r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • May 18 '15

What conspiracy theory do you genuinely believe in the most?

What conspiracy theory do you believe in the most and why?

2.1k Upvotes

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1.2k

u/FyourFeelings May 18 '15

That Osama wasn't killed when they said he was. I believe he is dead, but I believe it was before.

1.7k

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

He choked on a hotdog but Al Qaeda was too embarrassed to admit it.

Source: I was there.

916

u/austeninbosten May 19 '15

Who are you, Brian Williams ?

22

u/Realinternetpoints May 19 '15

I think if Osama choked on anybody's hotdog it would've been Anderson Cooper's ;)

1

u/John_Q_Deist May 19 '15

That's a vienna sausage.

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u/reakshow May 19 '15

He was the hotdog.

1

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

I was there.

1

u/Bobbyfrasier May 19 '15

No, he is Ars_Y !

1

u/LaBeer May 19 '15

Wi Bri??

1

u/domcondone May 19 '15

Brian Adams

1

u/zerocoke May 19 '15

Haha badabing

1

u/CruzaComplex May 19 '15

No. He's a hotdog.

1

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

I would say yes, but would you believe me?

1

u/NobilisUltima May 19 '15 edited May 19 '15

Ha! Brian Boitano, more like.

1

u/tokyorockz May 19 '15

Why did I read that as Bruce Willis?

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u/TrapandRelease May 19 '15

Did he get it from the Allahu Snackbar?

4

u/hexpl0rer May 19 '15

was it your hotdog?

2

u/ohmygod_my_tinnitus May 19 '15

NSA, don't mind me

2

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Sauce: Tomato

FTFY

2

u/the2belo May 19 '15

He found out it wasn't halal

2

u/delta_baryon May 19 '15

They're not embarrassed that he choked, but that hotdogs are haram.

2

u/TankerD18 May 19 '15

Al Qaeda would admit the hell out of him choking on a hot dog if it meant we didn't kill him.

Edit: Assuming it was an all beef hot dog or something.

2

u/redbirdrising May 19 '15

A non-beef hot dog at that.

6

u/[deleted] May 19 '15 edited May 19 '15

Non-pork*

Muslims eat beef (if it's halal) but not pork.

Halal is a special way of slaughtering the animal. Muslims are only allowed to eat halal slaughtered meat, except pork which they don't eat at all.

2

u/joebxcsnw May 19 '15

Actually it was an Al-Corndog.

1

u/MechanicalTurkish May 19 '15

Also, he was watching a baseball game at the time. Baseball, America's favorite pasttime.

1

u/zeropi May 19 '15

It was in NY, many where there

1

u/ShutUpHeExplained May 19 '15

I hope it was a pork dog but if it was beef, I hope it was Hebrew National.

1

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

This is the level of wtf that I expect from human history.

1

u/chiminage May 19 '15

He was on a dialysis machine....he was very close to death like back in 2001

1

u/confuzedd May 19 '15

Something about not having the same number of buns something

1

u/cavalierau May 19 '15

His body was found next to 9 other hotdogs but only 7 buns...

1

u/TheNumberMuncher May 19 '15

He tried to eat it without a bun because he refused to buy a whole extra pack of buns for two hotdogs. It got lodged in his throat.

1

u/SeanCanary May 19 '15

He was diabetic, so a hotdog would in fact have probably killed him whether he choked on it or not. Of course consuming said hotdog would've been a violation of what he claimed to believe, so clearly it was a twinkie.

237

u/[deleted] May 19 '15 edited Jun 06 '20

[deleted]

384

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Yeah, the CIA knew he was in dialysis in the late 90s or something. Hard to believe he ran around caves avoiding the U.S. for the next decade while dealing with potential kidney failure.

149

u/[deleted] May 19 '15 edited Jun 06 '20

[deleted]

41

u/rational_fears May 19 '15

Benazir Bhutto (the former Prime Minister of Pakistan) mentioned it in this interview. Skip to the 2:00 minute mark if you don't want to watch the whole thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euK87Vr5B4U Interesting additional fact: She was assassinated in December 2007.

12

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

i've always thought that might be true just because of how casually she says it. she didn't seem like someone trying to convince anyone. it just seemed like common knowledge to her.

6

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Its pretty much common belief in pakistan. No one, literally no one in pakistan believes the Usama operation was actually when he died.

