Various news organizations are reporting that Osama Bin Laden is dead. President Obama is expected to announce the news. Bin Laden was reportedly killed in Pakistan by an operation involving Navy Seals but the story is still unfolding. YahooReports indicate that he was shot in the head after he and his bodyboards resisted an attack by the elite unit.
The fact that he reportedly went down fighting will likely add to his image as a martyr — though people who follow him need little encouragement or reason.
Bin Laden was a murderous fanatic who used religion to spread hate. His passing from this Earth would be welcomed news and, even for the most agnostic or atheist among us, there is a lingering wish that there is place for the damned to greet men like Bin Laden after the untold harm that he caused not just to his country but to many countries. Hundreds of thousands of dead can be credited to his dark legacy and beliefs.
While liberals and conservatives differed on the means used to fight Bin Laden, there was never any division on the commitment to fight terrorism or the shared loss from his crimes. On September 11th, the plane that hit the Pentagon struck just after I passed the building on my way to work. I made it about a mile away after blowing my tire on the curb and changing the tire as huge columns of smoke filled the air.
In the end, Bin Laden remained the authentic symbol of radical Islam — an extremist filled with hate living with fellow troglodytes in caves and crevices.
Bin Laden’s death will force some accounting of what has been gained and what has been lost since his infamous wave of terror began. Too much of the damage of 9-11 proved to be self-inflicted, including our use of torture and the launching of two wars that have cost thousands of more American lives and hundreds of billions as the nation sinks into debt and economic distress.
There is no indication that our continued loss of money or personnel in Afghanistan will decrease in any way as a result of the news. While the Afghanistan war seemed personality driven with Bin Laden as the face of evil, it has taken on a type perpetual war due to a lack of political courage to end it.
The world is far better without the likes of Osama Bin Laden. However, he left an ample legacy (and legions) to guarantee that religious hate will continue to shape the future of that region and the world at large.
“So Osama Bin Laden is dead. So what.”
Mike A.,
You old grumpy guy! Can’t you have any celebratory fun?
Seriously though your point is well taken. In the largest sense this changes little. The occupations continue with no end in sight and no purpose to guide them. Our defense budget drains away funds that could rebuild our failing infrastructure, revitalize our industry and re-employ our workers. Heightened security will remain and drain more funds, while not ensuring our safety. Violations of our Constitution will continue guided by the “wise old men” of foreign policy who don’t know their asses from their elbows. We will never know the true story due to claims of national security, spurious or real. We will never really know if he ordered 9/11 or merely took credit for it.
Yet I do believe the man is dead and I’m am glad it happened, however it was accomplished. By his taking credit for and basking in the glory of his infamy, he signed his own death warrant. There is no justification for the terrorism that engendered 9/11 and the loss of innocent lives can never be forgiven. He willingly became the symbol of it for whatever his reasons were and as such deserved to suffer harsh consequences.
There is a closing of the gestalt in his demise. Will this solve the massive problems we face, or forestall our drift towards empire and feudalism, I strongly doubt it. These are all highly important issues that are on a different track than 9/11 and the revulsion it caused. Yet for a brief moment I do enjoy savoring the man’s loss due to his own hubris in thinking his vision should be imposed on others willingly, or unwillingly.
Nothing is really changed, the world goes on, but one of its’
most vile people has dropped from the scene and I for one am happy about it.
Buddha,
Our country hasn’t been that shining city upon the hill for some time.
Bob, Esq.:
I’m confident that Pakistan government officials protected Bin Laden and knew that we knew that they were protecting Bin Laden. I agree with rafflaw that there was probably not a word said to any Pakistanis until after the fact. I see some serious internal problems in that country in the not too distant future.
Buddha:
I agree with you 100%. I’m not ready to roast marshmallows over the success of the special ops mission, although it was no doubt technically brilliant.
National Counterterrorism Center: How A Little-Known Spy Agency Helped Track Down Osama Bin Laden
First Posted: 05/ 2/11 06:14 PM ET
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-national-counterterrorism-center_n_856642.html
Excerpt:
A little-known spy agency in Washington helped track the hour-by-hour movements of the al Qaeda courier who inadvertently led a Navy SEALs assault team directly to Osama bin Laden on Sunday, where they killed the terrorist mastermind with two precision shots to the head.
For eight months, after analysts tentatively identified a spacious walled compound near Islamabad, Pakistan, as a possible bin Laden hideout, an array of satellites and unmanned drones kept an unblinking, day-night “staring eye’’ watch, tracking individuals’ movements in and out, and following “individuals of interest’’ as they traveled across the region.
The data was continuously downloaded to an Air Force ground station housed in a nondescript hangar at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, where teams of analysts pored over the “take’’ and streamed it live to intelligence analysis cells at the CIA, the National Security Agency and the National Counterterrorism Center.
