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Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said it was "disturbing" and "difficult to understand" Pakistan's 33-year prison sentence for a doctor who aided the United States in finding terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. Shakil Afridi, a 48-year-old Pakistani doctor, was convicted last week of high treason by a Pakistani tribal court for working with the CIA by running a fake vaccination program near the al Qaeda leader's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in an attempt to collect DNA samples from bin Laden's relatives to try to confirm his location.

A doctor who assisted the US in finding Osama bin Laden hiding in Pakistan has been convicted of treason and sentenced to 33 years in prison. In retaliation, a rare bi-partisan show of unity ensued in the senate as angry members of the Appropriations Committee unanimously voted to slash $33 million from US aid to Pakistan - a million dollars for each year of the doctor's sentence. Reuters: U.S. senators scandalized by Pakistan's jailing of a doctor for helping the CIA find Osama bin Laden voted on Thursday to cut aid to Islamabad by $33 million -- one million for...

This vainglorious administration is so self-absorbed that it refuses to keep secrets if it can in any way benefit politically from them regardless of the cost. Obama is so bent on preening he seems not to have any concern at all for those who actually make the sacrifices. First Joe Biden outs SEAL Team 6 as those who participated in the Bin Laden raid and then Leon Panetta outed the doctor who helped provide intelligence for the raid. That was catastrophic for the doctor. First he and his wife were fired for engaging in a "fake" vaccination program. In a...

Thirty-three years in prison. He could have gotten death if he'd been tried under Pakistan's penal code, but he was tried in a tribal court that follows a British-era colonial law so he got off "easy" with just a few decades behind bars. For helping catch the leader of Al Qaeda, who greenlit 9/11.The only way the treason charge makes sense conceptually is if you treat spying on Osama Bin Laden as a betrayal of Pakistan's national interests, the endless blather from Islamabad about "standing with the U.S." against AQ notwithstanding. Consider that the silver lining in this otherwise very...

Amnesty International condemned the United States on Wednesday for the "unlawful" commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden in his lair in Pakistan. "The US administration made clear that the operation had been conducted under the US's theory of a global armed conflict between the US and al-Qaeda in which the US does not recognise the applicability of international human rights law," the human rights group said in its annual report. "In the absence of further clarification from the US authorities, the killing of Osama bin Laden would appear to have been unlawful," it said.

Apparently, my previous article on the famous "Situation Room" photo tapped a nationwide nerve. The response ranged from some eye-opening tips on other photos to a few perplexed criticisms as to the motivation for Photoshopping a Situation Room photo. The answer to that latter question can be summed up in one simple thought: To hide the truth. Obama was out golfing while the OBL mission was unfolding, and the administration needed the Situation Room photo op for public perception -- to give the illusion that he's presidential. Obama's entire "Composite Presidency" and administration are orchestrated in this fashion. Not only...

Pakistani authorities have sentenced a doctor accused of helping the CIA find Osama bin Laden to 33 years in jail on charges of treason, officials said, a move almost certain to further strain ties between Washington and Islamabad. Shakil Afridi was accused of running a fake vaccination campaign, in which he collected DNA samples, that is believed to have helped the American intelligence agency track down bin Laden in a Pakistani town. The al Qaeda chieftain was killed in a unilateral U.S. special forces raid in the town of Abbottabad in May last year. "Dr Shakil has been sentenced to...

A Pakistani doctor who helped the U.S. track down Usama bin Laden was sentenced to 33 years in prison on Wednesday for conspiring against the state, officials said, a verdict that is likely to further strain the country's relationship with Washington. Shakil Afridi ran a vaccination program for the CIA to collect DNA and verify bin Laden's presence at the compound in the town of Abbottabad where U.S. commandos killed the Al Qaeda chief last May in a unilateral raid. The operation outraged Pakistani officials, who portrayed it as an act of treachery by a supposed ally. Senior U.S. officials...

DOD Officials Disclosed to Filmmakers Identity of SEAL Team Six Operator and Commander; Ask Film Director to Withhold Operator’s Name, ‘because he shouldn’t be talking out of school.’ (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch, the organization that investigates and fights government corruption, announced today that it has obtained records from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) regarding meetings and communications between government agencies and Kathryn Bigelow, Academy Award-winning director of The Hurt Locker, and screenwriter Mark Boal. According to the records, the Obama Defense Department granted Bigelow and Boal access to a “planner, Operator and...

