A few thoughts and gleanings from today's dominant story: the U.S. military operation that killed Osama bin Laden in a firefight at his Pakistan compound.
First, on the facts, as various bits of misinformation have floated around, and the disinformation has begun. The body of bin Laden was confirmed both by DNA and eyewitness identification (by his wife, who sustained a minor injury and was left behind with other survivors.) One report said that Pakistan government operatives took control of the compound shortly after the U.S. Navy Seals left (operating under the Joint Special Operations Command). They were on the ground for about forty minutes. Bin Laden was buried at sea, in accordance with Islamic law (as approved by clerics in America today.)
As the timeline was further revealed Monday, the connection to bin Laden was made through the identity and later the location of a courier he used instead of electronic communications. Some TV "experts" previously connected with the Bush administration touted that this intelligence came from "enhanced interrogation" (i.e. torture.) This however was strongly denied by Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein. A Time Magazine reporter quotes her:
Feinstein was adamant that no information obtained by waterboarding led to Abbottabad. “We’re doing a report on detention and interrogation, which is the Democratic majority report, and we’ve gone through over three million cables, pages, documents going back and I do not believe that there is any evidence that this came from waterboarding,” she said.
Confirmation of Democrat Feinstein's assertion came from an unusual source: Donald Rumsfeld, Bush's Secretary of Defense at the time. There are contemporaneous reports that I recall that said that intelligence was obtained from suspects, but through incentives and humane treatment, not threats and torture.
Reports are that bin Laden lived in that fortress compound for several years, in a highly populated area only a mile from the Pakistani version of West Point military academy and not far from the capital. Lawrence O'Donnell points out that it was built in 2005, which was also the year that the Bush administration closed the office in the CIA that had been charged with locating bin Laden.
About the immediate response to the news on Sunday: The comment I was most struck by was to the effect that the spontaneous demonstrations were from primarily young people, which showed how important bin Laden was symbolically to them and their lives. If true, that surprises me and seems significant to me.
5 days ago
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