Tuesday Reads: Osamarama
Posted: May 3, 2011 Filed under: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Federal Budget, Foreign Affairs, morning reads, Pakistan, the blogosphere, U.S. Economy, U.S. Military, U.S. Politics | Tags: astronomy, brain damage, conspiracy theories, Facebook, football, Julian Assange, Obama Administration, Osama bin Laden 43 Comments
Good Morning!! Grab your coffee and pull up a chair. I’ve got some interesting links for you this morning. It’s mostly Osama-related with a few non-Osama links thrown in.
I guess we need to brace ourselves for 24/7 Osama bin Laden news until further notice. The White House is leaking information in dribs and drabs, the corporate media is in hysteria mode, and the conspiracy theories are already spreading like wildfire.
The biggest problem for the Obama administration is going to be the supposed “burial at sea.” Let’s hope they have extensive photo and video evidence that that actually took place. Some 9/11 relatives are very upset about this. They wanted to see the body.
Rosaleen Tallon kissed her three children good night and went to sleep feeling at peace. The terrorist responsible for the death of her brother, New York firefighter Sean Patrick Tallon, was dead. Her two boys and her little girl had been assured that the “bad man” behind the attacks that claimed their uncle was gone.
But when Tallon awoke Monday to the news that Osama bin Laden had been buried at sea, she was stunned. That was one corpse she would like to have seen for herself, Tallon said, her fiery words underscoring the change this suburban science teacher has undergone in the last decade.
“I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t say I was a little dismayed — a lot dismayed,” Tallon said as her 20-month-old son, Paddy, nestled in her arms while savoring a red lollipop. “I think that was too hasty. I would’ve liked the American people to say without a shadow of a doubt, ‘Yes, that’s him.’ “
Hey, why didn’t they put bin Laden’s body in the Capital rotunda and let people view it until they had their fill? But seriously, the “burial at sea” thing is really problematic. At Corrente, Lambert isn’t buying it.
But how are we going to drag the body through the streets, if it’s floating in the Indian Ocean somewhere? Can’t anybody here play this game?
NOTE On the bright side, this does explain why the corpse wasn’t a festive centerpiece at the White House Correspondents Dinner. I’d been wondering about that.
Perhaps Lambert will be pleased to know that the folks over at Alex Jones’ Infowars agree with him. Here’s a sample of the posts going up over there.
Inside Sources: Bin Laden’s Corpse Has Been On Ice For Nearly a Decade
A multitude of different inside sources both publicly and privately, including one individual who personally worked with Bin Laden at one time, told us directly that Osama’s dead corpse has been on ice for nearly a decade and that his “death” would only be announced at the most politically expedient time.
That time has now come with a years-old fake picture being presented as the only evidence of his alleged killing yesterday, while Bin Laden’s body has been hastily dumped into the sea to prevent anyone from finding out when he actually died.
In April 2002, over nine years ago, Council on Foreign Relations member Steve R. Pieczenik, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under Henry Kissinger, Cyrus Vance, and James Baker, told the Alex Jones Show that Bin Laden had already been “dead for months”.
Pieczenik would be in a position to know such information, having worked directly with Bin Laden when the US was funding and arming the terror leader in an attempt to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan in the late 70′s and early 80′s (a documented historical fact that talking heads in the corporate media are actually denying today in light of developments).
“I found out through my sources that he had had kidney disease. And as a physician, I knew that he had to have two dialysis machines and he was dying,” Pieczenik told Jones during the April 24, 2002 interview.
Intel Chief: They Killed “Make Believe Osama”
Former Pakistani intelligence chief Hamid Gul went on the Alex Jones Show today and characterized the unverified assassination of Osama bin Laden as symbolic theater.
Gul said the event was a “make believe drama” designed to be used for Obama’s upcoming re-election campaign.
The supposed hit as described by the government and the corporate media is the “stuff of folk lore, for legend-making and the ballad,” Gull explained.
