Osama bin Hidin’.

I had a whole post set up to go this morning, but let’s hold it for a day and declare today the Mission Really Accomplished thread. Living in a big fancy house in Pakistan, getting dialysis? Mark my words: When the truth is well and truly known, it’ll turn out he was dimed out by a pissed-off maid, or some other servant.

Posted at 1:02 am in Current events |
 

72 responses to “Osama bin Hidin’.”

  1. coozledad said on May 2, 2011 at 1:06 am

    When Obama walked away from the podium this evening, it seemed he was walking Spanish.
    It’s another one of the jobs he told us he’d do.

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  2. LAMary said on May 2, 2011 at 1:18 am

    I thought the President’s speech was great, and I hope there is general acknowledgment of how ballsy it was to authorize the operation. Even NY congressman King was praising Obama’s courage on CNN.

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  3. coozledad said on May 2, 2011 at 1:26 am

    LA Mary:It was good. It reminded me of why it’s worth working for the moderate against the Right. The Right never delivers on that eternal promise of justice.
    I think it’s because justice itself is an inimical concept to them.

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  4. LAMary said on May 2, 2011 at 1:31 am

    There was some grace in that speech. No gloating, no gloating patriotism or linking killing with patriotism.
    Here’s a photo from the NYT. Photo number 9 is the picture I like.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/world/asia/osama-bin-laden-is-killed.html?hp

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  5. coozledad said on May 2, 2011 at 1:36 am

    Why am I tempted to say the adults are in charge?

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  6. Catherine said on May 2, 2011 at 1:46 am

    Am I the only one who would have felt better if he’d been taken into custody instead of assassinated?

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  7. Dexter said on May 2, 2011 at 1:49 am

    I have not had a day go by since September eleventh, two-thousand one that I did not think about this day. Some days I thought that I’d never be around for it because I am so much older than Osama bin Laden. Now Osama is frozen in time at fifty-three years of age.
    We all know his entire life story; no need to re-hash it now, because today is a day of remembering the horror this monster unleashed. Few of us knew any family members of the three thousand killed in New York, or the Pentagon dead, or the Flight 93 families, but we mourned with them all the same.
    I always remember the sailors aboard The Cole, as well. This fucker killed them, too.
    I told myself I would spit on Nixon’s grave back when Nixon was president but when he died in 1994, all that seemed silly.
    OBL is dead, and when he was identified as what he was regarding 9-11, I vowed to shake my fist with vengeance at the sky at the Big Hole In The Ground when this day came.
    For years I blogged, every now and then, how much I wanted to see Osama bin Laden DEAD. But damn it, I do not feel like partying, jumping up and down…I just am sort of re-living the shock of live TV when the second plane hit the tower, knowing instantly a lot of people were quite dead.
    Still, no one in my life time deserved to be shot in the fucking head than this creep, Osama bin Laden. Good riddance.

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  8. Dexter said on May 2, 2011 at 1:55 am

    Catherine, I had the same feeling. I did a quick assessment, and here’s my theory: the 2012 campaign has already kicked off.
    If OBL had been captured alive, his trial would have been delayed for years…and Obama needs this feather in his cap right now. But that’s weak…I really think that since this slippery bastard Osama bin Laden escaped Tora Bora, and maybe a CIA sharpshooter had a bead on him…fuck it, he rock and rolled him.

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  9. moe99 said on May 2, 2011 at 2:00 am

    On the same date 8 years ago: “Mission Accomplished”
    66 years ago: “Hitler dead”

    quite a day.

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  10. Dexter said on May 2, 2011 at 3:16 am

    http://framework.latimes.com/2011/05/01/osama-bin-laden-photos/#/0

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  11. Rana said on May 2, 2011 at 3:23 am

    Catherine – no. There’s too much judge-jury-executioner about this for my comfort. I’ve also heard (and if someone else knows otherwise, please correct me) that 20 other people were killed in the process of taking him out. That makes me even more uneasy.

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  12. Linda said on May 2, 2011 at 5:47 am

    Coozledad: You feel that way because he is one of the few grownups on the political scene. It’s one of the reasons Obama has kept up his polls relative to Republicans.

    Rana–I’m betting a lot of people got taken out, too. Given the circumstances, I’m not sure that was avoidable.

