Al-Qaeda leader Bin Laden 'dead'. Again.

[Peter Lemkin]

We'd have to ask several questions.

1) Precisely what kind of dialysis was he on if he were on it? There are multiple types: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialysis Yes, we share a bias about Western medicine and Western technologies and Western standards for surgical cleanliness. Certainly a consistent lack of attention to the process can increase morbidity and mortality. But, as ntoed in the Wikipedia entry, the process was invented by jury-rigging: "Due to the scarcity of available resources, Kolff had to improvise and build the initial machine using sausage casings, beverage cans, a washing machine and various other items which were available at the time."

2) What is the level of sophistication in terms of nursing, para-medicine and medicine available to the mujahadeen or others in remote rugged parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan (or in urban settings)? What is known about the cadre of people who traveled with bin Laden? Any combatant worth his salt has to have a system/knowledge of medical care/health maintenance or he won't maintain a viable unit for long.

3) What would the purpose be, from the perspective of the US intelligence community and its allies, in floating a false story about OBL's need for dialysis if it weren't true? Was it, instead, a way of perhaps flushing out (pardon the pun) information and/or informants about his whereabouts? And if it was a false story, did the correspondents noted in the article posted by Fetzer participate? Are they known to be fronts for floating disinformation?

There is much disinformation circulating; that is a given. But it can't all be disinformation; otherwise there would be no credibility; the known formulae for mixing truth and disinformation are in the magnitude of the 80/20 rule, not at the low end of the spectrum.

4) Did the purpose of the propaganda/intelligence approach change over the years? What served and worked pre-9/911, circa 9/11, post 9/11 and circa "OBL death raid" may be entirely different packages.

Everything about Ossama bin Laden is shrouded, but perhaps we should be careful in buying into the notion that the Muslim world is incapable of understanding methods of treatment for disease.

Forget it Ed. On Al Jazeera they have a very good interview in their program 'I knew Bin Laden' - one by a physician who met and lived for a week [week!] with Bin Laden in the middle of the period he was supposed [supposed!] to be on dialysis and he said he never saw any such equipment, nor was the man anything but hail and hardy - drinking very sugared tea~ He said it was bullshit. It obviously is. It might [might] have been the excuse used to get Bin Ladin into a US Military hospital once for debriefing...just sayin'