Osama Bin Laden is dead

[eFestivals]

Well f**kin ban me instead of keep threatening it. Im not going to stop pointing out your ignorance and stupidity until you remove my ability to do so.

You're more than welcome to point out what you believe to be my ignorance and stupidity if it's on topic, just as I will do with what you post. That's what discussion forums are for.

What you're not welcome to do is delve into your fantasies to keep re-raising the same off-topic empty bollocks again and again and again, as you've done so very many times in this thread and many others.

What happens from here is all within your own control.

[Kowalski]

Al-Qaeda confirm death of Bin Laden

[llcoolphil]

You're more than welcome to point out what you believe to be my ignorance and stupiditygt if it's on topic, just as I will do with what you post. That's what discussion forums are for.

What you're not welcome to do is delve into your fantasies to keep re-raising the same off-topic empty bollocks again and again and again, as you've done so very many times in this thread and many others.

What happens from here is all within your own control.

[worm]

It was a post of yours that someone responded to and then removed (I read it before it was removed), saying instead something like "f**k it, it's not worth saying here because of the response it will get". If that doesn't hammer home to you that you hold your own guilt for stiffling sensible discussion here then nothing will.

Edited May 6, 2011 by worm

[eFestivals]

Does this work where you dont keep misquoting me? You have done it in an off topic context about ideological cuts (a point you keep repeating despite me having shown you what i actually said on several occasions) and also in this thread where i had to correct you about sources i cited in this thread. Try and observe your own guidelines before imposing them on others.

It seems to have escaped your attention that such things only happen in response to you doing similar first. It's probably the case that you've also missed that I let it go more times than I rerspond.

But yeah, it's all me.

I shall continue to post as i do. If you dont like it ban me but dont for a second believe i will observe guidelines you ignore

Then I'll save myself and other users here the hassle. Your choice, your consequences.

[eFestivals]

Al-Qaeda confirm death of Bin Laden

I guess Al Qaeda are also conspiring with the USA too.

[eFestivals]

Piss poor leadership.

Perhaps, but not a problem that existed prior to your arrival. Strange coincidence that one.

Done and dusted.

[eFestivals]

Those Jihadist internet forums are a like a spring of truth aren't they!

who knows? You don't, and neither do I (when referring to this particular thing).

Just because it suits some to dismiss it as a scam doesn't mean that it is.

It doesn't matter whether it was Al Qaeda or Alan Qaeda who made the statement - the facts are still too blurred to gain a real understanding of what actually happened. You started it with the conspiracy talk, suggesting that anyone who doubts the good ship USA's statement must be cranks, whilst we were merely discussing the oddities relating to this 'news'.

I did nothing of the sort. I pointed out that the conspiracy talk that existed in this thread long before my first post within it had even less of a basis than any version of what happened that the USA has put out.

You're still demonstrating now that there's nothing that you'll believe that doesn't fit with your preconceptions of propaganda and not the action of going after Bin Laden being the driving force behind everything which has come out.

I've expressed my own doubts over some parts of it, but there's absolutely nothing to suggest that bin laden isn't dead (however it actually happened) outside of the desire of some to disbelieve absolutely everything that the USA might claim.

For example, some have said how apt timing it all is, yet they're unable to point out any time since 9/11 (if not earlier) that there wouldn't have been a propaganda benefit to the USA in announcing his death - and from such a point of view it becomes impossible for the USA to ever get him to those people's satisfaction, leaving them only nutty ideas as the response if/when it happened.

After all, whatever else Bin Laden might be or have been, he's certainly someone with a big part in anti-American terrorism (even if only as a figurehead), and from that he's someone they'd want taken out of the picture. So it's hardly surprising if they have done as they claim.

If there's the political will within the USA to put out something like this but which is a total lie, then it's certainly the case that it would have attempted by Bush and co to secure another Republican president rather than allow Obama to take the role. And from that it becomes exceedingly likely that the announcement on Monday wasn't bullshit.

I still don't understand how they confirmed his identity via a DNA test

many of his family are big chums with the Bush's. So it's far from impossible that they'd have DNA to match Osama's with that they got with those people's permission and co-operation. But if not then it's far from difficult to get by underhand means by just anyone, and easier still for a govt with the resources of the USA.

or how they were providing a live video feed

the world cup finals got beamed to your house last summer. The technology to do such things has existed for 40+ years, with it becoming far far easier in recent years.

You can go out today and buy a mobile phone on your local high street which will allow you to hold video calls from almost anywhere in the world (including such places as the Kalahari desert) at any time of day or night. So it's extremely likely that the technology for joe bloggs to do the same from Abbottabad exists.

If such things are easily possible with cheap consumer technology, then it's hardly a surprise to find the special forces of world's most powerful nation has a system which allows their troops to do much the same from a combat operation.

[The Nal]

U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A.

