Bin Laden case lacks transparency – political analyst

 RT

Front page of a newspaper featuring a picture of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, in front of the White House in Washington, DC (AFP Photo / Jewel Samad)

As the world is absorbing the news of Osama Bin Laden’s killing by the US military, the credibility of the evidence provided by Washington is being questioned.
Bin Laden’s death was announced by US President Barack Obama late on May 1. Further reports stated that Bin Laden had been buried at sea, as an unnamed US official told CNN. That left the world with little evidence and gave grounds for a new surge of suspicion.
There has been a lot of confusion over the last six months, since Bin Laden was sighted by the US last time, says Ahmed Quraishi, Senior Research Fellow at the Pakistani think-tank “Project for Pakistan in 21st Century”. The confusion was further heated by suspicion that the US was using Bin Laden as a bogeyman to perpetuate its meddling and interference in the region.
The Pakistani military personnel that Ahmed Quraishi talked to were always very skeptical of the strength of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as estimated by Washington. For the last two years there has been a strong conviction that Al-Qaeda, which has no more than 100 people in the region, is incapable of carrying out any major attacks.
“There are a lot of questions regarding the location where he [Bin Laden] was found. The location is a very small town and it is impossible for a high-valued target to be there for a long time, especially for six months,” says Quraishi.
“There was a strong element of transparency, for example, when Saddam Hussein was caught,” Quraishi continues. “There were pictures, videos and footage released. In this case the element of transparency is completely non-existent. The one picture that has been circulated right now is hazy, it is not clear. There is no video footage. And now we have this story how his body has been disposed of. It would raise a lot of skepticism.”
Nevertheless, the news of Bin Laden’s killing is beneficial for the Obama administration, the CIA and American military in Afghanistan, Quraishi thinks. The US has been paving its way to get out of Afghanistan, where they have gone through a very negative experience. From the economical and political perspectives, Washington is no more in position to sustain any major enemies, especially multi-front. They want a break before they find another common enemy to consolidate their military powers against, concludes Quraishi.
James Corbett, editor of the Corbett Report, says he does not see why people should believe the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death this particular time.
“Osama Bin Laden’s death has been announced a number of times and I don’t see why we should take this pronouncement any more seriously than previous pronouncements, especially considering the complete and utter lack of evidence that has so far been produced to show that Osama Bin Laden or anyone resembling that description was actually killed yesterday,” Corbett says.
And whether he actually was killed or not, Corbett continued, it looks more like “a ploy of the CIA getting rid of one of the old assets.”
“Whether he actually did die yesterday or he has been dead for years, or whatever the case may be, this is simply a discarding war on the terror bogeyman who was no longer scaring the populus.”