David Seaton's picture

    Why Obama won't release the photo of bin Laden. A wise decision

    By David Seaton on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 6:24am |

    Bullet wound to the head: entry-exit

     "I think that, given the graphic nature of these photos, it would create some national security risk," Mr Obama said.(...) "It is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence, as a propaganda tool. That's not who we are." BBC

    In general, exit wounds are larger than entrance wounds. They are also more irregular in outline, and their edges are everted. They exhibit no abrasion collar, and they do not have any features of secondary muzzle product projectile impact, such as soot soiling, or powder tattooing (Besant-Matthews 2000; Knight 1996).  www.forensicmed.co.uk

    Osama bin Laden's 12-year-old daughter watched as her father was shot dead by American special forces, a senior Pakistani intelligence official has told the Guardian.

    Obama's decision not to publish the photo of the dead bin Laden is wise decision albeit a rather desperate one.

    People who have been allowed to see the photo all report that there is a large wound over bin Laden's left eye, large enough to have a clear view of his brain. This means that he was shot in the back of the head.

    On viewing the photo thousands of forensic surgeons all over the world could quickly calculate the type of bullet and the distance it was fired from.

    Before too many days have passed Osama bin Laden's twelve year old daughter will be interviewed by the Arab media. In the interview she will tearfully profess that her father was unarmed and captured when he was summarily executed by America's "A-Team", the highly trained Seals.

    The photograph of bin Laden would be physical evidence that her story is true.

    This of course would inflame public opinion and not only in the world of Islam.

    Thus, at this point, the president's decision is a wise one. However, one must ask if the decision to not bring bin Laden to trial and to summarily execute him in front of witnesses after capturing him, and then showing the photograph around, after leaving the witnesses behind, were wise decisions. 

    Crossposted from: http://seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com/

    Comments

    Whether or not it was wise, it was right to "leave witnesses around". The alternative was to have joined this justified execution with some unjustified ones.

    As to Arab opinion as Rhett said to Scarlett, frankly I don't give a damn.


    by Flavius on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 6:29am

    I'm NOT saying that they should have executed them or him either, but I think that they should have brought the survivors back, even if meant leaving a couple of Seals behind.Or bringing more helicopters in to bring them back, but leaving them behind was idiotic.

    If it can be proved that bin Laden could have been brought back to be put on trial, and his being the self-confessed perp of 9-11, he would have surely been easy to convict in the USA on in The Hague, for that matter, but instead was coldly shot in the back of the head as a captive, this Bush-like act is going to do immense damage to America's reputation and not just in the Muslim world and may result in the death of hundreds of people, many of them American servicemen and women.

    Think about it.


    by David Seaton on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 6:42am

    A Bush like act was killing both your children and putting the bodies on display. The allowing a short tape of you being hunbg. GW tactics were by FAR more Barbaric, perspective please.

    by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 05/06/2011 - 12:58am

    People who want to be inflamed will be inflamed.


    by Bruce Levine on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 7:34am

    There are people who don't want to be inflamed that will be inflamed too.


    by David Seaton on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 9:00am

    Is this blog the Coast to Coast of the Interwebs? So you've come up with your own theory, that bin Laden was shot in the back of the head and you know this fact, because of the things you think you've heard from people who have seen the picture.... Hahahahahaha rock on Kresskin, soon we will get to see you on Faux News and they will introduce you as a keyboard forensic scientist, who knows exactly what happened because of the stuff he's heard on the TeeVee.


    by tmccarthy0 on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 9:34am

    "So you say there's a race of men in the trees,

    you're for tough legislation,

    thanks for calling,

    I wait all night for calls like these."

    As I said before, and as several callers noted when A-Man was on KRXA last night, we just don't know what to believe, who to trust anymore. That really opens the door for X File types.


    by Donal on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 9:39am

    This has been in the New York Times and other venues: in the photo, which quite a few people have seen, bin Laden has a huge hole over his left eye, with his brain on view. This is an exit wound... wounds of entry are small. In itself this means little, but it corroborates the story told by his 12 year old daughter, who says he was executed after he was taken prisoner. Taken together they make a rather sinister story. This will only have a good effect domestically, but in the rest of the world it will and is playing badly, even among America's allies, who now see Obama as the same as Bush.


    by David Seaton on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 10:22am

    And, the bottom line, I really don't care how they shot him.  I'm glad he's dead, so are most Americans--and if you want to pretend that that means you know something about how the Islamic world feels that folks like me don't understand--that's groovy and makes for good, as we used to say on certain trips to la la land, plugging into the conflusion and internet quibblin.

