Timeline: Osama Bin Laden Died on December 14, 2001 From Complications Due to Kidney Failure
126 2013-09-30 by [deleted]
In light of Sy Hersh's claim that the raid on Osama bin Laden in 2011 is "one big lie," here's an overview of evidence in support of an alternative narrative: bin Laden died in December 2001 in Tora Bora from a lung complication as a result of kidney failure starting at least since mid-2000. All sources are from the mainstream media, many of which have since been "scrubbed" from the internet.
2000 to September 2001: Reports Emerge of bin Laden Dying From Kidney Disease
In March 2000 the Chicago Tribune reports that an Afghan witness and "Western intelligence official" say bin Laden is suffering from severe kidney and liver failure. Link: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2000-03-25/news/0003250085_1_laden-bin-religious-militia
This story was also picked up by CBS News in 2000, who outright lead with the title that "Bin Laden Reported to be Dying" from "kidney disease." Link: http://web.archive.org/web/20010212010328/http://www.cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,172666-412,00.shtml
In July 2001, the South Asia Analysis Group reports: "Bin Laden, who suffers from renal deficiency, has been periodically undergoing dialysis in a Peshawar military hospital with the knowledge and approval of the Inter-Services Intelligence, (ISI) if not of Gen.Pervez Musharraf himself." Link: http://web.archive.org/web/20011007021426/http://www.saag.org/papers3/paper266.html
September to November 2001: bin Laden is Trapped in Afghanistan, Unable to Receive Kidney Treatments
In September 2001, PBS' Frontline interviews the former general counsel for the CIA, mentioning reports from 1998 that the DEA found out Osama bin Laden was undergoing kidney dialysis with a doctor in Peshwar. They mention further that the DEA wanted to poison bin Laden through his dialysis machine, but the CIA allegedy rejected this due to the ban on assassinations. Link: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/terrorism/interviews/smith.html
In November 2001, The Guardian is reporting that French intelligence officials say bin Laden was flown to Dubai for kidney treatment in July of 2001, where he also met with several CIA agents and the head of Saudi intelligence. This story is also picked up by several French newspapers. Link: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/nov/01/afghanistan.terrorism
In his first interview since 9/11, in November 2001 bin Laden talks to a Pakistani newspaper and claims that his "kidneys are all right" and denies visiting a hospital in Dubai the previous year (note that he may have visited one in Pakistan). In the same interview he also asserts, clearly lying, that he has "nuclear weapons." Link: http://dawn.com/news/5647/osama-claims-he-has-nukes-if-us-uses-n-arms-it-will-get-same-response/2
December 2001: bin Laden is Dead, Buried in Afghanistan
In December of 2001, the New York Times reports on "high-level murmurings that bin Laden is dead." Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/26/international/asia/26LADE.html
That same day,citing a Taliban source, Fox News reports that bin Laden has died due to an "untreated lung complication" from kidney disease. About 30 "close associates" reportedly attended bin Laden's funeral in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan. A source concludes that the U.S. government and other forces are in a "mad search operation" but will never be able to locate the now-dead bin Laden, buried in an unmarked location. Link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/2001/12/26/report-bin-laden-already-dead/
Late December 2001 to March 2002: bin Laden's "Death Video" is Released
In late December of 2001, after reports of bin Laden's funeral, a new video appears of a gaunt, sickly Osama bin Laden. The London Telegraph reports, verbatim: "The recording was dismissed by the Bush administration yesterday as sick propaganda possibly designed to mask the fact the al-Qa'eda leader was already dead." One aid further concludes that the video was created earlier in the event bin Laden is dead, who by December of 2001 was so heavily surrounded he would have been unable to escape to obtain kidney dialysis. Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/1366508/US-casts-doubt-on-bin-Ladens-latest-message.html
At this time CBS news also runs a story on bin Laden receiving kidney disease treatments in Pakistan the week before 9/11. Link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmhXSUIFLZ4
In January of 2002, The Guardian reports that the president of Pakistan speculates that bin Laden is now dead of untreated kidney disease based on video and photographs of a gaunt-looking bin Laden. Link: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jan/19/afghanistan.oliverburkeman
In January of 2002, based on his analysis of video and photographs of bin Laden from December 2001, CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta says that bin Laden seems to be having renal failure. He notes kidney dialysis is expensive, and suggests bin Laden would need help in obtaining medical treatment. Link: http://edition.cnn.com/2002/HEALTH/01/21/gupta.otsc/
In March 2002, the BBC reports on an interview with bin Laden's wife, who speaks of bin Laden in the past tense, notes his failing kidney and frequent use of pills and other medicines. She says she has not seen her husband since September 2001, but holds out hope that he is still alive: "I feel deep inside me that he is still alive." She also notes that bin Laden's wish was to die in Afghanistan and nowhere else: "He never spoke to me about his intention to leave Afghanistan and always wished to die there. He told me once that if he ever left Afghanistan, it would be to meet his Creator." She also says that bin Laden "always suffered from kidney and stomach pains and that he "told me once that he was going to Pakistan for treatment." Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/monitoring/media_reports/1871182.stm
