By Jaime Ortega Simo
Jonathan Birdwell
Dear Jaime,
Thanks for your email. However, I’m afraid if you were expecting me to stoke your conspiratorial fires then you’ve come to the wrong person.
Yes I believe OBL is dead and that he died earlier this year in the successful raid on his compound.
It does not make sense for the US Government to lie about this. Do you really think that they would report his death if they weren’t sure beyond a shadow of a doubt? How embarrassing do you think it would be for the U.S. Government to announce his death and then, whoops, nope sorry he wasn’t dead after all? That would be an absolute catastrophic embarrassment. Moreover, why did the jihadis themselves also admit his death only then?
Perhaps you think he actually died in 2007 and that the U.S. Government knew this but for some reason kept it hidden. If you do believe that, can I just ask one question: why? Why would they hold that information back? Why would they not want to declare victory as soon as possible? If you do believe this then I would be very interested in your answer.
Moreover, where is your source that Turkish intelligence claimed his death in 2007? Likewise with Benazir Bhutto? I’m sure they were speculating, otherwise where is their evidence? Do they have pictures that are not ‘shady’? Why should you believe these ‘heavy weights’? Do you not think they might also have hidden reasons for speculating on his death – or is it just the US Government’s motives that you question?
Or, perhaps you don’t even believe he existed in the first place – or that 911 was an inside job? I sure hope not for the sake of journalism.
If you want to read some amazing journalism on the subject of OBL I highly recommend Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower, and Steve Coll’s Ghost Wars.
Good luck with your article.
Best wishes,
Jonathan
Jonathan, re your question to Jaime about believing 911 was an inside job, I would like to ask you some questions in response.
Do you think that the 911 Commission did its job in uncovering the truth about 911?
Did President Bush and Dick Cheney act reasonably when they thought not to investigate 911?
Did they behave reasonably when Bush and Cheney refused to testify on oath and would only testify behind closed doors and off the record?
Do the 911 victims family members who actually forced the US Gov to launch an investigation have any right to know how Bush and Cheney performed while America was under attack?
Do the 911 victims family members have a right to know what their government knew about the suspected terrorists prior to 911?
Hello Neil.
As a journalist, I am skeptical about news in general. But also the problem resides in obtaining credible information about any story. Personally, Osama Bin Laden’s Assassination was carried out in a rather strange and quick momentum without any reliable confirmation outside of U.S. Government sources. That itself is a bias interpretation of reality.
We did see the death and pictures of Saddam Hussein when he was hanged for his humanitarian crimes, and the U.S. was rather accepting of showing his hanged body to the press and the world. Technically speaking Saddam was worst than Osama in many ways, so its rather strange that one was publicly trialed and executed while the other had no trial and was rather put to sleep without trial.
Somethings don’t match.
Hello Jaime.
The US administration watched a live video feed of the Bin Laden raid according to the BBC, Sky News, Fox News and all other media that I watched. We saw the picture of Hilary looking like she was gasping in shock at what she was witnessing etc. We had the media debate on weather the photographs of Bin Laden’s body should be released. I called BBC radio 5 live and expressed my wish that we should be shown the live video feed recording that the White House claimed it had seen. To date, I have seen no credible evidence that Bin Laden was captured or killed in any raid. I was hoping to see something concrete but instead we were treated to some fairy tale about a sea burial.
I’m still waiting to see an interview with Bin Laden’s widows, but I suspect there is as much chance of that as seeing Khalid Sheik Mohammed stand trial in a civil court on US television.
Hello Neal,
Possibly, your on to something. I am the first skeptic to believe any theory without proof or missing background.
I have spoken to quite a few experts and high quality sources about a ‘possible manipulative motive for covering up OBN’s death,” but the common response would be why? Quite frankly, it is an interesting point of view.
There must be loads of interest in the problem, for the U.S. Goverment to actually cover up or manufacture such a skew way to get rid of OBN.
For what I’ve seen, I don’t swallow the official story as it lacks transparency. However, I do believe he died prior to what the official story foretold.
The C.I.A. and the I.C. have the resources with collaboration of the Interpol, and the FIA (Pakistani intelligence) to fund an operation and locate OBN.
What probably happened, is they got rid of him a few years back after the war started, but kept him alive, using old footage videos, for the U.S. uneducated audiences to chase an imaginary shadow in a war destined to privatize Afghanistan and democratize it, to allow the U.S. banking system to have control overseas.
But Afghanistan, is a lost cause from the start of the war, and been so historically for any nation trying to conquer it. so I believe they were waiting to “show the OBN card” in the right momentum to give the U.S. tax pay dollar citizens a time to rejoice after all the military hardware spent over the years which has ‘not’ help the U.S. financial crisis by any means.
I think this is likely the explanation. But he is probably dead.
It is likely
Two links for you Jonathan…
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/323364
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/galleryoffakebinladens.php
Any questions?
The current bin laden documents they just found are quite significant. Furthermore, I just read on NYtimes about the English Al qaeda journal starting again.
My sister suggested this site and she was completely right in every way Keep up all the fantastic work