    David, I love you, but I think you would be upset by anything that the United States does or does not do, because I think it's what gives you succor.  I get it!


    by Bruce Levine on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 10:47am

    While we're inventing stories, I'll point out it's also possible to be shot in the back of the head while turning around to reach for your Uzi. (Just to be crystal clear, I'm inventing a story here, not positing it to be true.)


    by Verified Atheist on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 10:36am

    Where is your link to those facts Seaton?  I've read all the related NYTimes articles and they don't mention this at all. Why, where do you get your secret information? Is it information that only keyboard forensic scientists can see, because it is written in invisible ink.  Reuters, has pictures from the scene that they purchased from Pakistani officials who wish to remain anonymous.  But the scene doesn't include pictures of bin Laden, and of course the Reuters article only says the men were shot in the head, not in the back of the head.

    Thing is you are picking up stuff from other keyboard forensic scientists who have viewed those pictures and claim to know exactly how those others in the compound died. And to top it off, then someone began tweeting this, so it kind of went viral amongst the "I hate America" crowd.

    I don't know Seaton, but you say you are a journalist, and yet you couldn't  find this information on the google before writing your latest America Sucks blog. Maybe you should have used the very popular disclaimer: "not intended to be a factual blog".


    by tmccarthy0 on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 11:19am

    The White House has a photo of Bin Laden with a large head wound across both eyes, plus other photos of his corpse and of the burial at sea. BBC News

    The real problem with the photo comes when it is combined with the testimony of his 12 year old daughter. This mixture is very toxic. Twelve years old is still a child, but old enough to speak coherently, An interview with her on Arab TV would be devastating. If an authentic photo shows the corpse having a massive wound in the forehead, that means that it is the exit hole: in other words, he was shot in the back of the head... anybody that has done any hunting knows that the entry hole of a bullet is quite small, but that it expands on impact and the exit hole is bigger than the entry hole. The photo only gives credibility to the child's story. It is her story that will cause outrage in the Arab countries.

    In the West, this is being seen as just more of the same Bush-cowboy stuff... people had hoped Obama was different.

    If they could have brought him back alive and didn't  something is definitely fishy here.


    by David Seaton on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 12:12pm

    And not only did they shoot him in the back, something John Wayne would never do, the unit took turns having sex with his cranium.

    The bastards!


    by Richard Day on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 10:35am

    Richard, I just can't get enough of this stuff. Had to get a second T.V. so I could listen to CNN and Fox at the same time, while recording MSNBC for future reference.


    by Oxy Mora on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 1:57pm

    David. I know you wanna work this up into something like JFKs death, but here's why it won't work. How the bullet entered JFKs head mattered, because it opened the door to OTHER PEOPLE having killed him. How it entered OBLs head is only the difference between executing him head on, unarmed (as they've now said), or from behind. It's just not a big enough difference to change anything important.* Same with whether Pakistan knew and/or helped or not. It's mostly the populations of the US and Pakistan that would care, but even then, most people are gonna think it's a 60/40 thing. * Nope. If you wanna get something started, something with legs, something you can blog about forever... Then you have to argue that Osama was never killed.... Or that he never did 9/11... Or that he was actually a penguin-sized blogger from NYC, codename "Genghis." * Now THAT would be a blog.

    by quinn esq on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 11:35am

    Genghis has been acting (wobbling?) a bit strangely lately. . . .hmmm.


    by Bruce Levine on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 11:47am

    It is very important to know if the Seals could have brought Osama back alive. If they could have, and they didn't, something is really rotten here, something very "Bushy-Cheney". That has to be established beyond doubt as soon as possible. This not a frivolous theme by any means.


