Is Osama Bin Laden really dead?

[Barrel of Fun]

Or even six years they are saying now, guess we'll have to wait and see what comes out in the next few days.

How did he get in? My hired car was checked from sun roof to glove compartment when leaving Gibraltar. They didn't check the small compartment underneath the back seats, but there was only room for 600 cigarettes, not a long bearded Arsenal fan.

To think Norwich were ribbed for the behaviour of Delia Smith!

 

[Barrel of Fun]

look at his right eye ffs.

That all sounds a bit Kenny Craig. Will I become a terrorist if I do so?

 

[8ace]

How did he get in?

Probably opted to go up the Khyber.

 

[bhaexpress]

Bin Laden may have been unarmed but there again so were the vast majority of the victims of the attacks he orchestrated. What bothers me is that now the US are starting to change their story. He wasn't armed and he didn't use his wife as a human shield plus there are now strong rumours that the photos of his body are fake. Also, the woman who was killed wasn't his wife.

Sounds like yet another American Military own goal.

 

[beorhthelm]

... there are now strong rumours that the photos of his body are fake. Also, the woman who was killed wasn't his wife.

there havent been any "official" pictures released, only some mock up originating from a regional news agency and blindly republished. this, along with the altered reporting of events shows how one has to be very careful with 24hour rolling news, what they report what officials say to them for the sake of giving them something to report, etc.

one thing can be said for the new version of events is that it seems alot more honest, presumably they are correcting the story ahead of witnesses doing so, with the implication that there are witnesses and its likly they'll be heard sooner or later.

 

[Twizzle]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y66_v0Eb5N0

Especially from 3:30 onwards.

Pretty REVEALING from a President of The USA

 

[bhaexpress]

there havent been any "official" pictures released, only some mock up originating from a regional news agency and blindly republished. this, along with the altered reporting of events shows how one has to be very careful with 24hour rolling news, what they report what officials say to them for the sake of giving them something to report, etc.

one thing can be said for the new version of events is that it seems alot more honest, presumably they are correcting the story ahead of witnesses doing so, with the implication that there are witnesses and its likly they'll be heard sooner or later.

True enough but for once all the falsehoods are giving America's multitude of conspiracy theorists reasonable grounds. Why they felt they had to lie in the first place bother me. The reason why they shot Bin Laden there and then (if indeed they did) he would have faced trial in the US and that would have been a recipe for serious terrorist threats and attacks. I don't think many people are upset about his demise.

 

[whitelion]

The reason why they shot Bin Laden there and then (if indeed they did) he would have faced trial in the US and that would have been a recipe for serious terrorist threats and attacks.

Wouldn't it be the Hague?

 

[bhaexpress]

Wouldn't it be the Hague?

Come off it, could you see the Americans handing him over ? It was their operation and they feel that he is responsible for the murder of thousands of Americans, a not unreasonable assumption.

 

[whitelion]

Come off it, could you see the Americans handing him over ? It was their operation and they feel that he is responsible for the murder of thousands of Americans, a not unreasonable assumption.

Toobin: 5 hurdles if bin Laden had been taken alive - CNN.com

Toobin: 5 hurdles if bin Laden had been taken aliveBy Jeffrey Toobin, CNN Senior Legal Analyst
May 3, 2011 10:03 a.m. EDT
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
U.S. officials did not expect Osama bin Laden to surrender without a fight
Jeffrey Toobin: Capturing bin Laden alive would have created many judicial controversies
Among questions raised would have been military or civilian trial, defense, trial location, he says
Editor's note: Jeffrey Toobin is a CNN senior legal analyst and a staff writer at The New Yorker. A former assistant U.S. attorney, Toobin is the author of several critically acclaimed best-sellers, including "The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court" and "Too Close to Call: The 36-Day Battle to Decide the 2000 Election."

New York (CNN) -- It's the greatest trial that never was -- of Osama bin Laden.

Top U.S. national security officials said the American commandos who killed bin Laden on Sunday were prepared to capture him alive if he had surrendered -- but officials said they didn't expect the al Qaeda leader to give up without a fight.