In March and April of 2002, U.S. officials downplay the threat of bin Laden, with Rumsfeld even saying the bin Laden threat has been "neutralized." Even Bush, called out for rarely mentioning bin Laden in 2002, admits: "We haven't heard from him [bin Laden] in a long time... I don’t know where he is. I really just don’t spend that much time on him, to be honest with you." Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PGmnz5Ow-o
In May 2002, ABC News reports on a new spliced-together tape from unknown time periods in which bin Laden appears "about the same" (that is, sickly-looking) as in the tape from December 2011. ABC News also says they have "learned intelligence reports indicate bin Laden had received a kidney transplant in Pakistan," but do not know when. Link: http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=79973&page=1
July 2002: FBI Chief Says bin Laden is Most Likely Dead; Nothing from bin Laden Since December 2001
In July 2002, the BBC reveals a bombshell: the FBI's counter-terrorism chief Dale Watson says bin Laden is '"probably dead." Conveniently, bin Laden's followers' claim that bin Laden will "not make more video statements until his group launches another attack on the United States." Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2135473.stm
In July 2002, CNN reports that bin Laden's close bodyguards were captured in February of 2002, but not bin Laden. The article also quotes mentions some high-level officials: "Some high-level U.S. officials are already convinced by such evidence that bin Laden, who has not been seen or heard from in months, is dead." Link: http://web.archive.org/web/20021204040117/http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/07/30/binladen.son/
In July 2002, Time Magazine reports that "intelligence officials are not certain whether Osama bin Laden is alive or dead" but that "they have found a tantalizing document that suggests he was living at least as recently as the last days of December [of 2001]." Link: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1002840,00.html
In July 2002, The New York Times runs another article on how Osama bin Laden is likely dead. The author notes how unusual it would be for bin Laden, known for his constant desire for media attention, would be silent for over half a year. Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/11/opinion/the-death-of-bin-ladenism.html
October 2002: Intelligence Officials Confirm bin Laden is Dead; bin Laden's Will is Released
Also in October 2002 the D.C.-based news service The World Tribune, citing Israeli intelligence sources, reports that the United States and Israel have concluded that bin Laden died in Afghanistan in December 2001. They note that additional bin Laden messages are "probably fabrications," and that bin Laden's heir has been chosen. Link: http://web.archive.org/web/20021205223313/http://216.26.163.62/2002/me_terrorism_10_16.html
The president of Afghanistan also concludes that bin Laden is probably dead: "The more we don't hear of him, and the more time passes, there is the likelihood that he probably is either dead or seriously wounded somewhere." Link: http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/central/10/06/karzai.binladen/
In October 2002 CNN reports that U.S. intelligence officials have obtained Osama bin Laden's will, which is dated December 14, 2001 (approximately the same date as has been reported bin Laden's funeral in Tora Bora by Fox News and other outlets). CNN also reports that there has been no evidence of bin Laden since December of 2001. Link: http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/10/26/binladen.will/
2002 Onwards: Efforts to Target bin Laden are Closed Down; bin Laden = "Elvis"
In 2004, the LA Times quotes Donald Rumsfeld (who mixes up Hussein with bin Laden) as admitting: "We've not seen him [bin Laden] on a video since 2001." Link: http://newsmine.org/content.php?ol=9-11/binladen/death/rumsfeld-says-no-clues-to-bin-laden-since-2001.txt
In 2006 the New York Times reports the CIA had officially closed down the unit focused on capturing bin Laden the previous year. Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/04/washington/04intel.html?ex=1309665600&en=3779ed9b98bb9d22&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
In 2006, U.S. and Pakistani officials say they have not received any information about bin Laden in years: "no tips from informants, no snippets from electronic intercepts, no points on any satellite image." The article rehashes the December 2001 video of bin Laden as the most recent evidence (other than a second-hand claim from 2003) of bin Laden's existence. Some commandos are now giving Osama bin Laden the codename "Elvis." Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/09/AR2006090901105.html
The available reports overwhelmingly supports the view that bin Laden died of kidney failure in December of 2001. We have mainstream media reports from a variety of sources, and zero credible evidence since then, as admitted by top level offiicals. Even if you believe the official story, the evidence very strongly suggests some entity (either the CIA, Saudi Royal Family, the Pakistani government, or all the above) helped bin Laden survive long enough via medical treatments to be killed at a later point in time.
