Comments
Yes many questions are yet to be answered here.
Primarily:
1. Why was OBL afforded such living quarters?
2. Why was OBL afforded such living quarters for several years?
3. Why was OBL afforded such living quarters for several years in an Army city?
4. Why was OBL afforded such living quarters for several years in an Army city, within shouting distance of Kakul Military academy, just to mention one Army organization?
5. Why does GHQ insist that this conversation shift from the subject of the compound that housed OBL under their noses, to a conversation about President Obama?
Heli's filled with assault troops from India...?!?!?!?! Thats almost laughable.
Since we are asking unanswered questions, how does Pakistan differentiate between their MI 8/17'S and Indian MI 8/17'S?
Hi,
Is it possible that a number of military helicopters enter a sovereign nation, without permission? What if the Pakistani military shot at these helicopters, thinking that these were assault troops from India?
There are many unanswered questions here and I am not sure if I really believe the whole story as it was told by the Obama A team
Thank you
Two cents from a grateful civilian:
It would probably have been for the better had they kept quiet about the name of the ship to which OBL's body was taken and from which he was given burial at sea.
OBL died quickly and with far fewer minutes of anticipatory terror than did those who died on 9-11. He received a shroud and had a burial burial service read over him within 24 hours.
The scholars who contend that OBL's body was mishandled and that a burial at sea is mandated under Islamic law only in 'extraordinary' circumstances--hmmm.
It is good to examine the years of the Abbasid struggle to attain the Caliphate and then the Abbasid Caliphate. During that time Islamic warriors perpetrated perpetrated terrible deeds upon upon the bodies, both living and dead, of Islamic foes.
Such as taking the head of a Muslim enemy claimant and sending it to a Muslim victor as proof beyond all doubt that that rival claimant was dead.
Those Islamic warriors failed to live up to the standards set by the scholars who contend we did wrong--but thats the Caliphate OBL longed to revive.
binLaden is a passing self-promoting "leader" of Islam. I've seen them all come and go, never taking on state responsibility and always desperate for exclusive corner of a market. Their egos are modern and their ideas ancient. As Buh said, he quickly became irrelevant. But now the real problem is the turbulent minds of young Muslim men so far away from accomplished lives and willing to die to leave and impression and have their animal lives meaningful before the end comes (by their own estimates by 40s the latest).
As I said, I certainly want Obama re-elected. But getting binLaden was not the key to how he's rated. It may be the defining moment for some of the kids in JSOC, but Obama's measure is reversal of America's decline. WE CANNOT AFFORD ALLOWING THIS MADNESS FROM THE EAST TO DISTRACT US AGAIN. Ridding us of Osama may have gone a long way to establishing Obama's legitimacy, as has the birth certificate. But the issue now is his ability to do in the next four years what he failed to do in the last. Killing Obama and making Trump look stupid will not qualify him. Worst still, if a bunch of crazies decide to polarize Muslim-Americans and Europeans, this will drain both his attention and his assets. So why make such a big thing of this so as to stir up the unbalanced that will blow themselves up such to literally make a bang?
Americans are fickle to victorious kings when the pocketbook is empty, look at Poppy Bush. He was a great president and global leader and in the end it was the economy that sank him.
Besides, do you think we can afford another wave for seeking fame as shahids? Why do we have to take on the world's so many unbalanced people?
Hmmmmm Eugnid... You protesteth entirely too much.....
Why has this discussion thread been turned into talking about President Obama as opposed to why a significant, and substantive, living quarters was afforded to OBL? And afforded to him in an Army city for several years?
Frankly, I don't see a "We" in your parts of the thread. Rather, I see "you yankees" in an attempt at lecture.
It is beyond obvious the undeniable level of duplicitousness exercised by GHQ. Additionally, it is a fact that GHQ cannot be trusted; and equally as factual the US had to execute this unilaterally. Left to the GHQ subterfuges and lies, just how long would discretion be honoured? Really, just how long? If I were a bettin' man, I would bet on a repeat of the Ray Davis affair.
GHQ has little to crow about, and the bleating on about violations of Pakistan's sovereignty, provoking she wolves, and raising the ire of Muslims etc. rings hollow.
If GHQ wanted a discrete and successful end to this, they could have been "discrete" years ago.
I spent a lot of time with Mideasterners in and out of their waters. Their limbic system, it seems to me-- even when highly educated-- tends to dominate in forms like pride, avarice, narcicism, appetites, etc.-- all characteristic of people in the Mediteranian region-- puts them forever in battle with their souls...what Mohammad called jihad (their women are different and more balanced). As a result, these men life in two intense and opposite worlds: amoral and moral; so they have to pray at least five times a day in a very observant faith of ritual and have to contemplate a lot because they have no moral wall to keep them safe from their evil side. It is an internal battle that Southern Europeans and North Africans know well. Things get worse because high intellect or just plain street smarts make things seem very insecure from moment to moment as opne's holy moments and those of others are rarely in sinc. That's why they're always in "JIHAD," internal warfare. Their cultures are of the desert where inanition is historically a hair's width away. Stealing may well mean surviving and children survival in old age.
