Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

So many bastards, so little time.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Elections aren’t won by handwringing, cowering, and/or bashing your own candidates.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Accountability, motherfuckers.

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148Comments

  4. 4.

    AkaDad

    Not knowing who the #2 is makes Al Qaeda even more dangerous. Thanks for nothing, Obama.

  5. 5.

    stuckinred

    Even the dyed-in-the-wool Obama hater Neal Boortz just said “I’m proud of our military and I’m proud of our President”

  7. 7.

    TooManyPaulWs

    al-Zawahiri wants a fight. I doubt he’s crapping his pants. He’s probably giddy with the idea of striking targets in Egypt and elswhere.

  8. 8.

    cyd

    Does no one else feel the least bit queasy at the trampling of the principle of national sovereignty? This operation makes a mockery of international law.

  9. 9.

    Fred

    @AkaDad: BAhahahahah! Obama is smarter, richer, luckier, and better looking than you, and he is your president. And he is black. And there is NOTHING you can do about it except let that hate eat your soul like a cancer!

  10. 10.

    New Yorker

    I wish we had gotten the #2. Zawahiri is more dangerous than bin Laden, IMHO.

    It’s the al Qaeda #3 who is like Spinal Tap drummers.

  13. 13.

    RossInDetroit

    @cyd:
    Our biggest enemy was hiding in a neighborhood of Pakistani military officers. So, no. Fuck them.

  14. 14.

    Chris

    @Chad N Freude:

    Maybe. But this creates an opening for a new CEO.

    Yeah, for better or for worse that was one of my first thoughts. Bin Laden, dead: presumably, that means Zawahiri inherits the franchise. A man whom, interestingly, Bin Laden’s hand-picked biographer describes as “the real brains behind al-Qaeda.”

  15. 15.

    Mike Kay (Team America)

    @Fred: ROTFLOL!

    May 2, 1945: Hitler dies

    May 2, 2003: Bush declares “Mission Accomplished” in a Halloween costume.

    May 2, 2011: President Obama kill bin Laden.

  16. 16.

    Emma

    AkaDad: You are a… I don’t know exactly what you are. I can’t say “stupid” because I don’t know you at all and it could turn out you’re a fairly bright guy in spite of the evidence. “Unthinking” might work, because it doesn’t occur to you that the people who were good enough to plan and carry out this operation already figured out the basics, which include preparing for backlashes. So… troll. Yep.

  20. 20.

    Wag

    @cyd:

    This operation makes a mockery of international law

    You would have to be an idiot not to realize that a select few in the Pakistani government approved this raid.

    I also seriously doubt that the average person in the street in Pakistan will mourn OBL.

  21. 21.

    Turgidson

    I was randomly awake at 4am pacific today and turned Morning Joke on for just long enough for him to proclaim that Obama angered his base in doing this. Took about 8 seconds. what a useless jackass that guy is. Even on OBL day he can’t help but proclaim the left to be a bunch of pussies. Must really burn him that it was our president that got it done.

  22. 22.

    piratedan

    well lets see if Zawahiri spends his “assets” in a revengeful fashion. I kinda doubt it and I suspect he may be looking over his shoulder quite a bit while waiting for targets of opportunity. The “war” isn’t won but this is still a significant victory/achievement, Obama has cut the head off the snake. It’s like that scene from the Untouchables, it would have to make you nervous to know that the inner circle can be breached, especially with the way that Bin Laden lived the last few years and the case that if he could have been tagged in Pakistan, then just where is it safe to be?

  23. 23.

    AkaDad

    @Emma:

    I’ve been posting here longer than most people. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m satirizing Conservatives.

  26. 26.

    DZ

    @Mike Kay:

    I like the progression, but, just for the record, Hitler died on April 30, 1945

  27. 27.

    Earl Butz

    Maybe. But this creates an opening for a new CEO.

    @Chad N Freude: It kind of doesn’t. Zawahiri – who, BTW, we KNOW is in Pakistan – is the only other guy who would acceptable and he really has no interest in the job. He’s more of a “brains behind the throne” type than a leader.

