September 11, 2015 • 54 mins
When US forces finally tracked down terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden -- living in Pakistan, likely with support of the ISI -- he was killed and, according to the official story, buried at sea. So why doesn't everyone believe this is true? When did Osama Bin Laden actually die?
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs two, ghosts and government cover ups. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Hello,
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt and
I'm Ben, and as always, we are joined by our
(00:21):
super producer. No the politico Brown. Uh No, A hope
is he's doing well? I think he's doing just he's
got a nod. He's got a nod. So that's a
positive nod or a bit of a shrug. As you know,
our nicknames or our super producer are often the hints
or allusions to the nature of the episode. I kiss
(00:45):
for anyone who doesn't read the title who says I
just want to plunge in, uh playing this episode. I'm
just playing this episode, jumping into the great beyond of
the podcasting world. Uh. This is an e so that
is heavily political. We're not really taking any sides other
(01:06):
than to say that I think we can all agree
it is not good to kill people. That's a fairly basic,
basic assumption that we're gonna agree with you that, regardless
of someone's self described political leaning or identification, they can
agree with. So Matt with that disclaimer, what are we
(01:27):
talking about today? We are talking about kind of the
the guy that was held up as the boogeyman when
I was going through high school and college up until
around two thousand eleven. Right, yeah, and I appreciate your
use of the phrase boogeyman. We are talking about Osama
(01:48):
bin Laden and Osama related conspiracies or should I say
load and related conspiracies. So this figure is shrouded in
mystery and opprobrium and controversy even today, as our as
our audience knows, both inside and outside of the States,
(02:12):
this is the anniversary or the week anniversary of the
September eleventh attacks. And just for refresher, what are those how?
That is when the World Trade Center in New York
City as well as the Pentagon in Washington, d C.
Were attacked and another plane went down in Pennsylvania right
(02:36):
as spot on. So originally and often we have heard
that Osama bin Laden was involved with these attacks to
one degree or another, or associated with them. Very quickly
after it occurred, there were people on the news mentioning
(02:57):
this man's name m very quickly and and it was
thought to be terrorism. If you watch go back and
watch the tapes, and you know, there are specials on
every year now that go back through all of the
footage that occurred. And there are people speculating about terrorism
almost immediately after it occurred, not not even on the news,
just people on the street, right. And there are also,
(03:20):
of course, and as you've noticed with any large catastrophic
event in US history, from the attack on Pearl Harbor
to the assassination of JFK or MLK to this event,
there are numerous people and groups who disagree with the
(03:41):
official version of events from the day the from the
day the planes hit to two thousand eleven when Ben
Laden passes away. And there are also a lot of
people who are probably angry that we're even talking about
this right now, um, because we're going to be discussing
(04:01):
some of the more fringe ideas. But the thing that
Ben and I want you to know is that we
are looking at facts that we that can be proven,
and then also telling you what people believe, and then, I,
like the show does every week, we just want you
to think about it and come up with your own
belief structure around this. And and I'm sorry, I'm gonna
(04:22):
go ahead and do this because of course we are
doing this uh live well live for us record when
you hear it. But I want to do this one
more time, uh picking up at the end where I
said leading up to Osama bin Laden, leading up to
two thousand eleven, when Osama bin Laden died or did
he did? He did? He did? He? Uh? So that
(04:45):
that's a hint to some of the stuff coming up.
So first we have to start at the beginning. Who
is Osama bin Laden, Because for such a well known name,
a lot of people don't know very much about him
other than as he said Matt, he as a boogeyman
from people growing up. Yes, So the man we know
as Osama bin Laden, who was known in the west
(05:06):
at least in that way, is actually Osama bin Mohammed
bin Awad bin Laden. He was born on March tenth,
nineteen fifty seven, in Riyada, Saudi Arabia. His mother was Syrian.
His father, Mohammed Awad bin Laden, was from South Yemen.
Uh Osama bin Laden was the seventh son of fifty
(05:30):
brothers and sisters, all told big family Huge. The father
is a success story. Started impoverished, worked his way up
to become the owner of the largest construction company in
Saudi Arabia, and during this time his father became very
closely the royal family due to his involvement in palace
construction another you know, royalty related buildings, and I can
(05:52):
see how that would make them buddy buddy in that regard.
Um and Osama bin Laden grew up in a strictly
religious environment. He went to school in Jadah and according
to some official sources, he only traveled to a couple
of countries around the Arabian peninsulas Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Sudan.
And that's, according to these sources, for his entire life,
(06:15):
that's where he existed. So the reason that we mentioned
that is that you will often hear stories that he
secretly went to Switzerland for one reason or another, or
that he secretly traveled to another country, maybe in the West,
maybe he went to you know, you'll you'll hear wild stuff,
or at least maybe a more fair way to say
it is unsubstantiated stuff. He adopted the beliefs and precepts
(06:39):
of the month Muslim Brotherhood during his time in school,
and you probably heard of the Muslim Brotherhood in different
news reports about events in the Middle East. Yet at
this time he was not involved in violent or terrorists
like activities. So to see what changed, we will consult
an excellent timeline provided to us by the good folks
(07:03):
at front Line as well as some others, which means,
of course, this is a timeline of official events, or
at least proven events. Cast your memory back December twenty six,
nineteen seventy nine, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, a boiling
point in the proxy war there between Russia and the West.
(07:24):
Ben Laden leaves his home in Saudi Arabia to join
the Afghan resistance, the Mujadin. Yeah, and he's about I
think twenty two at this time, so you know, twenty
two year old you can imagine. I guess those are
college age years for us in the West. At least.
Um he's going out and joining a resistance movement. Now
(07:45):
we get to nineteen This is when bin Lan officially
established al Qaeda. This is you've you've heard of them
many many times. They're an organization of ex Mujahadeen and
other supporters. So the people who were fighting in Afghanistan
right and during that interim s eight he did become
(08:07):
a successful fighter, working his way up from a resistance
fighter to a guerrilla commander. So when he establishes al Qaeda,
he was also successful at raising funding, which will we'll
talk about as well. Uh this, let's let's go through
just a few of the events that he was tied to.
(08:28):
Um okay, so real quick. An eighty nine, the Soviets
pull out of Afghanistan. Bin Lad comes back to Saudi Arabia.
People love him, he's a hero, but he gets involved
in movements against the monarchy, which uh, you know doesn't
doesn't go over well in a theocracy like Saudi Arabia.
He's kicked out, moves back to Afghanistan. Then to stand
(08:54):
two because at the time stunted allowed any Muslim into
the country tree without a visa. And then if we
fast forward a little bit later, uh, a bomb explodes
in a hotel in Aidan, Yemen. Right, Yeah, this is
a place where United States troops had been staying. They
were on route to humanitarian humanitarian mission in Somalia. The
(09:17):
bomb killed two Austrian tourists and the U. S soldiers
apparently had already left once once this attack occurred, and
there were two Yemeni Muslim militants who were apparently trained
in Afghanistan who were injured in the blast as well.
They they're later arrested and U S intelligence agencies alleged
this was the first terror attack involving bin Laden and
(09:39):
his associates, right, And as we go through this, we're
going to hear more more statements like attacks involving bin
Laden or he is associated or linked to it. So
in February twenty six the world trades and bombing occurs.
Later October of the same year, eighteen US troops are
(10:01):
killed in Mogadishu, and people are People begin suspecting that
bin Laden and his followers trained and armed the men
who killed the troops. They also believe intelligence analysts over
the years become more and more certain that bin Laden
(10:21):
isn't just leading terrorist groups. He's financing different training camps,
training camps in I think Sudan, Northern Sudan. Now, in
April nineteen ninety four, Saudi Arabia takes note of all
this stuff and says you're getting out of here. They
revoked in law and citizenship and they make moves to
(10:42):
even freeze all of his assets, at least the ones
in Saudi Arabia because of his support for some of
these Muslim fundamentalist groups. And uh so he is establishing
through he's establishing more training camps around the Saudio Abian border.
In August of nineteen, he writes a letter. He writes
(11:05):
a letter to the King of Saudi Arabia, and he
calls for a campaign of guerrilla attacks in order to
drive US forces out of the kingdom. And for the
next few years, we're going to skip over some of
the developments, just a quick laundry list. For Saudi men
accused bombing the Saudi National Guard training center and the
capitol are beheaded before their execution, they claim to have
(11:29):
read letters from Ben Lawden Ni. President Clinton signs a
top secret order that authorizes the CIA to use any
and all means to destroy the Bin Laden network, as
this is seen increasingly as a threat to US forces
or US personnel or citizens abroad. Yeah, they even set
(11:50):
up a grand jury, a secret grand jury investigation into
Bin Lawden in August of ninety six. Then later in
August of that year, Laden's signed an issued declaration of
jihad where he he basically set out the organizational goals
of these groups that he had set up UM they
were to drive US forces from the Saudi Arabian Peninsula,
(12:12):
overthrow the government of Saudi Arabia, liberate Muslim holy sites,
and support Islamic revolutionary groups around the world. He also
in this declares that Saudi's have the right to strike
at U S troops inside the Persian Gulf. Al right,
and UH, US backed multinational mercenary force allegedly is formed
(12:37):
with the aim abducting and killing then Laden Obviously it
does not work. So then Laden does something uh issuing
a joint declaration with several other groups where they try
to form a World Islamic Front. UH. Then let's go
(12:59):
to nineteen. There's a grand jury investigation of Bin Laden,
charging him with the conspiracy to attack defense utilities of
the US. And this is where prosecutors charge that Bin
Laden heads a terrorist organization called al Qaeda. UH. And
you know, we can go through some of these dates quick.
He does interviews with ABC Nightline. UH. He later does
(13:23):
interviews with Time UH and a second interview with ABC.
And during this time he is eventually becoming a not
maybe not public enemy number one, but one of the
let's say top fifteen for the US when the U. S.