Hamid Gull went on to cite the late Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, who told David Frost in late 2007 that Osama bin Laden was murdered by Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who is also one of the men convicted of kidnapping and killing journalist Daniel Pearl.
Apparently the right wing blogs are also claiming the Navy Seal secret operation was a complete fake, except they think Osama is still alive. Here’s a report at Think Progress: Meet The Deathers: Andrew Brietbart Website Pushing Conspiracy Theory That Osama Might Not Be Dead
Mere hours after President Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden, supported by incontrovertible DNA evidence, the conspiracy theorists are hard at work. Andrew Breitbart, a prominent right-wing commentator with close ties to the Republican Party and the Tea Party, is pushing the theory on his website Big Peace.
On Breitbart’s website, J. Michael Waller, suggests Obama take a number of extraordinary steps so he can “make sure [Osama] is dead.” Pictures are apparently not enough. Walker asserts that he needs to be able to “walk right up to bin Laden’s corpse and view it.”
See? They needed to lay the corpse out in the Capital rotunda so that every American who wanted to feast his or her eyes on it. Hell, maybe Lambert’s right–they should have dragged it through the streets to satisfy the more bloodthirsty among us. {Sigh….} I have a feeling that pretty soon I’m going to get very tired of hearing about Osama bin Laden.
In case you believe that Osama was really killed by Navy Seals in the past few days, here is a fascinating article at Wired’s Danger Room blog on the advanced technology used by the folks who hunt terrorists. Apparently they carry around thumb and eye scanners to identify the culprits they are looking for. That’s in addition to taking DNA samples.
At the Wall Street Journal, Ralph Gardener asks, “Is fist-pumping the right reaction?” He never really answers the question, but I found myself disturbed by the reactions last night too. But hey, Americans are generally pretty tacky–just look at the TV shows they watch nowadays. Hoarders? American Idol? Geeze.
At CNN there is an article about the “spending spree” that followed the 9/11 attacks.
In the decade between Sept. 11, 2001, and the death of Osama bin Laden on Sunday, the U.S. government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars with the aim of making Americans safer.
Agencies were created, expanded or given new missions. The government hired thousands of new employees to analyze intelligence, track terror financing and support the nation’s rapidly expanding national security apparatus.
Gee, can I get a dispensation from paying for all that–like all the religious nuts who don’t want to pay for abortions or dispense birth control pills or provide medical care for women who get abortions?
I’ll end with a few non-Osama-related news stories. A former Chicago Bears player who committed suicide by shooting himself through the heart (to preserve his brain for study) has been found to have had severe brain damage.
On Monday, scientists at Boston University who examined Duerson’s brain tissue said he suffered from a “moderately advanced” case of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease associated with repeated blows to the head.
His brain showed pronounced changes in the frontal cortex amygdala and the hippocampus, which control judgment, inhibition, impulse, mood control and memory, said Dr. Ann McKee, a co-director of the Center for Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at the Boston University School of Medicine and director of the Bedford VA CSTE Brain Bank.
“When you look at it microscopically, it’s undisputable,” said McKee, who has detected CTE in approximately 40 of the 50 brains she has examined, a pool that includes athletes and military veterans.
Known for his aggressive and hard-hitting defense, Duerson is the 14th of 15 former NFL players studied at the brain bank to be diagnosed with CTE. Overall, the condition has been found in more than two dozen deceased professional football players.
Football should really be banned, at least for kids. It will never happen though.
Astronomers create 3D map of 3-Billion-Year-Old Universe
Using light from 14,000 distant yet powerful cosmic beacons, astronomers have pieced together the largest and most detailed 3-D map of the ancient universe.
Previous versions plotted the locations of galaxies within 7 billion light-years of Earth. The new version, however, charts clouds of hydrogen in a swath between 10 billion and 12 billion light-years away — farther in distance and deeper in time than any 3-D map before it.
The hydrogen clouds could help answer some of astronomers’ more profound questions about the universe, including the nature of dark energy.
