# What Information Has Been Released On Osama bin Laden? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 5, 2015, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-information-has-been-released-on-osama-bin-laden/727063 "2015-08-05T14:31:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2015, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-information-has-been-released-on-osama-bin-laden/727063/1 "2015-08-05T14:31:19Z")
My question is posed because i have read of skeptics, who claim that OBL actually died years before (he was dialysis dependent , suffering from liver failure). In any case , i have not seen any pictures, DNA test evidence, or any transcript of members of Seal team 6 (which conducted the raid in Abbotabhad). So, exactly what proof (of OBL’s demise) has been released to date? Since the raid, the house has been completely demolished, and whatever documents seized in the raid have not been released. does anyone know where this information resides (and when it might see publication)? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2015, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-information-has-been-released-on-osama-bin-laden/727063/2 "2015-08-05T14:35:39Z")
[Al Qaeda Confirms Bin Laden’s Death](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/07/world/asia/07qaeda.html?_r=0) ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2015, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-information-has-been-released-on-osama-bin-laden/727063/3 "2015-08-05T14:40:53Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > My question is posed because i have read of skeptics, who claim that OBL actually died years before (he was dialysis dependent , suffering from liver failure). Though often repeated, there is absolutely no evidence that bin Laden had kidney or liver disease. He did have a heart condition, though. ---
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2015, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-information-has-been-released-on-osama-bin-laden/727063/4 "2015-08-05T21:19:25Z")
Next to nothing, really. Seymour Hersh wrote an [article this past May](http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden) which told a much different story about the raid and how bin Laden was killed and how his body was disposed of. Long article short, per Hersh, bin Laden was being held under secret house arrest by the Pakistanis, a high level ex-ISI figure dropped into the US Embassy with the info (and collected the reward money). Bin Laden was shot a lot more than the one or two times. His remains (or some of them, at least) were thrown out of the helicopter over the Hindu Kush mountains, not taken to the the Navy’s Carl Vinson ship in the Arabian Sea (the original plan, before Twitter and the helo crash made the operation undeniable, was for Bin Laden to turn up “dead” via a drone strike in the mountains, not in Abbotobad). Hersh strongly suggests the burial at sea never happened at all. There was no autopsy in the original account that ended in the burial at sea, but DNA was preserved to perform verification of identity (there are plenty of Bin Laden’s around to test against). ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2015, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-information-has-been-released-on-osama-bin-laden/727063/5 "2015-08-05T21:24:22Z")
There is no corroborating evidence to Bin Laden being either alive or dead, seeing as he was “buried at sea,” an unusual and usually honourable tradition for heroes rather than villains. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he either died years before or is still alive somewhere, so long as the Bin Laden Myth is alive and well. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-information-has-been-released-on-osama-bin-laden/727063/6 "2015-08-06T00:16:21Z")
John Pershing would have buried him with a bunch of pigs. I read an article a while back that the US government supplied satisfactory evidence to the Bin Ladin family that Osama was dead. What exactly that evidence was, the article didn’t state. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-information-has-been-released-on-osama-bin-laden/727063/7 "2015-08-06T00:40:35Z")
> [@Biffster](#): > > There is no corroborating evidence to Bin Laden being either alive or dead, seeing as he was “buried at sea,” an unusual and usually honourable tradition for heroes rather than villains. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he either died years before or is still alive somewhere, so long as the Bin Laden Myth is alive and well. There does not appear to be any basis for thinking that burial at sea is for heroes and not for others. I think you may have simply watched too many WW2 movies. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-information-has-been-released-on-osama-bin-laden/727063/8 "2015-08-06T00:59:04Z")
> [@fiddlesticks](#): > > Next to nothing, really. Seymour Hersh wrote an [article this past May](http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden) which told a much different story about the raid and how bin Laden was killed and how his body was disposed of. > > Long article short, per Hersh, bin Laden was being held under secret house arrest by the Pakistanis, a high level ex-ISI figure dropped into the US Embassy with the info (and collected the reward money). Bin Laden was shot a lot more than the one or two times. His remains (or some of them, at least) were thrown out of the helicopter over the Hindu Kush mountains, not taken to the the Navy’s Carl Vinson ship in the Arabian Sea (the original plan, before Twitter and the helo crash made the operation undeniable, was for Bin Laden to turn up “dead” via a drone strike in the mountains, not in Abbotobad). Hersh strongly suggests the burial at sea never happened at all. > > There was no autopsy in the original account that ended in the burial at sea, but DNA was preserved to perform verification of identity (there are plenty of Bin Laden’s around to test against). I thought the Saudi government was also involved in his house arrest, and the US basically bribed/threatened pakistan with cutting funding if they didn’t let the US go in and kill him. ---
**Author:** ![harmonicamoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/65b543/32.png) [@harmonicamoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmonicamoon)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-information-has-been-released-on-osama-bin-laden/727063/9 "2015-08-06T01:32:49Z")
From what I have read, there was no trial by jury. ---
