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There was never any evidence that Bin Laden needed dialysis. At the best, all the CIA knew was Bin Ladin had visited a Swiss clinic back before 9/11. A similar rumor had it that he was crippled from arthritis, but arthritis isn't as potent as dialysis- we all know dialysis is a last measure to prevent death. As it turned out, he had neither, but his joints were aging, so he used ibuprofen, just like I do.
The rumor, however, was a salve on the Bush failure to get him, and was started after Bush decided to give up the hunt. It was a comforting thought for folks to think Bin Laden could no longer stage another attack as shocking as 9/11 because he was on his deathbed.
The Special Teams as they are now didn't exist back in the early 2000's. The failure to find Bin Ladin was a stimulus for the military to drop the barriers between the branches of the armed forces' special units and the divisions between the armed forces and the CIA.
The Special Teams now have members from all the different branches and have CIA members with close involvement as a seamless and effective killing and capture organization. Not so, back then.
President Obama also provided stimulus to make these teams better and more efficient when when he put Bin Ladin's capture or death as a first priority when he came to office. By the time Bin Ladin was found, all the Special Teams were highly expert.
Bin Laden was killed when it was announced he was killed. NJGoat is right. Al Quida could not deny Bin Ladin was killed when his wives and children were there as witnesses.
We have no pictures, but we have Bin Ladin's family members, the operational teams, the Navy servicemen, and the word of our leaders to go by. There was nothing to be gained by staging a scenario or making a false announcement of his death. Released photographs would have only diminished our triumph.
The CIA is a totally different organization now than it was then. The CIA was deeply humiliated by 9/11, and the culture of the organization underwent a complete overhaul that required 2 new directors to get it done. There was no way that the CIA could have known if Bin Ladin had failing kidneys or not at the time the rumor circulated. They were very careful with non-denial of the rumor as well, because it gave us some comfort at the time.
The single most unexpected and important element in the raid was not the killing of Bin Ladin. It was discovering the amount and depth of the records that were found. No one knew until then how much Bin Ladin wrote down to keep control of his very scattered and loose organization.
The Middle East is full of people just as skeptical about them as Grandstander is. We just killed their #2 guy, who wasn't even known about much before the raid, and we got several lesser leaders in between from both the Taliban and Al Quida. They haven't denied any of those deaths, either. They can't. Those men are all dead.
Unlike Bin Laden, Booth was not the hero he wanted to be after the assassination of Lincoln. Before he was finally shot in the Garrett farm's tobacco shed, he had the time to read plenty of newspapers while he was hiding out in other places. When he read of Johnson's surrender, which happened after the assassination, Booth knew the war was over for good.
Co-conspirator Herold was with him in the tobacco shed, but he surrendered after the barn was set afire. Sgt. Boston Corbett shot Booth in the neck from between a couple of loose boards, and Booth was dragged out of the flaming barn. He was paralyzed by the shot, and died 3 hours latter on the Garrett's front porch.
Rumors of Booth escaping circulated for some time afterward, especially in the South. But like Bin Ladin, dead is dead.
I don't see any parallels much between the Booth assassination and 9/11. The only real similarity was the deep shock of both to the nation. The tribunals don't have much comparison, I think. The Bush administration did their best to make their captives just disappear for good, pretty much like the Argentine and the Chilean governments did, except without the killing.
When a call for resolution couldn't be ignored any longer, the Bush administration decided on a military tribunal as the captives were considered military combatants by them. Back in 1865, the country was still under martial law, so a tribunal was the most common form of justice, military and civil.
There was substantial restraint in 1865. There were other conspirators in the plot who had backed out variously before the remaining core group acted. Some, especially those who aided Booth and Herold, could have gone on the gallows with Herold, but did not. Equivalent minor players are still rotting in Guantanamo right now.
The problem with DrummerBoys Bin Laden theory is this. If Bin Laden died a "couple years ago" it would have happened either at the very tail end of Bush's term or at the very beginning of Obama's.
