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Merged Osama bin Laden dead,

I heard Obama was doing a burnout at ground zero and busting out the champaign....just ask Rush.
 
JihadJane said:
Bin Laden’s Daughter Confirms
Father Captured Alive Then Killed By US Special Forces

EXTRACT:

The official said a 12-year-old daughter of bin Laden was among the six children rescued from the three-storey compound.

The daughter has reportedly told her Pakistani investigators that the US forces captured her father alive but shot him dead in front of family members.

According to sources, Bin Laden was staying on the ground floor of the house and was dragged on the floor to the helicopter after being shot dead by US commandos.

There were conflicting reports about the second person the US forces took along with them. Some Pakistani officials say it was one of Bin Laden’s sons injured by the US commandos and thrown onto a separate military chopper; others say he was killed in the operation and it was only his dead body that they took along.

The officials say not all children rescued from the house belonged to the al-Qaeda leader. All were being kept at a safe place. The US has not been given access to the detained women and children, the officials claimed. About the second woman, many officials feel she could be a close relative of Osama or his servant.

Similarly, according to information Pakistani officials collected from detained persons, Osama was neither armed nor did inmates at the compound fire at the US choppers or commandos.

“Not a single bullet was fired from the compound at the US forces and their choppers. Their chopper developed some technical fault and crashed and the wreckage was left on the spot,” a well-informed official explained.


/EXTRACT.

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/05/04/147782.html
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Solves the 'did we really kill him' question, at least.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Not sure what this is supposed to mean.
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When you say that Obama is the "guy who actually did get Bin Laden", you seem to be implying that Obama pursued a different policy toward Bin Laden than Bush did, as opposed to happening to be President when Bin Laden was finally tracked down by military intelligence. Let me ask it another way: If McCain had been elected, do you think that Bin Laden would not have been tracked down in the same time frame?
 
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Rodney said:
When you say that Obama is the "guy who actually did get Bin Laden", you seem to be implying that Obama pursued a different policy toward Bin Laden than Bush did, as opposed to happening to be President when Bin Laden was finally tracked down by military intelligence. Let me ask it another way: If McCain had been elected, do you think that Bin Laden would not have been tracked down in the same time frame?
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The main difference in the Obama policy vs. the Bush (and McCain, based on his campaign speeches) policy was that he stopped splitting our resources between Iraq and Afghanistan/Taliban. He beefed up the troops in Afghanistan and made it the main focus of our activities, including our intelligence activities. Did that help us get OBL faster? Maybe. It certainly didn't hurt.
 
Tricky said:
He beefed up the troops in Afghanistan and made it the main focus of our activities, including our intelligence activities.
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So beefing up the troops in Afghanistan helped track down Bin Laden in Pakistan?
 
Rodney said:
So beefing up the troops in Afghanistan helped track down Bin Laden in Pakistan?
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That's why I specifically said Afghanistan/Taliban. I wanted to make it clear that the purpose of the forces (while they might focus in Afghanistan) was to track down the Taliban in the area, which included northern Pakistan. As you know, borders don't mean that much in that part of the world, and if you've been following the news, there have been numerous raids, especially by drones, into Pakistan.

I guess I should have tried harder to make it clear for those that thought the troops in Iraq were fightning the Taliban.
 
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Tricky said:
That's why I specifically said Afghanistan/Taliban. I wanted to make it clear that the purpose of the forces (while they might focus in Afghanistan) was to track down the Taliban in the area, which included northern Pakistan. As you know, borders don't mean that much in that part of the world, and if you've been following the news, there have been numerous raids, especially by drones, into Pakistan.

I guess I should have tried harder to make it clear for those that thought the troops in Iraq were fightning the Taliban.
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The problem with your logic is that Bin Laden began living in his Pakistan compound 5-6 years ago. Had U.S. intelligence gotten lucky with Bin Laden the way it did with Saddam, Bin Laden would have been tracked down before Obama became President. So, while I applaud Obama for continuing the pursuit of Bin Laden, I can't identify anything that he did in that pursuit that Bush did not do.
 
Rodney said:
When you say that Obama is the "guy who actually did get Bin Laden", you seem to be implying that Obama pursued a different policy toward Bin Laden than Bush did, as opposed to happening to be President when Bin Laden was finally tracked down by military intelligence. Let me ask it another way: If McCain had been elected, do you think that Bin Laden would not have been tracked down in the same time frame?
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Obama did pursue a different tack. I posted documentation of it.
 
Tricky said:
The main difference in the Obama policy vs. the Bush (and McCain, based on his campaign speeches) policy was that he stopped splitting our resources between Iraq and Afghanistan/Taliban. He beefed up the troops in Afghanistan and made it the main focus of our activities, including our intelligence activities. Did that help us get OBL faster? Maybe. It certainly didn't hurt.
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More than that. Under Bush the CIA task force looking for Osama was disbanded. Under Obama the effort was returned to the initial priority assignment.
 
Rodney said:
The problem with your logic is that Bin Laden began living in his Pakistan compound 5-6 years ago. Had U.S. intelligence gotten lucky with Bin Laden the way it did with Saddam, Bin Laden would have been tracked down before Obama became President. So, while I applaud Obama for continuing the pursuit of Bin Laden, I can't identify anything that he did in that pursuit that Bush did not do.
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Lucky?

I do believe you are distorting the facts. Bush diverted resources away from OBL and toward Iraq.
 
Rodney said:
The problem with your logic is that Bin Laden began living in his Pakistan compound 5-6 years ago. Had U.S. intelligence gotten lucky with Bin Laden the way it did with Saddam, Bin Laden would have been tracked down before Obama became President. So, while I applaud Obama for continuing the pursuit of Bin Laden, I can't identify anything that he did in that pursuit that Bush did not do.
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You seem to be under the impression that I don't give Bush any credit. I do. I did so the same day we heard the news. (I can link my post if you like.) You asked what the differences were. I gave you some possibilities, along with a caveat that "maybe" it made a difference.

There is no doubt that Obama changed the priorities of the military and of the intelligence. It is impossible to say whether or not that change is "the" thing that led us to Osama bin Laden, but it is obvious that by changing the focus back to the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan/Pakistan, it probably increased the odds.
 
triforcharity said:
I agree 100%. He should have gone, even for just a few minutes.
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I can see both sides of it.

On one, he was running the show when the attack happened, so it'd be nice for him to be there at the end.

On the other, he's sworn off politics (I can't blame him there at all), and despite the nature of the event, it will necessarily invoke politics.
 
The UN human rights commission now wants the details of the operation -- to make sure it complied with international law, of course. Bet you couldn't see that one coming.
 
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