Why Does Obama Blame Bush For HIS Economy (After FOUR YEARS Of Failure) When Obama Takes Credit For Every Good Bush Achievement?

OSAMA BIN LADEN RAID

Obama takes the credit for getting bin Laden.  Was it Obama who rebuilt  the national security apparatus following 9/11 to reshape it from the Cold War emphasis that had characterized it for the previous sixty years?  Was it Obama who first announced the mission to get bin Laden dead or alive?  Was it Obama who used water boarding to secure the key intelligence breakthroughs that bin Laden was relying on couriers for his communication (rather than phones, computers, etc.) and that he was living in the city of Abbottabad which allowed intelligence to zero in on him?

The key intelligence breakthrough occurred when US intelligence discovered two key facts: 1) that Osama bin Laden was hiding out in the city of Abbottabad in Pakistan; and 2) that bin Laden was relying on a courier who could then be identified and tracked to bin Laden’s specific location in that city.  Both of these key facts were discovered under the Bush presidency by means of waterboarding:

Liberals outrageously lie when they talk about how waterboarding was used.  CIA professionals did NOT ask a terrorist a question and then waterboard him until he gave them whatever answer they wanted.  Rather, they used this incredibly painful – but completely medically safe under supervision – procedure of simulated drowning to “alter the perception” of the terrorist.  The terrorist was confronted with his new reality in a cold, painful way: “We own your ass; we can do whatever the hell we want to you; and we will ultimately break you down.  Get used to the idea that you WILL tell us what we want to know.”  The point of waterboarding was to break their will to resist, not to torture immediate answers out of them but rather to inexorably bring them to the point where they would ultimately crack.  The fact of the matter was that the CIA experts didn’t even bother to ASK terrorists any questions while they waterboarded the three terrorists who ended up singing like canaries.  But it is a simple FACT that waterboarding was the essential background component that led to the breaking of these hard, hateful men: because the terrorists we waterboarded were the very same terrorists who told us about Abbottabad and the courier.

Democrats talk about “torture.”  I say if we catch a monster like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed we waterboard him until he grows gills and then we take the water away so he’ll flop around like a dying fish.  And repeat it over and over again until the same man who tried to destroy us becomes the very man who tells us how to destroy his hateful organization.

I recently watched a 2 hour documentary about the 2006 terrorist attempt to use passenger jets as bombs titled “Stopping the Second 9/11” on the National Geographic Channel.  The thing that most struck me was the fact that British intelligence recorded the terrorists talking to each other on phones.  The terrorists planned to bring their own wives and their own BABIES on the flights that they planned to destroy in order to reduce the likelihood that they would tip off law enforcement by boarding the planes as “family men.”  That ought to scream about the determination of these men to kill and destroy.  You simply are not going to get men like this to open up with courtesy and niceness.  Islamic terrorists by their culture, their religion, and their brutal nature as mass murdering killers respect only superior force, not peaceful overtures, which they see as a sign of weakness. Anyone who thinks you can “nice” a terrorist into betraying his worldview, his ideology, literally his religion, and his movement is simply a naive fool.

The question then becomes this: Why would anybody but a radical leftist ideologue give Obama credit for the intelligence breakthroughs that led to killing bin Laden when Obama was the very guy who most viciously demonized the very procedures that led to those breakthroughs?

There is a fascinating analogy that comes out of the talk about the moon landing that happened as a result of the discussion about the passing of Neil Armstrong (who by the way went on the record criticizing Obama before his death).  The anology begins with this: We give John F. Kennedy complete credit for putting a man on the moon:

Nixon gets ZERO credit even though he was the president sitting in the White House when the Apollo 11 mission landed on the moon.  You will not read an article written by a liberal giving Nixon any credit for landing a man on the moon and bringing that man safely back to earth.  Why?  Kennedy had been DEAD for six years prior to that moon landing.  Why isn’t Nixon “the president who put a man on the moon”?  Because it was JFKs vision and the fulfillment of that vision just as getting bin Laden was the fulfillment of George W. Bush’s vision:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush pledged anew Friday that Osama bin Laden will be taken “dead or alive,” no matter how long it takes, amid indications that the suspected terrorist may be bottled up in a rugged Afghan canyon. The president, in an Oval Office meeting with Thailand’s prime minister, would not predict the timing of bin Laden’s capture but said he doesn’t care how the suspect is brought to justice. “I don’t care, dead or alive — either way,” Bush said. “It doesn’t matter to me.”

But again, that meme about the first man on the moon merely reinforces the pathology of the left to take full credit for every good thing and avoid any blame whatsoever for any bad thing.  The media gives John F. Kennedy complete credit for putting a man on the moon because JFK was a Democrat; the media gives George W. Bush ZERO credit for getting Osama bin Laden because GWB was a Republican.  It’s really that simple.

