So what happens if bin Laden is dead?

[Stylerod]

Originally Posted by Scrumtralecent

Hey if you and people who vote for your party are happy letting mass murders go, it doesn't surprise me one bit.
It's what they have been doing for the past 5 years. Why would they change their tune now?

You should already know what I think. I think he's been dead for years. Only now someone got hold of the info somehow and leaked it.

Oh, and thanks for proving my argument.

[Scrum]

Originally Posted by Stylerod

Oh, and thanks for proving my argument.

Your point was that the Republicans don't care about bringing OBL to justice?

And that's fine. You think he's been dead for years. You like making up your own truth. If that makes you feel good about yourself, more power to you. Just don't walk around thinking your delusions are fact.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by Scrumtralecent

And that's fine. You think he's been dead for years. You like making up your own truth. If that makes you feel good about yourself, more power to you. Just don't walk around thinking your delusions are fact.

France, Pakistan and the Saudis have all said they have intell that says Bin Laden is dead. What intell do you have that shows he's alive?

Afghanistan says they know for a fact he's not in their country and hasn't been for years. If he's alive, they don't know where he is.

It's been two years since we've heard of him and there's no evidence at all that he's alive.

To say he's delusional is a bit extreme considering you're actually the one with absolutely nothing to show he's alive.

[Diamond Cross]

How reliable are those intelligence reports is the question. What intelligence America does have on Bin Laden is not being released for reasons only the American governmen knows.

[motivez]

Originally Posted by JaJae

France, Pakistan and the Saudis have all said they have intell that says Bin Laden is dead. What intell do you have that shows he's alive?

Uh, you make it sound like this information is coming from multiple sources, when the reality is:

But the sourcing was as sketchy as most rumours about Bin Laden: a single uncorroborated French intelligence report, which quoted Saudi security services.

Secondly, he's talking about Stylerod believing he's been dead "all these years", when we ( as in, Scrum and the rest of the world ) have evidence that proves that's simply not the case.

IntelCenter, a Washington-based organisation that monitors terrorist communications, said yesterday that the last time it could be sure Bin Laden was alive was on 29 June [ 2006 ], when al-Qa'ida released an audiotape in which the terror leader eulogised Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former head of al-Qa'ida in Iraq, who was killed earlier that month. It was an unwelcome reminder that however many successes have been scored against the network, its creator remains uncaught. So does his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and their ally, the Taliban leader Mullah Omar.

Source: Independent Online Edition > Middle East

[JaJae]

There's reports that showed he died in 2004. And now there's reports that show he died recently. Between then there's been no evidence he's alive as far as I'm aware.

So to say that it's delusional is a bit extreme. I'm not saying I support one opinion or the other. But to use ad hominems against someone for their beliefs on this issue seems a bit unfair to me.

[motivez]

I just provided you with evidence that proves he was alive in June of this year, after the death of Zarqawi.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by motivez

I just provided you with evidence that proves he was alive in June of this year, after the death of Zarqawi.

I heard that audio tape was later discredited as being his son's voice... Maybe I'm mistaken.

[motivez]

The article I linked was written today, but if you have some evidence.. feel free to share.

[Diamond Cross]

Here's the biggest reason why I'm skeptical:

Where's the body?

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by motivez

The article I linked was written today, but if you have some evidence.. feel free to share.

Yea but the recording was presented months ago. I'm fairly certain there was a lot of people claiming it could have been his son on the recording.

And in any event, there is no right answer to this. Nobody really knows if he's alive or not. So to attack someone with ad hominems for their "opinion" is inaccurate and wrong.

[motivez]

You're "fairly certain" that "a lot" of people "claimed" it "could have" eh?

Well, with facts like those, we could invade a non-threatening Arab country!...

I'm not talking about or responding to Scrum's post, so I'm not sure why you keep directing attention to it.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by motivez

I'm not talking about or responding to Scrum's post, so I'm not sure why you keep directing attention to it.

Because it has everything to do with my initial post in this thread. My whole premise is that to call someone delusional for believing bin Laden is dead isn't exactly a good stance to hold.

