Monday, May 02, 2011

So, They Whacked Osama bin Laden

It sure looks that way; I must admit to the nightmarish thought that he's gonna pop back up and say it was one of his sons.
I thought it was a pity no one celebrating on TV was singing, "Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead." Turns out I'm far from the only one.

Life is not an Oz book, or a James Bond film, either; taking out one guy does not mean (as a Congressbeing from New York chortled last night) "Mission accomplished." Still, it's a big, big step.

You will, I hope, excuse me for pondering that Saudi Arabia is still a great big incubator of crazy and money. Wonder what will hatch out next?

9 comments:

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

Yep. Other than a "so what?" (and big kudos to the SEAL team that got him), this is hardly "justice", nor is it the end of the matter.

Bubblehead Les. said...

Someone who was celebrating the event last night outside the White House held up a sign that read "Ding Dong Osama is Dead". So the effort was made.

And from this old Sailor to those Sailors who Accomplished the Mission: Well Done.

Ed Rasimus said...

BZ to all the participants.

Alert notice to Janet Napolitano: This is going to be busy season for months as the roaches scurry out of the woodwork.

Carl Bussjaeger said...

So the sick guy who hasn't been seen in public for years was killed and his body disposed of in an undisclosed area of sea, so no one can prove bin Laden wasn't really killed. Hmmph, no capture for a fancy show trial? No capture for interrogation? No capture for intel leading to assorted cells and plots?

And all just after Obama announces he's running for re-election.

Frank W. James said...

My guess is they have plenty of 'intel' what with all the documents and computers they hauled out of OBL's hiding place.

Everyone's worried about some counter-strike by AQ, when the truth is they are running for their lives because our guys are using that intel to find them now.

Its this strike and the ones to come that President Unicorn will use to secure his re-election...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

Roberta X said...

It seems a little early to coast to re-election on.

--On the other hand, assuming (which is all we've got and FWIW, it's the simplest explanation) this is the right guy and really dead, one might wonder how long our guys have known where he was? But that goes right back to the lousy-timing thing; if you are playing it for votes, you either gank 'im right before the primary or, if you're reallllly confident, you do it between the primary and the Main Event.

Hypothetical, if you want to go that route: it was a house with nothin' in it but squatters. The guys choppered in with a handy, corpsicle, microwaved it to room temp., shot up a mostly empty building, blew up the preheat helicopter to avoid getting caught with hard-to-explain toys and hustled out with -- ta-daa -- OBL hisself, deader'n Elvis.

Me, I wasn't there. We can be pretty sure Osama bin Laden is really dead, though, 'cos otherwise he would have popped up by now, muttering "Missed me!" all dressed up in Koran verses. The how and when? That's up to the Warren Commission.

Tam said...

Carl Bussjaeger,

Oh, puh-leeze.

#1 The Taliban, Hamas, the Pakistani .gov, even Al Q, all agree he's dead.

#2 "He just announced he was running for re-election" If there's one thing Obama knows how to do, it's campaign. If this was a rabbit he could have pulled out of his hat any time he wanted, don't you think he'd have waited 'til a little closer to, say, the Dem Nat'l Convention, instead of leaving a year and a half between the event and the voting booth for people to get a good case of "What Have You Done For Me Lately?" going?

#3 This is the kind of news that you don't announce unless you are damned sure he's down and stepped-on, because nothing would be a bigger embarrassment now than a videotape of OBL holding up tomorrow's Wall Street Journal and saying "Nyah-nyah! You missed!" in Arabic. If there was even the slightest doubt in the administration's mind, all we would have heard was that an unnamed "high value target" had been taken down. (And incidentally, apparently the plan was to take him alive if possible but dead if necessary.)

As an aside, I find it interesting that most of the Deathers also seem to be Birthers, Truthers, Fake Moon Landingers, Grassy Knollers, and Area 51ers. This means they are increasingly inhabiting a completely different universe from the one the rest of us live in.

Carl Bussjaeger said...

Tam,

#1 Me, too.

#2 You're assuming that the guy who justifed the "Louisiana Purchase" bribe as helping Hawaii recover from its earthquake is sane. And why did he time the release of the long form birth certificate for now instead of later?

#3 See #1.

"As an aside, I find it interesting that most of the Deathers also seem to be Birthers, Truthers, Fake Moon Landingers, Grassy Knollers, and Area 51ers. This means they are increasingly inhabiting a completely different universe from the one the rest of us live in."

Three points: 1) How did you survey that? 2) What's a "Deather"? 3) WTF does all that have to do with me?

Anonymous said...

The SEALS were in his house for forty minutes. Lessee... That's about forty seconds worth of shooting, followed by about thrity-nine minutes worth of picking up papers, computers, cel phones, etc.

Oh, what will we learn from OBL's laptop? Aside from the fact that he likes goat pr0n, that is?