Watching BBC World News right now. The PotUS is going to be making a statement soon, but the word is that US forces are in possession of his body.
He may not have been truly responsible for the September 11th attacks... but it is good to know that, with all the other things he is responsible for, he is no longer among the living.
Ah well.
Sky News says he was in Abattabad (sp?), and was bombed by an aircraft.
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
Good news.
Interesting tidbits:
Was not a drone or missile attack or an aircraft strike.
It was special forces on the ground.
(Whoops. Obama just started his address.)
No civilian casualties.
No American casualties.
Killed Bin Ladin.
Took custody of his body. (That's important, because the last thing we wanted was for his death site (if by bomb) or burial site to be turned into a shrine. Earlier, before the address, I heard that the body "would be disposed of". Good. Bastard deserves no funeral. He was a less than a dog and doesn't deserve to be treated with even the dignity of a dogs death.)
I find the "we are not at war with Islam" comments in the address needless. But fine, Bush said the same things. Whatever.
"Justice has been done."
This will probably be the only time I will ever agree with anything that man says. Damn straight.
Ok - I would love to know details of the operation. (If possible, I'd love to know who made the actual kill-shot. That man should never ever have to buy his own drinks anywhere in the western world for the rest of his life.) But realistically I know many details, if not most, will have to remain classified for some time. But it'll be a hell of a story when finally told.
Oh and today is my birthday. Best damn birthday present I've had for many years.
Meanwhile
On the Internet, while Irish humourists have begun to suggest that maybe he shouldn'tve put his address on PSN.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
Logan Darklighter Wrote:Ok - I would love to know details of the operation. (If possible, I'd love to know who made the actual kill-shot. That man should never ever have to buy his own drinks anywhere in the western world for the rest of his life.) But realistically I know many details, if not most, will have to remain classified for some time. But it'll be a hell of a story when finally told.
My Mom says: "He shouldn't have to pay taxes ever again." (^_^)
Logan Darklighter Wrote:I find the "we are not at war with Islam" comments in the address needless. But fine, Bush said the same things. Whatever.
I think it's very important to remind people that we're not at war with Islam - just the terrorists. Sometimes people tend to forget this.
Logan Darklighter Wrote:Oh and today is my birthday. Best damn birthday present I've had for many years.
Hah! Happy Birthday, dude!
EDIT: Oh, and it was on the outskirts of Islamabad, the capitol of Pakistan. Maybe now that he's not there doing business, maybe we can get shit accomplished there.
EDIT2: Yeah, Abbottabad is the name of the area - just outside Islamabad.
Via
Instapundit: Plus,
thoughts from Austin Bay: “Would that we had him in Fall 2001. However, time has worked against Bin Laden. He dies tarnished. A man who hides in a cave for ten years is no martyr. He quickly lost the aura of divine sanction — he was driven out of Afghanistan, and the US stayed. Moreover, the US took its counter-terror war into the heart of the politically dysfunctional Arab Muslim world. What’s the choice between tyrant and terrorist? Iraq provides a choice. Al Qaeda made Iraq a battleground and lost — lost to the Iraqi people and the US.”
Edit:
Also, thoughts from
Pejman Yousefzadeh. “I am more than happy to give the Obama Administration–and the Bush Administration before it–plenty of credit for having designed and implemented the military operations that brought about bin Laden’s demise. Here’s hoping that he didn’t die quickly after the mortal blow landed."
So he's finally dead. Good riddance and I'm sure the fact that the U.S. finally caught up with him after all those years of cowering in hiding must have been a great surprise to him.
I do hope that his body will be incinerated and his ashes dumped somewhere where they can't be found.
--Werehawk--
My mom's brief take on upcoming Guatemalan Elections "In last throes of preelection activities. Much loudspeaker vote pleading."
I heard a news anchor saying/speculating that the ashes might be dumped into the ocean somewhere. That's what was done with Adolf Eichmann's remains.
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Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber." --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.
