Osama Bin Laden Dead

[bigruss]

I hate racial profiling, but I gotta admit, when I am someone in public and see a Muslim dressed in their traditional garb, I get that uneasy feeling. And I am in no way a racist or anything. In fact, one of my good friends in Muslim.

I forgot who it was, but a pretty famous diversity advocate once told a story about how he was boarding a plane and saw that it was a black pilot, and immediately thought that he wasn't as safe with him as the pilot. But then he was thinking of how he came to that reaction, and it was most likely from a childhood upbringing social standard to judge someone of another color as inferior at their job. But it is up to you to either accept that or think differently.

 

Being uneasy around someone in traditional Muslim garb has been a standard in the news and other outlets for pretty much my whole life, so it's understandable to be uneasy at first, but is that what you truly believe to be fair?

[southsider2k5]

Pakistani land records show that Osama bin Laden paid $1 million for his compound—but that was in 2005, before the real-estate bubble popped. As-is, the compound is now worth probably $250,000, and cleanup costs from a Navy SEAL raid are separate and considerable. Assume that OBL put $200,000 down. So he has an $800,000 mortgage on a property worth only about a third of that.

 

Yes, you guessed it: Osama bin Laden is going to be underwater for a long time.

 

[RockRaines]

lol

 

And I just read an article on him but I thought that was part of your signature.

 

I actually thought the joke was about how many basketball players have brought guns to arenas, which was a surprisingly interesting point when I thought about it.

 

Perfect storm for idiotic hilarity on my part.

I thought he was talking about the strain of pot.

 

I could easily get an automatic weapon into US Cellular field after the game has started. Use the smoking patio as your access point. Pretty easy.

[LittleHurt05]

I hate racial profiling, but I gotta admit, when I am someone in public and see a Muslim dressed in their traditional garb, I get that uneasy feeling. And I am in no way a racist or anything. In fact, one of my good friends in Muslim.

 

The thing is, look at all of the recent terrorist attacks/attempts. 9/11, Mumbai, Richard Reid, X-mas Day plane, London Tube. I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure all of those guys were wearing normal everyday clothing, not any kind of traditional Muslim garb. In fact, I would bet this would make more sense for terrorists, as you don't want to arouse any extra suspicion

[StrangeSox]

I forgot who it was, but a pretty famous diversity advocate once told a story about how he was boarding a plane and saw that it was a black pilot, and immediately thought that he wasn't as safe with him as the pilot. But then he was thinking of how he came to that reaction, and it was most likely from a childhood upbringing social standard to judge someone of another color as inferior at their job. But it is up to you to either accept that or think differently.

 

Being uneasy around someone in traditional Muslim garb has been a standard in the news and other outlets for pretty much my whole life, so it's understandable to be uneasy at first, but is that what you truly believe to be fair?

 

This is an excellent post, imo, especially the underlined.

 

The thing is, look at all of the recent terrorist attacks/attempts. 9/11, Mumbai, Richard Reid, X-mas Day plane, London Tube. I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure all of those guys were wearing normal everyday clothing, not any kind of traditional Muslim garb. In fact, I would bet this would make more sense for terrorists, as you don't want to arouse any extra suspicion

 

 

 

[Steve9347]

Pakistani land records show that Osama bin Laden paid $1 million for his compound—but that was in 2005, before the real-estate bubble popped. As-is, the compound is now worth probably $250,000, and cleanup costs from a Navy SEAL raid are separate and considerable. Assume that OBL put $200,000 down. So he has an $800,000 mortgage on a property worth only about a third of that.

 

Yes, you guessed it: Osama bin Laden is going to be underwater for a long time.

slow clap

[southsider2k5]

I love how racist-assed Sharpton instantly turned it into a some sort of a racist white thing.

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/osama-bin-la...ory?id=13547780

 

Osama bin Laden aspired to damage the United States not only through persistent terror attacks, but also by attempting to inflame race and class tensions in hopes of tearing down the country from the inside out, according to officials briefed on the evidence trove recovered from the al Qaeda leader's Pakistan compound.

 

According to materials in the cache of documents recovered in the U.S. Navy SEAL raid that brought down the terror leader, bin Laden planned to specifically recruit African-American Muslim converts to carry out attacks on the homeland. The goal was to not only kill and maim in the actual operations, but to create a divisiveness that would cause more damage than al Qaeda could ever hope to do on their own.

