The death of Osama bin Laden was not a partisan triumph. It seems craven, in the wake of an event that caps a decade-long manhunt touched off by mass murder, to examine how politicians are using it to score political points. But the daring raid on bin Laden’s fortified compound in Abbottobad was without question [...]
Reuters’ Mark Hosenball is reporting that the U.S. special forces that raided Osama bin Laden’s compound Sunday were under orders to kill the terrorist leader, not capture him. But an administration official tells TIME that the report is not accurate. “No U.S. forces go in and, if someone surrenders to them, will kill them,” the [...]
This is, of course, a great day for the world, especially the U.S., our special operations teams and our President, whose crisp and appropriate decision-making when it came to the use of force was once again on display here. I spent some time in the White House on Friday, talking to National Security Council officials [...]
Thompson reports: About two dozen SEALs and CIA enablers swooped down on the compound in a pair of choppers, leaving the second pair lurking nearby in case they were needed. The U.S. troops came under fire almost immediately, giving the U.S. forces all the justification they needed to amp up their firepower.
–Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S., insisting that his country’s government had a role in the operation that killed Osama bin Laden, and that Pakistan was not to blame for the near decade bin Laden spent eluding authorities there.
As the news of Osama bin Laden’s death moves from exhilarating novelty to accepted reality, one group in the U.S. government will emerge as key to the win: the Central Intelligence Agency. From the earliest identification of a Bin Laden courier, the pursuit of leads, the assessment of evidence and the execution of the raid [...]
This is an exciting day–I can’t remember ever feeling jubilant about someone’s death before–and it’s probably lame to start dissecting the politics. Especially since the basic politics are no-duh obvious: This is a really great day for President Obama. But since this is supposed to be a blog about politics, and the dissections have already [...]
Death arrives for the master terrorist.
When American troops dragged Saddam Hussein from his spider hole in Dec. 2003, the political implications seemed huge: Pundits quickly asked whether George W. Bush had just clinched reelection, whether the anti-war candidate Howard Dean was now “toast”, and whether public support for the Iraq war might surge. But in the end, Saddam’s capture had [...]
It was the world’s biggest death party. The news of Osama bin Laden’s killing drew a few thousand Washingtonians to the White House on Sunday night, transforming Pennsylvania Avenue and Lafayette Park into the site of a jubilant frat party. Draped in American flags, the jumbled mass of strangers chanted “U-S-A,” mugged for the cameras, [...]
