All Articles Tagged "osama death"
Should We Trust the Obama Administration's Account of Bin Laden's Death?
Since last week when Obama announced that the world’s public enemy number one had been killed, close friends and family have been asking me all sorts of questions about the mission.
They know I read a lot, and subsequently post a lot of what I read on various social networking sites. They also know that I usually have an opinion about things. However, I have been hesitant about discussing the matter too much out of sheer exhaustion of having fruitless debates with folks, which will not change the outcome that Bin Laden is literally swimming with the fishes. But I do tell them that while I believe he is dead, I do have questions about the official story. Of course, the usual response that follows is a smirk and another question, ”But why would they [the Obama Administration] lie?”
I don’t know why or if they did. But I do know that the official story has inconsistencies big enough to drive a truck through. For instance, the first official report was that Osama lived in a multi-million dollar mansion with no electricity, Internet or telephone. There was a firefight and Osama went down in a blaze of glory. Not only did he hide behind a woman, but he used her as a human shield, causing her death also.
But after that was debunked, the second version went something like this: Osama lived in a relatively expensive house and he might have had electricity. There was a firefight, but Osama wasn’t armed. However, he did resist capture. The lady in question wasn’t actually killed; she was injured when a stray bullet hit her in the leg.
There is no visible proof of either story other than the words of our administration, which seems to change stream every time a new hole is punched. The quick sea burial, the decision to kill probably one of the biggest sources of intelligence in the war on terror and the 20-25 minute gap in the video stream during which Obama and his staff missed important parts of the operation, all linger as unanswered questions. Yet print and TV media outlets have only seemed to embrace these talking points without critical analysis.
But I, and others like me, can’t risk disparaging the official story without being called extremist nutcases. Why?
Well, thanks to the turn of events only days before the “We Got Him” speech, Obama was in a position to banish any and all criticisms placed upon him. One of the greatest moves of his political campaign was to release the birth certificate, thwarting not only the ongoing speculation about his citizenship, but also setting the stage for the world to laugh and mock those who did not believe the president. Just a week later, many of the same folks who once joined the merciless ridicule of the Birthers now find themselves wearing a label of their own – the Deathers.
Cindy Sheehan, an anti-war activist whose Army specialist son was killed in Iraq, is one of those folks who cannot shake off the Deather label. In a piece called “I’m Not the Deather,” she writes, ” I guess this slur is a riff on the ‘Birther’ movement that claims that the current POTUS was not born in the US and therefore is not qualified to be in office—I think the Birther movement is a ruse and distraction from the real issues, as is OBL’s latest death is.”
I believe that one of the major issues is that for a long time, the government and the mass media have intentionally been misleading the public for various purposes, including war. Bush claimed that Saddam had WMD while Colin Powell sold the war on claims of yellow cake—neither of which was true. Due to his refusal to release any evidence that Osama is dead, President Obama is not only allowing a great story to amplify into a shroud of mystery, but he is also missing an opportunity to restore a measure of believability and trust in the government, which was lost over the last decade.
The Obama Administration is standing firm by their decision not to release pictures or any other evidence to support their claims. This decision appears to sit well with a vast majority of people, including a number of democrats who have used terms like “unpatriotic” and Bin Laden “sympathizers” to describe so-called Deathers. Sound familiar? It’s the same rhetoric that was vocalized by the republicans under the Bush regime.
Charing Ball is the author of the blog People, Places & Things.
President to Travel to Ground Zero to Honor Lives Lost
(New York Times) – President Obama travels to ground zero in lower Manhattan Thursday afternoon, six days after ordering a daring nighttime raid in Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden, the author of the terrorist attack that turned this patch of land into hallowed ground. Mr. Obama, in his first visit as president to ground zero, plans to lay a wreath at a memorial to the nearly 3,000 victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. He will also meet privately with family members of the victims, firefighters and other rescue workers who died in the September 2001 attacks. “He wants to meet with them and share with them this important and significant moment, a bittersweet moment,” the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, said on Wednesday.
