Is Osama Bin Laden dead or alive? By Mike Rudin The Conspiracy Files BBC Sunday Jan. 10
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8444069.stm
Is Osama Bin Laden dead or alive?
By Mike Rudin
The Conspiracy Files
The face of Bin Laden has become instantly recognisable around the world
Osama Bin Laden died eight years ago during the battle for Tora Bora in Afghanistan, either from a US bomb or from a serious kidney disease.
Or so the conspiracy theory goes.
The theory that has developed on the web since 9/11 is that US intelligence services are manufacturing the Bin Laden statements to create an evil bogeyman, to justify the so-called war on terror in Afghanistan, Iraq and back at home.
So is the world's most wanted man still alive?
For a decade, Osama bin Laden has managed to evade the world's superpower and the biggest manhunt in history.
Bruce Riedel, who chaired President Barack Obama's Afghanistan/Pakistan policy review, and who has seen the intelligence on Bin Laden, says the trail has not so much gone cold as "frozen over".
"We don't have a clue where he is," he says.
In the absence of any concrete intelligence, Bin Laden has become shrouded in myth and rumour.
'Certainly fake'
Numerous audio and video statements purporting to be from Bin Laden have been released, but their authenticity has been continually questioned.
The veracity of all of the videos is questioned by David Ray Griffin, a former theology professor and member of the 9/11 Truth Movement, which also questions mainstream accounts of the attack on the World Trade Centre.
"None of them can be proven to be authentic," he says. "At least three of them can be shown to be almost certainly fake.
"And if somebody is faking Bin Laden videos, then that leads to the suspicion that all the videos and audio tapes have been faked."
His first example is a video released by the US Department of Defense in December 2001. In it, Bin Laden confesses to 9/11, yet Mr Griffin points out that al-Qaeda has only rarely admitted responsibility for terrorist attacks.
He also maintains that the Bin Laden figure looks very different to previous footage - fatter, with shorter fingers, and that he is even writing with the wrong hand.
Most of Bin Laden's statements are audio only. Only two that show Bin Laden speaking have been issued since 2001.
Griffin claims both are fakes.
He argues that a video released in October 2004 - just days before the presidential election - lacks the religious rhetoric contained in previous statements.
This video, he says, helped George W Bush secure a second term.
But it is the last video, released in September 2007, that has attracted most attention.
'Western conspiracy'
Mr Griffin calls it "Blackbeard: the terrorist tape". Bin Laden's trademark grey beard has been replaced with a neat, jet-black beard, and there are a number of frames in the video, where Bin Laden carries on speaking but the picture of him freezes.
One former CIA agent also questions its authenticity. Robert Baer dismisses the suggestion of a conspiracy by Western intelligence but thinks that al-Qaeda may have faked the video.
"[al-Qaeda has] an interest in manipulating it to look like current tapes," he says. "You can digitally manipulate voice to say anything. You can change months, years, you can tape vowels and syllables and put it into a recording and change it."
Andy Laws, a former military imaging analyst for the RAF, was asked by the BBC to forensically test an undisputed Bin Laden tape from 1998 against the 2001 so-called "confession tape" and the 2007 "blackbeard tape".
He says the fact that Bin Laden appears fatter in the 2001 tape is down to the editing process, when subtitles were added and the image was squashed. His conclusion is that all the videos are of the same person - Bin Laden.
Furthermore, Mr Laws says it is not realistic to think that the US military would fake such tapes.
"Technologically in this day and age, those kinds of things can be done, but not quietly," he says.
"There would be a number of people involved and word of it would have spread by now."
Bin Laden has issued around 40 statements since 9/11, and many include clear contemporaneous date references. Two recent statements released last year mentioned US President Barack Obama.
Mike Scheuer, the former CIA officer who set up and ran the agency's Bin Laden unit, thinks Bin Laden is still alive.
'Difficult reality'
"Whenever he speaks on audio tape, he always says something in there that's fairly current. Also, the US National Security Agency (NSA) and UK Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) are very good at voice prints," he says.
Mr Scheuer concludes that if it was not Bin Laden's voice, these organisations would make sure governments were well aware that the tapes were fakes.
Another former CIA agent, Art Keller, is more damning:
"I think those conspiracy theories that he is dead are pretty much laughable," he says.
"It's easier to explain things away with a conspiracy than to face up to the difficult reality.
