"Cool Hand Barack"

[short timer]

Sure I could look around and see other countries worse than mine
IS that supposed to cheer me up?


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: May 3, 2011



"No wonder the president’s top generals call him “a Cool Hand Luke.”

After giving the order for members of a Navy Seals team to execute a fantastically daring plan to, let’s be honest, execute Osama bin Laden, Barack Obama put on a tuxedo and gave a comedy speech Saturday night in a Washington ballroom of tippling journalists and Hollywood stars.

If we could have seen everything unfolding in real time, it would have had the same dramatic effect as the intercutting in the president’s favorite movie, “The Godfather,” when Michael Corleone calmly acts as godfather at his nephew’s baptism at church, even as his lieutenants carry out the gory hits he has ordered on rival mobsters.

Just substitute “Leave the copter, take the corpse” for “Leave the gun, take the cannoli.”

The president’s studied cool and unreadable mien have sometimes distanced him from the public at moments of boiling crisis. But in the long-delayed showdown with Public Enemy No. 1, these qualities served him perfectly.

The timing was good, blunting the infelicitous remarks made recently to The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza by an Obama adviser, who described the president as the un-John Wayne ushering a reviled and chastened America away from the head of the global table. The unnamed adviser described the Obama doctrine on display in Libya as “leading from behind,” which sounds rather pathetic.

But now the president has shown he can lead straight-on and that, unlike Jimmy Carter, he knows how to order up that all-important backup helicopter. He has said that those who call him a wimp are mistaken, that there is often muscular purpose beneath his diffident surface.

Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin, who was so tacky that she didn’t mention Obama’s name in her congratulations, tried to draw credit to the Bush administration.

But there can be no doubt that justice for the families of the 9/11 victims was agonizingly delayed because the Bush team took a megalomaniacal detour to Baghdad.

A pigheaded Donald Rumsfeld, overly obsessed with a light footprint, didn’t have the forces needed at Tora Bora to capture Osama after the invasion of Afghanistan. To justify the switch to Saddam and the redeployment of troops to Iraq, W. and his circle stopped mentioning Osama’s name and downplayed his importance. When the White House ceases to concentrate on something, so does the C.I.A.

The hunt got so cold by 2005 that the Bin Laden unit at the C.I.A. was disbanded and overhauled. Four years after the monster felled the twin towers, the Bush team finally put more officers on the ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In his East Room address Sunday night, President Obama made it clear that he had shooed away the distracting Oedipal ghosts.

“Shortly after taking office,” he said, “I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the C.I.A., to make the killing or capture of Bin Laden the top priority of our war against Al Qaeda.”

Many famous invaders throughout history, from Genghis Khan to Tamerlane to Babur, have marched along the same route the Navy Seals took on their moonless flight, going from Kabul to Jalalabad to Peshawar.

The mesmerizing narrative stitched together by The Times’s Mark Mazzetti, Helene Cooper and Peter Baker begins with C.I.A. agents getting the license plate of Bin Laden’s most trusted courier in Peshawar. Peshawar is the ultimate mystery town, famous for secrets and falsehoods. It’s known for its bazaars, especially the Story Tellers Bazaar.

And that is exactly where President Obama now finds himself. He will now have to sort through the bazaar of Pakistan’s deceptive stories and deal with lawmakers angry about giving $20 billion since 9/11 to a country where Osama was comfortably ensconced. For years, top Pakistanis have said that Osama was dead or in Afghanistan.

Even Condi Rice proclaimed she was shocked to find “Geronimo” settled in Abbottabad for six years, living in plain sight in a million-dollar house in an affluent suburb near a military base and the Pakistani version of West Point. As one of Osama’s neighbors put it: “It’s the closest you can be to Britain.”

At a House homeland security subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, Representative Patrick Meehan asked the question about Pakistan that is ricocheting through Washington: “Does it reflect to some extent some kind of divided loyalty or complicity in some part, or incompetence or both?”

Seth Jones of the RAND Corporation, who used to advise the U.S. military in Afghanistan on Al Qaeda, replied with equal bluntness: “Whether there was complicity, or incompetence, at the very least there has not been a high priority in targeting the senior Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan. Based on the threat streams coming from this area, those interests have to change.”"

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on May 4, 2011, on page A29 of the New York edition with the headline: Cool Hand Barack.

[mtmynd]

"“Does it reflect to some extent some kind of divided loyalty or complicity in some part, or incompetence or both?”

After seeing some clips of Dubya talking about the whereabouts of Bin Laden, his 'give-a-shit attitude... I wonder how that had affected OBL and his crew as time went on... until Obama entered the picture and using his low profile, caught OBL with his guard down. Remember this -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PGmnz5O ... re=related


Which country do you think would bring you joy, amigo?

[stilltrucking]

That video is a trip.

"If he is hiding at all" about one minute and nineteen seconds into it. Did you notice his eyebrows when he said that? I been skimming through an interesting book called Blink a taxonomy of facial expressions.

I don't know which country Cecil. I am resigned to feeling like a Man Child in The Promised Land. t



My family was brought here by the good Baron, in hope that we could make ourselves useful to our adopted homeland.

My own personal experience, too has led me to recognize that the Jews have very good ability in agriculture...and my efforts shall show that the Jews have not lost the agricultural qualities that their forefathers possessed. I shall try to make for them a new home in different lands, where as free farmers on their own soil, they can make themselves useful to that country." [/i]--Baron Maurice de Hirsch in The Forum (August 1891)
http://www.vanguardnewsnetwork.com/wolz ... Hirsch.htm

[Steve Plonk]

Cool Hand Obama got Osama! Oh hell, yeah! Moreover, we need Afghanistan's
opium and oil pipeline, not to mention their precious gems and strategic position
in Central Asia. See my thread on "What Victory Would Look Like in Afghanistan".