    Al Qaeda is not in a good place this morning. Their superstar, their Che, is dead and they really didn’t have plans for a successor. Will we see the last of them? Hell no. But they will be small, 1-4 man cells who plants shitty little butane bombs with notes saying “love, Al-Qaeda” because the name is the only asset they have left.

    In short, they will be the Eric Robert Rudolphs of the Muslim world. Living out of dumpsters and in people’s basements.

  28. 28.

    PeakVT

    The reporting has changed since early this morning, and this is likely the location of the compound, not here. The new location is still quite close to the various military bases, but doesn’t have as many other buildings in the immediate vicinity.

  30. 30.

    George W Bush

    This thing about . . . let’s put 100,000 of our special forces stomping through Pakistan in order to find bin Laden is just simply not the strategy that will work.

  31. 31.

    Fred

    @Chris: Next in line and the focus of all those freed up intelligence analysts. If I were him I would be laying low for the next…errum….rest of his soon to be made even shorter life!

  32. 32.

    BruceK

    I’m invoking Poe’s Law. Getting tough to tell the snark from the genuine crazy without a cheat sheet.

  33. 33.

    RossInDetroit

    Last night Fox was speculating that taking out OBL would embolden AQ to carry out reprisal attacks and show their strength. Like they had been hanging back with a chip on their shoulder waiting to be provoked.

    Tools.

  34. 34.

    sven

    Two things to remember:

    In 2008 when the economy collapsed and the government bailed out the filthy banksters only Obama was responsible.

    In 2011 when a covert strike in Pakistan killed enemy of America Osama Bin Laden only George Bush was responsible.

    Don’t let anyone tell you any different…

  35. 35.

    WereBear

    @Earl Butz: In short, they will be the Eric Robert Rudolphs of the Muslim world. Living out of dumpsters and in people’s basements.

    Yep. They used to have this super-rich, super-influential head guy who did a big thing and then evaded justice… until now.

    Now… they are failures.

  36. 36.

    Chris

    @Earl Butz:

    Al Qaeda is not in a good place this morning. Their superstar, their Che, is dead and they really didn’t have plans for a successor. Will we see the last of them? Hell no. But they will be small, 1-4 man cells who plants shitty little butane bombs with notes saying “love, Al-Qaeda” because the name is the only asset they have left.

    Check out Al Jazeera: http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/20115272712668919.html. The op-ed writer makes the interesting point that Bin Laden had already “died” in a sense years ago, and that the Arab Spring uprising was a big nail in his coffin by putting the lie to his claim that only through him and his revolution could the Muslims of the world free themselves.

    It is a fact that al-Qaeda’s name has been mud among most Muslims for several years now. Not that they were ever as revered as they claim, but it’s far worse now.

  37. 37.

    GregB

    That Bin Laden was living in a rather palatial estate seems to also fly in the face about him being an ascetic lving off the land too.

    I imagine some young men are burning their Qaeda draft cards and deciding on a new line of work.

  38. 38.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @cyd: No, because international law allows actions inside a sovereign country in cases just like this. That’s one of the reasons Iran is in a hurry to get nukes.

    @Earl Butz: I read “Eric Robert Rudolphs” as “Eric Roberts.” In the name being the only asset, it still made sense.

  39. 39.

    Punchy

    Don’t know if this has been mentioned, or even if it’s true, but read on da ‘nets that May 1, 1945 was the date Hitler was announced dead. And now OBL on May 1 as well. Again, can’t verify, but interesting if true.

  40. 40.

    AkaDad

    Rush is saying we got this info from a detainee at Gitmo who may have been waterboarded. Obama deserves credit for following Bush’s policies.

  41. 41.

    Chris

    @GregB:

    That Bin Laden was living in a rather palatial estate seems to also fly in the face about him being an ascetic lving off the land too.
    ….
    I imagine some young men are burning their Qaeda draft cards and deciding on a new line of work.

    “Come join al Qaeda, we have mansions!”

  42. 42.