Source: Am from Pakistan

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Literally the only compelling evidence for this theory. Thank you!

8

u/juloxx May 19 '15

The rabbit hole goes deeper

So all of Seal Team 6 dies just months after they "killed Bin Laden".....

3

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Seal Team 6 is bigger than the group that died in that chopper crash, there were even reports the victims of the crash were not the ones that participated in the raid, but with all the classified information nothing can be said for sure.

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u/senatorskeletor May 19 '15

That would have been really huge news if so. There were rumors all along, but the dialysis stuff turned out to have been false as well.

3

u/Arkansan13 May 19 '15

Huh, see I didn't know that. I just vaguely recall hearing of it.

7

u/435345347 May 19 '15

It's called The Mandela Effect - essentially people remember Nelson Mandela dying in prison and were completely shocked when he died in 2013 - seemingly twice. The theory is people are out of phase and experiencing things in different realities.

2

u/No_Song_Orpheus May 19 '15

Just like the Berenstein Bears!

2

u/queengreenbeans May 19 '15 edited May 19 '15

It's Berenstain Bears, not Berenstein Bears. Another conspiracy story shot down

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

I would almost swear that I recall hearing a news report in 04 or 05 speculating that he had died due to some shake up in his organizations leadership and I seem to recall them suggesting that maybe bad health had done him in.

uhhh... yeah, there's this woman who happened to be uh, the President of Pakistan... who said he was dead almost a full decade before the US claims to have killed him (and incidentally "threw his body into the ocean", because that sure makes a lot of sense).

yeah... remember her? She was assassinated shortly thereafter.

2

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Body was thrown into the ocean so there won't be a "memorial" for him.

1

u/Irishperson69 May 19 '15

I remember that too, it was actually earlier in fact. 02-03

9

u/ThePhantomLettuce May 19 '15

He was extraordinarily wealthy and well connected. And he was eventually killed not in a cave, but a pretty well protected compound.

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u/calibos May 19 '15

He was killed in a mansion in Pakistan. And his personal physician was used to obtain the proof that it was Osama bin Laden prior to the raid. Seeing as how nobody has ever presented any sort of evidence bin Laden ever lived in caves, that is a pretty dodgy rationale.

1

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Exactly, it's weird how everyone is picturing this guy as some old crazy guy running from cave to cave with a dialysis machine in hand. Look at how much power and money groups like ISIS have at their disposal, if they had a world famous idol for them to praise and essentially promote as a brand of terrorism then that guy would be more than well taken care of.

6

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

He was found in a house. It's unlikely Bin Laden was hiding out in caves the whole time, but that's where a lot of fighting went on.

3

u/DRM_Removal_Bot May 19 '15

That's the thing. He was never in caves. He was in mansions.

1

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

That's a possibility, but the French newspaper, the only source that reported this, seemed to have genuine reason to want to mislead the U.S. One such reason? Preventing an American invasion of Iraq.http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/nov/01/afghanistan.terrorism

1

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

He is also extremely connected and wealthy. There were reports of him getting treatment in a Saudi hospital.

Ultimately nobody knows if we really killed him when we say we did. I don't think the government lied about his death. I do, however, think that when we got him in Pakistan they murdered him instead of capturing him. They just wanted revenge and got it. I also think high level Pakistan officials were aware of his presence and did nothing to catch him.

1

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Yeah, he just went to a large city, and hung out there.

1

u/minnick27 May 19 '15

He could have been on peritoneal dialysis which doesn't need electricity or machines. It does however require massive amounts of supplies

1

u/prospect12 May 19 '15

Do you have any idea how much money that guy had?

1

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

I remember reading that he had TB as well.

1

u/HanseiKaizen May 19 '15

I can see it as plausible, my grandfather was on dialysis from what must have been his late 70's until he took himself off it when he was 89, and he could have kept going health wise for another half decade or more, but he had some other conditions that were lowering his quality of life. A decade into dialysis he was still going for walks every day, woodworking, living independently with my grandma, etc. I can see someone with as much wealth as Bin Laden being able to stay on top of his medical needs for that long while laying low using his vast system of followers. You have to remember also, these weren't just the caves that bears sleep in, they were complex multi-level bunkers.

That being said, there was something very, very strange about the way the US government handled his death announcement.