Attorney's Office files its most complete indictment of Osama bin
(13:45):
Laden in nineteen at the time the grand jury charges
the him and eleven other people for conspiring to kill
American nationals. So this is a real thing, a global
conspiracy if you will, to UH to fight against or
(14:05):
to assassinate American nationals or Western nationals. And multiple times
spin Laan states during his public appearances we could call
them that that the U S should not be in
the Holy Land. Yeah. And I noticed something in looking
at all of this, been that one of Osama bin
(14:27):
Laan's main targets was the government and the the leadership
within Saudi Arabia. And it made me think about our
Petro dollar episode and the deals set up within Saudi
Arabia Arabia with the United States to trade in U
S dollars. And I don't know, I was interested to
know maybe Osamavan Lawton is learning about this larger financial
(14:50):
set up, global financial set up as he's you know,
in the Mujahadeen and getting older. I'm interested to know
how much that in moist Well, you also, many conservative
Muslims object to the Saudi Arabian the Wabbi idea, right, uh,
(15:12):
and see it as a means of propping up again
political support for the ruling house of sad Okay. And
I want to take a second here before we continue,
because we're talking a lot about terrorist groups that are
uh Islamic, right, But the truth of the matter is
(15:33):
that there are numerous terrorist groups and and they're not
all Islamic, something that mainstream news in the West will
try to slip past people, But it is true. There
are Christian terrorist groups, there are Jewish terrorist groups, there
are Hindi terrorist groups. There are so many groups like that.
(15:55):
And with as with any other religion, the vast majority
you were legious practitioner demographic is not composed of violent,
crazed people, right. It's composed of people who have a
belief system that to some degree regulates or defines their
(16:18):
life for the way they interact with the world. And
that and that's it. And the Islamophobia that creeps into
the West is entirely disingenuous. You're absolutely right. The extremism
is very different and should be separated from religion. Right.
There are two very different things. The extremist ideas of
(16:38):
any group are not necessarily religious at their core. So
with that being said, let's go to the official story
of the death. According to the official narrative of Osama
bin Laden is killed in a compound on May second,
two thousand eleven in Abbat, bad Kistan, Seal Team six
(17:02):
invades the compound. They're doing a project called Operation Neptune Spear,
which was meant to allegedly apprehend Osama bin Laden. They
used stealth helicopters, one of which Rex and is later taken,
probably to China. For some reverse engineer accounts different on
(17:26):
what happened. You will often hear that bin Laden resisted
or as followers resisted, there was a firefight and he
was killed. But either way, according to the official story,
he was killed in the compound and after that they
transported his body to Afghanistan for identification and it turned
(17:47):
out that it was him, and it was also earlier
DNA evidence used to confirm this before they went in,
and they took him to the U. S. S. Carl Vincent,
which which is the site where they controversially and allegedly
gave him a burial. Let's see adhering to Islamic beliefs. Now,
(18:10):
also let me say let me interrupt myself to make
that correction. I believe Neptune Spear was a kill or
apprehend missions, so that means if there was no resistance,
they would take them alive. Got you now, Ben, Here's
where it gets crazy. A lot of people, a lot
of people don't believe at least part of that story.
(18:33):
Many people don't believe any of that story, not even
the part where Osama bin Laden died in two thousand
and eleven. The they some people even think that the
entire role of Osama bin Lawden is some kind of
story that's meant to be told and told and retold,
but is actually not true. Now, this is going to
(18:54):
be a huge debate depending on depending on who you
talk to, either way it goes. But here are some
of the the big ideas, the big conspiracies that surround
the life of Osama bin Laden. The first one is
that Osama bin Laden was actually a CIA operative, that
(19:14):
that he was you know, when he was working when
he was fighting with the Mujahadeen. He was actually trained
by the CIA to uh start and lead groups right.
So um they believe that Osama bin Laden and his
groups received funding from Saudi Arabia and the United States,
(19:34):
and that al Qaeda is actually a part of this
and is a creation of the CIA. Right. The primary
crux that debate being whether this was a willful creation
or an inadvertence creation, where it says, you know, let's
fight communism by arming the locals and telling them that
(19:55):
they are uh, they have the religious motivation or are
there somehow spiritually mandated to fight this war against these invaders.
What could possibly go wrong? And let's train this guy
to be a leader, like an excellent leader of these
guys to fight back in a resistance movement. And on
CNN you can see a clip from the Larry King
(20:18):
Show where Bandar ben Sultan, one of the diplomats for
Saudi Arabia, says, uh, in the mid eighties, if you remember,
we and the United Saudi Arabia and the United States
were supporting the Mujadin to liberate Afghanistan from the Soviets.
Osama bin Laden came to thank me for my efforts
to bring the Americans, our friends to help us against
(20:41):
the atheist, he said, the communist. Isn't that ironic? Larry
King says, how ironic? In other words, he came to
thank you for helping bring America to help him. And
what's strange about this, Well, I guess I should say
the opposite of strange, what's completely expected. The Central Intelligence
Agency in the US officials refute this, arguing that they
(21:04):
only supported native Afghanistan mujadin so not that not in
any way um bringing foreign fighters in or encouraging them.
And you can read similar statements from other people involved,
including the former head of the i s I, Pakistan's
intelligence agency. There's this other idea that Asama bin Laden
(21:27):
worked for the US right up to September eleven. A
person named Sybil Edmonds, who you've heard of before, I'm sure,
said that the U S outsourced terror operations to al
Qaeda and the Taliban for years and years and years. Uh. Right, uh.
(21:47):
And according to some French sources, CIA agents met within
Laden two months before nine eleven, who was already wanted
for the bombing of the USS coal at that time,
in allegedly two days before nine eleven, two days he
called his step mom and said, in two days you're
going to your big news and you're not going to
(22:09):
hear from me for a while. So in other words, Ben,
it seems as though American forces, the US Department of
Defense and the CIA had several many opportunities to capture
Osama bin Laden, and yet they failed to do so,
or at least they did not do so, they chose
(22:29):
not to. Perhaps even even after nine eleven, the U
s Military intentionally allowed Bin Lauden to evade capture. It
sounds pretty crazy, right right, And for people who believe
that the great Game continues, this sort of intentional encouragement
of instability seems completely plausible. However, of course, you have
(22:53):
to point out, if we're being fair, that uh, instability
might be useful to a certain points. Uh, but complete
anarchy and chaos is not. So that that's the big
crux of that idea. How involved? If it all, was
Osama bin Laden with v C I A. If so,
(23:16):
what degree of importance did they hold to each other?
And to what degree was the US somehow participating in
this proxy war? Was it just training to local Afghanistan mujerdine,
as the CIA and other officials maintain, or was it
(23:37):
more active? And that's just one. There's there's another. There's
another death related belief, and that's that when people claimed
that Ben Ladden was assassinated in two thousand and eleven,
it was entirely made up and never happened, and that
Osama bin Laden actually died years before in two thousand
(24:02):
and one. Yes, been some people believe that Osama bin
Laden actually died ten years prior to his official death
in two thousand eleven. They think he died in two
thousand one. They think it was either from illness from
a loan, something going wrong with his lungs, or I've
heard things about kidney problems and having to be on dialysis.
(24:25):
They also believe that he may have been killed in
an American bombing. Now, these aren't these aren't I hate
to say it, but fringe sources that are talking about this,
these are these aren't nuts. These are government officials. And
if if they are nuts spent, they are at least
government officials, right. I think that's pretty fair of you
(24:48):
to say. We're talking about people like General Tommy Frank's,
former American military commander for Afghanistan, or former President of Pakistan,
General Pervez Musharev, who, as we men action on the video,
you might remember from a strange and awkward interview on
the Daily Show back when John Stewart was heading a
(25:09):
personal hero of yours, matt uh them, No, I am
a big fan um. But the officials, uh, the officials
that we're talking about, these generals, they seem to base
this speculation, this conclusion on just the amount of bombing
in the Toura Bora Mountains. So they hadn't actually seen
a body or anything, at least going to the New
(25:31):
York Times, and that is right, ladies and gentlemen. The
New York Times reported on this too back in December
two thousand and one. Another source of the Pakistan Observer
went on They they quoted a Taliban leader who said
that as Somabid Lawdon died of quote a serious lung
complication back in December. Yeah, and they also that Pakistan
(25:52):
Observer article adds more information and alleged funeral. And of
course it seems like it's my role in this episode too,
not my favorite role, but it's got to be done. Uh,
it's my role in this episode to point out the
other sides of the story. This is very close to
wartime propaganda. So some people have doubted this, thinking that
(26:15):
I s I. Pakistan's intelligence agency supplied purposely misleading information
with the idea of throwing the US war. When I
say war machine, I don't mean anything other than an
enormous and efficient thing. Some people believe that I s
I Pakistan's intelligence agency purposefully misled uh misled the public,
(26:41):
with the idea being that if the US forces could
be convinced that Osama bin Lanham was dead, they might
be thrown off Bin Laden's trail. And so people who
believe this idea, I mean, because this is a lot
to think about. If some and dies in two thousand
and one, then how could you, even assuming you could
(27:06):
pull it off by by doing some massive conspiracy and
cover up for a decade. Why would you do that?
Why would you go to all that trouble? That is
a tough question to answer, Ben, But it might go
back to the idea that we sat at the top
of a boogeyman. I can see it being beneficial on
either side. So from from Pakistan side wanting, you know,
(27:30):
wanting to have this this at least he's a kind
of a leader, an asset for intelligence and for strategy.