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  13. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 2, 2011 at 7:27 am

    Twain is always salutary: “I’ve never wished a man dead but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.”

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  14. ROgirl said on May 2, 2011 at 7:47 am

    Jeff TMMO, I feel the same way, but he did deserve it.

    Coozledad, what is “walking Spanish”?

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  15. Julie Robinson said on May 2, 2011 at 8:12 am

    Rejoicing only lasted a few seconds before worry about the creation of a new martyr set in. I would like to be less pessimistic.

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  16. Jolene said on May 2, 2011 at 8:16 am

    From today’s WaPo:

    Obama said neither Americans nor civilians were harmed in the operation. Three other adult males were killed in the raid — two were bin Laden’s couriers and a third was his adult son — according to a senior administration official.

    Several women and children were at the compound. One woman was killed when she was “used as a shield by a male combatant” and two others were injured, the official said.

    Other reports said that he was killed after resisting. I don’t know, of course, whether the order was “kill or capture”, but it hardly seems likely that bin Laden would have let himself be taken alive if there was anything he could do to prevent it.

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  17. jcburns said on May 2, 2011 at 8:27 am

    “dimed out,” “walking spanish.” I tune into this fine weblog to build and expand my vocabulary, sometimes at my peril.

    Interesting stuff about the history of this Abbottabad, which, as you might be able to tell, was named after and perhaps by a British colonial officer, who rhapsodized about it in poetry. Now, it’s a bit of a tourist retreat if you have a bit of money, like Aspen.

    Now if you excuse me, I’ll go read the State Department’s fresh warnings about travel worldwide, and grab my passport. We have an overseas flight this afternoon.

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  18. coozledad said on May 2, 2011 at 8:46 am

    ROgirl: I always thought it meant a little bit of swagger. But I’m wrong wrong wrong. It actually refers to being hauled by the seat of your pants to someplace you don’t want to go. Like to one’s own execution.
    I’ve been misinterpreting a Tom Waits song for a little more than twenty years now.

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  19. jcburns said on May 2, 2011 at 8:48 am

    Tom Waits: easy to misinterpret. The great enunciator!

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  20. Jolene said on May 2, 2011 at 8:49 am

    I like the “out of the blue” aspect of this, although, of course, it wasn’t out of the blue to the people involved. But, as an Obama defender, it makes me smile to know that he ordered this operation on Friday AM, then traveled to Alabama to tour the tornado damage, went on to Florida, where he toured the space center and gave a commencement speech at a community college, returned to Washington, played nine holes of golf on Saturday PM, met again w/ national security peeps, and spent Saturday evening essentially participating in a comedy show (in which he handed Donald Trump his ass), and during all that nobody had any idea that this announcement would be coming. As someone on Twitter said, never play poker w/ Barack Obama.

    Here’s a photo that captures that idea.

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  21. brian stouder said on May 2, 2011 at 8:52 am

    JC – here’s wishing you & yours safe travels.

    I’m going to watch Rachel tonight; last night during the breaking news, I was remembering her.

    A few months ago she had an analyst on there who had zeroed in on where he believed Sammy was holed-up. I think (although I can’t swear) that her guest nailed this thing, pegging a walled compound visible on a Google Earth shot that they displayed.

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  22. Kim said on May 2, 2011 at 8:58 am

    Ditto, Jolene!
    Generally I fall on the side of restraint, but to take bin Laden alive seems like a weak-willed American ideals thing to do in a theater that preys on our whole fairness doctrine. As someone whose family has lost a young soldier to this war, I say it’s not worth another American casualty.

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  23. Peter said on May 2, 2011 at 9:03 am

    Abbottabad? I thought it was the Pakistani compound for Abbott Labs.

    Five bucks Trump takes credit for this because by getting Obama to release the long form, Obama now had time to concentrate on more important issues.

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  24. brian stouder said on May 2, 2011 at 9:09 am

    But where’s the death certificate? And we want the long form, dammit!

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  25. John Brown said on May 2, 2011 at 9:09 am

    No bullshit photo-ops. No banners. The President just walked up to the podium and gave the news.

    Someone on Twitter said, “I guess it takes a Muslim to find a Muslim.” I am pretty sure he was kidding.

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  26. ROgirl said on May 2, 2011 at 9:11 am

    Mission Accomplished, indeed.

