What Will the Taking of bin Laden Mean?

Tonight I see unity. That is why I spent half the time on Fox. Even they are praising the Prez and the Intelligence community and our warriors and....

The unity will last about ten hours.

But there is unity.

People are celebrating in the streets on a work night! flags and anthems and dancing and USA-USA-USA.

Fox is dumping on Pakistan...I mean we took the guy out in a suburban gated community 35 miles from the Capitol...not in some cave and the installation was about 5 years old...

Like I said, give it ten more hours.

We can get back to hating one another. ha

I take no pleasure in the death of the man; the symbol is another story.  

Nemo me impune lacessit - no one attacks me with impunity - is a very old motto.  It even  inspired the Gadsden flag, the Don't Tread on Me rattlesnake.  It is the chief sentiment many of US felt about 9/11.   Never let someone do something like that to you and walk away unscathed. 

I confess to feeling a sense of completion on hearing about bin Laden.   Capturing him would have given me the same sense -- at least until he started droning on and on.

Only quibble I have is that it took such a long time.

Articleman, I agree that it is a very strange feeling to be celebrating a man's death. I have tried to feel sad that he is dead, and I just can't. This evil man changed the face of America forever. He has hurt our country in ways we don't always think about. I resent having to think about him every single time I make airline reservations. So, I'm glad he's dead. And I don't feel the least bit guilty about it.

Now I hope we will declare victory and get the hell outta Afghanistan. We were there to get him, we did it, and we need to leave. There will NEVER be a better time.

There has GOT to be a better way to fight "the war on terror."

Why did you use "Taking" in your title instead of "Killing?"

I'm perplexed. "It is strange to rejoice at death"? Hardly. People do it around the world daily, for good reasons and bad.

And I'm glad they killed him rather than putting us through some mawkish trial where we'd have to walk the thin line between our conduct and his.

I'm glad they didn't notify the Pakistanis and made a point of describing it thus.

I'm glad the rescue team did a good job so we didn't get another "Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight" headline.

I'm glad bin Laden was hiding in a rich suburb, so he will be seen appropriately as a symbol of elitist wealth, and not a freedom fighter hanging out tough in the mountains.

And I'll be glad if this will put the boogey man behind us, that we don't have to jump at every 2-bit thug pretending they're the heir apparent of bin Laden, that they're some deep threat to America.

Regarding politics: it would be really really stupid for people to ignore politics in some fictitious mourning period, since smart people will be coordinating the political message for best effect. We've been sold the Unity Bridge so many times before - how it was inappropriate to bring politics into 9/11, when 9/11 turned immediately into an entrenched political football.

Anyway, we've now got 5 wars to fight. Whether this has any effect at all remains to be seen.

I don't feel happy. More like this was a dangerous animal that needed to be put down - now it's done. Pretty emotionless. Mostly I am against the death penalty - never sits easy with me even when it seems necessary. Glad the chapter is almost done (not forgetting Zawahiri).

In outback Idaho, the PiggieMart random sample appeared split - there are those who think crafty Obama pulled this out of his hat just as he was on the ropes to being impeached (smallest faction), those who don't really believe we got him (including the guy who thinks we killed him earlier and had him on ice ... most expressive lot), meh (a respectable showing - Pepsi), and those who believe this is an excellent excuse reason to buy a shitload of beer (notable majority). Oh yeah - and some Canadians, who didn't mention Bin Laden but seemed awful stoked to take their picture in front of a sign saying "Piggies". Comfortingly not unexpected reactions all around.

(nicely written btw  - especially so fast).

I remember people on TPM saying Obama was naive in his campaign, when he said he would unilaterally enter Pak to get terrorists.

Bin Laden alive was more of a danger to people around the world, and not just Americans, in life--even life in prison--than he will be now in death.  I take solace in knowing that he was found with at least some of his wives and his family in a comfortable mansion, rather than in a cave somewhere.  Now those who for whatever reason may have been drawn to him understand that this son of a billionaire never lost his interest in things material.  Indeed, perhaps his penchant for all that glitters is what ultimately smoked him out.  And so, among other things, this son of a billionaire dies a fraud.

