I find the Reichstag fire an interesting analogy. It doesn't matter if Marinus Vander Lubbe did it all by himself, was encouraged by Nazis to do it, was assisted by Nazis doing it, or was innocent and blamed for it - the Nazis used it as an excuse to convince the German people that they needed dictatorial powers to protect the country.

While not much of a conspiracy fan, I do believe that the capture or killing of Osama bin Ladin would do much to help the political direction of the present US administation, unless another big terrorist attack happens shortly thereafter. Whether this is actually influencing efforts to locate the guy would be speculation.