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Title: To get bin Laden, Obama relied on policies he decried
Source:
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URL Source: http://washingtonexaminer.com/polit ... ama-relied-policies-he-decried
Published: May 4, 2011
Author: Michael Barone
Post Date: 2011-05-04 15:09:43 by no gnu taxes
Keywords: None
Views: 556
Comments: 2
While we may not know all the details about and behind this operation, it's fascinating to see how many of the things that made the success of this operation possible were not so long ago decried by many of the president's fans and fellow partisans. For one thing, it apparently would not have happened without those infamous enhanced interrogation techniques -- "torture," according to critics of the Bush administration. The enhanced interrogation techniques reportedly led to identification of the courier who eventually led our forces to bin Laden's hiding place. Critics of waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques assured us that "torture" could not produce reliable information. They were probably right that sometimes such techniques yield false information. But the bin Laden operation shows that they can also produce actionable intelligence. You may remember that many Democrats called for criminal prosecution of CIA interrogators who were acting under orders vetted by legal counsel. Attorney General Eric Holder actually considered bringing such prosecutions. Fortunately he decided not to do so -- fortunately for the individuals involved but fortunately also for his own reputation. Who would want to be known for prosecuting the people who helped track down bin Laden? It has also been reported that in hunting down bin Laden our forces relied on intercepted communications. I wonder if any of them included contacts between suspected terrorists abroad and persons in the United States. This was the "domestic wiretapping" revealed to great acclaim by the New York Times and presented as an intolerable infringement of civil liberties. Given what we know now, it's a good thing our folks were tuning in. Obama employed the Navy SEALs who are part of the Joint Special Operations Command. It was fashionable a few years ago to call the JSOC Cheney's death squad and Cheney's assassination team. The assumption behind such criticism was that Bush administration officials were using what they termed the war against terrorism as a smokescreen for persecuting domestic dissidents. But there is not a scrap of evidence that the Bush administration was doing anything of the kind. They were too busy trying to protect us. There was criticism as well of the idea of targeting particular individuals for assassination. But in ordering the raid on bin Laden's compound Obama authorized the killing of bin Laden. And no Miranda warnings first.
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#1. To: no gnu taxes (#0)
The irony isn't being lost on the voters, hence the minimal 'bump' if any, in the polls.
bin Laden's last Facebook Post: 'Brb! Someone's at the door!'
Socialist ass-hats think "There will be no more money when the U.S. dollar has no value, until that time we can keep printing more." And yes, that IS from LF's answer to Ben Bernanke, go65, leading disfunctional and delusional socialist of the forum. "You want me to kill THE ENEMIES of Jappos, I'll kill THE ENEMIES of Jappos, Rebs, or Sioux, or Cheyenne... For 500 bucks a month I'll kill whoever you want. But keep one thing in mind: I'd happily kill you for free." Algren, "The Last Samurai"
#2. To: no gnu taxes (#0)
it's fascinating to see how many of the things that made the success of this operation possible were not so long ago decried by many of the president's fans and fellow partisans.
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