Having this person at least believed to be dead and
then using him on the inside, I could see that
being advantageous Inversely, I can see it being advantageous to
want to make people believe that he is still alive,
because it creates the specter of the evil that you're
(27:53):
fighting in all of these places. Right at least, it's
good for morale for your troops. It's good for even
the people inside your country or other people that you're
trying to inspire to fight these wars for you. I
can imagine it being highly advantageous either way. I see
what you're saying. Yeah, people who believe this theory that
Belton died in two thousand one typically ascribe the motivation
(28:16):
to things like that. You know that it might be
for political maneuvering, like the hostage crisis in Iran, that
it might be due to uh an economically driven desire
for war to continue because some people do make a
lot of money off of it. Although that's a that
seems a little bit far fetched for me, not that
there would be people who would want work to continue
(28:39):
so much as that there would need to be one
person upon whom that decision hinges. I think it's very
easy to create a situation wherein a war is quote
unquote necessary. Um, I'm sure I think it's just helpful
to have an iconic image or name or something that
can be repeated over and over again. Sure, yeah, that
(29:01):
begins to serve as sort of an autonomy. Right, So
there's also a the idea of uncertainty. You wouldn't want
to report that someone was dead if you didn't really
think they were dead, because what a coup that is
to come back from the dead and the public eye.
So it could just be that people didn't know for sure.
(29:22):
It could be, you know, that that there was an
advantage politically speaking for the timeline. So that's that's what
people who believe he died in two thousand one. I
actually believe, and I think that Benezier Bhutto may have
made some public statements about that too before her assassination. Yes,
(29:44):
I would. If I were you and you have not
seen this, I would look up Benezier Bhutto Osama bin
Laden I think maybe died two thousand one. Where she
is conducting or she is being interviewed, and she says,
she states at East according to the video, that osamovan
Land died in two thousand one. But is she just
(30:05):
referring to this information that was coming out of Pakistan?
You know. I mean, there are a lot of questions
and you will read, you can read multiple sources that
will go either way. Um, and it's tough to figure
out what's true. They're like, what is she actually referring to?
And we'd love to hear what you think on this listeners,
So if if you're hearing something, whether on this point
(30:29):
or any of the earlier points or later stuff we
talked about, and you'd like to weigh in, we'd love
to hear your perspective. Of course, if you are a
member of a military force, whether in the US and
Pakistan somewhere else, uh, we'd like to hear perspective. We
believe it is invaluable. And if you are not in
(30:49):
the military, of course, we still want to hear from
you and hear what you have found in the course
of your delved into this rabbit hole. And speaking of
rab bit holes, we have come to probably the most
widely reported in the mainstream media disagreement with the official narrative,
and it starts with a guy named Seymour Hirsh, legendary
(31:13):
journalist Seymour Hirsh. Now you might remember this, gentleman. I'm
sure you probably saw the actual article pop up on Reddit.
That's how I first came across it. Um. He's a
guy who wrote about the Myli massacre and the cover
up in Vietnam. He also wrote about the Abo Grabe
prisoner abuse. Um. There was an article that blew up
(31:34):
all over London review of books. He's well known, a
very well known and I would say in maybe prestigious writer.
He's somebody who was held up. Seymour Hirsh, I believe,
is somebody who was held up as being an authority
in a lot of places. Well, he's gone through a
cycle of being derided and then lauded after you know,
(31:55):
enough time passes. He says that the raid did. It
happened that night on May second, two thousand and eleven.
It just didn't go down the way people think. The
US official position is that the I, S I and
the top Grass in Pentagon had no idea, somehow had
no idea that Osama bin Laden was living in that
(32:18):
compound all along. They did what they just they've thought,
which is UM very similar to very similar to Hitler
surviving World War two and then Parliament finding out that
he had a flat somewhere in London. So this is
(32:39):
what Hersch says happens happened. He said, a walk in
asset alerted the CIA. A walk in asset. It is
a very difficult proposition for the CIA because walkin asset
could easily be a double agent or someone who is
sincere but was misled. And we're literally saying a walk
(33:00):
in asset this is this is a person who walks
into an official place and says, hey, I have information
I want to share with you. Right walks into the
embassy and says I want to talk with someone, and
all of a sudden, you're learning a lot more about
that consular attache or the person who's the head of
(33:21):
janitorial services turns out to have a couple of extra
job duties of which were not aware. So after this
asset alerts the CIA and they managed to verify the information,
Herst says that the Pakistani and American government struck a
deal and that they would stage this raid. So the
(33:42):
Pakistan was going to give up, give up in Laden,
and they were going to make it seem as though
it were unilateral action on the part of the US.
One thing I just really quickly want to go back
to I was interested in the reasons. If this were true,
why in of heck would Pakistan if they knew that
(34:03):
he was there, to keep him there. And what what
I seem to find is that it was some kind
of like, hey, we've got Osama bin Lawden u jihadist
groups or the groups that want to, you know, overthrow
governments and create havoc. We've got this guy. We're protecting him.
You don't have to you know, it's okay, you don't
(34:23):
have to hurt us. However, if they were keeping it secret,
they wouldn't be telling anybody that, right, so it would
only be it was Sama bin Lawden's connections. I guess
to say, hey, don't attack Pakistan. I don't know. I
was just trying to wrap my head around the reasoning
behind it. I mean, it's a it's a heck of
a poker chip. Yeah, I mean, to be crass about it.
(34:45):
It's also it's also quite possible that at this point
in Lawden had little to know actual control over over
the situation. Right, so a lot of you'll you'll hear
people disagree about the agree of influencer control he had.
Was he just releasing tapes saying continue on, carry on,
(35:07):
My wayward son or was he was he instead, um,
you know, actively plotting things and telling people show up
on this day at this time, meet this guy and
plan the attack from there. And if so, to what degree.
The problem is that a lot of this stuff remains classified.
(35:29):
We can tell you about some things that were allegedly declassified,
which will do in a little bit. Here's one of
the here's the next series of things that Hers says
that lead other journalists to attack him and say that
he was a quote unquote conspiracy theorist meaning you know,
(35:49):
meaning as an insult, as a don't pay attention to
this guy when terminating cliche right when you think of him,
think of reptilian hybrids or whatever. So uh. He Her
says bin Lad was never meant to survive the raid.
He was supposed to be killed, and that he also
(36:10):
been laden, that is, did not receive an Islamic burial
at sea, did not receive a burial at sea at all.
That this was a fabrication. A lot of the body
was riddled with bullets, uh, and some pieces were thrown
out of the helicopter as they flew to Afghanistan, and
one consultant, one anonymous source told Hrsch that the CIA
(36:33):
took the body once the remains landed in that country.
And all of this leads us to the the next thing.
This is something that I am very interested in. This
is the This is relating to the audio and visual
evidence of Osama bin Laden speaking into a camera, or
(36:55):
being interviewed on camera, or talking into a mic and
giving orders and or um, I guess just rallying the troops. UM.
There was a lot of media that was created over
the years by Osama bin Laden, or allegedly by Osama
bin Laden, because a lot of people believe that some
(37:18):
of the videos that you may remember, some of the
iconic ones, were actually not Osama bin Laden. One of
the true the things that we can definitely point to
as hey, this is this is absolutely fact, is that
they're German experts. Uh. Looked at a bin Laden confession
video from I think it was, was it two thousand
one or two thousand two, think it's two thousand one, um,
(37:41):
where they were saying that the video was itself incorrectly translated. Um.
They're not disputing that it was actually Osama bin Laden,
but they were saying that it was perhaps purposefully uh
not translated correctly. So in that case they're saying that
it was him. Uh, it was. The video is one
(38:03):
where he's in a circle of followers. People had called
it a quote unquote damning admission of guilt. But according
to uh, according to the German experts there the tapes
tampered with contains translation errors, and this is this is
the one that is supposedly him saying yes eleven, we
(38:24):
did nine eleven. Basically, the the the the errors that
they're mentioning you can read about in more detail if
you just search for German experts. I think it came
under Spiegel German experts Sabin Laden confession incorrectly translated, and
(38:44):
you'll find it and you can find the discussion about it.
Um I would say, if you want to play a
dangerous game and you do not uh, do not yourself
speak German, you can always put your faith in Google
Translate and the best. Uh. So, there's another guy named
Neil from hacked or factor who believes that a different,
(39:07):
uh different tape of Osama bin Laden was manufactured from
various earlier audio visual appearances. And the person who says
that this was such a compilation is a fellow named
Neil Crowitz, a digital image forensics expert. He looked at
(39:28):
the tape from September seven, two thousand seven, and said
it was full of visual and audio splices, not just that,
but low quality and it was a likely fake. And
then there's also a I think it's a two thousand
two audio tape that was attributed allegedly to beIN Lawdon. Um,
there's some there's groups with scientists there that we're saying
(39:50):
this is fake, it's not actually Osama bin Lawden. And
there's a Guardian article that you can read. Um, you
might be able to search two thousand to al Qaeda
UH tape perhaps or if you'll be able to find it, Yeah,
and we can tell you a little bit about it.
So there is a thing called the Institute of Linguistics
(40:11):
and Phonetics in Paris and UH they found that based
on the phonetic testing, the al Jazeera tape was genuine.
This this tape was delivered to Al Jazeera in two
thousand two, is Matt said. American experts also thought it
was been laden, but the quality of the tape is
(40:33):
pretty poor, so people aren't completely sure. But researchers at
a place called the dow Mole Institute for Perceptual Artificial
Intelligence believe the message was recorded by someone else. They
built a computer model of Osama bin Laden's voice, and
(40:53):
they based it on an hour of actual recordings and
then using voice recognition systems that they were that were
being developed for banking security. These Swiss scientists tested that
uh synthetic model or that creative model against twenty known
recordings of the actual bin Laden system correctly identified his
(41:14):
voice in nineteen of them, and that means there's a
five percent risk of error in their conclusion that the
latest tape was a fake. Mm hmm. So it You know,
it's a little different too, because it's not a bunch
of people listening to it and then mapping out something.
It picks up things that the human or the human
(41:35):
ear probably doesn't record. Now Here is the really weird thing,
you guys, because they're they're all kinds of theories out
there about videos that were oslaved Laton impersonators. Oh man,
you'll hear people writing online or just see people writing online.
Man Osmolt looks really different in two thousand seven than
he did in two thousand one or two thousand six
(41:57):
or even you know, the latest later later videos. Um
that his appearance seems to change drastically over all of
these videos. Um. Well, here's the thing, the CIA actually did. Uh.
