So that means Republicans will drop the meme that Democrats are weak and can't fight wars and stuff?

Update 6/10: Chris Hayes of UP discusses this. Will post the video as soon as it is released. Update 6/11: This video and this one both pertain to this.

Benighted, bigoted, burka'ed

Georgie wants some credit?

Bush Reportedly Declined Invite Because He’s Peeved He Hasn’t Gotten Enough Credit For Bin Laden Killing

I'll give him credit... for ignoring Bin Laden



and starting an unnecessary war of choice in Iraq.

I think he really doesn't want to be upstaged by President Obama's talent for multi-syllabic complex sentences and the ability to talk intelligently off the cuff about many subjects....

Ping ponging about Facebook...

I assumed Bin Laden was dead long ago

But killing him now will make no difference. His vision of the world has metathesized already to other radical cells around the world. The US has been proved vulnerable and will suffer more terrorist attacks in the future.

Celebrating Bin Laden's death is unnecessary, will not end the wars we are bogged down in right now and will inflame those who want a reason to be so. It will not change anything. We've removed one icon of defiance and made him a martyr.

But still, quoting Clarence Darrow: I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.

Update: Marc Lynch's viewpoint on the death of Bin Laden. Amanda Marcotte's.

The teabaggery party is giving Bin Laden what he wants

By hating Muslims as if they were a monolithic entity:

This seems like such an obvious point, but it is apparently not obvious to the many people who oppose the Cordoba Initiative's planned mosque in lower Manhattan, so let me state it as clearly as possible: The Cordoba Initiative, which is headed by an imam named Feisal Abdul Rauf, is an enemy of al Qaeda, no less than Rudolph Giuliani and the Anti-Defamation League are enemies of al Qaeda. Bin Laden would sooner dispatch a truck bomb to destroy the Cordoba Initiative's proposed community center than he would attack the ADL, for the simple reason that Osama's most dire enemies are Muslims. This is quantitatively true, of course -- al Qaeda and its ideological affiliates have murdered thousands of Muslims -- but it is ideologically true as well: al Qaeda's goal is the purification of Islam (that is to say, its extreme understanding of Islam) and apostates pose more of a threat to Bin Laden's understanding of Islam than do infidels.

I know Feisal Abdul Rauf; I've spoken with him at a public discussion at the 96th street mosque in New York about interfaith cooperation. He represents what Bin Laden fears most: a Muslim who believes that it is possible to remain true to the values of Islam and, at the same time, to be a loyal citizen of a Western, non-Muslim country. Bin Laden wants a clash of civilizations; the opponents of this mosque project are giving him what he wants.

Sarah Palin rides in to the rescue!

Obama is daring to think the detainees in Guantanamo are actually human beings. Palin shoots off her six shooters:

If we are stuck with this terrible Obama Administration decision, I, like most Americans, hope that Mohammed and his co-conspirators are convicted. Hang ‘em high.

God, this sounds so familiar....

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush pledged anew Friday that Osama bin Laden will be taken "dead or alive," no matter how long it takes, amid indications that the suspected terrorist may be bottled up in a rugged Afghan canyon. The president, in an Oval Office meeting with Thailand's prime minister, would not predict the timing of bin Laden's capture but said he doesn't care how the suspect is brought to justice. "I don't care, dead or alive — either way," Bush said. "It doesn't matter to me."

Or this:

"Bring 'em on," President Bush declared, when asked about guerrilla attacks on US troops in Iraq.

Because acting tough is always better than actually being tough and making tough decisions.

*edited for clarity and because if I didn't correct it, the grammar police would kick down my door.

Blog sprinkles

US Drought meter.

Tengrain: The day Bush got the memo titled Bin Laden Determined to Attack US. We will never forget.

Bryan warns us about the crow/squirrel cabal.

Go Rick Sanchez!

A CNN anchor today tore down Rick Scott, the founder of an organization that's been funding anti-health care reform protests and the former CEO of a hospital company that, as Sanchez pointed out, paid $1.7 billion to settle charges of overcharging Medicare and Medicaid.

It was brutal.

Brutal but delicious!



Camping with vampires...

