Yesterday :
LONDON: US President Barack Obama watched the real action unfold live on a TV screen as a US commando gunned down Al Qaida chief Osama bin Laden in a safe house in Abbottabad in Pakistan early Monday. He broke the news to the world later that the US Navy Seals had taken the world’s deadliest terrorist.
The footage of the battle in bin Laden’s Pakistani hideout is said to show one of his wives acting as a human shield to protect him as he blasted away with an AK47 assault rifle.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/
WASHINGTON (AFP) – One of Osama bin Laden’s wives acted as a human shield in an unsuccessful bid to save the Al-Qaeda leader’s life before he was killed in a raid by US special forces, a top US official said Monday.
Earlier today :
May 3, 2011 – Washington
White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan has said that the US Navy Seal team that killed Osama bin Laden Sunday in Pakistan would have captured Al Qaeda’s leader alive if it was possible.
“If we had the opportunity to take bin Laden alive, if he didn’t present any threat, the individuals involved were able and prepared to do that,” Brennan told reporters.
Later today :
Claims that the al-Qaeda leader had died while firing an automatic weapon at commandos were withdrawn, with President Barack Obama’s spokesman admitting “he was unarmed”. A dramatic description of bin Laden using his wife as a “human shield” and forcing her to sacrifice her life also proved to be false. The woman was still alive and was taken into custody with several of the terrorist’s children.
The US press is burying this story. For the first time in my adult life, I am not proud of America.
Thank you for this update Steven.
The more time goes by the more Americans are finding how big a mistake electing Obama was. But we are stuck for 20 more months!
More Obama censoring news:
White House asked California paper to take out unflattering remark about first lady…… “received a call from the White House asking us to take out part of the story because it reflected poorly on the First Lady.”…… “I thought it was interesting, though, that the [White House] was concerned enough about image to contact a little weekly paper in Pleasanton.”
The White House communications office did not return requests for comment.
http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/03/white-house-asked-california-paper-to-take-out-unflattering-remark-about-first-lady/
Hi Steven
I’m not quite clear what you are ashamed of. Is it
That Bin Laden was killed
The manner in which Bin Laden was killed
The response of President Obama
The poor reporting of the killing
?
The White House killed an unarmed man and flagrantly lied about it to the public. That is incredibly disconcerting.
If he was unarmed, they just carried him away to enhanced interrogation techniques.
Fake burial at sea.
Lots of unarmed people in the World Trade Center buildings.
While it is certainly disconcerting, it is (sadly) not a big surprise. 🙁
What’s disconcerting is that you give credibility to the Daily Mail’s made-up account of the attack! Their report of the President watching via a helmet-cam on one of the seal’s head was a fabrication. Brennan’s statements were far less definite than the ‘quotes’ you selected from the AFP, here’s what you find if you read the article.
“”There was family at that compound, and there was a female who was, in fact, in the line of fire that reportedly was used as a shield to shield bin Laden from the incoming fire,” counter-terrorism official John Brennan said.
Pressed on reports the woman shot dead by Navy SEALs during a firefight at a compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan was one of bin Laden’s four wives, Brennan told a White House briefing: “That’s my understanding.”
Brennan said it was not entirely clear “whether or not bin Laden or the son or whatever put her there or she put herself there” or whether the Al-Qaeda chief himself fired rounds during the exchange.”
Nice cherry-picking by Steve there.
I see, the White House released photos of Mr. Hillary’s wife and the Chicago mobster watching the raid – because they didn’t actually see it.
?He was engaged in a firefight with those that entered,? Brennan said, adding that bin Laden had been ?hiding behind women who were put in front of him as a shield.?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/osama-bin-laden-resisted-assault-but-was-unarmed-us-officials-say/2011/05/03/AFpKmdhF_story_1.html
It is the same with the French and British actions in Libya, it is supposed to be protecting civilians but it is plainly obvious they are fighting on one side to get rid of the despotic leader over there.
So once again good deeds but why all the bullshit when it is plainly obvious what is going on? I am surprised they think we are so daft as not to be able to see the obvius.
Andy
And the USA aren’t involved at all are they?
It’s being driven by the French and the British this time, ie regime change, rather than the Americans.
The French seem to have got very gung ho with regime change at the moment, they pulled the same trick in Ivory Coast recently 😉
Andy
You know, Steve, you’ve got me thinking about this…..
… why oh why do we risk the lives of our seals when we’re just going to blast the guy when we get there? If you intend that, why not drop a 2000 pounder and look for DNA in the rubble over the next few days?
