The Obama "To Make Important Statement" MEGATHREAD

[Ed Anger]

I have now embargoed myself from reading or watching any Euro news sites. Euros acting like whiny pussies gets old.

[Tonitrus]

[HisMajestyBOB]

I have now embargoed myself from reading or watching any Euro news sites. Euros acting like whiny pussies gets old.

He's become more of a martyr to Europeans than to Muslims.

[CountDeMoney]

I have now embargoed myself from reading or watching any Euro news sites. Euros acting like whiny pussies gets old.

He's become more of a martyr to Europeans than to Muslims.

No shit.  WHO WILL STAND UP TO US IMPERIALISM NOW

[Monoriu]

4 & 5 were inevitable. If Obama was the lovechild of Lincoln and TR it still would have happened.

Yeah, and 1 was probably inevitable as well.  For example, I wouldn't be surprised if even the guys on the Seal Team are really sure if he was armed or not.  As for 2, who cares?  The only real legitimate complaint is 3 IMO.  On that one, a decision could have been made ahead of time as to whether or not we'd release pictures of the body if bin Laden was killed, and then an announcement one way or the other made immediately.

I think they are guilty of 1.  Even if you are not 100% sure what really happened, everybody needs to tell the same consistent (if not entirely accurate) story.  Now we get a new version every day, and different people say different stuff.  If you don't know, then say you don't know/need more time to find out/sidestep the question.  You don't say A yesterday, B today, and then have someone contradict all that and tell story C. 

[jimmy olsen]

Oh those poor babies! How can they take the criticism!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/05/pakistan-army-osama-bin-laden

Osama bin Laden death: Pakistan's army fights to restore credibility

Testimony of 12 survivors released by spy agency as US ordered to cut military presence in Pakistan to a minimum


    * Declan Walsh in Islamabad and Jon Boone in Kabul
    * guardian.co.uk, Thursday 5 May 2011 21.39 BST
    * Article history

Battered by American accusations of duplicity and collusion with Osama bin Laden, and withering criticism at home, Pakistan's army is striking back with the main tool at its disposal: the word of his surviving relatives.

The military's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency, or ISI, is releasing a steady drip of testimony from the 12 survivors of the US raid on Bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad, north of Islamabad. It includes the account of bin Laden's 12-year-old daughter, who said she saw her father shot, and information about his 29-year-old Yemeni wife, who is being treated at a military hospital in Rawalpindi.

Analysts said the army was seeking to deflect attention from angry questions about how the world's most famous fugitive could hide less than a mile from Pakistan's top military academy.

"A damage limitation exercise is going on," said Cyril Almeida, columnist with Dawn newspaper in Islamabad. "The army is scrambling to come out with a coherent response to questions that don't have easy answers."

In its first statement since the raid, the army ordered the US to reduce its military presence in Pakistan to a "minimum level". It was a symbolic move, given there are only 275 US soldiers in Pakistan, but one that sought to stem intense public anger over Sunday's unilateral American commando raid.

Some Pakistani officials would prefer if the world focused on the violence of the raid. Photos that emerged on Wednesday showed the bodies of three men lying in pools of blood, one being the "courier" whose calls led the US to believe Bin Laden was in the compound. Reuters, which published the photos, said they had been bought from a "Pakistani security official" who wished to remain anonymous.

The testimony of Bin Laden's family members, made public through the ISI, has helped focus attention on the circumstances of his death, a narrative in difficulty after the White House was forced to correct significant details, such as the initial claim that bin Laden used his wife as a human shield.

It later emerged that Amal Ahmed Abdul Fatah, a Yemeni aged 29, remains alive and is being treated for a gunshot wound at a medical facility in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, close to Pakistan's military headquarters.

A photograph of her passport was given to or obtained by the Pakistani press, and has been widely republished.

Pakistan's 500,000-strong army, which prides itself on its nuclear arsenal, has rarely had to endure such a barrage of accusations. In recent days White House officials, the CIA chief, and a host of senior US politicians have either insinuated or bluntly alleged that the ISI is playing a "double game" that may have included support for Bin Laden.

David Cameron joined the chorus of discord, saying Bin Laden's death left "lots of questions" to be answered.

The criticism is not just from the west. In Jakarta, officials say that an Indonesian terror suspect arrested this year in Abbottabad was intending to meet Bin Laden, raising questions over how isolated he was in his final months.