    RossInDetroit

    OBL may not have been the planner behind AQ’s terror attacks but he was the charismatic leader and figurehead. Taking him out of the picture may not interrupt their operations in the short term but it’s a blow to their recruiting and image. That does a lot of damage in the long term.

  43. 43.

    Mike Kay (Team America)

    remember when then candidate Barack Obama said if he had actionable intelligence on Bin Laden’s location he would authorize a cross border raid into Pakistan, and the republican candidates, including McCain, rebuked him for proposing to violate Pakistan’s sovereignty.

    I wish media matters/Rachel Maddow would dig up those clips.

  44. 44.

    New Yorker

    @Chris:

    Yes. In a way, I’m actually glad the cockroach lived to see his bete noir, the Egyptian government, overthrown….by a peaceful mass movement of liberal students and workers and intellectuals. That must’ve really burned him after all his propaganda about how jihad was the only way to fight against the Mubaraks of the world.

  46. 46.

    Mike Kay (Team America)

    Obot Alert

    The President and First Lady will be appearing on the Oprah Winfrey show today, check local listings.

  48. 48.

    eemom

    @AkaDad:

    You do an obvious spoof, people say it’s too obvious. You do a clever, subtle spoof, and people think it’s for real.

    You can’t win on this blog. Ain’t no use in trying.

  49. 49.

    stuckinred

    Very similar to the ill-fated Son-Tay Raid that tried to rescue President McCain.

    n addition to being potentially destructive of both evidence and civilian life, attacking the compound with B-2 stealth bombers was also determined to be operationally risky. The president and his team, instead, asked that the plan be revised to allow for a Navy SEALs unit to be transported in via helicopter. Training for that took time. The Navy SEALs unit “replicated the one-acre compound at Camp Alpha, a segregated section of Bagram Air Base. Trial runs were held in early April,” Marc Ambinder of the National Journal reported.

  50. 50.

    Chris

    @New Yorker:

    Yes. In a way, I’m actually glad the cockroach lived to see his bete noir, the Egyptian government, overthrown….by a peaceful mass movement of liberal students and workers and intellectuals. That must’ve really burned him after all his propaganda about how jihad was the only way to fight against the Mubaraks of the world.

    They got boned even earlier than that, by Hamas in 2005. They’d been criticizing it for years for participating in democratic elections, saying that it was silly and blasphemous and that only by restoring the Caliphate could Islam come to power as the Prophet intended because democracy was a Satanic Western invention and all that…

    Then Hamas won the Gaza elections and left them with egg on their faces.

  52. 52.

    Alex S.

    I’m torn between getting out of Afghanistan right now, and trying to kill Al-Zawahiri and Mullah Omar, not that I have to do it myself…

  54. 54.

    JCT

    @piratedan: The other “unsettling” thing for al-Zawahiri was the high degree of secrecy for this operation and the use of detainees for information. He obviously has to assume he is a target and now he knows what the current admin is capable of besides just blowing up gatherings from drones. Coupled to his really bad year that started with the Egyptian uprisings — he’s got to be tweaked.

  56. 56.

    Jay C

    @cyd:

    Is that more, less, or an equal level of mockery-of-international-law than a “sovereign nation” allowing an internationally-wanted terrorist criminal to live in ease in one their cities for five years – the site of the Pakistani West Point, no less?

    Please let us know where that falls on the mockery-scale.

  57. 57.

    gnomedad

    @AkaDad:

    Rush is saying we got this info from a detainee at Gitmo who may have been waterboarded. Obama deserves credit for following Bush’s policies.

    I knew he wouldn’t let us down. When you’re not obsessed with reality everything is clear.

  59. 59.

    Bob

    @cyd:

    Does no one else feel the least bit queasy at the trampling of the principle of national sovereignty?

    No. Sorry, there was no choice.

  63. 63.

    Fred

    @gelfling545: The helicopters apparently were based in Pakistan and Pakistan had to, at the very least, been notified about US Helicopters in their airspace.