To save the intelligence data? Maybe. Why not tase the terrorist and take him to waterboarding school? This guy is worth far more alive than dead.
Exactly.
October Surprise next year?
I’m glad to hear that it isn’t just me that got a cold chill down the spine when I heard about the celebrations over the cold blooded murder of an unarmed man, in front of his wife, and his body being tipped unceremoniously into the sea, with not even the merest suggestion of a court trial to determine his guilt, and all to get an unpopular president in with a better chance of re-election.
This murder will not stop Al Qaeda, the design of which is purpose-built to survive the death of any one person. Instead, Barack Obama and his people have made Osama Bin Laden a ‘martyr’, and there will be many many angry young men out now to avenge his ‘martyrdom’.
There is such a thing as the Geneva Convention ~ and this is not about whether or not Bin Laden himself would have honoured the Geneva Convention. This is not about who he is or was. It is about who we are. Every man is entitled to the rule of the law and a fair trial ~ otherwise we will quickly descend to the barbaric. Today they’re topping Bin Laden, but tomorrow, it could be you or me.
Al-Qaeda were on the back foot anyway. The Arab Uprising owes little to them, and its success would have rendered their cause virtually redundant. Now, in one fell swoop, Obama has breathed new life into Al-Qaeda by making a ‘martyr’ of their leader, and all to get himself re-elected.
If they were serious about world peace, all they needed to do was arrest Bin Laden, and bundle him off to the Hague where they would have been able to easily nail him, fair and square, with the evidence of his computer hard drive.
And no, the death of Bin Laden won’t mean that the Americans will be coming out of Afghanistan any time soon, because they have to help shore up the regime of one of the most corrupt leaders on the world stage today from the threat of the Taliban in order to protect their oil interests.
So well done America, the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Blah, blah, blah… Give up G.I. You can never prevail against Japanese Supermen.
I seemed to have missed your posts about Bin laden’s indescriminant murder of unamrned civilians. At lease Bin Laden knew that we were coming for him. Bin Laden just joins a long list of guys that lived by the sword and then died by the sword. Bin laden should have picked up his trusty POS AK-47, which he always conspicuously has propped-up beside him when he makes his videos threatening death to the infidel and use it. He had ample opportunity to try it.
You completely miss the point
Reelection timing?
……SEAL Team’s helicopter to the Pakistani air base, where he was washed according to Muslim tradition and then sent to be buried at sea.
The fact that SEAL Team Six used a Pakistan air base raises questions as to whether the United States provided advanced warning to the Pakistani government before the raid.
For several months, the White House has publicly blamed Pakistan for a lack of cooperation in the war against al-Qaida and its affiliates operating in Pakistan. Just last week, chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen accused Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) of working with the terrorists against the United States.
Given the apparent cooperation with Pakistan in the bin Laden operation, which President Obama acknowledged in his speech last night, some of the tensions may have been a ruse…..
“Whatever the reason for the timing, somebody just decided it was show time,” Stethem said.
http://www.newsmax.com/KenTimmerman/osamabinladen-seals-specialforces-pakistan/2011/05/02/id/394830
After the Jessica Lynch ‘heroic’ rescue, did you think that the Hollywood pentagon would be honest and straightforward? Afterall, never let a good story go to waste.
So it would be OK to drop a 2000 lb on an unarmed man, kill women and children, and any colaterals, but not just him face to face.
No one should lie about this.
You do have a point.
I have said from the beginning, they should have taken him alive. If they had made a video of him being examined like Saddam Hussain was, his mouth open a dentist looking at his teeth, etc., or him being questioned, then the Arab world would have had proof. They could have shipped him to Guantanamo, but not to the US.
A lot of things could have been done different.
His own organization has described him as a martyr, members of his family have said that he was killed. Anyone who doesn’t believe that he’s dead isn’t going to be persuaded by some photos.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Did they rush the story out just to pre-empt Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” on Sunday?
The amount of back-tracking and recasting of the description indicates nobody in the BHO administration thought this through very carefully. They’ve just relied on the lay-down American press to assist in imparting the “right spin”
It’s not all that different from the way climate alarm stories are manufactured, spun, and recycled in the media.
stevengoddard says:
May 4, 2011 at 2:36 pm
I see, the White House released photos of Mr. Hillary’s wife and the Chicago mobster watching the raid – because they didn’t actually see it.
The White House released a photo of the situation room during a ‘key update on the progress of the raid’, you really should learn to read the descriptions of the photos (from the source), not make things up. The raid was not observed directly via head-cams etc., verbal only.