Updates via HotAir:
Quote:Update (AP): Nicholas Jackson of the Atlantic says the location of the compound has already been marked — by someone — on Google Maps.
Follow the link and have a look. Assuming it’s correct, the compound
is less than a thousand feet away from a (rundown) Pakistani police
station.
Update (AP): WSJ reporter Tom Wright
notes an amazing coincidence: Arch-terrorist and longtime Bin Laden
crony Umar Patek was also captured in Abbottabad three months ago.
Here’s a Jakarta Post
story on the arrest published just two weeks ago. (Patek is Indonesian
and was linked to the Bali bombings in 2002.) Pakistani intel is now
claiming, per Wright, that they helped lead the U.S. to Bin Laden via
information gleaned from Patek. That seems unlikely — apparently, we’ve
known Bin Laden was in Abbottabad for six months or so, and if Pakistan
was providing intel on OBL, Obama wouldn’t have waited until after
today’s operation to phone Zardari. Still, it’s too startling a
coincidence to actually be a coincidence. Did Patek lead us right to
Bin Laden’s door by rendezvousing with him? And why didn’t Bin Laden
run once Patek was picked up? He must have known by then that either
Pakistan or the U.S. was interested in arresting local super-terrorists.
Update (AP): Howard Kurtz listened in on a conference call given by U.S. officials about the raid on the compound:
Quote:Security at the compound was “extraordinary,” an official
said, with 12- to 18-foot walls topped by barbed wire. Yet the $1
million compound had no phone or Internet service. “Our best assessment
was that bin Laden was living there with several family members,
including his youngest wife,” the official said.
Asked what bin Laden did once the U.S. team landed, an official would say only: “He did resist the assault force.”
Officials said three other men were killed in the raid—one who is believed to be bin Laden’s adult son, and two couriers. One woman was killed when she was used as a shield by one of the combatants, they said. The U.S. team lost a helicopter due to mechanical failure.
I can’t wait for the full details tomorrow and then, in a year or two, the inevitable movie. More from ABC News and Brian Ross. It was, of course, the Navy SEALs who were the tip of the spear:
Quote:The U.S. had been monitoring the compound in Abbottabad
for months after receiving a tip in August that Bin Laden might be
seeking shelter there. He had long been said to be in the mountainous
region along the Afghanistan, Pakistan border, hiding in a cave as the
U.S. sought to kill him with drone strikes from above. Instead, he was
in a house eight times larger than its neighbors, with a seven-foot wall
and valued at $1 million. The house had no phone of television and the
residents burned their trash. The house had high windows and few points
of access, and U.S. officials concluded it had been built to hide
someone.
According to U.S. officials, two U.S. helicopters swept into the
compound at 1:30 and 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning. Twenty to 25 U.S. Navy
Seals under the command of the Joint Special Operations Command in
cooperation with the CIA stormed the compound and engaged Bin Laden and
his men in a firefight, killed Bin Laden and all those with him.
Pakistani officials say it was a joint operation; U.S. officials say
that only Americans were involved in the raid. Hmmmm. Oh — and Bin
Laden did, reportedly, fire his gun. Savor the terror he must have felt
in those last moments as those SEALs came through the windows and
doors.
Some more tidbits via HotAir:
Wow. Just wow.
Quote:Update (AP): Amazing. This Pakistani IT consultant
lives in Abbottabad and ended up tweeting about strange goings-on this
morning without knowing the significance, of course. A few choice
tweets:
Quote:Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).
A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope its not the start of something nasty :-S
the few people online at this time of the night are saying one of the copters was not Pakistani…
I wonder which cable news net will land the first interview with him tomorrow.
Quote:Update: An Al-Arabiya correspondent
claims that two of Bin Laden’s wives and four of his sons were captured
during the raid. Apparently, the key to the whole operation was
finding and tracking Bin Laden’s most trusted courier, a process that
took years — and involved info given by Guantanamo detainees:
Quote:Some time after Sept. 11, detainees held by the U.S. told
interrogators about a man believed to work as a courier for bin Laden,
senior administration officials said. The man was described by detainees
as a protégé of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and “one of the few Al Qaeda
couriers trusted by bin laden.”
