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Hilarious!
We caught and shot Osama bin Laden in a rundown, decrepit compound, lacking any direct contact with the outside world. But in 2001, the Times of London (and the Pentagon) thought he was living in a comic villain’s super fortress.
The absurd graphic, birthed from rumors stacked upon rumors originating with a former Russian soldier, placed Osama inside a bunker that would make Lex Luthor blush. The thing, tunneled as deep as the World Trade Center was built high, looks like a super duper hideaway I would have drawn up with magic marker as an 8-year-old. [...] But even worse—it got a cosign from our Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, who on Meet the Press, frothed at the mouth with Osama-huntin’ excitement.
A ventilation system to allow people to breathe and to carry on. An arms and ammunition depot. And you can see here the exits leading into it and the entrances large enough to drive trucks and cars and even tanks. And its own hydroelectric power to help keep lights on, even computer systems and telephone systems.
Rumsfeld replied, “Oh, you bet. This is serious business. And there’s not one of those. There are many of those. And they have been used very effectively.”
Well, no, there weren’t. [...] Osama wasn’t in a “mountain fortress” in Afghanistan—he was in a shithole house that looked like a Motel 6 after being hit by a neutron bomb strike and an underpaid decorator.
Pedro, here’s me and…
http://tinyurl.com/3b6h24f
Not surprised at Rumsfeld’s comment.
But he’d deny he ever said such a thing.
I remember when they were saying the same thing about Saddam’s secret bunkers – supposedly scattered around Iraq.
Underground, several floors deep, and riding on giant springs to help absorb the shock-wave from near-misses by ‘bunker-buster’ bombs…
Wasn’t it the pesky Germans – who didn’t support our invasion of Iraq – who were accused of engineering such marvels for Saddam.
Back when we were supposed to hate the Germans & French – those cheese-eating surrender-monkeys! – because the only reason either country was opposed to over-throwing Saddam was that they had been doing business with him…
Yeah, and give me a side of Freedom Fries with that order, please.
Lawrence Wright writes fairly extensively about Tora Bora and he portrays it as primitive but effective. If I remember correctly, they took some pretty hard hits from the Soviets and survived.
Even so, if Bush and Rumsfeld had been smarter, they would have killed bin Landen and most of al Qaeda right there.
Rather than a full-blown invasion the US could have surrounded Tora Bora to prevent escapees and then bombed the smithereens out of it. It would have taken a lot of bombs but, even so, it would have cost a small fraction of what a ten year occupation has cost us.
#20 Special Ed- OBL had “Loving the Goats of Anbar” in the DVD player near an open bag of Cheetos when the raid went down.
#5 Steve S- It’s like rock scissors paper with Congress, the public and the military.
“We know where they (WMD) are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad.”
Donald Rumsfeld March 30, 2003
bin Ladin did have these bunkers but Bank of America foreclosed on them in 2008.
This talk about the compound being less than glamorous and a decrepit bin Laden hunched over on the floor watching tv from under a blanket …
Poop!
That’s the way it is there. I’m sure Trump lives in much more splendor and owns a mansion or two but, in Pakistan, this compound IS a mansion. Sitting on the floor? That’s what they do. They eschew a lot of furniture. Many times, a room will have a ledge built into it that runs the perimeter. Covered in carpets, this serves a chair, table, bed…
Using a blanket? Unlike us, instead of turning the heat on when it gets a bit chilly, they cover up.
I once sat with the President of the NOrthern Alliance (in Afghanistan) on the floor of the Presidential Palace and drank tea. Living on the floor is one of the reasons you do not wear shoes into a Muslim home.
So, maybe Limbaugh and Alfie, etc., ought to get off this “living in a hovel” crap and understand the whole world does not live by or in US ideals.
When did M.C. Escher work for the Times of London?
>> Animby said, on May 11th, 2011 at 6:18 pm
>> I once sat with the President of the NOrthern Alliance (in Afghanistan) on the floor of the Presidential Palace and drank tea. Living on the floor is one of the reasons you do not wear shoes into a Muslim home.
Are you talking about Ahmad Massoud? I’m impressed! I’ve known other people who knew him.
That’s guy is a legend. Do you believe what a lot of people say — that everything would be different in Afghanistan if he had not been killed?
The only thing that interested an Egyptian and Palestinian friends of mine about Osama, was the Viagra that was found, and his cute 18 year old wife…they seemed jealous.
When I agreed Obama is a yelping dog safe behind the fence, they laughed.
If Obama is showing Senators Inhofe and others the photo, I’ll have to discard my theory the photo and autopsy weren’t revealed because OBL was killed by his guards, not the Seals.
