[PoideAdelereX]

Please. Saddam was living like a rat underground. While Osama's house wouldn't make it into Architectural Digest, it was quite the compound on some good acreage and in a nice upscale suburban area (at least by Pakistani standards).

Maybe you're right, but the Spanish have a long experience in matters of terrorism, more than Americans. Unfortunately we suffered the scourge of the terrorist group ETA for more than 40 years. All terrorist groups are quite similar (Al-Qaeda, ETA, IRA, HAMAS ...). It is strange to see the poverty in which Bin Laden was living at Pakistan. Spanish and French police have arrested several times to the leaders of the terrorist group ETA and theirs vehicles, housing, weapons, munitions, computers, money ... were considerably higher.

Was it necessary navy seal units to arrest Bin Laden in Pakistan ? Must be a bad joke, because this work could be made in Spain by local police: Bin Laden's HQ is a waste !... I don't understand what's happened in USA about this issue, but a lot of people around the world is thinking that this story (Bin Laden's death) is a great lie, similar to a Hollywood movie or when americans arrive to the Moon,... you know hahaha

We all wanna see the pics, images, videos and all material about Bin Laden's arrest, because there a lot of people thinking about it and they all say the same: it's a new lie of americans. That's the question.

[Xcqjwarl]

Maybe you're right, but the Spanish have a long experience in matters of terrorism, more than Americans.

But not with terrorists that are staying in a country armed with nuclear weapons, whose intentions are unclear.

All terrorist groups are quite similar (Al-Qaeda, ETA, IRA, HAMAS ...). Similar in what way?

It is strange to see the poverty in which Bin Laden was living at Pakistan. The US was funding $1 billion per year to Pakistan to combat terrorism. Assuming there was complicity by the Pakistani government in harboring Bin Laden, do you think it would have been wise to provide him with a luxury estate?

Was it necessary navy seal units to arrest Bin Laden in Pakistan ? Bin Laden's HQ is a waste Arrest? What are you talking about? The raid was conducted without the knowledge of Pakistani security. There was no way they were going to risk an international situation over who had jurisdiction over a captured Bin Laden.

It was done exactly as it should be done. Killed and sent to sleep with the fish.

Must be a bad joke, because this work could be made in Spain by local police: Local police? Bin Laden was in a foreign country. The ETA is where?

I don't understand what's happened in USA about this issue, but a lot of people around the world is thinking that this story (Bin Laden's death) is a great lie, To what purpose?

You can be in charge of the list. I think Bin Laden should have no trouble getting on, but he'll have trouble bumping Elvis.

[MoreEndotte]

These guys really are a breed apart. A guy I worked with a long time ago had a friend who was a NS. He was given a mission to assassinate some high-ranking Chinese military bigwig. He's going through some jungle/wilderness area through a river, & he hears people coming. No where else to go, he sinks down under the surface of the water. The people were a Chinese military unit who would have killed him on the spot.
They decided to set up camp. This guy's only way out was to either give up, or stay where he was, which is exactly what he did for the next 2 days, under water. He was able to breathe through a bamboo chute. All the while, the enemy were washing there clothes & urinating only a few feet away, never knowing he was there. After 2 days, they picked up & left, & this NS carried out his mission.
Their commitment level & focus is just incredible.

Inside the SEAL team that 'doesn't exist'

'Quiet professionals' make up the fabled SEAL Team Six that reportedly killed bin Laden


NBC, msnbc.com and news services
updated 1 hour 28 minutes ago 2011-05-03T15:51:37