Initially, intelligence officials only had the man’s nickname, but they discovered his real name four years ago.
Two years ago, intelligence officials began to identify areas of
Pakistan where the courier and his brother operated, and the great
security precautions the two men took aroused U.S. suspicions.
Last August, intelligence officials tracked the men to their
residence in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a relatively wealthy town 35 miles
north of Islamabad where many retired military officers live.
Ultimately, it was the conspicuous size and security precautions
taken at the compound that made it stand out. And when they got further
intel that a family roughly the size of Bin Laden’s was living there,
they nailed it down. In other words, Osama was, for all intents and
purposes, hiding in plain sight.
Also: U.S. officials confirmed that Pakistan was not, in fact, informed before the operation.
Hate to put a damper on things, but this needs to be mentioned... They didn't get his deputy.
Control of al-Queda has now been removed from the public-relations expert and placed in the hands of the combat strategist.
Consider that while you're celebrating.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
CBS radio news was strongly implying this morning that the Pakistanis, rather than helping on this op as they were claiming, were complicit in Bin Laden's presence. The neighborhood in which the compound was located is apparently the choice retirement community for Pakistani military officials, the site of a military academy and a few other things I can't recall now that made it pretty clear that this was practically a government town. At least one consultant they interviewed said that there was no way the Pakistani government couldn't have known Bin Laden was there from the day he moved in, and that the place was al-Qaeda from the day the compound was built. Any claims that they helped out on the intelligence or operation appear to be strictly CYA action.
ETA: Oh, and they were reporting that the body has already been buried at sea -- partly to prevent the creation of a shrine to a martyr, and partly (in all seriousness) to comply with Islamic requirements for speed of burial (it would take too long to find a country willing to take the body, or so it was claimed).
ETA2: Gah. I know the difference between "implicit" and "complicit", really I do.
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Because now Congress is going to be extremely leery of giving them any more bakseesh for thier putative help. Let's face it, the Pakistanis having been playing a double game. I'm more going with placing him at sea to prevent any shrines to his quote "martrydom". Should had blown up the compound also, but I understand the strict timetable.
Rob, we are celebrating (and rubbing it in the eyes of every jihadi out there) that it may have taken a long time to get Bin Laden, but he didn't die in bed. He had been more or less taunting the U.S that for all our might, we could not catch Public Enemy #1. Well we now did. And yes, #2 is a combat stategist. But does he have the makings of a leader? He may very well be just the first among equals. I suspect these guys will retaliate somewhere along the line, but I also suspect a shaking out right for a while. Look what happened to Al Fatah after Arafat croaked.
__________________
Into terror!, Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell
I'd like to point out that we've been knocking off number-two guys from al-Qaeda with clocklike regularity. This guy may have been 2IC, but IIRC he's something like the tenth 2IC they've had in the last few years; they've got to be scraping the bottom of the barrel in command quality by now.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
ordnance11 Wrote:Because now Congress is going to be extremely leery of giving them any more bakseesh for thier putative help. Let's face it, the Pakistanis having been playing a double game. I'm more going with placing him at sea to prevent any shrines to his quote "martrydom". Should had blown up the compound also, but I understand the strict timetable.
Rob, we are celebrating (and rubbing it in the eyes of every jihadi out there) that it may have taken a long time to get Bin Laden, but he didn't die in bed. He had been more or less taunting the U.S that for all our might, we could not catch Public Enemy #1. Well we now did. And yes, #2 is a combat stategist. But does he have the makings of a leader? He may very well be just the first among equals. I suspect these guys will retaliate somewhere along the line, but I also suspect a shaking out right for a while. Look what happened to Al Fatah after Arafat croaked.
