A Subtle Reminder (Until the Movie Comes Out)

(I cleaned up the text in the word balloon on the advice of a friend.)

Video of Osama's "Burial at Sea"

From Military.com. (Because no one would ever lie about something like this!)



H/T Grouchy Old Cripple

"An Attack on Pakistan is an Attack on China"

Well, as they used to say, "This is another fine development you've gotten us into!"

ISLAMABAD, 19 MAY: In the wake of the US raid in Abbottabad that killed Osama bin Laden, China has “warned in unequivocal terms that any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China”, a media report claimed today.
The warning was formally conveyed by the Chinese foreign minister at last week's China-US strategic dialogue and economic talks in Washington, The News daily quoted diplomatic sources as saying. China also advised the USa to “respect Pakistan's sovereignty and solidarity”, the report said.
Chinese Premier Mr Wen Jiabao informed his Pakistani counterpart Mr Yousuf Raza Gilani about the matters taken up with the US during their formal talks at the Great Hall of the People yesterday. The report said China “warned in unequivocal terms that any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China”.

So, if this was conveyed "last week" according to a four day old story, exactly when were the MSM going to get around to informing us of the consequences of Obama not informing the Pakistanis that we would be coming after bin Laden? Have you heard anything about this? Me neither.

Did Obama drive one of our allies into the arms of our enemy? Could it have been avoided? We live in interesting times.

Update: I wonder if this means a UAV visit into Pakistan would be considered an act of war on China? Border skirmishes, anyone?



H/T Weasel Zippers

Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

New York Post Lists Bin Laden Porn Titles

via Alan Colmes

As part of an article titled “Porno Osama Had A Big ‘Jihad On’” his favorites were revealed. Among them:

Talibuns
Debbie Does Abbotabad
Oral Qaeda
No Fatwa Chicks
9 1/2 Sheiks
IE-DDD
Suicide Bombshells 6
Behind the Green Burqa
1000 Arabians in One Night
Weapons of Mass Seduction
SEAL Team Sex
Sleeper Cellmates

I guess I'm not a big aficionado of porn flicks. I couldn't come up with any. Maybe "Low Rent of Arabia"? That describes his housing more than his pron fetishes. Something with "Porky's" in it? "Lady Chatterley's Liverspots?" Something along the line of Victor/Victoria: Osama/Obamia? See? I told you this is not my area of expertise!

H/T Memeorandum

Obama Not the Only One Trying to Profit From the Bravery of our Navy SEALs

In a stunning move of crass commercialism, The Walt Disney company wants you to buy "Seal Team 6" merchandise.

In a perfect example of a big media company looking to capitalize on current events, The Walt Disney Company has trademarked “Seal Team 6,” which also happens to be the name of the elite special forces team that killed Osama Bin Laden.

The trademark applications came on May 3rd, two days after the operation that killed Bin Laden… and two days after “Seal Team 6″ was included in thousands of news articles and TV programs focusing on the operation.

Disney’s trademark applications for “Seal Team 6″ cover clothing, footwear, headwear, toys, games and “entertainment and education services,” among other things.

I'm sorry, but doesn't that just strike you as wrong? The fact that they want to merchandise SEAL team logos as if they were mouse ears, is bad enough. But to try to deny anyone else from using what should be part of the public domain, without their permission, is just too unbelievable.

You have my permission to boycott all things Disney. Uncle Walt® would have wanted it that way!

Uncle Walt® is a registered trademark of Proof Positive blog. Any attempt by a large rodent like corporation to usurp this title or his likeness will be met by the full force of law. The crack attorney firm of Dewey, Cheatem and Howe has been retained to insure that copyright provisions are strictly adhered to.


As crass as this may be, Disney has it beat by a country mile!

H/T Memeorandum

Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

Obama's New Running Mate

Because he wouldn't dream of spiking the football!

Pat Condell on the Death of bin Laden

Saw this over at the Jawa Report. It has some mildly offensive language and is assuredly politically incorrect, but quite a rousing bit of a speech.



Note, too, that he speaks for roughly four minutes without a teleprompter! Wouldn't it be nice to have a president who could tell you exactly what was on his mind without the aid of a crutch?

I think we should check out Pat's birth certificate and see if he's eligible to run!

Hillary Watch: On the bin Laden Take Down

There's been a lot of speculation this last week about how the take down of bin Laden might affect Obama's re-election chances in 2012, with the usual emphasis on how it helps him with the right and hurts him with his base. But, what if there were a joker in the deck?

There is a story out there, that it was, in fact, Leon Panetta, Obama's CIA head, who had to give the order to kill bin Laden while Obama dithered. Now if it could be credibly proven that this was true, without compromising national security, who might benefit from the damage it would do to Obama, especially if it were coupled with Panetta's endorsement of say...Hillary? After all, Panetta served as President Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff for three years.



But, to paraphrase the Bard, Hillary says she is not running, and Hillary is an honourable woman.

Update: Scenario Number Two: Panetta establishes his bona fides as the decision maker on the bin Laden kill, and then, in 2012, joins Mrs. Clinton in a "resignation of conscience" prior to the election. If Hillary has to bail to run, Panetta bails, too. (If this is all too Machiavellian, remember, I'm just trying to think like a Clinton!)

Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

More "Hillary Watch" here.

Always Listen to Your Mother!

"Don't open the door to strangers!"

- Mama bin Laden

Osama's Man Cave

Considering he's sporting the Michael Nesmith hat, maybe he should have been watching "The Monkees"?

"Obama bin Laden Dead"

For all of you who think that calling Osama "Obama" is a slur concocted by the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, look who else has joined the party:



More at Full Metal Patriot

Obama Hypocritical Over Osama Death Photos?

Osama bin Scanner

Obama says he doesn't want to release any pictures of bin Laden at room temperature, because it might "inflame" our enemies. How about a little trip in the Way Back machine to April of 2009?

President Barack Obama is to release up to 2,000 photographs of alleged abuse at American prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan in a move which will reignite the scandal surrounding Abu Ghraib prison in 2004.

Think it could be argued that any of those 2,000 photographs might "inflame" our enemies? Any trouble releasing those, knowing it could give added risk to our troops in harm's way?

To paraphrase the Bard regarding the Osama death pictures,

But Obama says they will "inflame";
And Obama is an honourable man.

Or hypocritical. Choose one.

Obama Administration in the Dark?

Leon Panetta, director of the CIA, revealed there was a 25 minute blackout during which the live feed from cameras mounted on the helmets of the US special forces was cut off.

A photograph released by the White House appeared to show the President and his aides in the situation room watching the action as it unfolded. In fact they had little knowledge of what was happening in the compound.

So, the "minutes that passed like hours" were watching a blank or black screen?
Looks like it could have been a staged photo. Why would that not surprise me?

Bonus Quote du Jour / Osama joke

New fisherman's greeting:

Hey, Osama! How are the fish biting?

-proof

Some Perspective on Osama bin Laden Death Photos

Aside from all the obvious photoshops floating around the Web, and putting aside for the moment the dithering the Obama administration went through in deciding whether or not to release the photos (Panetta says Tuesday afternoon, Obama says no way to Sixty Minutes), where is the evidence that this photo would inflame or incite anyone to acts of violence that the act of killing bin Laden itself would not do?

In 1980, Jimmy Carter sent a military mission to release the hostages in Iran. It failed. Eight men were killed and their corpses were desecrated.

While the American dead were being honored in Florida, more than 7,000 miles away in Tehran something most indecent was happening to their corpses, Iranian authorities tore open the plastic bags that contained the charred remains, poked at them with knives and held up pieces for government television crews. 'This is proof of Carter's crime," ranted the Ayatullah Sadegh Khalkhali, formerly Tehran's chief Islamic judge.

Or the Blackwater contractors in Falluja?

The corpses were dragged from the wreckage and television pictures showed one burnt body being kicked and stamped on, while at least two were tied to cars and driven through the city, witnesses said.

Adults and children hacked the bodies to pieces, before lynching two of the charred remains from a bridge spanning the Euphrates River.

Or in Somalia: Dead American Soldier Dragged through Streets

Pictures were taken and broadcast of all of those, and journalist Daniel Pearl's beheading as well. One facile argument goes, that since these people are barbarians, we show that we are better than they by not showing the pictures. But, that's not the argument given by the White House. The Obama administration is telling us it will inflame the same people whose sensibilities are clearly not affected by such photos. And what better way to make "barbarians" understand that we mean business than by talking to them in a language they understand?

On what planet is showing the picture of a corpse more inflammatory than turning someone into one? And why leave it to the imagination, which may be far worse than the reality? And why inflame the sensibilities of the American people, who have witnessed far too much drama from this administration and would like a little closure for the wounds of 9/11?

More discussion at Memeorandum

Osama bin Scanner (photo)

Not quite sure why this administration thinks that publishing a posthumous picture of Osama bin Laden would be more inflammatory than actually shooting him in the head.
Besides, could it possibly be worse than what we can imagine?

Geronimo "Too Controversial". Target Renamed "Waldo"

In keeping with LCR's post below, because, we wouldn't want to offend anyone, now, would we?

Update: A special welcome to those of you visiting from Jim Geraghty's Campaign Spot over at National Review Online! You might also enjoy the slightly more graphic: Osama bin Scanner.

For those of you who didn't come from there, please take a look:
I Guess I Should Be Glad They Didn’t Pick “Pajama Been Bloggin’”

White House Insider: Obama Hesitated – Panetta Issued Order to Kill Osama Bin Laden

White House Insider: Obama Hesitated – Panetta Issued Order to Kill Osama Bin Laden

Well, that certainly puts a new spin on Obama's sixteen hours of dithering, doesn't it?

This update comes some 24 hours after our longtime Washington D.C. Insider first outlined shocking details of an Obama administration having been “overruled” by senior military and intelligence officials leading up to the successful attack against terrorist Osama Bin Laden.

So, could it be that Obama is taking credit for something he was in the process of opposing?

Q: You stated that President Obama was “overruled” by military/intelligence officials regarding the decision to send in military specialists into the Osama Bin Laden compound. Was that accurate?

A: I was told – in these exact terms, “we overruled him.” (Obama) I have since followed up and received further details on exactly what that meant, as well as the specifics of how Leon Panetta worked around the president’s “persistent hesitation to act.” There appears NOT to have been an outright overruling of any specific position by President Obama, simply because there was no specific position from the president to do so. President Obama was, in this case, as in all others, working as an absentee president.

"Absentee president"? Ooh! That's going to leave a mark! It appears from this account, that instead of the initial reports of a sixteen hour period of indecision, the dithering had been going on for weeks, perhaps months:

I was correct in stating there had been a push to invade the compound for several weeks if not months, primarily led by Leon Panetta, Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, David Petraeus, and Jim Clapper. The primary opposition to this plan originated from Valerie Jarrett, and it was her opposition that was enough to create uncertainty within President Obama. Obama would meet with various components of the pro-invasion faction, almost always with Jarrett present, and then often fail to indicate his position. This situation continued for some time, though the division between Jarrett/Obama and the rest intensified more recently, most notably from Hillary Clinton. She was livid over the president’s failure to act, and her office began a campaign of anonymous leaks to the media indicating such.

This exchange is particularly telling:

Q: What changed the president’s position and enabled the attack against Osama Bin Laden to proceed?

A: Nothing changed with the president’s opinion – he continued to avoid having one.

And then perhaps the most damning quote of all:

(on the operation against the Osama Bin Laden compound)

I have been told by more than one source that Leon Panetta was directing the operation with both his own CIA operatives, as well as direct contacts with military – both entities were reporting to Panetta only at this point, and not the President of the United States. There was not going to be another delay as had happened 24 hour earlier. The operation was at this time effectively unknown to President Barack Obama or Valerie Jarrett and it remained that way until AFTER it had already been initiated. President Obama was literally pulled from a golf outing and escorted back to the White House to be informed of the mission

Obama sneaking in another round of golf before getting back to the business of the nation, where lives are in harm's way. Shocking, but not surprising, is it?

It just occurred to me: Gosh. I hope this doesn't put a damper on his planned adulationfest at Ground Zero this week!




Read more here.

H/T Memeorandum

Cross posted at LCR,

Situation Room Photoshops

The Atlantic has a story: The Situation Room Meme: The Shortest Route From Bin Laden to Lulz on various photoshopping of the shot of Obama and his advisers in the White House situation room. Some of them are quite clever. A sample:



I'll admit, I was working on my own, but this is as far as I got:



H/T Wizbang

Obama took SIXTEEN HOURS to Make up his Mind about Bin Laden Mission

"Obama took SIXTEEN HOURS to make up his mind about Bin Laden mission"

Monday morning, I had a quote queued up by Jay Leno:

"Donald Trump says he’s President Obama’s worst nightmare. That’s not true. Having to make a decision is Obama’s worst nightmare.”

And I felt a little bad about that, seeing as how he must have made a decision over the take down of bin Laden, right? That quote seems almost prescient, according to the Daily Mail:

Barack Obama kept military commanders hanging by declaring he would 'sleep on it' before taking 16 hours to give the go-ahead to raid Bin Laden's compound.

Hit squads of specialist Navy Seals - who were not even told who they were preparing to capture - had practised the mission at two reconstructions of the terror chiefs sprawling compound.

The mission looked set to be given the all clear last Thursday when analysts confirmed beyond doubt that Bin Laden was in busy town of Abbottabad in northern Pakistan.

"Mr. President, we need a decision."

"Lemme think about it and get back to you!"

But the president stunned officials when he told a national security meeting that he wanted more time to think - and disappeared out of the room.

'I'm not going to tell you what my decision is now - I'm going to go back and think about it some more,' said Obama, according to the New York Times. He then added 'I'm going to make a decision soon.'

The head of the CIA and other senior intelligence officers who were keen to proceed were left tense as they waited for the president's decision.

But the next morning after 16 hours, Obama summoned four top aides to the White House Diplomatic Room. Before they could speak, the president put his fist on the table and declared 'It's a go'.

Catch that decisiveness? Sixteen hours after he was asked, and with special forces poised to go, he finally is able to pound his fist on his desk, as if he'd just made a leadership decision, rather than what was in all likelihood a consensus of his real advisers!

Whether it was Michelle, or Jeremiah Wright, or Bill Ayers or whom,ever else he trusts, when he left that room to "sleep on it", he demonstrated a variation of "When the going gets tough, the President gets going!" I think Barry wanted to get a consensus of how this would affect him personally and politically.

And did you hear the self serving bit of claptrap from one of Obama's staff? John Brennan, Obama's counter-terrorism adviser:

"We were able to monitor [the operation] in a real-time basis. It was probably one of the most anxiety-filled times in the lives of the people gathered [in the White House] yesterday. The minutes seemed like days."

Poor babies! While men of honor put their lives on the line, a handful of policy wonks sat in cushy chairs in the White House and probably had to subsist on only the White House mess for coffee instead of Starbucks. Such privation! And "the minutes seemed like days."

Now, I want you to compare the remarks of John Brennan to the experience of the men trained, staged and ready to go into battle:

"The minutes seemed like days" to wonks in their comfy chairs. What do you think the minutes felt like for SIXTEEN HOURS while the fighting men who were ready to go at a moments notice, were faced with the reality that the worse thing they were going to encounter was not a traffic jam on the beltway home, but maybe a longer trip in a flag draped coffin?

Funny how Obama never mentioned the sixteen hours it took for him to make a decision, in his "Look at Me, Ain't I wonderful, I got Obama" speech?

Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.