Was Obama’s decision to send the SEALs into Pakistan to kill bin Laden really that amazing?  Let me ask you this: what would have happened to Obama’s political fortunes if he had refused to kill bin Laden and a bunch of pissed off CIA and military professionals leaked Obama’s abject refusal to kill the world’s worst terrorist monster?  How many people think Obama could have been reelected as “the man who refused to kill bin Laden”???

Bottom damn line: if Obama had tried to kill bin Laden and failed, he would have been criticized for that failure.  And to insulate himself from that possibility, he set up Admiral McRaven as the fall guy by giving McRaven responsibility.  It was ultimately McRaven who made the “courageous call,” not Obama.  That said, if Obama had refused to even try to kill bin Laden, HE WOULD HAVE BEEN DONE POLITICALLY.  Does anybody seriously think for one second that the men who had devoted YEARS to getting bin Laden would have just rolled over if Obama had refused to issue the order to get him?  In fact, I will bet you that Republicans would have brought up and article of impeachment due to Obama’s refusal to protect the citizens of the United States, and Democrats would have voted for it.  Because otherwise, this election would have been the worst disaster in the history of politics for the Democrat Party as the weakling coward treasonous bin Laden Party.

So spare me about Obama’s “incredibly courageous decision” to kill bin Laden as George W. Bush had promised the world that the United States would do.  Spare me the idiotic rhetoric that if George W. Bush had still been president he never would have had the guts to kill bin Laden.  Just spare me all your blathering idiocy, liberal.

IRAQ WAR

Let’s talk about the Iraq War.  Let’s talk about the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq.  Do you know which president won that war?  Do you know which president negotiated that withdrawal of American troops?  I do.  In answer to both questions, the name is George W. Bush.

But who claims credit for the success of Iraq?  Listen to Vice President Joe Biden, speaking on behalf of the Obama administration:

“I am very optimistic about — about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You’re going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You’re going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government.”

Two words come to mind: they are “evil” and “hypocrite.”  Obama demonized the Iraq War again and again while Bush was trying to fight and win there.  Obama demonized the incredibly successful surge strategy that allowed us to break the back of the insurgency.  But now that same Obama claims credit for what he opposed.

AFGHANISTAN WAR

That same Obama dragged America FAR deeper into the quagmire of Afghanistan than anybody could ever dream blame on Bush.  Because Obama and the Democrat Party didn’t want to appear weak on national security.  So they created a contrast between Iraq (which Bush won) as the “bad war” and Afghanistan (which Obama massively expanded) as the “good war.”

You wait and see: when Obama cuts and runs from Afghanistan, he’s going to frame it as his courageously getting us out of the last of “Bush’s wars.” When Obama massively expanded America’s involvement in Afghanistan and very obviously used Afghanistan as a political device to give Obama a cover from charges that he was a cut and run coward:

As I pointed out before, Charles Krauthammer pointed out the sheer cynical depravity of Barack Obama and the Democrat Party as regards Iraq and Afghanistan by pointing to what the Democrats themselves said:

Bob Shrum, who was a high political operative who worked on the Kerry campaign in ’04, wrote a very interesting article in December of last year in which he talked about that campaign, and he said, at the time, the Democrats raised the issue of Afghanistan — and they made it into “the right war” and “the good war” as a way to attack Bush on Iraq. In retrospect, he writes, that it was, perhaps, he said, misleading. Certainly it was not very wise.

What he really meant to say — or at least I would interpret it — it was utterly cynical. In other words, he’s confessing, in a way, that the Democrats never really supported the Afghan war. It was simply a club with which to bash the [Bush] administration on the Iraq war and pretend that Democrats aren’t anti-war in general, just against the wrong war.

Well, now they are in power, and they are trapped in a box as a result of that, pretending [when] in opposition that Afghanistan is the good war, the war you have to win, the central war in the war on terror. And obviously [they are] now not terribly interested in it, but stuck.

And that’s why Obama has this dilemma. He said explicitly on ABC a few weeks ago that he wouldn’t even use the word “victory” in conjunction with Afghanistan.

And Democrats in Congress have said: If you don’t win this in one year, we’re out of here. He can’t win the war in a year. Everybody knows that, which means he [Obama] has no way out.

Afghanistan was just a way to demagogue Bush in Iraq by describing Afghanistan – where Obama is failing so badly – as “the good war” and Iraq – where Bush won so triumphantly – as “the bad war.” It was beyond cynical; it was flat-out treasonous.

There’s more about how the Democrats – including Democrat voters – did a “cut and run” on their “good war” here.

The thing is that Obama’s “good war” aint going so good.  The thing is that if you examine the casualties of Obama’s “good war” since Obama took it over, Obama is responsible for more than 70 percent of the casualties for the entire war (i.e., compare Obama’s 1,477 casualties in less than four years to Bush’s 630 casualties over eight years of fighting.

Bush limited the Afghanistan War.  Obama radically expanded it.  And now the man who radically expanded the Afghanistan War is trying to A) walk away from the mess that HE created and 2) blame the mess that HE created on Bush just as he’s blamed ALL his failures on Bush.