I mention that here cause I forget the other places I stated the theory.
They didn’t seem to have an answer why three wives couldn’t keep the compound clean.
#30 GregAllen – No. Massoud was never Prez. The President of the Northern Aliiance was (I forget his first name) Rabbani. A big bear of a man who was probably a crook but what was the alternative?
I did meet Massoud (Rabbani’s Defense Minister) several times before his assassination. The engineer who worked with us claimed to be his cousin but Afghans are loose with familial relations so I wouldn’t swear it was true.
After the photographers killed him, he became pretty much a martyr and/or saint. If he had lived, he would have struggled to overcome the wealth and power of the warlord Gen. Abdul Dostum who was the real power behind the Norther Alliance. And Dostum showed every sign that he could become another Saddam-like leader. He had his own torture chamber in his compound, was rumored to keep slave girls and other various depravities. Might just have been politics. Who knows?
So, would Afghanistan be different had he not been killed? Possibly but not definitely. It would have been an uphill struggle.
#30 GregAllen – BTW – don’t be too impressed by people (including me) having met Massoud. The Northern Alliance territory was small and did not consist of many people. Everybody was likely to meet everybody eventually in those days.
Alfie: It would not surprise me to learn that a long-time kidney patient would use Viagra but I suspect the reason we are told he had the meds is only to show him as a decrepit, “impotent” old fool. Just like the picture of him under the blanket. Meaningless in reality but an image designed to make us think he was powerless. I say, if he was so powerless, why two to the head? They supposedly carried the body out anyway, why not just taser him and carry the LIVING body out?
Uncle Dave, your argument is non sequitur, is a sweeping generalization fallacy…OBL could have had a lair in TORA BORA, but we nearly leveled the place…that OBL is found years later in a slum doesn’t make Rumsfeld wrong about his hideouts in the mountains.
However, that they rivaled Lex Luthur’s is unlikely.
#34 I must agree, you stated it well, nothing is real anymore, but least of all truth in a war…its always the first casualty they say.
Given his age, viagra wouldn’t be unlikely.
Perhaps you can opine on brain matter coming out of an eye, does that indicate shot from behind?
Which might mean my retraction was premature, that OBL bodyguards killed him, and because Obama crowed he did it, prematurely, against the advice of the military, they were forced to cover this aspect of OBL’s death up.
#34 Inhofe Describes ‘Gruesome’ Bin Laden Photos
Thursday, 12 May 2011 12:05 AM
…
Inhofe said he saw 15 photographs, nine taken at the scene of the May 2 raid on a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan; three from the U.S.S. Vinson, where bin Laden’s body was prepared for burial at sea; and three older photographs to compare for positive identification.
“They’re gruesome, of course, because it was taken right after the incident,” Inhofe said in a separate interview on Fox News.
Inhofe described some photos that showed brain matter protruding from an eye socket.
But the senator, a proponent of releasing the pictures, said he had not changed his mind after viewing them.
Read more on Newsmax.com: Inhofe: Release ‘Gruesome’ Bin Laden Photos
Like Taxed I have my own theory about how Osama was killed. I don’t think it was the Seals either I think the actual killing was at the hands of the the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man. That would explain what appeared to be brain matter oozing from an eye socket.
#38, me too. I think they planted a bug in his CPAP machine.
Literally.
It crawled up his nose and exploded when the SEALs sent a command from a wireless remote. Easy peasy.
#38 & 39 That fantasy is more believable than Obama killing Osama, turns out everyone knew OBL was there since Feb., and his handlers warned Osama it would leak, and then he would be known as the man who let OBL get away.
Even then it took 16 hours to wrestle with the moral dilemma of getting him.
No doubt the muslims wouldn’t like it.
Holder’s firm stood to reap billions providing OBLs legal defense.
With such weighty considerations, its remarkable our procrastinator in chief only took 16 hours to figure it out.
THAT is why our economy is no mystery, that Obama would fail to discern his own regulatory impediments to wealth and job creation would prolong a minor recession, into a major one, perhaps even a Great Depression—-was predictable.
Commuinity Organizer methods just don’t work when you are in charge, only when you can rail at those who actually work for a living, to do more.
So brain matter oozing from a blown out eye seems more indicative of a shot to the BACK of the head.
AS the Seal would NEVER do that, its against the law, his own body gurads did, hoping to make America look bad, and even cause trouble for the seals.
That’s what an anonymous seal said, almost a week ago, on Mark Levin’s show, and he sounded like he knew what went down, from past experience.
Our narcissist in chief just had to lie about the kill, thinking it made him look good, and now everyone around him is protecting the incompetant liar in chief, from his own lies.