As Richard aptly notes, for a moment at least there is a sense of unity among most of the American people.  And with that comes, among other things, political capital for President Obama here and abroad.  It is capital he has earned, but of course it is not something to be spent in haste or recklessly.   Someone like President Bush was unable to understand this simple truth, and so he left office with a whimper and not a bang.

I now stand behind the president because whatever one might think of Obama, few can argue that his heart is not in the right place.  And I hope we can help him help us and the people of all nations around this tiny speck of a planet.

Nice work Mr. President.  

Kind of funny to read this comment under a Pakistani News International story from a few days ago:

Osama escaped to north, not Pakistan; report
Updated at 16:5 PST Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Timing is coming when US and Allied will say they have captured and killed him but body not found Assuming his death will be the last breaking news of US. It will be announced when US takes off from Afghanistan.

Mohammad Akram
United Kingdom

Throughout the PK paper there are a lot of comments to the effect that kidney patient OBL has been dead for years. The burial-at-sea business will only feed into that.

And Obama didn't even share with Oprah. Sheesh.

Too bad he didn't die of rotten kidneys and his death revealed by his own people. The news I am already hearing is all about how it is a great victory for our intelligence services. They say the first lead came from a detainee a couple years ago. I have heard both two and four years. Maybe they haven't decided yet whether or not to give Bush some of the credit for being brave enough to have people water-boarded. Regardless, it will be used to justify every dirty action they have taken and everything they come up with tomorrow and the next day.

I can't speak for all New Yorkers, particularly those who lost loved ones, but I derived no sense of closure from Bin Laden's death. Last night, I felt some optimism and relief but no joy of vengeance or justice.

Bin Laden had little connection to my memories of 9/11. Rationally, I understand that men under his command created the tragedy, but emotionally it always felt and still feels like a random disaster--like an earthquake or a flood. The violence was so pointless, so inconceivably brutal. If I felt rage, it was directed at humanity and the dogmatic fever that leads people to commit such horrors.

Bin Laden, in consequence, always seemed like George Bush's man. He was the villain that all those Americans far from New York City needed to get their blood up and send their children to war, the catalyst for their own dogmatic fevers.

You write that it would be profane to forecast the political impacts of this, and last night, when I offered a first tentative tap at that nail, others chided me. But I don't understand that. To me, Bin Laden has always been a character on the American political stage, in death as in life. Last night, what I truly felt as I watched the president's speech was that Bin Laden was George Bush's man, and Obama got him.

I'm glad he's dead. My daughter works across the plaza from the WTC,sometimes used that subway stop  so we had some concern that morning. My grandson's nursery school was next door to fire house which the children visited and were welcomed of course. It lost several people that day.

I'm glad a black was president when Osama was killed. And would be if it had been a black republican.I'm glad he called Bush last night.to tell him. I believe that if their roles were reversed Bush would have called him. There are of course mean spirited politicians. They aren't.

That's not retroactive approval of Bush's policies with all of which I disagreed 

I'm also glad that this black was president. He's a good human being and has been a good president . I very much  hope he'll have the chance to continue being that for another six years.

I for one am glad he is dead. Yes I am, and in that the President preempted Trumps awful show made it that much better.

Once again Articleman hit it out of the park.  (Steroids, perhaps?)

I find these cheers and chants a bit unsettling.  Jingoism and chest thumping does not come naturally to me.  I would have been grateful for V-E day and kissed a nurse on V-J day, if she would let me, but I was not born then, so could not.

This event is important in asserting that an attack on our country will not go unpunished amd perhaps that is itself something that tells us how little has changed in the centuries since we first started fighting one another.

I will not chant USA, USA and not cheer a death, per se, but, as with so many people, the evidence that my country will protect me and the rest of us, is very important.

Yes, I may be a hypocrite, but that this was accomplished while the presidency is occupied by a person with a sense of what military force can do, as well as the limits of force, is also reassuring to me. The sense that this was carried out in a more surgical manner than simply dropping bombs on a place we think might hold the target, also resonates for me.