This very well could be the "one big lie" Seymour Hersh has mentioned in The Guardian recently.
Edit: Grammar and additional sources.
36 comments
18 [deleted] 2013-09-30
Lets not forget that we buried his body at sea. BOGUS! Since when have we gave a shit about muslim beliefs and traditions.
No pictures.
NAVY SEALs mysteriously shot down in the pitch black darkness of Afghanistan. They were shot down by some goat herder while they were riding in a Chinook doing 140+. Those pilots don't fuck around. Especially 160th Pilots which is who I am assuming was giving them the ride. Oh btw the Chinook is the fastest helicopter we have. Kind of a difficult shot with an RPG don't ya think?
We also can't forget about Zero Dark Thirty. They used that movie to instill the idea that Bin Laden was killed to the American public.
Person 1"Have you seen Zero Dark Thirty"
Person 2 "No what is it about?"
Person 3 "The Bin Laden Raid"
Back to the NAVY SEALs. Their black box in the Chinook could not be recovered. Yes, I know it's bullshit lol. A flash flood took it. Hilarious right?
I could go on and on. The whole thing was fucking fake.
2 lamercat 2013-09-30
Strange, just like the black boxes of all planes being vaporized on 9/11.
2 [deleted] 2013-09-30
You'd think they would make those darn things invincible. Maybe they should add a tracking beacon as well. /s
1 Nevek_Green 2013-09-30
He was being sarcastic in a manner. The black boxes in 9/11 were recovered according to people who led I think it was the FBI around. They found 3 of them.
1 petedacook 2013-09-30
This is the first I heard of this. Do you have a source showing BB recovered from the twin towers and pentagon?
1 Nevek_Green 2013-09-30
Sorry, it was in one of those old documentaries from years back. I couldn't tell you wish one for 100 certainty.
1 petedacook 2013-09-30
Hey! Important things like passports were recovered from the ruins of 9/11 twin towers! Maybe if those black boxes were made more indestructible material like terrorist passports they would have also been recovered.
-4 DrunkHonesty 2013-09-30
You say they didn't bury his body at sea... ok.
No pictures have been released, that's true.
The details regarding the Chinook takedown are are not released either, sure.
Then, there's a Hollywood film, based upon the story that's known to the public.
So what's you conclusion based on these hard hitting facts?
I'll grant you everyone of the points you make. None of them prove that Bin Laden was or wasn't killed by Navy Seals on May 2, 2011.
13 [deleted] 2013-09-30
If I claim you are a murderer, can you prove you are not?
Those who make extraordinary claims must show extraordinary evidence. The extraordinary claim here is that OBL was still alive, and was shot, and was buried at sea. It's an extraordinary claim. And yet there is no evidence for it except official statements, which we know are often false.
There is no burden of proof here for doubters. Without solid proof of such an extraordinary incident, the only reasonable assumption is that it did not happen.
8 _FallacyBot_ 2013-09-30
Burden of Proof: The person who makes the claim is burdened with the task of proving their claim, they should not force others to disprove them without first having proven themselves.
Created at /r/RequestABot
If you dont like me, simply reply leave me alone fallacybot , youll never see me again
1 DrunkHonesty 2013-09-30
I definitely reserve my stance on whether or not Bin Laden was killed by Navy Seals on that day.
I was just illustrating the fact that /grippinthagrain's points brought nothing substantial to the table.
5 [deleted] 2013-09-30
I'm not sure what substantial evidence you can bring to the table to disprove the official story. Perhaps OBL alive and well? But if he died in 2001, that's hard. Perhaps a leak from one of the soldiers involved? But they are all dead too. Perhaps the black box that showed their death was an accident, and not an ambush. But that is missing thanks to a... flash flood... what?
A flash flood..? Black boxes are designed to survive smashing into mountains and sinking to the bottom of the ocean. They do not simply disappear.
Circumstantial evidence can at least point to doubts in the official story. Indeed, the sudden respect for Muslim beliefs is surprising. The lack of a body, or photos is surprising. The publication of "No Easy Day" is... surprising. SEALS don't normally ever talk about their job. The timing of the OBL raid, bolstering Obama as president, is... convenient.
And so on. None of this is substantial but it creates a weight of circumstantial evidence that easily outweighs the zero evidence to back the official story.
1 lamercat 2013-09-30
Why have you been down voted?