WASHINGTON — The raid that killed Osama bin Laden will earn permanent bragging rights for the the elite Navy SEAL team that carried it out.
The SEALs won't confirm they carried out the attack, but their current chief, Rear Adm. Edward Winters of the Naval Special Warfare Command in California, sent an email congratulating his forces and cautioning them to keep their mouths shut.
"Today we should all be proud. That handful of courageous men, of strong will and character, have changed the course of history," he wrote, adding, "Be extremely careful about operational security ... The fight is not over."
It was a warning few needed in the secretive group, where operators are uncomfortable with media coverage, fearing revealing details could let the enemy know what to expect the next time.
Even their families are kept in the dark about many of the details of their operations. "There's a lot of times too when they say, well I can't talk about that. And we don't know half the stuff... But what they can share they do when they get home," the wife of a SEAL told NBC News. The network revealed only her first name, Casey.
Eric Greitens, a former SEAL and author of "The Heart and the Fist," told NBC News that the unit that carried out the raid on bin Laden's compound was "the elite of the elite."
"The word is that when they heard that bin Laden was their target, there was a huge cheer that went up," Greitens said on NBC's TODAY. "These guys were excited for the mission, they had been practicing for months."
"They will be honored and revered," Greitens said of the group that carried out the mission. As for the man who fired the shot that killed him: "He's a hero in my mind, and I think for all Americans."
The SEAL team that raided bin Laden's compound reportedly came from a unit based in Dam Neck, Virginia, called the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or "DEVGRU." They call themselves the "the quiet professionals."
Video: Practice makes perfect mission, former SEALs say (on this page)
SEAL Team Six raided targets outside war zones like Yemen and Somalia in the past three years, though the bulk of the unit's current missions are in Afghanistan.
The unit is overseen by the Joint Special Operations Command, which oversees the Army's Delta Force and other special units. JSOC's combined forces have been responsible for a quadrupling of counterterrorism raids that have targeted militants in record numbers over the past year in Afghanistan. Some 4,500 elite special operations forces and support units have been part of the surge of U.S. forces there.
CIA Director Leon Panetta was in charge of the military team during the covert operation, a U.S. official said. While the president can empower the SEALs and other counterterrorism units to carry out covert actions without CIA oversight, President Barack Obama's team put the intelligence agency in charge, with other elements of the national security apparatus answering to them for this mission.
Team Six 'doesn't exist'
SEAL Team Six actually works so often with the intelligence agency that it's sometimes called the CIA's Praetorian Guard — a partnership that started in Iraq as an outgrowth of the fusion of special operations forces and intelligence in the hunt for militants there.
SEALs and Delta Force both, commanded by then-JSOC chief Gen. Stanley McChrystal, learned to work much like FBI agents, first attacking a target, killing or capturing the suspects, and then gathering evidence at the scene.
McChrystal described it as building a network to chase a network, where the special operations forces work with intelligence analysts back at a joint operations center. The raiders, he said, could collect valuable "pocket litter" from the scene, like documents or computers, to exploit to hunt the next target.
The battlegrounds of Iraq and Afghanistan had been informally divided, with the SEALs running Afghanistan and Delta Force conducting the bulk of the operations in Iraq, though there was overlap of each organization. There is considerable professional rivalry between them.
Delta Force units caught Saddam Hussein late in 2003 and killed his sons Uday and Qusay in a shootout in Mosul earlier that year. Delta Force later tracked down al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, pinpointing the building where he sheltered for the aerial bombing that ended his life.
Video: New details on mission to kill bin Laden (on this page)
The race to be the unit that captured bin Laden had been on ever since.
"Officially, Team Six doesn't exist," says former Navy SEAL Craig Sawyer, 47, who advises Hollywood and acts in movies about the military.
After undergoing a six-month process in which commanders scrutinized his every move, Sawyer says he was selected in the 1990s to join the team.
"It was like being recruited to an all-star team," he said, with members often gone 300 days a year, only lasting about three years on the team before burning out.
"They train around the clock," he said. "They know that failure will not be an option. Either they succeed or they don't come home."
Other special operations units joke that "SEAL" stands for "Sleep, eat, lift," though the term actually stands for Sea, Air, Land.
"The SEALs will be the first to remind everyone that the 'L' in SEAL stands for land," says retired Army Gen. Doug Brown, former commander of U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Florida. "They have skills on the land equal to their skills at sea."
Brown, who led the command from 2003-07, said the operation against bin Laden is the most significant mission conducted by U.S. commando forces since the organization was formed in 1987 in the wake of the failed attempt in 1980 to rescue the American hostages in Iran.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42877036...h_of_bin_laden

[kenowinnumberss]

... why all the references to "I" did this, and "I" did that? It sounded like a campaign speach. I think he deserves credit for making the right decisions and getting Bin Laden, but I was a bit put off on the focus on himself, instead of the whole team that made this happen.

I was just put off a bit by all of the references to what "I" did to get Bin Laden. I have already talked to friends of mine who did not have this problem, so I know not everyone had this reaction.

This seems to be the current meme, that it was all about Obama. But it's a bunch of bunk ...

If you look at the transcript of Obama's speech you'll see he used "I' about 10 times in the course of the nearly 10-minute speech. Many referred to what Obama personally did, leading up to and after getting OBL:

"... I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda"
Only the President can give such a direction.

"Tonight, I called President Zardari, and my team has also spoken with their Pakistani counterparts."
Note how he immediately credits his "team' for their actions.

This excerpt contains the most concentrated use of "I" (he said it 3 times here). But he's describing the actions he took as Commander in Chief. That's a one-person gig ...

... last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice.
On the other hand, Obama used the word "we" about 75 times in the speech. One excerpt:

On September 11, 2001, in our time of grief, the American people came together. We offered our neighbors a hand, and we offered the wounded our blood. We reaffirmed our ties to each other, and our love of community and country. On that day, no matter where we came from, what God we prayed to, or what race or ethnicity we were, we were united as one American family.

