Talk:Osama bin Laden

STOP! Are you here about the date of death given? Please look at the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) tab marked by the large question mark right beneath this message. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 05:23, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Image copyright

The image being used on the page at the moment is disputed in terms of if it is fair use. See the original page. Are there any images that are guaranteed free from any copyright?

number of hilicopeters

i was told 4 not 2 hilicopters —The preceding comment was added by 174.31.200.69 (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log)

Issues with the Death Section

There are many problems with the Death section of the article. Much of the information is repeated twice and unorganized. The concept of a "terrorist shrine" seems to violate WP:LABEL. There is Original Research included (such as the section about the house not being on Google Maps). There are POV and UNDUE issues (particularly in the section about women being used as human shields - which are controversial and disputed). Statements by the US government officials should be attributed to them and not reported as facts. Glenn Greenwald wrote a great article on Salon about this. It can be found here. In order to make the article sound encyclopedic we should avoid labeling US government claims as facts and only state that that is what they claimed. Poyani (talk) 20:57, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

As the article says he was buried in accord with Islamic traditions shouldn't it be mentioned that burial at sea has been criticised as it violates Sharia law? Wayne (talk) 05:49, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

That should indeed be put in. User:Wipsenade found three sources for that claim and put them in this sub-topic. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 06:36, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Oooops, didn't notice that subsection. Wayne (talk) 08:36, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Shouldn't there be some reference to his alleged will ? (article at the guardian)--Adom2000 (talk) 11:23, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

There is statement that "Subsequent genetic testing reportedly supported the preliminary identification" of bin Laden's body. This clearly requires citation, has none, and if this can't be provided the statement should be deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.186.13.227 (talk) 08:19, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Promoting Slang?

Does anyone else see a problem with using the phrase "body was taken into custody" ? For 1 thing, the words "into custody" are unnecessary law enforcement jargon and add nothing at all from the words "body was taken" except for maybe some kind of subliminal pov(emphasizing that Osama was a criminal). I don't know what you call this kind of phrase, but it seems to have taken off in usage with this event. A google search shows [1] almost all of the articles that use this phrase are about Osama's body. I think it is an important example of how weird and inaccurate representations can go viral on the internet and become quickly entrenched without any media or Editors here taking much notice. Apparently U.S. Senators were giving interviews claiming to have seen real photos of a dead Osama when in reality the photos were bogus internet creations. I know it may not be too important, but otoh, is there any compelling reason to use that phrase? outside of a direct quote? I have reduced the phrase from "his body was taken into custody and biometric.." to "his body was taken and biometric.." [2] Mr.Grantevans2 (talk) 05:01, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Biometric isn't a verb, but I think they mean fingerprinted in this case. That is wayyyyy too jargony though. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 05:13, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Not fingerprinted and not jargon. They used biometric facial recognition software and I believe that is the correct term for it. Wayne (talk) 05:54, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Then just say that used facial recognition software, and yes, biometric is somewhat jargony if you don't have the facial recognition or something after it. It is one of those things that prompts a reader to stop, reread the word and say "what the hell is that?" I have only heard the word biometric used in relation to those little fingerprint readers you can have installed on your laptop. Remember that a lot of people probably will not know the meaning of biometric. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 06:29, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

The horror of it all. Perish the thought that someone might actually be introduced by WP to a concept, word or phrase about which they're unfamiliar. WP isn't an exercise in dumbing down (or laundering) well-sourced content but simply presenting it. As to this "taken into custody" hoo-ha, this level of hypersensitive hand-wringing about a commonly used (and, in this case, well-sourced) euphemism for "control via possession" is, IMHO, simply absurd.JakeInJoisey (talk) 11:44, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

First, please try to remain WP:CIVIL (it's a must-read). I am just saying put the word in context so people will actually know what it means when they first see it. They will see something like biometric facial scan and then say "Ooooh I know what facial scanning is, but biometric? I know what a facial scan is, but what's this biometric business *clicks link with some idea of what it contains*?", rather than reading just biometric itself and being completely lost. =p Wikipedia is an exercise in conveying knowledge as best as possible to the reader as all encyclopedias are. They won't thank us for putting in stuff that isn't in some context they can understand, and we don't accomplish anything by doing so. You can take custody of someone's body, that's a common term. =p Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 15:58, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

