Saddam

[glorfindel]

Uhhhh, fingerprints?

[Hopey]

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Uhhhh, fingerprints?

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Not to mention DNA.

[qwnu]

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I personally think the truth here is 50/50

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So you believe it's possible to assign an objectively true probability to a past binary event? Either Saddam was hanged or he wasn't.

It seems to me that this probability can only be expressed as a completely subjective value based on each person's knowledge, experience, values, and interpretations. Which is why you can come up with a number like "50" and I decide on "1".

I'm probably not explaining this very well, but I think this is actually an interesting question. To clarify, it seems you think there is an objective number, say 37.4%, which represents the "true" probability of this past event (Saddam faking his own death). How can we possibly measure this value?

EDIT: I see above you did refer to "the actual truth" i.e., the yes/no question of whether it did in fact happen. How does this "actual truth" compare with "the truth" highlighted above?

[qdmcg]

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I'm probably not explaining this very well, but I think this is actually an interesting question. To clarify, it seems you think there is an objective number, say 37.4%, which represents the "true" probability of this past event (Saddam faking his own death). How can we possibly measure this value?

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Pretty sure this value is 50%/50%, either it happened or it didn't.

[boracay]

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I remember well in the 90's that Saddam had perhaps hundreds of look a likes or "doubles". You could tell many times on the news that the Saddam speaking was not the same Saddam each time.

Since his supposed "capture and death" what has happened to all these doubles? How do we know for certain that the real Saddam was the one caught, on trial, and hung? By letting the footage leak out of his hanging that creates solid proof in the herds mind that he died when if fact perhaps HE did not?

It makes far more sense that a man as smart and powerfully as himself could create an illusion by which he simply "disappears".

Of course we will never know, but I think the probability of such a thing happening in this situation was probably as high as 80% I'd be willing to bet.

Whatever they show us on the news is for a reason. The reason is never what we think it is.

So what happened to all these double Saddam's walking around? Why do we not hear anything about this?

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I'd be much more concerned about Osama bin Laden's 'doubles'.

Ask yourself why administration doesn't want him dead.

[ikestoys]

didn't they take DNA from him and compare it to known relatives?

[Insp. Clue!So?]

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didn't they take DNA from him and compare it to known relatives?

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That would seem to be the deal-killer, wouldn't it?

Plus, speech-pattern analysis. Plus finger prints. Also, the hangers sure seemed to think they had the right guy so presumably they were given good evidence or were otherwise convinced. Plus the circumstances in which he were found. If he were a mere double the worst thing he could do is act like he actually were Saddam Hussein in hiding.

Care to address these? Any of them? You got no theory as someone said, you just got some wild notion (not in itself so bad, just not something worth much either). Fun over a couple of beers at the bar, maybe.

[boracay]

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I'd be much more concerned about Osama bin Laden's 'doubles'.

Ask yourself why administration doesn't want him dead.

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didn't they take DNA from him and compare it to known relatives?

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I didn't have a dead body of OBL on my mind.

[Siegmund]

It's an interesting line of argument, and one that was very much on my mind five years ago. A lot of us had doubts it was really him when he was first arrested. On the day of his execution you might have been able to convince me that the chance of having the wrong man was as much as 10% especially given the rather slipshod proceedings late in the trial. Given that nothing of interest has come to light in the intervening years I think it's very hard to argue for anything above the 1% range now.

[tomdemaine]

I'm no scar ... dot com.