I think some of those captured may be a pair of Osama's wives and some of his nasty issue -- I kept reading that they'd been arrested.

The five we know about are the two brothers who were couriers and straw-owners of the property, Osama, one of filthy progeny, and one of his whore-wives, whom he cowered behind like a "Holy Warrior" as justice came a-gunnin'.

The rest? Dead? Alive? Family members? More high value targets?

Maybe some folks from Pakistan's government, chilling out with the man whose location they couldn't determine?

After bursts of fire over 40 minutes, 22 people were killed or captured. One of the dead was Osama bin Laden, done in by a double tap -- boom, boom -- to the left side of his face. His body was aboard the choppers that made the trip back. One had experienced mechanical failure and was destroyed by U.S. forces, military and White House officials tell National Journal.

It goes on to say the operation was executed by SEAL Team 6, which is a particularly cool team, in as much as its existence is denied. That's when you know you're badass, when no one will even admit you exist.

Supposedly this is a replica of a "challenge coin" passed by Black Ops troopers -- reading "I WASN'T HERE." That's not newsworthy or anything, that's just cool.

Intelligence believes that this Quivering Queen made one last of his YouTube lipsync tapes, like maybe "Friiiday" or something. That should be coming out.

Now, all of this was recorded. This future fundraising photo shows team Obama watching the SEALs' helmet-camera feeds; it's gripping enough that Joe Biden remains awake and alert.

There is no reason at all this video should not be released. Particularly if it shows this coward hiding behind his wife.

Now, I don't think that will sway the minds of many Islamists -- they seem to think women are only good for reproduction (but not pleasure-sex), slavery, and death, but who knows, maybe it would shock some of these people into taking a look at their ugly faces in the mirror.

By the way, Hamas, CAIR's favorite NGO, condemned the slaughter of this rotten pig, calling him a "holy warrior."

Holey, maybe. Ba-dum-dum. Pow-pow.

Pictures From The Scene of the Crime Mitzvah: Shabby and, now, bloody.

Oh Lovely: Arabs rioting in Jerusalem over bin Ladin's death.

I like when savages say things like "I support the indiscriminate killing of civilians!" Tells us know the proper ROE -- the targets have announced, by their own code, that they consider themselves ripe for threshing.

You want to stand with him, then we'll lay you down next to him.

Enough.

Posted by: Ace at 02:09 PM | Comments (223)
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First of all, when I heard last night that the administration was going to ensure that bin Laden's body would be treated in "accordance with Islamic traditions", I was ok with that because I thought the Muslim practice for dealing with dead enemies was to drag them through thee streets and burn the bodies. At least that's the impression I get from watching TV.

Alas, it turns out the Obama administration had other ideas.

Osama bin Laden received a Muslim ceremony as he was buried at sea, a senior defense official said in Washington, D.C., May 2.

The religious rites were performed aboard the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) in the North Arabian Sea and occurred within 24 hours of the terrorist leader's death, said the official.

"Preparations for at-sea [burial] began at 1:10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time and were completed at 2 a.m.," said the official.

The burial followed traditional Muslim burial customs, and bin Laden's body was washed and placed in a white sheet, said the official.

"The body was placed in a weighted bag. A military officer read prepared religious remarks, which were translated into Arabic by a native speaker," the official added.

Afterward, bin Laden's body was placed onto a flat board, which was then elevated upward on one side and the body slid off into the sea.

The sharks and bottom feeders ate well last night.

Of course, not everyone was impressed by our interfaith outreach.

he head of Egypt's prestigious seat of Sunni Muslim learning, al-Azhar, condemned U.S. troops' disposal of the body of Osama bin Laden at sea on Monday as an affront to religious and human values.

Muslims set great store by interment in permanent graves on land and accept burial at sea only in cases where the body cannot be preserved intact aboard ship until it reaches shore.

