What percentage of what the government says about bin Laden and al Qaeda do you believe?

On the whole, the announcement of bin Laden's death will end up being a positive development, but as the details of the hit are adjusted, a new bin Laden tape was hyped, and now there are stories of a new terrorist attack on the anniversary of 9/11, I'm reminded of the ridiculous hype, exaggeration, and sometimes flat out lies that made it look like a marginal group was set to take over the Muslim world and threaten the whole world.

If someone doubts it, the rest of us give them lots of links from mainstream sources to back it up.

My question is, how much of what is said do you take at face value?

Many Al Qeda have been killed in Iraq War. They came
there and fought.

Most government comments say about 100 remain in Iraq.
This does not sound unreasonable to me. They are in
Yemen and other places now.

...bound to suffer from distortion or at least redaction.

I don't really take anything at face value, anymore. Obviously, the Bush administration outright lied, lied, lied. But that doesn't necessarily mean that an Obama administration would reveal "the absolute truth" in a situation like this.

For instance, take Pakistan's role in potentially harboring bin Laden. If the Obama Administration (or any administration, for that matter) discovered absolute proof beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Pakistani government was not just harboring bin Laden but assisting him (or other terrorists) to their ends, do you think that information would be released, could be safely released?

No, of course not. We've got thousands of troops and material going back and forth through Pakistan in order to keep the war in Afghanistan going. There is no way such information would be released.

Because, whether it's the guy you like in office or the guy you don't, politics isn't and has never been about "the Truth", it's always about a Point of View and Diplomacy.

So I choose the longer more-bumpy road of reading as many sources as I can and drawing my own conclusions. I'm of the belief that if you expose yourself to enough differing viewpoints on a matter that you are able to get much closer to the big-T Truth.

And the big-T Truth is not always convenient or even pleasant, but it's always terribly interesting.

PB

They will bend and manipulate the information as much as they think they can to appease their corporate masters.

has said OBL is dead... there are really days I wonder.

the government says with at least a few grains of salt. The old Latin tag phrase 'cui bono' (who benefits?) is always hovering, as is the Horatian question "Quis costodiet ipsos costodes?" (Who will guard the guardians?).

I voted the option that it's hard to know how serious the threat really is.

I wonder how much play it got in the MSM once it was declassified. If it got any, there probably wasn't a peep about it again when events repeated themselves.

There have been just too many lies, mostly Republican but still a lot of Democratic ones, told over the years, that what the government says about anything is greeted with some measure of skepticism from me. The news that a SEAL team had killed bin Laden, however, I never doubted for a second. If bin Laden hadn't been killed, it would have been too easy to prove otherwise, and the embarrassment and loss of credibility would be too much for even the United States to sustain.

But I admit that I did have to run that analysis first. It didn't take long, but I swiftly concluded the story was true.

A lot of other things? Yeah, skeptical.

I did find myself briefly entertaining the question of whether they had used some kind of double.

I will say this: when Obama says something, I do not immediately dismiss it as a lie, as I would have and did with most of what Bush said.

That said, however, I figured the "human shield' bullshit was exactly what it turned out to be. Racist agit-prop. To Obama's credit, the phrase 'human shield' never crossed his lips. (Why does that feel like I'm damning him with faint praise?)

and then ask respondents if they think the government lies.

In most places, that's called a push poll.

I think the OP meant that there are specific instances where the government has lied and exaggerated in the past.

"I'm reminded of the ridiculous hype, exaggeration, and sometimes flat out lies that made it look like a marginal group was set to take over the Muslim world and threaten the whole world."

When you put a sentence like this at the top of your poll, you are doing a push poll.

If the OP wants an objective poll, then the OP would not highlight truth or lies.

Anyone who knows how to create an objective survey knows that you do not use words or phrases like "ridiculous hype, exaggeration, and sometimes flat out lies" unless you are PUSHING for a specific outcome.

The rest of the story I have no faith in. Administrations say whatever makes them look best, and whatever helps them advance their political goals.

that what they both say is identical. There is absolutely no distinction with what they say about Al-Qaeda. Obama doesn't assert any narrative different from Bush's and even takes the stage with the Bushes. The only ground where they differ is what countries to attack in order to defend the US against the threat of Al-Qaeda.

To agree with Obama's position on Al-Qaeda is to agree with the identical position except a different set of military tactics in a different set of countries. It's like saying "Bush said the ice cream is tainted. I don't believe it. But know Obama says its tainted and I do." It's completely irrational. If you follow Obama's logic, you have to concede that the Bush Administration identified a real and clear threat to the US (*Al Qaeda) but got sidetracked in another fight altogether (Hussein).

If anything, Obama sees Al Qaeda as more threatening, as a more veridical threat to the US than any other entity. Obama's military policy is nothing more than a clarified, better-articulated version of the Bush Doctrine. It shares the exact same premises.