The Obama "To Make Important Statement" MEGATHREAD

[derspiess]

I'm sure they retained at least some portion of his body for future use.

Souvenirs-- to sell on ebay

[Norgy]

Just wanted to chime in and say good job and that Pakistan may have some explaining to do.

I wonder who had dirt on them?

[Drakken]

Indeed - I just realzied I've been having a damn good past 24 hours or so.  Nice day with the baby yesterday, I cooked a nice supper, Bin Laden is dead, something else, now everythins is going well at work...

This will come crashing down tonight with your Conservative minority government with a NDP Opposition and Jack Layton as future Coalition leader.

[garbon]

Obviously I wouldn't have thought about it, but kind of interesting.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/httphealthlandtimecom20110502whosbinladenkidsbornafter911wanttoknowxidrssfullhealthsciyahoo

Who's Bin Laden? Kids Born After 9/11 Want to Know

President Obama certainly wasn't taking the sensibilities of West Coast children into consideration when he made his stunner of a speech Sunday night: Osama bin Laden is dead. It took parents by surprise. We weren't ready, had no time to hustle the kids into bed before flipping on the television.

Minutes before, my girls, 3 and 6, had been frolicking in their bubble bath. Now, shivering in towels, these children born after four airplanes attacked a September sky, had a question: who is Bin Laden?

With that query, the de facto practice of carefully tiptoeing around the enormity of 9/11 unraveled. Twitter user erraggy tweeted: "We were eating dinner out with our kids when the news broke. Surreal explaining Osama bin Laden to our daughter who was 4 months old on 911."

With kids, you start simply: Osama bin Laden was a bad guy who hated America. Bad guys, kids get. Their world is colored in black and white. Something - or someone - is good, or it's not.

But what do you mean he was bad? They press for details. And parents everywhere now must explain hate and terrorism and the contradictions of war as best they can. It goes something like this: once upon a time, there were two tall towers that stood in Manhattan. And a five-sided building in Washington, D.C. And a grassy field in Pennsylvania. Some people crashed planes into them, on purpose. They killed nearly 3,000 people. And the men who did it were part of a group led by bin Laden.

I do not ever recall discussing the specifics of 9/11 with my 8-year-old son, but in that funny way kids have of acquiring knowledge without or despite you, he told me he'd read a book in which a blind man escaped with his guide dog from high up in one of the towers. "Wow," I said.

Questions tumbled out: how many more people are left in bin Laden's group? Are the people in his group going to kill more people? Are they going to kill us? Can we move to another country that's not America?

The answers, spoken with maternal bravado: I don't know. I hope not. No, definitely not. No.

And then there are the inconsistencies of wartime. We teach our children not to hurt others and certainly not to kill, yet the nation is jubilant that U.S. forces - Navy SEALs from the Joint Special Operations Command? Hey, those guys hail from Pope Air Force Base in Fayetteville, N.C., where Grandma and Papa live! - gunned down bin Laden. We teach our children that two wrongs don't make a right but apparently sometimes they do: because al-Qaeda killed 2,974 people, is it right to assassinate its leader?

"Even if you get really mad, you don't kill a person," Shira, my 6-year-old, commented after Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in January. But now I was adding a vengeful postscript, signaling that sometimes, killing is actually okay. It is very tough to be a child. So much doesn't make sense.

[alfred russel]

This is the part that does not compute for me. Why take great points to make sure it is him, and then promptly drop his remains into the ocean? This is going to fuel conspiracy theories like nothing else. 

Because you don't want a place to become a shrine or even a place to pay respects. You can get away with dumping him into the ocean a lot easier when you first get his body and the news cycle is dominated with the actual killing. You can't do that if you hold onto his body for a week--disregarding any 24 hour rule.

[Drakken]

Plus the fact that they pulled a Eichmann on him: Bury the corpse at sea in international waters so that no ground can be soiled by being touched by this mass killer.

[Legbiter]

Just wanted to chime in and say good job and that Pakistan may have some explaining to do.

I wonder who had dirt on them?

My best spin on the Paks is that they kept Binnie under house arrest to keep the US gravy train going. Still, the ISI HQ should be turned into a crater during office hours and their agents treated as members of AQ/taliban.

[Ideologue]

With that query, the de facto practice of carefully tiptoeing around the enormity of 9/11 unraveled. Twitter user erraggy tweeted: "We were eating dinner out with our kids when the news broke. Surreal explaining Osama bin Laden to our daughter who was 4 months old on 911."

You'd think a ten year old would know about the WTC/Pentagon attacks.  Wouldn't you?  I don't know, I haven't spoken to a ten year old since I was ten, probably.

[alfred russel]

This is going to make it very tough to call Obama soft on anything the next few years. I read there was a take no prisoner order, which would be tougher than Bush. He also launched an attack in Pakistan across the street from a Pakistani military installation without their permission. And then had Osama tossed into the ocean immediately afterward.

[Barrister]

Indeed - I just realzied I've been having a damn good past 24 hours or so.  Nice day with the baby yesterday, I cooked a nice supper, Bin Laden is dead, something else, now everythins is going well at work...

This will come crashing down tonight with your Conservative minority government with a NDP Opposition and Jack Layton as future Coalition leader.

On the other hand, if things continue to roll for me... I'm hoping for a Conservative Majority today, and the return of the Winnipeg Jets today or tomorrow.

[Legbiter]

This is going to make it very tough to call Obama soft on anything the next few years.

Yeah. Gaddaffi's son and grandchildren this day, Binnie & his son the next. What's he going to do next week?

[Archy]

Congratz Americans!!!

Now something has to be still done about Bert

[MadBurgerMaker]

Now something has to be still done about Bert

Last seen with 50 Cent:

[katmai]

 

[Martinus]

This is going to make it very tough to call Obama soft on anything the next few years.

Yeah. Gaddaffi's son and grandchildren this day, Binnie & his son the next. What's he going to do next week?

Ahmedinejadabadad?