  65. 65.

    srv

    @GregB: The pics at ABC news don’t look palatial. The complex looks to be as much a prison as a safe house. Bet he’s been there since it was built.

  66. 66.

    MonkeyBoy

    I’m waiting for deathers to emerge from Wingnutosphere – people claiming that OBL’s death was faked.

    I can’t imagine any elected or “serious candidate” Republican jumping on this bandwagon but you never know. After all is it wrong just to bring up “unanswered questions”.

  67. 67.

    AkaDad

    @gnomedad:

    I kind of figured that was how he was going to spin it.

    After 9/11 everyone rallied around Bush, but the Republicans can’t do the same for Obama. It’s disgusting and pathetic.

  70. 70.

    Josie

    I would be willing to bet there is a parallel investigation and ongoing planning for an operation to take out Zawahiri as well. Our president and his security people can walk and chew gum at the same time.

  72. 72.

    Sanka

    So let me get this straight

    Leftists now APPROVE of waterboarding brown people at a military detention center outside of US legal jurisdiction to gain information for clandestine raids into countries with which the USA is not at war to kill people without trial?

    Do I have this right? Because it seems that the same people who wanted to string Bush/Cheney up for “war crimes” not even three years ago, are now claiming victory or something.

  73. 73.

    soonergrunt

    @cyd: National sovereignty only exists for those states that can actually enforce it. It has ever been thus. The whole purpose of a state is to maintain the security of the nation and its territory.
    Since the nation and state of Pakistan was harboring this guy, one can safely assume that somebody in the Pakistani state thought that doing so was advantageous to Pakistan’s interests, and that it was further worth whatever blowback they might suffer if it were discovered.

  74. 74.

    cckids

    Just read this at politicususa, , and it is said pretty well (also gives BJ a shout-out). Here’s a sample:

    Yes, it is OK to feel proud of this and yes, it is OK to gloat a bit. They want to shame you into not being proud, but we know better than to let the right wing set the agenda for this country. Do remember what Bush and Republicans said about Clinton not getting Osama and do remember that for 10 years plus, they have been calling Democrats unpatriotic and weak. Think of Max Clelland and John Kerry being swiftboated and remember, it was a lie and never again. Be proud, and own this moment. You fought hard to get someone smart in the White House. This is why.

    Amen.
    edited for typo

  76. 76.

    Lavocat

    Nah. They should just take a page from the Blackwater/Xe playbook and just rebrand themselves.

    Hmmm. “The Republicans” seems to be available.

  77. 77.

    Earl Butz

    Does no one else feel the least bit queasy at the trampling of the principle of national sovereignty?

    @cyd: No. Next question.

  78. 78.

    kt

    Very smart of Obama to bury Osama at sea. Since there is no grave site, it can never be turned into a shrine. Next step should be to raze the compound where Osama has been living and turn it into a McDonald’s

  79. 79.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Actually, I doubt very much if we ever killed a REAL #2 or #3. After all, you could just invent a name, put it in a press release, and say you did, and no one would ever know the difference because it’s all so ridiculously inside baseball in the first place. Not likely that anyone in the MSM would ever question it, after all.

  80. 80.

    lacp

    Just you wait for that backlash, when dozens of outraged B-Team AQers start blowing their underwear up in airports all over the world….

  83. 83.

    Nemesis

    @Sanka: You have zero proof that waterboarded detainees provided this info. Its all speculation and rw noise machine stuff .

  84. 84.

    eemom

    Once again, more than 12 hours and numerous posts have elapsed since this momentous news was reported, and I STILL have not been informed what Andrew Sullivan has to say about it.

    WTF, Cole?

  86. 86.

    cathyx

    Wow, I’m so glad that Osama Bin Laden is dead. We can finally bring all our troops home and end these three wars.
    Wait, what?

  87. 87.

    cbear

    I wonder if the current Al Qaeda Goopers #2 and #3 are thinking it is about damned time someone else took a bullet?

    They already did—his name is Donald Trump.

  88. 88.

