Bin Laden Bin Terminated POSTED BY NOLAN B. CANOVA, May 6, 2011 Share This is a great week to be an American. Then again, any week is a great week to be an American. One of the most evil men the world has ever known has been slain.
FBI's #1 Most Wanted Is Dead
May 1, 2011 al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, 54, the mastermind/financier/instigator behind the 9/11 World Trade Center massacre, was killed by US Special Forces in a firefight at a remote compound in northern Pakistan.
Or maybe it was a week ago. Or maybe he died of natural causes ten years ago, depending on which website you read and who you believe.
This website--the one you're reading now--started following the story of the WTC catastrophe in PCR #77, starting the day it happened.
But no matter. I believe the official White House press announcement that Osama bin Laden was killed last Sunday night, along with one of his two sons May 1, 2011, because basically, I think it really did happen then. Following that, his body was "buried at sea", according to Muslim law, by daybreak. This confused many who felt a show-and-tell of his bullet-ridden carcass might be theraputic, and I certainly agree, and there are at least pictures of it....somewhere (the White House has not released any as of this writing), but evidently we were bound by religious rules while over there.
Adjustment
In the days since Osama went down, the troops at the scene have been debriefed. There has only been one "adjustment" to the official version of events: that it wasn't really a "firefight" as such in that only one of bin Laden's honchos actually got off a shot in our direction and he went down pretty quickly. Bin Laden himself, apparently, didn't put up much of a fight, and wasn't even armed, despite having an AK-47 machine gun and a pistol in the room. But he made some threatening motion (that was not interpreted as "I give up") and was shot in the head.
Interestingly, they also found some papers in the compound indicating bin Laden was planning further terrorist action in the U.S. on or about the ten-year anniversary of 9/11, i.e., this September. On Friday (May 6) when al-Queda confirmed bin Laden's death, they reaffirmed such plans, now heightened as a retaliatory action.
Political Highs and Fallout
President Barack Obama, whose initiative brought about this event, has every right to bask in a little glory. He accomplished in a short time what the George W. Bush administration couldn't do in seven years ("Mission Accomplished" indeed).
Nevertheless, at a subsequent televised debate between some Republican presidential hopefuls, while none sincerely tried to take anything away from Obama's triumph, they all attempted to mollify its significance by basically calling it a lucky shot. Totally predictable behavior from the Repugs. In all fairness, however, it is probably worth noting that George H.W. Bush's approval rating was around 92% after the Kuwait skirmish, only to be defeated at election time by a nasty recession. Woops. Of course, the current Great Recession started well before Obama took office.
Retaliation
When über-liberals approach me about what this all "solves", I reply that this isn't about solving anything. It's about justice. About bringing to an end one terrible chapter of American history and bringing justice to the three-thousand victims of 9/11 and their families.
Naturally, there is talk of retaliation by al-Queda (as stated earlier), I can't imagine there wouldn't be. But the world is a very different place now than it was ten years ago, and the U.S. has stayed hyper-vigilant regarding terrorist activity. (As it would have been without the Homeland Security BS Bush wrought upon us.)
But Osama bin Laden is dead. We did it. And that is all that really matters.
"Nolan's Pop Culture Review" is ©2011 by Nolan B. Canova. All contents of Nolan's Pop Culture Review are ©2011 by Nolan B. Canova. Share This Article on Facebook! Subscribe to Crazed Fanboy Message Board | Email
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