Osama Bin Laden Compound Model on Display at Pentagon Turning a lot of heads today in a Pentagon hallway is the once-classified scale model of Osama bin Laden’s compound used to plan last year’s Special Operations raid. It marks the first public display of what was once America’s most secret scale model. Hundreds of civilian and military employees at the Pentagon have spent time today gawking at a temporary display that includes the tabletop model of the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan that bin Laden used as his hideout for five years. The compound itself no longer exists as the Pakistani...

As President Obama and his administration are constantly telling us, the horrible economy is not his fault because he inherited the “Worst recession since the Great Depression”. One can certainly make that argument. You just can’t get it to stick. If you could however, what you’d basically be saying is that that 3 ½ years after taking office the President of the United States is essentially helpless to impact the economy. “No, no, no!” his supporters would no doubt respond: “That’s not what we mean! The entire economy, nay the entire world’s economic system would have collapsed if President...

http://sbynews.blogspot.com/2012/05/how-gutsiest-president-ever-single.html

The first anniversary of the SEAL Team 6 operation that killed Osama bin Laden brings the news that President Obama plans during the coming campaign to exploit the bragging rights to the achievement. That plan invites scrutiny that is unlikely to benefit him. Consider the events surrounding the operation. A recently disclosed memorandum from then-CIA Director Leon Panetta shows that the president's celebrated derring-do in authorizing the operation included a responsibility-escape clause: "The timing, operational decision making and control are in Admiral McRaven's hands. The approval is provided on the risk profile presented to the President. Any additional risks are...

Hill Poll: Voters split, independents say bin Laden death politicizedBy Julian Pecquet - 05/07/12 05:00 AM ET Just about as many likely voters think President Obama over-politicized the anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death as believe he handled it just right, according to a new poll for The Hill. Forty-five percent of likely voters think Obama over-politicized the anniversary, including 65 percent of Republicans. But 46 percent of likely voters asserted that Obama’s approach was “about right,” including 74 percent of Democrats. Independents however, said by a 52 percent to 36 percent margin that the anniversary was politicized. Republicans have...

Did Obama really order the Bin Laden mission?

Today is Sunday, May 6, the 127th day of 2012. There are 239 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: One year ago: Brimming with pride, President Barack Obama met with the U.S. commandos he'd sent after terror mastermind Osama bin Laden during a visit to Fort Campbell, Ky. Al-Qaida vowed to keep fighting the United States and avenge the death of Osama bin Laden, which it acknowledged for the first time in an Internet statement. In 1861, Confederate President Jefferson Davis approved an act passed by the Confederate Congress recognizing that a state of war existed with...

Watch the trailer on you tube and comment if you wish. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2lYK7iXs1w&feature=youtube_gdata_player

<p>As we mark the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death, President Obama deserves credit for making the right choice on taking out Public Enemy No. 1.</p> <p>But his administration never would have had the opportunity to do the right thing had it not been for some extraordinary work during the George W. Bush administration. Much of that work has been denigrated by Obama as unproductive and contrary to American principles.</p>

But Bin Laden, who was killed in a Navy SEALs raid a year ago this week, still believed his fragmented organization could deliver a horrific blow to the U.S. He wrote that he wanted to target airplanes carrying President Obama and Army Gen. David Petraeus, at the time the leader of the American military effort in Afghanistan. Bin Laden wrote that a successful assassination would propel an “utterly unprepared” Vice President Biden into the Oval Office and send the United States spiraling into chaos.

Daily Mail The U.S. Army's Combating Terrorism Center posted an explosive report early this morning that contains what are the last letters Osama bin Laden wrote before the raid that killed him a year ago.  The biggest bombshell is this: He wanted to target planes that Barack Obama and Gen. David Petraeus to promote the "utterly unprepared" Joe Biden to the office of presidency.From the letter bin Laden authored, the mission was of "anticipating and spotting the visits of Obama or Petraeus to Afghanistan or Pakistan to target the aircraft of either one of them." They are not to target...