**Author:** ![Fubaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@Fubaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fubaya)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-information-has-been-released-on-osama-bin-laden/727063/10 "2015-08-06T02:00:52Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > In any case , i have not seen > … > any transcript of members of Seal team 6 There’s no transcript, but there’s been a lot of [activity](http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/26/world/bergen-who-killed-bin-laden/) coming out of some of the SEALs involved. Three men reached the top of the stairs where bin Laden was killed. Matt Bissonette, “The Shooter,” and “The Point Man.” Bissonette wrote a book about the raid and was sued by the DoD for releasing classified information. Other SEALs were upset and spoke out against him for not remaining silent and for trying to cash in on the killing. “The Shooter” was an unnamed SEAL profiled in a long article by Esquire Magazine but later identified as Robert O’Neill. He claimed to be the one that shot bin Laden, but pretty much everyone involved in the raid said he wasn’t. Everyone who was there say a third man, “The Point Man” was the one who killed him. SEALs involved in the raid have been interviewed by authors and journalists and have spoken out about who gets the credit for shooting bin Laden, but none of them have said anything about bin Laden not really being killed that night. And not just SEALs, but many many people involved in JSOC know the story and have seen the proof. Members of Congress were allowed to see photos of bin Laden’s body. Judicial Watch tried to sue the CIA to release photos, and through an FOIA request, [discovered](http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/special-ops-leader-ordered-osama-bin-laden-death-photos-destroyed-article-1.1608955) an email from the head of Special Operations Command to the SEALs involved a few days after the raid saying that they shouldn’t still have photos of bin Laden’s remains and if they did, they need to turn them over to the CIA pronto. Circumstantial, yeah, but if bin Laden wasn’t killed that day, why would the head of SOC be emailing the guys to remind them to turn over their photos of bin Laden’s corpse? ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-information-has-been-released-on-osama-bin-laden/727063/11 "2015-08-06T03:07:00Z")
> [@harmonicamoon](#): > > From what I have read, there was no trial by jury. I think we tried him under Sharia law. > [@fiddlesticks](#): > > There was no autopsy in the original account that ended in the burial at sea, but DNA was preserved to perform verification of identity **(there are plenty of Bin Laden’s around to test against)**. Did you know that there is a chain of auto dealerships in Southern California called the [Ladin Auto Group](http://www.ladinautogroup.com/)? (Note the different spelling.) IIUC, it’s owned by one (or more?) of his brothers. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-information-has-been-released-on-osama-bin-laden/727063/12 "2015-08-06T05:06:28Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > My question is posed because i have read of skeptics, who claim that OBL actually died years before (he was dialysis dependent , suffering from liver failure). Those aren’t skeptics. They’re CTers. > [@Senegoid](#): > > I think we tried him under Sharia law. Sharia law is a system of law. There are even trials in that system. It’s really not a lynching party. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-information-has-been-released-on-osama-bin-laden/727063/13 "2015-08-06T13:33:34Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > There does not appear to be any basis for thinking that burial at sea is for heroes and not for others. I think you may have simply watched too many WW2 movies. They fake-buried James Bond at sea at the beginning of _You Only Live Twice_. Ergo, all burials at sea are faked. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-information-has-been-released-on-osama-bin-laden/727063/14 "2015-08-06T13:39:20Z")
So why not release the photos? i would like to know exactly what happened. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-information-has-been-released-on-osama-bin-laden/727063/15 "2015-08-06T13:51:44Z")
The photos will show you a dead guy with a bullet hole in one eye. What information will you glean from them that isn’t already out there? ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-information-has-been-released-on-osama-bin-laden/727063/16 "2015-08-06T14:21:45Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > So why not release the photos? i would like to know exactly what happened. Because the U.S. Government doesn’t give a shit what you’d like to know and there is no compelling reason for them to release more information than they already have. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-information-has-been-released-on-osama-bin-laden/727063/17 "2015-08-06T15:26:24Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > The photos will show you a dead guy with a bullet hole in one eye. What information will you glean from them that isn’t already out there? Oh, some nice things such as the names of the military personnel involved (you’ll see that on their uniforms). You know, so that they and their families can live in fear for the rest of their lives. ---
**Author:** ![Fubaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@Fubaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fubaya)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-information-has-been-released-on-osama-bin-laden/727063/18 "2015-08-06T15:33:36Z")
At the time, they were also afraid the photos would piss off Al Qaeda and cause retaliatory attacks. Makes sense to me. But there are also rumors that they riddled bin Laden with bullets and don’t want a body with 100 bullet holes to be seen. I’m not sure how much credence that idea has but it seems possible too. Either way, I can think of several bad things that could come out of showing the photos but I can’t think of anything good that would come out of it. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-information-has-been-released-on-osama-bin-laden/727063/19 "2015-08-06T16:01:29Z")
What makes no sense about wanting to see pix is that whichever pix the gov’t might release, the “skeptics” will simply say they’re faked, inconclusive, or misleading. IOW, exactly zero progress will be made towards truth & reality-based thinking. ---
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-information-has-been-released-on-osama-bin-laden/727063/20 "2015-08-06T19:13:25Z")
> [@Fubaya](#): > > But there are also rumors that they riddled bin Laden with bullets and don’t want a body with 100 bullet holes to be seen. I’m not sure how much credence that idea has but it seems possible too. Hersh’s alternate account says as much. Possible that he was shot so many times a photograph would have been no use to identify the body. So, releasing said photograph would be both extremely grisly and pointless as “proof of death”. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-information-has-been-released-on-osama-bin-laden/727063.md?page=2)