Bringing Osama to the Sea: The President must provide conclusive evidence of Osama bin Laden’s death

By Bernie Quigley

For The Hill on 5/2/11

The first reports of Osama bin Laden’s death told us that he was buried with 24 hours of his death and ”buried at sea” because “finding a country willing to accept the remains of the world's most terrorist would have been difficult.” So we would assume there would be physical evidence of the death if there is no body. That would presumably be photographic identification or DNA evidence. During the Vietnam War, the military on the ground was notoriously unreliable about physical evidence in combat.

Because if I have this right, “the sea” is at least 800 miles from the Abbottabad region of Pakistan where reports say bin Laden was killed. How did they get him from there to the sea? Did they drop him out of an airplane or travel by land convoy 800 miles with the six and a half foot corpse? Then other reports said the body was delivered to Afghanistan. Did they bring him to Afghanistan and then bring him to the sea? That would have been more than a thousand miles to haul the corpse.

Other reports said that he was or would be identified by DNA evidence. Results of the DNA tests should be available in the next few days, “the official” told Reuters. But then WCVB in Boston reported that “The death of a sister of Osama bin Laden at Massachusetts General Hospital allowed the United States to confirm bin Laden's death, ABC News reported.” So then it won’t take a few days like the Reuters report claimed? Did they or did they not know through DNA evidence that it was Osama bin Laden they had killed? Especially important since the corpse may have been disfigured in the shooting, so photo evidence would not be conclusive.
What’s it gonna be?

The President needs to clear this stuff up pronto because credibility in crisis is of vital journalistic importance. And precisely at these times you don’t want mischievous and false myth to awaken, like did we fake the moon landing, what really happened at Roswell, where are Biggie and Tupac, was Obama really born in the United States and is Osama bin Laden really dead? This kind of pesky misinformation and seditious and nihilistic propaganda can plague the tabloids for decades. Especially with a press and populous like Fox Mulder, that wants to believe.