Totally with you oldsaw and completely agree. They're always playing every side. Gotta keep the left happy. Gotta keep the right happy. Gotta make Pakistan feel better. etc. etc. Between trying to get elected and trying to keep everything moving forward, they sure do end up speaking in code. But it's the system we've built.
Agreed, D and R and T and L all stir the pot to get their message out. The D and R are doing it for another reason: filling their pockets. That means legislators will NOT make the hard choices we need, they vote on crap and kick the can down the road. Hey, at least my state managed to decide that collards should be the official state vegetable. Can't say they aren't doing anything at all.
The lamestream media stir the pot to raise their Nielsens so they can charge more for advertising.
And we the common schmucks stand here wondering how to get these idiots to pay attention to the real problems.
Regardless (and back on topic), I am glad that terrorist sonofabitch is dead. Unlike some of my fellow Americans, I am not ashamed to say so. Some poor girl has been quoted by the lamestream as saying someone unfriended her on Facebook for saying she thought it was unseemly to rejoice over OBL's death.
Two interesting articles: Airborne Dogs
Al-Qaida has reportedly confirmed his death.
Sorry tin foil hatters.....
Wait, he died? Why was this not in the news?
Got no problem with how the raid went down. However, describing that three-floor chicken coop as a "million-dollar mansion..." Got an even bigger laugh when a local said the place was worth 250 large, tops. The value is still wildly inflated. Who knew Pakistanis pay LA rates for real estate?
Dr. Hess wrote: This was interesting: http://www.debka.com/article/20902/debka said: White House fumbles getting its Osama bin Laden story straight DEBKAfile Special Report May 4, 2011, 3:20 PM (GMT+02:00) The Abbottabad villa does not support US account of a fortress with few windows Two days after the US President Barack Obama's triumphal announcement that Osama bin Laden was dead, the White House was grappling with a serious credibility problem: Questions and contradictions are mounting about the how and why US elite SEALs killed the most wanted man in the world at his mansion in Abbottabad, Pakistan on May 2. New information proving the first stories wrong comes not just from a defensive Pakistan government but also from US officials. Dismissing the conflicting disclosures as "artificial stories" and "conspiracy theories" won't wash – not just in the US but in Arab and Muslim countries after Washington was forced to retract data the president's adviser on terrorism John Brennan put before the media on Tuesday. It was admitted tardily that bin Laden was not armed when he was killed, there was no firefight in the Abbottabad villa and his wife was not used as a human shield. Pakistani sources challenged other parts of the original narrative and Wednesday, May 4, the dead terrorist's daughter told Al Arabiya TV most damagingly that her father was captured alive and then shot by US forces. Even before that, amid rising demands for evidence that Osama bin Laden was dead, White House spokesman Jay Carney confessed Tuesday night: "Even I'm getting confused." And no wonder. Monday, in his first statement on the operation, Obama stated: "And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice." Was he talking about a targeted assassination? Brennan later said that in the firefight in the terrorist's bedroom he had been asked to surrender and was shot dead when he did not answer. Another US spokesman said the SEALs were ready to take him alive. Other US sources described the shooting as happening quickly - "in the blink of an eye," said one. The Republican leader Mitt Romney remarked: "Osama bin Laden took one in the eye." His daughter's evidence contradicted this jumble of American versions. Even though she must have had a Pakistani green light for the Al Arabiya interview, her testimony cannot be lightly dismissed because she was present and shot in the leg (later correction: she was not injured) before being taken into Pakistani custody. Her version makes it look as though US troops executed her father in cold blood. The backlash from her testimony will not do much good to the delicate relations between the Obama administration and Muslim rulers like Saudi King Abdullah which are already tested to the limit over US involvement in the Egyptian uprising and Libyan war. Pakistani leaders are caught awkwardly between an effort to clear their intelligence service ISI of American accusations of collusion in concealing the al Qaeda leader's presence in its midst, and domestic opinion, which is outraged by their government's suspected connivance with Washington to betray a Muslim figure and permit American forces to violate sovereign territory. Reporters in Islamabad heard from the Pakistani foreign secretary Salman Bashir Wednesday, May 4: "We had indicated this complex (in Abbottabad) as far back as 2009 as a possible place," after sighting suspected terrorist movements on the property. It was not known at the time that bin Laden was hiding there and there were millions of other suspect locations, he said. Bashir also hit out at former CIA Director Leon Panetta's comments that informing Islamabad in advance about the raid had been ruled out as "worrying." These comments are just the start of the war of words building up between the Zardari-Ghilani government and the Obama administration. Islamabad has one major advantage: The inmates of the Abbottabad villa and the injured persons present when bin Laden was killed are in Pakistani custody, some in military hospitals. They can be produced whenever necessary to rebut Arab and Muslim criticism of Pakistan's conduct and fend off any attempts to undermine its ties with the Taliban, which has already vowed to avenge Osama bin Laden's death in Pakistan and Afghanistan and outside those countries. This verbal war will make further inroads on the Obama White House's credibility.As usual, the only thing we can be sure of is that whatever they told us is BS.