“We’re looking for a bump in the data that may tell us how fast universe is expanding,” said cosmologist Anže Slosar of Brookhaven National Laboratory, one of the researchers who presented the map May 1 at the American Physical Society meeting in Anaheim, California. “We don’t have enough data to see the bump yet, but we expect to get there in a few years.”
Julian Assange says that Facebook is an “appalling spying machine.”
Asked about his thoughts on the role that social media has played in shaping the recent revolutions in the Middle East, the WikiLeaks founder went in another direction. “Facebook in particular is the most appalling spying machine that has ever been invented,” he said. “Here we have the world’s most comprehensive database about people, their relationships, their names, their addresses, their locations and the communications with each other, their relatives, all sitting within the United States, all accessible to U.S. intelligence. Facebook, Google, Yahoo — all these major U.S. organizations have built-in interfaces for U.S. intelligence. It’s not a matter of serving a subpoena. They have an interface that they have developed for U.S. intelligence to use.”
He continued, still not answering the question: “Now, is it the case that Facebook is actually run by U.S. intelligence? No, it’s not like that. It’s simply that U.S. intelligence is able to bring to bear legal and political pressure on them. And it’s costly for them to hand out records one by one, so they have automated the process. Everyone should understand that when they add their friends to Facebook, they are doing free work for United States intelligence agencies in building this database for them.”
If you like to look at the night sky, there will be a nice show this month when Venus and Jupiter appear very close to each other. May 11 is the day to check them out, I guess.
That’s all I’ve got for today. What are you reading and blogging about?
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
grayslady
mablue2
JJ Lopez aka Minkoff Minx
peggysue22
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Great round-up BB. Speaking of tacky:
No dignity at Ground Zero | Mona Eltahawy | Comment is free | The Guardian
I was sickened as well when I saw those young people partying and drinking.
Many may have seen last nights episode of The Daily Show:
Jon Stewart on Osama bin Laden | Barack Obama | Video | Mediaite
At the end Jon Stewart becomes reflective and talks about his being too close to this, and therefore not impartial to the news of OBL death. He then moves on to say now we can dump the image of Osama as a symbol of the Mid East and Muslims. Take a look at what he says at the end of the clip…
Here is some interesting numbers from MOJO:
The Hunt for Bin Laden, in Numbers | Mother Jones
And for those who are now using this event as justification of torture:
Guest Post: No, Bin Laden’s Death Does NOT Justify Torture « naked capitalism
This is what I am reading this morning.
Great links. Thanks, Minx.
Thanks Minx….an important link round up within a round up…because one of the purposes of this is most assuredly the pushing of these ideas….justification of torture, 3 wars, the whole Bush list… and soon, going into Pakistan openly etc.
The real problem for our government today is that a lot of people do not trust what is said by the government. I would postulate this is a result of the bungled Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the inept handling of the financial system, the inept handling of the BP oil spill and inept handling of Katrina. I am certain that Skydancer readers could add to this list.
Hence,without solid proof, the government is open to counter speculation. Because of Main Street Media complicity with the government, they themselves are open to question.
I haven’t trusted what the government says since the JFK assassination. I know I’m not alone.
Watergate did it for me.
add in what the govt said about jessica lynch and pat tillman. then take a look at a map of abbottobad pakistan and see how far it is from the ocean. burial at sea, ya right.
Yup…and so many of those lies have been about the “War on Feelings.” I think at one point, someone had counted the amount of lies W had told about Iraq, and it was 145 or something like that.
Add that to three elections where the vote counting methods were suspect at best, and you have a very high level of public distrust.
Obama has been proven a liar so many times I’ve lost track. One lie alone would have been enough for me. However, at this point, only an absolute fool would believe a word – any word on any topic – coming from the lips of this flim flam man.
As for his election/reelection team, those hustlers have proven themselves fully capable of using any trick in the book to sell their decidedly inferior product. After the bogus racism charges last time around (and still going strong) against us long-time liberals and civil rights advocates, I believe them capable of anything.
Let a medical professional of my choosing examine the body. Oh, what? They threw it in the ocean? Well, then, go fish out the remains pronto.
