# Why has Bin Laden not been apprehended yet? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 18, 2008, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-bin-laden-not-been-apprehended-yet/477824 "2008-12-18T23:39:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Captain\_Haddock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@Captain\_Haddock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Haddock)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2008, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-bin-laden-not-been-apprehended-yet/477824/21 "2008-12-21T03:15:19Z")
Radovan Karadžić managed to evade the combined NATO forces for 12 years in mainland Europe. So the difficulty in finding Bin Laden given the circumstances others have outlined isn’t surprising. Contrary to popular opinion spy satellites can’t attain sufficient resolution due to atmospheric distortion and altitude to identify an individual. Spy planes are potentially be capable, but sill technically difficult. Also while it might be a bit of a coup to bring about his capture I’d struggle to believe even George W Bush would be sufficiently naïve to think he operates as a linchpin to the current ‘war on terror’. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-bin-laden-not-been-apprehended-yet/477824/22 "2008-12-22T19:08:07Z")
> [@wisernow](#): > > If what I have been told is correct, the US and other similarly developed nations posses satellites that have the ability to see up very close to the earth’s surface, close enough to identify individuals, and I believe it without a doubt. If we can have telescopes like the Hubble, such resolution on satellite cameras is definitely possible. I would like to introduce a modicum of doubt. Satellites do not have that kind of resolution except in the movies. As an example the [KH-11 satellite has been used over Iraq](http://www.spacetoday.org/Satellites/YugoWarSats.html), with a resolution of 4-6 inches. That means that it can detect objects that are that size (think if of it as a pixel), but that is nowhere close to the detail required to be able to pick out an individual. A person’s face might register as four pixels at best. The capabilities of the Hubble are unrelated to spy satellites. Hubble was launched to look out into space without the interference of the atmosphere, but spy satellites have to look right through the atmosphere. Even if you pointed Hubble at Earth it [would not have the resolution](http://www.redzero.demon.co.uk/moonhoax/Hubble.htm) required to identify a human face (at the altitude of 600 km resolution is roughly 0.2 m). On top of that, you would still have to actually capture Bin Laden on a satellite image, so you would have to know where to look, and he would have to be exposed and identifiable outdoors. > [@toadspittle](#): > > We can’t prove a negative… > [@Vox\_Imperatoris](#): > > That phrase is not literal. It just means that it is exceedingly difficult to prove a negative. But “Osama Bin Laden is dead” is a positive. It’s easy to prove a person is dead. It’s just damn hard to prove _Bin Laden_ is dead, for the same reasons it’s hard to find him at all. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-bin-laden-not-been-apprehended-yet/477824/23 "2008-12-22T19:37:08Z")
> [@Vox\_Imperatoris](#): > > ETA: That article is a heaping mound of BS. Which part do you object to? I thought its two main points were basically good: (1) With deductive logic you can prove a negative as easily as a positive, because any positive can be restated as a negative (2) With inductive reasoning, you can’t really _prove_ anything. It’s true, though, that it generally takes _more_ data points to prove that something doesn’t exist. E.g., if I think there’s an intruder in my house, I have to search every room to “prove” he’s not there, but I only have to search the room he’s in to prove he is there. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2008, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-bin-laden-not-been-apprehended-yet/477824/24 "2008-12-23T00:02:01Z")
> [@](#): > > Why has Bin Laden not been apprehended yet? Bin Ladin is more competent that W or anybody who works for him, perhaps? Well, new sheriff’s come to town, let’s see what happens. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2008, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-bin-laden-not-been-apprehended-yet/477824/25 "2008-12-23T00:05:52Z")
A Navy guy I recently met said folks don’t _like_ going to Afghanistan. Due to the terrain and combatants, it seems they end up _dead_. I don’t think our military is raring to send off people to known kill zones for little to no gain. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2008, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-bin-laden-not-been-apprehended-yet/477824/26 "2008-12-23T01:55:23Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > Well, new sheriff’s come to town, let’s see what happens. Are you speaking of Obama? I would think his capture would be dependent upon the abilities of the military and intelligence people involved. Aside from the ones outed by conservative journalists, the day to day average Joes who do the work are the same. ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2008, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-bin-laden-not-been-apprehended-yet/477824/27 "2008-12-23T04:43:55Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > I The capabilities of the Hubble are unrelated to spy satellites. Hubble was launched to look out into space without the interference of the atmosphere, but spy satellites have to look right through the atmosphere. Even if you pointed Hubble at Earth it [would not have the resolution](http://www.redzero.demon.co.uk/moonhoax/Hubble.htm) required to identify a human face (at the altitude of 600 km resolution is roughly 0.2 m). I was a very early employee at the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute, so early in fact, that even now it sounds weird to me to call the “Space Telescope” the “Hubble”. So one rainy day long before launch we played a game - what would the the satellite be able to see from orbit (still many years hence at the time) if atmosphere, too much light, etc. were not factors. I seem to recall that we calculated that we probably would not be able to resolve even a typical roof tile. The bit about the flawed mirror was much later, probably that reduced the resolution a tiny bit, and there have been additional generations of cameras, which I can not account for as I was long gone by then. I also clearly recall that that calculation required you to be straight above the target, and in real life, parallax and shadows would be an issue. We decided not to be concerned that the military satellites of the time were reading any license plates given how difficult building (H)ST was, and that was long before we knew the mirror was flawed. We simply didn’t believe it was possible (at that time?) to have made and launched a satellite with a mirror and optics to do that job. We were aware of Moore’s law though so I make no comments about the present… I will add that we knew full well that Reagan’s “Star Wars” was BS on Moore’s laws grounds alone - still waiting for that one… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-bin-laden-not-been-apprehended-yet/477824.md?page=1)