The revelations about Mr. Breivik’s American influences exploded on the blogs over the weekend, putting Mr. Spencer [operator of Jihad Watch] and other self-described “counterjihad” activists on the defensive, as their critics suggested that their portrayal of Islam as a threat to the West indirectly fostered the crimes in Norway.
Mr. Spencer wrote on his Web site, jihadwatch.org, that “the blame game” had begun, “as if killing a lot of children aids the defense against the global jihad and Islamic supremacism, or has anything remotely to do with anything we have ever advocated.” He did not mention Mr. Breivik’s voluminous quotations from his writings.
Steve Doocy will be along shortly to tell us why this isn’t important, and we should talk about something else and leave Rupert’s Wingnut Welfare Engorged Teats Rebekah alooooone!
Heh.
Please join me and dance the Schadenfreude Shuffle to this little ditty.
Should we be borrowing money from China to turn around and give it to the Muslim Brotherhood?
Given that we are running massive deficits and are drowning in more than $14 trillion in debt, and despite not knowing who will rule Egypt until its election this fall, this strange strategy may be the end result given President Obama’s announcement that he is committing $2 billion to Egypt’s “new government.” It’s part of a $20 billion foreign aid package laid out with the Group of 8 countries in Europe today.
Glad to see she’s abandoned her support for Israel’s national security.
I think we may have covered opportunist sub-Etsy merchandisers Hero Builders here before. They excited prolonged wingnut disapproval last year with a series of Sarah Palin dolls that did nothing to improve her image among knee fetishists.
But she was an awesome superhero, see? Couldn’t you tell from the cape and the ... er ... well, whatever that thing is.
At the time, her fans found schadenfreudic succor that this contrasted strongly with the effete Obama figurine on offer.
Because, the real Geronimo was a genuine hero. A Chiricahua Apache leader, his real name wasn’t even Geronimo. That name was given to him by the white guys but his real name was Goyaałé. And basically his life was devoted to resisting the American government who wanted to strip the Native Americans of their land and their rights. Obviously a failing endeavour . But certainly not something that should let him go down in history as the code name either for a mass murderer or the assault on said mass murderer, depending on who you talk to.
Can’t we get some sensitivity to this stuff ever, after all this time?
Is this the new face of al-Qaida? Probably not, since I just assembled it using an online Police Identi-Kit and a glass of Breakfast Beer. Plus, it’s got way too much “Victor Buono” going on, and not nearly enough of the Disney “Jafar” vibe I was aiming for.
Nonetheless, with Osama bin Laden dead, America now faces a potentially crippling Fear Deficit that can’t be filled by the demons in Glenn Beck’s head alone. And until it becomes clear who will succeed the Ghost of Tora Bora as the archetype-du-jour for Free-Floating Anxiety, it’s up to each of us, as Americans, to terrorize ourselves with whatever’s available and handy — whether it be Jews, the Irish, mud-people, face-eating bacteria or email rumors of factories where abortions are performed on an industrial scale using Explosive Pneumatic Fetal Inflation — the way Americans have always done, and the way the Founders intended.
It’s a well-established fact that the United States has the largest untapped reserves of irrational pants-shitting on earth, so there’s no reason why any of us should be standing around waiting for a Government-issued Freak-Out Permit when we can “Fear Here, Fear Now”...and do our bit to make America the Net Exporter of Bat-Shit Crazy it was once, and can be again.
Within hours of the announcement of the death of Osama Bin Laden at the hands of U.S. Navy Seals in a daring, secret operation, Rethugs were rushing to give credit where it belonged. With Prez Bush, duh!
And not only was 43 really the one responsible for the success of the operation (despite having dismantled the OBL search and destroy unit in 2006), but we would never have developed the intelligence leading to Bin Laden’s hiding place without, wait for it, TORTURE!!! Yes, waterboarding and all those other lovely interrogation methods that the DOJ at the time managed to find lawful and constitutional have been vindicated because they led to the downfall of America’s (and arguably the world’s) number one enemy.
Except that, well, it didn’t.
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.
In addition “multiple reports preceding Feinstein’s remarks suggest that waterboarding failed to produce the key piece of information—bin Laden’s courier’s nom de guerre. “
The information was apparently obtained through standard interrogation techniques after the *enhanced* interrogation had been discontinued. Additionally the information derived was actually just a nickname for the courier. It took years of intelligence, determination and some plain good luck to discover his real identity and eventually follow him to Bin Laden. After, ahem, Obama reinstated the CIA’s Bin Laden unit. Which, you know, Shrub closed down. Because Bin Laden wasn’t important or anything.
Okay, so the “mission” in Afghanistan long ago ceased to be about getting Osama bin Laden. But now that he’s taking a dirt nap, isn’t this a great time to declare victory and get out? Why? Why not?
Not only did the Shrub carefully set everything up so conditions were just right for Obama to move in for the kill*, but the key evidence was gained through - yes, wait for it - TORTURE!!
You have to read it to believe it:
– Rep. Steve King (R-IA) tweeted, “Wonder what President Obama thinks of water boarding now?” — an allusion to the fact that the nickname of the courier who served bin Laden may have been elicited under tortured interrogation.
– Former Bush adviser Karl Rove said on Fox & Friends this morning: “I think the tools that President Bush put into place –- GITMO, rendition, enhanced interrogation, the vast effort to collect and collate this information — obviously served his successor quite well.”
– Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld noted that the critical intelligence that led to bin Laden’s death “very well could have been partly a result of the interviews that took place at Guantanamo.”
– Heritage Foundation President Edwin Feulner, wrote in a blog post, “Bin Laden’s elimination vindicates U.S. strategy in the region, started under President George W. Bush.”
– John Yoo, Bush legal adviser who wrote “torture memos”: “Without the tough decisions taken by President Bush and his national security team, the United States could not have found and killed bin Laden. It is the continuity of policies in the war on terror that has brought success, not the misguided effort of the last two years to disavow them.”
Wow. Just, wow.
*Presumably by abandoning the search for Bin Laden and dismissing his importance as a target.