Exactly…the body was the answer to all questions…it’s compleltly reasonable to be expexted to produce it. oops,sorry it’s gone now. Surely there is a difference between dragging it though the street and other people being able to examining it? I’m only partly joking when I say I expect new bin Laden tape to show up when they want a Repug in office
I can think of only two explanations for disposing of the body so quickly:
1. The body is not OBL.
2. The body is OBL, but the way he died is not the official story and, for some reason, must be kept hidden.
So, when Obama pulls an election cycle trick out of his bag and actually proves the body is OBL (like his playing of the long form birth certificate card), so what. Really. So what. Questions still remain as to what really happened and why the need to dispose of the body toot de sweet. I smell a rat, especially in light of Petraeus’ promotion.
Well… He has creds with the republicans now.
I read they dropped the body into the sea out of respect for his religion What are you kidding me? We who routinely burn or piss on the Koran in torture sessions? Please. That’s the last excuse I’d believe .
kinda like the guy that poisons his wife and has the body cremated 🙂
Thanks for the round up BB!
Gul said the event was a “make believe drama” designed to be used for Obama’s upcoming re-election campaign.
Funny I was about to say that myself. For this election , unlike Bushs’s , a video was not deemed suffisant. Obama gotta look tough etc.
And really the media resposes helps me to believe that…In the media he’s been Osama bin Forgotten for years.Suddenly we won the super bowl of all time with his death. I can’t believe anything this media pushs this hard.
If you tell me we didn’t known where he was from the start and simply decided to cash him in now…IF it was him at all…I’m not buying it. They couldn’t come up with something better than burial at sea? That’s like ” the dog ate my homework” on steroids
oops I meant “ the media responses” there. Sorry. Due to budget cuts, our proof reading dept was disbanded
Robert Fisk on death of bin Laden
well, there ARE a few insightful journalists still out there … thanks for this!!
I watched the Jon Stewart clip [thanks for the link]. It was funny, no doubt about it. But ‘we’re back?’ Where would that be?
The economy is still in the dumpster and no small part of that are these endless wars. Our middle class is still ravaged and the gulf between the haves and have nots is growing ever wider. The vampire banks are still sucking us dry. And we’re still being lied to. About everything. We can’t even trust our electoral process.
Don’t get me wrong. I have no pity for Osama. He deserved to have his head on a pike. But the man’s death does not erase all the dead and the wounded, the huge transfer of wealth in this country or the on-going propaganda.
The Obamacrats will milk this for everything it’s worth. But sadly, it doesn’t change much of anything. If it gives Osama’s victims small comfort, that’s a good thing.
But they deserve more. We all do.
Very well said and it’s sad to see the peace movement be so totally transformed…
That part irritated me too Peggy, but the thing that I wanted to point out was what Jon Stewart said at the end….
I wasn’t being critical of you, Minx. Or even Stewart in the long run. At least he’s willing to admit that he simply can’t be impartial. What happened on 9/11 was grotesque and ugly. Sadly, Osama’s death all these years after won’t undo the damage, much of which continues to this day.
It just makes me sad because once the party and celebration is over, the hangover will go on. We don’t seem to have a fix for that.
Oh I knew you were not being critical of me Peggy…I was agreeing with you and your assessment. 😉 {Wink and a smile.}
Osama bin Laden lived in Pakistan house for 5-6 years.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/03/us-binladen-usa-residence-idUSTRE7422H520110503?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
I wonder if Bush/Cheney knew?
Legitimate discussion regarding Bush / Cheny knowing. I contend that OBL and B/C needed each other. As long as B/C existed, OBL could raise money and get recruits. As long as OBL existed, B/C could promote the terrorism fear and get the congress to appropriate money.
The Tora Bora debacle let OBL continue to exist. That enabled Bush to pull troops for Iraq to go after weapons of mass destruction.