    by David Seaton on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 12:10pm

    They almost assuredly could have taken him alive if they wanted to, but this would have increased the risk to the Seals performing the operation.  If one wants to say some (or all) of their lives would be worth it to ensure he stood trial, then one can go that route.  But if one puts a premimum on ensuring completion of the mission with all the Seals returning to safety, then it becomes a different story.  Your suggestion that some of them be left behind so we could bring the others back (and by the way since we wouldn't make the 12 year old an accomplice, she would have been able to talk to the media eventually had we took her) indicates you are willing to sacrifice their lives more willingly than Obama or myself.


    by Elusive Trope on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 12:18pm

    The Navy Seals are not a Boy Scout troop. They are there to do the most dangerous things that have to be done. In theory, this was one of the most important commando missions since World War Two. Soldiers who sign up for elite units like this are expected to take chances that other, less well trained, soldiers are not expected to take. If it was of interest to the American government to take  OBL alive then getting sentimental about the Seals putting their lives at risk, is an insult to the Seals.


    by David Seaton on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 1:06pm

    " If it was of interest to the American government to take  OBL alive" - apparently it wasn't deemed that big of priority.  Apparently they didn't come to the same conclusions from their analysis of the situation that you have done in retrospect. 

    The primary objective it seemed was to ensure that OBL was neutralized as quickly as possible.  An unconditional surrender would have done that.  Since that doesn't appear to have happened, then the next quickest way was to shoot him.  I am not getting sentimental over the Seals, but I don't think their lives should be put at increased risk for outcomes that are not deemed a priority. 

    So you should go on and on about how taking him alive should have been the primary objective.  But it is just that - an argument.  One of the considerations for making that the primary objective would be to consider the increased risk to the lives and well-being of the Seals.  What would have happened had there been reinforcements for the compound and one or more of the Seals were captured while trying to take him alive?  Would having these Seals appear on DVDs as hostages have been worth the risk? 

    And speaking of insults: you believe that the Seals were so stupid that when they executed him they shot him through the back of the head rather than shoot him in a manner that would have been consistent with the lie that they would going to tell about how he died.  Personally I think they would have been smarter than that.


    by Elusive Trope on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 1:25pm

    No, of course it's not frivolous. No no no no no. 

    It's just batshit.

    Seriously David. Can you think of any possible reason why the US might not want Osama brought back alive? Try hard. Please number your list, as one point will be awarded for each perfectly sensible - or insensible - reason given.

    Which is your problem. You wish to take areas in which a dozen reasons exist, some reasonable, some "rotten," and then - without any possible evidence to leverage your way from one reason to another - just... babble on. Throwing in any speculation that crosses your fevered brow.

    I mean, what are you gonna say that shakes me here? Or rather, what could Osama possibly say? That he had American buddies from pre-9/11? Possible. That the Pakistanis knew where he was? Possible. That he didn't run the show? Possible.

    Anybody with a clue has already looked into this sort of entanglement. Nobody with an IQ over 40 ever imagined he'd get a chance to trot in to a witness box, backed by a team of lawyers, and say whatever he liked.

    Jesus, for a guy prone to telling us insightful things like "The Navy Seals are not Boy Scouts" you sure as shit seem naive on this one.


    by quinn esq on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 1:19pm

    Can you think of any possible reason why the US might not want Osama brought back alive?

    Gee, that is an easy one Quinn. OBL, Al Qaeda and the Taliban are a classic case of what Chalmers Johnson calls "blowback". In origin they were created by the CIA in order to fight the USSR, (It seemed a good idea at the time)... you can easily see that there are thousands of reasons that the US Gov. might not want to see (and hear) OBL in a court room. In the USA or in The Hague (the USA hasn't signed that treaty). There are as many reasons that they might want him dead as stars in the sky. This will make people feel good for a couple of weeks but it is not at all good for America' reputation as a defender of "values".

    BTW: it is kind of surreal to have to explain to a Canadian how sinister the US Government can be and often is.


    by David Seaton on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 2:00pm

    What I was getting at is precisely that everyone KNOWS there are MANY MANY MANY reasons why the US didn't want OBL back. I even spelled it out "American buddies from pre 9/11."