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  27. LAMary said on May 2, 2011 at 9:17 am

    I’m not celebrating Bin Laden’s death, but I doubt very much capturing him alive was possible.

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  28. MichaelG said on May 2, 2011 at 9:21 am

    I too feel somewhat conflicted on the kill vs. capture question. I wasn’t in any mood to take to the streets and I know this is only one day in a long conflict. But I’m not sad that bin Ladin is gone and I have a nice feeling of pride in the the small unit guys, Seals I guess, who pulled it off, and whatever one feels about this kind of operation, it’s better than starting a war, killing untold thousands and squandering billions of dollars, not to mention squandering a whole country. That’s what we did to get Saddam Hussein. I also agree that if bin Laden had been captured it would have led to years of bickering and political posturing and finger pointing and and and. This was so much cleaner and more decisive.

    Also I can tell you this: A small unit on an operation behind the lines has a very tight and unforgiving time schedule. They also have very few resources against the other guy’s many. They don’t have a lot of space for baggage. The whole thing has to happen very quickly to preserve their only advantage which is surprise. Life and death decisions have to be made and executed instantly.
    In, do what you’re there to do and out. Now. No talking. No negotiations. No fucking around. It’s called “You Bet Your Life”.

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  29. paddyo' said on May 2, 2011 at 9:23 am

    When I first heard the name on TV, I assumed it was Abaddabad . . .

    And somebody tweeted last night that The Donald was already demanding the death certificate . . .

    And Jolene @ 20 — why, he’s the Multitasker-in-Chief!

    Our visceral reaction will pass (and, I hope quickly). Although I wonder about the creation of an Islamist martyr, that would’ve happened no matter what. And whether we went there only to kill, not capture, nobody ever expected OBL would go willingly so death was a given.

    I’m disturbed, though, at this writing (may better news overtake my words here), that in the effort to deny his followers a martyr, our government might keep secret most of the circumstances surrounding this. Yeah, I get the burial-at-sea part — a rather elegant solution to the tomb-of-the-martyr thing. And of COURSE they’ve obtained DNA evidence. But these days, most people want to see the evidence, and many in the world think our government lies all the time anyway.

    But I won’t be surprised if the words “for national security reasons” are invoked a lot in the coming hours, days, etc., as an excuse not to release photographs, video or other proof of the sort that, let’s face it, we all expect around something like this. I hope I’m off-base about all that, but the former newsman in me is doubtful.

    P.S. — So far here in Denver, at least, printed-paper journalism has not performed so well after last night’s announcement. Don’t know the reason yet, but newspapers were 2-1/2 hours late to the Starbucks where I stopped en route to work because my own copy of The Denver Post had not arrived the customary half hour before I leave for work. Perhaps somebody in circulation upped the draw in an extra-copies run for the souvenir trade, but for a printed product already considered an anachronism by a significant portion of the populace, just plain no excuse.

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  30. Deborah said on May 2, 2011 at 10:16 am

    I’m waiting for the right-wing shoe to fall. It’s going be interesting to see what they use about this to blame Obama for. I’ll probably get an e-mail from my sister today wailing about something or other he did wrong.

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  31. Dorothy said on May 2, 2011 at 10:30 am

    The Navy seals took fire when they first approached the building/compound. I’m sure Bin Laden heard the helicopters as they landed, so naturally they picked up their arms. Capturing him alive would have been nigh impossible.

    My daughter had just gotten home from work and had heard no rumblings by 9:30 when she left, but a tweet from a college friend tipped her off about the Presidential news conference that had been announced. She said the hair on the back of her neck stood up, so she tuned into MSNBC and saw an anchor (who was receiving updates via the microphone in his ear) go “Oh my!” then he said he was not permitted to say anything yet. That decided it for her – she jumped in the car and raced back to the newspaper. By the time she got there she’d heard from the newsdesk that it was an announcement about Bin Laden. They ripped up the front page and worked furiously to get the story ready. She only had about 3 hours of sleep but was up at 6:30 telling this to my husband and I. What a way to start a Monday….

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  32. prospero said on May 2, 2011 at 10:50 am

    The assassination of Ol’ Dirty Bin Laden reminded me of this piece by Pepe Escobar. What the hell was W doing asleep at the wheel? Check the date. Just a week before the hair-on-fire, planes-into-buildings PDB.

