Posted on 05/10/2011 11:35:52 PM PDT by Meet the New Boss
For a week people have been asking, "Why won't the president release Osama bin Laden's photo?" That's the wrong question. We should be asking, "Why was Barack Obama in such a hurry to tell us bin Laden was dead?"
The White House says the information in bin Laden's compound is the equivalent of a "small college library," potentially containing incalculably valuable and unique data on al-Qaeda operations, personnel and methods.
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But that's exactly what President Obama did. He raced to spill the beans. The man couldn't even wait until morning. At just after 9:45 p.m., the White House communications director, Dan Pfeiffer, informed the media: "POTUS to address the nation tonight at 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time."
The announcement came less than three hours after Obama had been informed that there was a "high probability" bin Laden was dead and that the Navy SEAL helicopters had returned to Afghanistan.
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Couldn't they have at least tried to give the CIA a week, a day, even a few more hours to look at it all before letting Ayman al-Zawahiri and the rest of al-Qaeda know about it? Why give him the slightest head start to go even further underground?
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
Why did Zero announce it immediately? Was he really that desperate to distract from the birth certificate?
Reminiscent of Clintoon bombing an aspirin factory to try to draw attention away from Monica.
DON’T SPIKE THE BALLLLLLLLLLLLL!
I guess it’s time to resume my litany:
He was killed at Tora Bora!
It would be like a late-nite radio address by Winston Churchill announcing the capture of an enigma codebook from a german U-boat. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming. P.S. The above was one of the most highly kept secrets of the war.
When the leaks came, and they would, it should have been, "Unfortunately, computer equipment at the compound was destroyed in the raid..."
Anything to buy time, instead DuhWon was soo anxious to IIIImemememememe that he 'burned' the intel before it had a chance to be translated.
Pretty confusing thing, no...? Or yes...? Or maybe...?
No one gets it, because that is the intent.
Get it...? No... yes... maybe...
When you have the personality of obama...you MUST gloat. It just is what it is.
STUPID, DANGEROUS, but...that IS what it is.
The CIA was not given a heads-up from the cabal, because that would jeopardize their political mission of the Obama spiking the football speech, before it leaked out.
I'm no expert on such matters -- though I've talked to several about this -- but even a casual World War II buff can understand that the shelf life of actionable intelligence would be extended if we hadn't told the whole world, and al-Qaeda in particular, that we had it.
I think Al Qaeda would know pretty darn quickly that their own leader is dead, genius. Particularly given how many in the compound survived. How long before they told someone about the massive SEAL team that just shot the most wanted man on the planet right in front of them? 30 seconds?
Speaking of genius, complaining about whining & speculation with whining & speculation, WTF?
Can anyone deny there is at least one American that is benefiting from the depraved existence of UBL?
Fair enough. I just thought it was a hack article with no real insight, YMMV
Just what I was going to say. I’m glad I read the thread first. I love Jonah Goldberg and it’s a pretty good story, in the sense that Obama couldn’t wait to grab the credit, but what you say is undoubtedly true: the whole world would have known about it by morning. So it wasn’t a security lapse.
And assuming so, the decision to announce it the same day was indeed purely for political points, but I think it's the same call that any administration would have made.
I think Bush would have done it somehow without scaring us halfway to our graves ahead of time. That was unconscionable, that the national security aspect was announced way ahead of time, and the fact that the bases were put on a high alert at the gates, and possibly other unnecessary alarums. We were all going nuts. W would not have put the country through that.
“How long before they told someone about the massive SEAL team that just shot the most wanted man on the planet right in front of them? 30 seconds?”
Maybe you should read a little more closely. As Goldberg notes, even waiting 24 hours might have yielded some interesting “chatter” between ISI and Al Qaeda. What exactly would have been lost by waiting a week? Or (as others have pointed out here) claiming that the place was trashed during the operation, or implying that the SEALs were in and out so quickly that nothing of value was seized etc.?
The raid was planned for months; Why no planning for the aftermath? Instead we have preening administration officials giving out details that are contradicted the next day. Then those stories are contradicted. Even the "release/not release the photos" decision looks 10X worse because of the dithering.
To Jonah's point, they could have planned to obscure the capture of the intelligence trove. Pakistan would not be in a hurry to announce the Americans had conducted the operation under their noses. They could have kept the survivors incommunicado for a week.
Yes, as noted earlier in the thread, monitoring a sudden surge in phone calls from Pakistan military members to AQ members would have been valuable.
Amateurs, pure and simple.
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