A Big "Thank You" To Our Troops For Catching Osama!

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

Let's all thank the members of the United States military - Army, Navy, Air Force, and the Marines, along with our intelligence agencies - the CIA, FBI, and all rest, for catching Osama Bin Laden.

I'm sure we all look forward to getting some answers from Osama bin Laden. The 911 report should be coming out soon, and I'm sure there is more to come. The guilty will receive their just rewards.

So, thanks to all of you! Let's make sure the Democratic Party speaks out for pay raises for all of our troops!

[ogminlo]

1. Um, jumping the gun perhaps?

[spotbird]

3. No, OBL is on ice somewhere.

He'll be thawed in mid October.

[OneTwentyoNine]

15. He's in Pakistan,guess where Bush is going next?? eom

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. Our special ops troops did catch Osama

in Tora Bora. Then the big wheels came in an took over and the helicopters came and took him away.

[ogminlo]

4. Links?

Or is this speculation based on what has been dropped for the press?

[Minstrel Boy]

7. Here ya go:

From The Fayetteville Observer, Aug 2, 2002:

A Special Forces soldier says that troops had Osama bin Laden pinpointed in Afghanistan in November, but leaders took too long to decide to go after him and he slipped away.

Military officials have discounted the story.

The soldier, who said he was on the ground at Tora Bora when bin Laden was located, agreed to talk about the incident on condition that his name not be used.

...

According to the soldier who believes bin Laden could have been captured, teams from the 5th Special Forces Group at Fort Campbell, Ky. -- working alongside members of the Central Intelligence Agency -- believe they had the location of the terrorist leader on Nov. 28.

...

But a Special Forces team captain on the ground would not give approval to go after bin Laden because there was no specific mission order to do so, the soldier said.

While the Army was deciding what to do, Special Forces soldiers saw two Russian-made helicopters fly into the area where bin Laden was believed to be, load up passengers and fly toward Pakistan.

"I said, 'There he goes,'" the soldier said.

http://www.fayettevillenc.com/story-archive.php?Template=terrorism&Story=37935

Many links here to mainstream sources on al Qaeda's escape and the farcical battle of Tora Bora:

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/main/escapeafghanistan.html

[DoYouEverWonder]

13. Here's Seymour Hersch's take on what happened

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?020128fa_FACT

THE GETAWAY
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH

<snip>

In interviews, however, American intelligence officials and high-ranking military officers said that Pakistanis were indeed flown to safety, in a series of nighttime airlifts that were approved by the Bush Administration. The Americans also said that what was supposed to be a limited evacuation apparently slipped out of control, and, as an unintended consequence, an unknown number of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters managed to join in the exodus. "Dirt got through the screen," a senior intelligence official told me. Last week, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld did not respond to a request for comment.

<snip>

The Bush Administration may have done more than simply acquiesce in the rescue effort: at the height of the standoff, according to both a C.I.A. official and a military analyst who has worked with the Delta Force, the American commando unit that was destroying Taliban units on the ground, the Administration ordered the United States Central Command to set up a special air corridor to help insure the safety of the Pakistani rescue flights from Kunduz to the northwest corner of Pakistan, about two hundred miles away. The order left some members of the Delta Force deeply frustrated. "These guys did Desert Storm and Mogadishu," the military analyst said. "They see things in black-and-white. 'Unhappy' is not the word. They're supposed to be killing people.

<snip>

Some C.I.A. analysts believe that bin Laden eluded American capture inside Afghanistan with help from elements of the Pakistani intelligence service. "The game against bin Laden is not over," one analyst told me in early January. He speculated that bin Laden could be on his way to Somalia, "his best single place to hide." Al Qaeda is known to have an extensive infrastructure there. The analyst said that he had concluded that "he's out.

[ldoolin]

6. Hey...that picture of Shrub...remind you of anything?

Teletubbies!!!

[SoCalDem]

14. Wonk did a tele-tubbies version of it

I noticed that when the pic came out, and Wonk (bless his heart) did a killer photoshop of it. can't find it right now, but someone is sure to have saved it :)

[Lefty48197]

9. Looks like a telle=tubbies episode

.

[Democrats unite]

5. This is pure horse...

What more can I say?

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

8. Hasn't there been annoucements in the press in the last two months?

First there were "unconfirmed reports" that he had been caught almost two months ago. Then there was a denial that he had been caught on a certain date. Then, they announced they were "sure" they would catch him with the year, i.e., right before the election.

They made the same kind of annoucements about the WMD - a year later, David Kay is finishing the story.

I just want to thank the troops before they start spinning it.

[Tinoire]

11. Have no fears... We'll drag him or some facsimile thereof out of a cave

just in time for the elections! ;)

[leesa]

10. Oh Please! You don't even know that this person was involved with 9-11

and your thanking the military for bombing Afghanistan for ten months and murdering tens of thousands of people to get one alleged criminal. I find it appalling. And I find it appalling that Americans condemn people without evidence.

[Tinoire]

12. You missed the <sarcasm>... </sarcasm> tags

We're going to have to work on him ;) He forgets to put them in! A very wicked man is WhoCountsTheVotes.

Just picture him in some back room counting those votes; Kucinich would win in a land-slide. Much better than anything Diebold has ever promised us!

[Tinoire]

16. Would you at least please wait until the film comes out?

Pre-election week at 10... I promise. Just wait!

[sweetheart]

17. Have they taken the white house?

I did not see it on the news. Well they got that SOB masquerading as the president after reconstructive surgery. Good for them.