    So what I'm saying is that if everyone KNOWS this, everyone expected the US - if they got a chance - to kill him rather than bringing him back. There's nothing surprising IN it. 

    And what I'm saying to you is that your pieces are without value insofaras they merely add speculation and vague reference to things that are "rotten," when nobody sane expected any different. And sorry, no, telling us he was shot in the front or the back of the head doesn't matter a damn - it's still a straight-up execution, and even the US - after casting a bit of mud on things - is admitting to that. "He had no weapon." We all get it, and why.

    So. HOW he was killed is of no material difference. WHO KNEW where he was matters very little as well. WHETHER he had a kidney machine or lived in relatively greater luxury matters not a whit. He was executed, face on or from the back. He had local allies, more or less in number, and in seniority. And he had some money, and some difficulties. Whether any of these things were greater or lesser, they really add very little.

    What's more interesting to me is the fact that the very tenor of our times changed the moment those planes hit the towers. His death gives us the chance to MOVE TO SOMETHING BETTER.

    To sieve the vomit is a waste of our time. 

    BTW: It's astonishing to me how fucked up the situation Spain is in, and not a word on that from you. Here you are, a journalist, living in a country which could bring down Europe, a man who could actually write on that for North Americans - and there's fuck all on why or how or where the Right is or what part the Left played or causes or roads forward or racism or.... nothing. Instead, we get who's behind Osama and who's behind Beck and who's behind Assange. 


    by quinn esq on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 2:13pm

    Someone is obsessed with attacks from behind.


    by Rootman on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 2:24pm

    And also....

    NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!!!!

    Ha. Got ya.


    by quinn esq on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 2:58pm

    Really despite everything, I think targeted assasinations are pretty shitty and a country that carries out that sort of thing forfits any claim to any moral high ground or "exeptionalism" and that the sort of people who applaud shit like that are the kind of people that put Adolph Hitler in power in Germany. I hope that clarifies my position.


    by David Seaton on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 3:27pm

    While I'm not the biggest fan of targeted assassinations, I find them preferable to untargeted warfare on a grand scale, like we usually do.


    by Verified Atheist on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 3:38pm

    I condemn both.  Across the board.  No exceptions.  And while we have little control over actions against us, we have complete control over our responses to those actions.  Our (U.S.) responses to the violence of 9/11/01, including the execution of ObL does not reflect well on our national character.  IMO.


    by kyle flynn on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 9:29pm

    No exceptions huh? So you would be against Bill Clinton's little missle attack on Osama which if had it been successful may have averted 9/11 and the massacre in Spain, etc?


    by Elusive Trope on Fri, 05/06/2011 - 12:51am

    A couple things, Trope.  First, yes, no exceptions. None.  Second, I don't do fantasy history.  Your second question is just weird.   By any measure, the attacks you reference targeting several locations in Afghanistan and the pill factory in Sudan were utter failures.  As many as 27 people were killed and many more horribly wounded.  Our government intentionally misled us on many of the details including claiming the factory was a chemical weapons facility with ties to Iraq.  Sound familiar?  The strike occurred the same day Monica Lewinsky testified to the Grand Jury.  Remember, Clinton's "Wag the Dog" moment?  And in Sudan at least, it naturally inflamed many who opposed the Fundamentalist government in place there.  From the NYT:

    "'As a Sudanese I’m mad...O.K., we have problems with this regime. But we solve them ourselves. Now the Americans have come and given it a big shot in the arm..."' (NY Times, 8/23/98, p.11)

    And concerning Osama bin Laden:

    '"The Americans have suddenly created a Muslim hero out of him, whereas last week he was considered a fanatic nut."' (ibid.)

    And I'm not at all sure why you think it was "Bill Clinton's little missile attack."  It was more than 75 Tomahawk Cruise missiles at $750,000 each.  Seems like a big attack to me.  And I was disgusted hearing about it then, would have opposed it had I had prior knowledge of it and still don't think it should have happened.  It was a rogue move.