As always WSWS has info not easily found elsewhere
http://tinyurl.com/3orqdr2
Unanswered questions on US raid that killed bin Laden
…..Press accounts in the United States, based on descriptions supplied by the Pentagon, CIA and White House, depict a bin Laden fortress so obvious that it lacked only a neon sign on the roof advertising Al Qaeda.
It had been built in 2005, apparently for the specific purpose of serving as a protected residence for the terrorist leader.
The house was huge—eight times the size of any of its neighbors, easily visible in satellite photographs—in a wealthy neighborhood not far from the center of the city. It was heavily secured, with walls as high as 18 feet in some places, topped with barbed wire, and a seven-foot high parapet around the top floor, suitable to concealing an unusually tall resident (Bin Laden reportedly stood nearly six foot five inches).
The house was valued at over $1 million, but the two brothers who were listed as owners had “no explainable source of wealth,” and the structure had neither telephone nor Internet access, evidently for security reasons. The residents burned their trash rather than leave it on the street for pickup….,
“I wonder if Bush/Cheney knew?”
I wouldn’t be surprised or shocked. Fiscalliberal is right: Osama should and could have been taken out in Tora Bora. Our guys had him in their sights but couldn’t get a kill order from DC. Why? There would have been no reason [not there really was a reason] to invade Iraq.
I just find the whole thing disgusting–the man living in plain sight, the waste of life and resources over the last decade, and now Cheney attempting to legitimize torture [enhanced interrogation].
We’re being led by the morally bankrupt.
Indian secret service told us where he was a few days after 9/11. It was even reported in their newspapers. He was in Pakistan getting dialysis. He was much more useful as an excuse to Invade Iraq.
Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner and it’s Fiscalliberal (among many others)!
exactly, with Bin Laden dead, there would have been less rational for Iraq invasion.
@Peggy Sue – We’re being led by the morally bankrupt. Yep, flagrantly morally bankrupt.
Where are the legal constitution eagles? Hm, BO is one? expletive deleted
I got an email from our older son this AM basically saying what many others are saying – “I’ll believe it when I see the body. It’s another political ploy to support O for his re-election.
I personally had little feeling upon hearing of his death. Maybe because deep down I thought he’d actually been dead a while.
I was, in fact, appalled at the revelry – a person died – an evil person who had in fact inflicted pain and suffering on thousands but I found it hard to understand the absolute “joy”. I could understand a big national sigh of relief but it all looked like a pep rally. Maybe I’m just missing something.
In fact some of those interviewed whose loved ones had been lost on 9/11 found little to be “happy” about – and stated there is no closure that the media kept asking about.
I was a dismayed at the ghoulish booyah atmosphere when his death was announce. Like some perverse football game. Better to reflect on how he callously killed others and to be thankful that could diminish than to take joy in more harm and death.
Seeing the video of the shooting might help me believe.
Great round up BB. The overflowing sentiment around the nation, and especially in the northeast, demonstrates how that man affected this country. If he is dead, let the fish in the sea feast on his bones. If he isn’t, and this is an elaborate ruse, that is if this is a re-election ploy gone wrong, then let Obumbles next best friend be a staph infection in his liver.
He’s still an asshat.
On Monday, scientists at Boston University who examined Duerson’s brain tissue said he suffered from a “moderately advanced” case of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease associated with repeated blows to the head.
Does anybody know if the end-stage effects of CTE mirror mad cow disease? I couldn’t find if the damage done was in the same area of the brain….
Hillary 2012
Brennan says waterboarding didn’t lead to finding bin Laden.
I’m writing a thread on that right now … great minds!
Rumsfeld is saying that too…per Newsmax, Talk Radio Daily Kos.
Rumsfeld is trying to resurrect himself … you should see his facebook page with his book promotion …
yuck!
They all seem to be coming out of the woodwork…
hope they don’t start showing pictures all over the place.i,m content to take their word for it
Well this is interesting:
GregMitch Greg Mitchell
@
@ggreenwald It’s intriguing, as CNN’s Nic Robertson and others now report: No signs of “firefight” at house, no bullet scars, etc.