wow, those real time tweets are something else -

… saw this one just before POTUS statement – via who else but Scahill

Yeah, just like the movies.

Wonder who wrote this screenplay?

Must be a bummer to write
such influential dialogue
without the recognition.

How come they keep us in total darkness about the half dozen
illegal wars we’re in ’til they’re trying to sell us
a new fable?
Get a grip, people. They’re disciples of Goebbels.

ABC’s “exclusive” video could be from Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, or Burbank.

Finally a sane American

Coming this fall the Osama Bin Laden Movie, where Osama gets buried at sea like Mega Tron in Transformers.

the entire Osama Bin Laden saga is bizarre.

what we learned?
all it took to kill Osama Bin Laden was a Navy Seal Team
we did not need the Air Force, Navy, Army, and Marines after all

Obama knew where Osama was in August? waited until 5-1-11 to kill him, keeping with pattern of “911″ (can’t interupt the royal wedding?)

in real news, that is important to Americans
Gas Prices are sky high
Un-employment is sky high
and yes we are starting more wars!

David Plouffe? what are you up to? you did not want the MSM showing OBAMA making jokes about Donald Trump during the USA great Depression number 2

Bill Maher said it first, a lot of USA citizens are just morons!

Nobody inside the American Empire’s establishment wanted this guy to be taken alive for obvious reasons. Can you even begin to imagine the media circus surrounding this if he was taken alive? Plus, he might not be so easy to convict as some might think. Whatever, like Oswald he couldn’t be allowed to live.

I don’t believe it, but thanks for the updated, DDay. Your posts, per usual, are filled with worthwhile info.

The main question remains: Now what?

Whether this was one giant Kabuki Show of some sort or not, NOW whither Team USA?

We have a nation with record unemployment, entrenched in a depression, while the upper 1% gains more and more control of the country’s wealth. A lot of this happened under the guise of having to fight the boogeyman, Osama. So, ok, apparently NOW Osama is dead.

Now what?

We can haz no more Warz now?

No shit, but at I can say that I personally saw Oswald get shot “live” on the tv machine with my own two little eyeballs.

I don’t even get a photo of dead Osama. Load of bull.

But as I said before: Now WHAT? I can haz no more Warz, please?

Charlie doesn’t want terrorists with good taste. Charlie wants terrorists that taste good!

A trial would have been a media circus. ObL deserved a fair trial, like anyone else, but he could never have gotten one. What would have actually happened is that he would have been vanished into the torture gulag while politicians used him as a propaganda pawn for years. If he had ever come to trial, he would have been found guilty and executed. Frankly, he was better off this way. And he probably knew it.

Are you saying someone involved in the raid “accidentally” tweeted it? If so, color me very skeptical about the reality of these events, as thats pretty convenient.

It would seem to me that Bin Laden would be captured and not killed, as he would be a extremely high value target for intelligence and interrogation. My guess is after his interrogation and usefulness was over(who knows how long that was), he was killed, and his death staged as a pure kill mission.

It’s all about an unimaginable overreaction to a bunch of Internet and cell phone savvy nuts getting lucky. Now they are heroes elevated to worshipful admiration by other nuts.

As the crowds call for the head on the pike I have never been so taken, nor so sickened with how primitive men in groups called nations are. How is this different than what has been going on since before man could write, or likely speak?

Why did they choose to kill bin Laden yesterday? The polls are down and the election is coming.

We have completed our transformation to a totalitarian militaristic state. The plan? Keep the simple folk happy with praise for suicidal and homicidal actions and minor cuts in gasoline prices.

Color me cynical.

Apparently there were witnesses who saw the U.S. helo go down & the word of that got out before the whole operation was known as a U.S. raid to get OBL.

Typical. The picture being circulated is a fake, just like this story.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/02/osama-bin-laden-photo-fake

I understand your points, 4cdave.

However, in a very fundamental way, what has happened, by design or by default, may well say more about US than about Bin Laden, especially as “another” will be chosen, by US, to take his “place” …

Bin Laden cannot do, any longer, any terrible things, how long will it be until WE shall decide that WE cannot do terrible things either?