Christians see goodness in terms of one's relationship with others, especially strangers. We have clear notions of moral and immoral behavior. But Muslims are more obsessed with how well they CHOOSE to live by the time they face God's holy judgement. Their internal jihad is far more turbulent than most for their deemands conquest of one's neighbor, not helping. It's kill to live, not live and let live. Like Christians from East/South Europe, they face serious challenges to their manhood, dignity and piety in a violent world of mutual predation: hence the eternal battle and the frequent prayer to impose on one's wild side readiness for the pious moment facing the wrath of God or pleasing him.
Many of those who look at binLaden's fate are people who see their redemption, hence their salvation, in a PHYSICALLY self-destructive violent act that pleases God in that it presents God the infidel, dead for re-cycling.
The Arabs I studied with in East Europe were real satyrs. They sought sex, especially from young girls, preferably virgins, like men released into a food court after a week of total starvation. Most could not keep their minds on their studies now in a foreign candy store with no one watching. The social morality of their stifling home setting was now gone and worthless infidels were available for petro pennies!
By contrast, the Iranians were extremely serious students and their joy was in acquiring skills that would enable them to serve the faithful....They were sort of like Jews: I must take care of my own people no mattter how well off I am. Khomeini, then in power, sought to blur the Shia/Sunni divide and ordered them to reach out to any and all Muslims. Iranians were very pious. So much so that they set up loudspeakers on the roofs of all student housing buildings and played Khomeini speeches 24/7 in Farsi which none of the Arabs understood. Yet, that piety really impressed the latter. Given that Iranians got good grades, made no trouble and had lots of petrodollars, the Med School was ordered to give them whatever they want.
With the Arabs there were always issues, incredibly often issues of trying to take a little girl into the dorm and the guard at the gate refusing. The student typically assaulted the cop in reckless fury; the cop called in reinforcements...so did the Arab student; and a massive brouhaha would occur. These student studied so little and bought grades on finals that their own countries decided to test them before they could touch patients back home.
By contrast, the Iranians were so helpful, polite and accommodating, good students and very conscientious that they came to be greatly admired by the Arabs. To make a long story short, three Arabs I had befriended, years later, turned out to become shahids only to make up for their sins. They had sacrificed their lives in acts of suicide terror in order to cleanse their lives hoping that God would forgive them. Few people realize what a BIG issue was this internal jihad that failed until it became an external one killing infidels and takfiris. It was a last chance to be remembered as righteous and to set things straight with God.
I won't say how I know, but it is a fact that this picture befits thousands of the men that joined "Islamic" resistances and abandoned their families to fight in Bosnia, Iraq, Afghnaistan and other externalized Muslims jihads against infidels and takfiris . Their fathers' generation had made a mess of secular nationalism and they were going to please God, wash away the sins of all, with acts of self-destruction killing of takfir and infidel enemies of God.
I think Mike Scheuer failed to properly appreciate the force of this inner-jihad, for it drives people with everything to gain from "normal" lives to fearless acts of self-destruction in order to be remembered well and to please God. It's no accident that most came from Saudi Arabia. The more we kill them, the more they become "martyrs" to be emulated by many, many others.
All those guys trying to resolve their totally defeated INTERNAL jihads through some great final EXTERNAL jihad against the infidels and takfiris are still there, all over the West and East, millions of them...not 600,000 volunteers with no where else to go like so many our army volunteers today. Now they have another cause to avenge, the ASSASSINATION of binLaden and his humiliation by throwing him into the sea after shooting him unarmed in the face before his wife, an unacceptable humiliation of a saint as the first choice for disposal.
Few fighters for any cause are as motivated by personal internal jihad turned into external jihad as Sunni Muslims. That's a giant army and Obama's treatment of the killing of binLaden is like a spark inside a gas tank.
We'll pay in Afghanistan, but there we have troops; troops go to batle knowing that they are there to kill and be killed. But where we'll pay in the Western World is in cities and homes where we can least aford neither the cost of the insecurity nor the cost of the security. We have given them a cause so great that binLaden could not have dreamed of it while alive. Dead he can do no wrong; alive he was becoming just another competitor for attention and glory at the cost of innocent victims. For many Muslims he had come to be seen as self-serving when he gave CNN's Peter Bergen an interview....why pose for the infidels like a monkey? He's been betrayed so often that he even told his son that you can't trust anyone in the Jihad. But in the setting of the failed internal jihad where the external jihad gives the soul another chance at cleansing in blood of infidels, there is great expectation for minds twisted by events to become great avengers of the martyrs through clever acts of mass murder-suicide.
So, the more Obama milks his "on my orders" killing of binLaden (now they're admitting that Osama was NOT armed when shot), the more he lines up Jihadis ready to purify their souls killing American infidels to avenge the martyr. The people who sell us our oil cheap are the same people who must end their days making it right with God by punishing the infidels and takfirs. We're facing a cause celebre whose begining and end can only be mass murder to please God by avenging the dignity of martyr binLaden. And, that we're facing now, days after the evidence was in that alQaeda was running out of steam; the fanatic internal to external jihad was even about to be universally replaced by a secular modernist revolution against this twisted spiritualsim all over the Middle East.