Hess: Are you really that concerned with the "How?" OBL is dead. Sucks that the plan didn't include burning the house down along with the rest of his family and friends, but are you seriously going to say "Boy, Obama and crew really screwed the pooch on this one" because some of the details are fuzzy, or even if some of the details were purposely omitted or changed to just make this thing 'go away' quickly?
OBL is dead, and not in that "Well, we'll be scooping up guts trying to find some DNA for the next year and a half" way, or even the "We really wanted to get him, but Pakistan and the UN told us it might cause an international incident" kind of way, but in the "Oh yeah? He's where? Put a bullet in his head and dump his ass in the ocean" kind of way. Give credit where credit is due. It was a big brass balls move on thee Obama's part, and I'm glad he chose this option.
I have to say again, other than taking a long time to decide and (adding this now) getting his people to consolidate their story better, I would have done nearly the exact same thing as president. That being said, I've never seen the press question his moves like this - it could be his downfall. I can't believe it, either.
ps, I don't like being BS'ed. Spin, spun, whatever. I understand that post event, it's hard to find out what really went down. If they don't know, don't make it up. Otherwise, you get a situation like that football player SF guy who got killed by friendly fire. The brass spun that to "died while saving his friends," or something completely different, then tried to keep the story going. Just tell the truth on it and be done with it. It was not a big risk or anything on The O's part, he just checked with his boss, whoever that is, and 16 hour later said OK, kill him. Where's the big brass balls on The O's part? Not asking for a UN resolution first, or UN sanctions or a sternly worded letter instead of killing the SOB? That's not showing brass balls or courage or whatever. That's barely doing his job.
tuna55 wrote: I have to say again, other than taking a long time to decide and (adding this now) getting his people to consolidate their story better, I would have done nearly the exact same thing as president. That being said, I've never seen the press question his moves like this - it could be his downfall. I can't believe it, either.
The "honeymoon-is-over" phase usually takes a year to show up, this time it took 2 1/2yrs.
Then again, some lame-butt CNN pundit looked at today's unemployment rate and was pulling roses out of his arse. To paraphrase:
"Ignore the increase to 9.0% and the highest new-claim rate in 7 months" "Ignore the real unemployment rate of 15-16%" "Celebrate that 244,000 jobs were actually created"
Bill Clinton said it best, "It's the economy, stupid." When the press pillories Obama's economy the same way they did with his predecessor, the divorce papers will have been filed. Unfortunately, our fourth estate will resume its' battered-wife-in-denial mode way too quickly.
I dunno. Things that happen in the field are sometimes best left in the field. There might be a petty officer somewhere that had a looser definition of "resistance" than you or I, much less the hypersensitive members of the media.
Politicians spinning after-action reports SOP. In the information age they're just 1,000 times more likely to get caught. Not a new game, just new rules.
This has nothing to do with the CiC, like him or not. (Though he would get the giant brass ball award for saying "Yeah, we offed that punk with reckless enthusiasm. Zardari is next.".)
Tom Heath wrote: I dunno. Things that happen in the field are sometimes best left in the field. There might be a petty officer somewhere that had a looser definition of "resistance" than you or I, much less the hypersensitive members of the media.
Good point here. They have more training than us, are aware of more dangers than us, and it's THEIR lives they were defending in that situation, and nobody was going to do it for them. The interesting element I read today was something I hadn't thought about - they apparently were briefed that he pretty much had to be naked to be taken prisoner instead of shot because he could very well have been wearing a suicide vest - that also might explain the headshot.
http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim-galloway/2011/05/05/saxby-chambliss-first-shot-at-osama-bin-laden-was-a-miss/
Per Saxby Chambliss (ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee) this was a kill-mission from the get-go. And, he acknowledges that things happened quickly and confused at the same time:
"You’d think that 24 hours after the fact, they’d be able to ferret things out a little more,” Chambliss said. “But I know that anytime you have a situation like this – it happens in a far-off land, and you’ve got 24 guys rushing into a compound, guns a-blazing, there’s going to be confusion.”
Still, Chambliss said, “Every day it seems like somebody is having to straighten out some fact.”
Okay, here is what really happened.....The Seals found OBL in the midst of teaching midnight ballet class to all the neighborhood four-and-five-year-old girls while wearing a pink tu-tu. "Please don't kill me Mr Man," he lisped as he attempted to mince away from his well-armed intruders. The ensuing firefight killed OBL as well as three of the little neighborhood children while wounding at least 5 others.
Don't care. berkeleyer's dead.
Just like our parents warned us: If you associate with shady characters, you get caught up in their mess. The others are dead now because they were there. The parents of those little girls knew the teacher was OBL but sent their kids anyway because the class was free.
It's a balls move to go for the personal touch instead of bombs because failure means the decider has to eat the whole debacle in one big gulp. Fortunately, things worked out about as well as they could. All our guys got out. All we left behind was a charred chopper. Nice job. Hope the rest of the war works out as well. Probably won't.
In other news, Pat Tillman played for the AZ Cardinals, not SF. I try to remember the names of guys who give up really cushy lives to serve their countries in vague conflicts far from home for less than their previous meal money per day.
