Back in my Patterico days, both I and Patrick were very hard on Obama’s decision to have bin Laden buried at sea, supposedly out of respect for Islamic tradition (except it wasn’t) before there was any independent verification that we actually killed him. We felt that doign it that way robbed the families of the 9-11 victims of closure, and gave fertile ground for conspiracy theories. And so now today via Althouse we get this article from the Wikileaking of Stratfor’s databases:
Leaked: Bin Laden not buried at sea, body moved on CIA plane to US
The body of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was not buried at sea, according to leaked emails of intelligence firm Stratfor, as revealed by WikiLeaks.
Wow, holy crap, that means the Obama administration was not as dumb about this as I thought. I take it back, I mean...
Except, um, wait a minute:
Stratfor’s vice-president for intelligence, Fred Burton, believes the body was “bound for Dover, [Delaware] on [a] CIA plane” and then “onward to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Bethesda [Maryland],” an email says.
(Emphasis added.) Um, he believes? As in he isn’t sure?
The official version is that the body of Al-Qaeda’s top man, who was killed by a US raid in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, was buried at an undisclosed location at sea in a proper Muslim ceremony.
"If body dumped at sea, which I doubt, the touch is very Adolph Eichman like. The Tribe did the same thing with the Nazi's ashes," Burton commented in another email. Eichman was one of the masterminds of the Holocaust by Nazi Germany. He was captured by Mossad agents in Argentina and, tried in Israel, found guilty and executed in 1962. His body was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea over the Mediterranean.
“Which I doubt” means he is speculating...
"Eichmann was seen alive for many months on trial before being sentenced to death and executed. No one wanted a monument to him so they cremated him. But i dont know anyone who claimed he wasnt eicjhman [sic]. No comparison with suddenly burying him at sea without any chance to view him which i doubt happened [sic]," Stratfor CEO George Friedman replied.
(emphasis added.) Again, “doubt,” which is not the same as having knowledge one way or the other.
"The US Govt needs to make body pics available like the MX's do, with OBL's pants pulled down, to shout down the lunatics like Alex Jones and Glenn Beck," Burton says in another message.
Not sure how pulling down his pants help, but...
Oh wait, maybe this is what they are talking about:
Moving on:
In another missive Burton says Osama’s body “is a crime scene and I don’t see the FBI nor DOJ letting that happen.”
Again, “I don’t see” is speculative language.
So bluntly, the quotes in the article emphatically do not match the headline. They are not saying they have any knowledge. They are just saying they can’t believe that bin Laden would really be buried at sea, because it is inconceivable (probably because it was a dumb move).
And it’s more than a little disappointing to see this intelligence agency focused on convincing Americans. I have always been more interested in convincing the Muslim world of bin Laden’s mortality.
I would be curious as to whether the world thinks he is really dead or not.
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We really only have two choices here, dead or alive. If he's dead, Obama is stupid for not showing the proof. If he's alive, and since he hasn't come out with a new video saying, "ha! I'm not dead!" then it's safe to say that he's having his fingernails slowly removed in some underground prison. To claim we killed him while he's still on the run would make the country look stupid, weak, and inept. But, to claim he is dead when we have him and are extracting information from him would be genius.
ReplyDeleteI think I'm gonna have to go with him being dead and Obama being stupid. If we didn't dump him at sea, we aren't going to gain anything by sending his corpse to Langley, San Francisco, or Timbuktu. There is no terrorist gene that we could hope to study, no scientific use for him. Of course, that would fit in with Obama being stupid. Eh, screw it. Obama is definitely dumb enough to keep a souvenir.
well, here's another possibility. some reports suggest that bin laden had checked out of the jihad.
ReplyDeleteso maybe we killed the wrong guy... and bin laden decided this was the perfect way to disappear and live to be an old man.
who knows? i tend to think he is dead and yes, obama is stupid enough to have buried him at sea.
Burying him at sea prevents the creation of some martyred holy ground where his body lies (or is stored).
ReplyDeleteAnd no, you don't need to keep the body around for proof. That's lunacy. The "proof" is that bin Laden hasn't popped up in a video saying "No, the great Satan U.S. is lying. Here I am."
And besides, if rogue Muslim elements WANT to believe bin Laden is still alive, who cares? It only makes them look like morons. Kind of like the birthers who spent years clamoring for "proof" of Obama's Hawaiian birth.
>> The "proof" is that bin Laden hasn't popped up in a video saying "No, the great Satan U.S. is lying. Here I am."
ReplyDeleteThat is a good point and it makes plenty of sense, yet, I think he is alive, and for no astute reason; I just do.
There were no photos to supposedly protect the family (?). So, why weren't photos of Gadhaffi spared from public view to 'spare the family?' ..Who knows, and it really doesn't matter, I just know my intuition meter is steady at 'high.'
But, what would I know---I'm still waiting for proof that Obama's mother gave birth in the US. :) ..CL