Osama bin Laden aimed to assassinate President Barack Obama but directed fellow al-Qaida fighters to leave Vice President Joe Biden alone, describing him as "totally unprepared" to take over and predicting a "crisis" in America if that happened, according to a newly declassified letter from the terrorist mastermind. In the missive, part of a trove of documents seized by Navy SEALs in the raid that killed bin Laden one year ago, bin Laden asks for an update on a plan to kill Obama or Gen. David Petraeus either in Pakistan or at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. (Obama made a...

Obama: All right guys, I'm here. Let's get this thing done. Seal Cdr: Sir? Obama: Show me the equipment room, Lieutenant. I've gotta get cammied up. And we're in a hurry if you don't know it. Seal Team Member: Sir, the equipment room for what? Obama: The bin Laden mission. We've got to mount up on those choppers and take down that compound. (Seal Team 6 members in the back of room begin looking at the floor. Obviously trying not to smirk.) Seal Cdr: Uhhhh...Sir...did you notice how bad the weather is today? Obama: What? This is a critical moment,...

Media: NBC's presentation of "Rock Center with Brian Williams" last Wednesday night demonstrated that MSNBC's Chris Matthews isn't the only one who feels tingles up his leg when he talks with or about President Obama. President Obama's victory lap and shameless, media-assisted political exploitation of the Navy SEALs' triumph continued with the program opening with the photograph taken in the White House Situation Room, now apparently open to public tours. Administration bigwigs were shown watching the fruits of President George W. Bush's labors as Navy SEALs, acting on a trail of evidence gathered using enhanced interrogation techniques President Obama opposed,...

Veterans for a Strong America defines itself as a non-partisan action organization dedicated to educating the public, members of Congress and the Executive Branch to make America strong. The group's new ad entitled CREDIT has certainly schooled President Obama and his campaign on the dangers of playing politics with the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden.

As usual with this president, Obama's trip to and speech from Afghanistan had way more to do with politics than any real substance. Seven thousand miles, one way, is a long journey to share war remarks with countrymen that he should have and could have shared back home many months ago. Despite the administration's best backgrounding sales efforts, the document he signed with Afghan President Hamid Karzai is a meaningless basic agreement to talk later about forging a real agreement. Nothing was essentially changed by what the media lovingly called his "secret trip" to the war zone, which was simply...

It’s been one year since U.S. commandos flew into Islamabad and killed Osama bin Laden. Do you think the United States is safer or less safe than it was a year ago? More safe. Less safe.

When I look back at history, I think it is just great how President Nixon is responsible for landing men on the moon. What's that? You say that President Kennedy is really responsible for initiating the plan years before, and that President Nixon just happened to be the guy in charge when it finally happened? Oh, ok. That's fine. I think it is just great how President Obama is responsible for killing bin Laden.

If the entertainment industry has taught me anything, it’s that no film or popular TV program is as popular the second time as it was in its first-run release. In other words, there is nothing new in a re-run. Please bear with me on this. Let’s take the recent re-release of Star Wars Episode 1 for example. In 1999, when the film was first released, it caused a lot of excitement, fanfare, and marketing campaigns that re-energized the Star Wars franchise. In 2012, when the film was re-released under the 3-D format, the urge to see it under a new...

In 2008 Barack Obama criticized Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for using Osama bin Laden in an ad to score "political points." Four years later the Obama campaign has created an ad of its own, insinuating that Mitt Romney would not have given the order to capture and kill bin Laden. The blowback has been swift and severe, with Navy SEALs, Sen. John McCain and even Democrat allies like Arianna Huffington denouncing the ad. Read more: http://times247.com/pset/obama-s-one-hit-wonder/page/0#ixzz1tekLApQf

Politics: The president who wagged the dog and let bin Laden get away raises millions for the president who jokes about eating one while taking credit for Osama's death. A deal for Hillary as veep, perhaps? Politics makes strange bedfellows, the cliche goes. In 2008, Hillary Clinton waged a protracted and sometimes bitter battle for the Democratic presidential nomination against a former community organizer and absentee state senator from Illinois only to wind up as President Obama's secretary of state. Husband and former President Bill Clinton even made racially tinged remarks about Obama's primary victory over Hillary in the South...

