The Piece of Paper That Killed Bin Laden
If you can manage to decipher Leon Panetta’s chicken scratch, you too can read the final memo that launched the raid that killed America’s most hated enemy. The memo is part of Peter Bergen’s Time cover story on Osama bin Laden’s last days and Obama’s call to go ahead, despite Joe Biden and Robert Gates’ disapproval, with the Navy SEAL raid on bin Laden’s Abottabad complex.
Read: The Atlantic Wire
“Trust me, if you went to 26th and California [the Cook County Criminal Courthouse] with the evidence that Osama bin Laden was in the building, no judge would have given you a search warrant. No way. They would have looked at you and said, ‘bring me something real here.’”
“As for the killing of Osama bin Laden, Mr. Obama did what virtually any commander in chief would have done in the same situation. Even President Bill Clinton says in the film “that’s the call I would have made.” For this to be portrayed as the epic achievement of the first term tells you how bare the White House cupboards are.”
“You ask me, [Obama] should have put that mother-f*!cker on ice and defrosted his ass Nov. 1.”
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When the president asked his top advisers for their final opinion on the mission, all of them were hesitant, except for the former CIA director, now Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Biden said.
“Every single person in that room hedged their bet except Leon Panetta. Leon said go. Everyone else said, 49, 51,” Biden said, as he offered the unsolicited details of the decision-making process.
“He got to me. He said, ‘Joe, what do you think?’ And I said, ‘You know, I didn’t know we had so many economists around the table.’ I said, ‘We owe the man a direct answer. Mr. President, my suggestion is, don’t go. We have to do two more things to see if he’s there,’” Biden recalled.
While the vice president did not explain what those two more things were, the next morning the president gave National Security Adviser Tom Donilon the “go” to launch the SEAL raid of the compound.
“He knew what was at stake, not just the lives of those brave warriors, but literally the presidency,” Biden said.
”President Obama: Ask Osama bin Laden if I’m an appeaser.
The FBI says there's a chance for a retaliatory attack in the wake of Anwar al-Awlaki's killing. P's and Q's? Keep on those.
The FBI also released a similar warning when U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden. In related news, the guy who designed the underwear bomber’s underwear bomb was likely also killed in the strike that killed al-Awlaki.
(via shortformblog)
“some fun facts, 450,000 people joined a facebook group called “i hate reading”, while 45,000 joined one called “i love reading” - and beyonce’s pregnancy announcement got more tweets than the death of bin laden. wait, those arent fun at all, they pretty much suck”
FRONTLINE : The Man Who Knew
“We don’t know what would have happened if John could have done his job in Yemen and had really had the full back-up to go and to really push in Yemen and what kind of networks he could have exposed. But you know, we do know there were Yemenis involved in the attacks of September 11th. So is it possible that if he had been able to really open up that network and really expose that network, that he could have in some way deterred the tragedy of September 11th? I don’t think we know, but it’s sad because we won’t know the answer to that. But I think there is a fighting — he would have had had a fighting chance if he’d been able to do his job.” - Chris Isham, ABC News
John O’Neill wound up leaving the FBI and went to work, of all places, as head of security at the World Trade Center, and was one of the victims of the attack on 9/11
![“There was nothing said. I asked and asked and asked. I kinda wondered whether there was some sort of “Dirty Harry” moment, and there just simply wasn’t. It was all split second… [The Navy Seal] shoots bin Laden once in the chest and bin Laden begins falling back and shoots him once above the left eye and bin Laden falls down. And he [The Navy Seal] steps up and says, on the radio, ‘For God and country, Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo.’” - The New Yorker’s Nicholas Schmidle, via CNN
The Mission to Get Osama Bin Laden : The New Yorker
What happened that night in Abbottabad.
by Nicholas Schmidle](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lpd1tktI7R1qz80pso1_1280.jpg)
“There was nothing said. I asked and asked and asked. I kinda wondered whether there was some sort of “Dirty Harry” moment, and there just simply wasn’t. It was all split second… [The Navy Seal] shoots bin Laden once in the chest and bin Laden begins falling back and shoots him once above the left eye and bin Laden falls down. And he [The Navy Seal] steps up and says, on the radio, ‘For God and country, Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo.’” - The New Yorker’s Nicholas Schmidle, via CNN
The Mission to Get Osama Bin Laden : The New Yorker
What happened that night in Abbottabad.
by Nicholas Schmidle
The Daily Beast dissects the iconic photograph of the White House Situation Room as Navy SEALs raided Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound, offering insight into the mysterious room. (For example: it’s not as mysterious as we might think. When not in use for top secret national security operations, any White House employee can hold meetings in the Situation Room). From coffee cups to a blurred photograph to secured laptops, no detail is overlooked.
Jon Stewart & John Hodgman On Why A Osama bin Laden Is Alive - Mets/Citi Field Conspiracy Theory Won’t Work:
John Hodgman: Like showing Bin Laden at Tuesday’s Mets-Marlins game isn’t going to work.
Jon Stewart: Obviously that’s fake.
John Hodgman: Yeah, even I know there’s no way Citi Field would be almost half full.
“Ever since we took-out Osama bin Laden, Americans have been wondering, who is gonna fill his shoes? All we knew for sure, was that after discovering his porn stash, no one was gonna touch his socks.” - Stephen Colbert
Then-CNN (now ABC News) correspondent Christiane Amanpour correctly predicted that Osama bin Laden was hiding in a villa inside Pakistan in an October 2008 taping of the HBO show “Real Time with Bill Maher.” [HBO]
