The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Juan Cole on OBL's "illegitimate" end

    By Flavius on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 10:42am |

    http://www.juancole.com/

    the United Nations Charter ......... recognizes the right of a state to defend itself from attack. Bin Laden had demonstrated that he............. would attack the United States. He was ......... having US troops ..................................................... attacked  .............. every day............ wouldn’t the US have the same right to defend itself as everyone else?

     I ask myself why it is being charged that the SEALs went in with orders to shoot to kill.*

    ........President Obama admits that for all he he knew  a Dubai prince lived in the house. The SEALs could not......... have had orders to kill a Dubai prince,................... the SEALs did not know ...... the man refusing to surrender and making suspicious movements was Ben Laden. It was dark. One of them had to lie down next to him to see if he was 6′ 4″ after the shoot.

    .....................................................................................................................................

    * Unlike me since I would have approved if Obama gave them orders to shoot to kill.

     

    Comments

    So much for the report that applause went up from the SEALs when they were told who they were going after.

    I'd say Obama is too clever by half, but it's really about 9/10th. (i.e. "Dubai Prince" my ass) I remember Reagan getting a question from a reporter he didn't want to answer, and playing deaf I-can't-hear-you in his awe shucks smartass way. Really brought my hate for him up several degrees.

    And sad that Juan Cole ruined good points about OBL's and Pakistan's violation of national sovereignty by then taking this trivial nonsense about the "Dubai Prince"


    by Desider on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 5:51pm

    Des

    Why hate? Because he and members of his administration have given different accounts? That's grounds for hate? Might be grounds to hire a new spokesman  for sure. 

    At some point we'll get facts and to the extent any one cares (I don't) then it will become clear what happened. And we'll find out whether Obama has lied, Biden has lied, etc etc. And we can then decide what's an appropriate reaction. 

    There seems to me to be a disconnect between your intensity and the subject we're discussing.

    Obviously you have been severely disappointed by his first two years in office. I haven't. I think the Stimulus saved the worlds economy- and Detroit. I think Obamacare represented a tremendous risk and as much of an accomplishment as could have been expected for a country so miniformed about health as this is.And so appalling indifferent to suffering of those who die because they don't have the care available in every other developed country. He's made a couple of good appointments to the Supreme Court. And is finally beginning to achieve results such as freeing the National Labor Board from the dead hand of  its Republican appointees.

     Perhaps I'll be the last person in America still voting for Obama two years from now, But vote for him I will. I hope by then you will too.


    by Flavius on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 6:06pm

    No, I'm with you Flavius, and I'll try to convince the missus too.  


    by Bruce Levine on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 6:21pm

    Could you re-read the above? It was talking about Reagan - who aw-shucks-ed his way around kinda like Rumsfeld while pulling off all sorts of nasty stuff.


    by Desider on Tue, 05/10/2011 - 12:53am

    The "Dubai prince" reference is a throwaway line that Juan Cole takes way too literally. Same thing for the "55-45 certainty." The SEAL team was 100% sure they were going after bin Laden, that he was in that compound, and that (as Panetta confirmed) their orders were to kill him.

    Obama is deliberately playing up the riskiness of the operation, probably to bolster his cred as commander-in-chief. You don't mount an operation like that on 55-45 odds.


    by acanuck on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 6:12pm

    Please note, I'm not accusing Obama of "lying." He's engaging in the standard hyperbole and political opportunism that I expect from any elected official. Some BS is perfidious; most is just run-of-the-mill BS.


    by acanuck on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 6:19pm

    One person's hyperbole is another person's lie, although I draw the line about the same place you do, acanuck. At least, that's where I draw the line when it comes to nationally elected officials, no doubt because I learned a long time to keep the bar quite low.


    by Verified Atheist on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 8:22pm

    Lmao ... "Not saying he's lying .... just that the words he's using aren't true."

    Awesome.

    I can't tell who's joking anymore.


    by KGB (not verified) on Tue, 05/10/2011 - 12:26pm

    Saying what the odds were of something happening, after it has occurred, is not something you can lie about or tell the truth about. It is meaningless.


    by acanuck on Tue, 05/10/2011 - 2:28pm

    Huh? So, you think it's impossible to say what the odds of the Bulls beating the Hawks going into the game were ... because the game is now over? Someone better tell these guys to take their page down - now we can just say the odds were whatever we want! Yeah, I'm sure the nation's bookies are going to jump right up and endorse *this* formula.

    In any odds-making scenario I've ever seen, the odds are locked when the event starts. After that, the odds become a fact - collected for trivia and such. Just like the score. Entire books have been published based on the premise that odds set for events ... mean something.

    You may find it trivial - but it sure as hell isn't true. If the president says something he knows to be inaccurate that is pretty much called lying. Almost everywhere.


    by kgb999 on Wed, 05/11/2011 - 3:42am

    Just like with polling, the odds are examined after the fact to get better predictions next time. Depending on the field, predictions can get much much better with post-analysis.


    by Desider on Wed, 05/11/2011 - 4:19am

    So. You are saying in a situation where we didn't know if there was a prince from Dubai in the house. At that crucial moment. The kill shots weren't verified? That some SEAL had to lie down next to the corpse of a possible "prince" to know if they had just gotten Bin Laden or if we had some 'splainin to do to the emirate of Dubai?

    Aaaand nobody thought to bring a measuring tape? Instead we picked an exactly 6'4" soldier for the mission to wallow in blood and brains as our definitive check? WTF. Obama's JSOC is starting to sound like the Keystone Kops.

    Are you even thinking about this shit before you post it?


    by kgb999 on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 6:50pm

    You can't expect them to think of everything. They expected to verify with a picture but they forgot that by the time Ossama hit the floor he wouldn't have a face anymore.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 7:12pm

    .Are you even thinking about this shit before you post it?

    I don't describe anything Juan Cole writes that way.


    by Flavius on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 11:41pm

    Good lord. You might want to consider it from time to time. A more impressive bit of fluff headed emo butthurttery I have rarely seen.

    (Oh yeah, and you might want to consider permalinking the article, it's falling down his home page).


    by kgb999 on Tue, 05/10/2011 - 2:40am