At least they had the idea to create a propaganda
video of Osama bin Laden um. And according to Jeff Stein,
(42:19):
they actually did create it. Um, at least according to
the people that he spoke to. Propaganda video. Correct. Yes,
I'm just gonna go to the article that Jeff Stein
wrote for. It's a blog called Spy Talk that he
wrote for UM Washington Post. He's speaking it's called CIA
units wacky idea depict Saddam as gay. This was written
(42:40):
in two thousand and ten, in May specifically, and he's
talking about the Iraq Operations Group and they were kicking
around ideas to like ways to discredit Saddam Hussein, to
produce videos that would make Sam look really bad. Uh.
They would be grainy looking video has perhaps taken from
(43:01):
a cell phone or from just a really low quality
camera that would not actually be sit on doing compromising
things like making They were talking about making a sex tape,
possibly with a teenage boy, um, and then flooding a
rock with the videos. They also talked about making a
fake television program with fake news bulletins talking about how
(43:22):
Snam Mussein was going to step down and he was
going to have his son come into power. Um So,
then about halfway down the article he talks about how
the agency I guess he's referring to the CIA here. Uh,
they did make a video purporting to show Osama bin
Laden and his cronies sitting around the campfire swinging bottles
(43:43):
of liquor and savoring their conquests with boys. One of
the former CIA officers are called chuckling at the memory. Uh,
that's a that's a little strange to me that they
even had that idea, although I can see I can
see why that would be maybe a strategic move. It
doesn't require any guns right at that point, It doesn't
(44:04):
require any assets going in. It just you'd make some
videos and then send them around. I think a lot
of people wouldn't believe that though, primarily for the consumption
of alcohol. Yeah, you're not supposed to do that, right,
And there's no judgment in brainstorming, So I'm sure this
idea is just the tip of the propaganda iceberg that
(44:26):
we are hearing about. There is one other conspiracy that
we should mention about Osama bin Laden that a lot
of people in the West might not have heard, but
it's it's fairly it has been fairly popular in the
past in some other countries, and that is the idea
that Osama bin Laden, like Elvis Tupac, Kurt Cobain or
(44:49):
Jim Morrison, is somewhere somehow, Oh, Michael Jackson as well,
alive and just hasn't been apprehended, will return to fight
another day. Uh. This this theory, for you know, for
a lot of people, seems like, well, how how plausible
is it? Why would he? Why would someone do all
(45:13):
this stuff and then disappear right to what end? And
it doesn't seem like bin Laden would be the kind
of person who would just disappear without continuing some sort
of fight. But I feel like it's important for us
to note that. And with that, those are some of
(45:35):
the more once where we're using the video Matt persistent
conspiracy theories regarding Osama bin Laden, both as the career
and terrorism, as well as his death at the hands
of Seal Team six or in two thousand one from
bombing by US forces from Marfan syndrome from lung complications,
(46:00):
et cetera. And I would love to hear from someone
who knows more, or has some has some proof, or
has something entirely different. But wait, speaking hearing, do you
do you hear that? There's just am I having a stroke?
Or is it? I'm pretty sure it's a stroke? The nope,
(46:20):
there it is? Well that can only mean one thing.
When are you sure you're not having a stroke? Oh wait,
do you know? Maybe is this my new death experience
talking to you right now? You've got a little twitch
going on that either worried about you? It's been a
rough week. I'm worried about me too. Then who are
(46:40):
you talking to? What's that? I didn't say anything? Oh god,
I smell toast. I smell bitter almonds. All right, Well,
I'm not having a stroke, Matt, You're not null? You good?
I'm having some kind of event, but I don't know
if it's a stroke? All right? You want a soldier
to true definitely, So so you know it's up to you.
(47:05):
Do you want to you want to talk about this episode?
You get something different on your mind. You know, I've
always got things floating around, man. But if you if
you want to you want to keep this going, feel free.
I kind of want to know just what's on your mind. U.
My exploded car largely, Um, that's you know, a little
personal for the podcast. Probably no, no, no, well we
should we should say it wasn't when we say explosion,
(47:27):
it wasn't a car bomb. It was not a nor bomb. No,
it was just it's time to die. Is it official? Now,
it's official, It's very official. Yeah, it's dead car, dead car. Well,
it's cool. Let's look to the future, let's do what
what are you planning on doing for transportation? Um? Well,
in the short term, I have a very dear friend
(47:48):
who has an extra car. Do you let me use
so I don't have to make a snap decision and
you know, buy something random just to have something. So
that's good. So I'm feeling pretty good about that. But
just you know, in general, it's just a little bit
of a downer. Sureman, I liked that car a lot
and I was only in it a couple of times. Yeah,
that you know of. Oh god, sorry, it's seen. It's
(48:11):
time in the sun. Oh man, I feel like there
there should be a good Night's Sweet Prince, Goodbye to
a car song. We could play I don't know motoring. Yeah, sure,
so well we do have another up like uplifting event
we could talk about. Nat Um. NAT got a lot
(48:32):
of email and tweets about the earlier announcement from last week. Yeah.
There there is several really lovely emails that we've received
so far. Um. It does feel weird that you're reading
them to Ben. I forget something like, oh man, Ben's
having to read this advice about my kids. Sorry, dude,
(48:55):
Oh no, it only makes sense. I don't feel like
it's my place to respond. Oh no, you're you should
not respond to Diana and I are actually going to
go through and respond to them in our adventures for
the next couple of weeks in your own time, because
there are there are a couple that are fantastic, like
so much more information than I could have ever asked
(49:15):
for helpful information. Catch people up on what what you
asked for last last weeks in case they don't know. Well,
I was basically like, hey, there's a baby coming, I'm scared.
Help That's what That's what I said. And I we
got some messages from people who you know, have had
experience with children, and some of the best stuff was
(49:38):
just how to how to cope with your relationship, like
you're my relationship with my wife while we are trying
to take care of this baby and we're both terrified
and stressed out and lacking sleep. No, you have a
kid as well. Did you give any advice to Matt?
We have talks, you know, and I don't tweet them
at him or or send them to him via email,
(49:59):
but you know, occasionally everyone into each other in the
hall and have a little moments where we talk about
child wearing stuff. How old your daughter? She's six? Six?
Good age. I feel like kids when they're when before
they get to the double digits, there's this age where
you and I have talked about this off air, there's
this age where they just seem so much more intelligent
(50:20):
than adults. I thought you were guys, didn't they actually are? No,
you could say that about some adults, perhaps myself included,
So I don't feel bad saying that. Yeah, my kids
creepy smart. She's like the girl in the Bad Seed.
You know, I'm afraid she's gonna push me down the stairs.
And I'm not looking at I'm kidding. She's she's really smart.
She is, she is, but again. I just that there's
(50:40):
always something going on in there, and I'm always not
I'm not always a hundred percent aware of what it is,
so I have to bring something up. Really fascist we're
talking about kids, So I I went to Kroger the
other day. I think already told you about this, but
I'm sorry. I went to Kroger the other day to
get some food. We're stalking up on frozen things so
that we can just make them really easily when we're
both having downtime. And when I was being checked out,
(51:02):
it was a twenty year old woman who was actually
checking me out in an eighteen year old woman who
was doing the bagging, and they were having When I
walked up, they were having a long conversation about kids
these days. Uh, they're always on their cell phones. They
got no respect. I mean it was. It was a
crazy conversation for very young people to be having, and
(51:24):
specifically they were discussing these kids. I mean no, they said, oh, man,
I didn't get my cell phone until I was in
middle school. And I just went, oh wow, yeah, I
don't think it was that even beyond guys. I just couldn't.
I just it was so funny to me to hear
(51:44):
that happening already, and I was trying to imagine what
your daughter and my son are gonna be. Like. Yeah,
it's weird with her because I mean, she's really good
at operating those devices. I don't let her mess with them,
like all the time. But she likes to play Minecraft,
and I had Minecraft on my phone, so I let
her us with that. But and she'll occasionally I'll text
her mom and I'll get a text back that's clearly her,
(52:07):
so she gets it. But you know, she doesn't have
her own phone or anything, obviously, but she knows how
to work that stuff. She knows how to send pictures,
she knows, she knows how to take selfies. There was
one time where she changed my Facebook profile pictures secretly
to picture of her, Like I said, creep creepy, you
gotta nip this in the butt. That that's pretty. That's
pretty impressive. Yeah, And I guess if we if we
(52:30):
had to speculate, there are a few things that we
could think children in the future would look back on
as ridiculous or I can't believe they did that kind
of antiquated things. And one of the biggest in my opinion,
might be having to use your hands to interface with electronics. Yeah,
interface anything with your manually. That seems like, why would
(52:52):
you do that? Remember that seeing him back to the
future to where Marty mcflies using the shoot him Up
arcade game and the kids go, you have to use
your hands? Yeah, I ever understood that joke when I
was younger, and then like now, it's just so obvious.
We're all going to have implants. It's on the way, guys. Yeah,
you can get Google in your head for free as
(53:14):
long as you listen to the advertisements that play in
your mind like you're hearing voices. You just have to
think that you agree to the contract. You don't actually
have to sign anything. You just go yep, just just
the sub vocalize nod uh. Well, that sounds like an
episode for another day Again, we would would love to
(53:37):
hear from everybody with your opinions on the death of
Osama bin Lan. Do you believe the official narrative? Do
you think something else happened? And if so what You
can find us on Facebook. You can find us on Twitter.
You can check out the earlier episodes we alluded to
on our website as well as our YouTube channel. And
(54:00):
our best suggestions come from listeners. If you have a suggestion,
we'd love to hear from you, Although it can take
us a while to uh, you can take us a
while to get back to them. I'm thinking in particular,
they really excellent letter we received on allegations of vote
rigging in the Scotland in Scotland's independence referendum. All to say,
(54:22):
if you would like to write to us directly, you
can do so. We are conspiracy at how stuff works
dot com. From one on this topic another unexplained phenomenon,
visit YouTube dot com slash conspiracy stuff. You can also
(54:43):
get in touch on Twitter at the handle at conspiracy stuff.
