Chest beater!

It's not necessarily surprising that the death of Bin Laden would only be a moment in time that essentially furthered the division between the hardliner right and everyone else. Short of dragging his body door-to-door across the country complete with an on-the-spot DNA testing kit there will still be doubters. Lots of "skeptical minds" out there doubt Obama's every word and move though I suppose even if they were able to somehow be able to specifically inspect the body they would still find some reason to doubt.

In fact, the surprise at this point is just how many of the usual suspects DID accept the truth that Osama is, in fact, actually dead and rather than accuse Obama of faking the death, or releasing the details, or the photos, instead they have gotten on board, essentially, with that stupid Facebook status people were passing around last week.

Let's be clear on this: OBAMA did NOT kill Bin Laden. An American soldier, who Obama just a few weeks ago was debating on whether or not to PAY, did. Obama just happened to be the one in office when our soldiers finally found UBL and took him out. This is NOT an Obama victory, but an AMERICAN victory!! Repost if you agree!!

Which I find offensive more for the smug, sour-grapes, slap to the face of the person who might support Obama as well as a way for those who are anti-Obama to feel better about themselves than actually giving any credence to the statement itself. Then, that could be said about any Facebook status statement as they don't "change the world" so much as inflame your own friends and family members who do not share your outlook on things and not much else. Sure, your like-minded friends and family may fist pump, re-post or like your shitty statement further dividing and conquering, I guess. The old adage, opinions = assholes; everybody's got one.

Anyhow, the tough critics are finding better ways to express the above that includes a bit more factual information (i.e. a single soldier, great as "he" is, didn't root out Osama and shoot him on "his" own). Probably, most ironically, Andrew Card, former Bush aide most conflated with the whole Bush landing on an air craft carrier in a flight suit and the 'Mission accomplished' banner thing, was quoted saying,

"I think he has pounded his chest a little too much," Card said. "He can take pride in it, but he does not need to show it so much."

Yeah, fucking prick Obama! Your wild party and celebration on 60 Minutes was pure, gorilla chest pounding.

"I thought his statement was subdued, but I think his schedule is not subdued. Personally, I think it is premature to go to Ground Zero, in New York. I think my role model in this would be George H. W. Bush, when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. It was a day to celebrate, but we did not dance on the Wall."

Obama clearly and purposefully interrupted 'The Apprentice' to come out and tap-dance and sing America the song of Osama's death. THEN he ran out to the Mall shirtless and climbed on the shoulders of some George Washington U Frat boys and shotgunned a beer, then beat his chest while doing a Tarzan yell. Not only did he apparently spend all of last week pounding his chest, spiking the football, he also took waaaay too much credit for simply making a decision. This from one of the Republican Masters of the Universe, David Koch:

He just made the decision, it was obvious where the guy is. He was one of the worst terrorists organizing attacks on the United States. I mean, no president in his right mind would not approve that decision to go eliminate him. So he’s getting a lot of recognition and his polls have jumped up, but his decision was the easiest of them all. The real hard work was done by the intelligence and the SEALs.

SO easy! I like make decisions to kill people in other countries in secret ALL OF THE TIME. Easy-peezey-Japaneseezy. Of course, I might be off on that assumption as, for all I know, David Koch DOES make kill decisions all the time. Hell, and I am speculating here, but maybe he gets together with his brother and other uber-rich conservative assholes and pay mercenary groups a shit-ton of cash to arrange a live human hunt through the bayou. He then goes on and talks about how he is scared by Obama because he is still certain the centrist, compromising Democrat is a socialist. Quaint.

I am not sure who in this process was under the impression that Obama personally dropped into Pakistan and killed Osama nor were under any other similar delusion that he was/or should have been somehow "on the ground" in any way. Naturally, he made the call and he supervised the search and directed the actionable intelligence they received. He also made the call to send that super soldier (and 5 others, and apparently a dog) as a surgical strike which we all know, had it failed, THEN it would have been Obama's fault. He said so himself;

"You think about 'Black Hawk Down,'" he said, referring to the title of a book and movie about the Mogadishu mission. "You think about what happened with the Iranian rescue. And ... I am very sympathetic to the situation for other presidents where you make a decision.
"You're making your best call, your best shot and something goes wrong, because these are tough, complicated operations."

