The Glade 4.0

Clearly, we all have different thresholds. However, the question is not who is the government accountable to, but who is the PResident accountable to?

He is accountable to the public through 3 mechanisms: Acts of Congress, the Courts, and the Vote. If the voters do not like this, or any other action of his, including witholding information, they have several means to address this.

However, the President is not legally or Constitutionally obligated to release specific information relating to national security actions simply because of public curiosity, nor should he be. "Accountable" does not mean "let everyone who wishes conduct their own independant verifgication simply because they distrust the PResident, or government in general."

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

Is it too much to hope for that some enterprising manufacturer starts marketing Treacherous Infidel Bullets?

Pfft, how do we know the US government didn't just fake that announcement too? We can't know for sure until high-level members of al-Qaeda appear on live television in front of a large crowd and state, while hooked up to a polygraph machine and doped with truth serum that has been tested and administered by a randomly-selected, independent physician, that they personally witnessed bin Laden die. And then we'd need similar confirmation from other members of al-Qaeda that these guys really are high-level members, and, of course, we'd need confirmation of those confirmatory witnesses as well....

It amuses me that no one can or is willing to abstract the situation and statements made. That said, how did Al Qaeda verify his death? Even if you assume the statements were made by Al Qaeda, how did they substantiate the knowledge he died? That's important information ...

_________________

Why is it that you read the newspaper every day and only question this single story?

_________________

I question tons of stories, Hopwin. That said, you're still not reading what is posted. I asked one question: how did Al Qaeda verify his death? Can you answer it? Why is it you don't think the answer matters? How is you can accept what you are being told by the government when it hasn't ironed out all the kinks in the official story yet?

See, you guys assume, primarily because a couple of parties have screamed it at the top of their lungs for several pages, that I think there is some sort of grand conspiracy at play. Instead, I'm ...

a). Extremely annoyed by the malfeasance required to destroy "the body" ...

b). Perplexed by the implications of destroying "the body" ...

c). Aware that destroying "the body" actually serves to muddy the waters instead of serve any functional or politically acceptable course of decision making.

And ...

I'm genuinely curious as to how Al Qaeda would verify his death, because that would require evidence not available to the general public.

_________________

One has to assume that the surviving family probably has some idea of what happened.

They may or may not have any idea of what actually happened. Surviving family members would have to be material witnesses to the event; there exists the possibility that their responses and statements have been coached by someone ... (that's a truly abstract and generic someone just for clarity).

It's a complex situation.

_________________

As soon as I posted it I wanted to pull that back


For the same reason I accept news stories about soldiers dying. For the same reason I accept notices of execution. For the same reason I accept any story about how many people died/are missing after a natural disaster. Why are you treating this differently than a plane crash?

_________________

You've STILL not answered what actually would be gained by retaining the body aside from satisfying your need for closure. We've put forward about 10 reasons why not keeping it might be a good thing.

And you continue to backtrack claiming now you're just 'voicing your annoyance' instead of denying the event occured at all.

TheRiov:

Nope, still haven't backtracked. There's a reason "the body" is in quotes ...

It's an unverifiable object at this point. And I've given plenty of reasons why it should have been kept: namely, verification of the claims made without requiring an explicit breech of national security interests.

And, verification matters for a whole lot of reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with any closure the dead of one man would provide me. I don't need vengeance for the 13 bodiless funerals I attended after 9/11. I don't need a corpse to make my peace with that day and its events.

Apparently, however, people with a lot less vested interest need so much for the statements to be true, they are willing to blindly accept the vacillations and statements of our talking heads.

If he's dead, then good job keeping a campaign promise. If he's not dead, then I hope we get the intelligence we want/need/ and can/will use from him.

Without a body though, I can't tell you which of those situations is actually true.

_________________

There will always be room for some level of doubt, but it is quickly becoming very unreasonable to assume he wasn't killed this week in a raid by Navy SEALs.

He's not only merely dead, he's really most sincerely dead.

_________________
“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

I curse you all (but mostly Khross) for dragging me back here.

It is fashionable now to decry skeptics. I'm not exactly sure when it started, but it's been going on for a while. People who don't believe human-induced global climate change are shills for oil companies. People who did not believe Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction are unpatriotic. People who don't believe Osama Bin Laden was killed are unpatriotic. I can pare down a number of similar statements. Not all skepticism is wingnut 9/11 truthiness. The United States never did find the weapons of mass destruction that they could prove Iraq had, for instance. Furthermore, not all skepticism necessarily indicates a lack of belief.