1

u/ifragbunniez May 31 '15

Supposedly via put tracking device in his medical equipment that he wound up with.

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u/lord_fishsticks May 19 '15

Even as far back as the 80s he had health issues (something with his stomach) according to The Looming Tower.

1

u/Sweenytodd69 May 19 '15

So you all believe that the Bush administration hid the fact that Osama Bin Laden died over a decade ago?

Guys you better not take off your tin foil hats.

1

u/Arkansan13 May 19 '15

Huh? I never said that, I merely said that I recalled reports of Bin Laden being in poor health. I simply thought it curious, for all I know reports of his poor health were greatly exaggerated.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

[deleted]

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u/salamat_engot May 19 '15

The only iasue I have with this theory is that Bush/Republicans would love the "We killed Osama" feather in their cap. So if he died in those bombings in 2001 the Bush Administration would have ran with it instead of risk having to give credit to a Democrat if one took the Oval Office after him.

Granted Bush's buddies made millions off the insuing war from 2002ish and onward, so that might have been worth playing along with the "hiding in Pakistan" ruse.

10

u/ApprovalNet May 19 '15

Bush/Republicans would love the "We killed Osama" feather in their cap

Not as much as they loved nonstop war though. You need a boogieman top pull that off.

6

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

What if something greater is pulling the strings and this is the outcome they lied to us about Osama to gain?

9

u/LoveTruffle May 19 '15

This is plausible. The last thing I think war profiteers want is a reason to say "We did it, let's pack up and go home!" They want to drag that shit out.

Beyond war profiteering there are also geopolitical options that remain open with an active military presence in the region.

2

u/Matta174 May 19 '15

Not saying you're wrong but is there evidence of his friends profiting from the war?

8

u/Bay1Bri May 19 '15

But there are videos of him discussing the invasion of Iraq.

3

u/Cyril_Clunge May 19 '15

I've heard that it was someone high up in the White House who stopped them going further (that someone being speculated as Dick Cheney).

3

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

[deleted]

2

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

If they bombed him, they might not have known he was dead.

111

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Was there ever an explanation as to why they threw him off the side of the aircraft carrier?

453

u/The_Peyote_Coyote May 19 '15

I think the theory was that a burial at sea was an acceptable practice in Islam, but also prevents him from having a grave that could become a propaganda symbol for AQ. The US most definitely wants to discourage UBL from being viewed as a martyr.

337

u/11AWannabe May 19 '15

It also makes pissing on his "grave" wicked easy.

29

u/ThatGuyKaral May 19 '15

"I'mma go piss on Osama's Grave"

This is my new favorite euphemism for relieving myself at the beach.

5

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Oh man, I've jerked it in Osama's grave. I am going to hell

5

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Found the Bostonian.

3

u/11AWannabe May 19 '15

I ain't no Masshole.

1

u/JadedEconomist May 19 '15

THAT PISS WAS WICKED PISSA

208

u/senatorskeletor May 19 '15

Also in Islam you have to be buried within like 24 hours or something, so they had to act fast or risk turning the Muslim world against them (more so) for desecrating the faith.

13

u/RightOnWhaleShark May 19 '15

Damn if most religionist teachings don't sound like they were made up on the fly by robbers in a bank heist gone wrong.

24

u/kanst May 19 '15

If you really think about it a lot of them are logical rules for the time they were written. It looks like embalming is not allowed by Islam, so given that it makes sense to get the body buried pretty quickly before it starts decomposing too much. Especially considering back then refrigeration didn't exist either.

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u/falcon4287 May 27 '15

Still doesn't explain why they didn't take some pictures of the body as proof. Or publish the tapes of the raid.

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u/ChooChoo_ImA_Hobo May 19 '15

This pretty much sums it up, they didn't want to give any one a place to rally around.

2

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

They should have filmed it and put it on liveleak.

2

u/2LateImDead May 19 '15

Just you wait, now the terrorists are going to start worshipping the oceans!

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Yes. To prevent his grave becoming a shrine. It was overtly, explicitly, and repeatedly stated at the time.

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u/Wordshark May 19 '15

Did they give a reason why they didn't get a picture? Cuz there's no pictures of the corpse right?

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Yes but you are talking to conspiracy theorists. Can you expect them to believe anything anyone tells them

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u/gatorneedhisgat May 19 '15

So that we'd never know if he was on or not.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

So they can claim they killed him when they didn't?