    If you're interested in how I might possibly have the audacity to condemn both targeted assassinations and indiscriminate warfare on a grand scale, without exception, just ask.

     

    by kyle flynn on Fri, 05/06/2011 - 4:43am

    Right now Spain is going through a rough patch, but nothing compared to the 1970s. Actually Spain has managed to avoid the sort of meltdowns that plague Greece and Portugal and with some pain is moving forward. I don't think any country in the world has transformed itself for the better as much as Spain has done in the last 40 years. That is what I like about it... all this time the country has gotten better and better, the young people have simply blossomed, world champions in football, tennis, Hollywood Oscars, and even Spaniards playing in the NBA, and the same in science and especially banking... if you could have seen Spain in the 60s, you wouldn't believe how it has changed... and all this time -- I would put it since JFK's assassination -- the USA has been going down the tube... I think if I lived over there it would break my heart.


    by David Seaton on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 3:39pm

    If you think the USA was better in the 60s, you are white, male, straight and wrong.


    by Rootman on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 5:14pm

    Straight... and wrong? 

    You've got some explaining to do, young man.


    by quinn esq on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 5:30pm

    Way back when JFK was killed, Malcolm X famously said that "the chickens have come home to roost"...  By now, "there aint nobody here but us chickens boss".


    by David Seaton on Fri, 05/06/2011 - 12:19am

    i could go on with a number of details, but i will just say that the Civil Rights Act wasn't signed until after JFk was killed.  So much for going down the tubes.  You are living in such an idealized, ideologicalized vision of the past, and therefore the future, I think any further attempt to engage you in a dialogue is literally pointless.


    by Elusive Trope on Fri, 05/06/2011 - 1:08am

    One of the best responses of the year.

    It is amazing how those on both the left and right live in the idealized past.  Each find that moment of idealized purity in which to wrap their narrative around.


    by Elusive Trope on Fri, 05/06/2011 - 12:55am

    I don't think is so far off to consider that Vietnam was the beginning of a poisoning process in American life. JFK's death was a symbol of this loss of innocence (on the part of the people, not the leadership).

    As for apologizing for being white, Lincoln was, Emerson was, FDR was too... Washington for all of that. I could apologize for all the nasty things bad white people have done, but anybody that wants me to apologize for the color of my skin can kiss my pink ass.


    by David Seaton on Fri, 05/06/2011 - 1:06am

    First off, it was JFK and his elites that got involved in Vietnam.  Johnson found himself in Obama's position.

    Secondly, at the time of JFK racism and sexism that would if it showed itself in today's workplace would make our jaws drop. 

    Thirdly, there are those at the time of JFK who were not innocent.  In other words, what you like to think of time of innocence, I would call a time of massive number low information voters.  "What? United Fruit Company is killing the workers who standing up for the rights of workers who are bringing me cheap bananas?  I had no idea? And the government of those countries are participating in those murders? Who knew?  And the US is supporting those governments?  Who knew?"

    This is not apologizing about being white, as I am (although i have that 1/16 native american).  It is recognizing that while if one looks at the overall stats of quality of life of those in the US, things seemed cool back then, those who were black or hispanic or native american, the reality was quite different.  And while those on the college campuses had the luxury of standing up to the draft in the late sixties, those in the minorities were just trying to survive in the way that the country is now as whole trying to do during this economic depression.

    And one only has to watch mad men to know what women were dealing with during this idealized time.

     


    by Elusive Trope on Fri, 05/06/2011 - 1:19am

    Any foreigner that has been visiting America regularly for the last 30 years will tell you that America has gone down hill dreadfully... Everything is dilapidated the services like public transport are a scandal and the people are paranoiac and divided, prey to any passing demagogue. And when you get down to it are things really better for Black people as a whole? Ok, there is a person with African blood in the White House, but what about the prison population and the unwed mothers, the broken family system. All the black kids I went to school with in the 50s were working class, but they all had live-in fathers with jobs.


    by David Seaton on Fri, 05/06/2011 - 1:39am

    Chalmers Johnson had nothing to do with the origin of "blowback," David.  It was a CIA term, formally used by the 1950's.  I first encountered the concept when I met Phillip Agee while helping sponsor a talk he gave in Chicago in 1991.  He recommended this book, http://www.amazon.com/Blowback-Americas-Recruitment-Disastrous-Domestic/dp/002044995X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304621001&sr=1-3, which is useful reading for anyone concerned with the unitended consequences of clandestine American foreign policy .