From UFOs two, ghosts and government cover ups. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Hello,
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt and
I'm Ben, and as always, we are joined by our
(00:21):
super producer. No the politico Brown. Uh No, A hope
is he's doing well? I think he's doing just he's
got a nod. He's got a nod. So that's a
positive nod or a bit of a shrug. As you know,
our nicknames or our super producer are often the hints
or allusions to the nature of the episode. I kiss
(00:45):
for anyone who doesn't read the title who says I
just want to plunge in, uh playing this episode. I'm
just playing this episode, jumping into the great beyond of
the podcasting world. Uh. This is an e so that
is heavily political. We're not really taking any sides other
(01:06):
than to say that I think we can all agree
it is not good to kill people. That's a fairly basic,
basic assumption that we're gonna agree with you that, regardless
of someone's self described political leaning or identification, they can
agree with. So Matt with that disclaimer, what are we
(01:27):
talking about today? We are talking about kind of the
the guy that was held up as the boogeyman when
I was going through high school and college up until
around two thousand eleven. Right, yeah, and I appreciate your
use of the phrase boogeyman. We are talking about Osama
(01:48):
bin Laden and Osama related conspiracies or should I say
load and related conspiracies. So this figure is shrouded in
mystery and opprobrium and controversy even today, as our as
our audience knows, both inside and outside of the States,
(02:12):
this is the anniversary or the week anniversary of the
September eleventh attacks. And just for refresher, what are those how?
That is when the World Trade Center in New York
City as well as the Pentagon in Washington, d C.
Were attacked and another plane went down in Pennsylvania right
(02:36):
as spot on. So originally and often we have heard
that Osama bin Laden was involved with these attacks to
one degree or another, or associated with them. Very quickly
after it occurred, there were people on the news mentioning
(02:57):
this man's name m very quickly and and it was
thought to be terrorism. If you watch go back and
watch the tapes, and you know, there are specials on
every year now that go back through all of the
footage that occurred. And there are people speculating about terrorism
almost immediately after it occurred, not not even on the news,
just people on the street, right. And there are also,
(03:20):
of course, and as you've noticed with any large catastrophic
event in US history, from the attack on Pearl Harbor
to the assassination of JFK or MLK to this event,
there are numerous people and groups who disagree with the
(03:41):
official version of events from the day the from the
day the planes hit to two thousand eleven when Ben
Laden passes away. And there are also a lot of
people who are probably angry that we're even talking about
this right now, um, because we're going to be discussing
(04:01):
some of the more fringe ideas. But the thing that
Ben and I want you to know is that we
are looking at facts that we that can be proven,
and then also telling you what people believe, and then, I,
like the show does every week, we just want you
to think about it and come up with your own
belief structure around this. And and I'm sorry, I'm gonna
(04:22):
go ahead and do this because of course we are
doing this uh live well live for us record when
you hear it. But I want to do this one
more time, uh picking up at the end where I
said leading up to Osama bin Laden, leading up to
two thousand eleven, when Osama bin Laden died or did
he did? He did? He did? He? Uh? So that
(04:45):
that's a hint to some of the stuff coming up.
So first we have to start at the beginning. Who
is Osama bin Laden, Because for such a well known name,
a lot of people don't know very much about him
other than as he said Matt, he as a boogeyman
from people growing up. Yes, So the man we know
as Osama bin Laden, who was known in the west
(05:06):
at least in that way, is actually Osama bin Mohammed
bin Awad bin Laden. He was born on March tenth,
nineteen fifty seven, in Riyada, Saudi Arabia. His mother was Syrian.
His father, Mohammed Awad bin Laden, was from South Yemen.
Uh Osama bin Laden was the seventh son of fifty
(05:30):
brothers and sisters, all told big family Huge. The father
is a success story. Started impoverished, worked his way up
to become the owner of the largest construction company in
Saudi Arabia, and during this time his father became very
closely the royal family due to his involvement in palace
construction another you know, royalty related buildings, and I can
(05:52):
see how that would make them buddy buddy in that regard.
Um and Osama bin Laden grew up in a strictly
religious environment. He went to school in Jadah and according
to some official sources, he only traveled to a couple
of countries around the Arabian peninsulas Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Sudan.
And that's, according to these sources, for his entire life,
(06:15):
that's where he existed. So the reason that we mentioned
that is that you will often hear stories that he
secretly went to Switzerland for one reason or another, or
that he secretly traveled to another country, maybe in the West,
maybe he went to you know, you'll you'll hear wild stuff,
or at least maybe a more fair way to say
it is unsubstantiated stuff. He adopted the beliefs and precepts
(06:39):
of the month Muslim Brotherhood during his time in school,
and you probably heard of the Muslim Brotherhood in different
news reports about events in the Middle East. Yet at
this time he was not involved in violent or terrorists
like activities. So to see what changed, we will consult
an excellent timeline provided to us by the good folks
(07:03):
at front Line as well as some others, which means,
of course, this is a timeline of official events, or
at least proven events. Cast your memory back December twenty six,
nineteen seventy nine, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, a boiling
point in the proxy war there between Russia and the West.
(07:24):
Ben Laden leaves his home in Saudi Arabia to join
the Afghan resistance, the Mujadin. Yeah, and he's about I
think twenty two at this time, so you know, twenty
two year old you can imagine. I guess those are
college age years for us in the West. At least.
Um he's going out and joining a resistance movement. Now
(07:45):
we get to nineteen This is when bin Lan officially
established al Qaeda. This is you've you've heard of them
many many times. They're an organization of ex Mujahadeen and
other supporters. So the people who were fighting in Afghanistan
right and during that interim s eight he did become
(08:07):
a successful fighter, working his way up from a resistance
fighter to a guerrilla commander. So when he establishes al Qaeda,
he was also successful at raising funding, which will we'll
talk about as well. Uh this, let's let's go through
just a few of the events that he was tied to.
(08:28):
Um okay, so real quick. An eighty nine, the Soviets
pull out of Afghanistan. Bin Lad comes back to Saudi Arabia.
People love him, he's a hero, but he gets involved
in movements against the monarchy, which uh, you know doesn't
doesn't go over well in a theocracy like Saudi Arabia.
He's kicked out, moves back to Afghanistan. Then to stand
(08:54):
two because at the time stunted allowed any Muslim into
the country tree without a visa. And then if we
fast forward a little bit later, uh, a bomb explodes
in a hotel in Aidan, Yemen. Right, Yeah, this is
a place where United States troops had been staying. They
were on route to humanitarian humanitarian mission in Somalia. The
(09:17):
bomb killed two Austrian tourists and the U. S soldiers
apparently had already left once once this attack occurred, and
there were two Yemeni Muslim militants who were apparently trained
in Afghanistan who were injured in the blast as well.
They they're later arrested and U S intelligence agencies alleged
this was the first terror attack involving bin Laden and
(09:39):
his associates, right, And as we go through this, we're
going to hear more more statements like attacks involving bin
Laden or he is associated or linked to it. So
in February twenty six the world trades and bombing occurs.
Later October of the same year, eighteen US troops are
(10:01):
killed in Mogadishu, and people are People begin suspecting that
bin Laden and his followers trained and armed the men
who killed the troops. They also believe intelligence analysts over
the years become more and more certain that bin Laden
(10:21):
isn't just leading terrorist groups. He's financing different training camps,
training camps in I think Sudan, Northern Sudan. Now, in
April nineteen ninety four, Saudi Arabia takes note of all
this stuff and says you're getting out of here. They
revoked in law and citizenship and they make moves to
(10:42):
even freeze all of his assets, at least the ones
in Saudi Arabia because of his support for some of
these Muslim fundamentalist groups. And uh so he is establishing
through he's establishing more training camps around the Saudio Abian border.
In August of nineteen, he writes a letter. He writes
(11:05):
a letter to the King of Saudi Arabia, and he
calls for a campaign of guerrilla attacks in order to
drive US forces out of the kingdom. And for the
next few years, we're going to skip over some of
the developments, just a quick laundry list. For Saudi men
accused bombing the Saudi National Guard training center and the
capitol are beheaded before their execution, they claim to have
(11:29):
read letters from Ben Lawden Ni. President Clinton signs a
top secret order that authorizes the CIA to use any
and all means to destroy the Bin Laden network, as
this is seen increasingly as a threat to US forces
or US personnel or citizens abroad. Yeah, they even set
(11:50):
up a grand jury, a secret grand jury investigation into
Bin Lawden in August of ninety six. Then later in
August of that year, Laden's signed an issued declaration of
jihad where he he basically set out the organizational goals
of these groups that he had set up UM they
were to drive US forces from the Saudi Arabian Peninsula,
(12:12):
overthrow the government of Saudi Arabia, liberate Muslim holy sites,
and support Islamic revolutionary groups around the world. He also
in this declares that Saudi's have the right to strike
at U S troops inside the Persian Gulf. Al right,
and UH, US backed multinational mercenary force allegedly is formed
(12:37):
with the aim abducting and killing then Laden Obviously it
does not work. So then Laden does something uh issuing
a joint declaration with several other groups where they try
to form a World Islamic Front. UH. Then let's go
(12:59):
to nineteen. There's a grand jury investigation of Bin Laden,
charging him with the conspiracy to attack defense utilities of
the US. And this is where prosecutors charge that Bin
Laden heads a terrorist organization called al Qaeda. UH. And
you know, we can go through some of these dates quick.
He does interviews with ABC Nightline. UH. He later does
(13:23):
interviews with Time UH and a second interview with ABC.
And during this time he is eventually becoming a not
maybe not public enemy number one, but one of the
let's say top fifteen for the US when the U. S.