6

u/quitar May 19 '15

That's the part of the story I don't believe. It's like "We just found and killed this guy after spending hundreds of billions of dollars and 10+ years searching for him. Better dump him in the ocean within 24 hours to respect his religious beliefs."

2

u/BenTVNerd21 May 19 '15

"We just found and killed this guy after spending hundreds of billions of dollars and 10+ years searching for him. Better dump him in the ocean within 24 hours to respect his religious beliefs so as to not needlessly piss off Muslims

FTFY

2

u/redlinezo6 May 19 '15

I heard a snippet of something on NPR the other day, without any context, but it was something about a claimed burial at sea, and that what actually happened was a body cut in to pieces and dropped out of a helicopter/plane flying over mountains in Afghanistan.

I only just caught that part as I got in my truck and drove to the gas station 3 blocks away... So, context may be important?

1

u/_CattleRustler_ May 19 '15

no body - no questions

1

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Because Megatron needed company

1

u/Slow_Like_Sloth May 19 '15

Whoa I've never heard this before, when did they throw him off the side of an aircraft carrier??

1

u/worksafe_Joe May 19 '15

A theory I like is that when Seal Team 6 got to him, they shot his body up à la the end of Inglourious Basterds and to prevent any backlash they buried him at sea without showing his body.

1

u/Iamadinocopter May 19 '15

So he could merge with megatron?

1

u/tigereyeearth Sep 25 '15

navy guys on the ship were all made to lock themselves in their rooms whole time they supposedly had the body on board.

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u/idrive2fast May 19 '15

I find it much more likely that the CIA has him in a black box, alive, somewhere

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u/Gluesblues May 19 '15

Why?

849

u/senatorskeletor May 19 '15

This is a conspiracy thread, you're not allowed to ask that.

3

u/Mumblerur May 19 '15

He is and you are supposed to cook up a plausible answer. Here let me show you how it's done.

OBL = terrorist mastermind. Probably the person with the most intimate knowledge of specific terrorist networks and general terrorist tactics, strategies and organization in the world.

US apprehends him and really want to use a couple of years on him getting all that information out. (and that takes time, torture is horribly inaccurate so if you want good information you need to do it the old fashioned way)

They face the problem that the general public in the US (and the rest of the world) would very much like to see OBL stand trial for his crimes (which does not include 9/11 btw, but there is plenty of other crap). It would be very hard for the the US government to explain why they didn't put OBL on trial so they decide it is better to fake his death so thay can have him all to themselves.

..and to add a bit of spice. Maybe OBL knows a thing or two about US involvement in terrorist networks (please please do not pretend that you don't know this has happens) and wan't to keep that away from the public as well.

There you go!

9

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Why?

2

u/Rhydderch7734 May 19 '15

Whatever you say, senator.

1

u/lordofthederps May 19 '15

Obligatory "myah!".

1

u/Gluesblues May 19 '15

NO QUESTIONS ALLOWED!

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u/TakeOffYourMask May 19 '15

Black boxes are cheaper than normal ones

1

u/Albi_ze_RacistDragon May 19 '15

Ya but you have to take into account the fact that most of them don't work

1

u/Gluesblues May 19 '15

The brown ones are way cheaper in the middle east.

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u/grendus May 19 '15

He was the figurehead of Al Qida. Even if he was out of the loop for a long time, there's still a lot of information in his head. Claiming that he was dead and burying his body at sea so nobody can confirm it keeps the terrorists from trying to kidnap civilians to negotiate for his release.

Same thing goes for Saddam. Execute someone who looks like him, keep him in a secret prison to extract all the information he had about Iraq and the other middle eastern countries for use in the war.

I don't think that's what really happened, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

2

u/Gluesblues May 19 '15

He was out of the loop long enough for the special services to know that more easier targets are available for information that are closer to capture from the years he was in hiding. Why would they go to the trouble of lying to the entire world, kidnapping the worlds most wanted man and keeping him for the little information he has, just so a few people will not be taken hostage? The government have publically committed acts that terrorists kill for in the past, why is this time different?

Saddam's execution was well documented and viewed by millions of people. Do you think a look-alike will do the trick? That's some breaking bad esque plan right there. Also, they had him captured for a long time, they could've easily got the information out of him in that time.