    [from wikipedia]

    "Originally, blowback was CIA internal coinage denoting the unintended, harmful consequences—to friendly populations and military forces—when a given weapon is carelessly used. Examples include anti-Western religious fanatics who, in due course, attack foe and sponsor; right-wing counter-revolutionaries who sell drugs to their sponsor’s civil populace; and banana republic juntas who kill American reporters.

    In formal, print usage, the term blowback first appeared in the Clandestine Service History—Overthrow of Premier Mossadeq of Iran—November 1952–August 1953, the CIA internal history of the US’s 1953 Iranian coup d'état.[2][3] Examples of blowback include the CIA’s financing and support for Afghan insurgents to fight an anti-Communist proxy guerilla war against the USSR in Afghanistan; some of the beneficiaries of this CIA support joined al-Qaeda's terrorist campaign against the United States[4]."

    Your ignorance, and complete reliance on fellow American-bashing conspiracy theorists (not including Johnson in this category, BTW)  is once again on full display.  You really are becoming kind of a carciature at this point. 


    by brewmn on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 2:47pm

    If you think Seaton is crazy, you should catch the blogs at the famous Black Agenda Report (guess where I first gained knowledge of that website). Obama's is a war criminal at BAR, probanly to Seaton as well. 

    Seaton and BAR aren't seeking change, they want America to fail. Full stop.


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 3:37pm

    Forget talking with Seaton Quinn.

    If some SEALS were killed, or one of the choppers was downed by a Pak jet killing all aboard, Seaton would be cooking up some other anti-American tripe instead of making up stories about skull shots and photographs of dead terrorists.

    Seaton seems to think the only reasons Bin Laden was not taken alive was because of the long known and documented Reagan administration arming of al Qaeda in th 80's. No one cares about that, it is ancient history.

    First: The SEALS reason for shooting Bin Laden , front or back might include: he may have been reaching for a gun, a knife or a bomb to kill them, he is a big guy and clearly dangerous, he reportedly (and characteristically) did not raise his hands and say I surrender' and offer to cooperate, time was of the essence, Bin Laden is on record behaving as if he would never surrender, but risk death to escape.

    Second: If Bin Laden was captured alive (1) terrorists would take hostages to free him (2) he wouldn't talk (3) Pakistan would demand him back to put on trial there under Sharia Law, the Muslim world would agree (4) The Congress would have the usual political fight about water-boarding him, and about where and in what conditions to put him on trial. It would be a political hornets nest on steroids and last for years, employing countless lawyers and jail keepers. And in the end, after millions spent and unknown numbers of hostages taken or killed to gain his freedom, after the never ending complaints about 'justice' from 'the elite in Europe' Bin Laden would be executed, which is the same result obtained without all the grief a few days ago.


    by NCD on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 2:30pm

    I have already stated that OBL was like a bottle of champagne kept in the fridge in case there was something to celebrate. Obama needs a major bounce in the opinion polls if he is going to muscle through a budget that can get him reelected. THAT is what this was all about. If it hadn't worked, you never would have heard about it, like you haven't heard of dozens of other "black" operations.

    With OBL dead, that is the end of the story... we stay with the "bounce" in the polls and no inconvenient follow up story about, "what do we do with this SOB?".


    by David Seaton on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 3:47pm

    Wouldn't the better time for the sinister Obama to kill the murderer Bin Laden been right after the Democratic and Republican conventions?


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 4:25pm

    You mean like this?

    http://www.prisonplanet.com/top-us-government-insider-bin-laden-died-in-...


    by LarryH on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 4:19pm

    EXACTLY!! If you're gonna go there, and get into "rottenness", then at least have the courtesy to bring us something new and exciting. And once you're looking into how in the hell 9-11 happened, whether OBL took it in the back or the front of the skull is really small potatoes.

