This image is pretty much THE viral image on the Internet at the moment, it seems.
From the President’s announcement from the White House on the evening of May 1, 2011.
… shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda, even as we continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network.
Then, last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice.
Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.
For over two decades, bin Laden has been al Qaeda’s leader and symbol, and has continued to plot attacks against our country and our friends and allies. The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat al Qaeda.
Also, reading an article that goes into depth on what is now known about the long and arduous investigation and planning for this operation, I think this comment says a lot, too, and just what parties are serious about what is important in America right now.
President Obama held five national security meetings to go over plans of the operation. The first meeting was held on March 14 and like all subsequent meetings, would only be attended by “the president’s closest national security aides” while the rest of the White House scrambled to avert the Republican’s shutdown of the federal government.
…
At 8:20 on Friday morning, April 29, the president held the final meeting and authorized the go ahead with the plan before departing Washington, D.C, to survey the tornado devastation in Alabama.
And, while apparently Americans were taking to the streets nationwide as news of this action spread, Fox News, or more accurately, the Faux Noise Nutwork, could once more be counted on for accuracy in reporting, as can be seen in this screenshot. Of course, like the million times before this sort of typo has occurred on Faux, I am just certain this one was an accident, too, right?
What, just an accident you say? Righhhhhtt. Read the text at top and bottom of the following screen shot carefully. Especially at the top.
It is worth mentioning, also, that George Bush and his administration basically abandoned the search for Bin Laden in early 2002. He and Cheney were too busy fabricating reasons to invade Iraq.
On the videotape obtained by the CIA, bin Laden is seen confidently instructing his party how to dig holes in the ground to lie in undetected at night. A bomb dropped by a U.S. aircraft can be seen exploding in the distance. “We were there last night,” bin Laden says without much concern in his voice. He was in or headed toward Pakistan, counterterrorism officials think.
That was December 2001. Only two months later, Bush decided to pull out most of the special operations troops and their CIA counterparts in the paramilitary division that were leading the hunt for bin Laden in Afghanistan to prepare for war in Iraq, said Flynt L. Leverett, then an expert on the Middle East at the National Security Council.
“I was appalled when I learned about it,” said Leverett, who has become an outspoken critic of the administration’s counterterrorism policy. “I don’t know of anyone who thought it was a good idea. It’s very likely that bin Laden would be dead or in American custody if we hadn’t done that.”
Several officers confirmed that the number of special operations troops was reduced in March 2002.
Bin Laden Trail ‘Stone Cold’
U.S. Steps Up Efforts, But Good Intelligence On Ground is Lacking
I did not realize it, but apparently the operation that took out Bin Laden occurred on the anniversary of George Bush’s infamous ‘Mission Accomplished’ speech.