If anything is obvious about the Orator in Chief, it is how highly he thinks of himself. The H for his middle name doesn’t stand for Humility. . . So, as the president recoups from straining his arm to pat himself on the back, how is his self-praise going over? The headline in the UK’s Mail Online: SEALs slam Obama for using them as ‘ammunition’ in bid to take credit for bin Laden killing during election campaign . . .

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: This is Walter in Modesto, California. Hey, Walter, I'm glad you called. Hi. CALLER: Yes, I want to say I agree with the Democrats that not everyone would have pulled the trigger on Bin Laden. How many chances did Bill Clinton have to do it? RUSH: That's true. That's true. Clinton was handed Bin Laden on a silver platter two or three times and rejected it. CALLER: We still have him. RUSH: That's right. See, what Walter's point here is while Obama is out there trying to say Romney wouldn't have pulled the trigger (laughing), it's Bill...

One year ago, the enemy that had haunted America for nearly a decade met his end in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Osama bin Laden is no longer a threat to the United States because of President Obama's leadership and strong national security policies. Good intelligence practices and surgical counterterrorism operations enabled us to kill 20 of al Qaeda's top 30 leaders, including bin Laden. This is an accomplishment by any measure. We have diminished al Qaeda's strength, so for the sake of our economic and national security, we should decrease our military presence and bring our troops home from Afghanistan as soon

Obama says, "I assume that people meant what they said when they said it. That at least has been my practice." He then goes on to say, "If there are others who have said one thing and now suggest that they would do something else, I would let them explain."Should we Freep all the things this guy said that have not come to pass .. [i] I will not let unemployment get above 8%[ii] I will not sign a bill that has not been posted on line for 72 hours.

As we mark the anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death, President Obama deserves credit for making the right choice on taking out Public Enemy No. 1. But his administration never would have had the opportunity to do the right thing had it not been for some extraordinary work during the George W. Bush administration. Much of that work has been denigrated by Obama as unproductive and contrary to American principles. He is wrong on both counts. Shortly after bin Laden met his maker last spring, courtesy of U.S. Special Forces and intelligence, the administration proudly announced that when Obama took...

Serving and former US Navy SEALs have slammed President Barack Obama for taking the credit for killing Osama bin Laden and accused him of using Special Forces operators as 'ammunition' for his re-election campaign. The SEALs spoke out to MailOnline after the Obama campaign released an ad entitled 'One Chance'. In it President Bill Clinton is featured saying that Mr Obama took 'the harder and the more honourable path' in ordering that bin Laden be killed. The words 'Which path would Mitt Romney have taken?' are then displayed.

OPINION Updated April 30, 2012, 7:43 p.m. ET Michael Mukasey: Obama and the bin Laden Bragging Rights It's hard to imagine Lincoln or Eisenhower claiming such credit for the heroic actions of others. By MICHAEL B. MUKASEY The first anniversary of the SEAL Team 6 operation that killed Osama bin Laden brings the news that President Obama plans during the coming campaign to exploit the bragging rights to the achievement. That plan invites scrutiny that is unlikely to benefit him. Consider the events surrounding the operation. A recently disclosed memorandum from then-CIA Director Leon Panetta shows that the president's celebrated...

Red siren at Drudge on this.

(CBS News) Arianna Huffington, founder and editor-in-chief of the The Huffington Post, called the Obama campaign's decision to tout the assassination of Osama bin Laden in a campaign advertisement "despicable." The ad questions whether presidential candidate Mitt Romney would have ordered the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. "I don't think there should be an ad about that," Huffington said Monday on "CBS This Morning." "I think it's one thing to celebrate the fact that they did such a great job (with television specials). All that is perfectly legitimate. But to turn it into a campaign ad is one of...

Classic MSM jujitsu. Chuck Todd has attempted to turn the issue of President Obama's unseemly spiking of the football on the anniversary of the killing of Osama Bin Laden into an attack on Republicans for reacting to Obama's politicization of the event. On his MSNBC show The Daily Rundown, Todd began his discussion of the matter this morning by asking the Washington Post's Dan Balz whether he was surprised by how "aggressive" the Romney campaign has been on the matter. A bit later Todd suggested to Clarence Page that Republicans were "overreacting" to Obama's boasts. Right. Romney should run a...