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  33. Scout said on May 2, 2011 at 10:51 am

    I do not believe in an eye for an eye, but I’m glad he’s been taken out and I do not have a problem with how it was done. Too many innocent people have lost their lives starting with 9/11 and continuing over the next ten years. The collateral damage chain of events this man started is horrific and the previous administration played right into his hands. The adults are in charge now.

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  34. prospero said on May 2, 2011 at 10:52 am

    Greg Sargent’s political take on ending Bin Laden.

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  35. Suzanne said on May 2, 2011 at 11:10 am

    I can’t say I’m happy because people are dead and that is a sad thing. I’m not convinced that Osama didn’t do himself in with a quick shot to the head when he realized things were not going to end well. We surely will never know. I am glad he’s gone, though, but I do worry what the after effects will be. He will still be a martyr for some, body or no, but the burial at sea surely will be great fodder for the conspiracy theorists!

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  36. Jolene said on May 2, 2011 at 11:16 am

    Too many innocent people have lost their lives starting with 9/11 and continuing over the next ten years.

    Starting even earlier, actually. There were the embassy bombings in (I think) 1998, in which several hundred were killed and thousands injured, and the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, in which 17 sailors lost their lives.

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  37. mark said on May 2, 2011 at 11:18 am

    Kudos to our government, from the men of JSOC up through the President. Hell’s population up by one!

    As Eugene Robinson wrote early this morning:

    This really is one of those moments when there are no red states or blue states, just United States; no MoveOn progressives or Tea Party conservatives, just Americans. Triumphalism and unapologetic patriotism are in order. We got him.

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  38. Dexter said on May 2, 2011 at 11:20 am

    I notice this more and more wherever I go to on the internet;
    most folks now go to WaPo for the first news blasts. I think The Times , though justified, pissed a lot of people off with their new pay-to-access plan.
    I do know I first went to WaPo late last night.
    I found out about this event when I flipped over from Treme to the baseball game and people were screaming “USA!!” in Philadelphia…then, just because I watched Peter Jennings all day back in 2001, I went to ABC, but then I just had to go with Brian Williams until I fell asleep in my recliner.

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  39. prospero said on May 2, 2011 at 11:47 am

    Yeah, they got Bin Laden, but

    [Gabby Johnson sees the sheriff riding into town]
    Gabby Johnson: Hey! The sheriff’s a nig…
    [Clock bell chimes]
    Harriet Johnson: What did he say?
    Dr. Sam Johnson: He said the sheriff’s near.
    Gabby Johnson: No, gone blame it dang blammit! The sheriff is a nig…
    [Clock bell chimes again]

    Ouch! Desperation kicks in. What do you get in China, the death penalty?

    I once stood on a 7th floor ledge of a hotel in Bern, in uu-trou, while a USAF staff Sgt. from Stuttgard searched under his daughter’s bed, but this guy’s escape is radical.

    Beware. Can’t find video of Randy Newman singing this.

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  40. harrison said on May 2, 2011 at 11:48 am

    it was a job. a dirty one, but it had to be done. do it, acknowledge it if necessary, and then move on to the next job.

    just like taking out the garbage.

    but GODDAMN IT!!! to celebrate it like the cure for cancer has been found…or your favorite sports team just won the big game…

    i despise so, so many of my *fellow* citizens so very, very strongly.

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  41. Dexter said on May 2, 2011 at 11:55 am

    harrison, I know…I felt the same way…sort of like Pink Floyd, I am…comfortably numb.

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  42. alex said on May 2, 2011 at 12:13 pm

    Mission accomplished indeed.

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  43. prospero said on May 2, 2011 at 12:20 pm

    Juan Cole discusses how the death of Osama affects just about everything in the Middle East. This is an Arabic speaker, and seems to be the most level-headed analyst of USA middle east policy there is. Fascinating reading, and a source of some optimism, I think.

