Shot in the Dark

While We’re On The Subject

Over on Facebook, Gary Miller writes about the killing of Bin Laden:

[I have] as much blood lust as the next guy, but has the sinking feeling folks don’t realize OBL got everything he wanted: U.S. brought to the brink of insolvency; the very freedoms we went to war to protect we voluntarily took from ourselves; our prestige in the region irrevocably sullied; our military depleted; our best and our brightest killed and maimed, and — the cherry on top — martydom.

True to a degree.

He had plenty of help bringing ourselves to insolvency; Medicare Part D and “Too Big to Fail” and eleventy-trillion dollars in public pensions all play their role as certainly as did the war.  We “gave up” some freedoms during the War on Terro – but no more than we took away from ourselves over “the war on drugs” since 1970, and we didn’t give up the means to get them back (a guy can dream). We never had much prestige to sully in the Middle East, to be fair.   And he was going to be a martyr even if he died choking on a sandwich.

As to the best and brightest…well, there’s no clever quip there.

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Mitch Berg

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24 responses to “While We’re On The Subject”

  1. BradC Avatar
    BradC

    Agreed, Mitch. Government was growing at an alarming rate to the point where there was no way it could be sustained, especially since many of the baby boomers were starting to retire.

  2. Dog Gone Avatar
    Dog Gone

    I am glad that this attack on bin Laden brought an end of sorts to the tragedy of 9/11; I’m trying not to take pleasure in another person’s death.

    In times of war and attack, we have given up certain freedoms voluntarily before. Gary Miller is ignoring history. What hurt us was the stupidity of attacking Iraq, a hawkish, more right-driven insanity that could only be sold by misrepresentation of intelligence.

    As tragic as our military losses are, compared to far shorter conflicts, they are minimal Look at the numbers of our casualties in our own civil war, in the two world wars, Korea and Viet Nam for comparison.

    Our prestige and positive feeling from other nations in the world is far higher under Obama than it has been previously especailly after Bush trashed what sympathy he had after 9/11.

    The mindless rantings of the Republican front runner Trump are exactly the kind of thinking that gets us hated in the world.

    You’d choke before you could compliment Obama for this victory.

    The current popular uprisings in the Middle east, and the careful tightrope walk that Obama is doing are the best hope for secular nations in Islamic-dominated parts of the world to succeed that we have seen in a long time – and that is in part a credit to Obama, and his outreach to them with his Cairo speech and his appearance on Al Jazeera after his election.

    Bin Laden didn’t die choking on a sandwich; don’t lets pretend that how he died isn’t important.

    Well done, U.S. Navy Seals!

  3. Kermit Avatar
    Kermit

    I’m glad he didn’t die choking on a sandwich. American lead was best.

  4. MyGovIsNuts Avatar
    MyGovIsNuts

    Ah yes, Doggie poops out another screed. And ya just can’t help taking a shot at BushieMcHitler, do you?

    I’ll let your lies speak for themselves. Which they do. Particularly the ‘Now the World loves us…REALLY….THEY DO!’ crap.

    Hey Doggie: If Obama made this country “loved”, why was Pakistan virtually protecting OBL. He was in a MANSION…in plain sight. Oh yeah, I forgot, the Pakistanis were too busy bronzing statues of The One to bother with him.

  5. The Big Stink Avatar
    The Big Stink

    Notice to contributors to this space. “Insolvency” has been copyrighted by this administration. Any future references including this term need approval from an administration official.

    They own it.

  6. Night Writer Avatar
    Night Writer

    ‎”I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.” – Mark Twain

  7. Kermit Avatar
    Kermit

    You’d choke before you could compliment Obama for this victory.
    You really are a mean-spirited little passive aggressor, aren’t you Doggie?

    Obama made exactly ONE positive contribution to this event. He gave the green light to the SEALS instead of sending in a drone to bomb Osama to the hell he deserves. Obama did the right thing. (That was a compliment.)

  8. MyGovIsNuts Avatar
    MyGovIsNuts

    OBL was found in…a mansion…a stone’s throw from the capital of Pakistan…with a compound surrounded by 18 foot thick walls and barb wire.

    That’s right Dimwit Doggie, The One has soooooooo much lovin’ from our friends that they virtually harbored OBL in plain sight. With friends like this…

  9. Kermit Avatar
    Kermit

    One question will come to the fore in this: Why did they bury him at sea? Right away? That seems to me a tactical blunder.

  10. LearnedFoot Avatar
    LearnedFoot

    “Why did they bury him at sea?”

    No shrine.

  11. MyGovIsNuts Avatar
    MyGovIsNuts

    The One was following Islamic law, which means (apparently) that you have to plant ’em within 24 hours. Frankly, dumping the rat bastard into the sea is too good for him. He deserved to be burned, placed into an urn, and allowed to be pissed upon by any 9/11 family member. Then flushed.

  12. Kermit Avatar
    Kermit

    No shrine.
    Ah, that makes perfect sense. Thank you, Mr. Foot. If the Pakistanis are smart they will level the compound.

  13. Night Writer Avatar
    Night Writer

    If the Pakistanis are smart they will level the compound.

    Yeah, after seeing the raw video I don’t think the Pakistani government is going to get the security deposit back anyway.