He saw it as a political risk as well as a risk to the efforts of their never-ending war efforts.

"I said to myself that if we have a good chance of not completely defeating, but badly disabling al-Qaida, then it was worth both the political risks as well as the risks to our men"

Not to imply "taking a political risk" is necessarily worthy of "beating one's chest in victory" but it is to imply that, for good or for ill, Obama knows what he is doing. Not that he will ever "win over" David Koch or any of the other legion of haters out there. For a fun sampling, here's a good quote from the shitty comments frequently found on the Chicago Tribune, this one right from the same article quoted above:

I find it a bit ridiculous how much people are giving credit to Obama, personally, for this mission. The CIA provided strong evidence that Bin Laden was in the compound location. What was Obama to do? Not give the go-ahead? This is getting to be a case where we are praising Obama for doing what any sane person would do.

What you can look at is that every part of the operation that was handled by the CIA and military was conducted professionally and with great results. Contrast that with the White house's handling of events post-operation, and it comes off as unprofessional and incredulous.

(My BS detector is especially high when looking at Obama's golf attire - golf shirt, windbreaker, when no one else is dressed similarly - in the situation room, where he looks like a late addition to the meeting. This would not be the case if Obama was truly involved in the planning of the operation. With such a momentus operation about to go underway, who would go golfing?)

So, that one single picture of the "situation room" (posted in previous entries) is actually evidence that Obama was busy golfing at some point during a Sunday that shows he deserve no credit what-so-ever for making a decision about something. Like it matters AT ALL what he was doing and when or what he is wearing. BUT IT DOES! This is a hold-over from Michael Moore "Bush on vacation" criticism levied on Dubya back when in his Fahrenheit 9/11 movie. Many are working hard to tag Obama with the same sentiments, or in some circles, trying to paint the "lazy nigger" meme without directly saying so. Oops, not supposed to "play that card."

The only piece from the above comment that I would cite as, at least, a point of embarrassment was how they let the story get out of hand in the immediate days after the assassination. Not that it really fucking mattered much, just weird that one guy comes out and says Osama was armed and used the female victim as a human shield and so on and then the next day they walk all that back. Why anyone came out and said any of that in the first place is just weird. Just leaves you wondering, why? What's the point of piling on a bunch of lame-ass lies about the incident itself?

Then again, the "skeptical minds" have a point when they cite that this is the same system that came up with the Jessica Lynch bullshit story, or worse, the Pat Tillman bullshit story, WMDs, or the George W. Bush Presidency bullshit story and on and on and on. So, sure there's room for some healthy skepticism. Problem is it seems to be coming in un-healthy doses.

Another moron arm chair quarterbacks for Obama in a different way:

Anyone who thinks Obama had a thing to do with this must have been living in bin Laden's hut the last 5 years.

Bin Laden was a flight risk of the highest magnitude. How can the Obama Adminstration have sat around since August knowing he was in there? It's like they wanted him to escape. And then Obama sleeps on the decision for 16 hours???? What was he waiting for? For bin Laden to get tipped off by some leaker?

And if he was so involved and that was the toughest 40 minutes of his life, why did they have to yank him off the golf course to watch? Wouldn't he be the person to say 'go.' It's such a load of B.S.!!!

Bin Laden was eliminated in spite of Obama, and the only reason they didn't capture him was because their silly rules would have made it impossible to get any information out of him.

Begins with a nice, "anyone who thinks..." generalized insult, goes on to accuse people he has nothing to do with in a situation he was entirely unaware of with imagined bullshit about something that no longer matters. This commenter is basically saying that his imagined, hypothetical, "situation" could have happened and Obama dared to go to bed at some point during a weekend, think about a potentially disastrous operation, and then worked with trained, military and intelligence experts to pull off an extremely risky and ultimately (maybe even luckily) effective plan. Then goes on to also site the "golf course" thing which, as far as I know, may not even be accurate or based on anything that actually happened that Sunday. Not that facts ever matter much to this crowd.

