155 replies to this topic

[freedom78]

Does Obamacare pay for blood tests without insurance?

Don't know, but they could take it on the Maury show.

[artcinco]

I wonder if he sells many copies? Maybe he thought I looked like one of the conspiracy peeps. Perhaps I looked over at the grassy knoll too often or something.

[Gomer Pyle]

Was looking for news on Russian statements about this operation. Didn't find much....


The Moscow Times

Kremlin Got Tip on Bin Laden’s Death


Vladimir Putin was the first international leader to call George W. Bush after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Now President Barack Obama has returned the favor, notifying the Kremlin that U.S. forces killed 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden before making the public announcement.

"We appreciate it that the Russian authorities were sufficiently informed before the official statement by U.S. President Barack Obama," the Foreign Ministry said Monday in a brief statement.

The ministry did not elaborate on the U.S. tip-off, and the Kremlin made no comment about it in a separate statement, where it pledged to expand cooperation with the United States in the fight against terrorism.

Russian officials have made numerous claims about al-Qaida's involvement in the insurgency in the North Caucasus, and the man tipped as bin Laden's likely successor even spent several months in a Dagestani prison in the 1990s. But, security experts said Monday, the link between al-Qaida and the North Caucasus is largely symbolic, and bin Laden's death will have little impact on the Russian insurgency.

Obama announced just before midnight Sunday in Washington that bin Laden had been killed by U.S. forces in a special operation outside the Pakistani city of Islamabad. The manhunt had lasted for nearly a decade after bin Laden claimed responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. Despite the late hour, thousands of people converged on the White House and took to the streets in major U.S. cities to celebrate the news.

"The Kremlin welcomes the serious success achieved by the United States in the fight against international terrorism," the Kremlin said. "Russia … regretfully knows what al-Qaida is from experience."

The Kremlin statement said that only unified efforts could fight global terrorism successfully and pledged to expand cooperation toward that end — a promise similar to one made by then-President Putin when he called then-President Bush shortly after the 9/11 attacks. The phone call marked a turning point in U.S.-Russian relations at the time.

In its statement Monday, the Foreign Ministry likened bin Laden to slain Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev and the U.S. anti-terrorism operations in Pakistan to Russian security services' own operations in the North Caucasus, where, it said, a hunt continues for al-Qaida emissaries.

Konstantin Kosachyov, chairman of the State Duma's International Affairs Committee, said Monday that bin Laden had been involved in attacks on Russian soil. "We have grounds to believe that Osama bin Laden was involved in several terrorist attacks that took place in our country," the senior United Russia lawmaker said, without elaborating, in a statement published on United Russia's web site.

Kosachyov also warned that bin Laden's death might spur a series of retaliation attacks by international terrorists.

Moscow police boosted security around the U.S. Embassy on Monday.

North Caucasus insurgents have several times attacked public venues in Moscow, but they've never specifically targeted U.S. or other foreign buildings here. Only one U.S. citizen has died at the hands of Chechen rebels — during the 2002 Nord-Ost hostage siege in a Moscow theater.

Interestingly, it was after the Nord-Ost drama that bin Laden for the first and only time spoke of North Caucasus rebels in one of his many public addresses, describing them as victims of Russian aggression and a group in need of assistance.

The first known links between bin Laden and the North Caucasus conflict date back to 1995, when bin Laden offered $1,500 toward a Kalashnikov assault rifle and travel expenses for each volunteer ready to fight in Chechnya, a Sudanese defector from al-Qaida told a U.S. court in 2001.

Curiously, bin Laden was often filmed and photographed with a Kalashnikov in his hands or within reach. He claimed that the Kalashnikov belonged to a Russian soldier that he had killed while fighting the Soviet army in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

In late 1996, al-Qaida's No. 2 and the most probable successor of bin Laden, Egyptian Ayman al Zawahiri, traveled to the North Caucasus in search of a new home for the terrorist organization after it was expelled from Egypt and Saudi Arabia. He was arrested in Dagestan for illegally crossing the border and spent several months in a local prison before being expelled. After that, al-Qaida made Afghanistan its base of operations.

Following the 9/11 attacks, several reports surfaced that two of the plane hijackers had fought in Chechnya and a third had told friends prior to the attacks that he was going to train in an al-Qaida camp in Chechnya or Afghanistan.

Several al-Qaida operatives arrested over the past decade, including suspects nabbed in London in 2003 for trying to produce the powerful poison ricin in their apartment, either fought or trained in Chechnya or Georgia's Pankisi Gorge, which is predominantly inhabited by ethnic Chechens.

Any foreign insurgent killed by the police or security services in the North Caucasus — including most recently on April 21 in Chechnya — is automatically labeled as an al-Qaida representative by Russian officials.