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  44. Dexter said on May 2, 2011 at 12:21 pm

    Now we read that the administration is weighing the merits of showing photos of the body? We saw way too many photos of Quasay and Uday, and later Saddam himself…but oh yeah, no way were these characters connected.
    So the admin is saying that Osama bin Laden deserved all the Muslim burial custom respect in the world, and was awarded a quickie sea burial, and we are to believe that DNA testing instantly confirmed it was him, eh?
    I know, it’s 2011, and I guess DNA testing doesn’t take long like it used to…but why the rush to dump him into the sea? Smells fishy, eh?
    http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/killing-a-terror-kingpin-how-osama-bin-laden-was-taken-out-1.359336

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  45. Dexter said on May 2, 2011 at 12:29 pm

    borowitz take

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  46. beb said on May 2, 2011 at 1:00 pm

    Burial at sea seemed an odd place to put OBL then I realized that doing so means that while he was buried respectfully (I assume(, his actual burial place can never be determined and his corpse quickly decomposed, thus depriving his followers of the bloody flag of martyrdom.

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  47. harrison said on May 2, 2011 at 1:00 pm

    dexter, thanks for the verbal support. i appreciate it.

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  48. Dexter said on May 2, 2011 at 1:03 pm

    no problemo, harrison…and I have one more before I go off on a 19 mile bicycle ride, the Hoosiers weigh in:

    U.S. Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind.:

    “This is the news we have waited to hear ever since learning that Osama bin Laden was responsible for attacking America on Sept. 11, 2001. Following the loss of more than 3,000 innocent American lives, the United States government pledged to capture the architect of 9/11. The success of this mission is the result of the persistent efforts of our intelligence officers and the brave service of America’s military men and women.”

    U.S. Sen. Richard G. Lugar, R-Ind.:

    “The reported death of Osama bin Laden is welcome news, but it in no way eliminates the threat from the terrorism he espoused. This is another reminder that Americans cannot hide from global affairs. Americans must continue to be vigilant to ensure that terrorist groups and rogue states do not obtain weapons of mass destruction, a goal that I and many other Americans have sought for 20 years.”

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  49. Jeff Borden said on May 2, 2011 at 1:19 pm

    Mark Twain once said something to the effect that he had never wished death on anyone, but that there were some obituaries he enjoyed reading. I’m glad the bastard is dead, even though I know it will matter little in the ongoing battle against terrorism.

    Bin Laden is dead, but our country is a very different because of him. And the sad thing is this is all on us. . .on our reaction to those vicious attacks on 9/11.

    Think of all the horrible laws we have passed. . .our embrace of torture. . .the presidential directives written by Bush but never repudiated by Obama allowing the president to declare anyone an enemy combatant. . .the ongoing stain that is Gitmo. . .but most of all think of the thousands of honorable American men and women who were killed in a needless war in Iraq because bin Laden gave the Cheney Administration an excuse to go mucking about over there. And think of the tens (or possibly hundreds) of thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan who have died as a direct result of our prosecuting a war that bin Laden launched on 9/11.

    I am glad this messianic shithead is now fish food somewhere in the Arabian Sea, but that pleasure is tempered by how much we lost because of him.

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  50. Jolene said on May 2, 2011 at 2:03 pm

    James Fallows has a comment that partially addresses your observations about the changes in our society, Jeff.

    The potential significance: an end to the distortions of the GWOT? For years anti-terrorism experts have stressed the decentralized, self-sustaining nature of al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations around the world. The elimination of the celebrated symbol and inspiration of the movement will certainly not mean the end of terrorist threats, and in the short run could trigger revenge attacks. (I will be leaving from LAX tomorrow morning; will be interesting to see whether the security drill is different in any way.)

    But here is potentially the greatest significance of this news, apart from the “bringing justice to our enemies” satisfaction: it holds the potential of marking an end to the otherwise un-endable “Global War or Terror.”

    Signifying an end to a “global war” does not mean the end of a threat. America faces a daily threat from crime; for the foreseeable future Americans and others will face a continuing threat of terrorist attack; the entire world faces a threat that the thousands of nuclear warheads still in existence could destroy millions, through accidental or deliberate misuse. But we classify all those as threats, requiring our continued vigilance and best efforts to prevent them. Rather than as ongoing, open-ended wars with the consequent distortions that wars can impose on our values, institutions, and public lives.

    As long as the “Global War on Terror” was defined as eliminating all threat of terrorist activity, it could never be ended. That threat — like other threats — will never completely go away. But if this admittedly symbolic victory in the “war” can be taken as closing a loop opened ten years ago (and earlier, with previous OBL-inspired attacks), perhaps it could free us to continue the vigilance while beginning to correct the decade-long warping of our values. That is another gift the commandos who carried out this mission may have given America. We will see whether Obama is willing to lead that way, and others are willing to follow.

