Is Bin Laden really dead?

[Tigger]

I can't keep away!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

No, Timmy, Osama isn't dead. He's just gone to live with a nice family on a big farm when he can romp around a lot and play with the other animals. Maybe we'll go see him next summer, okay? Meanwhile, there's a surprise for you in the garage!

[egbert]

No. He's relaxing on a Puerto Rican beach, sipping a cold drink, alongside Cedros, Idi Amin, The Shaw of Iran, and Elvis.

[mistermack]

These conspiracy theorists are more annoying than wooists. At least yer religious deludee has the good grace to (largely) stick to one topic (i.e. God), and sort of adhere to the shite that's contained in their single tome of choice; the conspiracy theorist (and it's NOT a fucking theory, you've hijacked that word and you don't know what it really means) just makes stuff up about a plethora of random and varied world events with the apparent backing and authority of science behind them. Bollocks.

You're right. The governments of the world would never lie to the public.
I'm so embarrassed that I suggested it was possible.
.

I didn't say they didn't ever lie, you've just twisted it to suit. They obviously do lie, but it takes long term use of a foil hat to make someone think that there is a sinister ulterior motive for absolutely everything.

Moon landings
Princess Diana
JFK
bin Laden
911
yada yada yada

You ignore the fact that SOME conspiracies turn out to be real. Like Watergate and money for the contras etc.
There is a precedent, and it tells us to make up our own minds, and ignore the official bullshit, because it simply can't be trusted.
The descriptions of atrocities by US troops in Iraq are other examples.
A pack of lies is given out, and only modified when evidence of the truth escapes.
And not just the US, the Brits are just as ready to lie.

With this operation, they would have debated for a long time whether to take Osama alive, or kill him on site. There is no way he was killed without an order to kill him. They simply do not leave decisions like that to squaddies.
But the story has to be put out that they were PREPARED to take him alive, if he surrendered.

That is absolute bullshit. So there you have one big fat lie already. They would have discussed this, and agreed to put out this lie, and all involved would be obliged to never reveal the truth.
So there is one conspiracy already. These people use truth and lies alike, to achieve an end. The only limiting factor is "will I get caught out?" and that's the only thing we can judge by.

When they discussed taking him alive, and saying that he was dead, as they surely did, along with many other options, the chance of it leaking out is the only thing that would have put them off. Otherwise, it would have been the obvious thing to do.
You've avenged 911, you've killed Osama ( eventually they would have to ), and you've also got every bit of info that torture could possibly extract. It would have been a huge temptation, and all you need is to devise a way that the truth never came out.

( or if it did, that the top people could claim ignorance of it ).

I don't personally think that they did take him alive, but I wouldn't be amazed if they did. If the wife had been killed, I would lean more towards thinking he was still alive.
But as she's supposedly still alive, and an eyewitness, he probably is dead.

We don't know the techniques that they have for keeping secrets. But you can bet your life that they use things you would never have thought them capable of.
As far as they are concerned, the end justifies the means.

It's not just habitual conspiracy theorists who think them capable of this. Why do you think there are so many calling for real evidence?
.

[Tigger]

Nice measured reply, thank you. I know there are some cover ups but it's often due to incompetence rather than anything sinister - although I accept that happens too. But not quite as often as some people think is my point.

[sandinista]

Nice measured reply, thank you. I know there are some cover ups but it's often due to incompetence rather than anything sinister - although I accept that happens too. But not quite as often as some people think is my point.

Not as much incompetence as it is straight forward manipulation. It actually happens far more often than most people think.

[JimC]

Nice measured reply, thank you. I know there are some cover ups but it's often due to incompetence rather than anything sinister - although I accept that happens too. But not quite as often as some people think is my point.

+ 1 about mistermack's post, which was well argued and I mostly agree with...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Al-Qaeda vows revenge for bin Laden death

Group confirms death of its leader in an online posting and says it will continue attacks on the West.

iframe goes here

[Ian]

I don't personally think that they did take him alive, but I wouldn't be amazed if they did. If the wife had been killed, I would lean more towards thinking he was still alive.
But as she's supposedly still alive, and an eyewitness, he probably is dead.

We don't know the techniques that they have for keeping secrets. But you can bet your life that they use things you would never have thought them capable of.
As far as they are concerned, the end justifies the means.