DW

From Robert Greenwald at BraveNewFilms.Org:

It’s time to bring the troops home from Afghanistan. With al-Qaeda driven from the country and Bin Laden now dead, the rationale for war has evaporated. It’s time to stop now.

The swift withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan must begin immediately.

Bring them home.

Sign our petition and we’ll deliver it to the White House this week.

Rethink Afghanistan

that ABC News producer now stands naked in a cell at Quantico, right ?

I personally do not believe they buried the entire body, without keeping some “evidence.” They have to know that photographic and DNA evidence would be questioned. I think there will be more stories on this in the coming days.

Also, I am not spending any time worrying about whether Osama should have been taken alive and given a trial, and recommend everyone else put their limited time on this earth to better use. Perhaps saying a prayer for all those killed, from 9/11 onwards through America’s illegal wars.

Robert Greenwald will be on Ed Schultz tonight – if Schultz can quit fapping long enough for the segment

The government lies to us about everything. EVERYTHING. So they tell us they just killed BinLadeen. We speculate about what might have actually happened. In the absence of truth, conspiracy theories are all we have.

Ah, yes… the alleged death of the alleged leader of al Qaeda…. allegedly proven with DNA. So, we finally (allegedly) got the guy who allegedly masterminded the alleged Islamic terrorist attack on 9/11. Taken out by special forces in northern Pakistan, and… buried at sea. I’ll buy that.
What a relief! Guess we will be spared any further videos of some bearded guy who looks vaguely like Bin Laden shaking his fist at the great Satan.
He was really a superb boogeyman for quite a few years though, I’m sure I won’t be the only one who will kinda miss the guy.

Where is ghostof911? I figured he’d be all over this…

Thank you for the info. My P.S. is the US has no further “justification” in Pakistan/Swat Valley. So out of Pakistan as well! Let’s start shutting down those illegal war fronts opened on the excuse of OBL. P.P.S. of Cheney the war criminal should be in prison, not free to make stage appearances for investors. Whoever that was, if what happened yesterday had any reality, could have been brought in alive considering all the people the US has scooped up and taken to Gitmo or planted as spies there.

Somebody on facebook last night compared him to Hitler. He was a wonderful boogeyman.

Putting OBL on trial vs assassinating him has nothing to do with him, but with whether U.S. has rule of law or not.

I wonder if those helicopters that raided ObL alleged compound just down the street from some Pakistani Military College (or whatever) in Abbotabad were playing the “Ride of the Valkyries” as they flew in low to attack:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpvLCptAHT8

Truth.

well heck yeah, and we all know the answer to that here at FDL. We don’t want no stinkin’ Rule of Law….

I’m amazed everybody blindly accepts the military’s claim that it killed bin Laden. Why should I believe the military’s version of events? Remember WMD? Independent organizations should have been allowed to inspect the body. Instead, the military quickly disposed of the body like a criminal at a crime scene.

giggling

Hearing Reuters say that there was no attempt to capture is probably outright fictional propaganda. His capture alive would have been far more humiliating for him, and would have had a better reception at home.

consensus seems to be burial at sea within Islamic tradition – “when no alternatives are available”

unconfirmed reports Saudi Arabia refused to accept the body

So now the US is concerned about following Islamic law? OBL is now a martyr instead of a defendant in court? We are told that folks in GITMO are being tortured in order to obtain info for the GWOT but OBL is taken out in a kill mission? After all the public TV coverage of Saddam’s capture, no one gets to see OBL? If “justice has been done,” as Obama stated, can US forces stop murdering folks in the Middle East? “Justice” is summary execution? What is the value to US imperial aims in Pakistan that OBL was supposedly assassinated there?

Thanks Ecahnomics, I couldn’t get to the twitter page initially, so that seems a little more plausible of a story.

Eh? I think that person must’ve gotten Osama mixed up with Obama, Kris. All good Team USA’ers know for a fact that Obama is exactly like Hitler…..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS2rJP-udUs

I would not read comments as indicating that “everybody” accepts claim that OBL was killed last night. Plenty of comments specifically state the opposite. But even the comments that don’t start with that caveat, do not necessarily “believe” but rather are merely probing some other aspect of the alleged event.

In any event, that’s what Scahill said on dn this morning.