"The Grand Imam, Dr Ahmed El-Tayeb, the sheikh of Al-Azhar condemned the reports, if true, of the throwing of the body of Osama bin Laden into the sea," according to a statement released by al-Azhar, which is respected around the world by many Sunni Muslims as a seat of religious learning.

The procedure "contradicts all the religious values and human norms", it said: "The Grand Imam asserted that it is forbidden in Islam to deform the dead, regardless of their beliefs. One honours the dead by burying them."

More outraged Muslim reaction here.

Thank God, er, Allah, that this bit of good will backfired and pissed off some people.

Why is the US government so desperate to show it's sensitivity to Muslims by how we deal with the bullet riddled carcase of a killer? Besides, I thought bin Laden wasn't really a Muslim (or a Muslim-Muslim as Whoopi Goldberg would say). Suddenly he has to be accorded all the rights and respect due an upstanding man of faith? That's just a bit of a contradiction. And no, don't tell me it's about not antagonizing the moderate Muslims around the world. We've done quite enough outreach from our side, thank you very much. I'm tired of walking on egg shells and fearing that if we offend some delicate sensibility of theirs (and there's always one) the practitioners of the world's most peaceful religion will explode in murderous rage.

I'm all for treating honorable combatants with honor and respect when they fall on the field of battle like men. But cowardly terrorists who hide behind women? Stuff their bodies and put them on display at The Smithsonian. You know, like Trigger the horse.

Posted by: DrewM at 01:39 PM | Comments (169)
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Ben's on fire in the sidebar.

Let me try this myself:

I write most of the posts on this blog, but

We write the stuff Andrew Breitbart actually reads.

By George, I think I've got it!

Posted by: Ace at 12:21 PM | Comments (288)
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From the AP, but I'm linking Legal Insurrection.

Officials say CIA interrogators in secret overseas prisons developed the first strands of information that ultimately led to the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Current and former U.S. officials say that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, provided the nom de guerre of one of bin LadenÂ’s most trusted aides. The CIA got similar information from MohammedÂ’s successor, Abu Faraj al-Libi. Both were subjected to harsh interrogation tactics inside CIA prisons in Poland and Romania.

The media will refuse to disseminate this. Yes, the trail began with Bush policies and would not have begun with Obama policies.

But you know who will make sure people know this?

Dick Cheney, in his national, full-spectrum omni-media You're Welcome tour.

Flashback: Media lambastes "black sites" in Romania and Poland.

In his second report on so-called "extraordinary renditions" of terror suspects, Council of Europe special investigator Dick Marty writes that there is "enough evidence to state" that American secret prisons in Poland and Romania existed. The illegal deportation of suspects by CIA kidnapping teams in Europe amounts to a "massive and systematic violation of human rights," the report says.

Marty, who conducted the investigation on behalf of the Council of Europe, accuses the CIA of having committing a number of transgressions: "We believe we have shown that the CIA committed a whole series of illegal acts in Europe by abducting individuals, detaining them in secret locations and subjecting them to interrogation techniques tantamount to torture."

The Washington Post, of course, first revealed these sites in 2005-2006, in Bush's term.

By revealing these sites, the media pressured our allies to shut them down and probe their own officials for potential criminal charges.

Including Lithuania.

So apparently Obama and the left like to campaign hard on naivete in order to make partisan attacks on a Republican President, but they will gladly take the information they themselves opposed procuring and then claim credit for the fruit of that information.

Let Me Say Something About Bush and Cheney: For the last four years, they have known they broke KSM and this other high value target and got the names of Osama's couriers.

They have only stated elliptically, without specifics, that "important information was learned."

They were called liars every time they said this.

At any time, they could have exposed their critics as the anti-American, terrorist-coddling hyperpartisans they were, by revealing this crown jewel of American intelligence.

But they didn't.

They allowed their names to be slurred on a daily basis in order to preserve the secret. To allow Obama to capitalize on the information they procured.

Well.

The secret is out now.

It's time for credit to be taken and apologies to be granted -- or apologies to be forced and shamed out of people.

