<p>^^^I thought Letterman’s joke about the pot was one of the funniest things I’ve heard in weeks. I think it was the delivery.</p>
<p>cartera, my comment was not you feeling better about the son’s death, but about the death of the father. The guess that the father didn’t have an escape plan for his family says even more about Bin Laden. But it’s only a guess.</p>
<p>I feel sad about the 19-yo, too. It’s not as if he had many choices in life. But he must have been seen as a threat by the SEALS, who had to make split-second decisions. I’m not about to second-guess anything they did.</p>
<p>There may well have been intelligence that the son was as nuts as Osama (having been raised by him, after all), and had dreams of following in good old Dad’s footsteps.</p>
<p>If we just bombed the mansion instead of sending the SEALs there then OBL would have escaped or many people in the mansion and the surrounding houses have been killed. The SEALs have actually saved life of many people in the raid.</p>
<p>My heart bleeds for none of them. Had the 19 yr. old grown to be like his good ol’ dad we would say “the SEALS should have killed him”. Thankfully there’s no need for that hindsihgt.</p>
<p>Hasn’t the administration declared that the intention was to kill him and not capture him alive? Or was that also just media blather?</p>
<p>My interpretation of what has been said is that this was a military action, assumed to be a “kill” mission – in the same way that if a bomb had been dropped on the compound, the intent would have been to kill. You don’t send military forces into action with an intent to “capture” or “arrest” the enemy. </p>
<p>At the same time, there were plans in place on how to handle Bin Laden if he surrendered and was captured alive. </p>
<p>But the point is, in battle – surrender has to be an affirmative act, communicate in an unequivocal manner. It is NOT like an arrest. Soldiers in battle can and do shoot the enemy on sight, not after waiting to see what the enemy is going to do next. That is how they are trained, and that very likely may have been the rules of engagement that the SEAL team went in with. The SEAL team were in fact fired upon going in – if not by Bin Laden – and there were weapons in the room where Bin Laden was killed. </p>
<p>Bin Laden knew he was a target. He chose to live in a compound with his wife or wives & children. That always put them at risk, because there was alway a possibility of bombs. (This is the loss that Khadafy has now suffered at least twice in his lifetime, when bombs meant for him have killed his children & grandchildren instead). </p>
<p>I’d note that the compound Bin Laden chose was an EASY bombing target, readily identifiable from the air, and set apart from neighboring houses and buildings. So Bin Laden chose to put his family at risk by having them there.</p>
<p>Further - Bin Laden could have trained his family how to protect themselves in the event of a raid. He could have instructed each one that in the event of any such invasion, they were to get on the ground and take cover. </p>
<p>That being said, I doubt that a 19 year old son would have been taught that – far more likely that the 19 year old son would have been taught to use a gun and been expected to defend the compound rather than hide under a table. For those of you who feel sorry for a 19-year old, keep in mind that many of our forces in Iraq & Afghanistan are 18 and 19 year olds, including many of the dead and wounded. So obviously, going in, it would not make much sense for our special ops team to see a healthy, 19 year old male running around and think, “awwwww, isn’t he cute?” I’m sure they are quite used to seeing 16 and 17 year olds firing kalashnikov rifles and flinging IUD’s at them. </p>
<p>So my point is – anyone in that compound who didn’t want to be killed needed to take cover. That is probably why none of the very young children were killed – Bin Laden or their mothers probably had taught them as I suggested above. (I’m not saying that our forces would have fired indiscriminately at small children, but at the same time I don’t think they would have held fire to avoid collateral damage and allowed Bin Laden to escape)</p>
<p>Totally agree with what you said, calmom.</p>
<p>For the science geeks among us:</p>
<p>[Bin</a> Laden DNA ID Would be Fast and Easy Using ‘Standard’ PCR Tech, Experts Say | PCR Insider | PCR/Sample Prep | GenomeWeb](<a href=“http://www.genomeweb.com/pcrsample-prep/bin-laden-dna-id-would-be-fast-and-easy-using-standard-pcr-tech-experts-say]Bin”>Bin Laden DNA ID Would be Fast and Easy Using 'Standard' PCR Tech, Experts Say)</p>
<p>there was a piece in one of the fairly major papers today (I think) that was about some congress people on a trip to visit the Afghanistan location where this mission was monitored from. The congress people had no idea what was about to happen (and they were not there when the mission went down), so that adds some knowledge to the “who knows about classified things” questions.</p>
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</p>
<p>they definitely tried. It looks like they got most of it, but the tail seems to have escaped. I’m sure they prioritized the electronics and communication equipment that were closer to the front.</p>
<p>[Osama</a> Bin Laden’s son calls for Britain to be wiped out on terror web film - Telegraph](<a href=“Osama Bin Laden's son calls for Britain to be wiped out on terror web film”>Osama Bin Laden's son calls for Britain to be wiped out on terror web film)</p>
<p>Don’t feel too much sympathy for his youngest son. </p>
<p>Hazma Bin Laden, the 19 year old son, had been groomed to take over as his father’s successor. He was far from being a naive, innocent, or compassionate young man. He was dubbed, The Crown Prince of Terror. He was suspected as the leader of one of the groups who plotted to kill Benazir Butto.</p>
<p>there was a piece in one of the fairly major papers today (I think) that was about some congress people on a trip to visit the Afghanistan location where this mission was monitored from. The congress people had no idea what was about to happen (and they were not there when the mission went down), so that adds some knowledge to the “who knows about classified things” questions.</p>
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</p>
<p>they definitely tried. It looks like they got most of it, but the tail seems to have escaped. I’m sure they prioritized the electronics and communication equipment that were closer to the front.</p>
<p>The story I’ve seen now is that the tail piece broke off when the chopper hit the wall surrounding the compound. The chopper went down on the inside of the compound, the tail piece ended up on the outside. So they could detonate the body of the chopper, but the tail was protected by the wall. They didn’t have time to wait around to try to get the whole thing.</p>
<p>Apparently the tail section has been recovered by the Pakistani government and the US has requested it be returned to the US.</p>
<p>China has that tail by now.</p>
<p>According to the rumors, there was a canine member among the SEALs team, but the WH would not confirm. This was linked to the article about the mystery dog, and I thought our CC dog lovers would appreciate this photo essay about MWDs (Military Working Dogs):</p>
<p>[War</a> Dog - An FP Photo Essay By Rebecca Frankel | Foreign Policy](<a href=“http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/05/04/war_dog?page=0,0]War”>http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/05/04/war_dog?page=0,0)</p>
<p>WOW—great “war dog” pictures.</p>
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<p>Breaking News! Hostage situation develops in Pakistan. Update at 11.</p>
<p>Bunsen, thank you for the war dog link.</p>
<p>Bunsen, great pictures of the trained military dogs. Thanks for sharing.</p>
<p>I will add I had the irreverent idea about that the picture of the soldier and dog going off the end of the ship. I wondered if the picture had a bigger field, if it would have shown a cat pushing them off.</p>