May 09 2011
Sadly, It Is Finally Nineteen Eighty Four
Update: Reader WWS notes the latest propaganda effort regarding the March hesitation by the President to go after Bin Laden is also riddled with factual errors:
The reason this was such a good hiding place for bin Laden was that predators were specifically forbidden from getting anywhere near it, under official threat of being shot down by the Pakistani AF. This was a protected military zone, not some wild borderland. No predators allowed, *ever* …
Yep – we have another false rewrite of history from this wayward administration. – end update
The entire show surrounding how Osama Bin Laden was brought to justice has really been a disturbing series of misinformation, errors and clumsy cover up. It has been so bad it has turned a national moment of victory into a real moment of crisis. Just as we take out an enemy who killed many more innocent humans than the 3,000 people mass murdered on 9/11/01, we are facing a crisis of confidence regarding our leaders and their propaganda puppets in the news media. We have been bombarded with a continuous series of untruths and corrections on the most basic of matters. And it is rattling the majority of people who exist in the political center.
As I noted when the news broke, there was a very fishy element to the original narrative that was physically ridiculous:
Sources tell ABC News that in March President Obama authorized a plan for the U.S. to bomb Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound with two B2 stealth bombers dropping a few dozen 2,000-pound JDAMs (Joint Direct Attack Munitions) on the compound.
But when the president heard the compound would be reduced to rubble he changed his mind.
The point is Obama hesitated on killing Bin Laden in March, the details attempt to explain why.
As I showed later in that first post, two B-2’s with 24+ 2,000 lb JDAMS is a ridiculous amount of ordnance for Bin Laden’s small compound (each JDAM creates a 50 ft crater, 30 ft deep). Two of these would be over kill, 24 is idiotic. This part of the story was so ridiculous it was obvious that someone with no military or physics background just made the entire thing up out of thin air. It was clear this came from a liberal propagandist who was trying to cover ‘something’ up. Apparently that ‘something’ was President Obama’s terminal case of paralysis in terms of authorizing action against Bin Laden.
Not to fear, another narrative was produced and passed to liberal propaganda puppet Bob Woodward, who pliantly wrote it up in a Washington Post piece:
Obama and his advisers debated the options, officials said. One option was to fire a missile from a Predator or Reaper aerial drone. Such a strike would be low-risk, but if the result was a direct hit, the pacer might be vaporized and officials would never be certain they had killed bin Laden.
Oh my, see how the story has changed! I mentioned in my previous post a Predator drone would be sufficient fire power. Seems someone took notice and fixed the narrative. How Orwellian can you get? And no, even a predator will not ‘vaporize’ a human being in a concrete structure such as the house Bin Laden haunted. Plenty of DNA would be available, once you could sift through the wreckage.
If you could sift through the wreckage. That has been a major problem with other aerial strikes – how to ID the targets. If you wanted to make a solid narrative, that would be the question – not vaporizing. Seems those people putting out this junk have watched way too much TV.
Woodward’s piece had other elements which made it more Orwellian than usual. For example:
When U.S. intelligence officials learned of this exchange, they knew they had reached a key moment in their decade-long search for al-Qaeda’s founder. The call led them to the unusual, high-walled compound in Abbottabad, a city 35 miles north of Pakistan’s capital.
“This is where you start the movie about the hunt for bin Laden,” said one U.S. official briefed on the intelligence-gathering leading up to the raid on the compound early Monday.
No, the ‘movie’ starts with interrogation and learning about the courier with the moniker ‘al-Kuwaiti’. As we painfully now, the left don’t want to start this story at its beginning, with the Bush administration and enhanced interrogation. Another obvious ‘tell’ this is propaganda, not reporting.
Woodward’s ‘movie’ also skips over the months of delay waiting for the mythical perfect intel. A delay which could have easily pushed some in the administration to flex their legal muscle and force a frozen President to act. Here is what we get in Woodward’s version of history with regards to all the rightfully tough discussions about what threshold was sufficient to claim this was Bin Laden’s lair:
Panetta said that point had been reached, arguing that those tracking the compound were seeing the pacer nearly every day but could not conclude with certainty that it was bin Laden, officials said. Panetta noted that there was no signals intelligence available and contended that it was too risky to send in a human spy or move any closer with electronic devices.
There was incredible dissension inside the White House about whether we had enough evidence to act. Forget about the method of acting, there were people pushing back on acting at all! Where is that story in Woodward White Wash? Here it is:
Officials said Obama’s national security advisers were not unanimous in recommending he go ahead with the McRaven option. The president approved the raid at 8:20 a.m. Friday.