We were also united in our resolve to protect our nation and to bring those who committed this vicious attack to justice. We quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda -- an organization headed by Osama bin Laden, which had openly declared war on the United States and was committed to killing innocents in our country and around the globe. And so we went to war against al Qaeda to protect our citizens, our friends, and our allies.

Over the last 10 years, thanks to the tireless and heroic work of our military and our counterterrorism professionals, we’ve made great strides in that effort. We’ve disrupted terrorist attacks and strengthened our homeland defense. In Afghanistan, we removed the Taliban government, which had given bin Laden and al Qaeda safe haven and support. And around the globe, we worked with our friends and allies to capture or kill scores of al Qaeda terrorists, including several who were a part of the 9/11 plot.
And the President used the word "our" about 50 times in the speech, most notably in the final moments:

Finally, let me say to the families who lost loved ones on 9/11 that we have never forgotten your loss, nor wavered in our commitment to see that we do whatever it takes to prevent another attack on our shores.

And tonight, let us think back to the sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11. I know that it has, at times, frayed. Yet today’s achievement is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people.

The cause of securing our country is not complete. But tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to. That is the story of our history, whether it’s the pursuit of prosperity for our people, or the struggle for equality for all our citizens; our commitment to stand up for our values abroad, and our sacrifices to make the world a safer place.

Let us remember that we can do these things not just because of wealth or power, but because of who we are: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. May God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.

[Janarealiti]

Pakistan's Double Game

Andrew Sullivan
3 May 2011

Salman Rushdie is rightly having none of it:

In the aftermath of the raid on Abbottabad, all the big questions need to be answered by Pakistan. The old flim-flam (“Who, us? We knew nothing!”) just isn’t going to wash, must not be allowed to wash by countries such as the United States that have persisted in treating Pakistan as an ally even though they have long known about the Pakistani double game—its support, for example, for the Haqqani network that has killed hundreds of Americans in Afghanistan.

This time the facts speak too loudly to be hushed up.

Osama bin Laden, the world’s most wanted man, was found living at the end of a dirt road 800 yards from the Abbottabad military academy, Pakistan’s equivalent of West Point or Sandhurst, in a military cantonment where soldiers are on every street corner, just about 80 miles from the Pakistani capital Islamabad. This extremely large house had neither a telephone nor an Internet connection. And in spite of this we are supposed to believe that Pakistan didn’t know he was there, and that the Pakistani intelligence, and/or military, and/or civilian authorities did nothing to facilitate his presence in Abbottabad, while he ran al Qaeda, with couriers coming and going, for five years?

[UriyVlasov]

I am not a Bush supporter or an Obama hater ... I was just put off a bit by all of the references to what "I" did to get Bin Laden.

And if you look at the text of Bush's 2003 "Mission Accomplished" speech (8 years, to the day, prior to Obama's speech), you'll see that Bush used "I" about 6 times, "we" about 35 times and "our" about 30 times. That speech lasted about 2-1/2 minutes.

If you remember, Bush's speech declared that we had "prevailed in Iraq" - despite the fact that an additional 3,400 US service members were still to die in that conflict.

No Americans were killed in the action described by Obama on this May 1st.

[QEoMi752]

Death of a Madman

... he and his fellow psychopaths did succeed in killing thousands in North America and Western Europe, but in the past few years, their main military triumphs have been against such targets as Afghan schoolgirls, Shiite Muslim civilians, and defenseless synagogues in Tunisia and Turkey ... Obama's speech will be entirely worthless if he expects us to go on arming and financing the very people who made this trackdown into such a needlessly long, arduous and costly one.
What Obama does next will help define the legacy of Osama Bin Laden.

SLATE
By Christopher Hitchens
May 2, 2011

There are several pleasant little towns like Abbottabad in Pakistan, strung out along the roads that lead toward the mountains from Rawalpindi (the garrison town of Pakistani's military brass and, until 2003, a safe-house for Khalid Sheik Muhammed). Muzaffarabad, Abbottabad … cool in summer and winter, with majestic views and discreet amenities. The colonial British—like Maj. James Abbott, who gave his name to this one—called them "hill stations," designed for the rest and recreation of commissioned officers. The charming idea, like the location itself, survives among the Pakistani officer corps. If you tell me that you are staying in a rather nice walled compound in Abbottabad, I can tell you in return that you are the honored guest of a military establishment that annually consumes several billion dollars of American aid. It's the sheer blatancy of it that catches the breath.

There's perhaps some slight satisfaction to be gained from this smoking-gun proof of official Pakistani complicity with al-Qaida, but in general it only underlines the sense of anticlimax. After all, who did not know that the United States was lavishly feeding the same hands that fed Bin Laden? There's some minor triumph, also, in the confirmation that our old enemy was not a heroic guerrilla fighter but the pampered client of a corrupt and vicious oligarchy that runs a failed and rogue state.

