6 ms·

Sounds more likely to me that some people within the Pakistani intelligence knew Bin Laden was in the country, similarly individuals within the US intelligence

• dogma1138 11y ago
  What kind of public acknowledgement you would expect them hanging him off the Washington monument?
• mmanfrin 11y ago
  > It's too bad they didn't bring the body back to the US. I wouldn't consider Bin Laden to be a Muslim and therefore not deserving of a proper Muslim burial. I see no reason they should have disposed of him and prevented some sort of public verification. They did not want the body to become a shrine to those who followed the ideology of Bin Laden, and they similarly did not want the picture(s) of his body to be iconography for that ideology. I know a lot of people disagree, but I can see very valid reasoning behind how they disposed of his body.
  • 67726e 11y ago
    Similar reasoning to the Soviet's disposal of Hitler's corpse. So I guess we have a lot of conspiracies on the History Channel to look forward to.
    • bdcravens 11y ago
      Heaven forbid we take up valuable programming space for reality shows about trucking or pawn shops :-)
    • dennisgorelik 11y ago
      Soviets clearly wanted to capture Hitler alive (one more Nazi leader to hang). The US administration had no good reason to capture Bin Laden, because Bin Laden's trial would have been very messy for the US administration.
  • ern 11y ago
    Bin Laden was a Wahhabi, as are the Saudi governing elite. Wahhabis are vehmently, even violently, opposed to any kind of "grave worship". As far as I know, even the kings of Saudi Arabia are buried in unmarked graves, and the Saudis would demolish the structure over Mohamed's grave if they had the chance. It is therefore extremely unlikely that Bin Laden's grave would have become a shrine if his corpse was returned to Saudi Arabia, which was the initial excuse given for the burial at sea.
    • muriithi 11y ago
      Even if he was a Wahhabi many of those he inspired were not.
      • ern 11y ago
        True, but the idea that Saudi Arabia would allow pilgrimages to his gravesite is extremely unlikely.
    • IkmoIkmo 11y ago
      > and the Saudis would demolish the structure over Mohamed's grave if they had the chance. You mean the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi and the so called Green Dome under which Mohammed is buried? An area that has become a standard stop as the second holiest place in Islam in the muslim pilgrimage? I do agree with you, that's the Saudi position and the green dome is an exception (which may one day end up stopping to be an exception), but so far they've spared it despite various calls to destroy it in the past, and rather have expanded the site in a massive way (not the tomb, but the mosque around it, which is visited becomes of veneration of Mohamed and visits to the tomb). If you had named any other person you'd have been right, but so far Mohamed seems to be an exception to the rule. Regardless I don't think it mattered much. Take the holy site in Shia islam, the shrine of Husain ibn Ali for example, was first believed to have been marked with a berry tree. A few years later, a mosque was built, which roughly 100 years later was demolished and the berry tree cut down. People still kept visiting guided (it is said), by the traces of the berry tree. The caliph then ordered the tree to be cut out from the root to stop people from visiting. A few decades later a new mosque was built, which a few decades later still was destroyed and the land ordered to be ploughed (including the grave). Stuff like this went on for centuries, with new mosques being built and destroyed for political or religious reasons. I'm doubtless as to whether OBL's burial sight would've become a place of visitation and propaganda, it'd be inevitable to have created some following even if it was merely marked by GPS and barely any structure could be found at the sight because any structures would get removed. Burial at sea is the exception.
• spacehome 11y ago
  > I wouldn't consider Bin Laden to be a Muslim He wasn't a Scotsman, either.
  • bmmayer1 11y ago
    I wish I could double upvote this comment.
  • daenz 11y ago
    Just spelling it out for people who might not get it: parent post is referring to the "No true Scotsman" fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
• jcranmer 11y ago
  I consider it virtually certain that Pakistani intelligence at some level was specifically hiding bin Laden and probable that the highest levels of government/army either knew or suspected (I personally suspect the latter) that this was the case. Given the instability of the Pakistani state and ISI's known prior flirting with extremists, I find it hard to believe that he was sold out by the government. Said information being inadvertently leaked to a low-level, non-ideologically-aligned functionary is possible, but I don't know the state of affairs in ISI/Pakistan's military well enough to judge its plausibility. As for cooperation: it's extremely plausible for anyone who is aware of where bin Laden was hiding to choose to do absolutely nothing (and to try to refrain those who aren't aware of that fact to stay the hell away until the dust settles). It's reasonable to infer that various people in the military figured out that the US was going after bin Laden sometime during the raid and decided to pretend nothing was going on. Again, given what's been known about Pakistan's cooperation with terrorists in the past, I'd be more surprised if the US was open to even limited people in Pakistan about what it was about to do--in a choice between "piss off Pakistan" versus "risk bin Laden getting away," the former would be my personal vote and probably those of most US politicians. Ultimately, that's the problem I have with Hersh's version: it assumes that Pakistan suddenly deciding that bedding with terrorists is too risky is a more likely scenario than Pakistan being too incompetent (or merely unwilling) to stand up against the US making the raid it's been wanting to make for a decade.
• venomsnake 11y ago
  > I wouldn't consider Bin Laden to be a Muslim and therefore not deserving of a proper Muslim burial. Sorry but he was a Muslim. You may not like his interpretation of Islam, but he was one. Now of course he didn't deserve proper Muslim burial provided by the US Gov. Because it is not a state's job to provide such. The state job is to treat everyone equally.
  • raverbashing 11y ago
    Oh look, one prophet follower thinking that their BS interpretation of an old fairy tale is better than the other And of course they will fight for the death for it, then flee somewhere else because of "persecution" You can think whatever you want of Bin Laden, but it's the bleeding obvious that a lot of people consider him a muslim