"In this case, the difficult reality is that we're trying to operate in possibly the worst area in the world and track someone who's very crafty and elusive and putting considerable effort to stay off our radar."
Watch The Conspiracy Files: Osama Bin Laden - Dead or Alive. BBC Two 2130 GMT Sunday 10 January and then on BBC iPlayer.
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Most Wanted Man?
Regardless of whether bin Laden is still alive or not, by what criteria can he be considered the world's most wanted man?
"I truly am not that concerned about him[Osama bin Laden]" George Bush: March of 2002
"The goal has never been to get bin Laden." Richard Myers April of 2002.
"...a premature collapse of the international effort if by some lucky chance Mr. bin Laden was captured." US official.
Nevertheless, it is good to see more documentaries questioning the official explanations behind the War on Terror.
"The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing. Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth."
- Aldous Huxley -
You Got To Be Kidding
If Big Bin is still alive then I am Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. It kills me the way they insult our intelligence. Well I guess there are some people who still think the world is flat.
This will be another s(hit) piece...
but all these s(hit) pieces nowadays backfire on the hucksters.
Definitely a hit piece
"It's easier to explain things away with a conspiracy than to face up to the difficult reality."
But it's just soooo difficult to believe that the world's most powerful intelligence agencies could not find one man attached to a dialysis machine.
No intelligence to insult.
The great irony is "they" can get away with insulting some people's intelligence because there are a lot of people who truly believe they are too intelligent to be fooled and it's easier to believe "truthers" are crazy idiots. Actually they have no intelligence to insult.
It's a form of mental illness that someone can't accept being wrong.
nullius in verba.
What a joke.
Get some new material, Michael. Your condescending attitude and repeated cow towing to government mouthpieces got old years ago.
Osama
To hear Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer tell it, he was the mastermind of 9/11.
"Damning" and "laughable"
"One former CIA agent also questions its authenticity. Robert Baer dismisses the suggestion of a conspiracy by Western intelligence but thinks that al-Qaeda may have faked the video."
However, "Mr Laws says it is not realistic to think that the US military would fake such tapes. "Technologically in this day and age, those kinds of things can be done, but not quietly," he says."
Baer thinks Al Qaeda could fake a tape and the CIA wouldn't be able to tell; but Laws says not even the US military could get away with it.
Laws says, "There would be a number of people involved and word of it would have spread by now."
Right, as if everything automatically gets leaked immediately. As if the MIC can't find people ideologically committed to propping up the 'war on terror' fraud, and compensating them ridiculously well. And it's not like the MSM pay any attention to whistleblowers- Sibel Edmonds testified to high crimes under oath, made additional allegations and named names in The American Conservative and Military.com, and the major media, Congress and the DOJ act like nothing happened. The MSM is the criminal Establishment's stenographer.
"Mr Scheuer concludes that if it was not Bin Laden's voice, these organisations would make sure governments were well aware that the tapes were fakes."
Strawman; it probably is Bin Laden's 'voice'- and if some private contractor being funded by black budget is making the tapes w/ the approval of some high-level criminals in the defense/intel Establishment, they're not going to "make sure governments well aware that the tapes were fakes"
Art Keller; ""I think those conspiracy theories that he is dead are pretty much laughable," he says. "It's easier to explain things away with a conspiracy than to face up to the difficult reality. "In this case, the difficult reality is that we're trying to operate in possibly the worst area in the world and track someone who's very crafty and elusive and putting considerable effort to stay off our radar."
The CIA has never officially claimed any of the tapes have been authenticated, and voice analysis and Bin Laden experts have shown certain tapes are fake, but Keller shills the Establishment line. "Damning" and "laughable" is right.
December 13, 2001: Authenticity of Bin Laden ‘Confession’ Video Is Disputed
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a121301murkyvideo#a121301...
The Shocking Truth About Osama bin Laden: Apparently, he reads our blogs.
http://reason.com/archives/2006/05/05/the-shocking-truth-about-osama
Osama Bin Elvis
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/03/13/osama-bin-elvis
http://911reports.com
http://www.historycommons.org
I'm going to go with...
Deaaalive...
Do these people deserve to know how and why their loved ones were murdered? The facts speak for themselves.
good one Jon!
Deaaalive...
Hilarious.
Something Homer Simpson might say.
BBC Blog Post
There's an accompanying blog post, but the comments have already been closed:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2010/01/the_conspiracy_files_osama...
