A report out today includes a “highly placed source” as saying that part of the reason George W. Bush is not appearing with President Barack Obama at ground zero is that he feels he is not getting part of the credit in the killing.
The source stated “Obama gave no credit whatsoever to the intelligence infrastructure the Bush administration set up that is being hailed from the left and right as setting in motion the operation that got Bin Laden. It rubbed Bush the wrong way.”
Of course, it was Bush (like Clinton) who ignored warnings of the possible attacks and then it was Bush Administration that let Bin Laden slip out of Tora Bora. Bin Laden was nailed years after the departure of Bush and based on recent intelligence hits on the surveillance net. As noted earlier, I am not sure why there is not more discussion of the alleged failure of this and the prior administration to locate Bin Laden in such a conspicuous setting after alleged leads from Pakistan and India. It appears that much of our intelligence estimates on his location may have been wildly wrong.
Clearly, many of the people outside of the Administration (joining some Obama officials) citing torture as part of the success in this story are Bush officials — trying desperately not only to claim part of the success but to legitimate an act defined as a war crime.
This is all part of the spasm of celebration over the killing. I must confess a bit of unease in the scenes of people dancing in the streets and presidents fighting over credit for the killing. I have the same unease when people assemble outside of prisons with frying pans and signs to celebrate the execution of a murderer. Some scenes this month looked uncomfortably like images we saw in the Middle East after the 9-11 attacks. I am also glad that Bin Laden is dead. I will not deny it. However, all of these celebrations only elevate the importance of the man.
As I stated earlier, I have always found it bizarre that we give presidents personal credit for such operations. Whether it is Bush parading around on the aircraft carrier in his flight suit or Obama at ground zero, presidents claim credit for successes by others. Obviously, this order would have been given by Bush and Clinton once Bin Laden fell into our surveillance net. Ironically, presidents are very successful in basking in such glory of others, but do not feel the full brunt of their mistakes like Tora Bora or, more importantly, ignoring the warnings about an attack using aircraft. Those are simply dismissed as missed opportunities or confused circumstances.
What is equally fascinating is that we continue to define victory by Bin Laden’s death while insisting that nothing will change in light of it, as discussed in this week’s column.
Source: NY Daily News
Debra Burlingame who lost her brother on 9-11 and met with Obama today at Ground Zero is on Hannity’s show and she says he was being trailed by a videographer with a still and video camera while meeting and hugging the 9-11 victims families today. No press cameras were allowed, but Obama had his own cameras there. This whole thing was nothing but the filming of a campaign commercial for Obama. That’s why he did this, to tape a campaign spot. Can you imagine anything more disgusting and craven?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2715610/posts
It will be on Hannity Tonight
BDAMan,
The it being what Obama says, not that he said it.
Yes Gyges it’s true.
BDAman,
If that’s true, allow me be the first to say “Good on you Obama.”
America should treat everyone who tortures as what they are, a criminal. That is all.
Debra Burlingame: Obama Says He Will Not Intervene With AG Holder Over Indictments of CIA Interrogators
Just over FoxNews now. As the wife sister of one of the victims of 9/11 — and a persistent critic of Obama’s policies — she used the meet-and-greet as a chance to ask Obama about an issue that concerns her.
Holder’s holding indictments over the heads of CIA interrogators — the same ones who delivered bin Ladin to the SEALs.
Burlingame asked him about that, and said “I know you can’t tell him what to do”, and Obama said “That’s right.”
Then she asked, even if he couldn’t order him to drop the prosecution of the interrogators who got bin Ladin, if he would at least offer Holder his opinion that there should be no prosecutions, he answered: “No, I won’t.”
She went on to note that, last May, a Dallas US Attorney sought to indict CAIR officials (for terrorist ties and terrorist funding, of course), and Holder quashed those indictments.
Swarthmore mom:
At least Ms. Miers can do far less damage lobbying for Pakistan than she could by serving as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.
http://gawker.com/#!5799051/american-heroine-harriet-miers-is-now-lobbying-for-our-friends-the-pakistanis President Bush’s former assistant is now lobbying for the Pakistanis.
@eniobob & @Buddha Is Laughing
Agreed!
Sorry, Janitor, but when dealing with an issue like torture?
Semantics are important lest one gets the wrong impression.
As far as Bush’s refusal to go to Ground Zero?
He’s a spoiled petulant man-child with daddy issues in addition to being an unindicted war criminal.
Of course he wasn’t going unless Obama was going to give him a medal and full credit for the OBL operation.
Because that’s how Daddy’s Boy rolls.
To add to the discussion:
“If Bush deserves any Credit for OBL Capture, So does Clinton
As President Bush leads his Pity Party over the success of President Obama, who reinstituted the CIA Bin Laden Group that he dismantled, restarting the Hunt for a man he first said he’d get “Dead or Alive” and “Smoke him our of his hole” before deciding “He didn’t much care about him”, then diverting the nation resources into a bogus unnecessary War in Iraq (now proven even more so by the tide of the Arab Spring) we also have to realize that credit should also be given to the first President to order the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden.