Ursula Vernon also pointed out that many people are going through a catharsis, and to
let them do it.
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com
"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."
Well it was only a matter of time in this age if WikiLeaks. The names of the Team 6 soldiers that were on the mission have been leaked. They are:
Slab Bulkhead, Fridge Largemeat, Punt Speedchunk, Butch Deadlift, Bold Bigflank, Splint Chesthair, Flint Ironstag, Bolt Vanderhuge, Thick McRunfast, Blast Hardcheese, Buff Drinklots, Trunk Slamchest, Fist Rockbone, Stump Beefgnaw, Smash Lampjaw, Punch Rockgroin, Buck Plankchest, Stump Chunkman, Dirk Hardpeck, Rip Steakface, Slate Slabrock, Crud Bonemeal, Brick Hardmeat, Rip Sidecheek, Punch Sideiron, Gristle McThornBody, Slake Fistcrunch, Buff Hardback, Bob Johnson, Blast Thickneck, Crunch Buttsteak, Slab Squatthrust, Lump Beefrock, Touch Rustrod, Reef Blastbody, Big McLargeHuge, Smoke Manmuscle, Beat Punchbeef, Pack Blowfist, and Roll Fizzlebeef
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies
Wiredgeek Wrote:Well it was only a matter of time in this age if WikiLeaks. The names of the Team 6 soldiers that were on the mission have been leaked. They are:
Slab Bulkhead, Fridge Largemeat, Punt Speedchunk, Butch Deadlift, Bold Bigflank, Splint Chesthair, Flint Ironstag, Bolt Vanderhuge, Thick McRunfast, Blast Hardcheese, Buff Drinklots, Trunk Slamchest, Fist Rockbone, Stump Beefgnaw, Smash Lampjaw, Punch Rockgroin, Buck Plankchest, Stump Chunkman, Dirk Hardpeck, Rip Steakface, Slate Slabrock, Crud Bonemeal, Brick Hardmeat, Rip Sidecheek, Punch Sideiron, Gristle McThornBody, Slake Fistcrunch, Buff Hardback, Bob Johnson, Blast Thickneck, Crunch Buttsteak, Slab Squatthrust, Lump Beefrock, Touch Rustrod, Reef Blastbody, Big McLargeHuge, Smoke Manmuscle, Beat Punchbeef, Pack Blowfist, and Roll Fizzlebeef
What happened to Rock Manly? I thought he was in on this op.
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com
"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."
It will be interesting to watch all the "Amerika uber alles" crowd who won't even believe Obama when he tells them where he was born instantly believe him when says "we killed somebody you hate (for being just like us but on a vastly smaller scale) and then got rid of the evidence."
khagler, you have managed to make it straight into my ignore file with a single post. Nobody has ever done that before. Quite an accomplishment. (slow golfclap)
Here -
have a video response.
robkelk Wrote:Hate to put a damper on things, but this needs to be mentioned... They didn't get his deputy.
Control of al-Queda has now been removed from the public-relations expert and placed in the hands of the combat strategist.
Consider that while you're celebrating.
Eh, to be honest, al-Q's been fairly irrelevant for years now. Not much a small group can actually do when they're hiding in the mountains in Pakistan. I suppose some of that pressure will be off now that the US got the top guy, but it remains to be seen if they even possess enough remaining assets to be a factor in Afghanistan, let alone further afield.
As far as Bin Laden goes, in theory I'd have preferred it if he'd been taken alive and tried in a proper court, but LOL at the concept of rule of law applying to Barack Obama's America. Despite Bin Laden's general irrelevance, he had value as a symbol and would certainly have plotted to kill more people had he remained alive to do so, so it's good he's gone.
Ayiekie Wrote:Eh, to be honest, al-Q's been fairly irrelevant for years now. Not much a small group can actually do when they're hiding in the mountains in Pakistan. I suppose some of that pressure will be off now that the US got the top guy, but it remains to be seen if they even possess enough remaining assets to be a factor in Afghanistan, let alone further afield.