-1 MusicMagi 2013-09-30
Burden of proof argument rhetoric. Move on
3 _FallacyBot_ 2013-09-30
Burden of Proof: The person who makes the claim is burdened with the task of proving their claim, they should not force others to disprove them without first having proven themselves.
Created at /r/RequestABot
If you dont like me, simply reply leave me alone fallacybot , youll never see me again
-8 SinkVenice 2013-09-30
Firstly that’s pretty racist and ethnocentric.
Dunno, how many times people can say it, IT WAS NOT THE SAME TEAM THAT WAS KILLED!
There are many Devgru teams, many many SEAL teams. They were ambushed as they chased a HVT after a raid. He had anticipated this and ambushed their helicopter, it was not some ‘goat herd’ who got lucky.
Look, if Bin Laden died of kidney failure why did every Islamic militant in the world affiliated with AQ wait until the SEALs killed him to eulogise him? Why did his number 2 Zawahiri only take over AQ when the SEALS killed him? Why did Boko Haram, Al Shabaab, the Taliban et al all wait until the SEALs killed him to swear their new allegiance to Zawahiri? Why not do that when he died of kidney failure?
4 [deleted] 2013-09-30
That's exactly what they all are. Untrained. Even the most trained fighters for the Taliban are still considered untrained to me. In pitch black darkness you cannot see a chinook flying. You have pry never seen a warzone or third world country. It is dark!!! They don't have NODs or anything to help them target and when a Chinook is running blackout you can't see anything. You can only hear and feel it.
And the black box was not recovered. This is SOF and sensitive equipment is involved. They would have had an extraction team on the downed bird in no time. The whole story doesn't add up and even the Navy SEALs parents and friends don't believe the rhetoric being fed.
But ya I'm racist lol
15 SovereignMan 2013-09-30
Good job compiling all those MSM reports.
9 Space_Dragon 2013-09-30
If the msm reported it, it gives it some "official" credibility. For whatever that's worth.
6 mrzisme 2013-09-30
Yea, because if he instead handed you a bunch of wordpress anonymous blogs, you would have been completely satisfied. /s
13 Space_Dragon 2013-09-30
There's a Vice video where they go to Islamabad and talk to some people who deny him ever being there. Just people from the neighbourhood he allegedly lived in, not some government official with a narrative to follow. So, who knows? I remember hearing reports that he died even back when I was younger. Are there any other cases of people being possibly dead and "living" on this way?
11 Sabremesh 2013-09-30
Thank you Invictus8 for bringing these reports together in one place.
I absolutely believe that Osama Bin Laden was dead long before the Abbottabad raid, but this leaves a gaping hole in the narrative. The raid did take place, but why, and what actually happened? I have written what I believe to be a coherent narrative of those events in this post "An alternative hypothesis to the mainstream narrative of the Abbottabad Raid".
I would welcome constructive feedback on it, positive or negative.
6 agent00666 2013-09-30
We have at least (going on) 15 years of lies from successive administrations:
-- Bush/Cheney and the Neocons and 9/11, all of it
-- Bin Laden's been dead for a decade but the current administration did a PR exercise to brainwash the public
-- Banks have been running criminally amok with only wristslaps for drug money laundering, mortgage fraud
--The Fed is rotten to the core, and performing wild inflation of the money supply to pay for wars
-- Israel tells Congress what to do, and demands we pay for their war machine
-- Ambassador Stevens was murdered to cover up US arms smuggling to Syrian rebels, the end goal to overthrow the leader and probably install another puppet, an item on the Neocon checklist for advancing Israel's control of the region.
In all this, the lies about Bin Laden are just a small part of the whole game.
4 yahoo_bot 2013-09-30
We don't know when and how he exactly died, what we do know is that the whole Bin Laden raid was faked. They didn't kill Bin Laden, they didn't bury him at sea.
We know that he was dead before the raid since we haven't seen a video of the real him since 2003/4. In all the videos since then he was getting younger and younger and younger and didn't even look like he looks. It was a completely different person, probably a British actor, since in Iron Man 3 they portrayed the Bin Laden type as a British actor, so my assumption is that that is who was acting as Bin Laden.
We also know that at least one of the bin laden video's was produced by the Israeli defense company Intel Center, they had their logo on one of "Bin Laden's" videos.
The CIA has also admitted of faking Bin Laden videos.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/former-cia-officials-admit-to-faking-bin-laden-video.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/cia-linked-intel-center-releases-highly-suspicious-bin-laden-tape.html
2 [deleted] 2013-09-30
[deleted]
1 SovereignMan 2013-09-30
How sure can we be that the translation shown is precise? According to at least one of the commenters there (Gu1tar1st) that claims he can lip read Arabic, the translation is not correct and he's only "lambasting the West, and saying the infidels need to be punished, blah, blah, blah, but he's Not TALKING ABOUT 9/11!"