That would be President William Jefferson Clinton.
In 1998, in the middle of his own Impeachment, President Clinton ordered a missle strike against Afghanistan in an effort to Kill Bin Laden. Remember this?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/05/973382/-If-Bush-deserves-any-Credit-for-OBL-Capture,-So-does-Clinton
@Buddha is Laughing,
OK now we’re merely talking semantics.
There is, of course, no assumption on my part that a connection exists between Bush and bin Laden’s death, just as I make no assumption that such a connection is impossible to establish.
Did Bush contribute? Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. Who knows? But my larger point is that even ASSUMING for a moment that he did, certainly such a contribution could not have been so significant that it mandates turning down an offer from the President to visit Ground Zero simply because, as the “highly placed source” suggests, the President has not recognized said “contribution.”
“Many other intelligence leads intervened along the way over the years that broke the causal connection between the two.”
That statement implies causal connection where there is none.
You were fine up to that point.
That closing statement is, however, begging the question.
So no. I wasn’t joking. However, clarification is always acceptable. If you’d stipulate (and given your second statement, I’d think this isn’t a problem) that the conclusory sentence should have read:
“Many other intelligence leads intervened along the way over the years which might have broken any causal connection between the two.”
Then there would be no error.
hell, let chimpy keep the mission accomplished banner.
it should be hanging in his prison cell
@Buddha Is Laughing,
Assuming your post is not a joke, I have to question your reading comprehension because I clearly acknowledged the merit of both scenarios in my comment: (i) where Bush’s policies played a role in the death of Osama bin Laden; and (ii) where Bush’s policies played no role. Therefore, it is difficult to see how acknowledging 100% of all the possible scenarios can, as you say, be a “fallacy.”
???
Moreover, your analysis of causation is a bit off the mark. Under the common law of this country, we have two types of causation. BOTH are required to legally link an action to a consequence: (i) “but for” causation and (ii) proximate causation. The “but for” causation is causation in the literal and direct sense. But for the SEAL who pulled the trigger, bin Laden would not be dead. There is a direct cause and effect there that does not require any inference or indirect series of events. Clearly, there is no “but for” causation linking anything Bush did with bin Laden’s death. Bush, of course, did not pull the trigger.
So we must then turn to proximate causation, which is causation in the indirect sense which is limited by consequences that are reasonably foreseeable based on the initial action. Obama’s order to launch the SEAL team was the proximate cause of bin Laden’s death because it was reasonably foreseeable that giving such an order to Navy SEALs trained to kill would likely result in the death of bin Laden. Moreover, there were no intervening causes that would have broken the proximate causal connection between Obama’s order and the SEAL pulling the trigger.
Applying the same rule to Bush, the proximate causal connection between Bush’s waterboarding policies and bin Laden’s death are significantly more attenuated than Obama’s order, requiring a series of several events taking place over longer periods of time and space. Thus, one would obviously have more difficulty connecting the actions of Bush from 2000-2008 with the death of bin Laden in 2011. Moreover, during that same time period, there have been many intervening causes which may have cut off the proximate causal connection between Bush and bin Laden, such as discovering the actual name and/or location of the courier as opposed to his nickname.
I’m not saying its impossible to connect Bush’s actions with bin Laden’s death, I’m just saying it’s a little bit more of a stretch, especially when compared to Obama’s order which we can all agree clearly led to bin Laden’s death.
eniobob,
I only caught a few moments of Tweety when he was talking to Steve McMahon and Todd Harris about how much credit McFlightsuit should get and if this will have an effect on Obama’s reelection. Sadly, it wasn’t a “full-blown” Tweety meltdown …
Clifford May is nothing more than a “Rah! Torture! Rah” neo-con …
The Janitor,
Your statement is one giant fallacy.
Petitio principii, your statement assumes a causal connection between torture and the locating/death of OBL when by your own admission there is no causal connection (the reason why simply a matter of your opinion made without proof ergo irrelevant absent some proof positive of causality and/or purposeful breaking of said causality). When you assume causality, you are begging the question.
Video: Texas Teacher Suspended For Insulting Muslim Student
A math teacher in Texas has been suspended amid accusations he made a Muslim pupil cry by mocking her over Osama bin Laden’s death.
http://racismdaily.com/2011/05/05/video-texas-teacher-suspended-for-insulting-muslim-student/
I see that I’m the only one who saw Chris**you can’t get a word in edgewise** Matthews yesterday IMHO said the best and I mean the best response to people who want to give Bush credit for the demise of Bin Laden.
He had this guy whose name I think is Clifford May from one of these right wing think tanks and May was going on about the Bush years etc,etc.
In mid sentence Matthews asked him “If the mission had failed would you want Bush to share the blame??”
Then Matthews asked the same question regarding the economy,since Bush hand a hand in its situation also.To borrow BILs symbolism.