Excuse me, have I got this right? The President of the United States has publicly admitted to the extra-judicial murder of a person who is not an enemy combatant since no war had been declared? For the sake of propriety, there should have at least been a show trial, al la Saddam Hussein. High fives all around, I am an accessory to murder.

Will the Birthers be demanding a long-form death certificate?

about five minutes before last night’s Pres statement – me to spousal unit -

“if that helo jock is named Old Shoe, we are f***ing outta here !”

I did the math for him and pointed out his comparison would mean an American life was equal to roughly 2,000 Jewish lives. He shut the fuck up.

consensus seems to be burial at sea within Islamic tradition – “when no alternatives are available”

So allegedly ObL was killed near Islamabad, which is NOT particularly close to any ocean last time I checked. I can believe that burial at sea, under certain circumstances, is “acceptable” in Muslim tradition.

But… there was “no other alternative”??? Sure, pull the other one, sparky (last comment not aimed at cbl; aimed at USG).

Peterr has a fresh post ready: Please Don’t Call It Justice

This has the stink of Psy Ops (psychological operations) all over it. Petraeus who was supposed to look into the mis-use of psy-ops by one one of his subordinates never resulted in anything. Such a coincidence he gets moved to the CIA another psy Ops unit in itself and Bin Laden is dead and thrown in the ocean. Gives a nice boost to the current puppet in office and…

“Petraeus is for U.S.” will be the slogan in 2016

“Apparently the mission was a kill mission and no attempt was made to capture bin Laden.” Why would you think this? What evidence of this operation leads you to this conclusion? Bin Laden’s capture would be a coup for the intelligence community even if they were unable to extract information from him.

Trump wants to fashion a “war toupee” out of OBL’s beard hair. More on this story as it develops.

A trial would have been out of the question. A public trial would have been too revealing and threatening to corporate, military, media and ruling class elites.

Let’s see: wmd, Jessica Lynch, Pat Tillman, and, now, obl. That seems to fit better than obama’s record of truth telling. If plans are not developed by the end of the week on withdrawing from AfPak and Iraq, then we know that the reason for staying is still a charade.

Media circus?! The barrel of a gun trumps the rule of law and the US legal system.

ignorant people blurt out igorant crap, and it’s no wonder given the brain-dead ignorance of most of the US “media,” which goes to great lengths to encourage & endorse ignorance on steroids.

That person probably is very ill-informed about who Hitler actually is and what he did. Just a convenient thing to parrot out. Idiotic. Thanks for providing some useful information to that dolt.

yep. nicely put. that’s it in a nutshell.

Oh all those flag-waving young people in front of the White House? Why no personal interviews of the participants? That could have been staged too and the stills can make the rounds on the front of the designated print and online outlets the next day for Obama 2012 campaign purposes.

Yeah, I’m usually all “rule-of-law’ too. But in this case, in the face of pretty incontrovertible admissions and proof, and having spent the afternoon of 9/11 taking care of one of his victims’ daughters, I’m making an exception.

Yep. Another great point. IF ObL was actually killed recently – which is questionable – the alleged burial at sea has been done only to BURY what information that ObL would’ve revealed about the PTB and the MOTU.

While I disliked Al Qaeda and completely disagree with their motives and actions, ObL was using them, in essence, to attack the greedy, corrupt West, esp the USA, for how we take advantage of the downtrodden elsewhere (esp Muslims in the case of ObL). I don’t think the MOTU wanted to really *hear* what ObL had to say. Too much truth & facts for their liking.

A problem now for the US is the same one it had after the collapse of the USSR: finding a new public enemy to justify the state of perpetual war.

Please give links to “…incontrovertible admissions and proof….” So far I have seen no such things, so I’m more than willing to see the proof.

Learned a new word today. Thanks, cbl!

I watched only MSNBC at 10:30 last night and switched to NBC when the NBC News folks showed up, and when it had been confirmed that OBL was dead/killed.

Brian Williams started a timeline. When he traced the events after the 9/11 attacks, he said US military actions followed (he didn’t say ‘wars’). He mentioned Afghanistan/Taliban/al-Qaeda. Then he mentioned Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Then the screen switched to David Gregory, who followed up (apparently Williams had been cut off, and Gregory had directions given to him via his ear plug or from a person with cue cards) the Williams gaff with more about Iraq, saying ‘but’ there were no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq, and it (the invasion of Iraq) was to prevent al-Qaeda from establishing a presence.

