The fact that some conspiracies do exist and have existed does not mean that all conspiracy theories are equally plausible, legitimate or true. Each must be judged on its own merits.
While I certainly appreciate your contribution to the body of satirical references to a debate, I’d point out that sometimes it may be misplaced. I thought my point is crystal clear and you even, in the preaching part of your post, hinted it.
Just so we’re on the same page, what authority will be the judge of the merits?
Do you consider yourself an authority that can summon and investigate the inner workings of secret departments of Al-Q, domestic or foreign Governments? And I’m the one called pretentious.
I’d settle for William of Ockham.
I’m not sure he would apply. Rather, it is a situation where Kurt Gödel would be needed. To paraphrase, in order to show that the paradigm is consistent you cannot use the assumptions of the said paradigm.
That’s to avoid something from “Yes, Minister”: “When telling a story don’t go with a story that anyone can prove. Rather, go with a story where nobody can prove its false”.
I hope it’s clear we’re talking about two radically different philosophical approaches.
So the default position is to assume a conspiracy; the complete lack of evidence for said conspiracy does not disprove its existence, but only means we’re unable to penetrate the deepest, most shadowy inner core. (But we’re pretty sure it’s in there, and they’re doing diabolical things.)
Radically different philosophical approaches, indeed.
No.
Default is that you don’t accept what’s being served by default.
For example, Bush and Cheney did not have to be sworn in for the testimony regarding investigation about largest terrorist attack in US history. Compare that to Bill Clinton who had to be sworn in the investigation about a blowjob.
I absolutely understand how you don’t see anything wrong with that. And, I can also see how it’s all very amusing. But, you’re not convincing by any standard.
At least we have that in common.
I’ve vaguely considered it too, but never really looked into the circumstances of his death in detail. There are non-evil reasons for keeping OBL alive or pretending you got him and I pretty much expect politicians to lie whenever it’s convenient to do so. OBL’s death was pretty secretive - for good reasons, I’m sure, but that still means it was secretive.
I don’t think the OP deserves the ire he/she’s getting in this thread. The OP talked about doubts, asked a question and said OBL ‘might’ not have been killed. Hardly moon-landing denier level.
Yup. I’ve now read a couple of the links, and that, coupled with what you guys have said and what I knew before, make me as certain as can be that he really is dead.
Who has given the OP ire?
Personally, if there’s any credible evidence to his being not-dead, I’d love to hear it. I haven’t heard anything but a lot of what-ifs.
Not to say the idea is impossible. We now know that many aspects of initial reports of the raid were false; I was (and remain) skeptical of the “burial at sea” story. Don’t have any evidence to prove it, just a suspicion that we’d have made that the official story even if we’d hung on to his remains.
Convincing the world (well, most of it, anyway) that he’s dead when he’s not, however, is a rather grander and more complicated endeavor and would require a level of manipulation and large-scale conspiracy I’m not prepared to assume exists until someone comes up with something to support the theory. “They tried it once in Serbia” ain’t gonna cut it.
Nah, you’re right, I was going mostly on tone, and that can be misinterpreted; only two people either insulted the OP or said they wished this was the Pit.
I’m not saying there’s credible evidence, but TBH I think it’s fair that some people are a little suspicious of a secretive death sentence carried out as part of a war that many people think was hinky to start with. Continuing with that notion after reading the evidence is a little daft, but it’s not weird to wonder about it - it doesn’t, as the OP asks, make you a conspiracy theorist.
Oh, please. You must not be aware that there are over seven thousand people in a carrier strike group.
Oh, I don’t doubt at all that there was a “ceremony” and that a bag said to contain OBL’s remains was dumped into the ocean. And it probably did. On the other hand, if we kept the remains, there would be definite advantages (and relatively few risks, compared with faking his death) to claiming we buried him at sea.
Wait, your pet theory is that he *was *killed in the raid, but the US secretly kept his body ?! WHY ? What could possibly be the justification for such a thing ? Letting Obama defile his purulent corpse as vindication over 9/11, mount his head in SEAL Team 6’s break room, what ?