And for the recording..
The Voice of Osama bin Laden

Voice recognition is a rapidly developing technology, thanks to the availability of cheap computing power. You've probably seen a 'voice print,' a plot of frequency density vs. time; music editing software makes them on personal computers. Old voice recognition analysis made matches between sets of such plots. Modern voice identification systems, which seek to have low false-alarm rates even in the presence of noise, tend to depend more heavily on a technique known as 'feature analysis.' A feature is a peculiar twist in the voice, often a tell-tale transition between phonemes with different pitches. These are not readily heard by listeners, but they can be picked out in a digital analysis. Patterns of such glitches are unique identifiers, much like the ridge bifurcations and other minutiae of fingerprint patterns are the keys in fingerprint identification.

Voice identification systems are already in widespread use around the world. They are employed at the Canadian border to identify and track frequent travelers, and in Britain to verify the compliance of young parolees. U.S. companies, including Chase Manhattan Bank, Charles Schwab, and Prudential Securities, use voice identification to control access to secure areas and records. Visa is hoping to replace credit card verification personal identification numbers with voice recognition; a computer will compare features of your voice with those stored in the credit card chip.

With such a success record, shouldn't voice recognition software work reliably to identify Osama, or to reject an imitator? Unfortunately, the Al Jazeera tapes are not high quality -- probably no better than telephone sound. That's good enough to detect some kinds of deception, but not all. Here are three possibilities:

1. The tape was made by an impressionist trying to imitate bin Laden's voice. Good impressionists can mimic the tone and pacing of their subject, but they often overemphasize obvious quirks, much as a caricaturist exaggerates dominant physical features. That makes it amusing to hear, but it won't fool an analyst. Impressionists are not good at catching the more subtle features that even simple voice recognition software uses. This kind of counterfeit can almost certainly be ruled out.

2. The tape was made by cutting and pasting true excerpts from bin Laden's past speeches. Much of the tape could be unchanged from a prior recording. The tough part for the counterfeiter was adding mention of Saddam's capture, where words and phrases had to be rearranged. To detect such a forgery, a good analyst would listen for discontinuities in the background noise, or small blips indicating the tape was spliced. Digital processing by the tape maker can remove such artifacts, but they leave behind their own; low-pass filters, for example, create easily detected changes in the spectrum of the background hiss. (That's why true audiophiles dislike noise suppression filters. It is readily noticed by a trained ear.) Such cutting and pasting, even with digital filtering, would have been detected by the CIA. Digital processing can be detected in other ways; for example, it sometimes generates false frequencies (called aliases). Such tampering would have raised suspicions. Therefore this scenario can probably be ruled out as well.

3. The tape was a recording of one of Osama bin Laden's sons, who was deliberately trying to sound like his father. This is, in my mind, the most likely hypothesis.

His voice has been traced as bin Laden's in the past...
Secular Blasphemy

US officials are getting optimistic about catching Osama Bin Laden (picture) in the near future.The CIA and the Pakistani army are currently tracking a large caravan of people on foot and horseback moving slowly through the mountain area of southwestern Pakistan.

Supposedly Saad, Bin Laden's son, made a mobile phone call from Tehran recently, which was traced to the exact location. While voice recognition picked it out as Bin Laden's voice, US intelligence officials are well aware of the risk that he has pulled a similar trick as he used to get out of Tora Bora: making accomplices play a tape recording with his voice over monitored phone connections.

Experts are constantly debunking the tape and claiming it was false. Some believe it's real others say no way. There really is no concrete evidence for the past couple of years that shows he's alive. In fact, there seems to be stronger evidence that he's dead.

You can argue my "facts" and throw in all the rhetoric against the administration and invasions, but that's my whole point. There are no facts and there are no certainties. You can't prove the tape is legit or that bin Laden is alive anymore than someone can prove he's dead. Therefore, taking such a strong stance to where ad hominems and sarcasm are used rather than showing concrete "facts" seems a bit absurd.

Trying to prove one way or the other or arguing one side on this issue is a bit of a circle jerk.

[nbiggershaft]

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

Will the argument of 'the US government hasn't used our resources to pursue the one man that is responsible for 9/11' be null and void? Isn't this almost as good as going in and assassinating him with our soldiers; setting it up so that he's unable to live in hiding? I think if he really is confirmed dead that the US will be held a bit higher

Won't really change my opinions about Iraq, I would hope it wouldn't change anyone elses either. Al queda is much bigger than old man. But I do hope him dieing of disease and not bullets hurts his, and his cause's image.