We are NOT winning in Afghanistan.  We are not GOING to win in Afghanistan – particularly after Obama declared a “timetable for withdrawal” that told the enemy all they have to do is hang on until we crawl out with our tails between our legs and the country will be theirs.  There IS no winning in that hellhole.  As I have pointed out in the past echoing other conservatives, Afghanistan was a terrible place for the U.S. military to fight and be able to exploit our overwhelming air and ground power whereas the flat plains of Iraq was a GREAT place for America to fight and win.

I’ve said that before (just to show you I’m not boasting with 20/20 hindsight):

Bush was rightly resistant to putting too many troops into Afghanistan because he knew enough about history to understand that Afghanistan is a hell-hole. Bush understood that while Iraq – with its flat, mostly open terrain – was perfect for American equipment and tactics, and that mountainous and cave-ridden Afghanistan was most certainly NOT well-suited for American equipment and tactics. Bush knew that the fairly well-educated Iraqi people were capable of some semblance of democracy; and Bush knew that the ignorant, basically stone-age Afghani people were NOT capable of anything resembling self-governance.

Because Bush – however stupid the left wants to say he is – wasn’t 1/20th as massively moronic as Barack Obama is.

Afghanistan is also the place where Obama ignored and overruled his generals.  He was the one who declared that we needed to have a huge surge there (after demonizing Bush’s successful surge in Iraq, fwiw); and then he was the one who refused to listen to his own generals’ recommendations when they said we’d need at least 40,000 troops to do it right – and then after endless indecision finally decided to basically give them too many not to lose but not nearly enough to ever win.

Afghanistan is as much Obama’s war as Iraq was “Bush’s war.”  The difference was that Bush owned his war and accepted responsibility for how it went and how it was fought and Obama will NEVER own ANY of his massive failures.  So as I said above, when Obama cuts and runs from Afghanistan, he’ll deceitfully depict it as getting America out of the last of “Bush’s wars.”  Because that’s the kind of slandering liar that weasel is.

I was wrong about one thing in my past predictions: I thought that Obama would crawl out of Afghanistan before the election in November and make the immediately above claim.  But I submit at this point that Obama can’t do that: because Afghanistan is frankly going so badly with new cases of Afghan soldiers fragging their American partners practically every day that to cut and run NOW would only serve to draw attention to just how catastrophically Obama has truly failed over there.

IRAN

Obama is the president who was mocked by Hillary Clinton for his naive stupidity in assuming he could talk Iran out of its rogue regime intent on acquiring nuclear weapons status.  He is the same naive fool today that he was when Hillarly Clinton mocked him.

And Iran has doubled its centrifuges and made it all but impossible for observers to monitor Iran’s nuclear program while Obama has dithered.

Just as Iran has successfully propped up the Syrian dictatorship while Obama has done nothing.

And I have documented that when craziest nation in world history Iran gets its nukes – which it will – you can COMPLETELY lay the blame for the Armageddon that will surely ensue on Barack Obama and the Democrat Party.

Not that Obama will accept responsibility for his failure of leadership.

OIL

Barack Obama has also been constantly taking complete credit for being the president who has produced more oil than any other president.  Is that true?  No.  The reason that we are producing virtually ANY domestic oil at all right now is because of the Bush administration’s granting the leases that have produced so much American oil. 

“According to EIA’s short-term 2011 outlook, released last week, oil production was significantly higher in 2009 than in the years prior. Obama may have been in office for most of that year, but the oil production numbers are due to action taken before he became president. In 2010, most if not all of the production increase recorded is likely due to action that predates Obama, since Obama didn’t take any major action expanding offshore drilling his first year in office.”

But the Obama administration has taken action since then, as Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell pointed out on Wednesday. “Over the past two years, the Obama administration has delayed, revoked, suspended, or canceled an enormous range of development opportunities. One month after the President took office, his administration cancelled 77 oil and gas leases in Utah — once the review was complete the administration refused to reinstate a single one. . . . Last January, it announced new restrictions for onshore oil and gas exploration in the Mountain West. Last February, it denied a permit to build a bridge needed to access an oil producing field in Alaska, after the Environmental Protection Agency designated a nearby river an aquatic resource of national importance. Last April, the Administration suspended 61 oil and gas leases in Montana that were issued in 2008 — then announced that all oil and gas leases in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota would be delayed indefinitely. Last May, the President announced a 6-month moratorium on deepwater drilling — a moratorium that’s been repeatedly struck down in the courts.”

Bush was the president who signed the leases that Obama is taking credit for.  Obama is the president who has shut down oil production.  And yet Obama is the president who is taking credit for Bush’s success even as he refuses to stand behind his failure.  Something to consider as we face the highest gasoline prices in the history of the republic on this Memorial Day.

