Obama announcement at 10:30 p.m. - Bin Laden Dead

Well, sure Osama MIGHT have thought that confession was good for the soul. And maybe he would have realized that helping us gather intelligence would get him a nice plea deal where he got to live out his life at Supermax.

But the notion that Osama was going to sit down like some mafia don and say, "Here's what I know. Just get me a nice plea deal where I can do my time near my family," is downright hilarious. We can play the "Hey, maybe it would happen" game all day long. But the notion that a guy who sees the United States as a spiritual enemy and is devoted to our downfall is suddenly going to say, "Well, Ahmad was planning on bringing a dirty bomb to Miami on June 18. Gotta catch him at the Avis counter -- he set up a rental car through Priceline because that Shatner guy cracks him up -- or else he's going to go undetected" is pure myopia.

 

I'm sure Judge Posner is heartbroken.

 

I wondered that as well. We are a nation built on laws.

 

His continued existence acting as an inspiration point for terrorists. The ability for him to relay some sort of messages to sleeper cells. Those are just two off the top of my head.

 

What does that even mean?

 

I just have to disagree.

Just the information about who in Pakistan's ISI was protecting him would be incredibly valuable.

OBL isn't superman. KSM gave up information. Under the right circumstances, I'm sure OBL would have been convinced to cooperate.

 

It's clear it was a kill order against a party we're at war against, and there's no obligation to take prisoners of war. And Obama praised Bush. And the nation loves that Osama is dead. This is all about justifying waterboarding (assuming it played even a small role in the looong chain of events and rehabilating Bush

And to backtrack: it was a kill order. Doesn't matter what Osama's actions were at the moment of truth. Yeah, let's find out all we can reasonably find out. For the record, but not for much else

 

Isn't that what Bill Murray says in Caddy Shack? Admittedly, I don't know it word for word, but I thought he says something like that.

 

I'd say sending in a team of Navy Seals rather than crashing planes filled with of civilians or suicide bombers is quite a bit better than bin Laden.

 

Specially in light of the above the fold headline that appeared in today's NYT:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/comic-riffs/post/osama-bin-laden-there-will-be-blood-eye-catching-osama-cartoons/2011/05/02/AFYYremF_blog.html?hpid=z3

How cartoonists handled the situation.

 

OK, so let's play it through.

Obama issued a "kill order" for OBL. Fine.

Who else is subject to a kill order? What are the standards? Who decides?

Who is the Obama administration's John Yoo? Is there a Justice department memo that justifies it? On what grounds?