So, after dreaming up this load of B.S. the commenter goes on to claim his own fantasy is a load of B.S. (which it was!) and then decides that Obama was actually the obstacle in the way of this commenter's preferred, imagined version of a successful Osama elimination mission. The one without all the nefarious "silly rules" like he does at home on his Xbox Call of Duty game. I guess.

HEY BARRY!!!!

You do not KNOW JACK about any significance or meaning of Black Hawk Down!!!!!!

STOP "SPIKING THE BALL" YOU Hyprocrite. TIME FOR YOU TO LEAVE!!!!!!! Before you cause a catastrophy in this COUNTRY OF OURS!!!!!!!!!

I love when Obama haters call him a hypocrite (or in the above's case, "Hyprocrite" which might be different, I am not sure) for no discernible reason. Oh, I am sure that happy fellow has a reason he thinks Obama is a hyprocrite and I also would like to thank him in advance for alerting us that a potential "catastrophy in this COUNTRY OF OURS!!!!!" is probably coming.

Well, haters will hate no matter what is done or said, at least, you can't say that it's just a little amusing. Almost amusing as seeing the images of an apparently vain, ignorant Osama looking for himself on TV. In a way, it's almost sad to see this "great terrorist mastermind" was essentially secluded and lived a solitary existence, sitting home looking for himself on satellite, growing pot plants, fucking his wives, and dying his beard. I emphasize almost as, who knows, the next meme will be that Obama did Osama a favor by putting him out of his misery and making him into a martyr.

No photos = Election Stunt

OF COURSE Obaahhmmaa ain't going to share the photos of the alleged body of Osama. OF COURSE Al Qaida claims to avenge "Osama's death." Because Osama IS Obama. I can't believe this country is going to lie down, next to the rest of the stupid "new world order" and take this.

Boy I miss the America we used to have before these liberal Democrats came along and put us in a recession, and sent all our jobs to poor people in other countries, and got us into quagmires in all the wars we used to be winning. How can people be "proud" of our country now? While the liberal socialists work day and night to collect all our guns, make abortions mandatory, increase taxes 1000%, and waste our collective time with their ridiculous lies and political theater about killing terrorist leaders no one has cared about for years, manipulating young, naive, liberal college kids to "celebrate" state sanctioned murder. All the while, stopping for dinner and telling horrible, racist, anti-American "jokes" to the liberal media and other TV personalities. Unbelievable. Obaaahhhmmmaaah even admitted he was born in Africa using a cartoon no less.

I weep for America and idiots like Ahlblogger who "like Obama" or other liberal, socialist, bullshit that it just makes me sick. You want a good picture from last week? How about one that has your dear leader sitting with the rest of the liberal architects of America's downfall all wearing pretty hats from that stupid wedding our former master's had.

I would joke that after they finished watching Biden play "Call of Duty" maybe they had a tea party but that might imply they would do anything remotely American. Probably sipped lattes and nibbled on dainty scones and carrot sticks. What a charade! What a sad, sad day in a long line of sad days for this country.

-Hamster running on the server wheel.

Eye for an Eye makes everyone go blind.

Before I jump back in with both feet, allow me to take a moment to thank the Hamster running on the server wheel to keep this place afloat while we were shut down. It's not often you get free service from the menial, facilities staff but free service we got. Initially we planned to fire the Hamster for posting opposing view points and, frankly, contrived hate speech but traffic increased and we were able to save some jobs in the Ahlblog reorganization this past month. So, from time to time, we will be entertaining some opposing viewpoints from the Hamster and maybe we will even post a debate between the Hamster and myself, Ahlblogger. That said, let us get past the housekeeping horse shit and onto the big story of the day...

The White House situation room while they skype with Osama bin Laden getting shot.