 

"Because there were many blacks in the U.S., he wanted to capitalize on them to further the jihadi cause," one U.S. official told ABC News. "Al Qaeda sees the black convert community as ripe for recruiting."

 

While it has long been known that radical preachers and some prison imams have targeted the convert community for jihad recruitment, the references show core al Qaeda's keen interest in the tactic.

 

"This is pretty heady stuff," another person briefed on the material said.

 

But it's also strategy that civil rights activist and President of the National Action Network Rev. Al Sharpton said was "radical" and outrageous.

 

"I think it would be the most cynical abuse of African-Americans and America in general," Sharpton told ABC News. "Remember, Osama bin Laden killed blacks, whites, Latinos, everyone on 9/11... For him to use race relations in the U.S. in a way to support his terroristic barbarism is the absolute height of cynicism."

 

Minority groups have previously suffered in the aftermath of terror attacks or attempted attacks, though most of those incidents have been directed at Muslim-Americans. Ibrahim Hooper, National Communications Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said those incidents are not indicative of the American people and any belief by bin Laden that he could prompt widespread violence in such a way between any groups was a "fantasy."

 

"I think the viewpoint reflects more of a Neo-Nazi, white supremacist outlook on American whites than anything based in reality," he said. "I think it's fantasy based on a fundamental misunderstanding of American society."

 

Still, Sharpton said that the revelation about al Qaeda's targeting of minorities should serve "not as a wake-up call as much as a tap on the shoulder" to minority leaders.

 

If racial tensions have created a vulnerability in U.S. national security, Sharpton said, "it becomes the responsibility for those of us in black leadership and activism to make sure that we carefully monitor who we let in our ranks and for what... and try to understand that we cannot be exploited as we try to stop the continuing injustices."

 

In the past, officials believed al Qaeda attempted to recruit fair-skinned European or Americans jihadis.

[southsider2k5]

Don't ask me how I beat Balta to this...

 

http://www.galacticempiretimes.com/2011/05...68924f28d67%2C0

 

ORUSCANT — Obi-Wan Kenobi, the mastermind of some of the most devastating attacks on the Galactic Empire and the most hunted man in the galaxy, was killed in a firefight with Imperial forces near Alderaan, Darth Vader announced on on Sunday.

 

Obi-Wan Kenobi Killed by Imperial Forces near Alderaan

 

In a late-night appearance in the East Room of the Imperial Palace, Lord Vader declared that “justice has been done” as he disclosed that agents of the Imperial Army and stormtroopers of the 501st Legion had finally cornered Kenobi, one of the leaders of the Jedi rebellion, who had eluded the Empire for nearly two decades. Imperial officials said Kenobi resisted and was cut down by Lord Vader's own lightsaber. He was later dumped out of an airlock.

 

The news touched off an extraordinary outpouring of emotion as crowds gathered in the Senate District and outside the Imperial Palace, waving imperial flags, cheering, shouting, laughing and chanting, “Hail to the Emperor! Hail Lord Vader!” In the alien protection zone, crowds sang “The Ten Thousand Year Empire.” Throughout the Sah'c district, airspeeder drivers honked horns deep into the night.

 

“For over two decades, Kenobi has been the Jedi rebellion’s leader and symbol,” the Lord of the Sith said in a statement broadcast across the galaxy via HoloNet. “The death of Kenobi marks the most significant achievement to date in our empire’s effort to defeat the rebel alliance. But his death does not mark the end of our effort. There’s no doubt that the rebellion will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must and we will remain vigilant at home and abroad.”

 

Obi-Wan Kenobi ’s demise is a defining moment in the stormtrooper-led fight against terrorism, a symbolic stroke affirming the relentlessness of the pursuit of those who turned against the Empire at the end of the Clone Wars. What remains to be seen, however, is whether it galvanizes Kenobi’s followers by turning him into a martyr or serves as a turning of the page in the war against the Rebel Alliance and gives further impetus to Emperor Palpatine to step up Stormtrooper recruitment.

 

In an earlier statement issued to the press, Kenobi boasted that striking him down could make him "more powerful than you could possibly imagine."

 

How much his death will affect the rebel alliance itself remains unclear. For years, as they failed to find him, Imperial leaders have said that he was more symbolically important than operationally significant because he was on the run and hindered in any meaningful leadership role. Yet he remained the most potent face of terrorism in the Empire, and some of those who played down his role in recent years nonetheless celebrated his death.