His story is not comparable because the Army faced a really bad PR scandal early in the war and that particular administration had an amazing love for obfuscation. Now the family has a winnable court case which unfortunately, we will be paying for. The stories would only be comparable if the present administration told us bin Laden was dead and the Pakistanis killed him.
Check out the Pat Tillman story this summer at a theater near you. No E36 M3.
SF= Special Forces. Spin is spin. My point is: Don't be pissin' on ma boots an' tellin' me it's rainin'.
Dr. Hess wrote: It was not a big risk or anything on The O's part, he just checked with his boss, whoever that is, and 16 hour later said OK, kill him. Where's the big brass balls on The O's part?
His boss? Oh, you mean George Soros.
He had several ways to play it. Of course, the easy thing to do would be ignore it, or not act until it was too late. More typical would have been to send in a couple of cruise missiles. He could have called our “allies” in Pakistan and said “We found him” and then either offered to have them take him out (very unlikely) or ask their permission to go in and take him out (also unlikely) or inform them that we were going to go in and take him out. That last one is kind of the “business as usual” way to go if we’re going in.
But he knew, as we all do, that not everyone over in Pakistan is a great friend of the US and past efforts to inform them of our actions mysteriously resulted in the target being absent when we got there. So the more courageous option was to say “screw them” and go in and get him. Especially when you consider that they weren’t 100% sure he was there when they went in. Imagine what could have happened. We saw one helicopter go down. What if the Pakistani military has somehow shot our guys down before they got there, or on their way out? And even with things going pretty well, it sure opened up a can of worms with Pakistan. He knew full well it would and did it anyway.
But think about this – what if they had dropped in there, kicked in the door shot a few folks and found out he wasn’t there. That would have been a really big issue. People are pretty quick to give him a pass for sending them in, guns blazing, because they got OBL. But if they had just gotten a tall Pakistani guy and a couple of his kids, we’d be in a world of hurt right now. And I’m absolutely sure all those who are saying “it was no big deal” would be the first ones to say “how could he do something so brash and unfounded?!” We’d be left with saying “yeah, but you wouldn’t be saying that if they had gotten bin Laden”.
I’m kinda glad to hear he thought it through for a bit instead of just going in all Cowboy. And I have very little patience for the people running around saying the credit should go to Bush. You can give him credit for, I don’t know, starting the operation that resulted in bin Laden being there, or the operation that ultimately resulted in the intelligence that found him. But he didn’t have to make any of the difficult calls above. I’m a pretty big Clinton fan, but let’s be honest, even old Bill would have lobbed in a couple of cruise missiles and called it a day.
oldsaw wrote: Then again, some lame-butt CNN pundit looked at today's unemployment rate and was pulling roses out of his arse. To paraphrase:
So did those liberal bastards on Wall Street.
fast_eddie_72 wrote: I’m a pretty big Clinton fan, but let’s be honest, even old Bill would have put a (figurative) string of pearls around his intern's neck and called it a day.
your post, now with more historical accuracy.
z31maniac wrote: Al-Qaida has reportedly confirmed his death. Sorry tin foil hatters.....
What do they know that we do not.... They bring any new info?
All they know is that he longer will pick up the phone? That or a SEAL answered when they called?
fast_eddie_72: . I’m a pretty big Clinton fan, but let’s be honest, even old Bill would have lobbed in a couple of cruise missiles and called it a day.
If it was just a Kill mission??? Why not? Forward Observers could tell you everything you need to know?
The mess with Pakistan would probably be a lot worse. It would make it WAY easier to say "that wan't bin Laden, it was a day care". And the tin foil hat gang here in the US would agree with them.
ronholm wrote:fast_eddie_72: . I’m a pretty big Clinton fan, but let’s be honest, even old Bill would have lobbed in a couple of cruise missiles and called it a day.If it was just a Kill mission??? Why not? Forward Observers could tell you everything you need to know?
Because you could never confirm that you got him. Obama made the right choice. My keyboard fought me every letter to type that last sentence.
ronholm wrote: ...Forward Observers could tell you everything you need to know?
Yes, having the body is HUGELY different then seeing the building blow up. Don't forget, the intel they got there may be more valuable then the body.
And on the possibility that he was dead long ago (I think Hess mentioned it). Although I see the possibility and reason behind it, I would have to so no way. Just because the timing of the "killing" was timed to nothing. It's not right for re-election and it's not covering up other stories. Heck, even the stupid birth certificate thing was taken care of before this.
Trump / Palin 2012 (you know, for the pure entertainment spectical)
In reply to aircooled:
Going in and killing him face-to-face was the only way to be certain. You couldn't do that if he died years ago. So, the President gets a big thumbs-up from me.
As far as pure entertainment, the farcical aspects of the administration's handling of the details will do for now. I'm relishing the angst of people who demanded release of the Abu Ghraib photos and now wish to keep the kill-photo a national secret.
No matter who's in charge at the WH, someone is always going to find a way to screw it up. The current crew seems to do it better than most.
aircooled wrote: Trump / Palin 2012 (you know, for the pure entertainment spectical)
I was hoping Blagojevich would run with Sarah for the same reasons, but Trump might be even better.
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