Written on May 4th, 2011
Edited in April 2014
The Raid
White
House Counter-Terrorism Adviser John Brennan said bin Laden was
“engaged in a firefight” during the raid, and suggested that bin
Laden was “hiding behind women who were put in front of him as a
shield”. Brennan may not have intended to suggest either that bin
Laden was armed and shooting during the raid, nor that he literally
used his wife as a human shield during the raid.
White
House Press Secretary Jay Carney amended Brennan’s statements,
saying that bin Laden was unarmed during the raid, and that “bin
Laden’s wife… rushed the [S.E.A.L.] and was shot in the leg but
not killed”.
It
has been widely reported that bin Laden did not show willingness to
be arrested. CIA Director Leon Panetta says the S.E.A.L.s were
supposed to capture bin Laden if he showed willingness to be
captured. John Brennan agreed on Monday, saying that they killed bin
Laden because he didn’t show willingness to be captured alive.
Obviously,
bin Laden’s natural response to someone trying to capture him alive
and / or kill him would have been to have his men fire back, so in
any situation except a completely willing and peaceful surrender in
which bin Laden would have commanded all his men to fall back would
have lead to the arrest of all of them.
But
this article says that bin Laden's daughter claims that he was
captured alive, and then killed:
Some
believe that the orders were to kill bin Laden on sight. However, the
Chicago Tribune reported that the only way the SEALs wouldn't have
killed bin Laden is if he were naked, because him being naked would
have been the only way the SEALs could have been sure that he did not
have any explosive devices hidden under his clothing.
The "Burial"
People
are claiming that bin Laden's corpse was cleansed, wrapped in a
shroud, and buried within 24 hours of his death, in accordance with
the funerary rites of Islam. They also say they buried him at sea so
that his followers wouldn't turn his grave into a shrine. But Muslim
funerary rites dictate that a person is to be buried in the ground in
an unmarked grave with his head pointing towards Mecca, so both of
the ideas in the preceding sentence are preposterous.
The
Salafis would never turn a person's grave into a shrine, and could never turn one into a shrine, because it would be unmarked. And that
a person's corpse could be weighted and sunk to the bottom of the sea
would obviously not ensure that his head would point towards Mecca.
The Intelligence
Rick
Santorum, Tim Pawlenty, and Sean Hannity claimed that "enhanced
interrogation techniques" such as waterboarding led us to bin
Laden's courier, leading to bin Laden's assassination. But if Donald
Rumsfeld is correct, such claims are completely false. Rumsfeld says
that only three individuals (including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) were
waterboarded, and that waterboarding never took place at Guantanamo
Bay). There are no solid facts anywhere that suggest that "enhanced
interrogation techniques" - waterboarding included - led to bin
Laden's assassination.
For
more entries on homeland security and terrorism, please
visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2011/03/911-heres-what-i-think-happened.html
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2011/03/911-heres-what-i-think-happened.html
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