Probably because there were 5614 comments on the last Conspiracy Files hit piece:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2008/10/caught_up_in_a_conspiracy_...
Shame, because I wanted to respond to this comment:
Yet we're supposed to believe that random fire did it?
There are better questions
1) Who is/was Bin Laden?
2) What was the true nature of the threat he posed to the US?
Un criminel introuvable?
If Osama bin Laden was still alive how all the criminal polices of the world that are supposed to seek it actively since the events of September 11, 2001 would be unable to find him? How does a criminal whose face is known to the entire planet and must treat the health problems reported below, to be untraceable since more than 8 years?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/28/eveningnews/main325887.shtml?C...
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/south/01/19/gen.musharraf.bin...
Published: 6:55PM GMT 06 Dec 2009 : « The United States has had no reliable intelligence reports on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden for years, Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary, has said. » See:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/6744518/No-re...
Jan. 4, 2007 : Mullah Omar says he hasn’t seen bin Laden for years - PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Taliban chief Mullah Omar has added to the mystery over Osama bin Laden, saying he hasn’t seen his ally and fellow fugitive since U.S.-backed forces ousted the Taliban from Afghanistan in 2001. See:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16467288/
Excuse me for my poor English.
.
Professor Griffin was WRONG on this fake video
I support David Griffin greatly but he was WRONG on this fake video...
Taking the fat out of the fat bin Laden confession video - http://web.archive.org/web/20071017194751/muckrakerreport.com/id372.html
CIA letter supports assertion that OBL “confession video” was a sting operation - http://web.archive.org/web/20080317123244/http://muckrakerreport.com/id4...
Bin Laden videotape was result of a sting - http://web.archive.org/web/20080416183910rn_1/www.guardian.co.uk/world/2...
The Crime Behind the Criminal Wars! - http://web.archive.org/web/20080327022231/www.muckrakerreport.com/id406....
Osama's Confession; Osama's Reprieve - http://web.archive.org/web/20080412105311/www.counterpunch.org/osseiran0...
The Fake 2001 bin Laden
Video Tape - http://web.archive.org/web/20070929091450/www.whatreallyhappened.com/osa...
I have just read your article:
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/osamatape.html and this one: http://www.911myths.com/html/fake_video.html
You might find this interesting: http://www.muckrakerreport.com/id372.html
But I write the below to show that this tape is still important in the media/government misinformation reporting:
We may have been duped on the "Fatty Bin Laden" front. HOWEVER, The problem is that knowing the video is REALLY Bin Laden doesn't "hurt" anything for us. Once you dig into it, you actually see how audio was manipulated and frames were missing or deleted.
Many experts have come to that conclusion. THAT is why they don't want attention on it. They don't want questions into... 1) what sting operation was going on and why does the camera pan in third person?
1a) Sting operation: so they knew where he was but chose to let him go and invade anyway.
2) If it was a sting or information gathering session, where did Osama go, and what was the nature of the operation.
3) What was REALLY discussed on the film, and who was responsible for the false interpretation.
4)Why the vague description and cutaways when discussing relevant parts.
5) And my personal observed anomaly....who or what is "MOTHER".
6) The taping was a sting operation that involved U.S. and Saudi and/or Pakistani intelligence – which means that the United States had Osama bin Laden in its sights prior to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan but passed on capturing or killing him in favor of invading. This is paramount! If bin Laden would have been captured or killed prior to the invasion of Afghanistan there would have no justification remaining to invade Afghanistan. If the independent media can further substantiate the actual taping date and that the taping was indeed part of a sting operation – what we will have on our hands is a provably case of high treason against the Bush Administration that will not be easily dismissed.
We gotta stop hanging this one out there, Mike Rivero and many others were wrong on this, but it doesn't change anything. It's proven misinfo and the new facts should be focused on.
It may be real, and Osama may be real in it. However, this still remains a problem regarding it - Osama is real but audio is wrong, video is chopped, etc.
Regarding the controversial above tape, on December 20, 2001, German TV channel “Das Erste” broadcast its analysis of the White House’s translation of the videotape. On the program “Monitor”, two independent translators and an expert on oriental studies found the White House’s translation to be not only inaccurate, but also manipulative saying “At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic” and that the words used that indicate foreknowledge can not be heard at all in the original Arabic. Prof. Gernot Rotter, professor of Islamic and Arabic Studies at the Asia-Africa Institute at the University of Hamburg said “The American translators who listened to the tapes and transcribed them apparently wrote a lot of things in that they wanted to hear but that cannot be heard on the tape no matter how many times you listen to it.”: http://web.archive.org/web/20021218105636/www.wdr.de/tv/monitor/beitraeg...
