Every now and then major news outlets report the release of another recorded message from Osama bin Laden urging people to carry out his bizarro will, despite the fact that he was supposedly dying of kidney trouble some five years ago.
I find the whole thing highly suspect. It wouldn’t take a great deal of effort for him to produce a video recording with some sort of verifiable time marker, like a current newspaper. Unless, of course, it’s not actually him but rather his followers recording this stuff and using his name like some sort of terrorist boogeyman. What evidence do we have that it’s actually him in the messages? It seems like they’re always audio recordings; those could be recorded by anyone, or even done by him ahead of time. Have independent voice analysts weighed in on the authenticity of these recordings?
Not evidence, but a pretty sound logical conclusion is that word would get out if he really was dead. Granted, it may not be immediately, but we’ll know.
There are video messages from time to time. I believe the latest one was in 2007. In the video he refers to several contemporary events, so there’s a pretty good chance he was alive when it was made.
The US intelligence community goes over all of these things with a fine-toothed comb, and while they don’t tend to reveal details, they usually announce whether they believe a video or audio recording to be real or not.
Not if we hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him since then.
friedo’s link indicates that all references to contemporary events occur while the video is frozen. I can’t be alone in thinking that’s an interesting editing technique. Does anybody know where I can get a more reliable analysis of this video than a Wikipedia article?
When people withhold important information, it’s usually (but not always) because that information damages them. If OBL were still alive, he could easily make a video that proves he’s still alive, which would have great propoganda value. The fact that such proof is not forthcoming makes me think that either he’s dead, or he’s alive but his appearance has seriously deteriorated. I’m inclined to think that he’s dead.
I gotta think that if the US government had proof that he was dead, they’d announce it. The propaganda value would be huge. To those who say that it helps the Republicans to have the threat still alive, I say that at this point it would help them much more to have some good news to report on the terrorism front. (Plus, can you imagine a guy like Bush knowing that his archenemy is dead and keeping quiet about it?)
I think there’s a good chance he’s dead, but our government isn’t sure, and they don’t want to suggest anything publicly for fear of looking stupid if he pops up alive.
Saying that our government is hiding the fact that OBL is dead is like moon hoaxers saying that the Russians knew we didn’t go to the moon but decided to hide the information. It makes any conspiracy theory explode by its ludicrousness.
Okay folks, I’m not trying to turn this into a debate, and for my part I never suggested that the US government knows he’s dead and isn’t telling anyone. I’m simply asking a question so I can make my own judgment. I get the feeling there’s some anti-consipracy-theorist vibe going on in this thread and that is sooooooo not the road I’m going down.
What I’m asking is this:
Do we have moving video images of OBL referencing some current event? That would seal the deal for me.
I don’t know… being deliberately ambiguous about his whereabouts and status seems like the best course of action. If he’s alive, he’s a symbol of resistance and able to give some orders. Dead, he’s a BIG martyr for the cause.
Neither dead nor alive… he’s not much of a symbol of resistance nor much of a martyr.
I thought this 7 years ago when we went into Afghanistan- the smartest thing we could do if we caught him was to throw him in some jail somewhere and forget about him, and never announce that we’d done it.
Judy) You are too the teacher’s pet
Bev) I am not
Judy) Oh yeah prove it, put those (fake) snakes in her drawer
Bev) OK I will
(Beaver does this only class ends and it’s the weekend so Bev and Wally have to sneak in school to remove snakes, but teacher got to them first, but they get caught)
Larry) Is that really your car
Bev) Sure it is, but I can’t drive it unless my dads with me
Larry) Like I said it’s not REALLY your car
Bev) Oh yes it is
Larry) Then prove it
Bev) Ok I will
(Beaver drivers car it goes into the street and he gets a traffic ticket)
Bev) There’s not real soup in that cup (On a billboard)
Whitey) Sure there is
Bev) No it’s just steam
Whitey) Oh yeah prove it
Bev) Ok I will
(Beaver climbs up into the billboard and into the cup which is just steam and now he can’t get out of the cup. Fire dept is called)
Now do you see my point? You want OBL to prove his existance, but he has no reason to prove it to you. OBL is thinking “Why should I prove I’m alive, when the time comes the world will KNOW I’m still kicking.”
OBL goal is to do something even bigger than the WTC collapse, and short of a nuke I can’t see what that would be so you can be he’s gonna lie low. In fact if he lies low long enough he’s likely to start a debate about hiim being dead making it easier for him to operate again.
OBL won’t give proof he’s alive cause there is no benefit in it, he doesn’t want propaganda he wants results, like a collapsed building or a ship with a hole in it or a couple of destroyed embassies.
Dadullah told Al Jazeera he was alive in 2007. I think he would know - he might lie though. In any event he wouldn’t be lying as a puppet of the U.S. Government, if OBL is dead it is GQ to say that it is Al Queda and the Taliban leadership, and not the U.S. government, who don’t want you to know differently.
Osama has sent out 21 video or audio or audio messages since 9/11. Quite a few have referenced somewhat “current” events, obviously to “prove” he’s alive.
I recall that during the 2004 presidential election campaign and before, there were quite some number of people who claimed loudly that they thought Osama was dead, buried in a cave in Tora Bora. The week before the 2K4 election, OBL sent out a videotape that was obviously current, and commented on the presidential election. OBL was alive at that time. Here we are again, 3 years later and once again we have folks wildly speculating about his death.
We have no reason to think OBL is dead, and all kinds of reasons to suspect he is alive.
As far as folks interested in the world thinking OBL is dead, those people are the ones who should have caught him by now, and have not yet done so, and hope nobody will notice.
