Any operations they had in the works as of last week are almost certainly blown now, because of all the intel gathered during the raid. There’s gonna be a lot of guys running for cover and cowering in basements for a long time. Or maybe cowering in comfortable homes in Pakistan.
Which means they’re going to have to start some kind of retaliation planning from scratch, all the time thinking (probably correctly) that the CIA and SEAL Team 6 has their names, locations, and fucking bank account numbers.
It’s my WAG that the most they’re going to be able to pull off for a long long time will be very small scale, even if potentially sensational. Things like the Red Brigade or Baader Meinhoff did – kidnap a banker, have somebody toss a grenade in a hotel lobby or spray a machine gun into a crowd somewhere. Hell, in the US we have teenagers who do shit like that every few weeks because they’re getting lousy grades.
I’ve heard this warning from all sides and I just can’t wrap my head around it. Al Qaeda wants to attack America, correct? So theoretically they are constantly trying, constantly planning attacks.
Why are we supposed to be suddenly more worried now that we’ve killed OBL? Why are they any more likely to successfully attack us than they were before? They might be mad about OBL’s death, but does that somehow make them stronger than before? Could they really be any more motivated than they already were?
I just feel that if they had the wherewithal to successfully attack us, they would have done it already.
I reckon (yep this is a highly scientific and well researched position) that the death of Osama will make them more motivated to carry out an attack.
If anything this will make them more desperate, risk taking and careless. So I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they burn resources in attempts they wouldn’'t otehrwise have made - quickening their demise as they will be more easy to catch,
Getting rid of OBL is clearly a net positive for Obama. Having said that, the differing reports of what actually happened could come to haunt the guy. Just came across the following in an AP article today, which claims only one person at OBL’s compound actually fired on them:
*"As the Navy SEALs moved into bin Laden’s compound, they were fired on by bin Laden’s courier, who was in the guesthouse, the official said. The SEALs returned fire, and the courier was killed, along with a woman with him. The official said she was hit in the crossfire.
The Americans were never fired on again as they encountered and killed a man on the first floor and then bin Laden’s son on a staircase, before arriving at bin Laden’s room. Officials have said bin Laden was killed after he appeared to be lunging for a weapon."*
I don’t think the seal team’s actions will be scrutinized - rather, some will focus on the way in which the narrative was initially spun to the public. Not saying the scrutiny is necessarily fair, but I suspect it will mitigate some of the political upside from the event.
I think six months from now - nevermind when people vote a year and a half from now - not that many people will focus on what they learned about the bin Laden raid on what day. What they’ll remember is that he’s dead and Obama authorized the mission that killed him. The rest of it is essentially fluctuations in poll numbers that don’t have much meaning.
As I said above, I think it does have a bit of a guarantee with respect to the primaries. If anyone’s going to take on Obama in Iowa and New Hampshire, they’ve got to jump in soon, while killing bin Laden still very much matters.
I don’t think anyone thought a week ago that there was much chance of that happening, but there were certainly lefties of the Firedoglake/Glenn Greenwald wing who very much wanted someone to step up and challenge Obama from the left. I think such chance they had of talking anyone into such a challenge has pretty much disappeared.
And history suggests that that makes a big difference in an incumbent’s re-election prospects.
The changing stories don’t mean much. It always takes a little while after an unexpected newsworthy event for the stories to settle down. Remember all the talk of car bombs in the chaos of September 11?
Is there some Repub you think is a huge favorite? Hell they have a bunch of nobodies arguing back and forth now. They have no serious challenger at all.
I don’t think anyone is a huge favorite over Obama at this point. My point was that if the Dems nominate anyone else, it is because they found out he really was born in Kenya or photos of him dressed as a Klansman and being sodomized by Dennis Kucinich in a Little Bo Peep outfit have been authenticated by the CIA, and they are trying to keep it on the QT.
I’m a disgruntled lefty who would like to see a SERIOUS challenge to Obama in the primaries from the left. Obama’s a fricking centrist, which means basically, a 1980s-era right winger. I think the only way the lefties will get ANY attention from the Dems is to work them hard in the primaries and maybe win a few state rep seats. Otherwise, we’ll get about as much attention as anyone else stuck on the margins. I’ll vote Kucinich in the primaries if he will run, I’m damn tired of my vote being taken for granted.
Seeing as his popularity has jumped by 11 points, of course it will help Obama’s re-election chances. People aren’t just going to forget about it in a a year and a half.
Unless people wise up and start asking questions. Would there really have been a different result with anybody else as president? Given the information that intelligence provided, who wouldn’t go in to get him? Did the administration really change the focus of intelligence to finding Bin Laden and would the old allocation of resources have produced the same results in finding him?
Some of these questions are impossible to answer. It is also ridiculous to discount the information that the previous administration gathered and say that it didn’t help lead to what subsequently lead to Bin Laden’s whereabouts.
The biggest question for me is why were the SEALS going in on a mission to kill instead of capture? Killing him is better than letting him escape, but from the reports it sure sounds like he could have been captured.
If enhanced interrogation can bring useful information from the soldiers, how much could have been obtained from the general?
How many lives could have been save if Obama have give the order to capture instead of kill Bin Laden?
It is easy to dismiss enhanced interrogation (torture) when experts and interrogators say it does not work. The Repubs want to pretend they were involved because the raid worked out. If it failed, they would not have had anything to say about their supposed contribution. They would have creamed him as inept.
Now they scramble for a way to get a part of the credit. Bush was in office 8 years. OBL was alive through every minute of it.
Experts and interrogators say enhanced interrogation does work. If interrogators thought it didn’t work, they wouldn’t use it. There are some people who think it does and some who think it doesn’t. They are just opinions. Someone with information might give some up. Someone without information might make some up.
OBL was alive during every minute of Clinton’s presidency, Bush Sr., Regan, etc.
Obama had nothing to do with with tracking down Bin Laden, just as Bush had nothing to do with it. The Machine lead to Bin Laden. The Machine functions regardless of who is president.
Obama is responsible for the order to kill him. If you capture him maybe you get information out of him, maybe you don’t. You can hang him whenever you want if you don’t.
Killing him gives him the martyrdom he wants and that his followers can hope to emulate.
