Old Holborn has the picture (I don't know where it came from, by the way) of an apparently-dead man who looks like Bin Laden, with a stock picture of an alive Bin Laden alongside, and the 'dead' photo certainly does look like an amateurish attempt to Photoshop the 'live' one. It doesn't convince me, and I have no experience of Photoshop. If this is the US's 'evidence' that he is dead, it's pretty thin.
And then we hear that Bin Laden's body was buried at sea. Why would they do that? It precludes any possibility of verification in the future. Is that the whole point?
In the Middle Ages, you cut off your defeated opponent's head and displayed it at the city gates until it rotted. That way, there was no question that you had accomplished what you set out to do.
With this 'evidence', we are no further forward at all. Why not a series of good, clear photographs? Surely the US military is capable of doing that? They could do it with Saddam, after all. Or producing a body for verification by independent witnesses, or the Press?
What is going on?
No doubt more will emerge over the next few days, but for now - well, who knows?
***UPDATE***
Via Obnoxio, it looks like the 'photo' on Old Holborn's blog is an old one that has been round the block a few times. Link to the background here, with a nice triptych (below) of the two photos that have been combined into one. The US media appear to have swallowed it, but we are still no further forward. Perhaps best to wait until the 'facts' emerge for further scrutiny. I'm still puzzled as to why they got rid of the body so quickly and with such finality.
1. Credit to the Yanks, burial at sea prevents a single place becoming a shrine.
ReplyDelete2. If they hadn't killed him, they'd look pretty stupid if/when ObL's doppelgänger surfaced.
3. If they were going to skillfully PhotoShop an old photo, perhaps it would have looked so 'un-realistic', everyone would guess it was PhotoShopped?
4. Perhaps the Yanks wanted a 'good day' to bury bad news?
Well, it certainly takes the attention away from the ongoing debacle in Libya, that's for sure.
ReplyDeleteGood point about the 'shrine'.
All we've got is some rough photografts of a live mouth on to a dead head and a president who is coming up for re-election.
ReplyDelete"The report of my death was an exaggeration."
Letter from Mark Twain, May 1897
Let's see some photos and evidence.
"I am not a conspiracy theorist, or a 'truther'. I do not possess a tinfoil hat. But there is something very odd about the announcement of the death of Osama Bin Laden."
ReplyDeleteWhew! Was beginning to think I'd have to be measured for a tinfoil hat. I thought it was just me....
Good points all. If you put together the upcoming election, the impasse in Libya and the lessening support for the Afghan operation, there's plenty of circumstantial evidence to suggest that this was an ideal time to 'find' and 'despatch' Public Enemy No 1.
ReplyDeleteBut we're suffering from a scarcity of reliable info as yet. I'm waiting for something firmer, and corroborated.
I agree with you, why dispose of it so fast, it should have been put on display at ground zero for a while or until all the flies ate it :-)
ReplyDeleteI think it is him, like some one said it would be very embarrassing if he showed up again tomorrow, but I also agree this will just lead to conspiracy theories again.
I'm sure more pictures will surface, one of the seal guys must have carried a cell phone with him ;-)
Regarding your Update Richard:
ReplyDelete"Perhaps best to wait until the 'facts' emerge for further scrutiny. I'm still puzzled as to why they got rid of the body so quickly and with such finality."
1. I agree with the first sentence.
2. We only have their word that the body has actually been disposed-of. As I mentioned in my 1st response it is a 'neat' solution. However, the CIA will unequivocally need DNA proof that the corpse airlifted out of Abbottabad was his.
I've no idea how long that chemical analysis takes. If it's 'instantaneous', then there'd be no reason to keep the cadaver. If it takes time, then I'd have thought the body would have been retained.
Going by the photo you posted re ABCD yesterday you are OBL and I claim my £5. [:-)> (OBL smiley).
ReplyDeleteHmmm. It's all rather murky. Still, it seems to have done the trick for Barack Osama, sorry Obama. He's riding the crest of a wave now. Re-election chances suddenly doubled.
ReplyDelete@ Brian - LOL! No, too chunky. I don't have the figure for terrorism.
ReplyDeleteLike the smiley.
I used that image on my blog knowing it to be a fake, but until the real one is released it will serve the purpose! Nice blog!
ReplyDeleteThank you Ron.
ReplyDeleteI'm really not sure why it would not be the case that they got him. If it was so easy to just make it up, why wait 10 years? It is also very easily disproved.
ReplyDeleteThe burial at sea is quite clever I think, and to do it within the 24hrs "muslim" window also stops muslims crying that he was desecrated or some crap like that.
For me, the message here is that the Americans have quite clearly reminded these kind of people that they will be found and the "law of the west" will be applied eventually, whatever time it takes. That is quite a powerful reminder I think, unlike what we usually do in Europe (we have the scary international tribunal...).
As for Lybia, Sarkozy and Cameron were the driving "force" behind it, the americans are not quite as involved as those 2 clowns wish and I don't really see why they would need to bury any news on that particular subject.
@ monoi - yes, good points. It's looking more understandable as the details come out - it would appear that considerable efforts were made and documented to ensure that it was the right person, and the burial at sea makes sense as the White House explains it. There was a time in my life when I would have accepted the announcement at face value (after all, a government wouldn't lie about something like that, would they?), but now I am more cynical and perhaps realistic. Hence my initial scepticism. I still think it's a murky piece of work.
ReplyDeleteHell, maybe I do need a tinfoil hat.
ReplyDeleteHe's either been tremendously obliging to the good old US, by giving them all sorts of reasons to implement full spectrum dominance and then popping up whenever needed to give a handy boost to presidential re-election ratings (Bush in 2004, Obama now)...
...or he has actually been dead since it was originally reported in 2001, and has only now outlived his usefulness as a bogeyman.
Sadly, I don't have too much trouble seeing some plausibility in the latter argument. Or in not entirely trusting the American version of events, especially since they don't seem to have entirely settled on what they were.
Still, we have got their word for it there was "a virtually 100% DNA match"*, so perhaps I'm being needlessly cynical.
* Although it is commonly agreed all human DNA matches to 99.5%, or, well, "virtually 100%".
Yup, looked at in that way, you and I are 'virtually' a 100% DNA match. And 85% with a fruit fly, or something like that. I thought that was an odd phrase to use, too.
ReplyDeleteSo, let me see ... no photos, no body, the President's 'word' that it all happened, although the details are changing hour by hour ... I come back to my first thought. Fishy. Not wrong, not evil, not a conspiracy - just a faint whiff of not-quite-right.
I wouldn't worry about having a single place being made shine for him,
ReplyDeleteIn this day & age surely there is technology that a shine stone or head piece could contain a poison so that his supporters that touched or kissed it, would die an agonising death in a few months ?
you know people always have to touch bits of statues etc,
Like just about all statues of David have a shiny penis ! :)
One easy way of reducing his supporters IMHO, eh ?