The NCTC, housed in an innocuous office building in Rosslyn, Va., just across the Potomac River from Washington proper, operates far from the spotlight that illuminates even the secretive CIA, but it played a pivotal role in the bin Laden manhunt.
Working with the military’s Joint Special Operations Command Targeting and Analysis Center, located next door at Langley, and with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency up the river in Bethesda, Md., the NCTC analysts helped develop what the military calls a “common operating picture.’’ In layman’s terms, that amounted to a detailed four-dimensional “map’’ of the bin Laden compound and its occupants and their patterns of living and working.
Mike A./Elaine,
And lets not forget another thing the “War on Terror” has left us: our international standing in tatters.
It wouldn’t be surprising that the US kept Pakistan out of the loop on this special ops detail. There have been complaints that the Pakistani intelligence service was in bed with OBL. Since OBL was so close to a Pakistan intelligence facility, that would lead me to believe that someone there was aiding OBL. Just a gut feeling. Am I missing something?
Mike A.,
“And in the end, the fact remains that we have accomplished nothing more than the destruction of a symbol, whose death leaves an organization greatly strengthened by ten years of bad policy. We are left with two unnecessary wars that remain unresolved, tens of thousands of people dead and hundreds of billions of dollars wasted.
“Congratulations to us.”
**********
Exactly! I think, however, the hundreds of billions of dollars has become over a trillion dollars wasted.
Bdaman,
Here is some confirmation of the Firedoglake article stating that the information on the courier was not obtained through torture. Donald Rumsfeld comes clean to dispute the claims from the Right. “And Bush Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who presumably has some knowledge about what went on at Gitmo, today threw some cold water on this theory: “The United States Department of Defense did not do waterboarding for interrogation purposes to anyone. It is true that some information that came from normal interrogation approaches at Guantanamo did lead to information that was beneficial in this instance. But it was not harsh treatment and it was not waterboarding.” http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/DonaldRumsfeld-gitmo-waterboarding-osamabinladen/2011/05/02/id/394820?s=al&promo_code=C30F-1
Mike Appleton,
I don’t know, seems to me the conditions of his killing suggest a ten year balancing act over control of the situation and message between the U.S. and Pakistan that just happened to topple in the past few months.
Time to cook dinner
Blouise,
I think I’ll reserve my response for an email. However, I strongly suggest you catch the coverage on the Democracy Now site for a review of why the official story makes little to no sense.
Oops … people are posting too fast or I’m too slow … better clarify
Bdaman
1, May 2, 2011 at 6:37 pm
(Your Mama raised you well 😉 … please tell her I said so.)
Thanks Ms. Elaine, I’m trying.
=================================
That was me you idiot
That was me you idiot
Bdaman,
Exactly what point are you trying to make?
“leaving it once again up for debate as to whether the harsh technique was a valuable tool or an unnecessarily violent tactic.”
Only if you’re an apologist for torture.
“[KSM] did not reveal the names while being subjected to the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, former officials said.”
Meaning he did not reveal the information under torture.
The FIRST in time.
“He identified them many months later under standard interrogation”
Meaning he did reveal the information under standard interrogation techniques.
The SECOND in time.
Temporal sequences are important.
Time, as Einstein once said, is God’s way of making sure everything doesn’t happen at once.
There is no honest debate here: the torture tactic failed to get information and the standard tactics successfully obtained information. One works. One doesn’t.
And oddly enough, the one that didn’t work is the the method that experts on interrogation said beforehand doesn’t work to provide actionable intelligence: torture.
So Osama Bin Laden is dead. So what.
Most of the reaction has been, and most of the reaction yet to come will be, disjointed, emotional, out of focus, puerile and beside the point. The conspiracy theorists will record as many Bin Laden sightings as there have been Presley sightings. Defenders of the wars will attempt to claim vindication for the policies of Bush and Cheney. His death will be trumpeted as justification for torture and lawlessness. The right will do its level best to denigrate the efforts of Pres. Obama in the whole enterprise.
And in the end, the fact remains that we have accomplished nothing more than the destruction of a symbol, whose death leaves an organization greatly strengthened by ten years of bad policy. We are left with two unnecessary wars that remain unresolved, tens of thousands of people dead and hundreds of billions of dollars wasted.
Congratulations to us.
(Your Mama raised you well 🙂 … please tell her I said so.)
Thanks Ms. Elaine, I’m trying.
Bob,Esq.,
If you get a chance find Brennan’s clip from today at the White House noon briefing. He gave a very good explanation of what the Pak. knew and didn’t know about the operation and why they were kept out of the loop.
I agree Elaine. But you can’t ignore that one recurring theme that keeps rearing its ugly head; complete control of the situation and the message between the U.S. and Pakistan.
And I don’t mean since August.
[KSM] did not reveal the names while being subjected to the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, former officials said. He identified them many months later under standard interrogation …
leaving it once again up for debate as to whether the harsh technique was a valuable tool or an unnecessarily violent tactic.