This was a surreal milestone for me, while I certainly felt a sort of joy that they "finally got him" and the quite sudden media-a-palooza that kicked in late Sunday night had it's usual detached excitement. I can't help but feel a little guilty as I just don't think it's all that great to celebrate a death, essentially a political assassination, by filling the streets with mock patriotism.

well, perhaps "mock patriotism" is a bit too high handed or judgmental as there certainly was, and is, a catharsis in the fact that Osama has been eliminated in an apparently clear and concise action on our part. But that also facilitates the fantasy that we are the "good guys" and we just killed Hans Gruber at the end of Die Hard. What's done is done and I do not intend to dwell on it much, just a strange vibe that today is a "good day" because Osama apparently had two bullets forcefully sent through his head (or as I have seen a few times today, "double-tapped right over the left eye") in a country that is supposedly an ally who also supposedly didn't know we were doing this until after the fact. Not exactly the kind of shit we put on the school holiday calendar is what I am trying to say.

In a kind of biblical sense justice has been done and personally I think I would rather it this way then a ridiculous show trial that would drag on for months or years. Though it feels naive of me to even pretend that IF Osama simply surrendered rather than apparently taking up arms and going the martyr route:

"If we had the opportunity to take him alive, we would have done that," Brennan said, noting that he and other security officials expected bin Laden to fight back, which he did. "We're hoping to bury the rest of al-Qaeda along with bin Laden."

I wonder if there really would have been a trial? My assumption would have been that he would have been dropped into some black-site, secret prison, or Guantanamo, or the brig of some ship off shore somewhere far, far away from any prying eyes or meddlesome lawyers. Wouldn't it be worth it to "not" torture him (cause, you know, we don't do that in America) and see if he had any useful intelligence? Not that he would have, or tell us anything anyhow. Maybe they did? That's why they haven't released any pictures of him (at the time of this writing anyway)?!?! Maybe they don't need to know anything more and have all they want to continue to "bury the rest of al-Qaeda long with bin Laden." So, tough sounding, isn't it? We're winning again, I guess. Not that it matters, it's completely hypothetical and I hear the whole operation was cleverly named, "Operation Kill Osama" so I get the feeling no one worked too hard to make him surrender.

A couple of quotes that made the social network rounds today I thought were worth putting here to kind of help me sort through the day:

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." ~ attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr (but turns out he never said this!)

I can't say that I truly live by this but I think it's one of those quotes that shows our ideals and how they are in reach if we work a little harder to not hate.
The other quote I saw, I think, better sums up the day:

"I've never wished a man dead, but I've read some obituaries with great pleasure." --Mark Twain--

The bigger question one could ask is, "now what?" It would actually be nice if this did change the game and we could now draw down on Afghanistan, Iraq and the rest of our secret and not so secret little wars abroad and bring all the waste, both human and treasure, back home. And when we get home we can get back to that civil republic we used to have before all of this happened. I think my old mentor said it best when he said:

had a dream last night. He dreamt people took to the streets yelling USA!, USA! but this time it was true patriotism rather than blind nationalism, and they called for a restoration of American values: the end of torture, the destruction of Guantanamo, the protection of civil liberties, the end of obsessive secrecy, and a belief in the rule of law and the dignity of human beings. Ah, but it was just a dream.

That is sad on so many levels but especially because the sad reality that the above is supposed to be real, supposed to have been real all along, and instead is one of those, "too good to be true" things that sound good on paper but don't really happen in practice.

Lets flip the coin; one of the worst quotes I saw today was from a typical, conservative type, not unlike our own Hamster running on the server wheel below:

Bin Ladens death... real deal or Presidential marketing ploy.. ? Perfect timing. Just seems suspicious to me from mister "hopey/changey"!! lol!

Yes, Laugh out loud indeed. I suspect that this sort of thing, or this one:

"Bin Laden's body was buried at sea" translates to "this is a hoax to boost Obama's ratings."

Not that anyone is, or will be, shocked that people who already don't like Obama will now suddenly start liking him because he made a tough call, a gutsy call, a W kind of call, and had that trigger pulled on what could have just as easily been another "Operation Eagle Claw."

At any rate, the decision to quickly dump Osama's body in the drink and not immediately release at least a photo of him, among one or two other things, will surely further inflame the fine folks who spent the last two and a half years bloviating about that whole ri-COCK-ulous birth certificate bullshit. Who spend most of their time finding fault in any and everything "not mah president" does. It probably wouldn't have mattered as assholes will be assholes and facts don't do much but enable them to doubt harder.

