{"id":4797,"date":"2011-05-10T02:27:08","date_gmt":"2011-05-10T09:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=4797"},"modified":"2011-05-10T02:27:08","modified_gmt":"2011-05-10T09:27:08","slug":"killing-bin-laden-not-predetermined","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/05\/10\/killing-bin-laden-not-predetermined\/","title":{"rendered":"Killing Bin Laden Not Predetermined"},"content":{"rendered":"

Extremists on both ends of the political spectrum are condemning Obama for his handling of the fatal capture of Osama bin Laden.  From the right, Republican (the entire leadership is extreme right) torture mavens are trying to claim credit and criticizing Obama for his failure to take Osama alive to torture him.  There is no need to respond, because their justification of war crimes is long debunked.  From the extreme left the criticism is that Obama murdered Osama, because he had no intent to capture him.  However, there is now evidence that indicates the opposite.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"10raid\"President Obama insisted that the assault force hunting down Osama bin Laden last week be large enough to fight its way out of Pakistan if confronted by hostile local police officers and troops, senior administration and military officials said yesterday.<\/p>\n

In revealing additional details about planning for the mission, senior officials also said that two teams of specialists were on standby: one to bury bin Laden if he was killed, and a second composed of lawyers, interrogators, and translators in case he was captured alive<\/font><\/strong>. That team was set to meet aboard a Navy ship, most likely the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in the North Arabian Sea.<\/p>\n

Obama\u2019s decision to increase the size of the force sent into Pakistan shows that he was willing to risk a military confrontation with a close ally in order to capture or kill<\/strong> the leader of Al Qaeda.<\/p>\n

Such a fight would have set off an even larger breach with the Pakistanis than has taken place since officials in Islamabad learned that helicopters filled with members of a Navy SEALs team had flown into one of their cities and burst into a compound where bin Laden was hiding.<\/p>\n

One senior Obama administration official, pressed on the rules of engagement for one of the riskiest clandestine operations attempted by the CIA and the military\u2019s Joint Special Operations Command in many years, said: \u201cTheir instructions were to avoid any confrontation if at all possible. But if they had to return fire to get out, they were authorized to do it.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

The planning also illustrates how little the administration trusted the Pakistanis as they set up their operation. They also rejected a proposal to bring the Pakistanis in on the mission\u2026. [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Boston Globe<\/a>><\/p>\n

In a highly risky mission, wasting space on unnecessary personnel, needlessly increases the risk.  Therefore, the rational interpretation is that Osama\u2019s fate depended on conditions on the ground.  Based on his teachings, bin Laden would certainly have preferred martyrdom to being taken alive, so I do not doubt that he would have made gestures that the soldiers would interpret as threats.<\/font><\/p>\n

Sadly, there are too many for whom facts take a back seat to ideology.  Fortunately most of them are Republicans, and the American people as a whole support the outcome.<\/font><\/p>\n

Lawrence O\u2019Donnell and Eugene Robinson cover Obama\u2019s 60 Minutes<\/u> interview and discuss Obama\u2019s approval ratings in the wake of last weeks events.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

There remain several areas in which Obama has disappointed me, but he deserves credit for putting to rest the bogus Republican meme that Democrats can\u2019t handle national security, but they can.  Events have shown that Republicans couldn\u2019t keep America safe or catch the perpetrotor, but a Democrat has done both.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Extremists on both ends of the political spectrum are condemning Obama for his handling of the fatal capture of Osama bin Laden.  From the right, Republican (the entire leadership is extreme right) torture mavens are trying to claim credit and criticizing Obama for his failure to take Osama alive to torture him.  There is no […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4797\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}