Our current president said this minutes after being sworn into office:

 “We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense. And for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken — you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.”

Outlast is the word. Instant gratification—what many Americans think to be important—-is not.

Our mission as a nation is clear, and it is not one of conquest, as another president said in a different time, but one not all that long ago:

“In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility — I welcome it….

In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than in mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course. Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe.

Now the trumpet summons us again—not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are—but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, ‘rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation’—a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.”

It can be a great day in our history without cheering specifically about one person’s death.

I would assume Pakistan officials, and maybe Americans too, are happy bin Laden was not captured alive. Dead, he cannot spill the beans or sully the waters about our 'steadfast ally' Pakistan, by detailing any aid he received from Pakistani government/ISI/Army officials in residing 'in plain sight' 1/2 mile from a major Pakistani Army base, within a recently constructed (2005) barbed wire secured fortress with 12-18 foot walls.

“What will the ‘taking of Osama Bin Laden mean?”  (Random thoughts)

A lot depends on which version of the facts we end up believing, I’d think, or as Flavius might say, which version Obama thinks will serve our interests best.  Last night’s version seemed to serve most people well, especially the majority of us who believe that the War on Terror was a soccer match, and has winners and losers.  “USA!” the crowds outside the White House chanted over and over as the President used to tag end of the Pledge of Allegiance to proclaim again American Exceptionalism, and not just because we are ‘rich and powerful’.   Hell, most of those 20-year-olds were children on 9/11.

How great was it that Obama pre-empted ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ in order to address the nation?  And then let the anchors and pundits ramp us the anticipation that gave some of the idiots a chance to again falsely tie the Iraq War to the murders of the Twin Towers.  Oy; something like 45% of Americans still believe they were related, and that Saddam had WMD.  Thanks, Brian Williams and others, for that idiocy.

The same anchors went with narratives that all the servicemen who have fought and died in Iraq and Afghanistan will now know what they were fighting for was worthy.  Really?

Will we ever know how far the ISI was complicit in this, or if they and Zardari knew OBL was living comfortably in a compound next to a military instillation in that Atta-something town of half a million folks?  Did Raymond Davis have anything to do with it?  Did the President offer a nod to Blackwater in his speech?  Some people thought so; if so, I missed it.  Why was OBL’s body ‘buried at sea’?  Why did Benazir Bhutto die soon after she said years ago that he was already dead?  Was she lying, and why?  Why did Condi entice her back to Pakistan?  Will this silence critics upset with the targeting of Gadaffi, given this worked ‘so well’?  We ‘took’ (assassinated and buried at sea) the Number One Evil Lord.  Guess if I were cheering it, I’d thank Joe Biden whose plan this always has been (well, and a lot of other drone-killings, too, but…)

“We’re unified’ many of you say.  Goddamit; this is one more time I’m standing outside the crowd.  And unless we really and truly learn something about cause and effect and tell the truth about war, and ask truthfully what the fuck motivated the massive war efforts to eradicate an organization whose titular and ‘spiritual’ head was ten years later an old geezer on dialysis and not scurrying from cave to cave in the mountains, we’ll just find the next one: al Sadr?  Al Sistani? 

If we don’t in fact press some major foreign policy reset buttons, it will be a crying shame.  But I am not hopeful, especially with Petraeus as DCI now.  JSOC and apparently Xe just proved their worth in most people’s eyes I’d imagine.  STFU you leftie nags; this shit works!  Keeps us safe! 

Seriously; will this help secure Pakistan’s nukes?  What will be the takeaway for Zardari, ISI, and even Karzai next door?  I don’t know; I can imagine several different scenarios.

But in the meantime, it sickens me to say that in far too many respects, Bin Laden won this decade.  His stated aims were to get the West (US) out of the Muslim Holy Lands, and barring that, to create so much havoc that we would wage war for long enough to empty our treasury and kill enough brown people, occupy nations to such a degree that we’d be despised rather universally in the Muslim and Arab worlds.  What will the blowback be?  Spring offensive in Afghanistan and all...or will the Taliban have learned their lessons...?

