BREAKING NEWS?!!!!!!! THIS IS BIG!!!!

[Gaybutton]

I happened to be watching the press conference in which the White House press secretary revealed Bin Laden was not armed, but "resisted" when he was shot and killed. The press secretary did not say in what manner Bin Laden resisted. Of course, the next questions coming from the reporters were if Bin Laden was not armed, then why was he killed? Why didn't they either inflict a non-fatal wound or simply rush him? No answer was given.

Obviously none of us were there, so I think it's a little too soon to start second guessing the soldiers, but I'm glad he was killed. He's dead, his body dumped in the sea, and that ends it. If Bin Laden was captured alive, then all kinds of problems would arise. Who has jurisdiction? Where should he be tried? Should he get a civil or military trial? Assuming he would get the death penalty, in what manner should he be executed? What should be done with the body? If he received a life sentence instead of the death penalty, where would he be imprisoned? Sing Sing? Guantanamo? Rudolf Hess's old room at Spandau?

When I think of the complications, the length of time involved, the security expense, the fact that a trial and appeals could drag out for years, the fact that a trial would have provided Bin Laden with yet another platform to spout his garbage, the classified documents to which he would be entitled in order to conduct a defense, and the millions of dollars the whole thing would have cost, I'm much happier seeing the entire thing decided instantly by a bullet.

If you missed the press conference you can see the significant portion of it here: http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/0 ... index.html

The two major questions of the moment seem to be why Bin Laden was killed if he was unarmed and whether Pakistan knew Bin Laden's location all along.

[lvdkeyes]

What I read was that the mission was to kill him, not to capture him. I, for one, have no problem with that.

[Gaybutton]

I, for one, have no problem with that.

Neither do I, but from what I've read and even in Obama's speech he said, " . . . to make the killing or capture of Bin Laden the top priority . . ."

In case anyone missed the speech or wishes to see it again, here it is:

[lvdkeyes]

(Reuters) - The U.S. special forces team that hunted down Osama bin Laden was under orders to kill the al Qaeda mastermind, not capture him, a U.S. national security official told Reuters.
I tried to add link, but it won't work.

[Gaybutton]

I tried to add link, but it won't work.

Is this the article you are referring to?

U.S. Commandos Knew bin Laden Likely would Die

(Reuters) - U.S. special forces set out to kill Osama bin Laden and dump his body in the sea to make it harder for the al Qaeda founder to become a martyr, U.S. national security officials told Reuters on Monday.

"This was a kill operation," one of the officials said.

"If he had waved a white flag of surrender, he would have been taken alive," the official added. But the operating assumption among the U.S. raiders, he added, was that bin Laden would put up a fight -- which he did.

Full story: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/ ... S920110503
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I think we'll be seeing conflicting information for awhile, but eventually the full, accurate story will come out.

I thought the following story was interesting too:
____________________

Obama Aides Were Divided on bin Laden Raid

By Caren Bohan

WASHINGTON | Tue May 3, 2011

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama held a crucial meeting last week in which his advisers debated three options for dealing with top-secret information about a luxury compound in Pakistan where they thought Osama bin Laden might be hiding.

At a two-hour meeting in the ultra-secure White House Situation Room, the team discussed the pros and cons of a raid on the compound by a small group of elite U.S. forces, according to a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The two other alternatives were to conduct a strike or to wait for information that might lend greater clarity on whether the al Qaeda leader was indeed holed up at the fortress-like compound outside of Islamabad, the official said.

Obama's advisers were split at the Thursday meeting and the president took a night to think about the decision, the official said.

On Friday morning, just before leaving to visit tornado-hit Alabama, Obama revealed to a small group of aides that he had decided in favor of an immediate raid, the official said.

"It's a go," Obama told his advisers, as he ordered the operation that led to killing of the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

Full story: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/ ... VV20110503

[lvdkeyes]

http://www.reuters.com/article/.../us-b ... H220110502

This is the article I read. I am still not able to get it to link.

[Gaybutton]

http://www.reuters.com/article/.../us-b ... H220110502

This is the article I read. I am still not able to get it to link.

That's because of those little dots in the middle of your link. You have to copy and paste the entire link or it won't work.

I think this is it: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/ ... 9420110502

Those same little dots appear in the post, but the board software automatically shortens it to that. I put the full link in place when I posted it. That's why my link works.

[Gaybutton]

Proof of his body being shot in the head, has been released, as I said above http://knightnews.com/2011/05/unconfirm ... twitter/2/
to stop any of those who say it’s all a sham.

Widely Distributed Death Photo of Osama bin Laden is Fake

By Dana Ford, CNN
May 3, 2011

(CNN) -- A graphic image of what was reported to be Osama bin Laden's bloodied face, which went viral on the Internet and was plastered on the front page of newspapers around the world, is a fake.

The lower part of the photograph, which shows his partially opened mouth and graying beard, is almost identical to another image of bin Laden published years ago. The upper half shows his wounds in detail greater than that of the rest of the photo and there are unusual and abrupt shifts in the coloration of his skin.

A photographer consulted by CNN said the gruesome photograph is most definitely not real.

"I have seen a great number of poorly Photoshopped images in my time as a photographer and I can tell by the pixels that it is a fake," said Kenna Lindsay, a New York-based photographer who works with composite images.

The Guardian newspaper in Britain reported the picture is actually a combination of two photographs: a bloodied corpse and a real image of bin Laden that was taken in 1998 and used by the Reuters news agency.

The doctored image blanketed the Internet in the hours after bin Laden's death and was picked up by news groups far and wide, in places like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Senegal and Iraq.


Full story: http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/0 ... index.html