Eli posts the map that proves only 4 states are now solidly Republican. Maybe if we can get the birthers and the screechers calling for lynchings to keep it up, we may even get those states....

Garbage, the next frontier!

Biomass is a word that’s new to most people, and you aren’t likely to hear it tossed around over Sunday dinner at Auntie Myrtle’s. But you can bet you will be exposed to it plenty in coming years.

Although the term has several definitions, here it is used to mean piles or containers of organic matter that can be tapped for energy. The list of biomass materials is long—agricultural and food waste, wood chips, yard clippings, microorganisms, animal byproducts and many other things.

Among the prime fodder of biomass scientists are hundreds of substances that aren’t bashful about giving off sinus-clearing scents. Yes, many of today’s biomass pioneers just love castoffs that reek. These men and women dance through a universe of aromas that are not welcome in the better parts of town. The stink from cow pies. From chicken dirt. From festering mountains of garbage. And, hold on to your tear glands, even rivers of onion juice.

KBR poisoned our troops and doesn't give a shit.

At the hearing, the Senators heard about an incident at a facility in Qarmat Ali where several hundred troops from the Oregon National Guard (and some from Indiana and West Virginia) were exposed to a chemical called sodium dichromate. (Seen the movie Erin Brockovich? That's the stuff that got all those folks so sick.)

Buddhist treasures found again in Gobi desert.

Mudflats of Alaska cringes at the teabagging over the stimulus.

Murdock demands payment for news....

News Corp is set to start charging online customers for news content across all its websites.

The media giant is looking for additional revenue streams after announcing big losses.

The company lost $3.4bn (£2bn) in the year to the end of June, which chief executive Rupert Murdoch said had been "the most difficult in recent history".

News Corp owns the Times and Sun newspapers in the UK and the New York Post and Wall Street Journal in the US.

... and people go elsewhere. Bye!

Update insert: Newsy is an interesting new media site offering many different viewpoints for the same news story. Excellent idea!



Avendon celebrates a fiery liberal.

Cookie Jill posts the list: Top 20 Largest Cases of Companies Caught For Committing Fraud Against the Government

Distributorcap NY notes the theme of old bags on airplanes.

Athenae: Just how many kids have faced the wrong end of a gun?

It's WTF Thursday!

Ex-California Governor Jerry Brown is thinking of running ... for governor?!

San Diego Democratic women are highly dangerous beasts! As are pastors in Texas. They are the worst!

Explains why Bin Laden wanted to attack the US. He visited Indiana and Los Angeles. Sorry about that, guys....

Wonderfully awfully ironic ads from the past.

We knew this just from seeing the photos:

Israel inflicted "wanton destruction" in the Gaza Strip during its 22-day war on the coastal enclave in December and January, Amnesty International, the London-based human rights group has said.

In a 117-page report released on Thursday, Amnesty cited evidence that Israeli troops put children and other civilians in harm's way "by forcing them to remain in or near houses which they took over and used as military positions".

I really think Israel crossed the line on this and has lost an immense amount of worldwide support. The 'victims' have become the very thing that victimized them in the first place: bloodthirsty heartless thugs.

Banks and corporations are trying to tell us everything is fine and on the mend, we can go back to spending wildly. Odd that our 'recovery' seems to be a jobless one:

The American economy lost 467,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate edged up to 9.5 percent in a sobering indication that the most painful downturn since the Great Depression has yet to release its hold.

And Europe hits a ten year high:

Unemployment in the 16-nation euro zone has climbed to 9.5 per cent, its highest rate in a decade, EU data show.

More than 15 million people are out of work across the zone, with around 273,000 jobs lost in May, the Eurostat data agency estimated.

The increase in jobless was expected, with the eurozone experiencing a 2.5 per cent drop in output in the first quarter of 2009.

"Deep and extended economic contraction, depressed business confidence and deteriorating profitability is pushing unemployment up sharply across the eurozone," Howard Archer, an economist at consultants IHS Global Insight, said.

The May eurozone unemployment rate was up from 9.3 per cent in April and 7.4 per cent in May 2008.

But if you do have a job...there is no escape from your office!

