OBL is alive and (not) well and living in a safehouse by you (long)

This is my first post, so let me appologize up front for any procedural violations.

And yes, this is another OBL post, but I can't find this issue addressed in any of the other threads. Everyone here and in the physical world seems to be arguing about when OBL died, or whether it was OK to kill OBL in Pakistan, or whether it even happened because there is no physical proof.

This post is not about any of that. This post is about why the information came out the way it did and what that can tell us. As you probably guessed from the title, I think that we got OBL out of Pakistan alive and we are now interrogating him. I didn't come to this conclusion quickly, it took many hours of observation and analysis.

There are only three possibilities at the root of this:

1. OBL has been dead for years
2. OBL was killed on May 1st, 2011 in Pakistan (the official story)
3. OBL is still alive

I would like to examine these possibilities in light of what has come out over the last few days. This stuff has been really bothering me for the last few days, so please, if you see flaws in logic or errors in fact let me know. I really want to stop thinking about this.

1. OBL has been dead for years

My wife came into the bedroom at 10:40 PM (we are in EST time zone). She was very agitated because of the announcement that the President would speak in a few minutes with no subject given. I turned on the tv and within a few minutes we were told that the announcement would concern OBL. I believe my exact response was "pfft, are they going to announce that he has been dead for years?" At which point I turned off the tv and went back to sleep. I started watching the news and surfing the net early Monday morning and there was a bunch of stuff coming out from official and other channels. I took it all with a grain of salt because I "knew" that he was long dead. Then I heard that they had dumped the body into the sea and that made absolutely no sense to me at all. That is when I really started paying attention to what the white house was saying.

The thought process that I used to think through this entire thing was to put myself into the shoes of the person who is running this operation. From now on when I refer to "you" I am referring to you in that position. You are running the operation and making the calls. If you can't or are unwilling to mentally step into that role, think of "you" as "them" with them being a government agent from whatever branch/alphabet agency that would be responsible for this kind of stuff.

OK, here we go. If you are going to run this op (for whatever reason) and OBL is dead, one of two conditions must exist. You either have his body, or you do not have his body. Lets do the easy one first.

You do not have the body. If you are high enough and trusted enough in the Obama administration to be give the assignment of running this op it is unlikely that you would have first hand knowledge of OBL's death. Considering that most of the people who think OBL is long dead think that he died around 2002, in order to have first hand knowledge of OBL's death you would have had to be very high and very trusted in the Bush administration. This pretty much guarantees that you are not going to be very high and very trusted in the Obama administration. Let's say that you know a lot of people and everyone is 95% sure that OBL is dead. Do you tell Obama to green light this operation? Say you do, the raid goes off without a hitch, the president claims that we killed OBL and a video of OBL holding that days washington post pops up on the internet. The police may take a missing persons report on you, but they are never going to solve it. The risk is far too great for this to even be considered.

So, lets say that you do have the body. This makes a little more sense, because at least you can show the body for proof. So, now you need a place to conduct this charade. Maybe one of your minions comes up to you and says, "Hey boss, I know the perfect place. It's in Pakistan. It's right down the street from their national military academy and it's 100 yards from a Pakistani special forces compound. And it's in a section of the city that has a lot of retired senior military people. Oh yeah, and the compound is kind of in the shape of Israel so it will drive the conspiracy nuts crazy." Seems like a lot of risk.

OR

You can stage this in a cave in Afghanistan that you have complete control over. You control who has access to the cave and who sees what. You have complete control over what happens and when it happens. Seems like a no brainer to me. I'm running this little play in the cave. Now, I know what your going to say. "What if one of the purposes of making this happen is to open another front with Pakistan." Good point, but think about it. If you control the entire operation, you control what documents are found on the body. The wonderful thing about this is that the only people that are going to claim they are forgeries are the exact people that you expect to claim they are forgeries (the Pakistani government). Hell, you could even make him a lifetime member of NAMBLA.

We know that the raid happened in Pakistan. I think I have demonstrated conducting that raid (with or without the body) is far too risky. Please let me know if you disagree (I know I don't have to ask. If you disagree, you folks will be on me like a pitbull on a porkchop).

Now, let's take a look at our second possibility:

2. OBL was killed on May 1st, 2011 in Pakistan (the official story)

This is the straight forward, no conspiracy, what you see is what you get possibility. Or is it?

If they had intel that it was OBL's compound, or that OBL stayed there sometimes, or that there was currently a very high ranking target (maybe even OBL) staying there, I think the green light was a good and very gutsy call. Maybe the raid went as was planned and rehearsed (except for the helicopter). If that was the case, they had the worst after action plan in the history of the world. OBL's body would still have been warm when the official story started changing. Those changes have been documented in many threads and we are all familiar with them so I won't go into them here except for one big one. In the original version, they say that they brought the body out so that they would have proof that OBL was dead. OK, great. Sounds reasonable. But then, 10 hours after the raid, they dump the body into the sea, getting rid of the evidence that they went in there for in the first place. For all intents and purposes they have destroyed the only piece of evidence that is 100% irrefutable. Now, after saying they would release the photos, they say that they will not release the photos because it may make Al-Qaeda upset with us.