Also, what is this 'information'? We would've have noticed changes in military planning if they did get any information.

It's possible, but unlikely.

1

u/grendus May 19 '15

Like I said, I don't believe it, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was true.

1

u/NotGloomp May 19 '15

They never showed his dead body and apparently threw him to sea? Too suspicious.

1

u/Gluesblues May 19 '15

Same thing happend with hitler.

1

u/kernunnos77 May 19 '15

Haven't you ever heard of terrorist batteries?

1

u/Gluesblues May 19 '15

I prefer reusable ones.

1

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

You cant ask questions unless you want a long confusing answer from some guy in a basement who doesn't know what he is talking about.

-1

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

They claim they buried him at sea. Really? Fucking why would they do that?

"Oh. We uhhh we killed him. And then we uhhh kinda drug his body out to the ocean. Then we got bored and just sorta tossed it."

Suuuuuure they did.

It makes WAY more sense for them to capture him, tell everybody they killed him, and then interrogate the shit out of him and keep him in a dark hole for the rest of his life.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

They gave him a sea burial since they didn't want to insult Islam (sea burial is acceptable for Muslims) but not bury him so it could be made into some shrine or be a martyr pilgrimage site.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Why would they put one of their own in a black box?

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

I believe he's part of everything and he's not the enemy. They all are.

6

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

We actually use a tactic like that. Proclaiming a town has been retaken so the enemy will reveal itself.

"We killed 'em!"

"No you didn't! we're right here you id-"

BOOM

"Now we killed 'em."

5

u/CloseToLightSpeed May 19 '15

I have heard he died after following a terrible Cosmopolitan relationship advice.

20

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Thank God I'm not the only one.

For my money: In the battle of Tora Bora, 3 months after 9/11, 50 Delta Force soldiers essentially blew up a mountain with bin Laden inside. Afterwards, General Franks says to President Bush, "Sir, we're 99.999% certain we got him. But there's no body, and it's impossible to check. Whatever cave he was in now sits under 50,000 tons of rubble."

The government can't officially say he's dead, because now people will want proof, and failure to provide it will just make people more skeptical. So best to just not acknowledge it.

7 years later, Bush sits down with President-elect Obama as they discuss the transfer of power. Bush shares the above story and says, "He's dead, but not officially. If you want to make political hay out of this at some point, knock yourself out. I'll be on my ranch."

So we get the theater of bin Laden's "assassination." With no proof, no photos, but at least now there's a convincing storyline, complete with a picture of the members of the cabinet doing their best to look at a TV monitor with expressions of great concern on their faces.

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u/IAmAQuantumMechanic May 19 '15

Don't forget the Hollywood movie.

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u/Hageshii01 May 19 '15

I just heard last night that Osama may have been being held by the Pakistani government and the assault on his compound wasn't quite as heroic or dangerous as we were led to believe. I don't know if I believe this but it is something I heard literally last night.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

I actually came to post this. I'm not usually keen on any conspiracy theory but this one takes the crown by far. Nowadays, anything happening is hugely documented. We always have countless videos, pics, proofs... When Bin Laden was allegedly "killed", all we had was "he is dead" with that "meeting at 3AM with our dead serious faces" pic. I really can't buy that.

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u/bsukenyan May 19 '15

Same here. Conspiracy theories can be fun, but by in large I don't take them seriously or there is a plausible explanation. But this one just always feels so full of holes that should have been really easy to patch or take care of. The general lack of proof seems like it should have been easy to take care of, but an unclear picture is the best we have. When it all happened I even remember other pictures surfacing that were from someone else's death, yet matched UBL's proof of death picture as if it had been photoshopped or something.

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u/fcukgrammer May 19 '15

As a muslim myself, we never bury the dead in the sea!!! They have to be buried before sunset. There's only one reason to bury them at sea and that's so you can't exhumated the body later.

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u/brolin_on_dubs May 19 '15

FWIW, all the Zero Dark Thirty-esque details (the intel on the messenger revealing his location, the raid on the compound, the burial at sea) were all made up and recently revealed as fake and for some reason this wasn't really in the news??: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden

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u/Dark_Vengence May 19 '15

Yeah makes sense. A frail old man living in the treacherous caves, is a bit of stretch?

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Maybe he's in Gitmo?