HEALTH CARE

ObamaCare was an unpopular fiasco the entire time Obama and Democrats were forcing it down the throats of the American people.  Obama demagogued health care costs – which were actually going DOWN before his ObamaCare boondoggle placed another one-sixth of the economy under government bureaucratic control – to pass his socialist takeover of the health care system.

Health care will be more expensive thanks to Obama and his socialism.  We’re talking $1.76 trillion more than Obama promised.  In fact, it’s already three times as expensive as Obama said it would be and we aint seen nothin’ yet.  That is a fact.

College students are seeing their health care costs skyrocket or be completely removed altogether as insurance companies decide they don’t want to pay for all the “free stuff” that ObamaCare forces them to pay for.

ObamaCare disingenuously imposes all the burden on the doctors and insurers while claiming to give all kinds of benefits.  Which is why 74% of doctors say they will quit, retire early, or see fewer patients if ObamaCare stands.  ObamaCare shennanigans, higher costs and fewer doctors mean that you will have LESS chance of actually seeing a doctor under this incredibly failed program.

Obama also swore up one side and down the other that he would NEVER raise taxes on the middle class.  And yet ObamaCare is a massive tax hike on ordinary people.  Because 75% of the 21 new tax hikes will fall on the middle class.

And where’s Obama to accept responsibility for his failed program???

ECONOMY

Question: Which president left his successor with a bubble collapse that vaporized $7.1 trillion in American wealth and wiped out 78% of the Nasdaq portolio?  Answer: William Jefferson Clinton.  But we don’t tend to remember the terrible Dotcom bubble recession that Bill Clinton left for George Bush to inherit because of three reasons: 1) the sheer unmitigated bias of the mainstream media; 2) the disasterous 9/11 attack (that can likewise be laid almost entirely at Clinton’s feet as he gutted the military and intelligence community and left America both weak and blind such that Osama bin Laden declared America to be a “paper tiger” and began to plot his devastating attack); and 3) because unlike Barack Obama, George Bush wasn’t a pitiful whiner and accepted responsibility for the economy.

The fact of the matter is that George Bush began his presidency with a huge double whammy.  Not that the media will ever assign responsibility for it to Clinton the way they were determined to assign responsibility to Bush.  Because there is a longstanding propaganda meme according to which the mainstream media will NEVER blame a Democrat for a failure and will ALWAYS find a way to blame a Republican.

Barack Obama has demonized Bush for the “Great Recession,” literally refuses to cite statistics that consider the first year of his presidency to create the rhetorical statistical illusion that his presidency has been better than it actally was, demonized Republicans for “obstructionism“, and taken credit for his “recovery”.  The truth is that none of these things is true.

Let’s take the “Great Recession” first.  Obama has demonized Republicans over and over again for “lack of regulation” and “failed policies” causing that recession.  Bullcrap.  The single entity that resulted in this collapse was Government Sponsored Enterprise Fannie Mae and its twin Freddie Mac.  I’ve documented that fact over and over again on this blog:

https://startthinkingright.wordpress.com/2010/01/23/aei-article-how-fannie-and-freddie-blew-up-the-economy/

https://startthinkingright.wordpress.com/2010/08/10/barney-frank-and-democrat-party-most-responsible-for-2008-economic-collapse/

https://startthinkingright.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/2009/08/03/who-really-exploded-your-economy-liberals-or-conservatives/

https://startthinkingright.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/democrats-set-up-america-for-2008-collapse-and-barack-obama-became-their-king/

http://startthinkingright.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/2009/12/31/with-eyes-finally-wide-open-reconsider-why-the-economy-collapsed-in-the-first-place/

https://startthinkingright.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/democrat-lies-about-their-key-role-in-2008-economic-collapse-reaches-laughable-proportions/

https://startthinkingright.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/2009/07/08/biden-we-misread-the-economy-and-its-all-the-republicans-fault/

http://digitalartpress.wordpress.com/2009/03/22/video-proof-democrat-party-warned-responsible-for-fannie-mae-freddie-mac-economic-crisis-repost/

https://startthinkingright.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/barney-frank-video-proves-democrats-at-core-of-2008-economic-collapse/

And since Democrats took over and issued regulations up the yin yang and then up the whazoo of aforementioned yin yang, we’ve continued to have clear examples of the very things Democrats demonized Republicans over.  And Obama is setting up America and the world for an ultimate $600 trillion collapse that will make the one in 2008 look like a warm, sunny day compared to Armageddon.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapsed FIRST before ANY private sector entity to initiate the collapse – just as conservative economists had predicted a full decade before the collapse occurred:

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980′s.

”From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,” said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ”If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.”

And in fact the private sector entities such as Lehman Brothers that collapsed did so because they suddenly found themselves holding BILLIONS of dollars in sub-prime mortgage backed securities that had been issued by the GSEs that the Democrats created and ran into the ground and protected – and refused to allow Republicans to regulate (Bush tried SEVENTEEN TIMES to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac prior to its collapse and was stopped by Democrats every single time).  In fact Bush was trying to regulate Fannie and Freddie all the way back to 2003 when we still had time to prevent the coming collapse.  Democrats used Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to force the market to sell homes to people who couldn’t afford those homes; and when the bubble burst and Lehman Bros. and others found themselves holding “toxic assets” that they had purchased from Fannie and Freddie, they couldn’t cover their Democrat-caused losses and collapsed.

