@FourWude said:
" @JackLumber said:
" @FourWude:
You know I've been one of the few on here who HAS been doing the research. I have been following what has been happening closely and I have ALWAYS so far been willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the US government. But alas it is the government that has been messing us around.
You do realize that the official story has been changed 3 times already don't you. And at every juncture of the change I've been told to 'Take the Governments word for it'. Which is incredibly naive.
You stated the government didn't have live feed. Guess what, the government told us after the initial Obama speech that THEY DID HAVE LIVE FEED. Now the head of the CIA Leon Panetta says there was a total blackout for 25 minutes during the operation. So someone was telling fibs... oops. But I gave them the benefit of the doubt.
They've had almost 5 days to get the story straight and yet the official story is still not straightened out. Was Osama executed during or after the raid, conflicting reports? No one knows. Who's the woman? Was she used as a shield? We were told it's his wife and he used her as a shield, but again they fucked up and said no she wasn't and no shield was there.
Osama was meant to be shooting back initially as told by the always right US government. But alas they went and changed the story and told us he not only didn't shoot back, he wasn't even armed. So again who am I to believe?
We then come to dubious claims about respecting Islamic burial rites. They had to bury Osama's body within 24 hours, this law by and large doesn't exist in Islam, it's non-binding. And on top of that they dump the body in the sea, which is anti-Islamic anyway, makes a mockery of them respecting any laws to begin with. But again I waited for the government to clarify this position.
I was told by Obama that the US thanked Pakistan for its support in all of this. But Leon Pannetta, the head of the CIA stated there was no Pakistani involvement and they were kept in the dark. Later reports stated that Pakistan had been informed. Exactly who am I to believe? No seriously what am I supposed to believe? Obama or Leon Pannetta?
People keep telling me, like I'm supposed to be some naive idiot to just 'believe' the government. But even if I did just believe, what exactly am I supposed to believe??? There isn't a straight story to believe? If I believed everything the US government has so far said I'd be contradicting myself.
Before mouthing off and telling me to get my 'facts' straight, you should send your post to the White House and tell them to get their facts straight and once they do, tell them to send me a copy of the facts as well, I'd very much like to know.
P.S. Also I'd just like to point out I have NEVER claimed Osama was alive or in fact EVER refuted he was dead. It bothers me not one iota whether Osama is alive, dead, or making sweet butt love to Bush at his ranch as we speak. All I ever wanted was the truth of what happened. Nothing more. I just want to know what went on.
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The government shares some of the fault, they could've held off on the details until they were more clear (course, the media would've raised hell in 2 seconds), but on the whole, I think the blame for all the confusion lies much more with the media than with the government.
I realize the story has been changed multiple times and there have been a lot of consistencies, but I also have a journalism background and don't see anything unusual about it given the situation. You're talking about something that very few people in our government knew about, involves a lot of top secret stuff they can't tell us and have to dance around, and a whole town of reporters desperate to find out any and every detail they can and are in such a rush to report on the story that they aren't concerned with clarifying or verifying the information. They're talking to a lot of people from different parts of the government who weren't directly involved and not all of whom have an accurate picture. It's like that game where kids pass a whispered message down the line and it never ends up the same at the end.
And a lot of the stuff you ask about has been explained. They've said they buried him the way they did because no other countries were willing to take his body and they didn't want his burial site to become a sort of shrine for his followers, like Saddam Hussein's did.
As for what Pakistan did or didn't know, that's an area I would like some clarification on. I read earlier that nobody in Pakistan's government knew about it beforehand, but we did tell certain trusted members of their military. Maybe thats where the confusion is coming from. Another possibility is that people in our government are saying some things like that for diplomatic reasons, since we need Pakistan on our side and obviously they aren't too happy with us doing something like this. Either way, thats a secondary matter to the whole Bin Laden thing.
It's not a matter of who to trust. Just think critically, don't rely on too few sources, and stay informed. Immediately excepting something as truth and immediately excepting something as false are equally stupid. There's a certain degree of truth when you say that there is no straight story to follow, but if you figure out what caused the inconsistencies to get there in the first place, it becomes a lot easier to wrap your head around.
I also think the picture has become more clear as things have started to settle down. There was a lot of wild speculation early on (Fox was saying this all happened a week before Obama announced it for a while) that was clearly the result of people just making shit up.
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