Oopsie? Once upon a time, only Cheney and FOX News had tried to connect Saddam Hussein and Iraq to 9/11 and al-Qaeda despite zero evidence or intel.

Who will skewer Williams and Gregory for their fuck-ups?

I wonder what evidence they would have kept? A lock of his hair, a set of fingernail clippings, a bronzed death mask? “Osama we hardly knew ye. You were the best boogeyman since Hitler and will be sorely missed. Goodnight, sweet prince.”

It’s all hypothetical or rhetorical in the U.S. anyhow.

fyi – Jake Tapper reporting

The process of his burial at sea was done in accordance with Muslim law — a Muslim seaman conducted the process and said the proper prayers, with bin Laden’s body wrapped in the appropriate way

Dude, the Pentagon says “this is what went down,” and ABC had a news crew in the room with blood on the floor. What more could anyone want? /s

Indeed. Says something about the soundness and value of our vaunted legal system.

“Hearing Reuters say that there was no attempt to capture is probably outright fictional propaganda. His capture alive would have been far more humiliating for him, and would have had a better reception at home.”

Hence the skepticism about the whole thing from people like me.

The only purpose for the show was to deliver a frank message to Gaddafi. He was probably negotiating already, which is the only reasonable explanation for Obama’s long delay before addressing the camera.

I think you got it right. Good Cop Obama can work in ways that Bad Cop George W. couldn’t.

the Pentagon says “this is what went down,”

That’s all the proof you need? Really? LOL.

That’s partly how the rule of law disintegrates: the acceptance of a permanent state of exception.

After all the Koran burnings and desecrations, the indefinite detentions, torture, and secret prisons,

after all the bombing, dislocation, death, and murder,

after all the occupations, forced privatizations and permanent new military bases we have visited on the Islamic world,

who could fault the Muslim world for asking from whence comes this new-found respect for Islamic law, personhood and ritual. Who could fault it for asking in which secret prison will OBL be fully exploited.

The US will need definitive proof beyond DNA evidence of its claims. A world that refuses to believe in the citizenship of its own president could expect nothing less.

I’m glad I made you smile. I do hope you noticed my snark tag at the end though.

I thought I read the compound had “been destroyed.” So was that before or after ABC filmed the room?

Fuck citizenship, I’m starting to think the guy is a freaking stepford executive.

Exactly. Just like the mainstream media furor over Oliver Stone’s JFK-who dared to give a different story than the fable they gave us. If the facts are darkened and twisted with by the powers that be-why can’t everyone else do it? Always peeing on our legs and telling us it’s raining.

If it doesn’t make sense that’s where conspiracy can come from.

OBL was not killed by friendly fire. We did not lie about WMD. It is not about oil or fruit or metals, minerals, timber, gold or diamonds. We want what’s best for the local population, never mind that billion dollar military base we’ve put up in your backyard.

Whatever the goodwill and commitment of those who work in the Pentagon or military, its institutional lies precede it as crocuses do spring.

DNA testing compares a sample piece of DNA to another piece of DNA.
In this case, where did the original sample come from?
I remember years ago, the US took some samples from ObL’s family members, hair, I think it was.
In testing, the sample purportedly coming from ObL should be a close match to the sample coming from a close family member . If this “kill mission” was indeed planned for months, the close family DNA sample was probably on hand for the teasing.

I read the Feds subpoenaed samples from his half-sister’s brain matter, when she died several years ago.

Wait til somebody finds the stock photo they used for the blood on the floor…truTV?

That’s not really the issue. And BTW, I understand the US has the brain from OBL’s sister, who died in a Boston hospital.

The issue is that we would need definitive evidence, photographs, witnesses, a raft of evidence beyond DNA evidence to prove to an incredulous world that we have killed the man we claim to be public enemy no. 1, but disappeared his body immediately. Out of respect. Even if true, who would believe such a simple, simplistic claim now?

