In short, about the news that came out overnight regarding the demise of the world’s #1 Most Wanted terrorist, I suppose the tired meme “President Obama is soft on terrorism” can be put to rest now, huh?
Kudos to our American military, the CIA, and all who worked diligently to see this day through.
Mrs. Miller, in the best of all perfect worlds, I agree with your sentiments, but in the real world some people (Bin Laden, etc) don’t play by any rules but their own.
I salute the people who spent years putting this together, and am glad the President gave the order.
Given that it now appears the compound was an ISI safe house at one time, maybe going in arbitrarily was the only way to get this done: no one in power in Pakistan could warn them, and Pakistand can’t say they kew.
Recall that two Pakistani presidents have now replied to the US that they could NOT exercise greater cooperation with us in the tribal border areas, or their country would implode.
We basically have a loosely confederated semi-developed association of medieval clans who happen to have nuclear weapons, and I doubt they have a healthy respect for the Geneva Convention or much of anything else.
This was done the only way it could be, and many many thanks to all who played their parts.
My only comment is found here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii0b2rpXJ5s
Dick Francis said it best, I think: “Crime to many is not crime but simply a way of life. If laws are inconvenient, ignore them, they don’t apply to you.”
Well, the Government for the People, By the People, and Of the People should be above ignoring inconvenient laws.
Just because a horrible man has been made unable to harm more people, doesn’t justify our breaking international law and causing harm to people. I still think the prison at Guantanamo should be closed, should never have been opened. I still think that actual trials should be held.
I believe that the rule of law is what makes America great, and undermining that rule of law degrades us and offers comfort to our enemies.
In other words, our laws are what make us better than those who would destroy us. If we ignore the law, we destroy ourselves.
Proof will come out–the reaction will be strong to this in the terrorist world, and all bases went on heightened alert last night before the President spoke, both at home and abroad.
The burial at sea is wise–it both meets specs on burial within 24 hours, and provides no shrine.
The work done for nearly six years on a lead gleaned from someone captured in Iraq and detained at Guantanamo came to fruition.
And I’m more of the opinion that all in the President’s own base who criticized keeping some senior people from the Bush era–like Rumsfeld–are maybe having an “aha” moment. And hopefully those who demanded that Gitmo be immediately closed upon the President’s swearing in, and so on.
This is years of work by people across the spectrum, and thanks to them all.
Check your spelling dictionary, Dave. “Stupidity” doesn’t start with a “p.”
I meant “Pacific.”
Ensign Rupert S. Miller, USN, did his WWII service on the USS Boston, a thirteen-kiloton gunship launched in 1942.
Dad rarely told us war stories (“War is just a mess,” was pretty much the only thing he was inclined to say about his combat experiences), but he did tell me once that, during his deployment, the ship drew near a Pacific island, where it dropped off exactly one man in a raft, then left.
He said, “that was kind of an odd mission for a heavy cruiser.”
Curiously, it was in the actual city of Boston where he later met my mom.
Jeffeson, Paine, Lincoln, and a bunch of others all said, more or less, that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. To that extent, our troops can never fully come home.
My dad passed away in 1996, having been graduated from the Naval Academy a year early so he could put to sea in the Atlantic in World War II. He served 33 years in the Navy. I remember, shortly after 9/11, buying a bunch of bottled water to keep on hand when the anthrax mailer had us all wondering if terrorists would poison our reservoirs. Unloading it from the back of the car, I recall thinking, “I’m glad the old man isn’t here to see this; he’d wonder what the hell it was that he’d been fighting for.” And, I swear, I could hear him say, “So when did I tell you it would ever be over, boy?”
Yes, bin Laden has been edited out of the story. His replacement is out there, somewhere.
Best we all keep watching each others’ backs.
Yes, Stevens, you’re right – I already saw a Facebook posting today by one of my “friends” saying that the quick burial at sea makes them skeptical that bin Laden is really dead, that it’s all a publicity stunt.
I guess we will never get away from the pablum.
I just hope it means that our troops can come home.
Oh, Dave, you’re such an innocent. His critics will say that the president could have done this sooner, or more cheaply, or or on Fox TV. Conversely, they will find some reason to say his timing was bad and that it will provoke more terrorist attacks that we aren’t ready for, and that’s all his fault.
Or that it’s a fake (you know, like the documentation of his birth).
Like lots of Americans, I know people who died in the 9/11 attacks. Not many months before, I had a desk in one of the buildings destroyed that day. With lots of family in New York city and here in NoVa, I’ve certainly joined in spirit with countless others who have wanted to see this man brought down.
CNN says there is “jubilation” in American cities. Am I glad bin Laden is dead? Yes. I sometimes write short stories. When an editor finds a mistake and corrects it, I’m glad. I guess that’s how I see the killing of bin Laden: it’s act of editorial correction in the human race.
But it’s hard for me to find anything associated with 9/11, even this, that makes me “jubilant.”