Yep. One of the toughest decisions a President will ever make, and Woodward just gives it a drive-by mention. It is worthy to know the arguments on both sides, the factors weighed, the unknown risks assumed. Mainly because we face these decision all the time when we decide to hit target in Pakistan or Yemen. We are working WAY outside the legal bounds established over humankind’s history. We are sending out hit squads on individuals. It is important to understand what triggers such questionable and troubling acts.
In the case of self-professed mass murderers like Bin Laden, Hitler, and Yamamoto I am not as concerned. In the case of American-born cleric Al-Awlaki, I think we have crossed a line when we can order the assassination of a US citizen without a trial and verdict of guilty. When did we give the power to assassinate Americans to the President of the United States? I don’t recall that being on the campaign issue list.
And what about Obama’s illegal war in Libya?
Everything surrounding these acts has been shown to be mostly fiction. The White House has had to stop talking about Bin Laden for fear it is running out of semi-plausible BS. Even more laughable is the left wing effort to paint Obama’s actions as heroic! How heroic is it to take out someone so universally hated as Bin Laden? Face it, the left is just ecstatic Obama did not channel his inner liberal and do nothing. Powerline captured this ‘hey, we did not screw up” euphoria brilliantly:
All of this praise is due to the fact that Obama approved, rather than nixing, the killing of bin Laden. A good decision, to be sure. But is there a single person, anywhere, who doubts that George W. Bush would have made the same call? Or John McCain, if he had won in 2008? Of course not. The Democrats’ jubilation results from the fact that their guy didn’t wilt under pressure, but rather lived up to the standard that George W. Bush and John McCain easily met. For this, he is called “courageous” and “gutsy.”
Yep, it really is a case where Obama finally stood tall. Or did he? As we know, there is a lot of rumbling behind the scenes on how critical mass for the act on Bin Laden was finally obtained. We do know the intel was solid as it was going to be for many months. The real story is what happened to overcome the paralysis and resistance inside the White House.
But instead of exploring this news-worthy subject, we get barraged by more and more glowing rewrites. Have we hit a point where politicians lie with such ease and regularity those ‘journalists’ living high on the hog with the political elite have just decided to be well-paid patsies and apologists? Where are the true journalists who want to discover and communicate the harsh truth, no matter which side takes a hit?
My fear is they have gone extinct, replaced by social cling-ons whose focus is being with the ‘in crowd’ instead of being a force for good. DC power, paychecks and social events have corrupted tens of thousands over the years, so this is no surprise. Apparently, we have finally reached Nineteen Eight-Four
Could the obvious testiness of such vaunted Liberals as Alan Colmes and Juan Williams be due to the fact that their hero is taking massive credit for everything he and they supposedly stand against?
Everything they campaigned against?
This guy ignores consent of congress in Lybia and sanctions outright assasinations of foreign nationals in other countries against the Geneva Conventions and the left, the media, and the neutered Republicans are silent.
Don’t get me wrong I’m FOR killing bad guys wherever they hide but I never professed or ran a campaign and won on the opposite.
Could it be a term of Petraeus accepting the CIA head spot that we go get BinLaden?
Petraeus has the stature to say to a weakling President I’ll take the job and make you look good only if you let us cut off the heasd of the snake and if you don’t it will be leaked that you had your chance and passed.
Obama did not make a gutzy call he made the only call he could have given the box he was put into, of that I am sure.
I for one am especially tired of the Republicans giving zippy a pass and taking the high road.
They are complicit and pathetic panderers when even they do not hold him to account for his extra constitutional transgressions whether it be ignoring Federal Judges orders on the drilling moratorium or international crimes.
It may be high time for a third Party not afraid of the DC insider elites and the Presstitutes who never report the truth.
dhunter,
You know, it could be Penatta decided to act and get the credit before he left for DoD! He also may have wanted to work with Petraeus to get the job done before they swapped jobs.
Interesting theory there.
Good points about the ridiculosity of these claims: A predator strike was *Never* an option, because this was in Abottobad! The reason this was such a good hiding place for bin Laden was that predators were specifically forbidden from getting anywhere near it, under official threat of being shot down by the Pakistani AF. This was a protected military zone, not some wild borderland. No predators allowed, *ever*, and remember, they are slow and not stealthy to other aircraft – they can be easily knocked down by any manned fighter. Now a B2 strike was always possible, since they are high, fast, and stealthy, but never a predator. The idea is nonsense, and more importantly ignores why this proves that bin Laden was receiving official shelter from the Pakistani govm’t.
One other quibble – yes, we did knock out Yamamoto, but he deserves far better than to be lumped in with the likes of bin Laden and Hitler. Yes, he planned Pearl Harbor, but that was a clear and intentional Act of War carried out with the approval and under the orders of his Government. Recall that Yamamoto had always insisted to his own government that War be declared *Before* the first strike was launched, or else the Americans would be infuriated. The failure to do that was not his, but was due to the incompetence of his superiors and their staff. He didn’t realize that this had happened until after the attack was over.