A message clearly sent by the US with this affair: There will be no open, public trial with evidence for all to see; there will be no international cooperation or consensus; there will be effort to display the integrity of sound political institutions; there will be no more Nurembergs. The US has used OBL once again to assert for all to see that it is the world’s premier rogue nation.

They know it’s Atta Osama cause they found his passport on the building beach.

Don’t look too closely at the plot. Like all good spectacles, a thing like this requires a suspension of disbelief in order to achieve the full effect on the viewing audience.

Why not paint targets on our American backs as well? Seriously. a trial-a-la-Nuremberg? I see this more as our refusal to let the Taliban use this for it’s promotional purposes for the next 10-15 years.

Dead or alive dead may have been the standing order. Like Gitmo, it demonstrates that the rule of law is irrelevant to this government as education, jobs, infrastructure, domestic growth or the truth. It relies on power, not rules of conduct, restraint, or political negotiation. Even Lee Harvey Oswald got a public funeral.

This resolution is certainly simpler, assuming anyone in the world believes it. No shrines, no interrogations, transport, security or trials, no reprisals for his death. Well, the latter should still be expected.

From the perspective of the Taliban, aren’t those targets there already? Do they need more promotional material?

Indeed. All else is laid at the alter of naked power. What’s that line about staring into the abyss . . . ?

So… they obtained conclusive DNA evidence in only a couple of hours, then dumped the body in the Ocean? Uh, yeah ok. They clearly think we’re all extremely stupid

Why would you think it credible that such a death and explanation cannot be used against us for years?

I agree that this government’s credibility in trying OBL would be equally suspect. Our record with lesser known detainees at Gitmo does not suggest it would have gone smoothly or been regarded as affording minimum due process by anyone outside the chain of command.

Protestations that we did not torture or attempt to fully exploit him for knowledge about is networks would be as readily dismissed, regardless of the truth, as the explanation that we buried him at sea within hours of his death out of “respect”, after having captured him in the middle of Pakistan (which means we had helicopter, ship, forensic medical and other personnel standing by to do exactly that).

The pragmatic Mr. Obama would not have tolerated such an elaborate process with hanging-mad macho GOP critics circling him during his bid for re-election.

earl,
I totally agree, I was just hoping to show how flimsy DNA evidence is in this case.
Practically speaking, without the body, I see no way for the US to prove the death of Obl.
The only evidence available now is non-conclusive, circumstantial.

If you carve out personal exceptions, you do not truly believe in the rule of law. If the law is not making the hard decisions, who is? You, individually? There’s a word for that sort of government, but I think you wouldn’t appreciate it.

I feel no sympathy for OBL and I’m not sorry he’s dead. But I am very sorry the US felt it “necessary” to circumvent due process on the way to his punishment. That way lies a very slippery slope.

The US has lost a vitally important teaching moment. Maybe the Israelis would have done the same thing, but their trial of Eichmann and the trials of other Nazis, and the UN’s trials of Balkan and African leaders prove that another way is possible, pragmatic and preferable.

It would have demonstrated something more courageous than our force of arms. It would have demonstrated faith in our ideals.

Evidence:

http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-12700811-blood-on-the-carpet.php?st=f435908

It stares back. And then you become it.

Everything since 9/11 has been one great miasma of criminal greed, murder, theft and naked imperial aggression with a backdrop of obvious Big Lies and media spectacle. I’ll believe Osama is dead when I can poke his rotting corpse with a stick as it floats among the cattails.

My wife was in that film, before we met.

This has got to be one of the most obvious psy-ops in history, and yet the moronic, brain-dead, left-right paradigm zombie-fied masses can’t figure it out. This guy has been dead for NINE FREAKING YEARS with his obit plastered all over the internet! The CIA faked videos of bin Laden and ADMITTED it in the freakin’ WA Post! He had diabetes and was on the run, and Bush let him go at Tora Bora!

The BS meter explodes IF you read occasionally and have one living cell still alive in your memory center and still… here come the pundits, who are paid to inform us of the most rudimentary history of this nonstop psy-op, to give the CIA all the bulwark it needs to sell this complete and utter NONSENSE! Cenk, I’m DONE with you, loser!