Cheney on FoxNews Now: He's actually saying he's not sure about this... he says he needs to know more before he can conclude that enhanced interrogation led to this.

Posted by: Ace at 11:32 AM | Comments (228)
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Oh boy.

Ohhhhh boy.

“This area had been used as ISI’s safe house, but it was not under their use any more because they keep on changing their locations,” a senior intelligence official confided to Gulf News. However, he did not reveal when and for how long it was used by the ISI operatives. Another official cautiously said “it may not be the same house but the same compound or area used by the ISI”.

Also note Ben's link of the slideshow about the construction of Osama's compound. Ben thinks the extensiveness of the construction (recent) makes it unlikely that no one noticed or inquired about this big new house.

Now, if you look at Ben's slide, there was no construction on the property in 2004. So, before 2004, this couldn't have been an "ISI safe house." Unless there was a previous house there, and they mean the property was sported a safe-house, which was then demolished in favor of bin Ladin's pad.

Or: That the new construction was the safe-house, and bin Ladin moved in after it ceased being used as that.

This is bad.

If you don't know what a safe house is, it's what it sounds like it is.

In law enforcement jargon and intelligence jargon, a safe house is a secure location, suitable for hiding witnesses, agents or other persons
perceived as being in danger. It may also refer to:

a place where people may go to avoid prosecution of their activities by authorities....

Typically, the locations of safe houses are kept secret from all but a limited number of people, for the safety of those hidden within them.

A synonym is "sanctuary."

If this is true -- and I'm thinking it is -- There is no such thing as Al Qaeda.

What there is is the ISI, and various front groups it uses to carry out terrorist attacks on India, America, and Europe.

And Bali.

And inside Pakistan, too.

If this is true, Al Qaeda is every much the fiction that the various CIA front-companies (various micro-sized airlines, small banks, oil speculation businesses, businesses engaged in various vague forms of "economic analysis" that engage in a lot of travel, etc.) are. They're just the the CIA with plausible deniabillity.

And if this is true, Al Qaeda is merely the ISI, and the government of Pakistan, with plausible deniability.

And that deniability just became implausible. It had been less than plausible for a while; but now it's unbelievable.

The Bush Doctrine: At least one of the several statements called "The Bush Doctrine," at least, went like such:

We shall treat the state sponsors of terrorism precisely as we treat the terrorists themselves.

So will we be doing that?

Overstatement: People are objecting to my "there is no such thing as Al Qaeda" rhetoric.

It's a bit of dramatic overstatement, meant to sell the implications of this. I mean, if these two are working hand-in-glove, there is essentially no Al Qaeda as distinct from the ISI.

Sure it exists. But any puppet rebel army might exist, too; it doesn't change the fact that for all intents and purposes it is a creation of its state sponsor.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:34 AM | Comments (330)
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Key moments:

1. The SEALs affording Osama the full dignity of Sharia-compliant corpse handling.

2. Osama being greeted by his 72 virgins in Hell. more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:59 AM | Comments (123)
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From Britain's Telegraph.

American diplomats were told that one of the key reasons why they had failed to find bin Laden was that PakistanÂ’s security services tipped him off whenever US troops approached.

PakistanÂ’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISID) also allegedly smuggled al-Qaeda terrorists through airport security to help them avoid capture and sent a unit into Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban.

Now, who told US diplomats this? Apparently it was a counterterrorism big of Tajikistan:

According to a US diplomatic dispatch, General Abdullo Sadulloevich Nazarov, a senior Tajik counterterrorism official, told the Americans that “many” inside Pakistan knew where bin Laden was.

The document stated: “In Pakistan, Osama Bin Laden wasn’t an invisible man, and many knew his whereabouts in North Waziristan, but whenever security forces attempted a raid on his hideouts, the enemy received warning of their approach from sources in the security forces.”

They told us this in 2009. They specifically finger corrupt Pakistani spies, by which we mean the ISI.