[DosEquis]

Unless we found him and killed him, his death does not neccessarily reflect success in our policies to hunt him down. To take credit for his death by natural causes is some what laughable. It would be nice if he died, but i dont think we could call it any kind of victory.

[ballz2wallz]

Originally Posted by DosEquis

Unless we found him and killed him, his death does not neccessarily reflect success in our policies to hunt him down. To take credit for his death by natural causes is some what laughable. It would be nice if he died, but i dont think we could call it any kind of victory.

No, but it will kill the 'we're going after the wrong person' argument.

[Scrum]

Originally Posted by JaJae

Because it has everything to do with my initial post in this thread. My whole premise is that to call someone delusional for believing bin Laden is dead isn't exactly a good stance to hold.

And for the recording..
The Voice of Osama bin Laden



His voice has been traced as bin Laden's in the past...
Secular Blasphemy



Experts are constantly debunking the tape and claiming it was false. Some believe it's real others say no way. There really is no concrete evidence for the past couple of years that shows he's alive. In fact, there seems to be stronger evidence that he's dead.

You can argue my "facts" and throw in all the rhetoric against the administration and invasions, but that's my whole point. There are no facts and there are no certainties. You can't prove the tape is legit or that bin Laden is alive anymore than someone can prove he's dead. Therefore, taking such a strong stance to where ad hominems and sarcasm are used rather than showing concrete "facts" seems a bit absurd.

Trying to prove one way or the other or arguing one side on this issue is a bit of a circle jerk.

Great. Lets argue the existance of flying pink unicorns who shoot lasers out of their eyes.
I can say they exist since you can't prove they don't.

This is not an ad hominem attack. It's an attack on made up facts. We know OBL was alive at one point. He should be considered alive until proof arises that shows he's dead. To say he's dead with no proof is delusional.

Besides, he was saying he was dead since before the last tape. It's like these people who think the word was going to end on Jan 1 200 and then changes their tune when it didn't happen.

[DosEquis]

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

No, but it will kill the 'we're going after the wrong person' argument.

The argument would be killed, but not killed for the right reason.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by Scrumtralecent

Great. Lets argue the existance of flying pink unicorns who shoot lasers out of their eyes.
I can say they exist since you can't prove they don't.

This is not an ad hominem attack. It's an attack on made up facts. We know OBL was alive at one point. He should be considered alive until proof arises that shows he's dead. To say he's dead with no proof is delusional.

Besides, he was saying he was dead since before the last tape. It's like these people who think the word was going to end on Jan 1 200 and then changes their tune when it didn't happen.

Comparing real world to mythology/fantasy doesn't prove your point.

The fact is Osama is/was the leader of al Queda. He has not turned up for quite some time and on the rare occasion (once a year if that) we get a recording, it's usually debunked as being taped long ago or the voice of his son.

To say he's alive because you can't prove he's dead or to say he's dead because you can't prove he's alive is a matter of personal opinion. Take the peices you have and come up with a conclusions. Liberals like to think he's alive, it shows a failure of Bush. Conservatives like to think he's dead. It shows less of a failure in the war on terror.

Yet I think people who can see both sides can stand back and realize that there is no answer and anyone willing to use ad hominems or fantasy to back up their "opinion" is wrong.

Nobody is debating facts in this thread. There's a difference between this thread and the majority of other threads in LL. In here it's all circumstantial and everyone believes what they want to believe. At that point it shows a character flaw if one uses ad hominems to defend their "opinion" which is based completely on assumptions.

[Stylerod]

Originally Posted by DosEquis

Unless we found him and killed him, his death does not neccessarily reflect success in our policies to hunt him down. To take credit for his death by natural causes is some what laughable. It would be nice if he died, but i dont think we could call it any kind of victory.

Who is taking credit for his death???

All we are saying is, if he is dead. It's a good thing. But some people have a hard time saying that without putting a "but.." or an "except for...".

Why not say, "Boy, I sure hope he is dead. The world is a better place without him." and leave it at that?