Edited May 6, 2011 by The Nal

[eFestivals]

Of course, I understand this technology exists, I am employed in this sector, but Its absurd to consider a Navy Seal team conducting an operation whilst filming it over Skype. There is no way they would risk transmitting this over a public network - so if it was a military network, it would require encryption, a fast stable link, reasonably high bandwidth and some serious satcom equipment and as I understand it, they were in and out in something like 40 minutes. I would imagine it would take at least that long to setup a sat transmitter after landing in the middle of nowhere (in relation to the nearest 'safe' military installation.

How much equipment do you think it required to transmit the world cup to my house last summer? Could it fit on a helmet and in a backpack? I'm not discounting the validity of the live feed - I'd just like to know the method in which it was done!

The encryption, the fast enough link and bandwidth and the like I'm all taking as a given. It's the sort of thing they're using on a standard daily basis from places all around the world - from embassies, military bases, etc.

My local pub can tune into any satellite in northern europe in around a minute or less. I can't see the US military having a worse system, and while their's would of course need to be an uplink and not just a downlink like my pub, that's a non-issue - again, there's cheap-ish consumer technology for satellite phones that can do that, so the US military will have something much better.

The set-up they have between the soldiers and that uplink I don't know, but I doubt I'd be too far wrong in suggesting it's probably something like a short-range and lightweight system between the squaddie and his mobile base - a helicopter - which has on-board or set-up next to it the satellite uplink equipment. There's very probably comms people as part of the team too, who have responsibility for that while others get on with the main 'job', little different to the radio operators that have been a part of small bands of soldiers on a mission since before WW2.

If you think back 6 months or so, there was the attempted rescue of that British female aid worker who'd been kidnapped in Afghanistan, who died in the rescue attempt. That 'rescue' was done by the same team of squaddies, who filmed the action then too - but without any of the same doubts about their capability to do that being expressed in the same way (which just gets to show how the conspiracy theories get selectively applied). While I'm unsure if that action was fed back to the USA live or near-live, it's certainly the case that Washington had the footage within 48 hours at most.

================

Stuff like the 'wrong' details of the Bin Laden action being told can also be easy to explain. The verbal report back to Washington were the words "KIA, Geronimo" (or something very close to that), with the "KIA" being "killed in action" (and referring to Bin Laden). I reckon that just about anyone would interpret those words as meaning in a fight of some kind, so if that had been passed onto a spokesman before he spoke to the press, it's easy to see how he might wing it and give the wrong impression of what happened from that 'KIA', particularly if the spokesman was of the belief that the USA would only kill an armed man.

Much the same can explain the woman who was shot "being used as a human shield". It might have derived from a more simple "she was shot in front of Bin Laden".

And of course the corrections come about because at a later point in time they get detailed reports of all that went on, which show them they'd said things which were wrong. Given that the corrections put the US in a far weaker moral position than the original version, I doubt it's anything more than this.

We're all human. Humans do these kinds of things. Just consider some of the nonsense (as in 'no sense') that left the mouths of the likes of Bush, Rumsay(sp?), Powell, Shortzkoff(sp?), etc in GW1 & 2, not because they had a contrived plan to mislead byut because they were trying to satisfy the press's curiosity while talking about things where they didn't have the relevant facts to talk about accurately.

While those ideas are guesses off the top of my head and might be completely wrong, they've just as much - if not more - likelihood of being the right explanations as any conspiracy theory. Each of us is able to reel off a whole host of things where we've cocked up in some manner - any president or soldier or spokesman is no less likely to do that than you or me. There's no superhumans walking this earth.

Edited May 6, 2011 by eFestivals

[eFestivals]

Right, my lines of inquiry have come through for me ... I've found out how they could have done it, if they did indeed provide a live feed.

This is how they could have done it, if you're interested :

http://www.viasat.com/files/assets/web/datasheets/he_helicopter_mounted_terminal_datasheet_011.pdf

Add on some crypto, a wireless LAN in the chopper and a wifi video headset and you're away ... f**king cool stuff. Its been bugging me for days.

So there you go. You can see that my guess at their setup in my post above is much the same, and no great shakes for today's world.

No conspiracy needed there.

[Kyelo]

He is dead, how he came to be dead is where the problem is!

[philthee]

He is dead, how he came to be dead is where the problem is!

[pehaw]

[grumpyhack]

[rabid]

Noam Chomskys Reaction. http://www.guernicam...reaction_to_os/

[worm]

I'd been trying to remember if it had ever actually been confirmed that Osama was responsible for 9/11.

Edited May 8, 2011 by worm

[rabid]

No.

[worm]

My thoughts precisely.

[rabid]

Get a copy of the book.

[philthee]

Just saw bbc news interviewing a guy in the town where they blew up a building and shot osama or whoever. They are showing him the picture of the old guy who is suppsoed to be an aged osama watching himself on tv. The guy says (paraphrasing), "yep, he's the guy who owns the house, i know him very well. He's not Osama."