Serving and former US Navy SEALs have slammed President Barack Obama for taking the credit for killing Osama bin Laden and accused him of using Special Forces operators as ‘ammunition’ for his re-election campaign. The SEALs spoke out to MailOnline after the Obama campaign released an ad entitled ‘One Chance’. In it President Bill Clinton is featured saying that Mr Obama took ‘the harder and the more honourable path’ in ordering that bin Laden be killed. The words ‘Which path would Mitt Romney have taken?’ are then displayed. Besides the ad, the White House is marking the first anniversary of...

At a press conference with the prime minister of Japan this afternoon, President Obama said that Americans haven't excessively celebrated the death of Osama bin Laden, and suggested that Mitt Romney would not have made the decision to kill the terrorist mastermind. Video Link: Obama: "Hardly Think You Have Seen Any Excessive Celebration Taking Place"

Ever wish you could escape your troubles by changing your name and moving away? Well, according to President Barack Obama's top counterterrorism adviser at the White House, Osama bin Laden knew the feeling. Hunkered down in his Abbottabad compound, bin Laden anguished as al-Qaida suffered "disaster after disaster," encouraged its operatives to flee to areas "away from aircraft photography and bombardment" and even thought about changing the name of his notorious international terrorist network, John Brennan said in a speech on Monday. Brennan, Obama's Assistant for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, told the World Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington...

Barack Obama's top adviser on terrorism brushed aside criticism by the president's political opponents that he has exploited this week's one-year anniversary of Osama bin Laden's killing for political gain. "I don't do politics. I don't do the campaign. I am not a Democrat or Republican," said chief White House counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan. "All that I know is that the president made the decision when he was given the opportunity to take a gutsy decision, to carry out that raid with our special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan," Brennan told ABC television's "This Week" program. "The president made that decision....

Actual Title:The Audacity of Bubba:Clinton Appears in New Obama campaign ad Suggesting Romney Would Not Have Ordered Bin Laden Raid Former President Bill Clinton appears in a new Obama campaign ad ( see the ad in the next post in Extended News )suggesting that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney would not have ordered the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, even though Clinton himself repeatedly spurned opportunities to capture or kill the 9/11 mastermind. Reuel Marc Gerecht, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Washington Free Beacon that Clinton’s appearance in the ad was “just...

President Obama’s reelection campaign invokes the death of Osama bin Laden in a new web video, contradicting the president’s previous claim that he would not “spike the football” with respect to the terrorist’s demise. The video uses footage of an interview with former president Bill Clinton from the pro-Obama propaganda film “The Road We’ve Traveled,” and suggests that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney would not have ordered the raid that killed bin Laden. “The commander-in-chief gets one chance to make the right decision,” reads the text in the video. “What path would Mitt Romney have taken?” Shortly following bin...

Video at link

Sort of mixing my football metaphors here, but Obama made the haughty comment after the Bin Laden operation that he didn’t need to “spike the football.� Well, a change of heart came over the president and he made a web video bragging about offing the al-Qaeda chief: Fourteen million unemployed or underemployed Americans in an election year will have that effect on a president.Weekly Standard: The narrator in the ad is former President Bill Clinton.This latest ad contradicts President Obama’s own pledge after he took out bin Laden. “You know, we don’t trot out this stuff as trophies,� Obama told...

Presidents running for re-election typically boast of programs they created, people they helped or laws they signed. They talk about rising test scores or falling deficits or expanding job rolls. President Obama is increasingly taking the unusual route of bragging about how he killed a man.

For Obama, bin Laden killing becomes campaign toolBy BEN FELLER AP White House Correspondent Apr 27, 6:01 PM EDT WASHINGTON (AP) -- The killing of Osama bin Laden, first presented as a moment of national unity by President Barack Obama, has become something else: a political weapon. **SNIP** The broader goal for Obama, whether through campaign web videos or the trappings of the White House, is not to just to remind voters of an enormous victory on his watch. It is to maximize a political narrative that he has the courage to make tough calls that his opponent might not.