North Caucasus-based foreign fighters, described as "members of the roaming brotherhood of jihadi paladins" by U.S. researcher Brian Glyn Williams, who is an authority on al-Qaida's links to Chechnya, are believed to have first surfaced in Chechnya in 1995. While the small group of foreign fighters considered Chechnya just another battlefield in the global jihad, it quickly became a strong force competing for influence with the largely secular Chechen separatists. Some of the fighters are believed to have fought against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan, just as bin Laden did.

The alliance between the fighters, led by the late Saudi-born Emir Khattab and Basayev, gave Russian authorities a pretext to paint the leaders of the North Caucasus insurgency as part of al-Qaida's global effort.

In 2003, as the second war in Chechnya was in full swing, then-President Putin told journalists in Paris that al-Qaida had retained its presence in the North Caucasus. "There are no longer al-Qaida camps in Chechnya, but its money and trainers remain," he said.

Still, not a single Chechen has ever been arrested outside Russia for involvement in al-Qaida. The few Russian citizens arrested by coalition forces in Afghanistan and then jailed in the Guantanamo prison comprised natives of Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and Kabardino-Balkaria. All were later sent back to Russia, where they were released.

Andrei Soldatov, a security analyst with the Agentura think tank, said playing up al-Qaida's presence in the North Caucasus helps Russian authorities pretend that they are fighting a common enemy with the United States and other Western countries.

"This naturally allows them to undercut foreign criticism of the brutal anti-terrorism efforts in the North Caucasus," he said.

Enver Kisriyev, a Caucasus expert with the Institute of Ethnography and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Science, concurred, saying, "Claiming to be fighting al-Qaida allows federal and local security officials to often operate outside the legal limits."

Bin Laden's death will have little effect on the activities of North Caucasus rebels because they do not share al-Qaida's global goal of fighting the United States, which it sees as the biggest enemy of Islam, Soldatov said.

http://www.themoscow...ath/436133.html

[TAP]

Coincidentally, an anagram of Osama Bin Laden is "Lob da man in sea"

[cousin it]

Coincidentally, an anagram of Osama Bin Laden is "Lob da man in sea"

Is the color the fucked up code, or did you intend it to be black? The other day, it printed my shit black???

EDIT: Well, now it is white.

[TAP]

I edited it back to readable. It does that if I just cut and paste, have to remember to 'paste and match style' in chrome. Still blame Madison for the sucky text box and non-working tag icons

[Timothy]

[cousin it]

Once again... This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below. AccessDenied Access Denied 6F9CD68A0CECE1F8 RzfLfay7nT8qzm8VIhmLVxSO2am94PxuPa4u/CeSOBvNtwHsJPyibuTRql/0b6qN

[Mr. Roboto]

I love how all these republicans scream "Bush is no longer president, it's time for Obama to take responsibility for this economy, war etc." And then when Obama orders the operation that kills public enemy number one, they say "We need to give thanks to Bush for this."

[TAP]

As a bleeding heart liberal, can I just say I'm glad he got killed and all this second guessing about capturing him is total BS. Thanks.

[BlowUpYourVideo]

Not only was a terrorist leader, he was possibly also a pothead, the bastard.


Osama bin Laden snuffed cannabis while tending his plot

Osama bin Laden enjoyed the high life before his death if the cannabis plants surrounding his mansion are anything to go by.

It has emerged that world's most wanted terrorist spent his last six years as high as a kite.

Every day the laid-back terror mastermind breathed in cannabis growing all around his "good life" mansion, reports the Daily Star.

And he is rumoured to have enjoyed the occasional roll-up or two.

As well as tending his plot, he relaxed by breathing in the waft of wild cannabis growing in the walls.


http://www.dnaindia....is-plot_1539748

[wedjat]

http://politicaltick...on/#more-157959



LOL, well at least she's being honest!

[wedjat]

As a bleeding heart liberal, can I just say I'm glad he got killed and all this second guessing about capturing him is total BS. Thanks.

It's going to get worse. According to reports, Obama has decided not to release any photos. Here come the conspiracists in droves.

[Zimbochick]

And now on to ascertain if the assassination of bin Laden was legal or not. I find this quite perplexing really. I had always imagined sending a covert team into a foreign country to eliminate a foreign citizen would presumably not be considered legal by any stretch of the imagination. Apparently I was wriong.

http://www.cnn.com/2...dex.html?hpt=T1

(CNN) -- Was the killing of Osama bin Laden legal under international law?

The administration says yes, absolutely. Experts are unsure.

Attorney General Eric Holder told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that the U.S. raid on bin Laden's compound was lawful "as an act of national self-defense."