U.S was likely to invade Pakistan on April 30 than May 2

We should add this as well..should we not? http://karachimetrological.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/bad-weather-caused-osama-to-live-for-24-hours/ HunterZone (talk) 17:28, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, blogs are not reliable sources. —GFOLEY FOUR— 20:59, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

suggest deletion

'On April 16, 2011, a leaked Al Jazeera report claimed that bin Laden had been captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan.[151]' The source: http://rmc2011.net/2011/04/16/al-jazeera-leak-osama-bin-laden-captured/ does not provide adequate evidence for the claim. In fact, looks like it is a fabrication in the form of a blog post, certainly not a news article. Suggest removal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.99.167.74 (talk) 23:11, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Done. I see no mention of this in any mainstream news sources either, so. --Rogington2 (talk) 23:41, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Conspiracy theory that Pakistan Gov. hid bin Laden

Bring out the tin foil hats for anyone who is buying this classic conspiracy theory (that a cabal of Pakistani government conspirators supported bin Laden over the past 5 years). This one is extremely far fetched, given the 50 million dollar reward that has been on the table all these years. It defies belief that a group of Pakistani officials would all be so altruistic as to pass up 50 million dollars they could have gotten simply by making a phone call to U.S. authorities. I have added some of the Pakistani's governments rebuttal to this far fetched conspiracy theory. Mr.Grantevans2 (talk) 12:55, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Retitling

it should be called operation Neptune Spear as that was the actual operation name. The killing of Osama bin laden should redirect to this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Misko15 (talk • contribs) 01:45, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

This is the biography of a person and not an article about a military operation. Rklawton (talk) 02:14, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, I think you might have put this in the wrong place. The article about us giving him a third eye (I'm not going to celebrate his death, but I'm not going to show him respect either) is Death of Osama bin Laden. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 02:37, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Formatting help needed

I would suggest that someone re-format the bit about his children. As it has been set up, it creates a great deal of distracting white space, simply to provide a list of names, and does so at the beginning of a long article.--Epeefleche (talk) 03:57, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Death is disputed

His death has not been proven by independent experts and sources yet. So far the only sources we have are official ones, as the President of the United States of America. These sources cannot be seen as independent or neutral, since U.S. military is/was an enemy of Osama bin Laden. Furthermore the information published by agencies is not enough for us to call bin Laden dead, because we then infringe against our own neutrality rules. --217.5.199.242 (talk) 08:16, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is reflecting what the reliable sources are saying, nothing to do with it's neutrality or independence. If bin laden isn't dead he would score an immense coup by getting his face on the front page of the papers holding up a news paper from after his death, X says he's dead burden of proof now lies with Y to prove otherwise. So until such time we have to go with what the reliable sources are saying. ^Khukri 08:25, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Transcription

Can we add add a transcription key, similar to that on Gaddafi's, to Osama's page?

In short, the alternative spellings for each part of his name are shown in brackets:

${\color {OliveGreen}M{\begin{cases}u\\o\end{cases}}{\begin{cases}\varnothing \\'\end{cases}}a{\begin{cases}mm\\m\end{cases}}{\begin{cases}a\\e\end{cases}}r}~~~~{\color {MidnightBlue}{\begin{cases}al\\el\\Al\\El\\\varnothing \end{cases}}{\begin{cases}-\\\mathrm {\textvisiblespace} \\\varnothing \end{cases}}}{\color {RedViolet}{\begin{cases}Q\\G\\Gh\\K\\Kh\end{cases}}{\begin{cases}a\\e\\u\end{cases}}{\begin{cases}d\\dh\\dd\\ddh\\dhdh\\dth\\th\\zz\end{cases}}a{\begin{cases}f\\f\!f\end{cases}}{\begin{cases}i\\y\end{cases}}}$

However, not all are possible, as some alternatives are most probably combined with others, or even impossible with others (for example, simplification of geminated [m:] usually implies simplification of [a:]).

real quick

it says "... War on Terror, which has resulted in a total of between 80,000 and 1.2 million civilian deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia between 2001 and 2007."

that's the range? imagine if I was going to get somewhere between 8 gallons of gas or 120 for a trip i was planning. I guess wittgenstein would say that sentence has very little sense. it's gramatical. it's meaning is conveyed clearly. but it's value or significance can't be put into a proper context. S*K*A*K*K 10:03, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Aren't we talking mainly about victims of terrorist attacks? This seems like a misleading way to frame the issue. Kauffner (talk) 13:29, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

"according to U.S. Government" in lede

I have removed the above qualification from the lead because it is inaccurate. Numerous other sources have corroborated bin Laden's death, including the Pakistani government who have interviewed his wife and other survivors of the raid. Leaving it in gives undue weight to various conspiracy theories. Ronnotel (talk) 13:40, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Name signed to Last Will

I just read an article about bin Laden's final message to his wives and children. The article states that this will dated December, 2001 is signed "Your brother Abu Abdullah Osama Muhammad Bin Laden." Does anyone have any more information about this name? --Brendanmccabe (talk) 14:15, 6 May 2011 (UTC)