    Chris

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Actually, I doubt very much if we ever killed a REAL #2 or #3. After all, you could just invent a name, put it in a press release, and say you did, and no one would ever know the difference because it’s all so ridiculously inside baseball in the first place. Not likely that anyone in the MSM would ever question it, after all.

    Anybody here know “Les Guignols De L’Info,” the French version of the Daily Show starring animated puppet versions of real people?

    Osama Bin Laden was one of their better puppets, and there was one episode years ago when he was being “interviewed” by a French TV anchor asking him what he was going to do.

    “Your organization’s on the run! The Americans are getting to the top of your organization, and you’ll be finished!”
    “What organization? What top? You think we have a corporate headquarters?”
    “Well, I mean, they just caught the number three in al-Qaeda. They’ve never been closer to you. Doesn’t that bother you?”
    “A bit, but I’ve taken care of it: everybody’s rotated and I became Number 5,720.”

  89. 89.

    trollhattan

    @PeakVT:

    The compound might be big by the standards of most al Qaeda members’ homes, but it’s not exactly a modern palace.

    We won’t really know until we’ve checked the countertops. I’m guessing they’re overly nice (for a lair).

  90. 90.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @cathyx: Since neither Iraq nor Libya have ever had anything to do with bin Laden, your logic falls a bit short. FWIW I would like to see Obama use this as a declare victory moment and step up the drawdowns from both iraq and Afghanistan.

  91. 91.

    Amy

    Steve Coll, in the New Yorker, says that Al-Zawahiri is not as good a leader. OBL knew how to calm folks down but #2 tends to rub people the wrong way. Oh, and Pakistan had to know he was there.

    And one of the commenters to Coll’s piece writes:

    Apparantly this building was in a cantonment area of Abottabad – anyone who lives in Pakistan knows that every cantonment area in Pakistan can only be accessed by driving through at least one, sometimes several police/military checkpoints. It’s incredulous to think that anyone not resenbling a Punjabi, much less a Saud or Yemeni, or a very recognisable person could have un-limited access to a cantonment area. Are we to assume that for 3-5 years no one saw him enter or leave the cantonment? No one sought to stop his sons who are not Pakistanis from driving into the cantonement area?

    Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/05/notes-on-the-death-of-osama-bin-laden.html#ixzz1LDOsTNmV

  92. 92.

    James Hare

    @Sanka:
    Hey, we tried to get him to come along peacefully. He declined the invitation apparently.

    We don’t know how the intelligence that led to his capture was developed. If it was produced through torture that is very distressing; however, that doesn’t make it a bad thing he’s dead. Kind of like it’s not a bad thing Saddam Hussein is dead even if the Iraq war was a bad idea.

    We do have the right to capture and try guys like OBL, right? He resisted arrest. I won’t shed a tear for his passing. I hope we can find out that it was a result of good intelligence work free of torture. That we have to ask the question is really sad.

  93. 93.

    MonkeyBoy

    @MonkeyBoy:

    I’m waiting for deathers to emerge from Wingnutosphere – people claiming that OBL’s death was faked.

    Checking out one story, Will killing Osama kill the movement he inspired? with reader comments from Colorado Springs (which is full of Obama deranged wingnuts), I already find comments:

    Sandra2: Why don’t I believe this? Probably because Bin Laden was reported dead back in the late 90’s of Kidney failure. … It’s all another Obama lie.

    disaffiliate: Where is the proof he is dead? I am not a gullible idiot that believes everything my government claims.

  94. 94.

    trollhattan

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    @Sanka: Link? Reputable source? Or crap you pulled from your ass?

    I’m voting Ass, 1, Ginormous Storage Capacity.

    He/she/it hasn’t been around for awhile. Gosh, another void in my life refilled.

  95. 95.