 

Given Kenobi’s status among radicals, the Imperial Galactic government braced for possible retaliation. A Grand Moff of the Imperial Starfleet said late Sunday that military bases in the core worlds and around the galaxy were ordered to a higher state of readiness. The Imperial Security Bureau issued a galactic travel warning, urging citizens in volatile areas “to limit their travel outside of their local star systems and avoid mass gatherings and demonstrations.”

 

The strike could deepen tensions within the Outer Rim, which has periodically bristled at Imperial counterterrorism efforts even as Kenobi evidently found safe refuge it its territories for nearly two decades. Since taking over as Supreme Commander of the Imperial Navy, Lord Vader has ordered significantly more strikes on suspected terrorist targets in the Outer Rim, stirring public anger there and leading to increased criminal activity.

 

When the end came for Kenobi, he was found not in the remote uncharted areas of Wild Space and the Unknown Regions, where he has long been presumed to be sheltered, but in a massive compound about an hour’s drive west from the Tatooine capital of Bestine. He had been living under the alias "Ben" Kenobi for some time.

 

The compound, only about 50 miles from the base of operations for the Imperial Storm Squadron, is at the end of a narrow dirt road and is roughly eight times larger than other homes in the area, which were largely occupied by Tusken Raiders. When Imperial operatives converged on the planet on Saturday, following up on recent intelligence, two local moisture farmers “resisted the assault force” and were killed in the middle of an intense gun battle, a senior Stormtrooper said, but details were still sketchy early Monday morning.

 

A representative of the Imperial Starfleet said that military and intelligence officials first learned last summer that a “high-value target” was hiding somewhere on the desert world and began working on a plan for going in to get him. Beginning in March, Lord Vader worked closely with a series of several different Admirals serving onboard the Death Star to go over plans for the operation, and on Friday morning gave the final order for members of the 501st Legion (known commonly as "Vader's Fist") to strike.

 

Kenobi and a group of his followers were eventually captured while fleeing the system, and taken aboard the Death Star, which was in the midst of surveying the recent environmental disaster on Alderaan. Darth Vader called it a “targeted operation,” although officials said four tie fighters were lost because of "mechanical failures" and had to be destroyed to keep them from falling into hostile hands.

 

In addition to Kenobi, two men and one wookiee were killed, one believed to be his young apprentice and the other two his couriers, according to an admiral who briefed reporters under Imperial ground rules forbidding further identification. A woman was killed when she was used as a shield by a male combatant, the Admiral said. Two droids were also reported missing.

 

“No Stormtroopers were seriously harmed,” Lord Vader said. “They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, I defeated my former master and took custody of his body.” Jedi tradition requires burial within 24 hours, but by doing it in deep space, Imperial authorities presumably were trying to avoid creating a shrine for his followers.

 

Lord Vader has denied requests to present photographs of the body, describing them as "too gruesome" for the general public.

[Milkman delivers]

Lord Vader worked closely with a series of several different Admirals

 

Alright, that part had me laughing.

[Heads22]

Apparently, Inhofe has seen the pictures, and I believe he said to CNN.com that OBL's brains were coming out of one of his eye sockets. That might be one reason to not release the pictures.

[Balta1701]

Although the CIA said that Bin laden was sidelined, Bush said he didn't spend much time on him, and the CIA supposedly closed down its Bin Laden group at the height of the Iraq war, the AP is reporting that the stuff seized strongly suggests Bin Laden was more than just a figurehead and was still actively involved in attack planning.

Though he was out of the public eye and al-Qaida seemed to be weakening, bin Laden never yielded control of his worldwide organization, U.S. officials said Wednesday. His personal, handwritten journal and his massive collection of computer files reveal his hand at work in every recent major al-Qaida threat, including plots in Europe last year that had travelers and embassies on high alert, two officials said.

 

They described the intelligence to The Associated Press only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about what was found in bin Laden's hideout. Analysts are continuing to review the documents.

 

The information shatters the government's conventional thinking about bin Laden, who had been regarded for years as mostly an inspirational figurehead whose years in hiding made him too marginalized to maintain operational control of the organization he founded.

 

Instead, bin Laden was communicating from his walled compound in Pakistan with al-Qaida's offshoots, including the Yemen branch that has emerged as the leading threat to the United States, the documents indicate. Though there is no evidence yet that he was directly behind the attempted Christmas Day 2009 bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner or the nearly successful attack on cargo planes heading for Chicago and Philadelphia, it's now clear that they bear some of bin Laden's hallmarks.

