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Can We Please Not Politicize Bin Laden Death ?
As several of my colleagues have already reported, Osama Bin Laden is finally dead.
There will be plenty of ink (or around here I suppose electrons) will be spilled over the topic in the coming days I’d like to ask for what may be impossible.
Don’t turn this into a political thing.
We don’t need anyone on the left talking about how Obama did what Bush did not.
We don’t need anyone on the right talking about how Obama is faking it or is in on some conspiracy.
We found and defeated a great enemy, can’t we for once please just come together and be happy about that fact ?
Please ??
26 Responses to “Can We Please Not Politicize Bin Laden Death ?”
I sure hope we can keep politics out of it. I fear such hope are in vain…
I believe Trump has upstaged bin Laden and it’s too early in the 2012 campaign, anyway for bin Laden to be politicized, I hope.
I hope you are right, though some of the usual suspects on both sides of the fence have started we can hope the majority does not use it.
I agree with both Patrick and davidsummers.
It should be easy to keep politics out of this long awaited accomplishment. All that everyone need to do is credit (and congratulate) President Obama and his administration for a job well done.
Agreed Patrick. No reason to politicize this. Good riddance is something I’m sure all Americans can agree on.
Does this mean we get our soldiers home?
I would like to think that for once, people could come together around this event, but I am not hopeful. The jokes have already begun on Facebook and the suggestion that this was staged to boost the Presidents image is already being thrown out there. Without a body, the conspiracy types are going to be all over this. I for one, am glad he’s gone.
Might as well wish people kept sex out of procreation…
FOX News finds the right way to spin this…
“African-American Male Confesses to Murder of Elderly Dialysis Patient”
To the extent Obama was involved in this, which I am not clear on, he deserves some credit. And not just the lack of a body, but the lack of any hope of exhuming the body ever again, will lead to speculation that it was staged. So this will be politicized whether we like it or not.
I would echo the Prof above – seems to me this is another good reason to get out of the Middle East.
There is no need to politicize this moment. It is an American accomplishment — the work of many, not just the work of one man.
I agree that we shouldn’t inappropriately politicize this. But I do think it is completely appropriate to look at this as a vindication of Obama’s policy wrt to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He had come under a lot of criticism. I also think it is fair to say that this is an example of both victory and getting results, and I think it does refute the GOP portrayal of Obama as being weak or the new Jimmy Carter.
OK, how can you ‘keep politics out of it’?
This has been a political fight from the beginning, whether you are talking about the 9/11 attacks or our response.
The military and intelligence aspects were simply the tools required to complete a political act.
Zzzzz has made a very good point. Especially given the fact that those who have criticized President Obama in the past are not generally crediting him for this accomplishment.
It’s apparent even in this post where Patrick and the right leaning commenters all want to keep it “non-partisan” but seem unable to give credit to the President.
owengray seems to sum up the rights position when he wrote:
Both credit and blame go to those in charge… unless you’re stuck playing partisan games and he or she is on the other side.
Obama deserves credit, no doubt, as does Bush. This was a long time coming, and in fact started from information gathered at Gitmo.
But Obama pulled the trigger, and there are reports he passed on an earlier plan to use B-2 bombers to wipe the complex out. The reasoning given was to not simply kill all 22 people at the compound plus likely destroy other houses/compounds as well, and to launch a mission like the one just completed that would prove he was dead, rather than just leaving a pile of rubble.
Those were very good reasons, IMHO, to follow the path that he did.
Just for the record I am perfectly happy to give President Obama credit and praise.
GOOD JOB PRESIDENT OBAMA.
What I am not willing to do is make it a partisan ‘only Obama deserves praise’ issue.
The people who deserve 99% of the credit are the intelligence operatives and Navy Seals who pulled this off.
I always give the major credit to troops on the ground.
Presidents Clinton and Bush deserve credit as they both started and continued the effort to get Osama.
Presidents back the last 50 years deserve some credit as the intelligence networks and military forces that were able to accomplish this have been developed over the last 50 years.
That is what I mean by not getting political.
Good job President Obama
Good job Secretary Gates
Good job Director Panetta
Good job President Bush
Good job President Clinton
and most of all
Good job to our troops !!
This was a long time coming, and in fact started from information gathered at Gitmo.
I have heard folks like Malkin claim this, but as far as I know, they have NO evidence to back this claim. You can’t just ASSUME the intelligence came from Gitmo while Bush was president. It is pure wishful thinking without actual evidence. What I heard on the news this morning, was that the intelligence that lead to this raid was uncovered last year, which was at a point when the US had stopped torturing detainees.
Zzzzz – I don’t read Malkin. And according to credible news sources (these) it was 4 years ago the courier was identified by the detainee(s).
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/02/bin.laden.raid.timeline/index.html?hpt=T1
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110502/ts_nm/us_binladen_compound_1
Indef, your full of BS. Maybe that waterboarding killed brain cells.
The intel came from electronic phone incerpepts done by the Pakis.
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/02/bin.laden.pakistan.role/?hpt=T2
Sorry you don’t seem to bother to read.
From CNN:
“The operation that led to the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden took shape after detainees identified a trusted bin Laden courier as someone who may have been living with and protecting the militant leader, senior administration officials told reporters.
That courier became a key lead in locating bin Laden, the officials said.
The officials provided details on the origins of the operation and the raid that led to bin Laden’s killing:
• Four years ago: Officials uncovered the courier’s identity.”
The intercepts of the courier’s call were recent, and could not have happened without the earlier intel.
Boy, the Left remains so freaking deranged that they simply cannot accept that activities under both Bush and Obama, jointly, led to this over years of work.
Well, then I take that back Inde, that is credible evidence.
From what I’m seeing, the left can’t celebrate this without noting how bad they think Bush was in comparison, and the right can’t celebrate this without trying to take partial credit.
Not sure whether I am right or left in your book but as I said above, I’d give 98% of the credit to the intelligence agents and military troops who carried out the mission.
The rest goes first to Obama and his people and then to his predecessors for what they did to set the stage.
I have to give credit to Obama for carrying this out in Pakistan without informing them first of the impending strike, showing some guts and staying consistent with his campaign promises. I don’t know if I agree with his not bombing the compound once they had sound intelligence that it was harboring Bin Laden. Seems like they took a big risk that Bin Laden wouldn’t move somewhere else in the interim. In any case it was a move that worked out and they obtained proof of his death, so it’s tough to argue with success.
Agreed Da Goat, dead is dead.. Good for Obama.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-bin-laden-victory-echoes-of-the-bush-years/2011/05/03/AFz4eQsF_story.html
Interesting article