phreddy wrote:

You make the call.  Seems pretty clear to me.  Apparently, it was an also an ordered assassination. 

On the role of interrogation:
BRIAN WILLIAMS: Can you confirm that it was as a result of water boarding that we learned what we needed to learn to go after Bin Laden?
LEON PANETTA: Brian, in the intelligence business you work from a lot of sources of information and that was true here… It's a little difficult to say it was due just to one source of information that we got… I think some of the detainees clearly were, you know, they used these enhanced interrogation techniques against some of these detainees. But I'm also saying that, you know, the debate about whether we would have gotten the same information through other approaches I think is always going to be an open question.
BRIAN WILLIAMS: So finer point, one final time, enhanced interrogation techniques -- which has always been kind of a handy euphemism in these post-9/11 years -- that includes water boarding?
LEON PANETTA: That's correct.

Seems pretty paraphrased to me.  Anyone who has served knows that torture gives you info; however it gives you vastly more bad info than good as the subject will do and say anything to make the torture stop.

Panetta walked a line that included trying to avoid lawsuits and/or pissing off the Republicans directly before he assumes his new post.

Bottom line - Zero information gain from that interview.

Speaking from experience:  torture is randomly effective at best, we have much more advanced interogation techniques which provide much better results.  It's been proven beyond a doubt.

We are much more sophisticated than we were in the middle ages and we can point to the elimination of Bin Laden in 2.5 years as empirical proof.

ah297900 wrote:

With great cruelty comes great results. The crueler we are, the better the results. And so on, unto infinity.

Nice, can I borrow that?

I know only that when I beat my dog she pees on the floor.

An interesting take from a conservative.

Michael Barone wrote:

For years we heard supposedly enlightened people excoriate our leaders for torture, lawlessness, unilateralism -- the list goes on and on. Now the president they have wanted has used the tactics and methods they excoriated to get bin Laden. Good for him.

The Pentagon recently caught up with the times and released one of them newfangled Silent Movies.  The footage apparently shows a fallen leader, holed up in his cave (apparently in Abbattobad 'cave' is actually local slang for million pound armed fortress so that clears that little misunderstanding up), folornly watching reruns of his own once popular reality series: I'm a Jihadist Get Me Outta Here.  For those of you who only read blogs, apologies for the length of that last sentence. It. Was. Long.

How sad it is to see a once world-famous figure, sealed-off from his people in a secure compound, impotent to act, obsessed only with image.  But enough about Barack Obama, back to Bin Laden.

True he seems a little hoary as the poets once might have written, yes bedraggled through a razor wire hedge backwards.  Or is that the US military's replacement for waterboarding?  Still a very popular passtime on coastal resorts, waterboarding not torture.  Oh, it says here they are the same thing.  I suppose outdoor sports aren't to every child's taste.

But not at all pathetic.  The thing is the life of the terrorist is mainly tedious self-regard.  They are after all political celebrities. 

Like celebrities they don't have any real abilities but they somehow manage to tap into some mysterious public mood, for example being blonde, wearing meat hats, going bald and losing it outside your mansion (in the case of the celebrities).  Blowing up thousands of innocent people just trying to make a living for their families in the case of the Jihadist.  Terror is the modern celebrity or perhaps the next big thing after celebrity, and in this sense Bin Laden was just keeping an eye on his profile.

He was, after all, nothing but an ailing actor on his uppers trying to recapture one more famous close-up.  And in a way there is something Sunset Boulevard about the whole thing, or better Abbattobad Dirt Track.  I was once great, he mumbles into his potnoodle stained beard. I can be great again!  Inshallah.

How fitting was his final close-up.  A leaked set of horrendous photos showing what busting a cap in the head really entails.  Then pixellated for the sake of belated decency.  Belated decency is the option I always go for.  Much better than actual decency.  This way you can do what you like and then apologise afterwards.  In England we call it being polite. 

So there is his last close-up fall all to see.  A corona of unpleasantly dark red stuff, and in the centre a blur, a nothingness, what one might call an enigma.

When I heard he had no internet link part of me I finally felt sorry for him.  If you are an international terrorist whose image is all, how gauling it must have been to be unable to track how many hits you are getting on Google.  Imagine having his profile and not being able to Tweet.  No Facebook, then again I am not sure he did friends, and worse for a man never without a opinion (always the same one, the West is the devil kill all infidels) he could not even blog.

Anyway what the video really shows is something more everyday that we have all experienced.  You find yourself in a nowhere town with nothing to do.  The room you booked is less than well appointed. The hotel compound, aside from the much-vaunted Burning Area which you have to admit is impressive, lacks shall we say inspirational touches?  Your annoying brother-in-law won't leave you in peace.  You can't get a phone signal. And wouldn't you know it, the broadband is down.

What's to do except flick through the million channels of the satellite TV trying to find something to watch?  As usual, there is nothing on. 

As usual there is nothing on. 

The last hours, last months and years of our most hated enemy.  How he would have loved the attention he is still getting.  Perhaps it would have been enough to stir him out of his torpor, dye his beard afresh and go for one last punt at the big time.  Luckily for us, it is too late for that now.

Time for my closeup my Mr. Obama.

Last edited by opsec (2011-05-10 15:13:14)

opsec wrote:

Fnord, I removed the strikeout because this post is actually on topic and not pointless boring narcissistic drivel.  OK, well it's on topic at least.

However, it's a copy and paste from his blog, which is why I defaced it.  Nevertheless, I will defer to you on this one.

Last edited by fnord (2011-05-10 15:27:20)

I was unaware it was copy pasta. My apologies.

headkicker_girl wrote:

Didn't we end waterboarding in 2005?  Seems like this just points out another Bush failure, and supports Richard Clarke's contention that finding Bin Laden was never a real priority for the Bush admin.

Let's see, Obama is against waterboarding, wire taps of terrorists calling people in the U.S., Guantanamo prison, execution squads, and the military in general.  All of these contributed to the death of bin Laden, and all of them were developed or at least perpetuated by Bush and you are going to give Obama the credit and call it a Bush failure?  Remember, Obama and Holder are still prosecuting the very men who developed the information that lead us to bin Laden.  The positive inertia of the Bush policies can last only so long, so don't count on any more "brave" accomplishments by Obama.

phreddy wrote:

Let's see, Obama is against waterboarding, wire taps of terrorists calling people in the U.S., Guantanamo prison, execution squads, and the military in general.  All of these contributed to the death of bin Laden, and all of them were developed or at least perpetuated by Bush and you are going to give Obama the credit and call it a Bush failure?  Remember, Obama and Holder are still prosecuting the very men who developed the information that lead us to bin Laden.  The positive inertia of the Bush policies can last only so long, so don't count on any more "brave" accomplishments by Obama.

Hey, I'm fair.  I give Bush credit for not reigning in Greenspan which led to the economy being fucked; I also give him credit for running up a huge debt to finance his ill conceived war in Iraq.

Bush failed to get the job done and thus he is a failure.  It's not rocket science.

phreddy, just because it MIGHT have garnered the information does not make it right or legal to do so. You seem to be saying the ends justify the means, but as a society, we agreed many years ago that the ends do NOT justify the means. Hence the ban on torture. Will it be all right for one of our military personnel to be captured and tortured? If not, why? It's apparently acceptable for us to do it?

BTW, nice subject change. If one lie fails, move on to the next.

I sure am glad I am not buying from the dealer that Phweddski is, cuz that stuff is Bunk!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110511/ap_ … bama_boost