One Can Reason On The Basis of Blind Faith

or one can reason on the basis of wishful thinking, or, one can reason on the basis of evidence. The last of those three options is always my preference, though I know that such rationality makes me appear quite eccentric in the USA of 2011. Still, I stubbornly persist.

The NYT reported that the CIA closed down its "capture OBL" unit in late 2005. A variety of reasons for this action were given at the time, e.g., the agency's "evolving understanding" of how "al-Qaeda functions," but certainly one plausible reason was that it was known then, in intelligence circles, that OBL was dead.

When the authorities who are responsible for accumulating evidence, preserving it, and presenting it, refuse or fail to live up to their responsibilities, one has reasonable room for doubt.