Obviously this is not the way this operation was planned. So, the big question is:

Why did they go off the script and start adlibbing?

Let's look at the third possibility:

3. OBL is still alive

Let's say that the raid is going exactly as planned (except for the helicopter). The two story building is cleared. The fight moves to the three story build and heads to the third floor. You clear the hallway and breach the door to the bedroom. You rush into the room and things start to go horribly wrong. Standing in front of you is OBL. He is unarmed and has his hands in the air.

I know what a lot of you are going to say: "I'd shoot the bastard in the face." Maybe, but I'm more inclined to think that you are either lying to yourself or you have never been in this situation. It is difficult to get people to kill other people. Most people, even after training, won't willingly kill other people unless they are in immediate peril. It is even more difficult to get people to kill other people when they pose no threat to them. Remember, we are not talking about putting a couple rounds into an enemy as the FEBA moves past them, we are talking about executing someone in cold blood. I know what your going to say: "Everybody knows that there is a standing order for OBL not to be taken alive. The seals would have followed orders." Maybe. There are lots of areas in the military where people who blindly follow orders can excel. Special ops units are not one of them.

I think instead of killing him, they took him prisoner. Now they have a real problem and they have to go off script. The first and biggest problem is how to get rid of a live OBL. If he is alive, they will have to put him on trial and that can not happen. They could execute him, but this is the biggest intel bonanza of the century. The solution is obvious: Make the world think he is dead.

Now we run into the problems with cover-ups. There is confusion and the clock is ticking. Every decision that is made restricts the options that are available further down the line. Somebody came up with the idea of dropping a simulant into the ocean. On the surface, this looks like it is the solution to the problem, and they act on it. But they don't think it through and they act too quickly. Within 10 hours of the end of the raid, they tell us that they have a dna match and that they want to follow Islamic burial customs so they dump a body overboard. When they are reminded that they didn't have enough time to get a dna match, they have to change the story and say that they didn't have the dna match yet, but they expect it soon. The changes to the official story come quickly and frequently from there.

Now we have the photos that won't be released, then will be released, then won't be released. My gut tells me that they are having trouble making photos that are realistic and will stand up to scrutiny. At some point they will get it right and leak some photos.

Each change to the official story causes problems with one or more other parts of the official story. I believe that is why we are seeing the nonsensical spiral of changes.


So there it is. That was my thought process and the conclusion that I reached.

What say you?

I think Osama has been dead for a long time. I also don't think that wreckage is from any kind of MH-60 type helicopter, the aero dynamics would be terrible with a stabilizer like that. There are lots of things that are overlooked, like did they test any of the children for DNA? Who can confirm those people were Osama's kids? If the 12 year old story is correct, that Osama was taken alive, then executed in front of the family, I am more likely to believe it, if the 12 year old is a DNA offspring match to Osama.

But let's say he was alive and was living in that place.

I think Pakistan would have known he was there, and might even be protecting him there. If choppers were coming in to get him, then Pakistan would know, even if they were stealth. The other news reports said the area was very much protected, and there were guards in the area who would check credentials of locals in the area regularly.

I think Special Forces are not some redneck jerkoffs, they are trained machines, they don't act on emotion, they act on training. If they found a live Osama, they would have taken him alive.

If the intention is to interrogate him, then it would be necessary to tell the world he was dead in a very public display of fanfare. Any Al Qaeda plans in motion would excel in motion, and likely to not change, thinking he was dead.

Interrogations commence, and then they kill Osama off later, as he is already dead.

reply to post by Doc Gator


Well I have learned that any time a president or any figure of high power like him come out in the media and state that you should just believe what they say....THEY ARE LYING.....That is my conclusion, what the real answer is, I don't know, what I do know if Obama is lying to everyone by saying that..

I have to agree with the OP, the thought went through my head as well.
Lack of proof = either OBL was already dead and this is a stage show OR he's alive and in secret custody (which means no trial, no human rights, etc he's in a world of sh*t!)
Either way Pakistan is now in a world of worry, US now has leverage to pressure them to clean up their border with Afghanistan, and if they don't, they drop the millions in aid. Add to that the Indians are now looking at them as either:
A: Incompetent for not knowing OBL was so close to both a military base, and their capital city
B: Collaborative with OBL if they did know, and hence terrorist sponsors
C: Weak to the point where the US can hop in and out at will, so maybe they can too?

Nobody else has a comment on whether the logic behind this is sound?

Let's talk about it.