The BBC are reporting that Osama Bin Laden has been killed in a US special forces raid on a compound in Abbottabad, 60 miles north-east of Islamabad.
After a “firefight” Bin Laden was killed and his body taken by US forces, the president said.
Mr Obama said “no Americans were harmed”.
US officials said Bin Laden was shot in the head after resisting.
US media reports said that the body was buried at sea to conform with Islamic practice of a burial within 24 hours and to prevent any grave becoming a shrine.
Giving more details of the raid, one senior US official said a small US team had conducted the attack in about 40 minutes.
Three other men were killed in the raid – one of Bin Laden’s sons and two couriers – the official said, adding that one woman was also killed when she was used as “a shield” and two other women were injured.
One helicopter was lost due to “technical failure”. The team destroyed it and left in its other aircraft.
This author has not written a biography and will not be writing one.
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Is he like…the next Elvis. ‘Alive & working as a mechanic in Doncaster …’
”It fell to the NYT’s young conservative columnist, Ross Douthat, to make the sensible observation: “Now that Democrats have learned to stop worrying and embrace the imperial presidency, the United States lacks a strong institutional check on the tendency toward executive hubris and wartime overreach… The absence of any sustained outcry over the White House’s willingness to assassinate American citizens without trial should be equally disquieting.”
Douthat’s mention of American citizens is a reference to one of three targets of extra-judicial assassinations Obama signed off on last month – that of Anwar al-Awlaki, the US-born cleric believed to be in Yemen. The other two were Osama (a hit) and Gaddafi (a miss, seemingly confirmed by the Libyan leader’s appearance on state TV yesterday).
The Pentagon says a bid on Awlaki’s life was made by a drone attack on May 5. They reckon they didn’t nail him but hit a car which may or may not have contained bad guys. Hey, who’s counting?”
Read more: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/78835,news-comment,news-politics,alexander-cockburn-hairy-chested-liberals-cheer-ballsy-obamas-assassination-of-bin-laden,2#ixzz1MBBAIWWx
Hey ! When I wrote “lard-ass” I was thinking: John Belushi; John Goodman; Divine; Val Kilmer; Al Gore; JayLo. I love those guys !
(And only joking about JayLo – man, that’s all muscle !).
“This operation it seems was a long time in the planning and that included the post Bin Laden killing phase of it.”
They certainly planned for it well, but the post killing phase of it has been someting of a fiasco. They release incorrect information, than correct themselves, then they say they will release photos, then they say they wont, then they released some, then they let a few ppl see bid Laden’s….
I wonder if you guys saw that article in the Guardian (and maybe other papers reproted it too, I don’t know) that after 9-11 Mushareff made an agreement with the US that if they found Bid Laden in Pakistan territory they could unilaterally go in and get him. Part of the agreement was that the Pakistan government woudl complain and protest in public to satisfy their countryman, even though they in reality signed off on it ahead of time.
All this talk of political assassinations of spiritual leaders reminds me of the brutal execution of the blind quadriplegic founder of Hamas , Sheikh Ahmed Yassin . An Apache helicopter gunship fired a missile at him as he was being wheeled away from morning prayers . The country in question shrugged it’s shoulders at the world’s outrage .
Mark, remember that one well. Yassin switched on his mobile (traced) and the Apache pilot put a Hellfire (anti-tank) missile right up his hole. guessing that wasn’t an open coffin funeral. Always admire the way Israel deals with terrorists, the USA learnt from them. ‘Targetted aggressive response’ is the term when a mullah or other spiritual loony is sent to heaven or paradise.
We here could learn much from Israel, but the liberal sentiments of our British Army officers tend to shy away from such ‘targetted killing’ in a way the Americans operate in such a gung ho manner.
In that respect our Army has worldwide respect for its principles of following International Law.
““They release incorrect information, than correct themselves…”
Read: “They lie through their teeth, then realise they’d be caught out so lie a bit more artfully.”
“In that respect our Army has worldwide respect for its principles of following International Law.”
But you have just told us in some gory detail, Driftwood, how you much prefer those that would deviate entirely from international law ,so I can only conclude that you do not share in that “worldwide respect” for “our Army”.
Wee buns : “….The absence of any sustained outcry over the White House’s willingness to assassinate American citizens without trial should be equally disquieting.”