Victory would mean a happier partnership with Russia and better relations with
Pakistan, and a grand oil pipeline through Turkmenistan, etc., Afghanistan and Pakistan. We could circumvent Iranian interests and Russia would be a good buddy, to make a long story short. "Unocal" would be happy, our state department would be happy, the Afghan opium farmers would be happy that we are converting opium at good market prices, and the Pakistani's would be happy
to buy the gas & oil that comes across from Turkmenistan & Russia, along with the rest of the world. Iran would be peeved. But Iranians are always peeved 'cause they have their heads up their collective asses, if the world
shuns them. Maybe Saudi Arabia would also be peeved because we found a new market for gas & oil...Boo yah! Obama got Osama!

[stilltrucking]

must be something wrong with me. I can't share your enthusiasm.

I have tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe. I was not offended, for I knew I had to rise above it all or drown in my own shit.

Maybe we should have brought him back alive and put him on trial like Eichmann in Jerusalem. Wouldn't that be a kick.

Don't mind me Steve. I just got off the boat. I feel like I just discovered America.

[Steve Plonk]

I wish I could have been on the aircraft carrier to hear Osama's bitching body
go splash. In place of maggots, Osama got seven virgin sharks snacking on his
wrappings and his bones! Hoo hah! In shah Allah and all that good jazz! Praise the Lord and pass the ammo!

Some "whiney toads" are complaining about the circumstances of the kill. Hell, the people in the Trade Towers, the Pentagon, and the jet airplanes were unarmed and helpless. The 9/11 victims didn't have guards or wives to hide behind. Long live President Obama and to hell with islamic fascists!
An acquaintance of mine died in the Pentagon...So, I got some personal retribution after the kill...

[mnaz]

disgusting, steve.

[Doreen Peri]

disgusting, steve.

Agreed.

[stilltrucking]

Don't let me piss your parade Steve.

Enjoy the feeling of victory




I think I will save my celebration for when the Baltimore Orioles win the world serries.

[mtmynd]

How many of our Christian and Jewish brethren adhere to this passage?

Leviticus 24:20:

17'(O)If a man takes the life of any human being, he shall surely be put to death.

18'(P)The one who takes the life of an animal shall make it good, life for life.

19'If a man injures his neighbor, just as he has done, so it shall be done to him:

20(Q)fracture for fracture, (R)eye for eye, tooth for tooth; just as he has injured a man, so it shall be inflicted on him.

21'Thus the one who kills an animal shall make it good, but (S)the one who kills a man shall be put to death.

... and I must assume there is an equivalent in the Koran...

Personally, I am not a biblical guy but I am aware that there are very large numbers of Christians and Jews in our own country, much less throughout the world. It is not up to me to judge their Biblical beliefs if they see the death of OBL as a just reward for the man's actions.

[mnaz]

yeah cec, and how many bible-thumpers want to post the ten commandments all over creation? and what is that 1st commandment again?

i mean, i really don't give two shits about bin laden; realistically, his days were numbered anyway. frankly, i'm surprised that no one from afghanistan or the pakistan border region did him in, given the considerable grief that he and other al qaeda operatives have brought to the area.

but to read all this loud rah rah go conquer the middle east for its oil, and "praise god and pass the ammo" stuff... give me a break.

[mtmynd]

it's not only the bible thumpers, which there are far more than this country needs, but let's not dismiss the fundamentalist Muslims who interpret the Koran to make themselves out to be anointed by GodAllah to carry out wars against the disbelievers/nonbelievers. (I watched a PBS special on an aspect of Afghanistan and a group of jihadist who were Taliban but aided by Al Queda).

Religious fanaticism is the cause of the world's problems.

Re: "but to read all this loud rah rah go conquer the middle east for its oil, and "praise god and pass the ammo" stuff... give me a break."

You are going to hear every opinion there is whenever discussions such as this come up, aren't you? But I didn't hear anything but "USA" or "US" during the night after the OBL announcement came up... just (young) people letting joy replace the tears of sadness of 9/11... very hu'man.

[mnaz]

sorry cec, can't let you off the hook that easy. yes, religious fanaticism of all stripes, whether it's spanish conquistadors trying to fill their conversion quota at sword-point, or mormons slaughtering "uncooperative" indians, or protestants blowing up catholics, or muslims blowing up protestants, or "christians" blowing up the government, or what have you. it's all a cancer on the earth, as i've acknowledged many times before.

however, to lump all the imperialistic blather in with people "letting joy replace sadness" is stretching things too far i.m.o. personally, i give no quarter to that sort of bluster, no matter what the situation.

[mtmynd]

The chants of "USA" or similar may or may not be "imperialistic blather" depending upon whether one was doing the chanting with joy in their hearts, or witnessing the events from one's television or net news and were disheartened to see such "bluster" coming from the hearts of those people.

Come on, Mark... lighten up! geez... don't be a deadbeat curmudgeon at such a young age... pour yourself a stiff drink of today's favorite beverage and watch without judgement what history is unraveling in these truly historic times... it'll do your heart good, my friend.

[mnaz]

cec, i was talking about steve's posts in particular, not "celebrating" in general. i don't think a drink will change my opinion. i don't mean to come across as rude here, so apologies if that's the way it seems. but like i say, no quarter on the imperialistic war bluster. just how it is with me.