Bin Laden "was the head of al Qaeda, an organization that had conducted the attacks of September the 11th," Holder said. "It's lawful to target an enemy commander in the field."

The raid "was conducted in a manner fully consistent with the laws of war," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters. Carney declined to offer specifics, but said "there is simply no question that this operation was lawful. ... (Bin Laden) had continued to plot attacks against the United States."

Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama had all issued orders to kill or capture the al Qaeda leader.

"The authority (during the raid) was to kill bin Laden," CIA Director Leon Panetta said Tuesday during an interview with PBS. "Obviously, under the rules of engagement, if he had in fact thrown up his hands, surrendered, and didn't appear to be representing any kind of threat, then they were to capture him. But they had full authority to kill him."

A number of experts have told CNN the question of actual legality may come down to bin Laden's response at the moment U.S. Navy SEALs burst into his room.

"If a person has his hands in the air, you're not supposed to kill him," said Steven Groves, a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Navi Pillay, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, told reporters she wants a "full disclosure" of the key facts.

U.S. officials have revised their account of the assault on the compound in Pakistan. Bin Laden was not armed during the 40-minute raid, they now say, but he put up resistance to U.S. forces.

The al Qaeda leader was moving at the time he was initially shot, according to a U.S. official who has seen military reports of the incident. The official declined to describe the movements more specifically.

Asked if bin Laden tried to grab a weapon or physically attack a commando, the official would say only that "he didn't hold up his hands and surrender."

Officials earlier claimed that bin Laden was an active participant in the firefight that erupted, implying that he was armed and gave the SEALs little choice but to shoot him.

Groves, citing the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law, told CNN that, based on the most recent White House account, "there is nothing to indicate anything illegal happened."

Bin Laden, considered a combatant by virtue of his position as head of al Qaeda, needed to immediately make clear a desire to surrender, if that was his decision, in order to avoid being shot. That apparently didn't happen, Groves said.

"The United States offered bin Laden the possibility to surrender, but he refused," Martin Scheinin, the United Nations' special rapporteur for human rights, said Tuesday. "Bin Laden would have avoided destruction if he had raised a white flag."

Geoffrey Robertson, a human rights lawyer who has defended WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange among others, made clear that international law requires any killing to be done in self-defense.

If members of the SEAL team "reasonably (believed there was) a risk to themselves, then the killing was justified," Robertson asserted. But given the changing White House account of the raid, "there needs to be an inquiry," he said.

Cherif Bassiouni, head of DePaul University's International Human Rights Law Institute and a former U.N. war crimes investigator, said that the "killing of any individual sought by law enforcement in the course of a lawful arrest is always a question of facts. Did the person resist? Did the person have a deadly weapon? Were the arresting officers in fear of their lives? These are all pertinent questions."

Bassiouni stressed that any "extrajudicial execution of an unarmed person is in violation of international law."

"It is necessary for the Navy to conduct an internal investigation into the appropriateness of the use of armed force," Bassiouni told CNN. "However, it is also important not to make the Navy SEALs be the scapegoats for (any) secret orders which the public is unaware of to simply kill bin Laden no matter what."

Was the incursion of U.S. forces into Pakistani territory without the clear permission of Islamabad legal?

In response to that question, the U.S. intelligence official echoed Holder's and Carney's remarks, asserting that "since 9/11, the U.S. has had the authority to kill Osama Bin Laden."

"The operation was the subject of a rigorous legal review and was planned in strict accord with American law," the official said. "As a matter of international law, al Qaeda has attacked the United States and continues to pose an imminent threat to the United States. As such, the United States may use force against al Qaeda consistent with its inherent right to national self-defense under international law."

The operation "was conducted under the CIA's authorities contained in federal law, unlike most military operations which are under the control and legal authority of the Defense Department," the official noted.

Bin Laden was an indicted international criminal who had evaded all attempts to apprehend him, Robertson said. As a consequence, he asserted, the operation was legal.

Groves argued the use of the SEALs in Pakistan does "present complications," though he noted that there has been a "kind of a wink and a nod game (the U.S. government has) been playing with the Pakistanis for years" in terms of predator drone strikes and other attacks against Islamic extremists on Pakistani soil.

Bassiouni argued that "the mission to capture was legal, even though there are some questions under international law about one state sending its forces into another state to kidnap a person wanted for trial."

The issue first arose in the early 1960s, Bassiouni noted, when notorious Nazi Adolf Eichmann was kidnapped by Israeli agents in Argentina and subsequently brought to Israel for trial.

Half a century later, that issue remains a matter of sharp dispute.

[freedom78]

There is no such thing as international law.