Posts tagged Osama bin Laden

Democratic Convention: Day 2

265
8 months ago
by dcpetterson in

From a New York Times article:

Wednes­day night is attack night. Eliz­a­beth War­ren, who is try­ing to unseat Sen­a­tor Scott P. Brown of Mass­a­chu­setts, will offer up her par­tic­u­lar brand of Democratic-​​base appeal, while for­mer Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton will play the part of Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Paul Ryan, the Repub­li­can vice-​​presidential can­di­date who slammed Mr. Obama in Tampa, Fla., on Wednes­day night. Expect to hear a broad take­down of the Repub­li­can agenda.

Last week, we heard Repub­li­cans repeat­edly ask­ing the ques­tion Rea­gan posed in 1980: Are you bet­ter off today than you were four years ago? In prepa­ra­tion for tonight’s fes­tiv­i­ties, let’s take a look at where we were in Sep­tem­ber of 2008. (more…)

The Hamdan’s Tale

6
1 year ago
by Monotreme in ,

Salim Ahmed Ham­dan. Source: New York Times.

Two cases related to the Guan­tanamo Bay detainees and their treat­ment are mak­ing their way through the court sys­tem now and may be reviewed by the Supreme Court soon.

The first, Jose Padilla v. John Yoo, was the sub­ject of Michael’s arti­cle this morning.

The sec­ond case is being heard (or maybe not, see below) by the D.C. Cir­cuit Court and may well move to the Supreme Court next term.

Salim Ahmed Ham­dan is a Yemeni national who, intel­li­gence offi­cials say, served as a dri­ver for Osama bin Laden. He was detained by Afghan forces in Novem­ber 2001 and held with other sus­pected ter­ror­ists at Guan­tanamo Bay.

In 2006, his case (Ham­dan v. Rums­feld) was heard by the Supreme Court, which ruled that the sys­tem of mil­i­tary tri­bunals cre­ated by Con­gress was uncon­sti­tu­tional because it did not prop­erly fol­low the Geneva Con­ven­tion. The present case is unre­lated to the first; the only com­mon fea­ture is that it fea­tures the same peti­tioner. (more…)

That Was The Year That Was

7
1 year ago
by dcpetterson in

We’ve had a lively year. Con­gress was active, though the more active it was, the less pop­u­lar it seems to have become. We had high drama two or three times over taxes, the debt and the deficit, and the first ever down­grade of America’s credit rat­ing. The polit­i­cal win­ners and losers are far from clear. The econ­omy has slowly but steadily improved, and con­sumer con­fi­dence is right around the high­est it’s been since the Great Reces­sion, while unem­ploy­ment con­tin­ues to decline. The President’s approval rat­ings have been on a slow rise since its low point in mid-​​August. All these fac­tors may well be related. (more…)

2 years ago

The Polit­i­cal Platy­pus: The Over­head bin Laden

Seized com­puter data from the bin Laden com­pound raid are begin­ning to bear fruit, accord­ing to come­dian Andy Borowitz. In the lat­est Borowitz Report, he describes how Osama bin Laden has been mak­ing his money.

We should’ve known all along.

Remainder bin Laden

12
2 years ago
by Monotreme in

The U.S. Gov­ern­ment has released videos of Osama bin Laden, sans audio tracks, in the wake of the Sun­day May 1 attack on his com­pound and the assas­si­na­tion of bin Laden.

Bin There, Watched That

The videos show bin Laden in an unflat­ter­ing light, and pro­vide rather sub­stan­tive proof that Navy SEALs were inside bin Laden’s com­pound. While they do not prove bin Laden was killed, it’s hard to imag­ine how such videos could exist while bin Laden remains alive.

For exam­ple, he is shown with a dyed beard (pre­sum­ably because of van­ity about his age) and “obses­sively watch­ing him­self on TV”.

It will be hard (but not impos­si­ble) for deniers to con­tinue in the belief that 1) bin Laden was killed some time ago and his death “kept on ice” or 2) that he remains at large.

For those log​a​rchism​.com read­ers who have seen the videos, what was your reac­tion? What is your pre­dic­tion for the most impor­tant effect of bin Laden’s death?

Related arti­cles

Marriage of Convenience

15
2 years ago
by filistro in

It hap­pens all too often. One part­ner in a rela­tion­ship is caught cheat­ing, and the other is angry and betrayed. Onlook­ers say to each other, “They’ll never sur­vive this. It’s over.” But for the peo­ple directly involved, there are many con­sid­er­a­tions besides out­rage and loss of trust. There are fam­ily issues, finan­cial ties, and pri­vate mutual knowl­edge that could be dam­ag­ing if revealed to oth­ers. So, quite often, the sit­u­a­tion is patched up and bumps along.

That seems to be the cur­rent sta­tus of the US rela­tion­ship with Pak­istan. (more…)

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