Free Republic

It was known already that the death of Osama bin Laden would be the biggest news item in the world whenever it happened. It happened on May 1. On May 2, here’s what the opinion pages of the biggest and most influential emerging markets had to say about it. In Russia’s Moscow Times, a Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying that Vladimir Putin was informed of the raid and subsequent death of Osama bin Laden before President Barack Obama went public at 23:35 eastern standard time. “The Kremlin welcomes the serious success achieved by the United States in the...

The euphoric scenes that met the death of Osama Bin Laden will not boost President Barack Obama's re-election hopes, according to Alastair Newton, a political analyst at Nomura in London. “The immediate reaction in the US notwithstanding, 'normal business' will soon be resumed in US politics. There will be no change on the fiscal/debt polarization and contrary to some commentators' reaction, definitely no election boost for Obama," said Newton in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday. With little or no operational control over al-Qaeda in recent years, Newton believes Osama's death will have little impact on the terror group's ability...

While the daily words of Rush Limbaugh can anger as many as those to whom they hold appeal, there is always that footnote suggesting that – at the end of the day- it’s all just entertainment. But is that really true? I have to admit that while I have little to recommend when it comes to the venom that spills from Rush’s facile mouth, I have always been appreciative of his broadcasting talent. Even when Limbaugh pushed it well beyond the limits of anything resembling good taste when he mocked Senator Edward Kennedy upon the man’s death, I tried...

Wikileaks may have triggered the killing of Osama Bin Laden, it was suggested last night. For although the CIA has thought since September that he was in hiding in Abbottabad, special forces stormed his fortress only days after the website published new secret documents. These made reference to named ‘couriers’ carrying Bin Laden’s message to his followers, and also to Abbottabad as a possible Al Qaeda bolthole.

Department of Defense / CIA images: http://maps.google.com/maps?t=h&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=34.169337,73.242647&spn=0.002071,0.00327&z=19 Images: Digitalglobe.com, June 15, 2005, via Flickr Digitalglobe.com, January 15, 2011, via Flickr A photo taken by a local resident, shows the wreckage of a helicopter next to the wall of the compound where according to officials, Osama bin Laden was shot and killed in a firefight with U.S. forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan on Monday, May 2, 2011. Bin Laden, the glowering mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that killed thousands of Americans, was slain in his luxury hideout in Pakistan early Monday. (AP Photo/Mohammad Zubair) A Pakistan army soldier stands...

Video of Osama bin Laden's dead body being dropped into the North Arabian Sea from the USS Carl Vinson early this morning will be made public, according to officials. The 40-minute ceremony, and perhaps photos of his corpse, will be released "cautiously," according to The Associated Press, citing two Pentagon officials.

The, ahem, "man-caused death" of the world's most infamous terrorist is marvelous news for our country.  It is a testament to the skill and dedication of our men and women in uniform, and to the tireless work of our intelligence agencies.  It completes the hard and sometimes frustrating efforts of two successive presidential administrations.  That justice has been visited upon bin Laden is an unmitigated, non-partisan good.  But as the media pieces together the puzzle of how yesterday's surgical mission came to be, a politically controversial fact has arisen -- the investigation into locating and neutralizing bin Laden gained early...

According to another one of those White House briefings of reporters designed to suck up all available credit for good news, President Obama's homeland security advisor reveals that it was a really tense time in the air-conditioned White House as unidentified U.S. Navy SEALs closed in on the world's most wanted man after midnight a half a world away. "Minutes passed like days," says John Brennan, who bravely stood with press secretary Jay Carney before reporters and TV cameras today chronicling his boss' weekend heroics. The heavily-armed commandos flying in a quartet of darkened Blackhawk and Chinook helicopters more than...

Should the White House Release Pictures of Osama bin Laden's Body? Yes. The world needs to know he is really dead. No. The pictures would be too gruesome and make matters worse. Not sure.

The founder and figurehead of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, was killed yesterday in a firefight outside of Abbottabad, Pakistan. Bin Laden was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans who died on September 11, 2001 and hundreds of Britons, who died on July 7, 2005. Now that the news has broken, one pertinent question is: who deserves the most credit for the death of bin Laden? Some would say that President Obama deserves it. As Commander and Chief of the United States, he gave the order to go in and kill bin Laden. Others would say that President...

Former Vice President Dick Cheney toasted President Obama, saying the Democratic president deserves credit, along with members of the military and intelligence communities, for the killing of Osama bin Laden. Cheney, who was vice president during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks initiated by bin Laden, and who's been a consistent critic of Obama on national-security issues, expressed his relief at the al Qaeda leader's death. "This really is a great day for an awful lot of people who worked very hard for a long time," Cheney said in brief remarks, video of which was aired on MSNBC. Cheney praised members...

Now that a Democratic President has employed JSOC to take out Osama bin Laden, will the fever swamps of the left continue to assert that it's just a Bush/Cheney plot to run around unjustifiably killing people?

Within hours of the raid on Osama bin Laden's Pakistan compound, the CIA had used 21st technology to get "a virtually 100 percent DNA match" on the dead man. But something out of another century may come back to haunt the United States: the al-Qaida leader's burial at sea. Conspiracy theorists on the left and right were quick to insist bin Laden was either still alive or had been dead for years, pouncing on the government's decision to slide the body of the world's most wanted man off a board into the Arabian Sea. The burial at sea largely followed...

WASHINGTON – Knowing there would be disbelievers, the U.S. says it used convincing means to confirm Osama bin Laden's identity during and after the firefight that killed him. But the mystique that surrounded the terrorist chieftain in life is persisting in death. Was it really him? How do we know? Where are the pictures? Already, those questions are spreading in Pakistan and surely beyond. In the absence of photos and with his body given up to the sea, many people don't believe bin Laden — the Great Emir to some, the fabled escape artist of the Tora Bora mountains to...

The decision to drop terror chieftain Osama bin Laden’s corpse into the Arabian Sea was the final meticulous step in a raid whose details were calculated to exert deadly force but also to achieve maximum effect in the propaganda war: the White House was careful to say bin Laden’s body had been treated according to Islamic tradition, but also to deny his followers a shrine. But while the watery grave may help diminish bin Laden’s status as a martyr to his followers, it was already fueling conspiracy theories; as the administration resisted releasing even photographs of the slain terrorist leader...

Your time has come. It's the end of an era of posturing and ignorance. Your good ole boy clubs and networks have been placed under the microscope. Every day that you invade town halls with your rhetoric and insanity proves this fact. Your bellowing of how health care reform will drastically interfere with the free enterprise system is being revealed by the fact that good ole boys are paying citizens to disrupt discussions at town halls. The financing from the insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies of the good ole boy network is trying to stop what they feel will hurt...