 

He was well aware of U.S. counterterrorist efforts and schooled his followers in working around them, the messages to his followers show. Don't limit attacks to New York City, he said in his writings. Consider other areas such as Los Angeles or smaller cities. Spread out the targets.

 

In one particularly macabre bit of mathematics, bin Laden's writings show him musing over just how many Americans he must kill to force the U.S. to withdraw from the Arab world. He concludes that the smaller, scattered attacks since 9/11 had not been enough. He tells his disciples that only a body count of thousands, something on the scale of 9/11, would shift U.S. policy.

 

He also schemed about ways to sow political dissent in Washington and play political figures against one another, officials said.

 

The communications were in missives sent via plug-in computer storage devices called flash drives. The devices were ferried to bin Laden's compound by couriers, a process that is slow but exceptionally difficult to track.

Assuming that the general parameters of this leak are true...that means that this move to chop the head off the snake really was a big operational deal, and that the materials we grabbed are exceptionally valuable.

[BigSqwert]

Bush said he didn't spend much time on him, and the CIA supposedly closed down its Bin Laden group at the height of the Iraq war

 

Why waste time and resources on a specific Bin Laden group of the CIA when their highly successful torture program could get the info they needed in 10 to 15 years?

[Steve9347]

Why waste time and resources on a specific Bin Laden group of the CIA when their highly successful torture program could get the info they needed in 10 to 15 years?

[LittleHurt05]

Exclusive: Pornography found in bin Laden hideout: officials

[clyons]

Exclusive: Pornography found in bin Laden hideout: officials

 

I assume it wasn't decadent Western porn, but good, clean Islamic fundamentalist porn.

[Steve9347]

Of course there was porn.

[Quin]

Exclusive: Pornography found in bin Laden hideout: officials

[Balta1701]

As of early May, Disney has trademarked the term "Seal Team 6."

 

Who would you rather have landing inside your compound. The actual Seal Team 6, or an angry group of Disney's lawyers?

[Milkman delivers]

As of early May, Disney has trademarked the term "Seal Team 6."

 

Who would you rather have landing inside your compound. The actual Seal Team 6, or an angry group of Disney's lawyers?

 

Does that mean a movie? I just have a hard time seeing a good movie in that vein coming from Disney.

[Balta1701]

Does that mean a movie? I just have a hard time seeing a good movie in that vein coming from Disney.

I'd guess video game

[Milkman delivers]

I'd guess video game

 

That could be cool.

[Quin]

As of early May, Disney has trademarked the term "Seal Team 6."

 

Who would you rather have landing inside your compound. The actual Seal Team 6, or an angry group of Disney's lawyers?

 

f***ing Disney.

[Soxbadger]

They havent trademarked them, they have applied for trademarks (3 of them actually).

 

The US govt could conceivably reject the trademark.

 

In fact I looked up "Navy Seal" and every trademark had been abandoned (Orion Pictures tried to TM for video games). So its clear the US govt wont let you copyright their terms, its just a question of whether Seal Team 6 is a term used by the US govt.

 

My guess is that Disney will do a movie about a pack of 6 seals but thats just to easy for them.

[southsider2k5]

There aren't many words to describe how much I don't like Schakowsky

 

http://blogs.dailyherald.com/node/5675

 

"No question": Schakowsky describes "violent crime scene" photos of bin Laden

Posted by Kerry Lester on Fri, 05/13/2011 - 14:45

 

After viewing photos of a dead Osama bin Laden, U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky said there's "no question" in her mind that they should not be released to the general public because of their graphic nature.

 

"These are pictures of a violent crime scene. This is a dead person. A dead Osama bin Laden," she said.

 

Pointing to Taliban suicide bombers retaliating in Pakistan Friday, killing 80, Schakowsky noted, "you know that there's no good that can come out of circulating those photos."

 

A member of the House Intelligence Committee, Schakowsky was among a select group of lawmakers who were able to view the photos at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va.

 

Schakowksy said she viewed the photos from binders located in a congressional affairs room. Individuals must check their cell phones at the door before entering the CIA, she said.

[NorthSideSox72]

There aren't many words to describe how much I don't like Schakowsky

 

http://blogs.dailyherald.com/node/5675

I am 99.999% sure this was a misstatement, trying to make an analogy. I highly, highly doubt she thinks this is a crime. Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich might though.