Nixon was president during the moon landing, but Democrats and liberals have never and will never give him credit because they wanted to give one of their own credit for the success.  Bush was president during the 2008 collapse, and that was all liberals needed to say to blame him for the entire fiasco regardless of how many Democrat shennanigans had gone into that collapse.

And here we are, nearly four years later, and all of Obama’s promises based on his anti-Bush demagoguery to: 1) not increase the debt ceiling; to 2) cut the deficit in half during his first term; to 3) cut the debt after demonizing Bush for his debt.  Obama imposed the most massive one-time spending binge in the history of planet earth and promised that unemployment would be 5.5% by now.  Instead not only has unemployment been over 8% longer than ANY time in history since the Great Depression, but in fact unemployment has actually been worse than had Obama’s own experts said it would be had we NOT wasted and pissed away $862 billion that we can never get back.

Obamanomics has been one catastrophic failure after another.  Here we are, with median household income under Obama nearly TWICE as bad than they were during the Great Recession – whether you want to blame Bush for that recession or not.  Here we are, with more poor people devastated by Obama’s economy than at any time in history.  And that didn’t happen under Bush’s watch, you liberal liars.  Somehow, it wasn’t Bush who put more people into poverty than ever before; it wasn’t Bush who devastated median household incomes as people move in with parents and relatives because the economy has failed them; it has been Obama.  It was OBAMA who made one out of every six Americans poor.

And Obama’s stimulus cost Americans an incredible and frankly insane $278,000 per job.  We can’t afford any more damn Obama jobs!!!

Obama is a liar and his “success” is based on lies – as you will see for yourself if you just try to match his rhetoric to painful American reality under his presidency:

But it’s Bush’s fault that Obama did it.  Because no president in history has ever abrogated his responsibilities or refused to claim responsibility for his failure to live up to his responsibilities than has Obama.

Obama has been the president for the last four years, people, not Bush.

I began talking about the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong.  The only “man on the moon” now – thanks to Obama’s policies – is none other than Barack Obama: because this disgraced leader will surely assume no responsibility for anything that happens on the earth that lies so far below his lofty but meaningless rhetoric.

It’s past time to hold him responsible and fire his ass.

Just Asking: How Much Credit For Getting Osama Bin Laden Does Obama Truly Deserve?

When I first heard about the assault on the compound in Pakistan that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden, I was happy and proud as an American.  And willing to give Obama credit where credit was due.

It seemed like a gutsy move – which the mainstream media narrative quickly seized upon: the political consequences for Obama would have been quite negative if the mission had failed.  It would have reminded everyone yet again that Obama is a reincarnation of Jimmy Carter.  And the whole “Desert One” fiasco would have surely been remembered.

But take just a second and look at it from the opposite perspective; you know, the one that the mainstream media has never once considered for even a nanosecond.  What would have happened had Barack Obama decided NOT to try to take out bin Laden?  What would have happened – more to the point – when the American people were informed that Barack Obama had known for certain where Osama bin Laden was, and refused to try to get him?

Wouldn’t that have had even MORE DISASTEROUS consequences???

And, the thing is, it is a near certainty that that information would have gotten out.  There would have been sufficient disgust in both the CIA and in the Pentagon that somebody would have made sure that the news got out that Barack Obama – who had PROMISED THE AMERICAN PEOPLE that he would go into Pakistan to get bin Laden – had cowardly refused to keep yet another promise.

Imagine for just a second the abundant campaign ads: slow-moving video of Osama bin Laden, followed by footage of the twin towars collapsing, followed by Barack Obama giving his word to get bin Laden, followed by the evidence that Obama knew for at least half a year where bin Laden was hiding, and refused to even try to get him.

It would have been just as “bold” for Obama to decide that an operation to get bin Laden was too risky, and jeopardized critical U.S.-Pakistani relations to too high a degree.

Barack Obama was forced into a position where he had to rely on the U.S. military to save his political hide.  And the U.S. military came through for him.

And how does Obama repay that military?  By literally gutting their budget, that’s how:

President Obama has targeted the Department of Defense to absorb more than 80 percent of the cuts he has proposed in next year’s budget for discretionary programs.

Does Obama deserve credit for that?  Really?  Is he out right now campaigning as the guy who just gutted the military he commands, or is he out campaigning as the commander-in-chief of a glorious military?

People should hear that RIGHT NOW Barack Obama is taking an axe and gutting the Navy SEALs, and the Nightstalkers who brought them in and out of that compound, and the Screaming Eagles he visited yesterday, and the entire rest of the military.

