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Merged Osama bin Laden dead,

Pardalis said:
You might have a point if the Taliban and the Pakistani government were comparable.

Pakistan had to be involved or at least willing to look the other way when the commando team took OBL, the illegitimate Taliban government was extremely hostile, and would never have permitted such a strike, therefore it had to be removed and invaded.
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I doubt Pakistan ever knew about this until it was in progress.

Our chief problem with Afghanistan and doing the same thing much earlier there is that we had almost nobody "on the ground" there who could give us location information. We could have generated those contacts given time, but Bush would have had to explain why something wasn't being done now. Plus his aides were telling him we could get the job done in short order with a military action.

Then Bush screwed up that military option.
 
Pardalis said:
Sure, but a change in policy is certainly a major contributing factor.
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You have no evidence that it was. You assume so, because one event occurred after the other, but you have established no causal connection whatsoever.
 
Obama was the guy in charge and giving orders when it happened. He gets the credit. Period.

If we can blame him for the economy, we can praise him for killing bin Laden.
 
Jekyll's Guest said:
Am I going nuts, or does the guy in the back (gray hair, blue shirt, looking over a shoulder) look like he was crudely added via Photoshop? It's like a Where's Waldo.
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I think it's because the lighting in the room is weird. I think there are basically a bunch of spot lights shining straight down, so depending on where you sit, you're either brightly illuminated or in a sort of shadow. I think the spots spread out evenly by the time they hit table-height, but at head level they're still scattered. That screws up the contrast, and makes it look like a photoshop where images with different lighting were composited. That's not the only place in the photo like that, Obama himself seems to stick out strangely.
 
Ziggurat said:
You have no evidence that it was. You assume so, because one event occurred after the other, but you have established no causal connection whatsoever.
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Good point. It's just plain silly to think that if someone makes an effort to do something and then actually gets it done that there might be a connection between those two things.

The most likely scenario here is that a couple of Navy SEALs were just strolling through Pakistan when one turned to the other and said "Hey... does that guy look familiar to you?".
 
Now that you say that Obama and Biden looked photoshopped in too. That's the problem. Photoshop is too damn good these days.
 
Ziggurat said:
You have no evidence that it was. You assume so, because one event occurred after the other, but you have established no causal connection whatsoever.
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I'm using deduction. One guy is distracted by his Iraq project, freely admits doesn't really care about OBL, and then the new guy comes along, says he cares and will do something about it, and we see results.

I agree it doesn't prove anything, but it sure looks like something somewhere changed and things got done right.
 
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johnny karate said:
Good point. It's just plain silly to think that if someone makes an effort to do something and then actually gets it done that there might be a connection between those two things.
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You have substituted a strawman for my actual argument. Congratulations on torching that strawman.
 
Ziggurat said:
Of course he does. Who suggested otherwise?
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You did, when you claimed the killing of bin Laden was "largely a matter of luck". A claim that is not only completely unsubstantiated, but an obvious attempt to poison the well.
 
Ziggurat said:
You have substituted a strawman for my actual argument. Congratulations on torching that strawman.
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Hardly. You argued that a causal connection between Obama's efforts to find bin Laden and the achievement of that goal was unfounded. That's the exact position I countered.
 
applecorped said:
Wasn't Hitler declared dead on May 1st as well?
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bodysn3.jpg
 
johnny karate said:
Obama was the guy in charge and giving orders when it happened. He gets the credit. Period.
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Ziggurat said:
Of course he does. Who suggested otherwise?
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johnny karate said:
You did, when you claimed the killing of bin Laden was "largely a matter of luck". A claim that is not only completely unsubstantiated, but an obvious attempt to poison the well.
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No I didn't. What I said was
Ziggurat said:
the fact that the actionable intel came in during his watch and not earlier (or later) is largely a matter of luck.
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Once the intel was obtained, killing him was not a matter of luck, and I never suggested otherwise. In fact, I said exactly the OPPOSITE of what you claimed, in that very same post:
Ziggurat said:
Obama certainly deserves credit for this
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Next time you want to lie about what I say, try not making it so obvious.
 
johnny karate said:
Hardly. You argued that a causal connection between Obama's efforts to find bin Laden and the achievement of that goal was unfounded. That's the exact position I countered.
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In Zig's defense, I think he was saying Obama's efforts to kill OBL was in continuation of his predecessor's. He doesn't say Obama's efforts didn't kill OBL, but that if someone else had continued the pursuit, it would have happened anyway, given good intelligence.

I disagree, I think we can clearly see a change in policy between him and his predecessor, and if such a change in focus hadn't occurred, OBL would still be at large and probably for a long time.

ETA: I think Bush dropped the ball on OBL, and Obama picked it right up.
 
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johnny karate said:
Hardly. You argued that a causal connection between Obama's efforts to find bin Laden and the achievement of that goal was unfounded. That's the exact position I countered.
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No I didn't. I claimed that there was no causal connection between any changes in policy (which, oddly enough, are never actually specified in any detail) and the fact that we succeeded now when we hadn't before. Since many of our counterterrorism policies have not changed, it's quite possible that the continuation of those policies led to our success. Obama would deserve credit under such a scenario (and I'd like to remind others once again that johnny lied about what I said in regards to crediting Obama), but that doesn't satisfy those who want to not merely credit Obama with success, but blame Bush as well.
 
Ziggurat said:
No I didn't. I claimed that there was no causal connection between any changes in policy (which, oddly enough, are never actually specified in any detail)
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Didn't Obama move some people around in his security agencies recently?
 
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