Obama administration being secret about Cheney's interview with the investigators over the Plame affair.

Ants are taking over the wooorrrrrlllddd!

And the most WTF moment of all: Cafferty asks: Good idea to allow guns in bars?

Waterboard him until he makes up a link!

There's gotta be connections to al-Qaeda somewheres!

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.

Such information would've provided a foundation for one of former President George W. Bush's main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003. In fact, no evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden's terrorist network and Saddam's regime.

The use of abusive interrogation — widely considered torture — as part of Bush's quest for a rationale to invade Iraq came to light as the Senate issued a major report tracing the origin of the abuses and President Barack Obama opened the door to prosecuting former U.S. officials for approving them.

Dangerous for exactly who?

Last night on The O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly showed a clip of a Fox News producer ambushing Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to accuse him of political hypocrisy for urging an investigation into Bush crimes after he had opposed the Clinton impeachment. “This Leahy thing — this is beyond the pale,” O’Reilly moaned.

Marc Thiessen, Bush’s former chief speechwriter, agreed. Not only would the investigations be hypocritcal, he said, but worse, they would be “terribly dangerous” because they would expose the “facts” of the U.S.’s interrogation techniques to Osama bin Laden

I don't think they're thinking at all about bin Laden, do you? I think they're afraid of all the shit they've done when they thought no one would ever know. The detainees would die in Gitmo and the lawyers and doctors and torturers would just melt back into society and no one would be the wiser.

But we've wised up and we want to know. Now.

A date that will live in infamy

August 6th, 2001.



(Photoshop a Tengrain special).

Today marks seven years since the day President Bush received a President’s Daily Brief entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.”

Wasn't enough to cover his ass....

Finally.

Someone asks the right question.

Realizing he doesn't have much time before his term is up

Georgie decides to actually do something...

President George W Bush has enlisted British special forces in a final attempt to capture Osama Bin Laden before he leaves the White House.

which apparently is asking the British to do his dirty work so he can get the glory and burnish his tattered legacy ... Reminds us of how you got through college, doesn't it, Georgie?

We know that al-Qaeda wants nukes

So should this be scary?

Two employees of Pakistan's atomic energy agency have been abducted in the country's restive north-western region abutting the Afghan border, police say.

The technicians went missing on the same day as Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan, Tariq Azizuddin, was reportedly abducted in the same region.

[snip]

Pakistan's north-west has witnessed fierce fighting between Islamist militants and government troops.

The pro-Taleban guerrillas declared a unilateral ceasefire last week after months of clashes with troops garrisoned there.

The workers from Pakistan's Atomic Energy Commission were on a mission to map mineral deposits in the mountains when they were kidnapped, police say.

Osama's caliphate is supposed to include Pakistan. And he would like to have the immense power a nuclear bomb would give him. So... is he collecting scientists? Or was this just a random kidnapping?

I presume you named your dog Shredder?

Because as the loyal Bushies realize that the Bush administration's power to protect them is waning, papers, information, memories are being shredded, and mislaid, and forgotten. Odd, that homework-eating dog sure gets around....

GANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - The U.S. military has lost a year's worth of records describing the Guantanamo confinement of Osama bin Laden's driver, a prosecutor said at the Yemeni captive's war court hearing on Thursday.

Lawyers for the driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, asked for the records to support their argument that prolonged isolation and harassment at the Guantanamo prison have mentally impaired him and could affect his ability to aid in his defense against war crimes charges.

"All known records have been produced with the exception of the 2002 Gitmo records," one of the prosecutors, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Timothy Stone, told the court. "They can't find it."

I'm sure you guys looked everywhere. Maybe it's with the interrogation tapes?

The Taliban are gone.. no, wait, they are resurgent... no.. wait ...

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says the Taliban are gone:

In a congressional hearing today, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates implied that the U.S. military had routed the Taliban from Afghanistan. Echoing his recent assessment that the Taliban has “lost” in Afghanistan, Gates said the Taliban has been “thrown out”:

The Taliban no longer occupy any territory in Afghanistan. They were thrown out of Musa Qala a few weeks ago before over Christmas. And the Taliban have had some real setbacks. Probably 50 of their leaders have been killed or captured over the past year, and we know that that’s had an impact on their capability and also on their morale.