Attorney's Office files its most complete indictment of Osama bin
(13:45):
Laden in nineteen at the time the grand jury charges
the him and eleven other people for conspiring to kill
American nationals. So this is a real thing, a global
conspiracy if you will, to UH to fight against or
(14:05):
to assassinate American nationals or Western nationals. And multiple times
spin Laan states during his public appearances we could call
them that that the U S should not be in
the Holy Land. Yeah. And I noticed something in looking
at all of this, been that one of Osama bin
(14:27):
Laan's main targets was the government and the the leadership
within Saudi Arabia. And it made me think about our
Petro dollar episode and the deals set up within Saudi
Arabia Arabia with the United States to trade in U
S dollars. And I don't know, I was interested to
know maybe Osamavan Lawton is learning about this larger financial
(14:50):
set up, global financial set up as he's you know,
in the Mujahadeen and getting older. I'm interested to know
how much that in moist Well, you also, many conservative
Muslims object to the Saudi Arabian the Wabbi idea, right, uh,
(15:12):
and see it as a means of propping up again
political support for the ruling house of sad Okay. And
I want to take a second here before we continue,
because we're talking a lot about terrorist groups that are
uh Islamic, right, But the truth of the matter is
(15:33):
that there are numerous terrorist groups and and they're not
all Islamic, something that mainstream news in the West will
try to slip past people, But it is true. There
are Christian terrorist groups, there are Jewish terrorist groups, there
are Hindi terrorist groups. There are so many groups like that.
(15:55):
And with as with any other religion, the vast majority
you were legious practitioner demographic is not composed of violent,
crazed people, right. It's composed of people who have a
belief system that to some degree regulates or defines their
(16:18):
life for the way they interact with the world. And
that and that's it. And the Islamophobia that creeps into
the West is entirely disingenuous. You're absolutely right. The extremism
is very different and should be separated from religion. Right.
There are two very different things. The extremist ideas of
(16:38):
any group are not necessarily religious at their core. So
with that being said, let's go to the official story
of the death. According to the official narrative of Osama
bin Laden is killed in a compound on May second,
two thousand eleven in Abbat, bad Kistan, Seal Team six
(17:02):
invades the compound. They're doing a project called Operation Neptune Spear,
which was meant to allegedly apprehend Osama bin Laden. They
used stealth helicopters, one of which Rex and is later taken,
probably to China. For some reverse engineer accounts different on
(17:26):
what happened. You will often hear that bin Laden resisted
or as followers resisted, there was a firefight and he
was killed. But either way, according to the official story,
he was killed in the compound and after that they
transported his body to Afghanistan for identification and it turned
(17:47):
out that it was him, and it was also earlier
DNA evidence used to confirm this before they went in,
and they took him to the U. S. S. Carl Vincent,
which which is the site where they controversially and allegedly
gave him a burial. Let's see adhering to Islamic beliefs. Now,
(18:10):
also let me say let me interrupt myself to make
that correction. I believe Neptune Spear was a kill or
apprehend missions, so that means if there was no resistance,
they would take them alive. Got you now, Ben, Here's
where it gets crazy. A lot of people, a lot
of people don't believe at least part of that story.
(18:33):
Many people don't believe any of that story, not even
the part where Osama bin Laden died in two thousand
and eleven. The they some people even think that the
entire role of Osama bin Lawden is some kind of
story that's meant to be told and told and retold,
but is actually not true. Now, this is going to
(18:54):
be a huge debate depending on depending on who you
talk to, either way it goes. But here are some
of the the big ideas, the big conspiracies that surround
the life of Osama bin Laden. The first one is
that Osama bin Laden was actually a CIA operative, that
(19:14):
that he was you know, when he was working when
he was fighting with the Mujahadeen. He was actually trained
by the CIA to uh start and lead groups right.
So um they believe that Osama bin Laden and his
groups received funding from Saudi Arabia and the United States,
(19:34):
and that al Qaeda is actually a part of this
and is a creation of the CIA. Right. The primary
crux that debate being whether this was a willful creation
or an inadvertence creation, where it says, you know, let's
fight communism by arming the locals and telling them that
(19:55):
they are uh, they have the religious motivation or are
there somehow spiritually mandated to fight this war against these invaders.
What could possibly go wrong? And let's train this guy
to be a leader, like an excellent leader of these
guys to fight back in a resistance movement. And on
CNN you can see a clip from the Larry King
(20:18):
Show where Bandar ben Sultan, one of the diplomats for
Saudi Arabia, says, uh, in the mid eighties, if you remember,
we and the United Saudi Arabia and the United States
were supporting the Mujadin to liberate Afghanistan from the Soviets.
Osama bin Laden came to thank me for my efforts
to bring the Americans, our friends to help us against
(20:41):
the atheist, he said, the communist. Isn't that ironic? Larry
King says, how ironic? In other words, he came to
thank you for helping bring America to help him. And
what's strange about this, Well, I guess I should say
the opposite of strange, what's completely expected. The Central Intelligence
Agency in the US officials refute this, arguing that they
(21:04):
only supported native Afghanistan mujadin so not that not in
any way um bringing foreign fighters in or encouraging them.
And you can read similar statements from other people involved,
including the former head of the i s I, Pakistan's
intelligence agency. There's this other idea that Asama bin Laden
(21:27):
worked for the US right up to September eleven. A
person named Sybil Edmonds, who you've heard of before, I'm sure,
said that the U S outsourced terror operations to al
Qaeda and the Taliban for years and years and years. Uh. Right, uh.
(21:47):
And according to some French sources, CIA agents met within
Laden two months before nine eleven, who was already wanted
for the bombing of the USS coal at that time,
in allegedly two days before nine eleven, two days he
called his step mom and said, in two days you're
going to your big news and you're not going to
(22:09):
hear from me for a while. So in other words, Ben,
it seems as though American forces, the US Department of
Defense and the CIA had several many opportunities to capture
Osama bin Laden, and yet they failed to do so,
or at least they did not do so, they chose
(22:29):
not to. Perhaps even even after nine eleven, the U
s Military intentionally allowed Bin Lauden to evade capture. It
sounds pretty crazy, right right, And for people who believe
that the great Game continues, this sort of intentional encouragement
of instability seems completely plausible. However, of course, you have
(22:53):
to point out, if we're being fair, that uh, instability
might be useful to a certain points. Uh, but complete
anarchy and chaos is not. So that that's the big
crux of that idea. How involved? If it all, was
Osama bin Laden with v C I A. If so,
(23:16):
what degree of importance did they hold to each other?
And to what degree was the US somehow participating in
this proxy war? Was it just training to local Afghanistan mujerdine,
as the CIA and other officials maintain, or was it
(23:37):
more active? And that's just one. There's there's another. There's
another death related belief, and that's that when people claimed
that Ben Ladden was assassinated in two thousand and eleven,
it was entirely made up and never happened, and that
Osama bin Laden actually died years before in two thousand
(24:02):
and one. Yes, been some people believe that Osama bin
Laden actually died ten years prior to his official death
in two thousand eleven. They think he died in two
thousand one. They think it was either from illness from
a loan, something going wrong with his lungs, or I've
heard things about kidney problems and having to be on dialysis.
(24:25):
They also believe that he may have been killed in
an American bombing. Now, these aren't these aren't I hate
to say it, but fringe sources that are talking about this,
these are these aren't nuts. These are government officials. And
if if they are nuts spent, they are at least
government officials, right. I think that's pretty fair of you
(24:48):
to say. We're talking about people like General Tommy Frank's,
former American military commander for Afghanistan, or former President of Pakistan,
General Pervez Musharev, who, as we men action on the video,
you might remember from a strange and awkward interview on
the Daily Show back when John Stewart was heading a
(25:09):
personal hero of yours, matt uh them, No, I am
a big fan um. But the officials, uh, the officials
that we're talking about, these generals, they seem to base
this speculation, this conclusion on just the amount of bombing
in the Toura Bora Mountains. So they hadn't actually seen
a body or anything, at least going to the New
(25:31):
York Times, and that is right, ladies and gentlemen. The
New York Times reported on this too back in December
two thousand and one. Another source of the Pakistan Observer
went on They they quoted a Taliban leader who said
that as Somabid Lawdon died of quote a serious lung
complication back in December. Yeah, and they also that Pakistan
(25:52):
Observer article adds more information and alleged funeral. And of
course it seems like it's my role in this episode too,
not my favorite role, but it's got to be done. Uh,
it's my role in this episode to point out the
other sides of the story. This is very close to
wartime propaganda. So some people have doubted this, thinking that
(26:15):
I s I. Pakistan's intelligence agency supplied purposely misleading information
with the idea of throwing the US war. When I
say war machine, I don't mean anything other than an
enormous and efficient thing. Some people believe that I s
I Pakistan's intelligence agency purposefully misled uh misled the public,
(26:41):
with the idea being that if the US forces could
be convinced that Osama bin Lanham was dead, they might
be thrown off Bin Laden's trail. And so people who
believe this idea, I mean, because this is a lot
to think about. If some and dies in two thousand
and one, then how could you, even assuming you could
(27:06):
pull it off by by doing some massive conspiracy and
cover up for a decade. Why would you do that?
Why would you go to all that trouble? That is
a tough question to answer, Ben, But it might go
back to the idea that we sat at the top
of a boogeyman. I can see it being beneficial on
either side. So from from Pakistan side wanting, you know,
(27:30):
wanting to have this this at least he's a kind
of a leader, an asset for intelligence and for strategy.
Having this person at least believed to be dead and
then using him on the inside, I could see that
being advantageous Inversely, I can see it being advantageous to
want to make people believe that he is still alive,
because it creates the specter of the evil that you're
(27:53):
fighting in all of these places. Right at least, it's
good for morale for your troops. It's good for even
the people inside your country or other people that you're
trying to inspire to fight these wars for you. I
can imagine it being highly advantageous either way. I see
what you're saying. Yeah, people who believe this theory that
Belton died in two thousand one typically ascribe the motivation
(28:16):
to things like that. You know that it might be
for political maneuvering, like the hostage crisis in Iran, that
it might be due to uh an economically driven desire
for war to continue because some people do make a
lot of money off of it. Although that's a that
seems a little bit far fetched for me, not that
there would be people who would want work to continue
(28:39):
so much as that there would need to be one
person upon whom that decision hinges. I think it's very
easy to create a situation wherein a war is quote
unquote necessary. Um, I'm sure I think it's just helpful
to have an iconic image or name or something that
can be repeated over and over again. Sure, yeah, that
(29:01):
begins to serve as sort of an autonomy. Right, So
there's also a the idea of uncertainty. You wouldn't want
to report that someone was dead if you didn't really
think they were dead, because what a coup that is
to come back from the dead and the public eye.