Of course, bin Laden has now gone to an unmourned death, but if he had been captured rather than killed, it would have made all the previous legal proceedings arising out of the war on terror look simple by comparison.

It does seem certain that bin Laden would have been put on trial, tempting though it might have been to execute him on the spot. But how and where that trial would have taken place is far from certain.

1. Trial: Civilian vs. military?

Given the outcry that greeted U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's plan to try suspected 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civilian court -- which led Congress to abort that plan -- it seems clear that bin Laden wouldn't have received a civilian trial either.
Just for starters, there would have been a huge outcry if bin Laden had been allowed to set foot on American soil. So it seems clear that bin Laden would have been tried by military tribunal.

The outcome of that trial would never have been in doubt, but there are many questions that would need to be answered about it:

2. Where would he have been tried?

It appears that Mohammed will be tried by tribunal in the American detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. That place has a poisonous public reputation, not least because of attacks on its legitimacy by candidate Barack Obama throughout 2008.

Obama and others said that the Bush administration's decision to establish Guantanamo as a place beyond the reach of the legal system -- and one where allegations of torture persisted -- made the facility in effect a recruiting tool for terrorists.

Obama's vow to close it has become, perhaps, his best-known unfulfilled campaign promise.

Bin Laden-in-Gitmo is a public symbol the United States would have wanted to avoid. It might have looked like the U.S. was stretching its own rules, and damaging its own reputation, to nail a hated enemy.

3. Access to U.S. intelligence

But the location of the trial is only the first of the questions about it.

Defendants, including military detainees, are entitled to see the evidence against them, and seek out evidence on their own.

Would bin Laden really have been allowed to rummage through U.S. government files in order to defend himself?

Would the CIA and other national security agencies have allowed bin Laden to see those documents? How could bin Laden have had a fair trial without seeing them? Years of legal fights might have ensued.

4. Who would have defended him?

Given the taste of many attorneys for attention, and a place in history, there probably would be no shortage of applicants.

But what if bin Laden decided to defend himself, as the so-called 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui did?

Would the American government, even the military, have given bin Laden that kind of platform? If not, how could bin Laden have received a fair trial if he were stifled in his own defense? Difficult, but not impossible.

5. What would have happened to his body?

Indeed, a trial of bin Laden probably would have proceeded -- slowly, expensively but inexorably toward a verdict of guilty and a sentence of death.

And that raises a final macabre question. The U.S. government made a point of announcing that bin Laden's body was disposed of at sea. There will be no grave to be used by his supporters as a shrine.

But -- in our "what if" scenario -- after bin Laden met his American hangman (or, more likely, lethal injection), could the United States really have dumped his body at sea?

The only thing for sure is that we'll never know.


Probably not on American soil.

 

[Twizzle]

double post bloody laptop touchpads are shite

 

[Twizzle]

Gloria Allred will be apoplectic at this destroying a perfectly good golden goose

 

[8ace]

They have announced tonight they won't release photos of his dead body
BOOOOOOOOO!

 

[Biscuit]

some photos of the operation have been leaked.



WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGES HERE: Osama dead: New photos inside the compound [GRAPHIC]

EDIT: I HAVE REMOVED THE PICTURES. FAR TOO GRAPHIC. MAYBE JUST CLICK THE LINK IF YOU WANT TO SEE THEM. THEY ARE NOT PRETTY.

 

[Marc1901]

Those pictures are horrible!

I honestly don't think he is dead to be honest. The American's are covering something up.

 

[tedebear]

There are photos on the New York Times website of some of the others killed in the raid. Pretty graphic stuff.... The photos of ObL would be inappropriate to release at this time, I'm sure they'll come out eventually but right now I fear for our safety. What would have been more appropriate would be that this was never reported. But then again the Americans couldn't do that and so have risked the safety of their own people and us as well. Idiots.

 

[8ace]

What type of helicopter was it that crashed?
Are the crew dead?

 

[beorhthelm]

I honestly don't think he is dead to be honest. The American's are covering something up.

so the wife and daughter are telling fibs? in on the cover up?