In Afghanistan, a former intelligence chief told the Guardian that four years ago Pakistan ignored a tip-off that Bin Laden was hiding near Abbottabad. Amrullah Saleh, former head of the National Directorate of Security, which has a long-standing rivalry with the ISI, said that he had believed in 2007 that Bin Laden was hiding in Mansehra,very near Abbottabad, in one of two al-Qaida safe houses. When he put this to Pakistan's then president, Gen Pervez Musharraf, he grew furious and smashed his fist on the table, said Saleh. "Am I the president of the Republic of Banana?" said Musharraf, Saleh recalled, leading an alarmed President Hamid Karzai, also at the meeting, to intervene.

Saleh, a fierce critic of Pakistan who has now entered Afghan politics, said he had no doubts that Mullah Omar, leader of the Afghan Taliban, is hiding in an ISI safe house in Karachi: "He is protected by ISI. General Pasha [Lieutenant-General Shuja Pasha, the ISI director general] knows, as I am talking to you, where Omar is, and he keeps daily briefs from his officers on the location of senior Taliban leaders."

But the Pakistan army's greatest worry is at home, where it faces unprecedented criticism.

The Bin Laden operation has triggered a barrage of questions about whether the military knew of the assault, and, if not, how US helicopters managed to enter from Afghanistan without permission, carry out a violent 40-minute raid in a town teeming with soldiers, and fly out unhindered with the body of the world's most famous fugitive.

Pakistani newspapers have carried sharp editorials against the army, while even pro-army TV personalities (hugely influential in Pakistani politics) have made extraordinary attacks on the generals.

"Never before has there been such sustained and fierce criticism of the army," said Almeida. "You would have to rewind to 1971 [when east Pakistan violently seceded to become Bangladesh] to find this kind of national outrage and discontent."

"People are saying: 'We spend hundreds of billions of rupees on you guys every year, and what do you have to show for it?' It strikes at the heart of what this military feels that it exists for."

The accusations could cost Pakistan dear. Enraged by the idea that the military sheltered Bin Laden, some US politicians have called for the US government to slash the annual $3bn aid package, mostly to the military. Pakistan's Washington lobbyists, under orders from President Asif Ali Zardari have begun a public relations offensive on Capitol Hill to counter the American allegations.

But despite the invective, American officials have offered no hard evidence Pakistan was colluding with Bin Laden. Pakistani officials point to their role in arresting several senior al-Qaida figures, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, over the past decade.

[Admiral Yi]

According to Time, Obama's advisors told him 50 to 80% that Osama was in the house when he gave the go order.

[citizen k]

According to Time, Obama's advisors told him 50 to 80% that Osama was in the house when he gave the go order.

Obama: "50 to 80%? Shit, let's go."

[Zoupa]

I have now embargoed myself from reading or watching any Euro news sites. Euros acting like whiny pussies gets old.

He's become more of a martyr to Europeans than to Muslims.

Are you guys trolling? What reputable news source have you been reading?

[citizen k]

I have now embargoed myself from reading or watching any Euro news sites. Euros acting like whiny pussies gets old.

He's become more of a martyr to Europeans than to Muslims.

Are you guys trolling? What reputable news source have you been reading?

BBC and various other European newspapers. Norwegian, Austrian.

[Habbaku]

He said "reputable."

[Zoupa]

He said "reputable."

Yeah. I mostly mean the "martyr to europeans" bullshit. Madrid got blown up, London got blown up, a bunch of European soldiers got blown up in Afghanistan etc.

Do you guys have polls of europeans answering "yes" to "Do you consider OBL to be a martyr"?

[DGuller]

Do we need a poll to find out that sky is blue? 

[merithyn]

The accusations could cost Pakistan dear. Enraged by the idea that the military sheltered Bin Laden, some US politicians have called for the US government to slash the annual $3bn aid package, mostly to the military.

Wait... what?  

That's fucking ridiculous. How much money are we short for education, health care, and infrastructure rebuilding, and we're giving Pakistan - Pakifuckingstan - $3,000,000,000 a year for their military??

[The Minsky Moment]

and we're giving Pakistan - Pakifuckingstan - $3,000,000,000 a year for their military??

First we give them $3 billion.
then they take the $3 billion and buy F-16s plus parts, stores, maintenance, etc.

wash, rinse, repeat.

We did the same game with the Shah and with Mubarak.  What could possibly go wrong?