People should know that Barack Obama demonized the primary means of interrogation that got us Osama bin Laden.  And there is no question that waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation” methods led us to the breakthroughs we needed to get bin Laden:

Ex-CIA Counterterror Chief: ‘Enhanced Interrogation’ Led U.S. to bin Laden
By Massimo Calabresi Wednesday, May 4, 2011

A former head of counterterrorism at the CIA, who was investigated last year by the Justice Department for the destruction of videos showing senior al-Qaeda officials being interrogated, says the harsh questioning of terrorism suspects produced the information that eventually led to Osama bin Laden’s death.

Jose Rodriguez ran the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center from 2002 to 2005, the period when top al-Qaeda leaders Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and Abu Faraj al-Libbi were taken into custody and subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs) at secret prisons overseas. KSM was subjected to waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other techniques. Al-Libbi was not waterboarded, but other EITs were used on him.

“Information provided by KSM and Abu Faraj al-Libbi about bin Laden’s courier was the lead information that eventually led to the location of [bin Laden’s] compound and the operation that led to his death,” Rodriguez tells TIME in his first public interview. Rodriguez was cleared of charges in the video-destruction investigation last year.

Even career Democrat and Obama appointee for Director of Central Intelligence Leon Panetta has openly acknowledged that waterboarding was an instrumental part of this intelligence effort:

Asked by NBC-TV’s Brian Williams about the information obtained from detainees that led to the bin Laden takedown, Panetta replied:  ‘We had multiple series of sources that provided information with regards to this situation.  … Clearly some of it came from detainees [and] they used these enhanced interrogation techniques against some of those detainees.”

When Williams asked whether “waterboarding” was one of those techniques, Panetta replied:  “That’s correct.”

We have the following from the CIA analysts and the CIA director at the time, describing how essential the enhanced interrogations were to the knowledge that the CIA learned:

CATHERINE HERRIDGE, FOX NEWS NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): March 2003, Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was captured and according to U.S. officials, the self-described architect of 9/11 was immediately taken into the CIA enhanced interrogation program and waterboarded. It was three to four months later, according to U.S. officials, that KSM was asked about the courier who was known only by an Al Qaeda alias. He downplayed the courier’s importance. The top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee says the implications of the CIA’s early leads are clear. […]

A former senior intelligence official says the waterboarding of KSM, quote, “took his spirited defiance into a zone of cooperation,” adding that the harsh interrogation tactic critics described as torture was not used to elicit information but rather to alter the detainee’s mindset. Philip Mudd is a former CIA analyst.

PHILIP MUDD, FORMER CIA ANALYST: Having seen this stuff on the inside, that’s not a debate. That is a done deal. The information we got was invaluable. So debate the cultural side and the political side, but please don’t debate the intelligence side.

HERRIDGE: In a radio interview with FOX, former CIA Director Michael Hayden said there is no question the CIA program including waterboarding laid the foundation for bin Laden’s capture.

MICHAEL HAYDEN, FMR CIA DIRECTOR ON FOX NEWS RADIO (via telephone): That database was kind of like the home depot of intelligence analysis. You know, it was incredibly detailed stuff.

HERRIDGE: As for its role in identifying this compound in Pakistan —

HAYDEN: It would be very difficult for me to conceive of an operation like the one that took place on Sunday that did not include in its preparation information that came out of the CIA detention program.

HERRIDGE: 2004 and 2005 are described as turning points. Both Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Faraj al-Libi, a gatekeeper for Osama bin Laden, were both in the CIA secret prisons. U.S. officials say for a second time, KSM downplayed the courier significance and al-Libi denied knowing him. The men’s adamant denials appeared to be an effort to protect the courier and U.S. officials say it, quote, “sent up red flags for the CIA” because other detainees consistently claims the courier maintained bin Laden’s trust.

And if you don’t believe EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE KEY PEOPLE INVOLVED, just accept that Bush and HIS gutsy decision to approve waterboarding led us to the knowledge that Osama bin Laden (UBL) was using couriers, the pseudo-names of those couriers that led to intelligence ultiamtely finding their actual names, and even the very city where Osama bin Laden was hiding:

Which is to say that the entire Obama presidency was spent mining information from waterboarding that Obama personally demonized and from a program that Obama shut down.

And we now know that Osama bin Laden was in this compound that we learned about from waterboarding for at least five years.

Every single major fact that we learned we learned from waterboarding and from enhanced interrogation techniques.  And the rest of it was simply a matter of confirming what we knew from waterboarding and from enhanced interrogation techniques.

People should KNOW that Barack Obama demands that the United States of America should be nearly blind.

People should also know that on his second day in office Barack Obama shut down and terminated the CIA intelligence program that actually developed the information that got bin Laden.  They should know that America no longer has that capability, and that thanks to Barack Obama we could never even begin to do that again – likely for years to come, given the difficulty of developing such intensive programs.

