Under Bush, terrorists were “elusive,” “masters of disguise,” and the president didn’t spend that much time thinking about them. Under President Obama, terrorists are dead. Hell, even pirates are dead if they mess with American citizens.
Fazul Abdullah Mohammed was actually indicted in a U.S. court for his role in the African Embassy Bombings of 1998. But he didn’t turn himself in, so now he’s dead.
Al-Qaeda’s presumed chief in east Africa, Fazul Abdullah Muhammad, killed in a shootout in Mogadishu, was a Comoran blamed for east Africa’s deadliest bomb attacks who dodged US agents for years.
Fazul Abdullah, 38, is thought to have planned the massive US embassy truck bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998 that left 224 people dead and had a $5 million bounty on his head.
The official word is that he was killed at checkpoint by Somalian security forces. Maybe, in this case, Obama was just lucky. Who knows? I’ll take a lucky president over a bumbling one.
This is how a war on terrorists should have looked. Instead of big invading and occupying armies that chewed up our treasury, we should have methodically tracked down the people who were directly responsible and either captured them and put them on trial in normal courts or killed them if that wasn’t possible.
The geniuses around Bush left us broke with a prison we can’t close, prisoners we can’t prosecute or let go, broken countries we can’t leave, a reputation for torture, and enough resentment to last many generations.
The mess Bush left was epic. So epic.
Could be luck, Could be a result of grabbing bin Laden’s computer and data storage – and their files – intact.
One thing, for sure, is the intelligence agencies now have a good idea of Al Qaeda’s communication tactics and strategies. They might have a good understanding of their Command-and-Control systems as well. With any luck they’ve got some insight into the Operational Decision Making protocols. They could even be able to break into and/or interrupt their financial and other logistic support.
Getting that murdering asshole’s computer was a major victory. For the long term, much more important than killing the jerk.
It seems that this operative killed in Somalia also had a computer. I wonder where that computer is going.
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"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Why can’t we leave the broken countries again? I don’t condone Obama’s actions on Gitmo or Bagram, but even if he wanted to close them or went with a route I’d support I don’t think he’d have the support in Congress to do so.
Think back – Obama tried to close GITMO when he got elected, but the crybabyGOP, screamed and said that our prison system was basically not equipped to handle terrorists, and that no one wanted terrorists who could possibly escape in their state, etc….. wah wah wah, and scared the hell out of their cowardly constituents again with their ALL FEAR ALL THE TIME m.o. BS.
Wy do we have such a memory problem in this country????
I don’t know.
I don’t have a memory problem. You apparently believe that Gitmo is simply a place rather than an idea. Obama is doing wrong if he’s holding people without charge, unconstitutionally, regardless of where it is. If it’s in Illinois or in the Caribbean, it’s wrong. Now even if he tried doing the right thing — which I don’t believe he did — he would have failed. Please read my posts.
No idea why you’re so defensive. As was stated above – Congress would not allow him to close gitmo. Obama doesn’t work alone, so saying “Obama is doing wrong….” is selective/target blaming. All three branches of the US Government are doing wrong.
I’m defensive because you’re accusing me of memory loss, which is insulting to my own intelligence. Sure, all three branches of government deserve blame. But going beyond that, your post wreaks of excusing Obama’s behavior. Even if he were dictator and Congress didn’t exist, his policies would be wrong. He’s not being hamstrung by Congress, and that’s what you’re implying in your posts.
How is this an Obama story again? And what is this “official word” and “maybe he was just lucky this time” shit?
Is this a new liberal talking point I didn’t get the memo on? That our guy is now a master hunter with an invisible squad of supercommandos that are wiping out every last terrorist on the planet one at a time?
The Unit was a tv show. Real life is rarely cinematic. Bin Laden is the exception, I would think. And there’s an awful lot of unaccountable violence in places like Somalia…
Let’s contrast Bush’s Somalia policy in which US troops stationed in Djibouti somehow were going to rid Somalia of instability and kick out al Quaeda and Obama’s Somalia policy, which has encouraged the African Union to pick up responsibility for restoring stability. There now is a Somali government in name, which the African Union supports and committed troops to ensuring brings stability to Somalia. Likely the checkpoint was manned by Somali government troops or African Union troops. The fight now is in Mogadishu, the government having gradually regained control of the south of the country and now establishing a presence in the capital city (yes, it really was that bad for twenty years).
A policy of restraint that begins to bear fruit is not just luck. But Obama will never get credit for it, nor should he seek it; it is and African operation, not a US one.