Not as small as your state. They still have active cells in all the hot spots - most worrisome to me is Somalia and Pakistan. (In fact, I'm never gonna feel anything but leery about Pakistan until that place has a revolution all its own.)
Ayiekie Wrote:As far as Bin Laden goes, in theory I'd have preferred it if he'd been
taken alive and tried in a proper court, but LOL at the concept of rule
of law applying to Barack Obama's America.
Oh, as if that never applied to the Bush Jr. administration. I can point out all kinds of things there. This is tame by comparison. Besides, we don't wanna give anyone else any more reason to be mad at us. Bin Laden got a speedy burial in a place where he can't be enshrined. And you can be sure that DNA confirmation was made - sure, it usually takes a few days, but that's just the waiting in the line. You can bet the farm they expedited his DNA profile so it happened within hours.
Ayiekie Wrote:Despite Bin Laden's general
irrelevance, he had value as a symbol and would certainly have plotted
to kill more people had he remained alive to do so, so it's good he's
gone
Definitely agree with you on that one. With him out of the way, Al-Q's lost some serious momentum - their figurehead, so to speak. While the war is going to be far from over (plenty of 2nd-in-commands to snipe) I definitely feel we've hit a mid-way point.
Ayiekie Wrote:robkelk Wrote:Hate to put a damper on things, but this needs to be mentioned... They didn't get his deputy.
Control of al-Queda has now been removed from the public-relations expert and placed in the hands of the combat strategist.
Consider that while you're celebrating.
Eh, to be honest, al-Q's been fairly irrelevant for years now. Not much a small group can actually do when they're hiding in the mountains in Pakistan. I suppose some of that pressure will be off now that the US got the top guy, but it remains to be seen if they even possess enough remaining assets to be a factor in Afghanistan, let alone further afield.
As far as Bin Laden goes, in theory I'd have preferred it if he'd been taken alive and tried in a proper court, but LOL at the concept of rule of law applying to Barack Obama's America. Despite Bin Laden's general irrelevance, he had value as a symbol and would certainly have plotted to kill more people had he remained alive to do so, so it's good he's gone.
No! and Oh Hell NO! Capture him and bring him back? And have every jihadi trying every type of terror operation to try and get him back? It'll be more trouble than it's worth! The problem with Al Quueda is that you got all these splinter cells running under one umbrella, not Terror Inc. Dammed hard to track. we probably vacuumed him hideout for everything of importance anyway.
__________________
Into terror!, Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell
About Bin Laden being "buried" at sea. I love this dry twitter comment:
"They’re burying Bin Laden at sea to prevent other terrorists from making pilgrimages to his grave. I don’t see why that should stop them."
Heh. Heh. Heh.
blackaeronaut Wrote:Definitely agree with you on that one. With him out of the way, Al-Q's lost some serious momentum - their figurehead, so to speak. While the war is going to be far from over (plenty of 2nd-in-commands to snipe) I definitely feel we've hit a mid-way point.
What BA said. We've reached the beginning of the end for al-Qeada - I'm just worried that the end is going to be bloody... and not just on their side.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
robkelk Wrote:blackaeronaut Wrote:Definitely agree with you on that one. With him out of the way, Al-Q's lost some serious momentum - their figurehead, so to speak. While the war is going to be far from over (plenty of 2nd-in-commands to snipe) I definitely feel we've hit a mid-way point.
What BA said. We've reached the beginning of the end for al-Qeada - I'm just worried that the end is going to be bloody... and not just on their side.
To paraphrase Churchill: It's not the end. It's not even the beginning of the end. But it is the end of the beginning. The war goes on.
I will applaud the President's courage in authorizing the raid. It took guts to go through with it without being certain that Bin Laden will be in the compound when the strike team did arrive. I'm betting Tom Clancy and Electronic Arts game developers are in front of their computers right now.
__________________
Into terror!, Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell