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Subscribe to RSSThe New York Times front-pages, “For years, the agonizing search for Osama bin Laden kept coming up empty. Then last July, Pakistanis working for the Central Intelligence Agency drove up behind a white Suzuki navigating the bustling streets near Peshawar, Pakistan, and wrote down the car’s license plate. The man in the car was Bin Laden’s most trusted courier, and over the next month C.I.A. operatives would track him throughout central Pakistan. Ultimately, administration officials said, he led them to a sprawling compound at the end of a long dirt road and surrounded by tall security fences in a wealthy hamlet 35 miles from the Pakistani capital.”
“On a moonless night eight months later, 79 American commandos in four helicopters descended on the compound, the officials said. Shots rang out. A helicopter stalled and would not take off. Pakistani authorities, kept in the dark by their allies in Washington, scrambled forces as the American commandos rushed to finish their mission and leave before a confrontation. Of the five dead, one was a tall, bearded man with a bloodied face and a bullet in his head. A member of the Navy Seals snapped his picture with a camera and uploaded it to analysts who fed it into a facial recognition program.”
As NBC’s Savannah Guthrie reported on “Nightly News” last night, the operation had a code word to indicate the successful kill or capture of bin Laden: "Geronimo.” A senior US official told Guthrie that the actual transmission from the ground commander at the compound to the operational commander in Afghanistan was: "For God and country: Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo."
More from Guthrie: The intel community located the bin Laden courier's compound in August. At that point, surveillance and planning commenced.
Obama was presented with four main options ("courses of actions" or COAs in admin parlance) in mid March. One option was to drop 32 2,000-lb JDAMs from stealth bombers. It was planned out of Whiteman AFB, but ultimately rejected. The concern was it would obliterate the entire neighborhood and produce no DNA, no body, and significant collateral damage. Other options were a joint raid with Pakistanis or a clandestine operation -- both rejected.
The special ops team conducted two "rehearsals" on April 7 and 13 at a mock compound on U.S. soil. After those practice sessions, the commander told the president, "This option can work."
“Dramatic details emerged yesterday of how American commandos cornered and killed Osama bin Laden in his Pakistani hideout, and President Obama pronounced the world a ‘better place’ without the Al Qaeda leader,” the Boston Globe adds. Here’s an interactive slide show describing the raid.
The Washington Post: “It was a search that employed Predator drones, sophisticated signal interception equipment, networks of informants, and teams of analysts who scrutinized every video and audio recording from the al-Qaeda leader for inadvertent clues. In the end, ‘he was more or less hiding in plain sight,’ a senior U.S. intelligence official said. ‘The only resident of the compound that was taken from the site was Osama bin Laden. He died — almost certainly — from a bullet to the head.’”
“For President Obama — whom Republicans have called weak on defense and indecisive on foreign policy — the killing of Osama bin Laden represents a key moment in his presidency,” the Boston Globe’s Viser writes. But, he warns: “Still, the contours of the 2012 campaign are unlikely to change — and by the time voters go to the polls, this could be a distant memory. The race is almost certain to hinge not on issues of foreign policy, but on the domestic issues that have dogged Obama.”
“Elected officials and campaign operatives were careful Monday to avoid any suggestion that Osama bin Laden’s death would have political consequences,” Roll Call writes. “It was clear, however, that the Obama administration’s successful hunting of the world’s top terrorist shifted the 2012 electoral landscape, giving the president and his party new credibility on a potent issue as violence rages across the Middle East. But it also became evident that the road to politicize bin Laden’s death is lined with peril.”
Yet “both conservatives and liberals praised President Obama’s operation to kill Osama bin Laden, but they also used the occasion to try to score political points for their respective parties,” The Hill writes.
Stu Rothenberg: “Politically, the killing should boost the president’s standing immediately, since he delivered good news and will certainly receive credit for the successful result. Obama now has an extremely useful credential that he can use to deflect Republican criticism on foreign policy and to demonstrate his leadership and decisiveness, two qualities he has had trouble displaying.” However: “But the bump in the polls that the president should receive is likely to be short-lived,” because of domestic issues.
Charlie Cook: “Democrats will fervently hope that the public will see this as a seminal moment in which people begin to see and appreciate President Obama in a new light, much as President Bill Clinton’s speech after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, in retrospect, was a turning point for his presidency. But it might be a mistake to assume that it is a more enduring gamechanger in terms of the politics of 2012 or that it will recast Obama as much as it did for Clinton.”
The New York Post’s cover: “How we did it!”
The New York Daily News: “How we nailed him.”
The Blagojevich trial started again yesterday.
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As more and more details continue to surface about this operation, I admit being in awe of our special operations forces, the intelligence gathering, the effort and commitment it took to bring about Sunday evening's announcement that Osama bin Laden was dead. The photo of the Obama administration watching the event in real time, the intensity on the faces, sums it up.
Jody:
Very true. The was as good an outcome that one could ever hope for. Te enemy destroyed, evidence and data collected, and not one American life lost. It just does not get better than that
Thank you President Obama my Commander in Chief.
This is how it happened generally speaking. During the Bush administration some of the terrorists were waterboarded or so called torture where vital information was extracted from them. As a result, the CIA and other intelligence agencies built up an elaborate trail that led to the killing of Bin Laden. Some people will try to spin it otherwise, but when intelligence is obtained, its has to be confirmed and collated
JuvenBachan
Do you know why they try to spin it otherwise? watch this.
you see that. it's not a spin but the simply truth. He gave up searching.
I've never eaten my cake and have it.
There is an awful lot of this spin today. I can understand the reluctance to give President Obama credit. However, it's indisputable that Bush/Cheney took their eye off the ball in regards to Bin Laden and put their focus on Iraq. In fact, they were saying at one time that Bin Laden didn't matter. They pulled the troops from that region and put them in Iraq.
Why is anything the chicken-hawk Cheney Republicans have to say relevant?
Is it because 9/11 happened on the Republican watch? Is it because they decided to attack the wrong country after 9/11? Or is because to attack the wrong country they had to lie to the American public? Or maybe it was because the Cheneys advocate for the use of torture?
I believe that we can be a country that lives by the rule of law and defeats our enemies.
There is no evidence to suggest that the use of torture under the Bush admin played any role in catching OBL. The suggestion is quite insulting actually.
So instead of tossing out all our freedoms and attacking the wrong country in obvious panic, like the Republicans, Obama is showing courageous faith that a nation can live by rule of law and still defeat its enemies. That makes him your hero, right?
"...the enhanced techniques that the CIA used against some of the highest valued detainees in the war on terror were "amateurish" and that their use "plays into enemy hands", "ignores the endgame" and "diminishes the moral high ground."' (former FBI agent who witnessed the procedures.)
Well, gee, that sure flies in the face of the self-adduced "expert opinion" of a man - Cheney - who has never served or been formally trained in the military or in any law enforcement capacity or procedure. Cheney knows about as much about effective interrogation techniques as couch-potato bubba knows about triathlon training! This is what we get when we let two draft dodger chicken-hawks run the country and try to run two wars!
Just because Cheney and his right-wing psy-ops plant wants to revisit this story doesn't make it any more or less true. Truth is not generated simply by saying something over and over again. You can't market or sell me the truth. Get over yourselves you toe tapping Republican propagandist hacks.
Petraeus: Torture yields information of questionable value. Some may argue that we would be more effective if we sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain information from the enemy. That would be wrong. Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary. Certainly, extreme physical action can make someone talk; however, what the individual says may be of questionable value. [Gen. David Petraeus, Letter to Multi-National Force-Iraq]
FBI warns military interrogators: Enhanced techniques are of questionable effectiveness. Defense Department interrogators were being encouraged at times to use aggressive interrogation tactics in GTMO which are of questionable effectiveness and subject to uncertain interpretation based on law and regulation. Not only are these tactics at odds with legally permissible interviewing techniques used by U.S. law enforcement agencies in the United States, but they are being employed by personnel in GTMO who appear to have little, if any, experience eliciting information for judicial purposes. The continued use of these techniques has the potential of negatively impacting future interviews by FBI agents as they attempt to gather intelligence and prepare cases for prosecution. [FBI memo, 5/30/03]
FBI cites lack of evidence of [enhanced techniques] success. The differences between DHS and FBI interrogation techniques and the potential legal problems which could arise were discussed with DHS officials. However, they are adamant that their interrogation strategies are the best ones to use despite the lack of evidence of their success. [FBI memo, 5/30/03]
Army psychologist: Enhanced techniques do not work in intelligence-gathering. It was stressed to me time and time again that psychological investigations have proven that harsh interrogations do not work. At best it will get you information that a prisoner thinks you want to hear to make the interrogation stop, but that information is strongly likely to be false. [MAJ Paul Burney, Army’s Behavior Science Consulting Team psychologist, statement to Committee, 8/21/07. Senate Armed Services Report, p.78
The influence of the superficial viewpoints of the military-industrial complex is so insulting. Trying ever so desperately and endlessly to control the opinions of the people and those in power, so that we too will be Americans that are stupid enough to shoot first and not ask questions at all, accept those questions with answers we hope to hear gurgled through the voice box of some water suffocating prisoner.
Did we Americans torture people looking for a justification to invade Iraq? Now 4100+ US service men and women are dead and countless Iraqi civilians because Bush Inc. needed to get some oil and give Halliburton something to do. I can't believe that some Americans are OK with that. Talk about spending....how about two trillion+ tax dollars down the drain for some failed corporate hacks.
Torture does not work, it is a tool for cowards. No need to give cowards credit for anything.
The Blue Sky Tribe has not left the building......but they do want you to hate somebody.
"This is how it happened generally speaking. During the Bush administration some of the terrorists were waterboarded or so called torture where vital information was extracted from them. As a result, the CIA and other intelligence agencies built up an elaborate trail that led to the killing of Bin Laden."
Whereupon, Mr Bush went home, and promptly forgot about Mr Bin Laden.
A good time was had by all in the administration for the next several years.
Apostary,
It's clear you don't understand what the hell you're talking about! I'll just leave it at that.
Pius,
You're in the same class as the person mentioned above. Nobody gave up!
Obama did an excellent job this past weekend and he gets credit where credit it due. The intel came back from back in 2004. Either way EVERYBODY past to present did an excellent job. For you two idiots to say other wise is just plain stupidity. You two morons tell us what have you done for your country to speak such trash?
The Pentagon has said definitively that neither waterboarding nor any other "enhanced" interrogation techniques yielded the names of the couriers that was dug up in 2004. In fact, the person who talked was probably bin Laden's driver - they said at the time he sang like a canary. Many of those captured talked openly once they were in custody.
It is, in fact, irrelevant where the prisoners were when they were interrogated. The information would have been collected, regardless. Recent events do not add any more substance to having opened or retained Gitmo as a terrorist prisoner site.
However, not only did Bush/Cheney abandon the search for OBL, they did nothing with this intelligence. It was left to the Obama Administration to act.
The Bush Regime was immediately and perpetually incompetent. The Obama Administration, by contrast, has been outstandingly competent even from before the inauguration, when Bush handed to our President the task of implementing immediate relief projects to save what he could of a shattered economy.
The only credit Bush deserves is whatever change he's due after paying for his tacos in Crawford.
3WolvesandaMoon
good try. whoa.........but if bush/cheney tactics worked, why did they give up searching? yes, gave up searching. what was he doing in Iraq.......say something pal. so for 8yrs, Gtmo and almost 1trillion dollar spent, some how worked hence, he declared mission accomplished. is that how you measure success? i know........you wished.
ok, you've just won yourself the loser medal.
ApostasyUSA. Enjoyed your post, great job. You, too, John A.
"You two morons tell us what have you done for your country to speak such trash?"
Voted for Obama.
Next question, please.
JuvenBachan,
Actually.....your presumption about torture is baseless, and very likely false.
There is absolutely NO evidence torture ever produced any useful information.
In fact, accourding to testimony from an FBI terrorist interrogator who was involved in the intitial interrigation of Abu Zubaydah, the CIA techniques caused the subject to STOP talking.
So.....based on the evidence available, it appears information was gained IN SPITE of torture, not because of it.
The only spin is the baseless crap you bought from Cheney, et al. The evidence shows something very different.
Have a read:
http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/testimony.cfm?id=3842&wit_id=7906
The operation was simply flawless.....next should be bringing back the troops.
I hope we can carry out such a clinical job in redirecting our economy for good.
I just wish.
This whole operation emphasizes how much everyone - media, pundits - try to drive from the back seat. President Obama has a vastly different style than his predecessor and clearly it's taking some getting used to. So just when they thought he was an ineffective leader, he pulls off one of the most impressive military operations in history.
In history Ursula? I see you're not much of a military buff, but if it works for you-OK.
Not only was the media and pundits in the back seat, they were distracted by the the shiny, flashing toys hanging around their car seats. All the time they gave to the birthers, entertainment syle GOP presidential hopefulsl etc was childish. Glad Obama is in the driver seat. We need more adult leaders in both parties that are not pandering to the cable viewe'rs one minute attention span.
In both Oklahoma and 9-11 our presidents were reacting to an attack and got bumps because we appreciated their leadership in a time of crisis. However, killing bin laden was not a reaction to an attack but was a proactive action taken by the President which ended in victory. Something we haven't felt in a while and it is the positive victory that I believe (at least for me) will be long lasting.
It didn't take long for remnants of the Bush Administration to appear on the networks. Some of them reluctantly gave credit to President Obama but most of them seemed to think President Bush was the hero of the day. Did you see the tape of Bush where he said he wasn't interested in capturing Bin Laden he really did not think about the man. Thank you President Obama for continuing to focus on bringing this killer to justice. Yes he did. I can't wait to vote for our President for a second term.
How can these blind leading the blind GOP/TP blunderabusers NOT give credit where credit is due. They have been harping for weeks about OBAMA's weak leadership. Well, you have it now. AND we don't even want to hear y'all squeal like a pig and yell UNCLE.
I think it is mighty tellin' of the character, or lack thereof, of the naysayers here on the board and beyond. I was talking to a business associate last night on the phone here in DFW and she was voicing her doubt about the operation.
I said, "Hold on dear, I need to pick my jaw up off the floor." She laugh as I said "I'm not kidding, it just fell right off. "Well, you know I'm a conservative Republican.", says she...
We talked a bit more and hung up with laughter and a better understanding of where we each stood on things. She isn't evil and neither am I but we aren't afraid to talk about our views. THIS is the beginning of UNDERSTANDING and TRUTH. Simple honest conversations. It is time, one by one, to talk to one another about how we reach our future together.
God is smiling on America today, we need not dishonor His approval with disagreemnt and distraction shoveled by an unwavering blindness to the facts in this great moment for AMERICA. The lion's share of credit go to our troops and we invite unbridled debate on the Presdient's actions. BUT let's not loose sight of the truth here.
OUR MEN & WOMEN IN UNIFORM ROCK. Obama's steady and assured leadership is the seat where we need him at this particualr moment for OUR country. US All will benefit from this one acheivement. None more so than the families of those who died on 9/11 and in the war that have raged since.
GOD BLESS AMERICA!
Well said, Missy. I thought it was interesting last night when MSNBC showed a clip of Candidate Obama in a debate with McCain, answering how he would, if necessary, go into a country and deal with Osama bin Laden if we had actionable intelligence and that country refused or would not. McCain mocked Obama's comment as irresponsible and naive. But Candidate Obama kept his word as President Obama, Pakistan would not deal with OBL so he did just as he said he would.
Missy TX
if they can rob the poor and give to rich in the name trickle down economics.......there's nothing they can't do. they are the same people who'll eat their cake and want to have it. big shame on them.
I agree on the SHAME for the greedy. I agree that they ARE greedy and they sell snake oil. However, I refuse to succumb to their fear or tactics.
The dirth of ideas crowd will eventually die of philisophical 'Diabetes' if they keep eating a cake all stirred up in lies. I do not fear for US All because I believe in OUR better angels AND that the truth will set us US ALL free from the lies of the last 30 years. Trickle down sounds so logical but it was the first BIG lie that was believed.
That was the first shameful lie of many more to come from the far right but we are beginning to see the TRUTH. The division and distraction sown over the last 2 and a half years SHOULD be backburnered now but the GOP/TP continue their suicide march to 2012 defeat in their blind rage at the black man in the white house.
America will, in the end, prove to be adult; I believe. I hope. I pray.
So the Pentagon got the intelligence out of thin air or a goody goody Al Quaeda member just simply talk. Who the Pentagon and the Democrats are fooling? No Al Quaeda or any other terrorist just won't talk without pressure. You Dems just don't want to admit that most of these guys were pressured by the Bush Admininstration to give up their secrets. Bush did the right thing. It was a long haul, no doubt about that Nebo, you just don't know how to gather intelligence when lives are at stake. The CIA was patient, and long suffering in their quest for a break. They got the shock of their lives when they confirmed that Bin Laden was living in Pakistan under their very noses and not in the mountains of of Pakistan or Afghanistan. And he was there for a for a long time in Pakistan and sheltered by the ISI and the Army. At least , that is what is known. So intelligence just don't pop out of the air as you Dems are now praising Obama for obtaining it. It all started under Bush. And he waterboarded the bastards to get it. That you don't like. Playing goody goody with terrorists don't yield intelligence.
Please explain how information gained 8 years ago, 2 years before Osama bin Laden built and occupied his compound, gave us actionable intelligence on his location. Do you not think President Bush would have acted IF the information gained was of value? Oh, that's right, Bush called it off when OBL was in Tora Bora. Google it, you'll see. The CIA has known since the 90's that OBL had couriers. The best intelligence was given by Gitmo prisoners through conversation; torture gets you whatever you want to hear just to simply make it stop. The Pentagon itself has dismissed the idea that any information gathered during torture sessions yielded anything of value. Denial is simply that, denial.
JuvenBachan
go home with your conspiracy theory for we know the truth.
You have your opinion, Juven. I have mine. We do not agree.
So John, you are saying nothing happened with this until after Jan 2009 when Obama took office. All the stuff being reported about the progress made from 2003 to 2009 is all lies and did not happen? Interesting.
I am a sometimes voyeur, not a poster, on sites like this because I don’t like being ridiculed and slurred for my beliefs and opinions but on this one subject I just can’t keep silent any longer.
President Obama deserves our deepest gratitude for the courage he had, to give the order to go into a foreign country covertly and take out America’s most hated man. Can you possible imagine what the President would have been put through if this had not gone well?
What I don’t understand is why so many people want to push the credit to President Bush. From what I have read and remember was Rumsfeld outsourcing the job of getting Bin Laden at Tora Bora and (this I will never forget) President Bush saying he didn’t care about Bin Laden anymore, that he did not spend much time thinking about him because he had been marginalized and he had no idea where he was. Also, if the Intel from the Bush Administration was so good why did President Bush dismantle and shift funds from the group that was assigned to follow leads and find Bin Laden? President Bush would have been a hero if he had captured or killed Bin Laden but he didn’t President Obama did, so that makes him the hero.
I also remember President Obama being called naïve by Senator McCain for saying he would hunt down Bin Laden and kill him with or without the help or cooperation of other countries, and that is just what he did. I mean really, you have to be impressed a politicians actually doing what he promised to do on the campaign trail. How many times does that happen????
The President sets the priorities for the military and he gives the orders, therefore he deserves the credit. Period.
This in no way takes away from the contribution of the military men who serve him.
Leave it to a Texas Girl to set things straight. Your comment should go universal TG. Proud to make your aquaintance. I don't talk to many truthtellers down DFW way but you've knocked it outta the park. Makes me proud to be MISSY TEXAS!
Do ya think we can turn the state Blue, or Purple maybe, in 2012? Probably not but let's just try and get civiity back. That would be a good start don't ya think? Your sentiment heads us in that direction anyway. Thanks for the contribution to sanity!