    Mike in NC

    @eemom:

    It would appear that Sully has momentarily shaken off his Paul Ryan man-crush:

    In my view, the president who found and killed Osama bin Laden will be very hard not to re-elect. Now the association between his name and his enemy’s will be an asset: Obama killed Osama. A few tea-party fanatics will have their heads explode. And the Big Lie that Obama is somehow not a strong president is debunked – because strength doesn’t actually mean being inflammatory on Fox News, it means exercizing patience, quiet and resolve to get what you want. That Obama also helped prevent a Great Depression – with zero Republican votes – and brought universal health insurance to America? All we need now is a debt deal. And the only way that’s possible before the election is if Obama looks highly likely to win it. That likelihood just increased today.

  97. 97.

    BOSS BITCH

    Obama is “entitled to call President Bush and ask if he can borrow the ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner because he was able to do it,” Frank added.

    -Barney Frank

  98. 98.

    Chris

    @trollhattan:

    We won’t really know until we’ve checked the countertops. I’m guessing they’re overly nice (for a lair).

    Feh. No hollowed out volcanos, no tropical island hideaway, no French château, no stealth ship, no floating island. NOOB.

  99. 99.

    Poopyman

    @kt: ZOMG! Are you kidding!?!?!? Now they have an opportunity to worship OBL over something like 70% of the earth! FAIL!

    OTOH, now we know what those Muslims are doing when they go to the beach this summer.

  100. 100.

    piratedan

    stolen from one of the football boards I frequent…..

    With the 255th pick in his year’s NFL Draft, Hell selects, Osama Bin Ladin, Terrorist, Al-Qaida.

  101. 101.

    Kilkee

    @MonkeyBoy: My favorite on the Colorado Springs board is the woman who expresses disbelief based on a January 2002 article in which Musharraf speculated that he could be dead from kidney disease. Sigh.

  103. 103.

    Sanka

    @Omnes Omnibus: Reports are that the source of all of the operation goes back several years to KSM, who was captured and remains in detention at Gitmo. KSM you will recall, got some water up the shnoz was waterboarded over 100 times. I remember because this blog was full of pearl-clutching, hand-wringing milquetoasts, who were decrying the evils of the previous administration for ordering said tactics and demanded “justice” for war crimes and how they just wanted to round up brown people for shitts and giggles.

    And oh yeah, the whiners were also crying about how the waterboarded would only “tell interrogators what they wanted to hear”.

    But I guess its all good now, eh? Move along, nothing to see here…

  105. 105.

    J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford

    @Sanka:

    Yes, we’ve heard this talking point hours ago.

    You must be a proud little parrot. Sanka want a cracker?

  106. 106.

    Alex S.

    @Sanka:

    Eh, show me this report. I’ve heard that the crucial information had been acquired last August – one and half year after the end of torture at Gitmo.

  107. 107.

    Strandedvandal

    @Sanka: WTF are you babbling on about? Do you honestly not think that we KNOW you are quoting winger BS? Maybe you should wake up and smell the coffee sweetpea.

  109. 109.

    Alex S.

    Also, I wonder if we assumed that Bin Laden was in a cave in the mountains only because that’s what people ‘confessed’ under torture, knowing that it would be impossible to confirm or refute.

  110. 110.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Sanka: I asked for a link. From a reliable source. Your unsupported assertion, unfortunately, does not qualify as either one.

  113. 113.

    BOSS BITCH

    fucking mayor bloomberg just gave 90% of the credit to fucking george bush. gushing about how he stood there on ground zero and announced that he would bring osama to justice and all that we see today is due to his leadership. Only time he said Obama’s name was to refer to him as “commander in chief” and to say how Obama himself mentioned bush in his late night announcement.

    WHAT THE FUCK?

    the guy who took the microphone after bloomberg, however, did thank Obama and used his full title.

  114. 114.

    JCT

    @Omnes Omnibus: Not to mention that it has been repeatedly noted by intelligence folks that KSM had given everything up that was useful BEFORE he was waterboarded.
    Sanka, Rush is not a reputable source, just so you know.

    @BOSS BITCH: Ah yes, Mayor Bloomberg — wasn’t he one of the pearl-clutchers who was AFRAID to have KSM tried down in Manhattan?