I will concede that that may not be true but if it is then that video could have been made before 9/11. There's really no way to tell for sure.
2 tommytickturd 2013-09-30
let's face it -
if ANY part of September 11th, 2001's wildly improbable series of events is a lie, then the whole thing is a lie.
and if the whole thing is a lie, then Bin Laden didn't do it (as he stated in a video within two days after the 'attack' - which honestly, for a terrorist to say that they didn't pull off the "greatest attack" on American soil doesn't make any sense at all...)
and if bin laden didn't do it, then what has waging war on a soveriegn country (namely Iraq, then Afghanistan) got to do with anything that happened?
and if bin laden died way back, which is highly likely considering his kidney failure, then the bush-cheney gang knew he didn't do it and only made up that part of the story to go to war for... ? (oil, you think?).
and if there was no bin laden, then why would the current lying bastard claim to have killed him? (he must have been laughing his ass off at the bush-cheney gang, knowing full well that THEY knew he was laying his ass off... maybe not. might have been the plan from "higher up" all along.
then...
1 dustbro21 2013-09-30
...Whatever it takes to keep the cogs of the military-industrial complex turning...
-1 wherearemyfeet 2013-09-30
So let me get this straight:
You claim OBL died in 2001, yet the US Government lied about this in order to keep the wave of patriotism up, given them freer reign to do what the want; something that apparently wouldn't have been possible had they announced he died in 2001 (hence the motivation to lie).
And somehow, the US Government managed to convince the entirety of Al Qaeda's senior leadership to go along with the claim that he was still alive, for a decade, knowing that doing so would help in the aims and objectives of their sworn enemy? And then when they allegedly faked his death, the US Government further managed to convince them to go along with this set of events instead of taking the "glory" away from the US by revealing it to the world that they lied?
Come on, none of your claim makes sense.
5 [deleted] 2013-09-30
You are making claims I do not make in my post. I'm just posting a possible alternative timeline using mainstream sources in light of Sy Hersh's "one big lie" claim. I'm keeping an open mind about what is going on and haven't closed off thinking about other possibilities.
2 thc1967 2013-09-30
In order for your alternative timeline / conspiracy to be believable, it has to pass a few simplistic logical tests. The tests wherearemyfeet laid out are a nice start.
Basically your response to him boils down to you pulled some shit out of your ass and never did any homework to back it up.
/r/conspiritard fodder there.
For a conspiracy theory to be reasonable, it has to answer the questions of who knew and why did they keep quiet.
Plenty of AQ would have known about OBL's death. How, in your conspiracy theory, did the consiprators (ostensibly the US government, the "enemy" AQ has sworn to attack) convince AQ leadership to play along with their game, both in keeping the death quiet for a decade and then later flipping over to admit the US killed him when Obama said we did?
1 sunnyd69 2013-09-30
In the 80's the were freedom fighters. Applauded by our government.
1 thc1967 2013-09-30
In the early '40's the USA was hell-bent on killing every Japanese, Italian, and German soldier we could find. Today we're allies.
Shit changes over time.
Why would an organization that is clearly hell-bent on harming the USA play along with a USA sponsored cover-up?
Come on, be creative, come up with something!
0 [deleted] 2013-09-30
This isn't my conspiracy theory -- it's the one put out by Fox News, CNN, BBC, NY Times, etc. The death wasn't "quiet for a decade" -- it was reported in the mainstream media in 2001 and 2002, and then bin Laden (known for his desire for media attention) disappeared, or as the commandos who were supposed to be pursuing him until their unit closed down in 2005 put it, bin Laden became "Elvis."
1 thc1967 2013-09-30
Still doesn't answer the burning question that drills a hole right through the theory:
Why did so many senior AQ members go along with the conspiracy, first saying he was alive when he was supposedly dead, then agreeing with their arch-enemy when they said they killed him?
-2 SinkVenice 2013-09-30
If you only look at that evidence. I would suggest reading ‘Al Qaeda’ by Jason Burke, one of the most respected defense analysts and AQ watchers in the world, he also has worked for the Guardian. In this recently updated book he never once talks about OBL dying of Kidney failure it is not significant since OBL could easily afford the care he needed and had (as you say) wealthy benefactors in Saudi and probably the Pakistani ISI and military who looked after him.
This subject comes up around once a week here and the same rubbished inconclusive sources are spouted everytime.
5 TheWiredWorld 2013-09-30
And what makes you think someone working for the defense industry would
A) Not have an incentive to lie and/or
B) Honestly believe what he's doing.