Buried at sea… ha, ha, that’s the capper… my, my, how convenient. Just like when the BATF took off six inches of topsoil at Waco, and just like when Vince Foster didn’t have any blood on him, and just like when all the wreckage from 9/11 was carted off to China before it could be examined (just to name a few similar crime scene violations off the top of my head).

If the diary writers giving credence to this BS are exemplary of the kind of journalism I’m PAYING for, feggitaboutit. Don’t bother sending me the membership card; I’m out.

The U.S. has already gone down that slippery slope. There are so many dead on foreign soil as a result of America’s illegal actions, and this is the one person you want to use as an example of lack of “due process” for? Give me a break.

And save the speeches on the law. You’ll probably find it hard to believe, but I’m a lawyer, and none of the lawyers I’ve spoken to today are weeping over Osama’s right to a trial.

This is in accordance with Islamic law, which mandates that the body be buried within 24 hours.

The US has been invading muslim countries leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. We continue to occupy those countries. We bomb other muslim countries on a weekly basis killing hundreds of civilians. We lock muslims up for years without trial with no evidence, torture them in a myriad of ways including desecration of the koran, rape with bottles, walling, waterboarding, to the point of killing some of our captives.

Lets not pretend respecting the muslim beliefs of our number one booggieman had anything to do with the line we are being sold that I quoted above. I dont claim to know what happened but only a moron would think respecting muslim practices for Osama bin Ladin had anything to do with it.

Here is what some Muslim scholars say about it.
http://bit.ly/ktlJRl FYI :)

I am perplexed by the all claims that the US should have captured OBL. That assumes that he would have allowed himself to be captured. Hitler committed suicide rather than be taken alive. Numerous run-of-the-mill common criminals have done the same when cornered. And they didn’t even have 77 virgins waiting for them in Paradise.

But I agree that not putting the body on display will fuel the rumors of a hoax for decades to come. Back to the Hitler comparison: just a few years ago testing revealed that the skull fragment the Russians kept all these years as Hitler’s turned out to belong to a woman. (Perhaps Eva Braun, but nonetheless, NOT Hitler’s.)

I agree with gnomedigest:

Lets not pretend respecting the muslim beliefs of our number one booggieman had anything to do with the line we are being sold that I quoted above. I dont claim to know what happened but only a moron would think respecting muslim practices for Osama bin Ladin had anything to do with it.

If anything, going out of the way to comply with Muslim religious practices will just confirm for many teahadists that Obama is a Moooslim.

At this point it’s just a bunch of jibber jabber, you really can’t determine what actually went down with any certainty. You are left with simply picking which one of several possibilities appeals to your biases. Kinda like the OCR shit on the birf certificate. Wonder if it’s intentional, hah? How many fingers, Winston?

It’s possible that continuous debate over what actually happened is the best case scenario for the kleptococracy. An argument could be made I guess.

But, meh.

Buried at sea within hours of the raid with no post mortem?

We have been told for years that this is a man who allegedly had kidney disease that kept him tethered to a dialysis machine and his second-in-command, physician Ayman al-Zawahiri, and we’re to believe that his body wasn’t flown to Landstuhl for a post-mortem examination with samples taken from every organ of his body but dumped at sea.

What “proof” ? What “admissions”? Possibly you mean the same kind of proof and admissions that undergirded the official stories about Pat Tillman’s death? Or maybe the stories about terrorists’ passports somehow miraculously falling from those exploding, burning airlines down onto the streets of New York?

I think most Americans should just go ahead and get “Gullible” tattooed across their foreheads. We still don’t know who was behind 9/11 (do you think someone in the middle east was able to get NORAD to stand down for the day?). And we do not know who was just murdered by the U.S. in Islamabad and then quickly dumped into the ocean, even though Islamabad is not anywhere near an ocean.

The worst of it is, we do not even have the decency to insist on fair treatment of any person anywhere who is accused of a crime, instead being happy to celebrate assassination and death as long as we are unharmed ourselves.

Interestingly, the wallet of a friend of mine fell to the street at the bottom of the WTC, I assume while he was jumping from the 104st floor. So you see, it does happen.

Sure, from someone JUMPING out of a building. Not from someone burning up in a disintegrating airplane! There really is a difference!

Thank you for explaining that to me, Jack Bauer.