Some food for thought:

One secret is not the same as another. There's an enormous difference in keeping a secret classified and keeping a deceit classified. They're really not the same thing. It's the difference between information and disinformation, aka the truth and a deliberate lie. Those things are not the same as each other. While some secrets can be kept perhaps indefinitely, deceit has a hard time permanently staying under wraps, especially when a very large number of people would need to be involved in it. There's a saying: the likelihood of a lie becoming discovered is proportional to the square of the number of people involved in the lie.

[JimC]

I don't personally think that they did take him alive, but I wouldn't be amazed if they did. If the wife had been killed, I would lean more towards thinking he was still alive.
But as she's supposedly still alive, and an eyewitness, he probably is dead.

We don't know the techniques that they have for keeping secrets. But you can bet your life that they use things you would never have thought them capable of.
As far as they are concerned, the end justifies the means.

Some food for thought:

One secret is not the same as another. There's an enormous difference in keeping a secret classified and keeping a deceit classified. They're really not the same thing. It's the difference between information and disinformation, aka the truth and a deliberate lie. Those things are not the same as each other. While some secrets can be kept perhaps indefinitely, deceit has a hard time permanently staying under wraps, especially when a very large number of people would need to be involved in it. There's a saying: the likelihood of a lie becoming discovered is proportional to the square of the number of people involved in the lie.

Makes sense to me...

And it is for that reason I think he is dead - too big a deceit, otherwise, too likely to emerge in the future, and too potentially damaging.

However, the question of whether he was deliberately executed or not is a smaller deceit, and has enough grey areas so that it is plausibly deniable...

[mistermack]

One secret is not the same as another. There's an enormous difference in keeping a secret classified and keeping a deceit classified. They're really not the same thing. It's the difference between information and disinformation, aka the truth and a deliberate lie. Those things are not the same as each other. While some secrets can be kept perhaps indefinitely, deceit has a hard time permanently staying under wraps, especially when a very large number of people would need to be involved in it. There's a saying: the likelihood of a lie becoming discovered is proportional to the square of the number of people involved in the lie.

While that sounds like common sense, it can never be verified, because we only know of the ones where the truth leaked out. We can only guess at how many deceits remain secret.
The numbers law doesn't necessarily apply. Many many many people knew where the allies would land on D day, but the deception worked and the secret held.
It's down to the quality and motivation of those who know the secret.
I think that far more secrets hold than we imagine.
.

[laklak]

Come on. The Fedurul Gummint has successfully hidden the TRUTH about the faked moon landings, Area 51, 9/11, the Kennedy Assassination and the fact that John Wilkes Booth was actually an agent of the Reptilian Overlords for years. You think they can't handle one dead Arab? Pffffff.

[sandinista]

One secret is not the same as another. There's an enormous difference in keeping a secret classified and keeping a deceit classified. They're really not the same thing. It's the difference between information and disinformation, aka the truth and a deliberate lie. Those things are not the same as each other. While some secrets can be kept perhaps indefinitely, deceit has a hard time permanently staying under wraps, especially when a very large number of people would need to be involved in it. There's a saying: the likelihood of a lie becoming discovered is proportional to the square of the number of people involved in the lie.

While that sounds like common sense, it can never be verified, because we only know of the ones where the truth leaked out. We can only guess at how many deceits remain secret.
The numbers law doesn't necessarily apply. Many many many people knew where the allies would land on D day, but the deception worked and the secret held.
It's down to the quality and motivation of those who know the secret.
I think that far more secrets hold than we imagine.
.

all true.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

One secret is not the same as another. There's an enormous difference in keeping a secret classified and keeping a deceit classified. They're really not the same thing. It's the difference between information and disinformation, aka the truth and a deliberate lie. Those things are not the same as each other. While some secrets can be kept perhaps indefinitely, deceit has a hard time permanently staying under wraps, especially when a very large number of people would need to be involved in it. There's a saying: the likelihood of a lie becoming discovered is proportional to the square of the number of people involved in the lie.

While that sounds like common sense, it can never be verified, because we only know of the ones where the truth leaked out. We can only guess at how many deceits remain secret.
The numbers law doesn't necessarily apply. Many many many people knew where the allies would land on D day, but the deception worked and the secret held.
It's down to the quality and motivation of those who know the secret.
I think that far more secrets hold than we imagine.
.

all true.

Sandy said it. I believe it. End of story.

[sandinista]