If at the the tail end of Bush's term it would have been announced or had a "raid staged" at that time. Certainly "W" would have wanted to cap off his Presidency nailing public enemy number 1 that had eluded him for 8 years.
If at the beginning of the Obama Presidency, he would have wanted to put that out there right away as well. He managed to do what Bush couldn't do and it would have taken peoples minds off the economic situation. Obama's weakness was seen as defense and foreign policy, this act would have gone a long way to making him look better in 2009. Obama was also very keen on drawing down US forces in Iraq and what better way to kick that off than killing Bin Laden.
Further, it makes no sense for Al Qaeda to keep such a thing secret. Bin Laden as figure head was just as useful dead as a martyr for the cause as he was alive making tapes. They would have wanted to enable his burial place to be used as a shrine. They could have also staged his death as having happened while fighting against the Americans adding to his martyrdom and status.
Further, as others said, even if Al Qaeda kept it secret for a couple years and the US then staged a raid and killed someone who wasn't Bin Laden, what better opportunity to discredit the American government by proving they didn't kill Bin Laden and he had been dead already for a couple years.
Al Qaeda's reaction is proof enough that it played out pretty much like we were told.
Bin Laden died of acute kidney failure and malnutrition around the third month of Obama'a presidency.
Obama decided to keep this fact under wraps as a sort of "ace in the hole" until he really needed it as a ratings booster, as he knew he would.
That time came a couple of months ago when his approval ratings were at an all-time low.
Al Quada of course never announced OBL's death, and in fact kept it secret so as to not risk disallusionment from some of its members, as well as to also keep OBL instilled as a living inspiration. To admit his death would be a morale killer.
So.....we have No pictures; No physical proof; No eyewitnesses; The death of SEAL Team VI members in that chopper crash which happened to include the gunman who allegedly shot OBL (despite what the government says); and the incredible "Coincidence" that his killing could not have come at a Better Time for Obama.
If it looks like a rat and smells like a rat......
Bin Laden died of acute kidney failure and malnutrition around the third month of Obama'a presidency.
Obama decided to keep this fact under wraps as a sort of "ace in the hole" until he really needed it as a ratings booster, as he knew he would.
That time came a couple of months ago when his approval ratings were at an all-time low.
Al Quada of course never announced OBL's death, and in fact kept it secret so as to not risk disallusionment from some of its members, as well as to also keep OBL instilled as a living inspiration. To admit his death would be a morale killer.
So.....we have No pictures; No physical proof; No eyewitnesses; The death of SEAL Team VI members in that chopper crash which happened to include the gunman who allegedly shot OBL (despite what the government says); and the incredible "Coincidence" that his killing could not have come at a Better Time for Obama.
If it looks like a rat and smells like a rat......
So, what's your source for the facts you state? This sounds like a lot of conjecture on your part. How do you know for a fact when bin Laden died and how? How do you know that the people who died in the Afghan chopper crash were the same people who undertook the bin Laden raid? Afterall, SEAL Team 6 is the organizational name of all counter-terrorist SEAL teams, no one knows how many members it has, but it is more than a small handful of guys.
Also, Obama's COMPOSITE approval ratings were running around 45%-48% at the time of getting Bin Laden, a level they had been at for some time. If you take individual poll results from Gallup, FOX and Rasmussen, they show a dip at that time that only got lower since. Other polls like CNN, Time, CBS, ABC, AP and Quinnipiac show that his rating had recovered from a low point in March and had been holding steady.
You also need to know what exactly the individual polls were polling on. Not all of them are overall approval polls and many only ask on specific topics. You (or someone on a conspiracy site) are choosing your facts to fit the story you want to hear.
Sorry, my sources are classified. I know that sounds like a cop-out line, but alas, it's the truth.
All I can tell you is that my Dad is retired NSA and still has some connections. And my little brother is a Marine Lieutenant currently stationed in Langley, VA.
