Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: For the kids, if nothing else, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
So there’ll be no paper trail on a computer – just the normal detritus of life.
I can't see how you can be so very sure of that. The Guardian's story certainly leaves open the possibility of valuable intelligence:
US Navy Seals who raided the Abbottabad compound on Sunday and shot Bin Laden and two others dead took away a range of "removable media" such as computer disks. The US government believes some of the computer hardware could have been used to ferry messages to and from Bin Laden in the absence of an internet connection or phone link to the hideaway, a two-hour drive from Islamabad, the official said ...
The seized computer hardware is highly likely to have been used by Bin Laden during his stay at the house, and messages from other parts of al-Qaida would have been ferried in by disk or hard drive and uploaded for him to read, US officials believe. They are hopeful of finding evidence of targeting plans, names and addresses of al-Qaida members, Bin Laden's correspondence and his directives ...
"We may find out from this data how far Bin Laden has actually been at the centre of everything – how much he was a figurehead and how much he had a hands-on role," said Gareth Price, senior research fellow at Chatham House thinktank. "But the key thing will be what it reveals about al-Qaida's relationship with Pakistan."
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Hard News: For the kids, if nothing else, in reply to James Bremner,
we don’t need to grovel to Islam to prove it.
I submit that that right there is your problem.
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Hard News: For the kids, if nothing else, in reply to James Bremner,
As for giving him Islamic burial rites, for that bastard, after what he did? He didn’t deserve any respect, let alone craven Islamic butt licking.
I believe the idea is to be better than the terrorists.
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Hard News: For the kids, if nothing else, in reply to James Bremner,
And yes, some of the info that resulted in getting UBL came from rendition and waterboarding. KSM gave up the nom de guerre of the courier, and KSM didn’t give up anything until he was waterboarded, after which he apparently “sang like a canary”.
Actually, according to the timeline that Wired has put together, KSM didn’t cough up the name until 2007, after Bush had stopped waterboarding, and well after his 183 waterboarding sessions. As the authors point out, if the timeline is correct, that means abusive techniques failed to get the information.
Diane Feinstein, the Senate Intel chair, has said pretty much the same thing overnight.
I still think that main issue will be economics which will be bad ground to play on for Obama ($5 a gallon gas and 8% unemployment will be tough to overcome),
I think you’re right there. The new Pew/WaPo poll from May 2 has a massive turnaround on overall job approval, to 56-38 – but no gain at all on approval on managing the economy.
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Hmmm. Hold up on the "we got the goods by torturing KSM" thing ...
More and more evidence suggests a key piece of intelligence -- the first link in the chain of information that led U.S. intelligence officials to Osama bin Laden -- wasn't tortured out of its source. And, indeed, that torture actually failed to produce it.
"To the best of our knowledge, based on a look, none of it came as a result of harsh interrogation practices," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee in a wide-ranging press conference.
Moreover, Feinstein added, nothing about the sequence of events that culminated in Sunday's raid vindicates the Bush-era techniques, nor their use of black sites -- secret prisons, operated by the CIA.
It appears that certain Bush-era officials are looking for vindication.
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Hard News: For the kids, if nothing else, in reply to chris,
It must be served up with a helping of despair for Gaddafi’s three grandchildren. The wheels on the bus…
Fair call. So long as you factor in what photojournalist Tim Hetherington -- shortly before he was wounded and bled to death in the street last week -- called "indiscriminate shelling" by Gadaffi's forces of civilian areas of Misrata.
I don't claim to have an answer, but there's a genuine moral argument to be had there.
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Politico is quoting an unnamed official as saying the SEALs took away a "treasure trove" of computer hardware from the mansion. That could potentially make quite a big difference.
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Hard News: For the kids, if nothing else, in reply to Damian Christie,
Shouldn’t this stat be a little concerning? I mean, there are 200 million (give or take) Muslims in Indonesia, so what, around 50 million support Bin Laden? Or am I misreading something…
There are nuances there. Even in 2007, only 10% of Indonesian Muslims said that suicide bombing was always or sometimes justified, a 16-point drop in five years. It will be in single figures by now.
The full wording of the “Confidence” question was this:
Full question wording: Now I’m going to read a list of political leaders. For each, tell me how much confidence you have in each leader to do the right thing regarding world affairs – a lot of confidence, some confidence, not too much confidence, or no confidence at all. Osama bin Laden
Notes: Figures based on Muslim responses only. Confidence combines “a lot of confidence” and “some confidence” responses. No Confidence combines “not too much confidence” and “no confidence at all."
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Hard News: For the kids, if nothing else, in reply to Craig Young,
And I suppose this means Obama will get a second term and the Democrats might regain the House of Representatives due to mission accomplished…
I look pretty regularly at Talking Points Memo’s poll tracker, and Obama has slid out to a -5% approval rating over the last month or so.
But … even before yesterday, it suddenly started to close up. On Sunday, hours before the news broke, Rasmussen (whose sampling method actively disfavours Democrats) had him 49-49 and Gallup had him 46-45. And what had been a huge advantage for the Republicans in Congress is all the way back to 0.7% So he’s already had some momentum, without the Bin Laden factor. The next few polls are going to be very interesting.
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This video from Ground Zero is also full of young people. I don't think anyone could have predicted this happening.