And people should know that RIGHT NOW Barack Obama is continuing to try to criminally prosecute the incredible men and women who gave us the intelligence breakthroughs that got Osama bin Laden:

In normal times, the officials who uncovered the intelligence that led us to Osama bin Laden would get a medal. In the Obama administration, they have been given subpoenas.

On his second day in office, President Barack Obama shut down the CIA’s high-value interrogation program. His Justice Department then reopened criminal investigations into the conduct of CIA interrogators — inquiries that had been closed years before by career prosecutors who concluded that there were no crimes to prosecute. In a speech at the National Archives in May 2009, Mr. Obama accused the men and women of the CIA of “torture,” declaring that their work “did not advance our war and counterterrorism efforts — they undermined them.”

Now, it turns out that those CIA interrogators played a critical role in the killing of Osama bin Laden, which the president has rightly called “the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat al-Qaida.”

Even NOW Obama is refusing to do anything to stop the prosecution of the men and women who gave us bin Laden, even as he flies around taking credit for getting bin Laden.  Should we be giving Obama credit for that???

This nation should be grateful to George W. Bush, and for his courage and foresight to develop the programs and to create the capabilities that ultimately won us this victory against Osama bin Laden.  It was the courage of George Bush that resulted in waterboarding – which Bush and his key advisors KNEW would be used by vile cowards like Barack Obama to demonize them.  But they knew it had to be done, and they did it.

In the same way, Bush created the Guantanamo Bay (“Gitmo”) detention facility.  Bush expanded the rendition program that had been used by Bill Clinton.  Bush created the Patriot Act.  Bush approved of domestic surveillance.  Bush set up the military tribunals that had been used by Democrats like FDR in previous time of war.  Bush established the indefinite detentions of the most hardened terrorists.

Barack Obama personally demonized and vilified all of these things.  But he is using them to this day because they had to be done.

I would argue that the hero of this is George Bush; and that Barack Obama is a self-aggrandizing coward who was forced to use virtually all of the programs that he self-righteously demagogued for political advantage in a way that is frankly treasonous.

Right now we have a treasure trove of intelligence that is likewise nearly entirely the result of the work of George W. Bush.  But be advised: if we don’t shut down al Qaeda now, we probably never will due to the massive failures of the man who sits in the Oval Office as we speak.

“In terms of Mr. bin Laden himself, we’ll get him running. We’ll smoke him out of his cave and we’ll get him eventually.” — George W. Bush, October 11, 2001

It was always just a matter of time.  And the time came during the misrule of a hypocritical fool.

Justice Finally Comes To Osama Bin Laden, American-Style

It had to happen eventually.  And it finally has.  Osama bin Laden is in hell where he belongs, where seventy-two very un-virginal demons will tear his flesh for all eternity.

And it came the best way: by the trigger fingers of individual heroes, rather than by the faceless push of a button to activate a missile by a Predator drone.  It is fitting that bin Laden died at the hands of Americans who got to look him in the eye as they facilitated his journey to the eternally burning trash pit in the sky.

And just to add some icing to the cake, the reports are that they killed Osama bin Laden’s oldest son in the attack, too.

Osama bin Laden Killed; ID Confirmed by DNA Testing
By DEAN SCHABNER and KAREN TRAVERS
May 1, 2011

Osama bin Laden, hunted as the mastermind behind the worst-ever terrorist attack on U.S. soil, has been killed, sources told ABC News.

Bin Laden was killed in a ground attack by Joint Special Operations Command forces working with the CIA, not a drone strike, a national security source told ABC News.

According to a national security source, a compound in Pakistan where  the terrorist mastermind was believed to be had been monitored for months. When the decision was made to move on it, special operations forces were sent across the border from Afghanistan to launch a ground attack and take the body.

DNA testing confirmed that it was bin Laden, sources told ABC News.

Vice President Biden has reached out to congressional leadership to update them on the news tonight.

“This is a terrific day for America and quite frankly the whole world that cares about winning the war on terror,” former Bush chief of staff Andy Card told ABC News. Card said the news is “particularly significant” for the intelligence community.

“They’re the ones who kept their nose to the grindstone and worked very hard to allow this day to be realized … finally,” he said.

[The rest of the ABC story is mostly biographical on who bin Laden was and what he did.  You may read it here].

My congratulations and heartfelt appreciation go out to all the intelligence and military professionals who brought about this fitting end.

As President George Bush put it on October 11, 2001:

“In terms of Mr. bin Laden himself, we’ll get him running. We’ll smoke him out of his cave and we’ll get him eventually.”

It was just a matter of time.

Anyone who has read one paragraph of my blog knows that I am a fierce critic of President Barack Obama.  But he and his administration deserve credit for approving the actions that led to this day of reckoning.  Obama also displayed some class in how he first called former President Bush and then cited him in his announcement of bin Laden’s killing.  

That said, the city where bin Laden was killed – Abbottabad – was a military district headquarters.  And the early releases are claiming that the Pakistani government was not informed prior to the raid that got Osama bin Laden.  And the fact that bin Laden was staying in a large walled security compound only 100 yards from a Pakistani military facility tells you that bin Laden was almost certainly being protected by at least a faction of the Pakistani military.