Thanks for all the responses, guys!
Peace.
I've now seen the film and I appreciate ovcatto's linkage to the military tribunals associated with the ongoing war against Islamic extremists.
Our Bill of Rights is not now, nor has it ever been, absolute. We have freedom of speech, but we make exceptions for libel, exceptions for copyrights, exceptions for hate speech. We have freedom of religion, but make exceptions for religious practices which violate civil statutes, we will not allow the religious beliefs of parents to endanger the health of children. In short, it is actually The Bill of Rights With Exceptions ..arising from practical necessity.
So, when examining the situation with either the Lincoln conspirators, or the Islamic detainees, it is really an argument over the legitimacy of the particular exceptions being made.
According to the film, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton felt that the importance of suppressing anything which could retrigger animosities between the North and South in the war's immediate aftermath, overrode the concerns for due process and civil trials for the Lincoln conspirators. Either one agress that this was one of those needed exceptions, or one does not. Same deal with the Gitmo prisoners, either the needs of national security were great enough to justify tossing out due process, or they were not.
Typically the support for such actions is directly related to whether or not one supports the existing administration. The same people who might argue on behalf of Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus in the border states might also be those screaming the loudest about the Gitmo outrages.
As for the movie, "The Conspirator", I found it a little dull. It is an issue oriented movie at the expense of character. We do not learn much at all about the personality of Mrs. Surratt and there isn't any viewpoint introduced which would convince movie goers that she was either guilty or innocent. It does establish that regardless of her possible innocence, she did not receive a fair trial, and I suppose that this was Redford's point. That Redford would come down on the side of non justification for violating her civil rights, is evident by the "yes, necessary" pov being represented by only a couple of short speeches by Stanton, neither of which seemed too terribly persuasive.
Sorry, my sources are classified. I know that sounds like a cop-out line, but alas, it's the truth.
All I can tell you is that my Dad is retired NSA and still has some connections. And my little brother is a Marine Lieutenant currently stationed in Langley, VA.
Thanks for all the responses, guys!
Peace.
See the problem with a conspiracy theory is that they generally have to involve way too many people. If your dad is ex-NSA and your brothers a Marine Lt. at Langley and they know (or someone told them) the truth and they told you, then how many other people know? Why in this massive chain of people who know this secret from ex-NSA to Marine Lt.'s has no one become a whistle blower via a site like wikileaks or the major press?
Why are you so confident posting the "truth" and implicating both your brother and your father as letting you in on this massive state secret? Given that your IP address is easily found, there can't be that many guys using that IP whose dad is ex-NSA and brother is a Marine based at Langley. The black helicopters should be arriving soon...
Drummerboy...
Where is your evidence that Bin Ladin even underwent dialysis? The equipment had to come from somewhere, as well as the medical personnel needed for the procedure.
There is only one dialysis machine in all of Afghanistan- saw that on the news. And it's very improbable that Al-Quida would allow their leader to starve to death.
On the other hand, it's completely probable that Bin Ladin would buy land deep in Pakistan, build a compound that suited him on it, and hid out in plain sight. The best place to hide is always hiding in plain sight. There was no diyalasis equipment found there, no nurses, no filtering supplies. But there were 3 of his wives and some children who were caught. Which makes the most common sense?
He lived there for years. The buildings exist, which is far more proof than your tale of NSA stories.
And the NSA is a mighty big place. Rumors must circulate there, just as they do in any might big place.
Osama Bin Laden was interviewed in Afghanistan in 1998 by a former NYPD cop. The interview was published in 1999 in Esquire Magazine. There is no mention of him appearing to be in poor health, especially of having kidney problems so severe that they would kill him just a couple of years later. Not mentioning health issues doesn't mean they didn't exist; however, if you've read the interview, you know it's well-written and pretty comprehensive. I have only read of this kidney thing on conspiracy sites. Do you have a reputable source for the kidney/dialysis claim?
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