But Condi Rice says:

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday she has seen progress in Afghanistan during the past few years, despite a determined Taliban insurgency that has disrupted security and prompted concerns that the NATO-led military campaign is faltering.

[snip]

The article goes on to state:

The high-level U.S.-British visit comes in the bloodiest year in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led toppling of the Taliban in 2001. More than 6,500 people - mostly insurgents - died in violence in 2007, according to an Associated Press count of figures provided by local and international officials.

The Taliban and al-Qaida-linked militants have turned to suicide bombings and other tactics that make it more challenging to fight, she said.

"It's not work that's going to be completed overnight," Rice said of the efforts to rebuild the country and fight insurgents at the same time.

We're winning! Because we aren't defeated! Or something...

And just a question... how can you tell the Taliban are gone/ no longer functional/ lurking/ sending suicide bombers? Do they look any different than any other Afghani person? Do they wear uniforms?

No. The reason we 'won' in Afghanistan is because those warlords who 'supported' the Taliban shifted their 'support' to us because of promises we made. Which we then neglected to fulfill once we began pulling out to go attack the real prize, Iraq. So we now have pissed off warlords who look for someone else to get behind... Osama, al-Qaeda, or the Taliban.

If we had taken care of Afghanistan in the first place, flooded the place with goods and money, roads and infrastructure, we'd have possibly created the 'shining example' of democracy for Asia and the Middle East to admire.

Instead we have those pesky one a day bombs that kill people and sap morale....

Isolating the Middle East?

Bryan of Why Now? noted when it was three cables and then four... but now...

Five (5)! undersea cables have been cut, affecting Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India, Malaysia, Iran, Egypt, and Dubai:

DUBAI — An estimated 1.7 million Internet users in the UAE have been affected by the recent undersea cable damage, an expert said yesterday, quoting recent figures published by TeleGeography, an international research Web site.

Internet data was majorly affected as it is the biggest capacity carried by the undersea cables.

However, all voice calls, corporate data and video traffic were also affected.

Two du experts yesterday briefed the media on the current methods being undertaken by the telecom provider to re-route the Internet traffic to provide normalcy to the users.

Quoting TeleGeography and describing the effect the cuts had on the Internet world, Mahesh Jaishanker, executive director, Business Development and Marketing, du, said, “The submarine cable cuts in FLAG Europe-Asia cable 8.3km away from Alexandria, Egypt and SeaMeWe-4 affected at least 60 million users in India, 12 million in Pakistan, six million in Egypt and 4.7 million in Saudi Arabia.”

A total of five cables being operated by two submarine cable operators have been damaged with a fault in each.

These are SeaMeWe-4 (South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe-4) near Penang, Malaysia, the FLAG Europe-Asia near Alexandria, FLAG near the Dubai coast, FALCON near Bandar Abbas in Iran and SeaMeWe-4, also near Alexandria.

Who the hell is behind this? The Bush administration or Osama bin Laden? Hard to tell between the two terrorist organizations....

Benazir Bhutto speaks from the grave... along with Osama bin Laden?

With David Frost in an interview on November 2, 2007, Benazir Bhutto talks about the attempted assassination in Karachi and her dealings with Musharraf.



But the weirdest moment comes at about 6:13 or so into the interview where she talks about those who might be trying to kill her. She mentions a military man and without naming him says he had dealings with Omar Sheik (sp?) who was the one who murdered Osama bin Laden.

Murdered Osama bin Laden?

And Frost didn't stop and shout,"What did you say?"

Murdered Osama bin Laden?

Is this why Bhutto is dead?

Our boogey man since 9/11/01 is dead?

...

Then who is the poor bastard who is pretending to be Osama and giving us red and orange alert fits for the last six years? Is he Osama Smith of the CIA? The NSA? The Hollywood Extras Corporation?

...

Of course Bush and Cheney know, don't they? They had to keep Osama alive to keep the fear alive; the fear that propelled us into this unholy quagmire of Iraq and $100 barrels of crude.

