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Osama Bin Laden is dead

mac said:
I intended to say Desert Fox and the Afghan Airstrike....my bad, same applies though. Clinton was given many oprtunities and refused them...at the last minute, and for questionable reasons he lobbed in some missiles...innefectively.
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You may be right; I'll have to do more research into the issue to get a more complete picture of what went on and arrive at an opinion. For now I will reserve judgment.
 
tessaesque said:
Obama gets credit for the kill, Bush should get credit for facilitating the process that got us to this point.
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"Facilitating the process that got us to this point"? Serious? How did taking our efforts off of Bin Laden and invading a country that had ZERO to do with the attacks on our country on 911, facilitate the process?
 
StillBallin75 said:
I personally am of the opinion that he would've been ever more glorified and viewed as a martyr if he had been capture alive and processed through our legal system...just look at the fact that we don't even know how to deal with guys like KSM yet.

DD - it is not the purpose of the death penalty to bring closure to anyone, it is to administer justice. I'm pro-capital punishment, but I realize that there are good reasons to be against it. But the emotional argument is not a good one.
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Perhaps you are correct. As for the DP arguments, one of the arguments that is often raised by pro-DP people is that it brings closure to the family. It is refreshing to hear someone in favor of the death penatly actually recognizing that not only is it rarely, if ever true, it is not really even a good argument.
 
disneydude said:
"Facilitating the process that got us to this point"? Serious? How did taking our efforts off of Bin Laden and invading a country that had ZERO to do with the attacks on our country on 911, facilitate the process?
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Do you have any evidence to support the assertion that our involvement in Iraq somehow diverted intelligence sources away from the search for OBL? Again, I'm not an Iraq War supporter and I think it was a stupid and wrong war, but let's be honest here. I believe Bush tried pretty damn hard to find OBL and there were a lot of pressures on him and his administration to do so.
 
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gekaap said:
That's nothing more than an ad hoc hypothesis. Oh, I know, maybe Bush was using top secret government mind wave devices to try to find bin Laden. That theory holds as much weight as yours.

My "ad hoc hypothesis" is a sound logical assumption. As I stated earlier in the thread, it would serve no purpose to continually update every reporter who asks (constantly) what we know about Bin Laden or his whereabouts. One of Obama's biggest talking points was transparency, and how it was sorely needed after ther Bush years. Wouldn't that purported secrecy lend into the idea of Bush staying silent or creating a false sense of the goings on of the Osama investigation?

Have you ever watched an inaugural address?



FTR, I am not an Obama supporter either. I've been praying for a good candidate to come out of the GOP to defeat him in 2012. I, too, believe in giving credit where it is due. I just don't see it due to Bush.
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My "ad hoc hypothesis" is a sound logical assumption. As I stated earlier in the thread, it would serve no purpose to continually update every reporter who asks (constantly) what we know about Bin Laden or his whereabouts. One of Obama's biggest talking points was transparency, and how it was sorely needed after ther Bush years. Wouldn't that purported secrecy lend into the idea of Bush staying silent or creating a false sense of the goings on of the Osama investigation? The government keeps a LOT of information away from the public. If we've learned nothing else through all of these Wikileaks documents we should have learned that much. It isn't above any president in our history to lie or mislead or conceal facts under the pretense of keeping us safe. Given Bush's character, record of action, every official interview he's ever done, and many things he's said since leaving the WH, I find it hard to believe that we can base his level of concern over Osama on one conversation.

Not sure what inaugeral addresses have to do with my statement; can you please elaborate?
 
disneydude said:
Perhaps you are correct. As for the DP arguments, one of the arguments that is often raised by pro-DP people is that it brings closure to the family. It is refreshing to hear someone in favor of the death penatly actually recognizing that not only is it rarely, if ever true, it is not really even a good argument.
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If some asshole murdered my friends/family, frankly having them dead would make me feel a hell of a lot better than having them be alive in a cell somewhere, even if it didn't exactly bring me closure, just my humble opinion.
 
disneydude said:
"Facilitating the process that got us to this point"? Serious? How did taking our efforts off of Bin Laden and invading a country that had ZERO to do with the attacks on our country on 911, facilitate the process?
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If we're going to play that game, how did telling a country holding Osama pending our decision, "that's okay, we don't want him" facilitate his capture/death? He was directly involved in 7 other attacks prior to 9/11 and prior to Bush's presidency that were left unanswered. In fact, when we had a chance to collect him and try him for his crimes against us we said no. He was basically handed to us on a silver platter, evidence in hand, and we said no.

So go ahead...say Bush deserves nothing..it's your opinion and you have a right to it. But if we're going to base the argument on supposed inaction, let's go ahead and throw Clinton under the bus, too.
 
tessaesque said:
If we're going to play that game, how did telling a country holding Osama pending our decision, "that's okay, we don't want him" facilitate his capture/death? He was directly involved in 7 other attacks prior to 9/11 and prior to Bush's presidency that were left unanswered. In fact, when we had a chance to collect him and try him for his crimes against us we said no. He was basically handed to us on a silver platter, evidence in hand, and we said no.

