Disclaimer: I am not advocating any kind of conspiracy theory.
2 and 2 still make 4, so I don’t understand certain things about the May 1st killing of Osama bin Laden.
First, the story has changed pretty substantially. Initially, Navy SEAL Team Six fast-roped into a firefight in bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan where the Al-Qaeda leader went out in the cliche “blaze of glory.” Neoconservative Fox News was quick to interview Karl Rove and Donald Rumsfeld, who were equally quick to point out that torture works: the information that led the U.S. government to bin Laden was obtained by the torture of Guantanamo Bay detainee Kalid Sheik Mohammed. Sean Hannity must have been on the verge of ecstasy over this (and Limbaugh, too).
But now the White House says that bin Laden was unarmed when the SEALs entered his room. This is also confirmed by bin Laden’s 12 year-old daughter who was an eyewitness, here. So here’s where the official numbers don’t make sense to me: if torture really does work, and if bin Laden really was unarmed when the SEALs found him, why kill the greatest intelligence asset in the world? If waterboarding is all that Limbaugh and Hannity say it is, why not waterboard all of bin Laden’s secrets right out of him? Wouldn’t we be able to anticipate and avoid all of the terrorism Al-Qaeda has planned for us?
I also must admit that I am completely baffled by the decision to bury bin Laden at sea. Even if the CIA or the SEALs or the White House have some super-advanced DNA testing that gives results in minutes or hours, the decision to bury him at sea will likely out-Elvis even Elvis himself. Without a real body to display to the world and bury ceremoniously (like dignified human beings), bin Laden will be sighted everywhere, forever. Even if the White House eventually relents and releases photos, how can we know for sure that they were not Photoshopped? Again, I am not saying that I believe that this is all a conspiracy. But now there is no way to gainsay the naysayers. I mean, forgive my cynicism, but these are the same people who told us that Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns were A-OK the Fridays before they failed. These are the same people who claim to have a strong dollar policy. These are the same people who call double-digit unemployment (at least in California), a “recovery.”
My first reaction to hearing the news about bin Laden was, “Ok. Can the soldiers come home, now?” If Leon Panetta of the CIA, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld and their ilk have their way, the answer is a deafening, “NO!” Instead of bringing the troops home, the death of Osama bin Laden means we have to ramp up the War on Terror many times over. But I thought our first military action after 9/11 – going in to Afghanistan – was for the purpose of bringing bin Laden to justice. Now that has sort of been done, if illegally. If justice has been served and we still need more war, then what is the real purpose of the wars? Will we ever really know?
