. The room was divided about 50-50, said a person in the room. John Brennan, the President's senior counter-terrorism adviser, supported a ground strike, as did the operational people, including Leon Panetta at the CIA. Others called for more time. In the end, about half of the senior aides supported a helicopter assault. The other half said either wait, or strike from above.

Obama left the meeting without signaling his intent. He wanted to sleep on it. At about 8:00 a.m. on Friday, just before he boarded a helicopter that would take him to tour tornado damage in Alabama, Obama called his senior aides into the Diplomatic Room. He told them his decision: A helicopter assault. At that point, the operation was taken out of his hands. He was trusting the fate of his presidency to luck. He was putting his presidency in the hands of history.

[ghostdog]

Obama almost gives the store away:

 

 

Why does he hate America?

[Flashermac]

@Steve

 

It seems Osama had been spotted months ago. Initial plans were to bomb the residence flat in March, but Obama cancelled them because the bombing would kill everyone inside - women and children included - and the bodies would be too mangled to identify. Obama wanted proof that Bent Hardon was really dead.

 

 

[Flashermac]

Bin Laden brings out the best in conspiracy theorists

 

 

By Wynne Parry

 

 

It’s not hard to imagine why the announcement sounds suspicious: A decade-long search for an international terrorist ends with his body dumped at sea, with no photos, film or other documentation provided.

 

President Barack Obama's announcement on Sunday night that United States forces had killed Sept. 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden leaves a lot for conspiracy theorists to chew on.

 

"The potential is tremendous," said Barna Donovan, a professor of communications at St. Peter's College in New Jersey and author of the forthcoming book "Conspiracy Films: A Tour of Dark Places in the American Conscious" (McFarland & Company, 2011).

 

In fact, the conspiracy theorists are already out. Politico reporting that radio host Alex Jones, who thinks the U.S. government was behind the September 11 attacks, said that he believes that the government had bin Laden frozen for years. Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan has also called the announcement a fake, as did an arm of a Pakistani Taliban group, according to the website. A Facebook group Osama bin Laden NOT DEAD has begun collecting attracting like minded people, and apparently fake photos of bin Laden's battered face have added fuel to the fire.

 

Ingredients for a conspiracy

 

"We have a couple of factors already that are coming out that naturally fuel the conspiratorial impulse," Donovan said. “Apparently there is no body, he was buried at sea. The conspiratorial mindset will glom onto that."

 

American officials have said they identified bin Laden's body with 99.9 percent confidence using DNA evidence, and that his body was photographed before being buried at sea, according to The Associated Press. (Officials said bin Laden was buried at sea because it would have been difficult to find a country willing to accept his remains and because Islamic custom requires a swift burial, the AP reported.)

 

The lack of documentation leaves room for conspiracy theorists to question whether or not bin Laden is actually dead, or whether he died long ago — as some, including the author David Ray Griffin, have suggested.

 

Another potential angle for conspiracy theorists is the timing of the announcement, according to Patricia Turner, a professor of folklore at the University of California, Davis. The most amusing theory she has seen so far speculates that Obama timed the announcement to knock Trump’s show reality TV show "Celebrity Apprentice", which runs Sunday nights, off the air to punish Trump.

 

Trump, who is considering running as a Republican candidate for president in 2012, has been questioning Obama's citizenship and, hence, his eligibility for office, echoing demands long made by conspiracy theorists dubbed "birthers."

 

"That is a reminder as well that some of these things are amusing," Turner said.

 

Timing will likely feed many other theories, according to Turner.

 

"There are going to be people who say, 'Why couldn't we have done this earlier? Why did this take so long?'" she said.

 

With the approach of the next presidential campaign, for example, some could speculate that Obama timed the action to boost his popularity. Others could speculate that bin Laden's death was staged or timed to get Americans energized about committing more resources to the war on terror, said Donovan.

 

"Usually conspiracy theories have political angle," he said.

 

Who are conspiracy theorists?

 

Conspiracy theories have flourished since the September 11 terrorist attack and in its aftermath, including the idea that the attack was an "inside job" perpetrated by the U.S. government, that bin Laden died long ago but the U.S. government never acknowledged his death as a way to keep support for the war on terror strong, and that Obama is a Muslim and in cahoots with terrorists. (Obama is a Christian.)

 

Conspiracy theorists tend to be "people who feel like they don't have power in the world, they feel like they have been victimized, they often come up with these explanations how somebody must be behind it," Donovan said.

 

Mindset is important, according to Turner, who has followed the birther trend. Conspiracy theories regarding an event often arise when "an official explanation of it seems incongruous to some people who have a worldview that doesn't accommodate that legitimate explanation," she said. "Or that the information that one is getting is confused, chaotic and contradictory."

 

Dispelling myths

 

To keep theories from running wild, the Obama administration should release as much information as possible, and speak directly, without any euphemisms or language that seems to be hedging a bet, Turner recommended. However, full disclosure and the clearest of talk won't convince everyone, as evidenced by the hoopla surrounding Obama's birth certificate.

 

"There is going to be another element of the population that is so inclined to distrust his citizenship that they are going to find flaws with his birth certificate or alternative ways of believing he is not a citizen because they have a fundamental, abiding belief that he should not be president," Turner said.

 

If the administration were to release documentation — say, film — showing bin Laden's burial, people with this sort of mindset would find flaws, she said. And by denying the theories, there is the risk that the administration could plant the theories in the minds of those who have yet to hear them, she said.

 

Dispelling conspiracy theories could be an uphill battle for the administration.

 

"We love conspiracies," said Guido Stempel, who conducted national surveys on them as director of the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University. These routinely found that a large portion of the population gave at least some credibility to theories, such as the U.S. government withholding information about the existence of extraterrestrial life.

 

In a survey in 2006, one of two that asked about the September 11 attacks, Stempel and colleagues asked Americans if they believed federal officials either participated in the attacks or took no action to stop them "because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East."

 

Twenty percent said this scenario was very likely, while 16 percent said it was somewhat likely.

 

"That is 60 million people who think it's very likely the government got involved on 9/11. That's an awful thing for people to believe," Stempel said.

 

 

Link

 

[Guest lazyphil]

well, i would have thought they'd have returned his body for quincy to do an autopsy on!