Actually, you just quoted Clarence Darrow. Can anyone fill me on on the helicopter crash? Shot down, mechanical, some sort of complicated double secret diversion?
I've always seen that quote attributed to Twain, and tons of Google search results seem to back that up. EDIT: For whatever it's worth, it seems that the quote is attributed to both.
I stand corrected if I'm wrong, I've always thought it was Mark Twain. It does seem to be attributed to both from what I've been able to find. *shrugs* Either way. I was wondering about the helicopter crash as well. I haven't seen too much on that yet.
I'd heard it wasn't so much a crash as it was one of the two helicopters had mechanical problems when they went to extract so they all piled into the other one and blew up the grounded one themselves to prevent it from being salvaged by Pakistan/AQ/random neighborhood kids.
I'd heard the same thing. If I had to guess, I'd say that since the operation was at night, the fast landing might have been a little rougher than expected and caused damage, or they may have taken out some wires or a pole or something.
I believe you are correct. http://www.politico.com/playbook/ And apparently all this was going down when they had the damn correspondents dinner. Can you imagine trying to laugh at shit jokes (and hell tell some of your own) when this was going down? Holy shit, talk about a poker face.
I saw a report that said his compound was only a few miles from the Pakistani Military Academy. This suggests to me that at least some of the higher ups were complicit with Al Qaeda on keeping him hidden, maybe even leading American intelligence in the wrong direction. Also, from what I hear, American military forces led this raid without any help from Pakistani authorities, which further suggests to me some sort of distrust between the two forces. That there are many extremist sympathizers in the Pakistani military is a well known fact, but it worries me a bit to think about how this will impact American-Pakistani relations. Pakistan is still very much a loose canon in many ways. I sincerely hope there are no negative repercussions from this.
For a million dollars in Pakistan, the house was still a shithole. Why is it that it seems as though the beds are never made in these houses? You'd think they'd want a sheet or two to go along with their super thick walls and security. Just sayin'. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/...?icid=main|htmlws-main-n|dl1|sec1_lnk3|211851 As for the partiers last night, I just have an uneasy feeling about it. I mean, it just seems a bit hypocritical. I'll never forget the pictures of the Bin Laden followers cheering and shooting guns in the air in celebration when the towers went down and how disgusted I felt that as a nation, people were celebrating death and destruction. In fact, we all were. And now, spontaneous gatherings and champagne and cheering that just seemed a little over the top. Shit, there were cheerleaders doing cheers and pyramids outside the White House. I couldn't help but wonder, how dare we be disgusted at "their" celebrating death when we do it too? I am just hoping people aren't thinking this is the end to terrorism. In fact, I'm just waiting for the retaliation and other shoe to drop. Not that I don't feel safer that his evil was removed from the world, but I think people believe this means no more long lines at airports, no more being suspicious of weird bags alone on the subway. Sadly, the world is changed forever and we will (hopefully) never go back to the days of lax security and scrutiny.
Although I don't think it's in the best taste, there is still a difference between celebrating the death of 3,000 people (mostly civilians), and the death of a mass-murderer.
Distrust? This thing was strategically planned out under secrecy for awhile and very few people in D.C. knew about it... and we used our absolute best forces too. Think the top SEALs want to risk letting anyone else fuck the job up? Sorry Pakistan, he's our man. They are the ones who were suspiciously unaware (well, supposedly unaware) of bin Laden's fortress. I'm curious as to how that will play out, and I think either that and being aware of retaliation is next on the agenda.
Have a look at Christopher hitchens' article. He rather explicitly states that someone staying in a compound in such towns as abbotabad is likely the guest of a senior Pakistani military officer. Besides this it is beyond common knowledge that the ISI has its fair share of, if not composed largely of, taliban sympathizers.
I'm not even going to repeat to death what's been argued in this topic already, save to say that some of the people on this board have really surprised me, and thousands of Americans have merely confirmed the longstanding accusations from the rest of the world: We are largely a mass of hypocritical idiots. We're not animals, goddammit.
I think people are celebrating because it feels like a victory in a war where there are no clear victories. I saw video of the guys at West Point going crazy with joy when they heard the news. It's a boost for morale in general. Even with that said, I'm surprised how much spontaneous patriotism has popped up; people singing God Bless America on a packed New York City Subway train? Wow.
I don't think that people think that this means no more long lines at airports and the like. I do think that they see this as a moral victory. It seems as though people are aware of the short-term dangers such as retaliation. People are suddenly grateful for military members and seem to have forgotten these guys do shit like this every day. Would our country have been less grateful had Ben Laden not been killed? Somehow I think so. I view this as a giant game of whack-a-mole. The U.S. just smacked one and now we must wait for another one to take his place. This is much more long term than people believe. There are young kids who are raised in a culture of hatred towards the United States and the Western world. Bin Laden is dead but there are hundreds ready to take his place.