But, again, we were aware of all this already. At least we won't have to put up with a smirking video when the 10th anniversary of his best-known atrocity comes around. Come to think of it, though, he hadn't issued any major communiqués on any subject lately (making me wonder, some time ago, if he hadn't actually died or been accidentally killed already), and the really hateful work of his group and his ideology was being carried out by a successor generation like his incomparably more ruthless clone in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. I find myself hoping that, like Zarqawi, Bin Laden had a few moments at the end to realize who it was who had found him and to wonder who the traitor had been. That would be something. Not much, but something.

In what people irritatingly call "iconic" terms, Bin Laden certainly had no rival. The strange, scrofulous quasi-nobility and bogus spirituality of his appearance was appallingly telegenic, and it will be highly interesting to see whether this charisma survives the alternative definition of revolution that has lately transfigured the Muslim world. The most tenaciously lasting impression of all, however, is that of his sheer irrationality. What had the man thought he was doing? Ten years ago, did he expect, let alone desire, to be in a walled compound in dear little Abbottabad?

Ten years ago, I remind you, he had a gigantic influence in one rogue and failed state—Afghanistan—and was exerting an increasing force over its Pakistani neighbor. Taliban and al-Qaida sympathizers were in senior positions in the Pakistani army and nuclear program and had not yet been detected as such. Huge financial subventions flowed his way, often through official channels, from Saudi Arabia and other gulf states. As well as running a nihilist international, he was the head of a giant and profitable network of banking and money-laundering. He could order heavy artillery wheeled up to destroy the Buddhist treasures of Afghanistan in broad daylight. A nexus of madrassas was spreading the word from Indonesia to London, just as a nexus of camps was schooling future murderers.

And he decided to gamble all these ripening strategic advantages in a single day. Then, not only did he run away from Afghanistan, leaving his deluded followers to be killed in very large numbers, but he chose to remain a furtive and shady figure, on whom the odds of a successful covert "hit," or bought-and-paid-for betrayal, were bound to lengthen every day.

It seems thinkable that he truly believed his own mad propaganda, often adumbrated on tapes and videos, especially after the American scuttle from Somalia. The West, he maintained, was rotten with corruption and run by cabals of Jews and homosexuals. It had no will to resist. It had become feminized and cowardly. One devastating psychological blow and the rest of the edifice would gradually follow the Twin Towers in a shower of dust. Well, he and his fellow psychopaths did succeed in killing thousands in North America and Western Europe, but in the past few years, their main military triumphs have been against such targets as Afghan schoolgirls, Shiite Muslim civilians, and defenseless synagogues in Tunisia and Turkey. Has there ever been a more contemptible leader from behind, or a commander who authorized more blanket death sentences on bystanders?

Theocratic irrationality is not so uncommon that defeats like this are enough to render it unattractive. No doubt some braggarts will continue to tell instant opinion polls in the region that they regard him as a holy sheik or some such drivel. (Funny how those polls never picked up the local appetite for constitutional democracy.) With any luck, there will even be demented rumors that Bin Laden is not "really" dead. Fine: He'd probably already done the worst damage he was going to do. In anything describable as the real world, his tactics were creating antibodies and antagonists, or no longer matched observable conditions, or had at least hit diminishing returns. From Baghdad to Bali, it has been conclusively demonstrated that Bin-Ladenism is the cause of poverty, misery, and unemployment and not—as some know-nothings used to claim—a response to it.

The martyr of Abbottabad is no more, and the competing Führer-complexes of his surviving underlings will perhaps now enjoy an exciting free rein. Yet the uniformed and anonymous patrons of that sheltered Abbottabad compound are still very much with us, and Obama's speech will be entirely worthless if he expects us to go on arming and financing the very people who made this trackdown into such a needlessly long, arduous and costly one.

© 2011 The Slate Group, LLC.

[hernkingAnank]

This seems to be the current meme, that it was all about Obama. But it's a bunch of bunk ...

If you look at the transcript of Obama's speech you'll see he used "I' about 10 times in the course of the nearly 10-minute speech. Many referred to what Obama personally did, leading up to and after getting OBL:
"... I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda"

Only the President can give such a direction.
"Tonight, I called President Zardari, and my team has also spoken with their Pakistani counterparts." Note how he immediately credits his "team' for their actions.

This excerpt contains the most concentrated use of "I" (he said it 3 times here). But he's describing the actions he took as Commander in Chief. That's a one-person gig ...
... last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. I guess it would have gone better for the pundits (polarizing Republicans in hiding) if he had referred to himself as the third person... "the President of the USA did this", "the President called so and so"


Like Jimmy:

[KraskiNetu]

The SOB even had the nerve to grab a woman and try to shield himself behind her, and SHE was killed as well!!!