    I think Fallows is on target here, and there is some reason to be hopeful that Obama will make this shift. It would be consistent w/ his “let’s deal w/ this rather than making noise about it” approach to most issues.

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  51. brian stouder said on May 2, 2011 at 2:40 pm

    Well, our 12 year old daughter was much more sober about all this breaking news coverage than I was; she got up at 11 pm (or whenever it was) to see what all the commotion in the living room was about, and was immediately put off by the news.

    It is genuinely comforting to realize that she is a better soul than me. (Indeed, I still want to hear that Ayman al Zawahiri’s head is on a pike, too.) (just sayin’).

    At lunchtime, I saw Cheney’s face, and his lips were moving, and I unhesitatingly changed the channel. I’ll let him (et al) upset me tomorrow

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  52. prospero said on May 2, 2011 at 2:46 pm

    Jeff and Jolene,

    Remember in 2004 when Kerry was mocked by simpering W and the neocons for pointing out that the way to deal with terrism is to treat it like the criminal behavior it is and attack it with good police and intelligence work. Yeah. What a wussie. What sort of dumbass would try to claim that the ensuing years haven’t proven Kerry correct? Given that the entire neocon Afghan adventure amounted to “getting Osama” isn’t it clear now to anybody but a blind ideologue that that could have been accomplished years ago with drones and special ops and better attention to intelligence, for a whole lot less cash? Is there anything more clearly stupid, futile and wastefully expensive than trying to fight terriss with conventional military force? Shrub proved this in spades. In Iraq, this misguided strategy created AQ in Iraq out of thin air. And all this wasted effort cost lives, American prestige and moral authority, and likely more than $3tril, by the time all the vets’ medical bills are settled. Applied directly to the USA credit card account on top of the criminally irresponsible W tax cuts when these chickenhawk bastards had been planning to conquer the middle east since the PNAC tried to talk Clinton into it in 1998 at the urging of AIPAC.

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  53. prospero said on May 2, 2011 at 3:08 pm

    Along those same lines, GWOT? Rove thought this was a strategy for ensuring Republicans political hegemony in the US for years to come. It was all a load of bollocks. Fighting a war on a concept is not even really sane. Like the war on drugs.

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  54. Jolene said on May 2, 2011 at 4:10 pm

    Here’s a little more OBL-related entertainment.

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  55. LAMary said on May 2, 2011 at 5:32 pm

    Sort of off topic but not really, one of the chapel windows here at the hospital where I work was smashed on Friday night. It’s an all faiths chapel, and someone destroyed the window with the Islamic symbol on it.

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  56. prospero said on May 2, 2011 at 6:39 pm

    How nauseating is it that Dickless and Rummy are trying to use this UBL business to excuse their penchant for torture? Track the bastards down and consign ’em to Davey Jones’ locker.

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  57. Holly said on May 2, 2011 at 6:46 pm

    I was listening to the radio on the way home from work today. Some Republicon was on the radio saying that Bush was due all the credit. Did Bush not say during his term that he did not think much about Bin Laden and did not even know his locatiion. Why cant the Republicons just say that President Obama did a good job.

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  58. prospero said on May 2, 2011 at 6:56 pm

    W on Bin Laden.

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  59. Deborah said on May 2, 2011 at 8:12 pm

    As expected my right-wing sister said something like, “it’s a good thing Obama followed Bush’s lead”. And I had read something somewhere that Rumsfeld said almost the same thing. So that must be the official talking point. Sad. Small minded. Especially after what Bush has said, that Prospero linked to.

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  60. Linda said on May 2, 2011 at 8:17 pm

    It’s like I keep saying–the 70s and 80s are rewinding, backward. At the present, the Dems look better and better, and Republicans look like bitter, vindictive little ankle biters with nothing useful to add, like Reagan’s critics used to look.

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  61. LAMary said on May 2, 2011 at 8:21 pm

    I heard Peter King (R-NY)on CNN last night saying very nice things about Obama. He praised his courage and leadership as well as praising the military and intelligence people who carried it out. He said that Obama took a big risk, because if it had failed all the blame would be on him and no one would mention Petraeus or Panetta. This is Peter King talking. A guy who usually has nothing good to say about Obama.