Now on the other hand, if the President can listen to his Cairo speech and take heed of the messages he sent out over the air…I will feel almost grateful that this chapter might be at last put to rest.  Can we learn that war and revenge and eye-for-an-eye are unhealthy and don't fit with the fact that we're 'the most religious nation on earth' or whatever?  Pretty big disconnect there somehow...

In the meantime, including last night, I'm embrarrassed for us, and I keep hearing this song in my head; the 'words pouring out like endless rain into a paper cup', and 'Nothing's gonna change my world' themes...

It means that Al Qaeda gets a new leader. Which I suspect had a lot more to do with the success of the mission than anyone can suppose.

The chatter surrounding the event was, not surprisingly, almost impossible to take. But s for the thing itself - to have killed Osama, straight up, end of a gun, with him having a chance to see, face to face, who his death came from? If that's truly the way it went down, then damn right. That's the way to do it, and when you get the chance, kill that bastard dead.

I feel a hell of a lot of sympathy for people caught up in war, or the low-level guys coldly executed or taken as part of the cost. But the mental cases that set themselves up as grand warriors? Who encourage thousands of the less well off and half-damaged and angry young men to go and sacrifice their lives? And to do so against the civilians of other nations? I have no sympathy. Kill that man, dump him at sea, and make no bones about it.

I wish he'd had a better life, Osama, and been a happier man and not so messed up, and made better choices. Maybe next life. But in this one, he was rabid.

When it comes to the celebration at the White House, my thoughts - genuinely - ran about like this. "Whoa. These people don't know how to do this anymore." People mock sometimes, when that Scottish blood thing comes up, and they show their sense of honour and that angry, potentially-violent edge. You know, honour and violence and blood and all that "malarkey." But I watched last night, and that was at the heart of what I saw. And that whole American thing people described up above, that no one gets to hurt you with impunity? That's old country, old-style, that is. And I don't mind. Most of the world's peoples have it.

The way it was celebrated though, culturally, struck me as a bit off. Too much like the mocking of the dead enemy you'll sometimes see on tv in other countries. You know, like effigies and such. I GET it. But I wish someone had been there to take the whole event in a bit deeper direction. There needs to be some sort of depth to the thing, some sense that there is no joy in the cycle of death, but there's satisfaction in ending the wrong-doer, and turning the page. As it was, it just looked like college kids at a Festival, so hey - maybe no big deal. They're gonna be like that for any event. 

As for the talking heads... like Stardust, I just wish the system would somehow find itself capable of moving more to look at these things at their roots. How did someone like Osama come about? How did people get radicalized in Afghanistan? How did we, factually and practically, aid this guy in his rise? I just really really wish we had some more of that. Same as when our counter-jihad was launched, it just felt like dumb-ass violent revenge and loot scenarios were too much in play with Bush and co. You'd just like to feel that your modern leaders at least had the gravitas of the better clan Chiefs or Native Chiefs - some sense of history, the value of life, the way things go wrong, all of that. 

As it is, Obama gets his chance now. He came in with all sort of things stacked against him. He was black, he was inexperienced, the economy had tanked, there were two wars and neither going all that great. But today? He's got some momentum. He just won something that many many people felt was the purpose of the whole Military Road Show. He's got experience. He's made his speeches, and by accident or design, that whole region is pushing back against tyranny.

I can only pray that this time, THIS TIME, he shows - the way Bush never could - that such moments can be seized, that opportunities like this can be turned to good. Please God, let this last, awful, fear-soaked, dark decade be ended. 

Here it is Aman. hah

Here is Elliot Abrams

It is therefore unfortunate that Mr. Obama seems to want more than that fair share the American people will naturally and rightly give him. His remarks last night were far too much laced with words like “I met repeatedly,” “at my direction,” and “I determined,” trying to take personal credit for the years of painstaking work by our intelligence community. Mr. Obama might have noted that this work began under President Bush, but as usual he did not http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/02/huckabees-welcome-to-hell_n_856186.html

LET THE DOMESTIC BATTLES BEGIN ANEW!

ahahahahah