And his killing was an authorized act of War carried out by our Government -we were shooting down every military transport we could find at the time. He fought as an honorable warrior, and died as one. Of course since he was an enemy I would always support the operation to take him out, but I think he deserves to be considered a skilled, intelligent, and dangerous opponent worthy of respect. He *never* was in favor of striking civilians; he always felt that all forces should be concentrated on strictly military targets, and the Pearl Harbor attack followed those rules.
Some enemies deserve respect, some don’t. Yamamoto, to my mind at least, belongs with those like Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull who do. The real fault of Pearl Harbor was that we got caught with our pants around our ankles, not that our enemy took advantage of it.
WWS, I agree with your take on Yamamoto, to illustrate HOW we go after our enemies. I did not want it to be all devils in my example.
I am cynical enough now from watching how this White House moves to believe that Obama thought that if OBL had camped out there for five years he would likely stay for six and he could pull the string then closer to the election as a ‘October Surprise’.
Trouble is the leak over at WikiLeaks connected the Abbotabad dots and this could have been what pushed the decision to make it a go now.
Anybody and their brother ,once the Abbotabad placemark hit, could have worked over the town in Google Earth and the compound would have been located in a day or less depending on how many hours you spent staring at it.
My understanding is the Abbotabad info at WikiLeaks was surfaced post raid when someone took a chance look to see if it was mentioned at all there.
So a lot of people on the inside of all this had to be thinking that sooner or later someone or some group pouring over the releases there would have turned up the location for more examination.
Then if they ripped the place apart in Google Earth they would be likely to see some blogger giving the world a shout out of something that seemingly a multi billion dollar intelligence effort could not do.
The new theme for the Strata-Sphere
“Obama got Osama and the American people got …. 75 different versions….. all lies.”
But when the president heard the compound would be reduced to rubble he changed his mind. SOMEONE ACTUALLY WROTE THAT ABOUT OUR MOST INTELLIGENT PRESIDENT TO SERVE US! He had to ASK?
Any way why contemplate such a strike if it wasn’t possible in the first place due to the military town?
MarkN….brilliant!
Well informed people in the intelligence trade know that a walk-in guy into our Paki embassy spilled the beans on Obama in Abottabad.
And that Obama was definitely dragged fighting and screaming into taking action by Panetta and Hillary, despite Jarret’s best efforts.
Oh, did I mention that they also say O’s body had been discarded in the Hindu Kush mountains, instead of being fed to the fish?
From HotAir
The deal was struck between the military leader General Pervez Musharraf and President George Bush after Bin Laden escaped US forces in the mountains of Tora Bora in late 2001, according to serving and retired Pakistani and US officials.
Under its terms, Pakistan would allow US forces to conduct a unilateral raid inside Pakistan in search of Bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the al-Qaida No3. Afterwards, both sides agreed, Pakistan would vociferously protest the incursion…
Kathie, that lines up with what had been reported when Bush was President. I clearly remember it being reported that if we located Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, we would be allowed to go after him.
This was in the context of a complaint from Pakistan concerning hot pursuit of Taliban across the border from Afghanistan. They said they didn’t want our troops crossing the border into Pakistan after Taliban but instead wanted us to coordinate with Pakistani forces and some protocol was worked out for that. They also said that an exception would be made for something like bin Laden if he were located in Pakistan. In that case, the US would be free to get him.
Yep, it really is a case where Obama finally stood tall. Or did he?
Someone (I forget who) pointed out that Obama was basically doing the bare minimum required for a president when he made the “gutsy” call to take out bin Laden. The only reason it appears (to some) to be so wonderful is that, up until now, he hasn’t really been doing the job at all. So this isn’t a case of Obama doing masterful work, it’s simply a case of him finally showing up at the office.
Some enemies deserve respect, some don’t.
As I explained to someone elsewhere yesterday, we should treat honorable enemies with honor … but not all of our enemies are honorable.
Just read this…President Bush sent SEALs into Pakistan 2 times. I guess we could say he was gutsy too…… but we already knew that!
Hovering over the compound, heavily armed US Navy SEALs scrambled expertly down ladders on to Pakistani soil as Pentagon officials in Virginia watched the events unfold by video link from a camera in an unmanned drone flying over the site.
But this did not happen last week, and the target was not Osama bin Laden.
It was 2006 and the man in the American’s sights was bin Laden’s al-Qa’ida deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is still believed to be hiding within or close to Pakistan’s tribal areas.
Quick! Redirect gutsycall.com to a Bush site!