This covers one or my areas of concern, I can still recall the rape and murder of US nun in South America by right wing Militia forces who were CIA proxy and under CIA control. Summary executions of people in custody by US forces have a long and very unsavory history.
The only thing new is now in this media saturated age we are more likely to find out about these things in real time rather than forty years later as with the exploits of the British Troops in Burma.
The analogy that I drew with a policeman deciding to execute a murderer in custody with the extra judicial killing of Bin Laden is a valid one. It is also the beginning of a very slippery slope that has a David Kelly type murky deeds at the end of it !
I wonder as to the legitimacy of The President of the United States ordering the summary execution on an American Citizen abroad, maybe ‘Slappy’ will enlighten us as to what the constitutional position is.
When I was arrested for the first time back over forty years ago under the Offenses Against The State Act, I asked to be informed of my rights, the Garda Special Branch Inspector began to rattle off pro formula and stopped mid stream, paused and said ” You are arrested under the F’ing Offenses Against The States Act, you have no F’ing rights what so ever”.
The full impact of that was not lost on me and that was not a one way street!
In these forty years I have seen how fragile the rule of law is from those who are prepared to deliberately ignore or flout it and pay the price to those who are passive or look the other way because while they may not agree with what they see done, their ‘tie’ to the State was such that they did not identify with it sufficiently to support its forces or get involved.
Those involved in Militant action do not exist in a vacuum. Whatever the execution may have done for American morale at home, all thinking people know that it has also added hundreds of thousands, millions even to those who are prepared to side with militants rather than the State.
That is far too high a price to pay for taking out an old sick man in his ‘end of days’ irrespective of what he symbolized. If he had got a US trial it would of course have created more militants, but it would have also shown the watching world just what the US stood for. Bin Laden and his organization could have been exposed for what they were and the ‘passive Islamic people’ world wide would at very least stayed passive and who knows some may have turned against that particular brand of Militant Islam.
Now all they have been shown is yet another naked, vengeful, retaliatory act of strike power by the US. It will win votes at home in the United States but it will not win the US many friends abroad in the very flashpoint areas where the States needs them most.
Brian : “….They certainly planned for it well, but the post killing phase of it has been something of a fiasco. They release incorrect information, than correct themselves, then they say they will release photos, then they say they wont, then they released some, then they let a few ppl see bid Laden’s….”
Part of the game, Brian, just all part of the game in the ‘hall of mirrors’ stuff.
Or as Winston Churchill one succinctly put it ” truth is so precious that we must always protect it with a bodyguard of lies ” All still going very much according to ‘the plan’ it seems and should continue to so do for quite some time yet. Who knows it may may even take Obama past an election without ere a hanging chad in sight ?
Brian, you seem a nice guy, you may be a little out of your dept on this one, should you be really getting down and dirty here in slugger, would you not be more comfortable sitting this one out and just observing ?
Driftwood : “…put a Hellfire (anti-tank) missile right up his hole.
Yep… ‘A missile right up his hole ‘ can be a rather painfull experience as the Captain of the ‘Brave Borderer’ would probably agree with you !
“….. . The unit, equipped with an Anti-Tank weapon and other equipment launched their attack on the vessel as it proceeded downstream in Waterford Harbour. The Hms Brave Borderer was considered the fastest (Blue Riband) naval vessel in the world at the time. This being said, the local Volunteers attack caused major damage to the vessel that counted in the millions of pounds. There were no reported casualties or injuries……”
As taking one ‘up you know where’ had so much appeal for you, I thought that you may enjoy reading this !
MV
But the Bin Ladenist-minded believe and have their followers and hangs on that the USA and its allies has no stomach for a fight, that it’s run by a bunch of wet liberals, homosexuals and Jews who will yield, bend and eventually run away. To respond to their threat solely with ‘soft power’ does nothing to contradict this. This is not the sole reason for taking an approach characterized by a decent portion of hard power, but it is nonetheless part of the reason that the civilized world should. The battle needs to be fought and – as it will be – won on both fronts.
Get used to it and make sure you’re clear about which side ultimately you’re on. Sounds suspiciously like you’re buying into the entirely bogus self-pitying MOPE jihadist narrative to me, or if not, coming dangerously close to equivocating on its behalf. Moral high ground is fine, turning the other cheek and reasoning with the liars and death cultists is neither possible or desirable.
I would on balance have preferred Bin laden to have been tried and thus utterly discredited and shamed, but I shan’t mourn his passing or the manner if it nonetheless.