Ahem. Now this is just one guy talking, one guy telling us this and that, and there is always the question about whether he's right, or just guessing, or what.

But this is starting to paint a rather bad picture of our "ally" in the War on Terror, Pakistan, eh?

I am not just offering up bluster here; this is the reality of the situation.

Pakistan believes it can do these things because it is protected by its atom bombs.

Not so.

Having atomic bombs simply means that nuclear force must be used against you in a conflict.

Posted by: Ace at 09:46 AM | Comments (69)
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He didn't say that last part. It's just implied.

"American troops coming across the border and taking action in one of our towns, that is Abbottabad, is not acceptable to the people of Pakistan. It is a violation of our sovereignty," Mr. Musharraf told CNN-IBN, an Indian news channel."...

I think the proper response here is Go F*** Yourself To Death.

Mr. Musharraf said the "lack of trust is very bad."

"If two organizations [are] conducting an operation against a common enemy, there has to be trust and confidence in each other," he said.

The common enemy of the US and Pakistan is Pakistan.

I'll add in a possible narrative here in favor of Pakistan.

We know, for a fact, that the US claims that foreign countries are not involved in anti-terrorist missions even though they are. Or at least gave permission.

We know this from WikiLeaks. We know that the president of Yemen actually blessed several anti-Al-Qaeda operations but our country lied about that, at the President of Yemen's request, because of course Al Qaeda is popular in the Muslim world and Muslims have a big chip on their shoulder about "respect" and therefore sovereignty issues.

They are very insistent that everyone pretend their third-world tribal ungovernably primitive hellholes are real countries or something.

So it's in the US's interest to lie if Pakistan were actually helpful here. It's of course in Pakistan's interest that we should lie.

It is therefore possible that Pakistan was rather helpful here, but the US is putting out all this information that Pakistan's actually the bad guy, and was probably protecting bin Ladin, because that's exactly how Pakistan wishes it to be played.

Counting against that theory is bin Ladin's actual location in an army town.

Still, I suppose, it's possible.

But even with my narrative it still suggests that Pakistan is a rotten, terrorist state, because even if the government was helpful, Al Qaeda remains so wildly popular with its increasingly monstrous, verminous population that the government is compelled to lie about it and put out the word that we were actually protecting the terrorist monster.

This will not end well. For anyone, but especially for Pakistan.

Thanks to Hollowpoint.

By the Way: It is a longstanding principle of international law that to the extent a nation cannot patrol itself for bandits and pirates operating within it, its sovereignty is diminished.

If it doesn't have sovereignty -- control -- in fact, it also loses sovereignty as far as the law.

When Pancho Villa was raiding America, Mexico's sovereignty didn't stop us from mounting the Punitive Expedition.

Maybe the pirates of the Barbary Coast were semi-independent actors, but if so, that means the state was incapable of stamping down lawlessness in its own borders, and that gave us the green light to storm the Shores of Tripoli.

Pakistan either won't or can't act strongly against the terrorists -- murderous bandits and pirates -- within it. Its sovereignty is therefore partly a fiction which does not have to be pretended to be real in law.

Not that that line of argument would persuade them. But that's the way it is. And that's the way it's always been.

Posted by: Ace at 09:20 AM | Comments (193)
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Remember the CIA Contractor who was arrested by Pakistan police for the crime of defending himself against two thugs who either tried to rob him or were in fact Al Qaeda?

Well, Lahore is about four and a half hours away from Abbottabad. That's not close. However, this CIA unit was almost certainly deployed as part of the operation to find bin Ladin, and who knows, may have been tracking the couriers. Perhaps the couriers were found in Lahore, delivering messages to Al Qaeda in Lahore, then later followed back to Osama's Al Qaeda Headquarters.

Maybe?

Another thing that looks different in context is Obama's roast-speech at the Correspondent's dinner. He already had given the order to get bin Ladin. I don't know if he knew for a fact bin Ladin was there, but he knew there was a good chance.