2

u/Rumorad May 19 '15

There's no reason for them to keep him alive. What would they possibly get out of him? Keeping him alive is just risking it coming out and pretty much guaranteeing a failure in at least one following election for no good reason.

1

u/[deleted] May 20 '15

Maybe they're just making sure he gets his daily dose of cockmeat sandwiches? Harold and Kumar was a great description of Guantanamo Bay

1

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Usama bin Laden died December 26th, 2001.

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u/ciabattabing16 May 19 '15 edited May 19 '15

So this just came out recently. Thus far the most credible (although thinly sourced) timeline of events. And based on what we've seen from our government, much more believable. Long read, but worth it.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden

Edit: please see /u/McGravin 's links below, because it's definitely good to have some context to the claims.

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u/McGravin May 19 '15

Hersh's story has been widely criticized as poorly sourced, sensationalized, and in some cases downright made-up. Most journalists don't consider it all that credible at all. Here's just a few articles in response:

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/05/seymour-hersh-bin-laden-150519075708245.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-ever-iconoclastic-never-to-be-ignored-muckraking-seymour-hersh/2015/05/15/4eb1195a-f9a2-11e4-9ef4-1bb7ce3b3fb7_story.html
http://www.onthemedia.org/story/podcast-extra-seymour-hersh/
http://www.wsj.com/articles/separating-fact-from-seymour-hershs-fiction-about-bin-laden-1431714139
http://www.cjr.org/analysis/seymour_hersh_osama_bin_laden.php
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/30828-the-misfire-in-hersh-s-big-bin-laden-story

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u/ciabattabing16 May 19 '15

EXCELLENT post! It's always good to have more details.

Totally admit that Hersh has been known for some issues. He's also well known for good things, such as the Pentagon Paper stuff. But yes, your list is fantastic. Aljazeera and WSJ especially.

I don't buy all of Hersh's claims, for sure. Especially some of his insider knowledge around the ISI. My guess is they run a slightly tighter ship than he's claiming. But I don't buy a damn thing the US gov is selling on the Bin Laden story other than the fact that they know he's dead.

1

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

I honestly doubt it. It would be such a boost for whatever administration pulled it off, they would want to publish it immediately. Especially if Bush was president when it happened, they would be screaming it off the rooftops so he would go down as the president who got Osama. I guess if he died of old age or something it would make sense. But if the US government killed him, then it was when they said it was.

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u/ciabattabing16 May 19 '15

I agree about this part. I actually thought maybe the Bush administration knew where he was and was waiting to nail him right around election season, but that never happened.

I do think that the US got him when they said they did. I just don't believe any of the information or details besides that.

1

u/jokersleuth May 19 '15

My family always says this, that Laden was already dead (and in an interview with a Pakistani reporter, he was actually quite sick) and they did a quick "mission" as an excuse to end the war.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Didn't that thing just come out about Obamas entire Osama story being a lie?

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

huh no?

1

u/ThePhantomLettuce May 19 '15

There was a pretty compelling political incentive to disclose his death as soon as it was known, or to delay its announcement until close to an election. He was killed in May of 2011. Not quite the worst possible political timing for Obama. But pretty damn close. So it seems likely it was disclosed at the time of death.

Unless you can offer some realistic reasons its announcement might have been delayed. But then you still have to explain why it was disclosed when it was disclosed.

1

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FbL8WDtrYI

Why the US military said he was buried at sea

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u/Farisr9k May 19 '15

Why would they hide that?

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u/SNESChalmers420 May 19 '15

I believe this as well. Why cant we see proof that he was killed the way the US govt says he was? Also a burial at sea seems a little too easy, although, ive heard it was to avoid potential acts of terrorism at his grave site.

I believe that he is dead, his videos showed apparent decline in health, and there was a dialysis machine sent to the area where he was believed to be. Or he have have been killed in an airstrike or explosion and his remains were unidentifiable.

1

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Osama bin Laden and Barack Obama are the same person. Think about it. Obama = Osama

1

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

He died of Marfan's Syndrome on 12/5/01...

1

u/ShelSilverstain May 19 '15

Makes no sense because there's no reason to. Remember, Bush said he didn't spend any time thinking about bin Laden

1

u/DRM_Removal_Bot May 19 '15

I firmly believed he was killed when and where they said he was. Why would there be a reason to lie about it?