Given how badly we need Pakistan and other key Muslim countries to cooperate with us if we are to be able to use anything other than a “Kill them all; let God sort them out” policy, Pakistan’s apparent duplicity and its cooperation with al Qaeda is not good news.

The war on terror isn’t over.  It might even intensify, as the terrorist network al Qaeda looks for vengeance.  It’ s who they are; it’s what they do.  Here, for instance, is a story that al Qaeda threatened a “nuclear hellstorm” if America killed or captured bin Laden.  Rest assured, al Qaeda will be determined to do something that will seek to restore their honor and credibility in the Islamic world as a result of this raid.

What will happen as a result of this raid and the killing of bin Laden?  Will Pakistan be embarrassed into more cooperation with the U.S., or will they be embarrassed into LESS cooperation with the U.S.?  Did conducting a massively consequential military operation in a foreign country without notifying its leaders make that country a better friend, or a less trustworthy foe?  Under the presidency of Barack Obama, U.S.-Pakistani relationships have soured to an all-time low.  Did this attack on their country improve those relations?  What will happen as a direct result of this attack?

I don’t even want to think about what would have happened had a Pakistani military or police unit fired on the U.S. special operations forces.

If liberals are consistent, they will immediately denounce President Obama and demonize him for further antagonizing the Islamic world and for risking an escalation of terrorism.

The problem with that is that it is total crap.  And whether liberals like it or not, we are in a war for the survival of our culture against a culture of hate.

George Bush put it best describing countries and their attitude toward the United States: “You’re either with us or against us in the fight against terror.”  That statement was met with incredible criticism and condemnation from the left.  And yet, in what way did Obama’s actions today do anything other than reinforce that that was the only attitude we could realistically take?

The left has been proven fundamentally and profoundly wrong in its attitude toward the war on terror.  And it should be obvious by now that the only way to be successful is to not just follow George Bush’s example, but to actually try to “out-Bush” Bush’s example.

And Obama has largely “out-Bushed” Bush in Pakistan.  President Bush did not want to cause a deterioration in U.S.-Pakistani relations, because he viewed Pakistani cooperation as key in the war on terror.  Obama, in using drone attacks and now direct military action, has been far more aggressive in “taking the war” to Pakistan.

Another example of “out-Bushing Bush” would be the Libya attack.  George Bush – decried as the “imperial president” for his attack on Iraq – at least had constitutional authorization for that action (i.e,. the Iraq War Resolution).  Obama took the “cowboy” route in Libya without bothering to obtain permission from any constitutional authority whatsoever.  Except the “world.”  Obama’s actions should serve to amply demonstrate just how hypocritical and utterly vacuous George W. Bush’s liberal critics truly were.

Liberals said that Bush’s attack on Iraq was a provocation that would make the war on terror worse.  They said that the war on terror was a provocation.  They said the surge was a provocation.  And we shouldn’t be provoking the Muslim world like that.

Let me assure you, what those spec op warriors just did in their raid on that compound in Pakistan was an in-your-face provocation.

What’s the long-term effect of this degraded relationship with Pakistan going to be?  I have no idea.  But any liberal who wants to tell me that “cooperative” liberal policies are working where “confrontational” conservative ones have failed is simply an imbecile.  Because what just happened clearly proves the exact opposite.  And when you consider the fact that Obama has already pursued Bush’s policies on Guantanamo Bay, rendition, domestic eavesdropping, the Patriot Act, military tribunals, indefinite detentions and a host of other polices, George Bush and Dick Cheney stand as men proven correct.

We cannot relent.  Because our enemies will not relent.  They are determined to murder.  It is a virtue for them.  It is a religious duty.  And the 9/11 attack was a religious act.

If these terrorists want to get in America’s face or try to intimidate the American people, America should make sure that its warriors give them a giant shot to the nose that they will never forget in response.  Whether we speak softly or loudly, I don’t really care; just make sure that we always carry one big giant stick, and demonstrate the willingness to use that big giant stick on anyone who wants to make trouble for us.

And so there is one more thing to say: if President Obama tries to take political advantage of the killing of Osama bin Laden, we should make sure the American people know that Obama is planning to gut the budget of the U.S. military that just killed bin Laden.

Our warriors should smile and give one another hearty high-fives for this victory.  And then they need to get right back to work.  Because what they do is vital for their country, whether their country has the moral intelligence to understand that or not.

What I most like about this is that it sends a message.  Even ten years later, the United States of America will continue to hunt you down and kill you if you kill her citizens.  And that is a message that Republican and Democrat alike ought to be able to unite around.

Update: we are now learning that it was a squadron of forty U.S. Navy SEALs from Team 6 who conducted the raid that got bin Laden.  God bless you guys.

And now we are even beginning to learn that “enhanced interrogation” may very well have given us the information breakthrough that got us bin Laden.