Obama Polling Well After Osama Death
(New York Times) — Support for President Obama rose sharply after the killing of Osama bin Laden, with a majority now approving of his overall job performance, as well as his handling of foreign policy, the war in Afghanistan and the threat of terrorism, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. The glow of national pride seemed to rise above partisan politics, as support for the president rose significantly among both Republicans and independents. In all, 57 percent said they now approved of the president’s job performance, up from 46 percent last month. But euphoria was tempered by a sense of foreboding: more than six in 10 Americans said that killing Bin Laden was likely to increase the threat of terrorism against the United States in the short term. A large majority also said that the Qaeda leader’s death did not make them feel any safer. Just 16 percent said they personally felt more safe now. Though there has been talk in some quarters that the United States military can now leave Afghanistan, the poll showed that public sentiment on the issue seems more complicated.
Bush Declines Obama’s Invitation to Ground Zero
(New York Times) – President Obama invited former President George W. Bush to join him at ground zero in New York City on Thursday to mark the killing of Osama bin Laden, but Mr. Bush declined, a spokesman for the former president confirmed on Tuesday. “President Bush will not be in attendance on Thursday,” said his spokesman, David Sherzer. “He appreciated the invite, but has chosen in his post-presidency to remain largely out of the spotlight. He continues to celebrate with Americans this important victory in the war on terror.”
Obama's Osama Announcement Must See TV
(New York Times) — President Obama’s announcement of Osama bin Laden’s death was watched by 56.5 million people in the United States on Sunday night, the Nielsen Company said Tuesday. The nine-minute address to the nation appeared to be the most-watched such event in nearly a decade. Despite the fact that the announcement came at 11:35 p.m., well after the bedtime for many people, it rated higher than every other address that Mr. Obama has given as president.
Bin Laden News Puts NY Media in Overdrive
(Crain’s) — The death of most-wanted terrorist Osama Bin Laden on Sunday was a historic event of international importance. But it was also a huge story for the news business. Between Sunday evening when the news broke, through 1 p.m. Monday, CNN.com scored 88 million global page views, a 217% increase over the prior four-week average, according to a spokeswoman for the news organization who cited numbers from Omniture. During the same time period, the site served 13.8 million video streams—a 725% gain over the previous four weeks. MSNBC.com was also seeing record traffic, serving 17 million online video streams as of 2 p.m., marking the site’s third highest day ever. ABCNews.com drew 1.4 million unique visitors—the most traffic in its history—on Monday between noon and 1 p.m., according to a spokesman. ABC News was boasting exclusive footage inside the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where Bin Laden was killed. That video has been watched by over 270,000 viewers.
Bin Laden's Death Good for Business
(Daily Finance) — The dollar and U.S. stock futures rose following President Barack Obama’s announcement late Sunday night that Osama Bin Laden had been killed. Analysts said the boost to the currency was a signal of greater confidence in the United States and a reduction in national security risks. The killing of Bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, marked the end of a nearly 10-year manhunt for the terrorist leader. ”I think we need to keep an eye on how the U.S. equity cash markets are going to react to this news,” Sue Trinh, senior currency strategist at RBC Capital Markets, was quoted as saying in MarketWatch. “The foreign-exchange markets have primarily been driven by risk sentiment and by extension U.S. equities.”
Osama Killing Receives Mixed Reaction in Africa
(Christian Science Montior) — For many Africans, the war against terrorism began on African soil. It started with the dual car bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania on Aug. 7, 1998, three years before the 9/11 attack in the United States. Suicide bombers killed 213 people in Nairobi and 11 people in Dar-es-Salaam, almost simultaneously. Small wonder, then, that Kenya’s leaders were among those to congratulate the United States for its reported killing of Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden on May 1 in Abbottabad, Pakistan. “Kenyans are happy and thank the US people, the Pakistani people, and everybody else who managed to kill Osama,” Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga told Reuters. President Mwai Kibaki called it “an act of justice” for the people of Kenya who lost loved ones in the 1998 attack.
Police Presence Beefed up at NY Airports, WTC Site
(AP) — Law enforcement agencies around the U.S. added security measures on Monday following Osama bin Laden’s death, out of what one called “an abundance of caution.” In Los Angeles, police were stepping up intelligence monitoring, while New York was sending extra police to its subways, airports, bridges and the World Trade Center site itself. Judy Banez, a nurse who commutes to New York City from Pennsylvania and lived in Queens on 9/11, said she was happy bin Laden was killed and had no problem with the added security at New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal. ”We’re being vigilant and we can now go on with our lives,” she said.