Researchers in Switzerland have questioned the authenticity of the recent audio recording attributed to Osama Bin Laden: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2526309.stm
Arabist Dr. Abdel El M. Husseini stated: “This translation is very problematic. At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic.”
There is STILL overwhelming evidence that this tape as been misused (as shown in bits by the media and government) based on the above, even if it is genuine - but the new evidence is when it is watched in full.
Even Islamists argue that it is real: http://revolution.thabaat.net/?p=791
"Truth Does Not Fear Investigation No Matter Who It Offends"
http://www.geocities.com/louisdkrauss/911.html
A sting doesn't rule out a Bin Laden double
The evidence it was a sting operation is compelling, but it doesn't rule out the possibility that Bin Laden sent one of his many doubles to the meeting. There have been explanations for the appearance of increased weight and the reason he wrote w/ his right hand and appears to have gold jewelry, but harder to dismiss are the facts that the nose is a very different shape, and that the alleged Bin Laden says things the real Bin Laden, with his construction background, would have known were false, such as “I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building…”. In addition, whatever Bin Laden's role in 9/11 really was, the man in the video was not well-informed about aspects of the plot documented by US 'investigations', which doesn't help support US Establishment claims that this is Bin Laden in the video; quoting from History Commons, which is citing the DOD translation:
“We did not reveal the operation to [the brothers who conducted the operation] until they are there and just before they boarded the planes.” [US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, 12/13/2001 ] All the hijackers purchased tickets for the 9/11 flights about two weeks in advance (see August 25-September 5, 2001). The six plot leaders had flight training (see July 6-December 19, 2000, (June 28-December 2000), January-February 2001, and May 5 and 10, 2000), and some of the other 13 are thought to have assisted with target surveillance and casing flights (see May 24-August 14, 2001, August 1, 2001, June 2001 and August 2001).
“Those who were trained to fly didn’t know the others. One group of people did not know the other group.” [US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, 12/13/2001 ] The opposite is true: the pilots intermingled with the muscle and the teams for the various planes mixed (see April 23-June 29, 2001, April 12-September 7, 2001, and June 27-August 23, 2001).
December 13, 2001: Authenticity of Bin Laden ‘Confession’ Video Is Disputed
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a121301murkyvideo#a121301...
EDIT: a side view of the nose from the 'Confession' tape, with 3 other pics of Bin Laden http://whatreallyhappened.com/IMAGES/bin_laden_videos.jpg
http://911reports.com
http://www.historycommons.org
I'm wondering
what he will say about INTELCENTER and SITE and how and by whom the tapes were proven authentic.
If Bin Laden did not do 911 then who did ???
John A MITCHELL
Herblay FRANCE
bonjour ,
I can imagine that 99% of French can not imagine Bin Laden other than alive , present and behind all the terrorists acts lately.
http://www.google.fr/#q=bin+laden+mort+ou+vivant&hl=fr&sa=2&fp=26f21cbdb...
http://mouv4x8.perso.neuf.fr/11Sept01/911Pho01.html#BM7002
Still impossible to have a correct debate on the subject here in France. Thanks go to the BBC for the excellent documentary "Power of Nightmares"
http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares
I hope my presence on the Herblay market, France is inciting people to do their own research on Bin Laden and on his part in the 911 attacks.
http://www.911blogger.com/node/9028
Yours John
.
Rudin is a joke
and a clown. We thoroughly debunked him and his shotty BBC hit-piece on WTC7 (The Third Tower) at Ground Zero on 9/11/08. He went there expecting to make a mochery of us and wound up getting his ass handed to him in a debate. We even started a campaign to get Rudin and the BBC to release the entire, un-edited Barry Jennings interview, which they never did. We know your lies, Rudin. Go away and never mention 9/11 again!
BBC Conspiracy Files: Osama Bin Laden Dead or Alive Pt.1 of 6
http://www.youtube.com/user/MarkAbare#p/u
BBC Conspiracy Files: Osama Bin Laden Dead or Alive Pt.1 of 6
2 of 6
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VIDEO NOW AVAILABLE
If Not Me? Who? If Not Now? When?
http://www.northtexas911truth.com/