What type of helicopter was it that crashed?
Are the crew dead?

the helicopter didnt crash, it experienced mechanical problems so was abandoned/scuttled. presumably all the crew were extracted safely on one of the other helicopters. its said the reason the wife/daughter/others where left behind was there wasnt enough room because of this chopper being lost.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

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

President Barack Obama has decided that photos of the dead Osama Bin Laden should not be released.
US officials had been discussing whether to publish pictures of Bin Laden's body to counter conspiracy theories that he did not die.
But Mr Obama believed the images could inflame sensitivities, saying: "We don't trot out this stuff as trophies."
The al-Qaeda leader was shot dead in a raid on Monday by US special forces in northern Pakistan.
The BBC's Paul Adams in Washington says that President Obama has clearly decided that releasing the photos is not worth the risk.
Computer files
Mr Obama revealed his decision during an interview with CBS television's 60 Minutes programme, the network said in a statement.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said at a briefing later that Mr Obama believed it was important to make sure that photographs were not "floating around as incitement or as a propaganda tool".

There is the suspicion that the US never wanted to take Bin Laden alive”

Mr Carney said the administration had been monitoring world reaction and there was no doubt that al-Qaeda believed Bin Laden was dead.
He quoted Mr Obama as saying: "There are going to be some folks who deny it. The fact of the matter is, you won't see Bin Laden walking on this Earth again."
Mr Obama believed releasing the photographs would be a national security risk, Mr Carney said, and the president's team agreed with him.
The US president's decision contradicted a statement made a day earlier by CIA director Leon Panetta, who said the photos would be released at some stage.
The decision came as US officials began to comb through computer hard-drives, mobile phones and USB sticks found during the US Navy Seals raid on the compound in Abbottabad where Bin Laden was hiding.
US Attorney General Eric Holder said Washington expected to add more names to its terrorism watch-list as a result of data seized from the compound.
Two telephone numbers and 500 euros ($745; £450) were also found stitched into Bin Laden's clothing, there in case he needed to make a quick getaway.


US Attorney General Eric Holder: "His killing was appropriate"

Critics have raised concerns about the legality of the operation, after the US revised its account to acknowledge Bin Laden was unarmed when shot dead.
But Mr Holder said Bin Laden was a lawful military target, whose killing was "an act of national self-defence".
He told lawmakers in Congress: "Let me make something very clear: The operation in which Osama Bin Laden was killed was lawful.
"It was a kill-or-capture mission. He made no attempt to surrender."
Two of Bin Laden's couriers and one woman also died in Monday's assault, while one of the al-Qaeda leader's wives was injured.
The 54-year-old Bin Laden - American's most wanted man - was buried at sea from a US aircraft carrier, say US officials.
President Obama, who watched the raid from the White House on monitors, saw his approval rating jump 11 points to 57% in a New York Times/CBS News poll on Wednesday.
He plans to visit the World Trade Center site in New York on Thursday to remember victims of the 11 September attacks, of which Bin Laden was said to have been the mastermind.

Wreckage for sale
The Pakistani military has confirmed that it is holding survivors of the US special forces operation.
The Abbottabad compound has become a sightseers' attraction
They were being kept at secret locations in the cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, said Pakistan army spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas.
Some of the survivors were being treated for bullet wounds that were serious but not life-threatening, he added.
The BBC's Aleem Maqbool says the compound where the raid unfolded has now become a sightseers' attraction.
There is an ice-cream vendor outside and children selling what they claim is wreckage from a US helicopter, which the Americans said they blew up after it apparently malfunctioned during the operation.
The compound is just a few hundred metres from the Pakistan Military Academy.
In unusually frank remarks, CIA director Leon Panetta told Time magazine: "It was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardise the mission. They might alert the targets."
Pakistan rejected the US suggestions it could not have been trusted in advance.
Some US lawmakers are calling for billions of dollars in aid for Pakistan to be reduced or stopped altogether.

 

[Beach Hut]

I think he is dead but it seems strange the alleged facts on what happened change daily by official US Government announcements.