  115. 115.

    gypsy howell

    @BOSS BITCH:

    Is Barney Frank so completely bamboozled about why we’re in Iraq that he thinks that Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” stunt was about Bin Laden?

  117. 117.

    Earl Butz

    Reports are that the source of all of the operation goes back several years to KSM, who was captured and remains in detention at Gitmo.

    @Sanka: Rush Limbaugh ratfucks reports, you repeat.

    Haven’t seen you around in a while.

  118. 118.

    soonergrunt

    @Sanka: Your claims are as fake as the product for which you named yourself.
    Appropriate, that.

  119. 119.

    Gravenstone

    @Sanka:

    Leftists now APPROVE of waterboarding brown people at a military detention center outside of US legal jurisdiction to gain information for clandestine raids into countries with which the USA is not at war to kill people without trial?

    I realize your a fucking idiot, so I’ll go slow.

    No. We (okay, at least I)do not approve of waterboarding people to obtain information or evidence. The point of fact that the courier’s name may have come from that sort of interrogation (currently only supposition)is irrelevant at this point. That (potential) damage was done under the prior administration. The fact that this administration sought to see if that information might be useful is what’s known as “making lemonade from lemons”. That they were able to actually make use of this information is nothing short of spectacular. And for yor little Fail Bomb about not bringing ObL in for trial, I submit the information that his surrender was solicited, and he refused, leading to his death in the subsequent firefight.

    But hey, thanks for playing Wingtard Concern Troll Theater!

  120. 120.

    cyd

    @RossInDetroit:

    Our biggest enemy was hiding in a neighborhood of Pakistani military officers. So, no. Fuck them.

    Then declare war.

    People were complaining, rightly, when Israel assassinated that Palestinian leader in Dubai, but this helicopter-and-commandos operation is way more blatant. Imagine if China was hunting down a political dissident living in New York, and sent in a team of commandos (or, as Obamba originally planned, bombed the apartment building). They would have no right. I’m not drawing a moral equivalence between political dissidents and OBL (who deserved everything he had coming to him), just pointing out that the concept of sovereignty exists for a reason.

  121. 121.

    Ash Can

    @Sanka: You mean the information the FBI says it got without resorting to the torture you falsely claim was effective? And which the Bush Administration gave up on anyway when it shut down the operation tasked with finding OBL in 2006, and W claimed he’d stopped caring about OBL altogether?

    Seriously, I feel sorry for you. This is all you have — you’re grasping at straws, hoping that the smoke and mirrors of the threadbare spin you’re desperately clinging to will be enough to make people forget or ignore the facts of the previous ten years. Anything but admitting that you were wrong about this, that the truth really is the truth.

    You poor thing.

  122. 122.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @cyd: Evidence for your assertion that this was done without the, at least tacit, approval of Pakistan? Were the Israelis wrong to grab Eichmann?

  125. 125.

    TenguPhule

    People were complaining, rightly, when Israel assassinated that Palestinian leader in Dubai, but this helicopter-and-commandos operation is way more blatant.

    If the host country is apparently fully in cahoots with said international criminal in defiance of international law, whatch gonna do?

  126. 126.

    Mnemosyne

    Steve Benen has an interesting take on this: al-Qaeda has been losing power for years, and this could potentially be the death blow to them.

    They spent years trying to convince their fellow Muslims that the only way to get out from under their repressive governments was violence, and now events in places like Tunisia and Egypt have put the lie to that.

  127. 127.

    BOSS BITCH

    @JCT:

    Ah yes, Mayor Bloomberg—wasn’t he one of the pearl-clutchers who was AFRAID to have KSM tried down in Manhattan?

    yep. for it before he was against it.

  128. 128.

    Chris

    @Sanka:

    And once again, the FBI guy who actually interrogated KSM came out after the fact and said that everything he said either was extracted without torture or could have been. That’s a point in our favor, not yours.

    But sure, go on grasping as many straws as you can to avoid facing the simple fact that the current hand-wringing milquetoast pussy-ass liberal president accomplished in just a little over two years what your phony cowboy-wannabe deserter in chief couldn’t do for his entire administration.