    Though it made me laugh when somebody said "Surely the Pakistani military, with all their skills and professionalism, would have known about the infiltration of their airspace and been able to respond."

    Memory is (apparently) vastly overrated.


    by quinn esq on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 5:32pm

    You don't need weird theories... this is a story that goes way way back... really it is just the dark side of the new technologies that makes it different. As we hear all the time, these are tools which "empower" people. If the technologies had existed back then, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse might have attacked New York and Washington and the Zulus might have trashed London. This is 21rst century imperialism and it reads a little bit like a cross between Arthur C. Clark and Rudyard Kipling... on LSD. The code name they gave OBL, "Geronimo", give the game away... Freudian slip, I guess. The only thing that gives this all a special taste is America's endless hypocrisy... like Al Capone nattering on about "values" and "that's not who we are".... Yes, in fact, that is "who we are" and we must schepp the karma.


    by David Seaton on Fri, 05/06/2011 - 12:59am

    Now you're just spinning wildly.  So who is the good guy in all of this?  Is Osama the 21st century Geronimo? or Al Capone?  or Al Capone on Acid? Fear and loathing in Pakistan. I've got the ether and the bomb, so drive damn it. 


    by Elusive Trope on Fri, 05/06/2011 - 1:01am

    Great question Trope.  Who is the good guy in all of this? 


    by kyle flynn on Fri, 05/06/2011 - 1:04am

    Default position: We are the "good guy". Because we are good? No, silly, because we are we.


    by David Seaton on Fri, 05/06/2011 - 1:15am

    unfortunately the real response to all this is who is lesser of evils.  In this particular case it would be the US.  For those like David, it hard to comprehend that there are those who are higher up the scale of evil than the US, but Osama and his NGO fit the bill.  If you want it is Stalin taking out Hitler.  In the end one has to say this preferable than Hitler taking out Stalin, regardless of the evil that Stalin did.

    The problem with many of the arguments against those who back such as ops as the one against OBL, is that is based on the assumption that those who are backing it believe in the total goodness.  In other words, to support one action of an administration is to support fully all actions of the administration.  All I can I say it is sad to see those who live in such an intellectual black and white world.


    by Elusive Trope on Fri, 05/06/2011 - 1:39am

    "Surely the Pakistani military, with all their skills and professionalism, would have known about the infiltration of their airspace and been able to respond."

    Quinn, I was dumbfounded also. the genius may have been KGB999. I know I awarded KGB membership in the Dagblog OBL on a Pak Silver Platter Club.  He, or someone, said it was impossible to penetrate (70 miles) of Pakistan airspace with (new stealth choppers) without immediate detection and jets in the air in minutes, ergo, the Pak's, despite the Mt Everest of evidence to the contrary, must have intentionally handed Bin Laden over on a silver platter. My response was, why the choppers and the 79 SEALs, why not pick him up in a truck?


    by NCD on Fri, 05/06/2011 - 5:18pm

    Obama should make a deal.  Cheney gives back all the torture porn he saved to enjoy during his retirement years and Obama releases the death porn.  But when it comes to trading the prize souvenirs of their respective administrations, it will take hundreds of torture porn pictures to equal one Osama death porn picture.  I mean, who are we kidding?  Torture porn is so last Administration, and those people had nothing to offer and no one knew them.  OBL won't be around to answer any questions, but everyone knows him and we all knew he did it.  That's almost priceless.  Let's make a deal!


    by Gregor Zap on Fri, 05/06/2011 - 1:52am

    Maybe proof that the operation was an execution would/will not inflame the "world of Islam" in the fashion you describe. Many don't even think it was real. In any case, the standardized method of using drone missles to kill targets hit-or-miss like a video game stains the escutcheon of U.S. warriors more than the news that it kills leaders of the "jihad" without judicial process.

    In many ways, the resistance in the Arab Spring is a refutation of Al Qaeda. They live with their enemy right there in the house next to them. No need to go shopping.

    Perhaps Bin Laden always belonged to the U.S. and has finally been recalled to the factory along with a number of its other products.

     

    by moat on Fri, 05/06/2011 - 4:55pm

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