So go ahead...say Bush deserves nothing..it's your opinion and you have a right to it. But if we're going to base the argument on supposed inaction, let's go ahead and throw Clinton under the bus, too.
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Clinton...like GWB did little if anything to go after Bin Ladan....you are absolutely correct. But let's not play games and try to say that anything Bush did facilitated killing Bin Laden. Bush's inital response was appropriate, however, Bush, like most of his career was simply putty in the hands of Cheney and Rumsfield and he lost sight of our goals and became pre-occupied on the wrong course of action.
 
disneydude said:
Clinton...like GWB did little if anything to go after Bin Ladan....you are absolutely correct. But let's not play games and try to say that anything Bush did facilitated killing Bin Laden. Bush's inital response was appropriate, however, Bush, like most of his career was simply putty in the hands of Cheney and Rumsfield and he lost sight of our goals and became pre-occupied on the wrong course of action.
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So please address the statement made in several articles that part of this military action was a result of intelligence gathered as far back as 2006. Surely if we weren't focused on Osama then such valuable information wouldn't have come to light until later, or not at all. Surely our intelligence would have been focused elsewhere, given Bush's complete lack of care or focus on all things Osama.
 
tessaesque said:
So please address the statement made in several articles that part of this military action was a result of intelligence gathered as far back as 2006. Surely if we weren't focused on Osama then such valuable information wouldn't have come to light until later, or not at all. Surely our intelligence would have been focused elsewhere, given Bush's complete lack of care or focus on all things Osama.
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If this report is accurate, the intel on the courier came from Gitmo.

Detainees at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had given the courier’s pseudonym to American interrogators and said that the man was a protégé of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

American intelligence officials said Sunday night that they finally learned the courier’s real name four years ago, but that it took another two years for them to learn the general region where he operated.
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Bin Laden Captured Through Detective Work - NYTimes.com
 
Geez people... even Obama gave Bush some credit in this.

Get over yourselves and your hatred of all things Bush.
 
Intensive efforts were underway to try to find Osama Bin Laden prior to President Obama's taking office. For example, CNN reported, "Four years ago: Officials uncovered the courier's identity."

The successful effort that brought Bin Laden to justice rested on the accumulated body of work from efforts that had gone back many years. Credit that belongs to all the efforts that culminated in the successful operation--no matter how far back those efforts extended--and the people involved should not be denied strictly because it doesn't fit the desired political timelines or narratives. The successful operation isn't a partisan success. It is an American success.
 
I am listening to NPR right now and a reporter from the BBC said that were Osama was it would be incredibly difficult for the Pakistani Army to not have known and that right wing groups are protesting the US.
 
Red_Dave said:
Well obviously not all of those in Pakistan or the Pakistani state otherwise the army would not have been fighting the Taliban. Like I say in order for Bin Laden to live in a mansion in a military town he would need the support of some elements of the military/ISI, and its clear from wikileaks etc. that some elements of the ISI are arming the Taliban. However its unclear whether this is being mandatated by the elected government or whether this is a case of certain factions doing whatever they please. Possibly its a case of the Taliban/Al Qaeda infiltrating the ISI or possibly its a case of the military giving some support the Taliban and Al Qaeda in order to justify intrusive role in Pakistani politics, who knows? Its intresting you brought this up as it reminds me alot of the Ergenekon case in Turkey.
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It's basically members of the military establishment pushing in one direction and the other half of the military pushing policy in another. It's happening in the ISI and it's happening in the Pakistan government so it's like we have two sets of government, two sets of ISI and two sets of Pakistan armed forces each with their own agenda.

It's why the country has its hand's tide in dealing with issues on the ground. In that respect it is similar to ergenekon, only the Turks make Pakistan look boring.
 
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It would seem from BBC reports that this six foot five inch Arab was living among Pakistanis, whose average height is almost a foot less less than that, only half a mile from a large garrison of the troops tasked with finding him. How odd.
 
Mellie said:
TheBlaze has a great live blog that updates everytime something new comes in about this story. What a great idea!

Live Blog: Osama bin Laden is Dead | The Blaze
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ROFLMFAO!!!!
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Manc Skipper said:
It would seem from BBC reports that this six foot five inch Arab was living among Pakistanis, whose average height is almost a foot less less than that, only half a mile from a large garrison of the troops tasked with finding him. How odd.
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If i was six foot five I'd be a baller not a terrorist. What a ****in waste of height.
 
The Giant Noodle said:
Best thing Obama has accomplished!
:july_4th::2usflag::july_4th:
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To be clear, labeling this as an "Obama accomplishment" seems a little much. Any President occupying the WH would have ordered the same action hopefully. You make it sound like Barry suited up in black fatigues and single handedly repelled down and with knife in teeth, snuck up and shot himself.

Let's give credit where credit is due, and I am glad that Obama gave the order to kill OBL, but the real credit goes to the Seal teams that got the job done.

j-mac
 
StillBallin75 said:
If i was six foot five I'd be a baller not a terrorist. What a ****in waste of height.
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Not too many courts over there, and kind of hard to dribble that ox head. Not to mention the basket nailed to a building may not be regulation.

j-mac
 
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