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  62. prospero said on May 2, 2011 at 8:26 pm

    When the NYT put up the paywall, I realized I could get by with a home subscription to the Sunday paper. I despise reading the book review and the magazine on line anyway, so this presented a perfect solution. Anyway, Sunday’s are for lots of really good coffee, Keith Jarret improvising piano sonatas at Koln, rashers of thick-cut bacon from Burger’s smokehouse, omelets with sun-dried tomatoes and jalapenos, and tangible newspapers and crosswords. What I’m getting at is, anybody that didn’t see a physical copy of yesterday’s special Summer Films Section, do yourself a favor and beg, borrow or steal a copy. The writing is sublime, the features are brilliantly conceived, and the graphics and photography are amazing, particularly the summer movie sunglasses on page 1.

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  63. cosmo panzini said on May 2, 2011 at 8:33 pm

    Osama now sleeps with the fishes. Good riddance to the slimeball piece of shit.

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  64. prospero said on May 2, 2011 at 8:35 pm

    No matter what apologists try to say, W shut down the CIA Osama search unit on in 2005.

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  65. Deggjr said on May 2, 2011 at 9:42 pm

    Adolf Eichmann is a precedent for the burial at sea. His ashes were scattered over the Mediterranean, per Wikipedia, so there couldn’t be a memorial or an official ‘resting place’.

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  66. Linda said on May 2, 2011 at 9:46 pm

    LA Mary, King also tweeted “Wonder what Obama thinks of waterboarding now?” Stay classy, Repubs.

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  67. Dexter said on May 2, 2011 at 11:43 pm

    Rachel snapped a few and tweeted them last night.
    http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/05/01/6566912-osama-bin-laden-is-dead

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  68. Mike said on May 3, 2011 at 12:04 am

    I’ve been telling all my right leaning friends that it’s a good thing we elected that Kenyan muslim to get Osama since our cowboy couldn’t handle the job.

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  69. Lex said on May 3, 2011 at 9:59 am

    My Twittering Sunday night on this, fueled by generous quantities of XX amber in lieu of champagne, was a mess. My subsequent blog post, though also disorganized, at least covered some of the shades of gray and related issues attached to this incident.

    After a couple of days of reflection, here’s my bottom line — contingent, of course, on what the government’s having told us being accurate (Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman are only two examples of why we can’t take that 100% for granted):

    This guy had killed thousands of innocents and had said he wanted to kill more, a statement we had no reason not to take at face value.

    The Navy apparently did try to take him alive, although apparently they were never optimistic about their chances in that regard.

    Given where he was found, there was roughly zero chance the government of Pakistan wasn’t supporting him. Had we not captured or killed him now, we might not have gotten another chance for years.

    If what we’re being told is true, Osama 1) attempted to grab a weapon and return fire while 2) using one of his own wives as a shield (she died).

    Under all those circumstances, the result we got was probably the least-bad result we could have gotten. I feel content with that, and I don’t feel guilty about feeling content with that.

    Will there be other dangers? Of course. Someone, somewhere, is always going to want to hurt us and, once in a while, will succeed. All we can do is be well armed, be vigilant, be resolute when bad things happen and not soil our national drawers as we did after 9/11, and behave so that the people who DO feel threatened by us are the people who SHOULD feel threatened. If an American says or does things that make an Assad or a Gadhafi sleep a little worse at night (or make the repressed people exploited by an Assad or a Gadhafi sleep a little better), then *I* will sleep better.

    What’s next? I want the rule of law back. I want the Bill of Rights back. I want us to do a better job of living by the values we profess. I want an energy policy that does not hold our military hostage. I want our military (and our service members’ families) fixed after 10 years of their being treated the way Sid from “Toy Story” treated his toys. And I want every jackleg Toby Keith-sucking ignorant redneck FUCK who questioned my values, my judgment, my patriotism and those of people like me for the past 10 years to fuck off and die, because *we* were right and *they* were wrong.

    I want my fucking country back.

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  70. coozledad said on May 3, 2011 at 10:04 am

    Well said, Lex.

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  71. moe99 said on May 3, 2011 at 10:07 am

    Amen, Lex.

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  72. LAMary said on May 3, 2011 at 11:24 am

    Amen again, Lex.

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