I think the case to compare when considering a conspiracy theory is NOT the “Iraq and WMD” claims (though I’m still amazed the US didn’t smuggle some in as the war was ending in order to “discover” it and call in the press).
I think the comparative cases are the death of Pat Tillman, and the capture and subsequent rescue of Jessica Lynch. In both cases senior elements of the military made up bullshit cover stories out of whole cloth and got the Pentagon and/or the White House repeating the bullshit until the truth eventually came out. I’m not sure if the ever thoroughly figured out who knew the truth and when they knew it, and compared that to the timeline of what was announced to the public.
I don’t believe this is the case with OBL, but I don’t rule out the possibility that the US government, or elements of it, will tell ginormous lies (and ones not even very difficult to disprove) under the ‘right’ conditions. Except I don’t know what the ‘right’ conditions are.
My best WAG as to how shit like this happens is the some mid-level clown is doing CYA, or maybe decides the country needs a “morale building” story, reports it up the chain of command, and it gets faithfully repeated until too many discrepancies appear,
It’s always a fuckin’ colonel! 
I’m afraid that the point I’m trying to make is being either misunderstood or there’s some tendency to lump everything and everybody in the same boat of “conspiracies” and deal with it as a collective asylum rather than evaluating each concept individually (and quite understandable given the fact that simply there’s so much to go around).
So, onto the example…
“I shall give a propaganda reason for starting the war; whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked whether he told the truth” said Adolf Hitler to his generals prior to invasion of Poland in 1939.
Among many incidents with Poland, Gleiwitz incident was the straw that broke the camel’s back and created clear path for Germany to invade and start WW2. At the time, many foreign observers including US were not keen to accept it, as per Wiki: “(…) no neutral parties were allowed to investigate the incident in detail and the international public was sceptical of the German version of the incident.”
So, incident happened, Germany went on to flat line not only Poland but many other countries and many, many human lives in the process. Many people forgot about the incident. It was long ago and in the big scheme of things did not mean much.
However, war ended differently than Hitler expected and Germany as a loser was asked for the truth. And the truth did come out about the Gleiwitz incident in 1945/46 at Nuremberg trials when it was shown to be a meticulously managed and executed by Abwehr special operation teams to create public awareness, approval and conditions for invasion of Poland.
The moral of the story is – it was done more than 50 years ago, conspirators were hard core Nazis who did not see anything wrong with it, they paid attention to details even though you’d think there was no need for it, it was used to the fullest for the propaganda purposes but – unfortunately for Nazis, they did not come out as victors so even though the truth was hidden for as long as they were holding on, it all came out because there was an authority above them that was able to perform due diligence and look into everything.
Otherwise, it would stay on the history books forever as a fact.
Not necessarily. Even if Germany had won the war there is every possibility this would have come out. As you say, there was suspicion at the time and I as I understand it there was little attempt to hide the truth internally. It just had to be plausible to the public. Once Germany has won there is even less incentive to go back and remove all traces. Roll round 1993 - 50 years after the victorius war - Hitler is long dead and memoirs are published, archives are mined and revisionist history books are written.
Your analysis lacks any serious attempt at offering a differing view. It’s a low-key subjective characterization that appeals to people who’d rather not think nor seek answers.
Still, to keep it interesting, I’d be curious to see what your “understanding” is based on.
Because I have a totally different “understanding” on the same topic (“little attempt to hide the truth internally”) based on
http://ww2today.com/the-gleiwitz-incident-and-the-first-man-to-die-in-world-war-ii
Do you have a cite for that quote?
Because it seems to me that it is not something Hitler was likely to have said at that time. He believed that attacking Poland would NOT start a war (with England & France), but that they would back down like in Czechoslovakia, just making diplomatic protests, etc. I have seen other material indicating that he thought a war with them wouldn’t come until several years later, in the 1940’s, and that German war production (Naval ship buildup, airplane construction, etc.) was planned expecting a few more years before a full scale war.
Why would he have talked about “starting the war” when he didn’t expect this to start one?
It’s both on relevant Wiki page and link provided in the post right above yours.
Man Boyo, I’ve done public affairs for the U.S. Military for almost 25 years now. That line is so dead on target. I swear I could right a book.