It tends to explain a little of his cockiness. Also, a joke that is particularly pointed is at about 10:30 -- he's goofing on Trump for making a trivial decision about who to fire after a steak-oriented contest on The Apprentice. He snarks about the decision to fire "Little John, Meat Loaf, or Gary Busey," "These are the sorts of decisions that would keep me up at night." And then tosses in "Well-handled, Sir, well-handled."

The joke was funny then, but it's even more pointed now. more...

Posted by: Ace at 08:56 AM | Comments (90)
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Just sayin'.

I guess "close to a restricted military zone" is not the same as "in a restricted military zone," but you know, I tend to think the CIA knows who owns the properties in the vicinity of Langley.

Abbottabad is essentially a military cantonment city in Pakistan, in the hills to the north of the capital of Islamabad, in an area where much of the land is controlled or owned by the Pakistan Army and retired army officers. Although the city is technically in what used to be called the Northwest Frontier Province, it lies to the far eastern side of the province and is as close to Pakistani-held Kashmir as it is to the border city of Peshawar. The city is most notable for housing the Pakistan Military Academy, the Pakistan Army’s premier training college, equivalent to West Point. Looking at maps and satellite photos on the Web last night, I saw the wide expanse of the Academy not far from where the million-dollar, heavily secured mansion where bin Laden lived was constructed in 2005. The maps I looked at had sections of land nearby marked off as “restricted area,” indicating that it was under military control. It stretches credulity to think that a mansion of that scale could have been built and occupied by bin Laden for six years without it coming to the attention of anyone in Pakistan’s Army.

The initial circumstantial evidence suggests the opposite is more likely—that bin Laden was effectively being housed under Pakistani state control. Pakistan will deny this, it seems safe to predict, and perhaps no convincing evidence will ever surface to prove the case. If I were a prosecutor at the United States Department of Justice, however, I would be tempted to call a grand jury.

A grand jury to ferret out who built it, and from whom the land was built, and who installed the security system, and such secondary questions, but with the primary purpose of happening upon a direct connection to the Pakistan government.

After WWII, when the Army Air Forces were spun off into a separate, independent serve called the Air Force, there was an argument over whether the Army would still have aircraft. The new Air Force and its congressional boosters were determined that only the Air Force should have land-based aircraft, whereas the Army and its supporters objected that where it once had had a sizable air force, it made no sense that now it should have none.

A compromise was reached wherein the Army was permitted a limited number of fixed wing aircraft and more rotary wing aircraft (helicopters). But the great majority of fixed-wing aircraft would be Air Force property.

(I hate this compromise because I think it forces the Army, year after year, to choose inferior helicopters over superior fixed-wing craft, just to abide by the compromise. Helicopters are of course useful in many ways, but the Army is being forced to buy far too many of them, more than it would like, just because its compliment of fixed wing craft is capped.)

Anyway, I think a compromise has been reached in Pakistan: The secularists shall control the army, and that's the best service for career-minded secularists.

On the other hand, the Islamists, the terrorists, are placed in total control of the ISI (their secret terrorist service). And that's the service that jihadists favor.

Because they get to murder civilians, or at least coordinate and pay for such civilian murders.

Of course, if the Army was in on protecting bin Ladin too, that just means the whole country is officially an Al Qaeda franchise.

By the Way: Obama is doing a Presidential Tour. He's awarding medals to Korean War vets. It's being broadcast, which is unusual for such ceremonies.

The net effect, of course, is to finally show Obama looking very presidential, praising the military, honoring its fallen, and etc.

Very good optics for Obama. He'll definitely get a big boost, and a lot of that boost will stick around.

Also By the Way: You can bet a movie is going into production this very moment, at least the development, scripting, and casting, and the production will be fed important insider information to make it accurate.

And yeah, they're going to try to get that movie out for the Summer of 2012.

Posted by: Ace at 08:30 AM | Comments (121)
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