The fact that a person may be willing to accept the premise that Osama Bin Laden was dead does not mean that the official story is true. Killing him and dumping his body in the ocean is certainly a plausible story, but the key to telling a successful lie is making sure it's believable. This is the problem with everyone asking Khross what happened. Whether he believes Osama Bin Laden is dead is irrelevant, and it doesn't win the argument for any of you, despite your opinions to the contrary. Believing something doesn't make it true. Logic and rational thought don't work that way.

The root of the argument here is the concept of evidence and proof. What is evidence? What is proof? Opinions on the use of wikipedia as a valid research tool aside, it is a decent starting platform.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_evidence_(law)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_(law)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_evidence_(law)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearsay

For the entirety of my adult life (and likely well before that) both sides of the political spectrum have engaged in this sort of behavior where they accept fiat statements as proof and evidence, and use ad hominem attacks, straw man arguments, and character assassination to smear opposing arguments. Critical thought is undesirable. We only pretended to teach you that in elementary and secondary school while we indoctrinated you into our grand social engineering project. Blind acceptance is the order of the day. You will believe what we tell you to be true, because we are the ones who told it to you.

I said earlier in this thread that reason and logic will never enter into this discussion. The pronouncement is the holy grail of propaganda for our administration. Each stereotype will accept it without question. The flag-waving jackasses in their Ford or Chevy pickup trucks will be overjoyed to hear that we beat the turr'ists. Socialist liberal pansies in their organic health food stores will celebrate Barack Obama's defeat of Dubya, Cheney, and the rest of the Republican Axis of Evil.

Really, this isn't even about Osama Bin Laden, but rather a systematic problem that plagues rational discourse on all topics. Kaffis alluded to me having most of you on ignore in another thread. This is why. I have no delusions that any of you will click any of those links, or bother to think about what it means to prove something. You're not going to question what evidence really is. You're going to continue hounding Khross about whether he believes Osama Bin Laden is dead, up until he finally figures out that it's pointless to continue talking to any of you as if you were reasonable, educated adults and stops posting in this thread.

_________________
Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

That's all complete nonsense. Patriotism has not been the issue, nor has flag-waving. As for evidence, reason, and logic, there has been plenty of it.

Not accepting the position of the skeptic does not make one a credulous flag-waving nincompoop.

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

Nobody has touched this post.

I have no proof anything I read or hear is true. No proof at all. Neither do any of you. I am always aware the possibility that the news that I hear is fabricated, but I don't go around assuming it's untrue, unless the story somehow rings false or suspicious in some way.

Nothing about ObL's death at the hands of American forces rings false or suspicious. In fact, it has the distinct ring of truth. It is certainly possible it's a fabrication, much like anything else I hear. But i have no specific reason to suspect it as a lie, above or beyond any other news item I hear.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

It seems to me that people are being taking skepticism to absurd new levels. It is one thing to be skeptical of little green men anally-probing hill-billies, it is another to be so cynical that you think you know better than the scientific community (evolution, global warming), the entire government (all three branches) and everything in between.

Personally I blame social media, now that anyone can read the BS that is espoused people think it some how validates their statements, opinions and beliefs. In the past these mega-blowhards were restricted to the people who wrote daily letters to the editor but with the advent of blogs, Facebook and news comments everyone has become that crotchety old-bastard who sits on his porch whittling pointy-sticks and ***** about the Government.

_________________

And journalism was supposed to be about the who what when why and how. In absence of thosebasic questions being answered, folks fill in their own blanks.

_________________
A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

To be fair on that one, the scientific community is far from united on "Global Warming." This is why the skepticism goes exists there: nobody has presented any real evidence of it, and half the scientific community still debates it. The only real place it's considered "truth" is in government and among environmental activist, who are far from scientists.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/ma ... istan-deal

Interesting.

_________________
"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

That is an excellent point.

_________________

I agree and further, if it was false, how many people would have to be in on it? Chances of one of them spilling the beans? Very high. Impact if it were to come out that this was faked? Off the charts. Risk reward, very low. No point in doing it.

_________________
“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

I went so far as to say, earlier in this thread, that if this whole thing is a like that the number of people required to cover it up the lie means that the probability of it being exposed will increase linearly from now until it reaches 1. I wouldn't give it more than a year until such a coverup was exposed.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I think this was most people's point. Its not unreasonable to assume that the government may lie or mislead the public. But they are not going to do it when it would be so easy to catch them in the lie.

I still don't think it would require that that many people be in on it. Seals don't work in large groups and all their work (wet) is going to be very classified. Any individual found leaking that info would get screwed. And it's not like a cover up of this nature would be considered a malignant heinous act by most people, unlike the loose change thing. That's if it was a big cover up. Not saying it is, I just don't think the too-many-people-would-know-the-truth argument is as solid. Of course, if his wives are sure he's dead, who am I to argue. (They're wanted for questioning by the US apparently.)

_________________
"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn