Osama ‘resisted’ assault but was unarmed, U.S. officials say...

[Wesker1982]

Osama bin Laden was not armed when he was shot during a U.S. commando raid early Monday on his fortress-like compound in Pakistan, U.S. officials said Tuesday, contradicting initial accounts of the top-secret operation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/osama-bin-laden-resisted-assault-but-was-unarmed-us-officials-say/2011/05/03/AFpKmdhF_story.html

Apparently its not only the U.S. police force that finds skinny and probably crippled old men threatening. :p



TY SV for the link.

[BarryDonegan]

What type of unarmed resistance justifies deadly force? It's weird because some call it a kill mission others say a capture mission. All the info is so hazy right now.

[pcosmar]

They killed a ghost.
Nothing more. (well maybe some women and children)

They have been chasing a ghost for ten years. The ghost is dead.

[Wesker1982]

They killed a ghost.
Nothing more. (well maybe some women and children)

They have been chasing a ghost for ten years. The ghost is dead.

I don't think there is enough evidence for any conclusion. Dead for 10 years or 1 day? There is no conclusive evidence for either case, imo.

[pcosmar]

I don't think there is enough evidence for any conclusion. Dead for 10 years or 1 day? There is no conclusive evidence for either case, imo.
but the specter is dead. regardless.

They can't use the boogieman anymore. They will turn to another.

[2young2vote]

I don't think there is enough evidence for any conclusion. Dead for 10 years or 1 day? There is no conclusive evidence for either case, imo.

There will never be conclusive evidence unless a clear video is released of his murder that we can compare to earlier videos and photos. They say they will release photos but there is still video that they can release (which they may not want to if they have some stuff on there that makes the US look bad).

[MelissaWV]

What type of unarmed resistance justifies deadly force? It's weird because some call it a kill mission others say a capture mission. All the info is so hazy right now.

As I answered in another thread, the new line is that the military had no way of knowing whether or not he was wearing a suicide bomber vest or some other weapon, and that the woman in the room made a threatening move (which they shot her in the leg for, curiously, and not in the head).

[juleswin]

2 bullets in the dead too. I just wish they would have avoided the face for the sake of the American people. These guys are marksmen, just plaster his body with bullets and spare the face.

[Teaser Rate]

Were they supposed to make him walk through a TSA body scanner to make sure he didn’t have any guns, bombs or booby trap triggers on him?

There is absolutely no reason why any solider should have risked his life keep that murdering thug alive for one more second. I would expect any reasonable person to pull the trigger the moment they had a clean shot of anyone as murderous and evil as Osama Bin Laden.

As Michael Scheuer said, we weren’t going to extract any useful information from him anyways and his trial would have given him a platform to spread his propaganda.

Things couldn't have gone any better.

[2young2vote]

As I answered in another thread, the new line is that the military had no way of knowing whether or not he was wearing a suicide bomber vest or some other weapon, and that the woman in the room made a threatening move (which they shot her in the leg for, curiously, and not in the head).

Yes, this is what is interesting. They could have had orders to not kill her. That basically means that they did have orders to kill Osama.

And I don't think "resisting" assault is an unreasonable thing to expect from someone who is being approached by people who mean to kill him.

[heavenlyboy34]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts303.html
In a propaganda piece reeking of US Triumphalism, two alleged journalists, Adam Goldman and Chris Brummitt, of the Associated Press (http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/Laden/id-8640bf2ffd8741a8a0e7e710b9459686) or, rather, of the White House Ministry of Truth, write, or copy off a White House or CIA press release that "Osama bin Laden, the terror mastermind killed by Navy SEALs in an intense firefight, was hunted down based on information first gleaned years ago (emphasis added) from detainees at secret CIA prison sites in Eastern Europe, officials disclosed Monday."
How many Americans will notice that the first paragraph of the "report" justifies CIA prisons and torture? Without secret prisons and torture "the terror mastermind" would still be running free, despite having died from renal failure in 2001.

How many Americans will have the wits to wonder why the "terror mastermind" – who defeated not merely the CIA and the FBI, but all 16 US intelligence agencies along with Israel’s Mossad and the intelligence services of NATO, who defeated NORAD, the National Security Council, the Pentagon and Joint Chiefs of Staff, the US Air Force, and Air Traffic Control, who caused security procedures to fail four times in US airports in one hour on the same day, who caused the state-of-the-art Pentagon air defenses to fail, and who managed to fly three airliners into three buildings with pilots who did not know how to fly – has not pulled off any other attack in almost ten years? Do Americans really believe that a government’s security system that can so totally fail when confronted with a few Saudi Arabians with box cutters can renew itself to perfection overnight?
How many Americans will notice the resurrection of the long missing bin Laden as "terror mastermind" after his displacement by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Guantanamo prisoner who confessed to being the "mastermind of 9/11" after being water-boarded 183 times?
Americans are too busy celebrating to think, a capability that seems to have been taken out of their education.



Americans are so enthralled over the death of bin Laden that they do not wonder why information gleamed years ago would take so long to locate a person who was allegedly living in a million-dollar building equipped with all the latest communication equipment next to the Pakistani Military Academy. Allegedly, the "most wanted criminal" was not moving from hide-out to hide-out in desolate mountains, but ensconced in luxury quarters in broad daylight. Nevertheless, despite his obvious location, it took the CIA years to find him after claiming to have gained information of his whereabouts out of captives in secret prisons. This is the image of the CIA as the new Keystone Cops.
In an immediate follow-up to the announcement that the Navy SEALs and CIA mercenaries acted in an exemplary fashion following the rules of engagement while a cowardly bin Laden hid behind a woman shield when the gunfire erupted, we have from the pressitutes that "U.S. officials conceded the risk of renewed attack. The terrorists almost certainly will attempt to avenge bin Laden’s death, CIA Director Leon Panetta wrote in a memo. . . . Within a few hours, the Department of Homeland Security warned that bin Laden’s death was likely to provide motivation for attacks from ‘homegrown violent extremists’."
John Brennan, White House counter-terrorism adviser, told reporters that "it was inconceivable that the terrorist fugitive didn’t have support in Pakistan where his hideout had been custom built six years ago in a city with a heavy military presence."



So the claimed murder of bin Laden by the US in a sovereign foreign country with which the US is not at war, a crime under international law, has set up three more self-serving possibilities:
Terrorists will avenge bin Laden’s death, says the CIA, setting up another false flag attack to keep the profits flowing into the military/security complex and the power flowing into the unaccountable CIA. Homeland Security can extend the domestic police state, abuse of travelers, and arrests of war protestors. And Pakistan is under the gun of invasion and takeover (for India, of course) for shielding bin Laden.
The Israel Lobby’s representatives in the US Congress quickly fell in with the agenda. Senator Carl Levin, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, declared that the Pakistani Army and intelligence agency "have a lot of questions to answer, given the location, the length of time and the apparent fact that this was actually – this facility was actually built for bin Laden, and its closeness to the central location of the Pakistani army."
The two reporters question nothing in the government’s propaganda. Instead, the reporters join in the celebration. Nevertheless they let slip that "officials were weighing the release of at least one photo taken of bin Laden’s body as part of what Brennan called an effort to make sure ‘nobody has any basis to try and deny the death.’"
As the Guardian and European newspapers have revealed, the photo of the dead bin Laden is a fake. As the alleged body has been dumped into the ocean, nothing remains but the word of the US government, which lied about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and al Qaeda connections, about yellowcake, about Iranian nukes, and, according to thousands of experts, about 9/11. Suddenly the government is telling us the truth about bin Laden’s death? If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I’ll let you have for a good price.
My initial interpretation of the faked bin Laden death was that Obama needed closure of the Afghan war and occupation in order to deal with the US budget deficit. Subsequent statements from Obama regime officials suggest that the agenda might be to give Americans a piece of war victory in order to boost their lagging enthusiasm. The military/security complex will become richer and more powerful, and Americans will be rewarded with vicarious pleasure in victory over enemies.

[awake]

This story says they used facial recognition software to ID OBL with a bloody and shot up face with a perfect match ... (http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Laden+Obama+team+drama+unfold/4720187/story.html)

[Wesker1982]

but the specter is dead. regardless.

They can't use the boogieman anymore. They will turn to another.

agreed

[ExPatPaki]

As Michael Scheuer said, we weren’t going to extract any useful information from him anyways and his trial would have given him a platform to spread his propaganda.


What "propaganda"? Could you be more specific?

Some would say that Scheuer himself spreads OBL's propaganda lines when he is interviewed by journalists.

[Vessol]

As I answered in another thread, the new line is that the military had no way of knowing whether or not he was wearing a suicide bomber vest or some other weapon, and that the woman in the room made a threatening move (which they shot her in the leg for, curiously, and not in the head).

Osama had no idea what was coming. Did he sleep with a suicide vest on or something?

Why didn't they take the same pre-cautions with Saddam? They sure had no problem arresting him when he was unarmed.

[Brian4Liberty]

Osama had no idea what was coming. Did he sleep with a suicide vest on or something?

Why didn't they take the same pre-cautions with Saddam? They sure had no problem arresting him when he was unarmed.

He must have worn a suicide suit to bed every night for 10 years... :rolleyes:

Although statistically, wearing it that much would no doubt result in an accidental detonation at some point long ago.

[jmdrake]

As Michael Scheuer said, we weren’t going to extract any useful information from him anyways and his trial would have given him a platform to spread his propaganda.

And because Michael Scheuer said it we should put our brains in neutral. As I pointed out in another thread there is technology that will allow you to extract useful information from someone who is alive even if they aren't cooperating. I'm surprised MS doesn't know about this. Also MS endorses torture, extrajudicial killing, doing more operations like this, and so far has not (to my knowledge) called for the immediate pullout from Iraq and Afghanistan now that OBL is dead. I take what his says with more than a grain of salt.

[jmdrake]

Yes, this is what is interesting. They could have had orders to not kill her. That basically means that they did have orders to kill Osama.
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=3246855
And I don't think "resisting" assault is an unreasonable thing to expect from someone who is being approached by people who mean to kill him.

It's already been reported that there was a kill order on Osama. I'm not even sure why they're going with this "He resisted" BS cover story. Osama was either already dead or they wanted to shut him up so he couldn't blow the whistle on his co-conspirators.

[jmdrake]

What "propaganda"? Could you be more specific?

Some would say that Scheuer himself spreads OBL's propaganda lines when he is interviewed by journalists.

So I'm not the only one who notices this. Although I don't think propaganda is OBL's. Yeah folks can stone me for questioning the great Michael Scheuer. But why hasn't he used this time to call for a pullout from Afghanistan?