The Glade 4.0

Actually, without the body neither of them count as evidence, Arathain ...

In fact, DNA evidence without the body providing the genetic material is totally worthless. How on earth do you verify the results? Against what do you check your original sample?

As for the photos, ...Double negative much? Talk about ambivalent and equivocating language ...

More to the point, without the body to compare the photos to or verify the original DNA samples against ...

These things mean literally nothing at this point.

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Have you seen these photos yet? If not, how do you know them to be on an "unidentifiable individual".

I would assume these pictures, if and when they are released, will be very identifiable as this wound would not likely have massively disfigured him. A picture taken shortly after his death, I would imagine, will be quite recognizable.

Will you not keep your skepticism in check at least until you see the pictures?

EDIT - D'oh, ninja-ed

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

When Pablo Escobar was assassinated with the assisstance of the U.S., they had photographic proof.

It counts, the quality is just in question.



The samples collected from her sister, as discussed earlier.



Nitpicking language isn't going to help.



What would be the point of that? Why take DNA samples from a corpse and then verify it's from the corpse? Do you mean compare the older samples to the corpse? Why can't you compare the older samples to the samples from the corpse? Why take photos of a corpse and then compare it to the corpse to see if it matches?

Dude, you're not making any sense. You compare corpse DNA to other known OBL samples or kin, and you compare corpse photos to known photos of OBL.

His body was also subject to a video taped autopsy and later exhumed; not dumped in the Indian Ocean ...

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The problem is Arathain, the DNA sample was taken from the corpse by someone 'inside' the operation. How can we know that the sample that was tested came from the same body as in the photo?

I realize in this day and age, it's difficult to satisfy everyone, but all things considered this all stinks to high heaven.

As far as what they could have done... i dunno, maybe they could have had an independent entity (someone from the UN maybe) witness the DNA testing....

Arathain:

I'm making plenty of sense. Where did the original DNA sample come from? Can you produce new samples from the original source and achieve the same results? Testing it against his Sister means little if the authenticity of the sample being tested in questionable ...

That is to say, without the body, you can't validate the sample used to determine his identity. You would need to perform the same test multiple times with multiple samples from the corpse to demonstrate the results.

But, since you conveniently don't have the body you took the sample from, obvious claims are obvious ...

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If this was a hoax, wouldn't OBL be making a nice video F-U to the United States about now.

"Hey *****...I ain't dead!"

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

That's fine, and ideally you could let anyone who wanted a piece come and collect a sample. The alternative is to collect some samples, dispose of the body in a way that doesn't piss off a large portion of the world population, prevents a "circus" surrounding his remains, and say to hell with the conspiracy theorists.

Like you say, no matter what, not everyone will be satisfied. So why disrespect the religion, create a circus, and STILL not satisfy everyone?

Only if he wasn't relishing his new-found freedom from being hunted. Osama alive motivates his troops. Osama the martyr motivates them, as well, perhaps even better. Hell, if I were Osama, I would've faked my own death years ago.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Or, you can collect the appropriate evidence, run the appropriate tests, and ignore the conspiracy theorists.

Khross, you must agree that the "following Islamic tradition to reduce his martyr status" argument has some merit. Why do you believe it's more important for Obama's administration to prove it's not lying about every single thing it does or says?

Also, the DNA argument is pretty ridiculous. The whole point of testing the DNA sample is to determine if the DNA sample comes from Bin Laden. If the result is positive, that pretty much means that the government can only be lying about the time of his death, not his actual death. How else would they have obtained the DNA sample? You're treading into serious conspiracy theory territory here. You know, the ones that say the CIA co-operated with Bin Laden to do 9/11 in order to protect the military-industrial complex from budget cuts.

So, going into his private residence, without permission of the host country, shooting him in the face, and hauling him off to the deck of an aircraft carrier wouldn't piss them off enough already? Somehow *saying* we gave him a proper Muslim send-off will make them not want to kill us all?