  129. 129.

    jwb

    @Sanka: As always, you’re nothing if not well-named. Weak joe, man. Come back when you’ve got something better.

  130. 130.

    BOSS BITCH

    @gypsy howell:

    Is Barney Frank so completely bamboozled about why we’re in Iraq that he thinks that Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” stunt was about Bin Laden?

    I seriously doubt Frank is bamboozled by anything.

  131. 131.

    cyd

    @Omnes Omnibus: According to the NYT article from this morning, Obama informed Pakistani President Ali Zardari about the operation only after it was underway. No doubt it was a offer Zardari couldn’t refuse.

    At the end of the day, OBL might well end up taking the Pakistani state out with him, which means hello loose nukes.

  132. 132.

    Elie

    @eemom:

    Well, since he got over, using his shtick, seems like he got what he wanted. What else would a spoof want?

  133. 133.

    Mnemosyne

    @Sanka:

    So you’re saying that the Bush Administration knew exactly where bin Laden was all this time and didn’t bother to go after him? Because that’s the only way you can claim this all happened thanks to torture.

  134. 134.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @cyd: If the Pakistani state collapses over this, its collapse was simply inevitable anyway. It is not as though we this was the first cross-border incursion by US forces. Moreover, in response to complaints regarding infringement of sovereignty, the US can simply point to the fact that the world’s most wanted man was apparently in Pakistan in conditions that make it rather unlikely that he was hidden from the government. If they were hiding him, they are not in a position to complain. If one faction in the government was hiding him, Zardari should understand why he wasn’t informed ahead of time. I am not all that worried about this.

  135. 135.

    Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal

    @Poopyman:

    sure that is good news for the fundamentalist evangelical terrorist muslims, their shrine is as close as the nearest beach….

    but its great news for the next season of jersey shore.

    the sitch,snookie, the rest of the crew are getting some new roommates, fundie islamic jihadists, hilarity and drama ensue.

  136. 136.

    Brachiator

    @cyd:

    I’m not drawing a moral equivalence between political dissidents and OBL

    Actually, you are.

    just pointing out that the concept of sovereignty exists for a reason.

    And, so?

    At the end of the day, OBL might well end up taking the Pakistani state out with him, which means hello loose nukes.

    A lot of stuff might happen. Might not.

  137. 137.

    Mnemosyne

    @cyd:

    How do you reconcile your conviction that the Pakistani government was completely ignorant of the operation with the crash of the Pakistan army’s helicopter during the operation? I would think that having members of Pakistan’s army participating in the raid would preclude your notion that the US just barged over the border uninvited.

  138. 138.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mnemosyne: Maybe I missed something, but that article does not appear to indicate that the helicopter was Pakistani.

  139. 139.

    Mnemosyne

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Hmm. I’m seeing different reports in different places. This is what MSNBC is saying today:

    Initial reports were that it was a Pakistani helicopter, but Pakistan has limited night-flying capabilities for its choppers and other reports and witnesses said it was a U.S. helicopter that had suffered mechanical failure and was ditched.

  140. 140.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mnemosyne: Let’s also consider that, with no disrespect intended to the Pakistani military pilots, US special ops folk are going to want to use their people on a mission like this. I still don’t really see an issue with what happened here. Hell, the legal justification is the same one that was used, and accepted throughout the world, as justification for the invasion of Afghanistan. The country was providing shelter for, and refusing to turn over to US forces, OBL.

  141. 141.

    cyd

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    the legal justification is the same one that was used, and accepted throughout the world, as justification for the invasion of Afghanistan.

    I must have missed the UN resolution authorizing US military action in Pakistan.

  145. 145.

    cyd

    @Omnes Omnibus: The US may have had justification, but lacked authorization. Its troops went into Pakistan with no apparent legal basis, relying instead on the basis of “might makes right”—the same one employed for all those drone strikes, which were rightly condemned here on this site during more clear-eyed times.

  146. 146.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @cyd: I am going to guess that you lack a background in international law, and I am going leave to your opinion now.

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