Surely, if a picture or video are released it will be considered fake just like the birth certificate was. They, nor our new contributor Hamster, will not be swayed and find it waaay easier to indulge in some ridiculous conspiracy theory and pretend they are the smart, independent one's who take the time to be "skeptical" now. Arrogant jag-bags, all of them. I am certain Obama lies to us just as much as any President has and does but I feel like the shit slung at him is just fucking bizarre. From simple things like socialist, to the more ridiculous like the birther thing, the non-American citizen crap, it just smells to me...Like racism. But what do I know? Despite Obama's obvious and direct involvement in "Operation Kill Osama," the memo became this by the end of the day:

Let's be clear on this: OBAMA did NOT kill Bin Laden. An American soldier, who Obama just a few weeks ago was debating on whether or not to PAY, did. Obama just happened to be the one in office when our soldiers finally found UBL and took him out. This is NOT an Obama victory, but an AMERICAN victory!! Repost if you agree!!

Ignorant AND stupid. Welp, these people will get theirs in 2012...I get the feeling it will be the conservative's 2004 election! Remember when Clinton won his second term? Yeah, like that...SUCKAS!

No doubt.

The good news is that he does his job with style. One reason that I like the man, if not everything about the President, is that he is pretty damn funny so to help in aiding and abetting the Obama love week:

Political stunt fools entire world

Oh, poor, poor B. Hussein...His popularity polls have dipped lately (as of 4/28/11 Approve 43%, Disapprove 49%, Gallup) and the economy hasn't been exactly springing back like he keeps trying to convince us. He has also clearly been reeling from all the backlash from releasing his photoshop project last week. So what does he do? He concocts the greatest bullshit lie show ever perpetrated on the American people all in the name of the Obama bin Lyin' Presidential campaign 2012!

Oh sure, "we got Osama." Yeah, and we just coincidentally "got him" right when the polls were down and we needed a shot in the arm to get the liberal suckers back on the teet. We "got him" and then conveniently had a DNA test all ready to go on some ship somewhere then dumped his body right into the ocean so no independent party could investigate, follow up or do anything to prove or disprove much of anything. Surely, later in the week, or next month, or in October of 2012 we will finally get a look at whatever fake, bullshit, photoshop document the "Obama administration" will cook up for their pet media.

Well, friends, I don't fall for this type of obvious drivel...Something smells and this Hamster running on the server wheel can knows when he smells shit and this shit is smelly shit that smells like bullshit and shit. I think we all know the real truth behind this, besides Obama continuing his comedy routine of a presidency, and know I am not going to say Osama died years ago, or that we have his frozen body somewhere waiting for just this sort of political maneuvering. Same can be said about our "super-secret Muslim allies in Pakistan" keeping him in prison to be trotted out to help the 2012 election prospects. Obama doesn't need help with the 2012 election, friends, it has already been bought and paid for by George Soros and his liberal socialist army.

Obama IS Osama!!!

So, you just go ahead and celebrate this pretend political theater and when you wake up in 2012 and the Liberal Socialist Commie Muslim Panther Union army is knocking on your door to confiscate your guns and the rest of your God given American rights you can think back to that day in May of 2011 where you saw it first. I'd say you would then look up this site but surely the internet will be restricted by then too. There's only one thing you can do, suckers, vote red in 2012!

-Hamster running on the server wheel

The shut down has ended!

Huge news Ahlblog reader!

The shut down has ended and our irregularly scheduled occasional posting will return to a new normal. After a month of painful negotiations between the writing staff, research team and design teams we have come to some painful but necessary consensus. Unfortunately, the design team had to be let go for purposes of costs as our income has just not been sufficient to cover their exorbitant fees. We have, however, officially added our Hamster running on the server wheel to the writing staff so you will continue to enjoy his posts in addition to a return of our more typical, left leaning whiny drivel. So be sure to check here once, maybe even twice per month for more useless insight into the news and various forms of complaining.

Thank you for your patience through these trying times.