h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes the last one had occurred to me as well...

Call me naive, but I hadn't even considered that... But now that you come to mention it...

I find it salutary that they finally found OBL not by torture/waterboarding in Guantanamo, but by using technology and reasoned thinking.

Which begs the question, after Bush found the top 3 "high-priority" targets under OBL in 3 of Pakistan's major cities, WHY did he keep looking in Tora Bora/the kush/caves in Afghanistan? "Gee, there's this huge high-security house being built right by the Military Academy, I wonder who's moving in?"

Even weirder is all the Bushies who are tying themselves in knots trying to claim Bush accomplished the capture, and trying even harder to not say the name Obama at all...although, to their credit, they are praising the armed forces.

Just heard that the Obama administration won't release the photos/video of the raid at all. We'll see if that lasts.

Not sure if he's dead, but he's definitely not at large.

If the US were going to fake his capture/death it would be an even bigger risk than trying to fake the moon landings. The possibility of their being exposed as having lied about either is simply unacceptable. All it would take is for OBL to turn up on video with a copy of today's Kabul Times in shot for the US to be a laughing stock. For that reason alone, the man they got will have been very carefully checked out to make sure he's the right one.

As for torturing him - I doubt it. One to the head and another to the chest sounds more realistic, given the type of team that apparently went in after him.

The only question is - are the Pakistanis corrupt or incompetent? Those are the only two possibilities. They either knew the world's most wanted man was living in relative comfort literally spitting distance from their equivalent of Sandhurst, in which case someone high up in their army needs putting in Guantanamo Bay sharpish, or they didn't know, in which case thanks for nothing you bunch of utter numpties.

I can see why someone would give an enemy proper funerary rites, I just wouldn´t expect the US to do it. Probably because I´ve gotten used to the Bush administration, but Obama could be the better man. Though I´m surprised they didn´t keep him on ice for a bit first, but I guess the ocean dumping would have been harder to pull off then.

Probably right about the torturing.

Some of the sheer wibble coming out of Pakistan and from the conspiracy theorists is top quality though.

The Daily Mash has a take:

"As Osama Bin Laden was gunned down while giving a sensuous back rub to Pakistan's head of intelligence, the country said it thought it saw a massive bat." http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/'good-god!-what-the-hell's-that?'-shouts-pakistan-201105033768/

I caught 'the Moral maze' for once on Radio 4 last night and agreed with Portillo...amazing...love his Railway progs and now I agree with him. He said taking him alive and putting him on trial would give terrorists umpteen opportunities/reasons to carry out attacks during those periods as protests etc. If he was to be put to death even more.

Simplest solution: take him out (of the picture) totally.

I think Melanie Phillips said when in a war you don't arrest the heads of the armies etc you eliminate them only arresting and putting heads on trial once the war is over.

And yes of course he is dead as twiggers has explained...easily proved wrong.

Did they shoot an un-armed man? Would you trust the head of an organisation that uses explosive vest, road side bombs etc to put thier hands up without an itching thought he may have a few kilos of explosive strapped to him?

All these armchair liberalists and Geoffery Robinson need to put themselves into the position of those Navy Seals...if Binlid Den was conscious he was a danger...best way to make him not conscious quickly is a bullet to the head.

Yah, I think he's dead cos it'd be too much of a cock-up if he wasn't, for the reasons stated.

<>

No they aren't. Some of the Pakistani secret service, the ISI, are apparently pro-Al Qaeda. Some aren't. There's more than likely an unGolden mean in between the two.* There seems to be a very quiet civil war going on there, which, hopefully, won't start to garner more headlines soon.



*As an aside, how difficult would it be to hide one person anyway?

It would have been pretty dumb to claim that he was dead and then have him pop up next week as right as rain. Of course he's dead. Move on to a new bonkers conspiracy theory.

PP

Well, the latest one I´ve seen is the CIA have said they are planning false flag attacks, to pin on Pakistan. Seems a bit counterproductive to state that up front, even if they were doing false flag attacks. The claim was made by a man named Webster Tarpley on a news segment that a Pakistani aquaintance linked to.

"are the Pakistanis corrupt or incompetent? Those are the only two possibilities>>

No they aren't. Some of the Pakistani secret service, the ISI, are apparently pro-Al Qaeda. Some aren't."

So the ISI is a curate's egg, eh? Corruption does not require unanimity. If enough are corrupt, then the organisation as a whole is corrupt. Or, as I said, incompetent. Those really are the only two possibilities, and I think we all know which is likely.

There is another posibility that they could be to differing or equal parts both incompotent and corrupt/double-dealing.

Im as much againts terrorism as the next man as long as the next man is a Free French Sabotuer.

I think that under the circumstances the best thing to do was to simply bump him off. After the fact people can wring their hands and suggest conspiraccies all they like but we all know "whats done is done".

To my mind though the only possible thing that could have been better would to have rendered him off to Saudi Arabia or some other puppet state. Then start rounding up other Al-Qers to make it look like Osama was singing like a canary followed by having him executed.

More publicity and negative press for terrorists as at the moment all the international spin seems to be more anti than pro US, but as I say anything that wasnt quick, clean and simple would have presented many more problems and chances for pitfalls.

Hmm, has anyone seen Omid Djalili since Monday? Coincidence??

>but as I say anything that wasnt quick, clean and simple would have presented many more problems and chances for pitfalls.<

Are western democracies so puny and pathetic that they couldn't deal with that? I reckon Britain could have, and would have done.

I'm no fan of appeasement not in the slightest..but in this case..he's a just a 'that thing which floats on waterE,' criminal..we put them on trial.

Beside which the story coming out keeps changing. Quick, clean, and simple isn't what's being said..except I think that's the latest story the yanks may have put out.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13313201

"Al-Qaeda 'confirms Bin Laden's death'"

So that settles it...tho Al-Qeada maqy be lying to give a reason for it's followers to carry out more attacks...there you go conspiracy theories still going on...so easy...

Don't worry, they have his brain pickled in a jar somewhere waiting for cloning technology to meet their requirements

Three things:

It took 10 years to find the guy.

If captured, however unlikely it might have been, he could have escaped.

Is there any doubt he was innocent of what he was charged with? By his own taped testimony, NO.


The rest is quibbling.

>The rest is quibbling.<

We take a different approach in the UK and use due process of law to try those suspected of criminal activity.

But yeah the US do things their way.

""Is there any doubt he was innocent of what he was charged with? By his own taped testimony, NO.""

untill you get into a court and the defence spouts out that it was just "propaganda" and does the prosecution have any indipendant evidence that my client did what you claim, and would you be so good as to show it to us please?????

You beat the terrorists the moment you put one of them in court. It's called civilisation.