Nobody wasn’t happy we got Osama. Some of us questioned why we had to put our guys at so much risk to get him when we had perfectly good hellfire missile-equipped drones to do it, but hey, the intelligence they gathered was worth it, they said, and people like me who have a ‘Obama is wrong about damned near everything’ reflex kept our counsel silent. The gathering of the intelligence at his lair was a pretty darned good reason to have our highly trained Seals go in.
We continued to keep our counsel when we were denied the opportunity to see a picture of the bullet through his eye socket. We were told it was too gruesome. Uh-huh. Cuz those bodies smashing on the sidewalk having fallen from the top of the WTC was so neat & tidy 10 years ago, but, whatever. There’s no changing a nanny-stater. We kept our counsel again, knowing that Obama would release it as an October 2012 ‘surprise’ in a disgustingly cynical attempt to get votes. (Watch. It will happen. I guarantee it.)
And finallly, we continued to bite what was left of our tongues when they gave him a ‘proper’ Muslim burial, though there has been some significant disagreement about whether or not going overboard to sleep with the fishes is a ‘proper’ Muslim resting place, but, whatever. The thing that p*ssed me off about that more than anything wasn’t the political correctness of it so much as sympathy for the poor seamen who had to do it. Those poor guys…
But finally it’s time to speak up. Know why? Because when you side-by-side compare the killing of Osama Bin Laden with the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki big, giant, yawning holes of inconsistency of principles apply – including one, big, huge, GIANT one:
Osama was not an American citizen and his killing risked American lives in the hope to gain intelligence. al-Awlaki WAS an American citizen and his killing risked ZERO American lives and we got ZIP intelligence while accomplishing it. So not only did we assassinate an American citizen, but we got nothing to show for it and this guy, arguably, was at least as valuable for timely, actionable intelligence!
He was Mr. Geek-Jihadi-Hero on the internet and evidently inspired the Fort Hood shooter and the Times Square bomber. He was the darling of the left after 9/11. The New York Times did a puff piece on how he could bridge the gap between Muslim and American culture. He published a glossy lifestyle magazine, a la Martha Stewart (I swear to God I am not making this up) called ‘Inspire’ for jihadis. This guy had active, CRUCIAL intelligence on his hard-drives but we blow HIM back to the stone age? An American citizen, to boot? Really?
Once again, when Obama had to choose between Americans and non-Americans, he chose to coddle foreigners and screw/kill Americans.
At least he’s consistent.