So it could just be that people didn't know for sure.
(29:22):
It could be, you know, that that there was an
advantage politically speaking for the timeline. So that's that's what
people who believe he died in two thousand one. I
actually believe, and I think that Benezier Bhutto may have
made some public statements about that too before her assassination. Yes,
(29:44):
I would. If I were you and you have not
seen this, I would look up Benezier Bhutto Osama bin
Laden I think maybe died two thousand one. Where she
is conducting or she is being interviewed, and she says,
she states at East according to the video, that osamovan
Land died in two thousand one. But is she just
(30:05):
referring to this information that was coming out of Pakistan?
You know. I mean, there are a lot of questions
and you will read, you can read multiple sources that
will go either way. Um, and it's tough to figure
out what's true. They're like, what is she actually referring to?
And we'd love to hear what you think on this listeners,
So if if you're hearing something, whether on this point
(30:29):
or any of the earlier points or later stuff we
talked about, and you'd like to weigh in, we'd love
to hear your perspective. Of course, if you are a
member of a military force, whether in the US and
Pakistan somewhere else, uh, we'd like to hear perspective. We
believe it is invaluable. And if you are not in
(30:49):
the military, of course, we still want to hear from
you and hear what you have found in the course
of your delved into this rabbit hole. And speaking of
rab bit holes, we have come to probably the most
widely reported in the mainstream media disagreement with the official narrative,
and it starts with a guy named Seymour Hirsh, legendary
(31:13):
journalist Seymour Hirsh. Now you might remember this, gentleman. I'm
sure you probably saw the actual article pop up on Reddit.
That's how I first came across it. Um. He's a
guy who wrote about the Myli massacre and the cover
up in Vietnam. He also wrote about the Abo Grabe
prisoner abuse. Um. There was an article that blew up
(31:34):
all over London review of books. He's well known, a
very well known and I would say in maybe prestigious writer.
He's somebody who was held up. Seymour Hirsh, I believe,
is somebody who was held up as being an authority
in a lot of places. Well, he's gone through a
cycle of being derided and then lauded after you know,
(31:55):
enough time passes. He says that the raid did. It
happened that night on May second, two thousand and eleven.
It just didn't go down the way people think. The
US official position is that the I, S I and
the top Grass in Pentagon had no idea, somehow had
no idea that Osama bin Laden was living in that
(32:18):
compound all along. They did what they just they've thought,
which is UM very similar to very similar to Hitler
surviving World War two and then Parliament finding out that
he had a flat somewhere in London. So this is
(32:39):
what Hersch says happens happened. He said, a walk in
asset alerted the CIA. A walk in asset. It is
a very difficult proposition for the CIA because walkin asset
could easily be a double agent or someone who is
sincere but was misled. And we're literally saying a walk
(33:00):
in asset this is this is a person who walks
into an official place and says, hey, I have information
I want to share with you. Right walks into the
embassy and says I want to talk with someone, and
all of a sudden, you're learning a lot more about
that consular attache or the person who's the head of
(33:21):
janitorial services turns out to have a couple of extra
job duties of which were not aware. So after this
asset alerts the CIA and they managed to verify the information,
Herst says that the Pakistani and American government struck a
deal and that they would stage this raid. So the
(33:42):
Pakistan was going to give up, give up in Laden,
and they were going to make it seem as though
it were unilateral action on the part of the US.
One thing I just really quickly want to go back
to I was interested in the reasons. If this were true,
why in of heck would Pakistan if they knew that
(34:03):
he was there, to keep him there. And what what
I seem to find is that it was some kind
of like, hey, we've got Osama bin Lawden u jihadist
groups or the groups that want to, you know, overthrow
governments and create havoc. We've got this guy. We're protecting him.
You don't have to you know, it's okay, you don't
(34:23):
have to hurt us. However, if they were keeping it secret,
they wouldn't be telling anybody that, right, so it would
only be it was Sama bin Lawden's connections. I guess
to say, hey, don't attack Pakistan. I don't know. I
was just trying to wrap my head around the reasoning
behind it. I mean, it's a it's a heck of
a poker chip. Yeah, I mean, to be crass about it.
(34:45):
It's also it's also quite possible that at this point
in Lawden had little to know actual control over over
the situation. Right, so a lot of you'll you'll hear
people disagree about the agree of influencer control he had.
Was he just releasing tapes saying continue on, carry on,
(35:07):
My wayward son or was he was he instead, um,
you know, actively plotting things and telling people show up
on this day at this time, meet this guy and
plan the attack from there. And if so, to what degree.
The problem is that a lot of this stuff remains classified.
(35:29):
We can tell you about some things that were allegedly declassified,
which will do in a little bit. Here's one of
the here's the next series of things that Hers says
that lead other journalists to attack him and say that
he was a quote unquote conspiracy theorist meaning you know,
(35:49):
meaning as an insult, as a don't pay attention to
this guy when terminating cliche right when you think of him,
think of reptilian hybrids or whatever. So uh. He Her
says bin Lad was never meant to survive the raid.
He was supposed to be killed, and that he also
(36:10):
been laden, that is, did not receive an Islamic burial
at sea, did not receive a burial at sea at all.
That this was a fabrication. A lot of the body
was riddled with bullets, uh, and some pieces were thrown
out of the helicopter as they flew to Afghanistan, and
one consultant, one anonymous source told Hrsch that the CIA
(36:33):
took the body once the remains landed in that country.
And all of this leads us to the the next thing.
This is something that I am very interested in. This
is the This is relating to the audio and visual
evidence of Osama bin Laden speaking into a camera, or
(36:55):
being interviewed on camera, or talking into a mic and
giving orders and or um, I guess just rallying the troops. UM.
There was a lot of media that was created over
the years by Osama bin Laden, or allegedly by Osama
bin Laden, because a lot of people believe that some
(37:18):
of the videos that you may remember, some of the
iconic ones, were actually not Osama bin Laden. One of
the true the things that we can definitely point to
as hey, this is this is absolutely fact, is that
they're German experts. Uh. Looked at a bin Laden confession
video from I think it was, was it two thousand
one or two thousand two, think it's two thousand one, um,
(37:41):
where they were saying that the video was itself incorrectly translated. Um.
They're not disputing that it was actually Osama bin Laden,
but they were saying that it was perhaps purposefully uh
not translated correctly. So in that case they're saying that
it was him. Uh, it was. The video is one
(38:03):
where he's in a circle of followers. People had called
it a quote unquote damning admission of guilt. But according
to uh, according to the German experts there the tapes
tampered with contains translation errors, and this is this is
the one that is supposedly him saying yes eleven, we
(38:24):
did nine eleven. Basically, the the the the errors that
they're mentioning you can read about in more detail if
you just search for German experts. I think it came
under Spiegel German experts Sabin Laden confession incorrectly translated, and
(38:44):
you'll find it and you can find the discussion about it.
Um I would say, if you want to play a
dangerous game and you do not uh, do not yourself
speak German, you can always put your faith in Google
Translate and the best. Uh. So, there's another guy named
Neil from hacked or factor who believes that a different,
(39:07):
uh different tape of Osama bin Laden was manufactured from
various earlier audio visual appearances. And the person who says
that this was such a compilation is a fellow named
Neil Crowitz, a digital image forensics expert. He looked at
(39:28):
the tape from September seven, two thousand seven, and said
it was full of visual and audio splices, not just that,
but low quality and it was a likely fake. And
then there's also a I think it's a two thousand
two audio tape that was attributed allegedly to beIN Lawdon. Um,
there's some there's groups with scientists there that we're saying
(39:50):
this is fake, it's not actually Osama bin Lawden. And
there's a Guardian article that you can read. Um, you
might be able to search two thousand to al Qaeda
UH tape perhaps or if you'll be able to find it, Yeah,
and we can tell you a little bit about it.
So there is a thing called the Institute of Linguistics
(40:11):
and Phonetics in Paris and UH they found that based
on the phonetic testing, the al Jazeera tape was genuine.
This this tape was delivered to Al Jazeera in two
thousand two, is Matt said. American experts also thought it
was been laden, but the quality of the tape is
(40:33):
pretty poor, so people aren't completely sure. But researchers at
a place called the dow Mole Institute for Perceptual Artificial
Intelligence believe the message was recorded by someone else. They
built a computer model of Osama bin Laden's voice, and
(40:53):
they based it on an hour of actual recordings and
then using voice recognition systems that they were that were
being developed for banking security. These Swiss scientists tested that
uh synthetic model or that creative model against twenty known
recordings of the actual bin Laden system correctly identified his
(41:14):
voice in nineteen of them, and that means there's a
five percent risk of error in their conclusion that the
latest tape was a fake. Mm hmm. So it You know,
it's a little different too, because it's not a bunch
of people listening to it and then mapping out something.
It picks up things that the human or the human
(41:35):
ear probably doesn't record. Now Here is the really weird thing,
you guys, because they're they're all kinds of theories out
there about videos that were oslaved Laton impersonators. Oh man,
you'll hear people writing online or just see people writing online.
Man Osmolt looks really different in two thousand seven than
he did in two thousand one or two thousand six
(41:57):
or even you know, the latest later later videos. Um
that his appearance seems to change drastically over all of
these videos. Um. Well, here's the thing, the CIA actually did. Uh.