  14. Beyond Petroleum Avatar
    Beyond Petroleum

    [Gary] has the sinking feeling folks don’t realize OBL got everything he wanted: U.S. brought to the brink of insolvency;
    Sorry, but the “real conservatives” that stayed home in ’06 and ’08 can hardly blame Osama bin Laden for their pathetic laziness.

    the very freedoms we went to war to protect we voluntarily took from ourselves;
    I’m quite sure he makes the same case against WWII (and Ron Paul followers actually do), but even the Japanese-American internment camp travesty shouldn’t have kept us from fighting Nazis. It just means we need to be more vigilant about civil rights/state power during times of war.

    our prestige in the region irrevocably sullied;
    Among Islamofascists and “Children of the Light” Ron Paul followers (but I repeat myself)? Not overly concerned, am I.

    our military depleted;
    This is actually a goal of the Paul-bots.

    our best and our brightest killed and maimed,
    All the more reason for snuffing these things out before they fester and threaten future generations: i.e. our non-response to: 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon, Black Hawk Down in Somalia, USS Cole & East African embassy bombings, plus not going into Baghdad in 1991 is what killed the 9/11 victims and our post-2001 service men and women, not some “Trotskyite/PNAC/neo-con fantasy” the Paulistinians heard about when playing World of Warcraft.

    and — the cherry on top — martydom.
    Maybe Gary can put OBL’s photo on his dashboard to protect him against Sunday drivers. “Cry me a river”, indeed.

  15. Terry Avatar
    Terry

    When I heard the news on 9/11 the first thing I thought was “goodbye, Saddam”. I didn’t think that he had done it, but I knew that regardless of who had done it Saddam’s open hostility was something we could no longer tolerate.
    Those who go on “Bush misled us into war” tirades need to be reminded that our current secretary of state, appointed by Obama, voted to go to war with Iraq, and she has far more sneaking, dishonest characters than Bush to deal with on the international scene.

  16. Kermit Avatar
    Kermit

    she has far more sneaking, dishonest characters than Bush to deal with on the international scene
    That’s nothing. She has far more sneaking, dishonest characters in the Obama administration than anyone since Nixon.

  17. Terry Avatar
    Terry

    Hillary has been married to Bill for a very long time, Kermit. I’m sure that she is used to being around sneaking, lying characters by now.
    Seriously, Hillary has been cluelessly stupid on at least two occassions — first when the Monica affair broke, and second when she voted for the Iraq War. Why the heck did Obama think that she would make a good secretary of state?
    You don’t think he saddled the country with a second-rater just to nullify a possible 2012 primary opponent, do you? That would be putting politics above the good of the country.

  18. thorleywinston Avatar
    thorleywinston

    [I have] as much blood lust as the next guy, but has the sinking feeling folks don’t realize OBL got everything he wanted: U.S. brought to the brink of insolvency;

    Our current financial woes have little to do with the cost of the War. We have a demographic time bomb in the form of a cohort of some 60 plus million baby boomers about to deplete Social Security and Medicare, rising energy prices due in large part to increased world demand and a refusal to expand our domestic supply, and a burst housing bubble that members of both parties are doing everything they can to reinflate.

    the very freedoms we went to war to protect we voluntarily took from ourselves;

    Not really, I’ve asked this question for the last eight years when people complain about the Patriot Act but can anyone name a single freedom that we actually had prior to 9/11 that we no longer have?

    our prestige in the region irrevocably sullied;

    I seriously doubt that the people in Afghanistan and Iraq are now more predisposed to hate the United States than they were when we (and much of the rest of the world) looked the other way while the Taliban and Baathists brutalized them. And I seriously doubt that people in other countries in that region care as much as their State run media would have us believe. If anything events in Egypt and Libya suggest that the people in that region are tired of being brutalized by various dictatorships and insofar as they have legitimate gripes against the United States (as opposed to the manufactured ones that their “leaders” are projecting), it’s because often those dictators have been supported by the United States and other western powers who engaged in real politik during the Cold War. Bush to his credit shifted the paradigm of the last 50 years of real politik by instead of replacing one dictatorship with another giving the people in those countries a chance to build a better society.

    and — the cherry on top — martydom.

    Yes, a “martyr’ whose last moments on the Earth were spent hiding behind a woman he was using as a human shield.

  19. angryclown Avatar
    angryclown

    Angryclown has much more blood lust than the next guy.

  20. Terry Avatar
    Terry

    Not really, I’ve asked this question for the last eight years when people complain about the Patriot Act but can anyone name a single freedom that we actually had prior to 9/11 that we no longer have?

    Howabout not being strip searched or fondled before getting on an airplane?
    The Iraq War was not a blunder. Forming the TSA, now that was a blunder.
    The only terrorist attempt foiled on 9/11 was due to the actions of passengers on Flt 93. All the airport security previous to 9/11 failed. Bush’s response? More airport security built on the old model!

  21. swiftee Avatar
    swiftee

    “I’m trying not to take pleasure in another person’s death.”

    Just imagine he was an unborn child, dog, you’ll be OK

  22. angryclown Avatar
    angryclown

    Angryclown takes great pleasure in bin Laden’s death and looks forward to his upcoming cameo appearance on Shark Week.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcmuPc8_SWQ&feature=related

  23. Night Writer Avatar
    Night Writer

    Good one, ac!

  24. MyGovIsNuts Avatar
    MyGovIsNuts

    Good Lord…I find bitchyclown as…gulp…funny?

    Must…find…treatment….must…find…help!

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