Unfortunately, "our" kind of "moderate" Muslims who keep fighting their jihads internally are few and "Shahid"-kinds are an incredibly large in number. They fought, fight and will fight for God, not for binLaden. But sacrilegious desecration of a holy man calls for avenging in blood in order to please God.
As Obama turns this not too important killing (Osama was on dialysis and could drop anytime so he couldn't tolerate the wilds of the region anymore) into a 2012 campaign gimmick, his tongue will be setting Muslim hearts on fire all over the world, here included. He lied: he said there was a firefight and Osama was killed. In fact, now we're told, Osama was unarmed. But Obama will lie and he will ignite the internal to external jihads in men all over the world who want to end their lives setting things right with God because he thinks it's a good campaign gimmick when you can't get unemployment down to 8%. Thanks to this campaigning we'll be facing a massive army of people aware that this whole thing was not done as a blasphemy.
We can't afford to make the GW Bridge safe so how are we going to afford to make it secure? If ten times as many jihadis come at us all over Afghanistan this summer-- just when we're expecting expecting accommodation, how will we reinforce our troops, even if only to get them out?
Discretion would have avoided all this. False flags about factional killings could have been most useful. No, instead this will be a campaign gimmick because Obama couldn't bring unemployment down to 8%. And as we shoot our Muslim neighbors, seeing them like the living dead, we're making the mess even more atomic.
I voted for Obama and want him re-elected. But this is proof that he's just a little Chicago thug....and no one quietly went to him and said: "Mr. President, you can't use this because you'll set the Muslim World on fire by pissing on the corpse of Osama this way."
Discretion is the mother of power, not bravado!
Obama succeeded on his fight against terrorism though many lives has been sacrifice due to bloodshed that took almost years . Now that Osama Binladen is Cold Dead Meat I hope the terrorism will ends on that. Too many died including innocent children. Lets unite to fight and stop any terrorism acts. http://www.facebook.com/osamaisdeadonmayday
Eugnid:
Yes I see your points; I agree about the importance of humility. Moreover I especially agree with your points about the problem with these "iffy wars" as you say.
Yet in this case with the killing of UBL I am not sure there was any other way to handle it. I mean it is hard to imagine the Adminstration not saying anything about it.
But in principle I agree with what you say.
gian
Well, you can kill him but don't brag about it. Obama in 2008 campaign said: "I'll find him and kill him." Accordingly, per White House aide (a fool) to Reuters, the order was "kill, not capture." Now everyone brags that ten years later the killing of a guy really on dialysis and out of contact was a great feat. SpecOps, as I recall, are discrete. Instead of bragging-- "on my command..."-- Obama should have kept quiet and let results slowly leak months later. But no, like with birth certificate, he needed a campaign gimmick to make up for no jobs. When the suicide freaks go for revenge-- and they're not stupid-- people will realize that Obama has neither a handle on the economy nor on security. So why prod them with triumphalism as a cheap 2012 campaign gimmick?
Heroes are quiet and victors are discrete. Is Obama modeling himself after another Chicagoan, Al Capone, trying to seem sooo tough when his men are sitting ducks in Kandahar and Helmand? We're not only beginning to look but also act like a second rate power. We're tough so we don't need to scream that we're tough but rather that we're fair so that those who envy us don't go to make a name for themselves hurting our vulnerable people. As a survivor of 9/11 all I can say is that while we were out trying to get binLaden for trying to destroy our economy, the Wall Streeters did it better than he would have ever dreamed. Now we're stuck in iffy wars and forced to choose between defense and infrastructure. Why be provocative while under repair? At any rate, silent running runs deeep, hits and runs before anyone realizes who did it and how. Our brains must always bw bigger than our brains if we want a victorious peace; and so far, top to middle, they're not. Instead, we respond to every provocation by throwing heroes and money, two things we're running out of!
@Eugnid:
One who actually hunts wolves doesn't poke another wolf with a mere stick.
Your attempts at veiled rationalizing "violations to Pakistan Sovereignity" as heinous would be better served by spending less time using movie plots to state your case.
SO is it revenge, or just continuing terrorist operations directed against the US? The parsing of GWOT into specific moments in time, detached one from another, is disingenuous and untruthful.
Arrest? Really???
Passing question; what female wolf was poked?
Levine:
"there was a mock-up of this built (not sure where) that was being used as a practice facility for the last couple of months"
Doubt it.
Pasha sold OBL to Panetta last month in their meet.
Why would we build a mockup anyways?
We can model a denied site in a video game style training simulator in a week.
Is it smart to poke a stick at a wolf after killing her mate? I'm reminded of JAWS II!
If anyone manages to take revenge, Obama's re-election and his plan to quit Afghanistan will be dust.
SpecOps used to be kept discrete with no bragging. This time the White House even told Reuters that the orders were to kill him, not to arrest him. Obama forgot that he's no longer in Chicago and he's not Al Capone.
Imagine, CIA's reward for getting binLaden: Petraeus as DCI!!!!