To appropriately pull off this supposed hoax, too many parties would have to be involved.

Are we suggesting that OBL and Al-Qaeda are both going to be complicit in keeping the fact that he is still alive, hidden? What about the reporter that was blogging the operation as it was happening? (Read it earlier, can't find it again)

What happened to Occum's Razor, "The simplest explanation is likely the correct one."

1. U.S conducted an operation to assassinate OBL and was successful. He's dead with pictures and evidence to come and his body has been disposed of in a respectful manner in accordance with his religion.

2. This is a massive hoax/coverup involving the U.S government and Al-Qaeda and OBL all for the purposes of boosting the job rating of a president whose numbers are falling.

I think people give WAAAAAY too much credit to the U.S. Govt to come up with and execute such hoaxes (Moon landing, 9-11 inside job, OBL death)

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

So, asking for repeatability in a scientific test is now the territory of conspiracy theory? Is that what you're saying, Arathain?

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Ok, what would convince you? (asuming what's done is done?)

If Al Queda issues a statement saying "Ok you got our top guy now you're all going to pay we're calling for retribution from all cells." would that be sufficient?

Oh, I love how parties accepting a bare assertion throw out conspiracy theory as a criticism and everyone jumps on that bandwagon ...

1. What is conspiratorial about asking for parallel verification and repeatability in the DNA testing?

2. What is conspiratorial about asking that material evidence not be destroyed before conclusive proof can be demonstrated to the public?

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I'm sure it mitigates it. For some people. Most muslims understand our need to get him. That's not going to piss off that many people. Disrespecting the religion, however....

Apparently, at least according to this article, the 'Burial at Sea' thing is not in accordance with Islamic tradition...

Article at abcnews.com

No, I'm saying that suggesting the US government is conspiring to make up this incident is the territory of conspriacy theory.

I'd say that it, at the very least, avoids piling unnecessary insult on top of what already happened.

Some people will be pissed that Bin Laden was killed; these sorts of people are pretty likely to already be pissed about something no matter what we do. However, there is a certain segment of people that may not like either Bin Laden or us very much. Avoiding unnecessary insult to muslim sensibilities does at least offer the potential to avoid antagonizing some of these people.

As your article states, this may not work out because burial at sea may not be very Islamic, but that would really only demonstrate doing a shitty job of it, plus the competing need to avoid creating a new "holy site" for his brand of nutball.

Not killing Bin Laden (or any other terrorist) just because it will make other terrorists mad is not much of a strategy; this just creates the idea that we won't attack people who have attacked us for fear they'll attack us more. Not unnecessarily antagonizing muslims in general on the other hand does at least avoid too much poking at fence-sitters.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

No one has suggested that ...

What I have suggested is that destroying the only piece of actual material evidence was monumentally stupid ...

What I have suggested is that destroying the only piece of actual material evidence makes all claims of the deed suspect ...

The Obama Administration and U.S. Military can no longer prove they killed Bin Laden because they no longer possess the evidence capable of doing so.

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Is this where we go all OED and ask for definitions of 'conspiracy' and 'conspiracy theory' ?

Apparently not accepting everything my government tells me as the gospel truth makes me a conspiracy nut....

As opposed to, you know... calling a turd a turd...



No it won't, and you know better. As my previous post stated, the 'at sea' burial isn't even in accordance with Islamic tradition.

I saw a cellphone video of Saddam Hussein being hung, but I never saw his body afterwards. Is he really dead?

Also, since we're all on the conspiracy theory bandwagon, what if the USA is only claiming to have dumped his body? It might be underneath the White House as we speak. I have no evidence either way, so I'm going to assume this is the new truth.

Lenas:

There were multiple avenues of parallel verification for Hussein's execution. There exist none in this case. But, again, you're not actually reading the posts made ...

Certain parties keep screaming conspiracy theory because they don't want to consider the reality created by the powers that be.

But, whatever, it's obvious, as usual, that certain people would rather foist opinions on others than actually read what they post.

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