Bin Laden Dead?

just joshing your chain del

(EST)

Obviously, losing prominent individual leaders hurts insurgencies and terrorist groups, but in the way we talk about these figures we tend to exaggerate greatly how important they are as part of the larger conflict.

So Osama bin Laden is the Bernie Madoff of radical Islam?

like i know i'm a midwestern rube who lives in an unimportant city, but (honest q) are ppl really expecting swift, successful retribution for this? i've never really bought the idea that obl was, like, a folk hero. dude facilitated terrorism, but i can't imagine he ~inspired~ it.

maybe i'm wrong, but i never got a "revolutionary" vibe
--cop a cute abdomen (gbx)

nah I more just meant 'lone gunman type decides this would be a good time to pull some shit'. I'm prob just paranoid tho.

Friend on FB put terrorist in scare quotes when describing OBL ("you know, I'm glad we killed this 'terrorist' and all but...")

hahaha wow

manson never actually killed anybody either

he was a freedom fighter, fighting freedom wherever it may be

so he wasn't here then?

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=34.187546,73.242596&spn=0.001296,0.002216&t=h&z=19

http://www.dailyastorian.com/free/teacher-who-vowed-not-to-shave-until-bin-laden-was/article_a8860868-74d2-11e0-afbf-001cc4c03286.html

chris hedges: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/chris_hedges_speaks_on_osama_bin_ladens_death_20110502/

And here we go:

A leading Republican senator on Monday questioned the U.S. government's decision to dispose of Osama bin Laden's body within 24 hours.

Bin Laden, the former al Qaeda leader killed by U.S. forces on Sunday, was buried at sea within 24 hours of his death in accordance with Islamic law. Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), a top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, is skeptical of the decision.

"To me, that didn't make a lot of sense," Graham said during an interview with conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingraham.

xpp
"I also vowed not to brush my teeth"

Makes perfect sense, if you don't want to make the US look like haters of Islam.

xxp "I spent my first five minutes crying and then I couldn't get it off fast enough"

yeah a lot of people are posting that on fb right now "why did we dispose of the body so quickly? is he really dead or yak yak yak"

as though this wouldn't have been a much bigger story in like, 2004

xxp "I spent my first five minutes crying and then I couldn't get it off fast enough"

if he'd been a little slower, maybe he wouldn't have gotten so bloody

teacher kinda looked a lot like obl, makes you wonder...

wait mordy killed osama I'm confused this is moving too fast

mordy read the last rites getitrite

congratulations, Mordy

chris hedges piece is real good

How could Politico and The Hill not realize Rush Limbaugh was being sarcastic?

i don't really think how he was killed is exactly relevant here i was just saying the way they were trumpeting partroitism was pretty amusing, geraldo was pretty histerical about this and i found it odd and a little scary

― frogbs, Monday, May 2, 2011 6:23 PM (1 hour ago)

as a dude who saw this same thing, i can guarantee you that you were the last viewer in the world to catch on that he had been shot, since they hadnt spent much time talking about anything else on fox

speaking of which, did anyone else see the creepy midnight fox dude open with "today, usama bin laden found out that the promise of 72 virgins was bunk"? classy.

so glad i got rid of cable

"it's only 49"

xxp that may be so, was in a card game at the time so only was half-paying attention

my bad guys

it's 49 virgins, the problem is they're all virginal cobras.

This doesn't necessarily re-elect Obama, anymore than the first Gulf War re-elected Daddy Bush (Leno right after the victory: "And for Saddam Hussein, the ultimate punishment: he'll be the Democratic nominee!")

yeah though imagine how baller it would have been if obama just disappeared from his campaign for a few days and emerged with the corpse a few weeks before the 2012 election - it would be like if Michael Jackson was 25 years younger and got to compete on American Idol; just not fair

i think it will work better for obama than gulf war 1 did for bush sr, if only because it's fairly momentous symbolically as opposed to a half-assed invasion that sorta entered iraq, shrugged its shoulders, and exited.

I can see your boner from here.

xpost

I've got video of local coverage following Gov. Clinton around, when he hadn't decided yet to run for president. Clinton tells the reporter, "First of all, we've got a war winner in the White House and this country has never turned out a war winner…"

i mean everyone's been chasing OBL for more than a decade and he actually directly fucked/w the US, i don't think anyone even knew what the hell the gulf war was about, it was just this weird shit with rockets and bad styx songs.

http://totallycoolpix.com/2011/05/osama-bin-laden-is-dead-celebrations/

All the celebrating is a little weird.

i think this is just as empty symbolically but this particular empty symbolism will play better than GW1

i mean everyone's been chasing OBL for more than a decade and he actually directly fucked/w the US, i don't think anyone even knew what the hell the gulf war was about, it was just this weird shit with rockets and bad styx songs.

― omar little, Monday, May 2, 2011 4:27 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

Saddam Hussein is Kilroy!

wtf is up with Rob Lowe hanging with fire fighters?

(I guess this must have been hashed out upthread, but what exactly did Obama actually do? Was it like he appointed some guys who did this or was it just that a bunch of existing CIA ops came to him and asked his permission to do a thing?)

obama scurried down a rope from a helicopter and killed bin laden, from what i understand

http://latimesherocomplex.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/obama_2.jpg?w=334?w=281

Inglourious Basterds II

xp

Washington Monthly:

In June 2009, Obama directed his CIA director to "provide me within 30 days a detailed operation plan for locating and bringing to justice" Osama Bin Laden. By August 2010 intelligence officials had identified the suspicious compound where Osama lived.

Dickerson's description of the president's efforts as "hands-on" seems especially apt given what we know. It was Obama who instructed the CIA to make targeting bin Laden a top priority, breaking with his predecessor. It was Obama who oversaw five national security meetings to oversee plans for this operation. It was Obama who chose this mission, made final preparations, and gave the order.

oooh, big brave obama!

i wonder what, if any, benefit there would've been to bringing this guy in alive.

1. we could make sure his execution happened october 2012

The benefit to the right wing would have been enormous!

really, think of all the things you could do with an osama bin laden

lot of deathers out their on the internetsz today...

out there