Osama Bin Laden: The Untold Story
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 Seed Newsvine |
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Osama Bin Laden is most likely dead! A well designed U.S. military plan to get Bin Laden had only one flaw. They might never have proof that they succeeded.Prior to the Fall of 2001, the United States' attempts to capture Bin Laden revolved around intelligence gathering and secret operations. As they found out, their intelligence was always a day behind and Bin Laden and his "supporters" knew the territory far better than his pursuers.
In the fall of 2001 the playing field changed for the pursuers. The United States was free to do anything within its power to get him and they had a new strategy. Rather than track him, they would merely obliterate his entire hideout network. Using ground and bunker penetrating bombs they simply destroyed the caves. Bin Laden would find it difficult to hide out in a cave network that was just a pile of rubble. If one reads the reports about their intelligence, the United States clearly believed Bin Ladan was still in eastern Afghanistan during the fall of 2001. During a month-long bombing campaign nearly the entire cave network was targeted for destruction. They had also ringed the region with ground troops to cut off any escape.
We are now lead to believe that, miraculously, he escaped capture and survives to continue taping his threats to the non-Muslim world. The plan; however, had a fatal flaw. If the bombing campaign were successful they might very well never find his body. Entombed in some cave under 50 feet of rubble, recovery of the body might be impossible. If this is, in fact, the case, the U.S. government has a problem. If they proclaim him to be dead and the war over, skeptics will ask for the body which they cannot produce and may never produce. There is no closure and nothing to present to the world as a trophy of a successful mission. The additional risk is that miniscule possibility that he is truly still alive. If he shows up after "proclaimed dead" U.S. government credibility is severely damaged and their military capabilities brought into question. Furthermore; it would be a lot more difficult to restart the tracking/capture operation after they were shut down.
The only option is to proclaim him alive, keeping open the wound but also keeping open the legitimacy of the campaign. The cost of this strategy is high but the method is not that difficult. The few audio tapes that have surfaced certainly give the impression that Bin Laden lives on. The C.I.A. verifies their authenticity and Bin Laden supporters wholeheartedly agree. The world is never told just how the C.I.A. is proving these tapes to be authentic. The tapes could theoretically be independently verified or discredited but the organization with the most tools for accomplishing this is still the American Central Intelligence Agency, and they know it.. Consequently, the tapes are proclaimed to be authentic and the world believes Bin Laden lives on to continue his war against the west.
The world now has a situation reminiscent of "Kaiser Sose" from the movie The Usual Suspects. Is he myth? Is he reality? Is their substance behind the legend? He will be the heroic topic of bedtime stories told by anti-western Muslims. He will be the evil symbol of a dangerous world in conversations throughout Western world. Bin Laden has become immortal. He has succeeded in transforming from ordinary mortal combatant to mythological super being that haunts his enemies forever.
The United States government could get lucky and recover his body but this is unlikely on two accounts. First: finding that body may be next to impossible. Second: skeletal remains present all sorts of verification problems. DNA samples can be obtained from a living relative but the tests will be performed behind the closed walls a United States military lab and a doubting world will always question their authenticity. The only real hope for the United States is finding the preserved corpse. Only photographs of an obviously dead Bin Laden will end the mystery. More likely is the scenario we see occurring presently. Bin Laden lives on, giving hope to his followers and a justifiable reason for continuing hunt. Everyone is a winner except the truth.
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