At least they had the idea to create a propaganda
video of Osama bin Laden um. And according to Jeff Stein,
(42:19):
they actually did create it. Um, at least according to
the people that he spoke to. Propaganda video. Correct. Yes,
I'm just gonna go to the article that Jeff Stein
wrote for. It's a blog called Spy Talk that he
wrote for UM Washington Post. He's speaking it's called CIA
units wacky idea depict Saddam as gay. This was written
(42:40):
in two thousand and ten, in May specifically, and he's
talking about the Iraq Operations Group and they were kicking
around ideas to like ways to discredit Saddam Hussein, to
produce videos that would make Sam look really bad. Uh.
They would be grainy looking video has perhaps taken from
(43:01):
a cell phone or from just a really low quality
camera that would not actually be sit on doing compromising
things like making They were talking about making a sex tape,
possibly with a teenage boy, um, and then flooding a
rock with the videos. They also talked about making a
fake television program with fake news bulletins talking about how
(43:22):
Snam Mussein was going to step down and he was
going to have his son come into power. Um So,
then about halfway down the article he talks about how
the agency I guess he's referring to the CIA here. Uh,
they did make a video purporting to show Osama bin
Laden and his cronies sitting around the campfire swinging bottles
(43:43):
of liquor and savoring their conquests with boys. One of
the former CIA officers are called chuckling at the memory. Uh,
that's a that's a little strange to me that they
even had that idea, although I can see I can
see why that would be maybe a strategic move. It
doesn't require any guns right at that point, It doesn't
(44:04):
require any assets going in. It just you'd make some
videos and then send them around. I think a lot
of people wouldn't believe that though, primarily for the consumption
of alcohol. Yeah, you're not supposed to do that, right,
And there's no judgment in brainstorming, So I'm sure this
idea is just the tip of the propaganda iceberg that
(44:26):
we are hearing about. There is one other conspiracy that
we should mention about Osama bin Laden that a lot
of people in the West might not have heard, but
it's it's fairly it has been fairly popular in the
past in some other countries, and that is the idea
that Osama bin Laden, like Elvis Tupac, Kurt Cobain or
(44:49):
Jim Morrison, is somewhere somehow, Oh, Michael Jackson as well,
alive and just hasn't been apprehended, will return to fight
another day. Uh. This this theory, for you know, for
a lot of people, seems like, well, how how plausible
is it? Why would he? Why would someone do all
(45:13):
this stuff and then disappear right to what end? And
it doesn't seem like bin Laden would be the kind
of person who would just disappear without continuing some sort
of fight. But I feel like it's important for us
to note that. And with that, those are some of
(45:35):
the more once where we're using the video Matt persistent
conspiracy theories regarding Osama bin Laden, both as the career
and terrorism, as well as his death at the hands
of Seal Team six or in two thousand one from
bombing by US forces from Marfan syndrome from lung complications,
(46:00):
et cetera. And I would love to hear from someone
who knows more, or has some has some proof, or
has something entirely different. But wait, speaking hearing, do you
do you hear that? There's just am I having a stroke?
Or is it? I'm pretty sure it's a stroke? The nope,
(46:20):
there it is? Well that can only mean one thing.
When are you sure you're not having a stroke? Oh wait,
do you know? Maybe is this my new death experience
talking to you right now? You've got a little twitch
going on that either worried about you? It's been a
rough week. I'm worried about me too. Then who are
(46:40):
you talking to? What's that? I didn't say anything? Oh god,
I smell toast. I smell bitter almonds. All right, Well,
I'm not having a stroke, Matt, You're not null? You good?
I'm having some kind of event, but I don't know
if it's a stroke? All right? You want a soldier
to true definitely, So so you know it's up to you.
(47:05):
Do you want to you want to talk about this episode?
You get something different on your mind. You know, I've
always got things floating around, man. But if you if
you want to you want to keep this going, feel free.
I kind of want to know just what's on your mind. U.
My exploded car largely, Um, that's you know, a little
personal for the podcast. Probably no, no, no, well we
should we should say it wasn't when we say explosion,
(47:27):
it wasn't a car bomb. It was not a nor bomb. No,
it was just it's time to die. Is it official? Now,
it's official, It's very official. Yeah, it's dead car, dead car. Well,
it's cool. Let's look to the future, let's do what
what are you planning on doing for transportation? Um? Well,
in the short term, I have a very dear friend
(47:48):
who has an extra car. Do you let me use
so I don't have to make a snap decision and
you know, buy something random just to have something. So
that's good. So I'm feeling pretty good about that. But
just you know, in general, it's just a little bit
of a downer. Sureman, I liked that car a lot
and I was only in it a couple of times. Yeah,
that you know of. Oh god, sorry, it's seen. It's
(48:11):
time in the sun. Oh man, I feel like there
there should be a good Night's Sweet Prince, Goodbye to
a car song. We could play I don't know motoring. Yeah, sure,
so well we do have another up like uplifting event
we could talk about. Nat Um. NAT got a lot
(48:32):
of email and tweets about the earlier announcement from last week. Yeah.
There there is several really lovely emails that we've received
so far. Um. It does feel weird that you're reading
them to Ben. I forget something like, oh man, Ben's
having to read this advice about my kids. Sorry, dude,
(48:55):
Oh no, it only makes sense. I don't feel like
it's my place to respond. Oh no, you're you should
not respond to Diana and I are actually going to
go through and respond to them in our adventures for
the next couple of weeks in your own time, because
there are there are a couple that are fantastic, like
so much more information than I could have ever asked
(49:15):
for helpful information. Catch people up on what what you
asked for last last weeks in case they don't know. Well,
I was basically like, hey, there's a baby coming, I'm scared.
Help That's what That's what I said. And I we
got some messages from people who you know, have had
experience with children, and some of the best stuff was
(49:38):
just how to how to cope with your relationship, like
you're my relationship with my wife while we are trying
to take care of this baby and we're both terrified
and stressed out and lacking sleep. No, you have a
kid as well. Did you give any advice to Matt?
We have talks, you know, and I don't tweet them
at him or or send them to him via email,
(49:59):
but you know, occasionally everyone into each other in the
hall and have a little moments where we talk about
child wearing stuff. How old your daughter? She's six? Six?
Good age. I feel like kids when they're when before
they get to the double digits, there's this age where
you and I have talked about this off air, there's
this age where they just seem so much more intelligent
(50:20):
than adults. I thought you were guys, didn't they actually are? No,
you could say that about some adults, perhaps myself included,
So I don't feel bad saying that. Yeah, my kids
creepy smart. She's like the girl in the Bad Seed.
You know, I'm afraid she's gonna push me down the stairs.
And I'm not looking at I'm kidding. She's she's really smart.
She is, she is, but again. I just that there's
(50:40):
always something going on in there, and I'm always not
I'm not always a hundred percent aware of what it is,
so I have to bring something up. Really fascist we're
talking about kids, So I I went to Kroger the
other day. I think already told you about this, but
I'm sorry. I went to Kroger the other day to
get some food. We're stalking up on frozen things so
that we can just make them really easily when we're
both having downtime. And when I was being checked out,
(51:02):
it was a twenty year old woman who was actually
checking me out in an eighteen year old woman who
was doing the bagging, and they were having When I
walked up, they were having a long conversation about kids
these days. Uh, they're always on their cell phones. They
got no respect. I mean it was. It was a
crazy conversation for very young people to be having, and
(51:24):
specifically they were discussing these kids. I mean no, they said, oh, man,
I didn't get my cell phone until I was in
middle school. And I just went, oh wow, yeah, I
don't think it was that even beyond guys. I just couldn't.
I just it was so funny to me to hear
(51:44):
that happening already, and I was trying to imagine what
your daughter and my son are gonna be. Like. Yeah,
it's weird with her because I mean, she's really good
at operating those devices. I don't let her mess with them,
like all the time. But she likes to play Minecraft,
and I had Minecraft on my phone, so I let
her us with that. But and she'll occasionally I'll text
her mom and I'll get a text back that's clearly her,
(52:07):
so she gets it. But you know, she doesn't have
her own phone or anything, obviously, but she knows how
to work that stuff. She knows how to send pictures,
she knows, she knows how to take selfies. There was
one time where she changed my Facebook profile pictures secretly
to picture of her, Like I said, creep creepy, you
gotta nip this in the butt. That that's pretty. That's
pretty impressive. Yeah, And I guess if we if we
(52:30):
had to speculate, there are a few things that we
could think children in the future would look back on
as ridiculous or I can't believe they did that kind
of antiquated things. And one of the biggest in my opinion,
might be having to use your hands to interface with electronics. Yeah,
interface anything with your manually. That seems like, why would
(52:52):
you do that? Remember that seeing him back to the
future to where Marty mcflies using the shoot him Up
arcade game and the kids go, you have to use
your hands? Yeah, I ever understood that joke when I
was younger, and then like now, it's just so obvious.
We're all going to have implants. It's on the way, guys. Yeah,
you can get Google in your head for free as
(53:14):
long as you listen to the advertisements that play in
your mind like you're hearing voices. You just have to
think that you agree to the contract. You don't actually
have to sign anything. You just go yep, just just
the sub vocalize nod uh. Well, that sounds like an
episode for another day Again, we would would love to
(53:37):
hear from everybody with your opinions on the death of
Osama bin Lan. Do you believe the official narrative? Do
you think something else happened? And if so what You
can find us on Facebook. You can find us on Twitter.
You can check out the earlier episodes we alluded to
on our website as well as our YouTube channel. And
(54:00):
our best suggestions come from listeners. If you have a suggestion,
we'd love to hear from you, Although it can take
us a while to uh, you can take us a
while to get back to them. I'm thinking in particular,
they really excellent letter we received on allegations of vote
rigging in the Scotland in Scotland's independence referendum. All to say,
(54:22):
if you would like to write to us directly, you
can do so. We are conspiracy at how stuff works
dot com. From one on this topic another unexplained phenomenon,
visit YouTube dot com slash conspiracy stuff. You can also
(54:43):
get in touch on Twitter at the handle at conspiracy stuff.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.