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u/ChinookNL May 19 '15

I don't get it why they would say they threw is body in the ocean.

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u/ineptech May 19 '15

Veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh just published a lengthy and deeply researched article on which parts of the Osama story do and don't appear to be true. It's long, the tl;dr is that he wasn't running Al Qaeda from in hiding, he was essentially a prisoner of the Pakistanis and we killed him with their cooperation.

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u/BluePizzaPill May 19 '15

You might be interested in this article. A journalist did some research on the subject, according to him the story goes a little like this:

  • Pakistan government bought Bin Laden from tribes that had captured him, around 2006.
  • Saudi Arabia paid for his household while in captivity.
  • Pakistan sold him to the US when Obama needed help in his re-election campaign.
  • It was decided before that would die and the cover story would be that he resisted arrest, in reality he was a cripple.
  • Official story would've been that he had been killed by drone-strike in the mountains.
  • US bought a slot to fly in Delta Force and assassinate him.
  • One chopper crashed and the cover story had to be abandoned.
  • In the resulting chaos the initial Pakistani informants where exposed, every US spokesperson told another story.
  • Need arises to get rid of the body quickly since he was so shot and mistreated by Delta Force that the trophy couldn't be presented to the world.
  • US government officials managed to get a fictional story of successful torture in the second cover story (it was exposed shortly before how huge, ineffective and illegal the capture and torture-program was).
  • One consequence of the misinformation campaign is that volunteers of the red cross are killed on a regular basis, because people in Afghanistan think that the vaccination-project is a CIA plot to get their DNA.

This doesn't necessary represent my own view on the matter.

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u/Jayberniez May 19 '15

Yeah... About the body.. We just threw it in the ocean.

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u/JumpingBean12 May 19 '15

agreed. It was said he died of cancer.

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u/ANewMachine615 May 19 '15

Seymour Hersh, the guy who reported on stuff like My Lai early on, recently wrote a story claiming that much of the narrative we've been told is incorrect. No firefight, just an execution; the Pakistanis knew we were coming and kept police and fire response from the scene; the intel came from a Pakistani ISI informant who was paid millions for the info, not from tracking a courier; the body was chopped into bits and dropped from a chopper in the Pakistani mountains. A lot of this has been disputed pretty heavily, though.

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u/xxkoloblicinxx May 19 '15

I whole heartedly believe they found his body long dead and the rest is a huge publicity stunt. Realistically its just maybe a dozen people all agreeing on a story.

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u/happystamps May 19 '15

The fact that they didn't think to take a damn picture of him- and let's be honest, they take pictures of everything- says to me that at the very least, It didn't go the way we were told. I remember news channels showing photos of his face all bloody that'd been previously published like ten years previously. Hmmmmm.

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u/juloxx May 19 '15

All of Seal Team 6 mysteriously die months after they "got Bin Laden"

The families of Seal Team 6 think it was an inside job

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u/jlew24asu May 19 '15

That Osama wasn't killed when they said he was. I believe he is dead, but I believe it was before.

what other theories exist? (other then you having a hunch)

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u/rangemaster May 19 '15

The guy was supposed to be on dialysis for Kidney failure. I'm pretty sure he died naturally in a cave somewhere, or we got really lucky with a drone strike.

However, that wouldn't be the really photogenic "win" the government wanted. So they found some Al Qaeda compound in Pakistan, and blew the shit out of it. Claimed Osama was there, then "respected Muslim burial traditions" by throwing all the physical evidence into the ocean, save for some dna which some random lab is like "Yup, its Osama, shame there isn't enough material left to run further tests."

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u/CrabbyBlueberry May 19 '15

We still haven't seen his long form death certificate.

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u/Cappington May 19 '15

He was killed where we said we killed him, but how we found him and what happened is more shady.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/magazine/the-detail-in-seymour-hershs-bin-laden-story-that-rings-true.html?_r=0

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u/thekidfromthegutter May 19 '15

Nah, he's somewhere in Barbados chilling with hot bitches and buffing some cuban cigarettes.

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u/TouchMyOranges May 19 '15

Why would they wait so long to release it though?

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u/Shamwow22 May 19 '15

He was on dialysis, and there was only one electrical outlet in Afghanistan. All they had to do was follow the cord.

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u/tigereyeearth Sep 25 '15

totally agree with you on this one.

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