Update 1/26:
An excellent and different perspective of the character of Benazir Bhutto by Adjit Hegde of Lenin's Tomb.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in the cross-hairs

Al-Qaeda has big dreams:

The US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Pakistan's post-September 11, 2001, about-turn into the camp of the United States led to a marriage of convenience among the flag-bearers of Ibn Taymiyyah's ideology, zealots of al-Qaeda and experts in Giap's guerrilla strategy - former officers of the Pakistani armed forces who were upset with Pakistan's policy reversal, which included abandoning the Taliban.

These groups joined forces to take control of the state through a popular revolt or by using violent means, or force on the state apparatus to support the battle against the Western coalition in Afghanistan. The alliance has had some success, notably in the Waziristans, where in effect a rigid Islamic state prevails beyond the control of the central authorities in Islamabad. Indeed, the highest level of casualties in the history of the Pakistan Army has forced Pakistani leaders to speak of stopping operations in the Waziristans, saying it is a wrong war.

But while there have been several serious popular outbursts against President General Pervez Musharraf - and attacks on his life - his military government remains in power since staging a coup in 1999.

Meanwhile, after a long lull, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden resurfaced recently with three video and audio tape messages. His emergence on the horizon of the jihadist audience came at a time when Islamic militants of varied backgrounds (in the Waziristans) had finally sorted out their conflicts on issues such as revolt against a Muslim state and fighting Muslim armies.

Those groups include the Taliban (led by Mullah Omar), the command of the Pakistani Taliban (led by a shura - council - of mujahideen in the two Waziristans), leading Arab scholars in the Waziristans, such as Sheikh Essa, Abu Waleed Ansari and Abu Yahya al-Libbi, the command of Pakistani jihadist organizations in the Waziristans under Maulana Ilyas Kashmiri and its allied group of former officers of the Pakistan Armed Forces who resigned to join the Afghan resistance.

Bin Laden has always spoken out against the Western world, but in his most recent audio message last week, for the first time he urged Pakistanis "to fight against Musharraf, his army, his government and his supporters". This was the first endorsement of his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri's anti-establishment theory under which war should be waged first against the un-Islamic Muslim states before fighting infidel armies. In the past, Mullah Omar and bin Laden have always avoided stirring revolt within countries such as Pakistan.

Pakistan immediately dismissed bin Laden's call. Army spokesman Major-General Waheed Arshad was quoted as saying, "If Osama bin Laden has spoken to the people and urged them to rise, and the people were really following him, they would have done so much earlier. He doesn't have much following here."

However, this was clearly for public consumption. Asia Times Online has learned that these new developments were so seriously viewed on the intelligence radars of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia that they devised a joint strategy.

Islamabad is so concerned over the latest developments that it asked Saudi Arabia to approach al-Qaeda to abandon its anti-establishment policy.

The Saudis are concerned that should their erstwhile son bin Laden succeed in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia would be one of the next logical targets. So a joint strategy was devised to confront the threat.

According to a witness who spoke to Asia Times Online, last month a Saudi consul visited North Waziristan in the first such interaction with the al-Qaeda command since the US invasion on Afghanistan in 2001. The consul was meant to meet Zawahiri or bin Laden, but he was not allowed to see them and instead met second-tier al-Qaeda leaders.

The consul wore traditional clothes of the region and a Pashtun-style hat, and carried several gifts, mostly food items, especially dates and figs. He also carried with him messages from Saudi royal family members. He spent two days in North Waziristan before returning safely to Islamabad. Immediately after, the Saudi ambassador to Pakistan, Ali Awad al-Asiri, went to Saudi Arabia. He was not carrying good news - the Saudi offer of a ceasefire with al-Qaeda for both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia had been rejected, as the al-Qaeda leadership is determined to pursue its policy of bringing down "un-Islamic" governments and imposing their own policies or alternatively getting Pakistan to change its policies in favor of the militants.

Pakistan is the first stepping stone in al-Qaeda's global strategy. Once the organization and its allies take control of the country or force the decision-makers to promote global Islamic resistance, the first direct impact will be on the Afghan insurgency, where support would multiply against Western coalition forces there.

Maybe Osama read the PNAC treatise on how to take over the world?