Monthly Archives: May 2011

He Won | The Agitator

Here is a very strong argument that, while Osama bin Laden is dead at the bottom of the ocean, he got most of what he wanted.

Granted, he was up against a dolt in Bush and a society that apparently likes to be afraid and more racist and violent than our enemy’s worst pre-9-11 misconceptions of us, but he still had to have died with some form of smug satisfaction.

I mean, he had six years of living in a mansion while we were debating whether or not we should let TSA agents molest our children. If that isn’t winning, what is?

Jim Wallis: How Should We Respond to the Death of Osama Bin Laden?

Read this.

Then read it again. If the face of Christianity in America was Jim Wallis, I’d probably start going back to church.

Instead I hear stuff about how my dog is going to hell because he is microchipped and that Catholics are Satanists. And that was just the last sermon I heard – and ever will allow myself to hear – in my mom’s Baptist church.

Osama bin Laden is dead

The right wing’s chief bogeyman is dead.

Sure, he was a dangerous, unpleasant man. He was also a zealot who used religion as a bludgeon to silence others and to make good men look evil in the eyes of his followers. Yeah, thought that sounded familiar too.

So, why are those who use his same tactics the most gleeful at his passing? I don’t know; they must not be getting the message I am.

Either way, the Bush apologists trying to glom onto the glory are at least entertaining to watch. Here’s how reality looks to the rest of us folks.

Your boy outsourced the job of catching this guy, just like he allowed a lot of other American jobs to leave the country. In this case, the guys we farmed the work out to used to fight alongside Osama so it really wasn’t any surprised the failed to complete the task assigned.

He didn’t follow through and some argue that was by design, though that’s a little Oliver Stone-ish for me. Just a little.

So be glad it happened, just give credit where credit is due. The job wasn’t rushed to influence last year’s elections (and boy, wouldn’t this have helped?), nor was our recently dead Fear-Colored Terror Panties system jacked up to maximum rainbow of death levels.

We had an adult at the helm giving the chief guy in the field, Petraeus, one last shot to do the job. He had the time and resources he needed. The CIA wasn’t being left twisting int the wind to make shit up, and – surprise – it worked! To kudos to the men who did the work – and the guy who stepped back and let them.

Here’s how the President announced it:

More on the attack writ large, plus info on raid particulars, the proper police work followed to find him, and another story on the same.

Some more reporting on the compound. Apparently this was no “spider hole”.

Predictably, someone from Rumsfeld’s crew leaked the story. None of those clowns were going to give Obama his moment.

Fans of Osama are in denial over his death. To be fair, Republicans are already calling the President a liar. Like the long form birth certificate issue, even when you give these a-holes EXACTLY what they want, they won’t believe you.

Indeed, some conservatives openly wished their dreams that the President himself were dead. Even the transcription/subtitle feed had it written out. (I had examples of this, but the internet has gotten scrubbed over the years.)

The view from (part of) Britain.

And some technical limitations on why a ground assault had to be the way to go.

And, finally, a bit on the burial at sea. Which i approve of. Let there be no burial monument to the cretin.

Now, stop questioning Obama’s legitimacy

There aren’t that many conservative pundits or politicians I’ll even listen to anymore. Most of them have embraced racist craziness and gone with the treasonous mob.

David Frum is one of them and even I’m surprise by how much sense I find him making in this article.

Thing is, he’s just advocating decency. Why should that be shocking?