Today is Memorial Day, and we are at war, again

Today is Memorial Day, which, in paper, is set aside to honor those who serve the national interest in the armed forces. But no one, at least no one conducting the most attended conversations on the national stage, is discussing the servicemen and women we have inLibyaright now. Nor are they discussing the violations of The War Powers Act and Article I of the Constitution which their deployment entails.

Not just President Obama is responsible for these violations, though he did swear to uphold Constitution and enacted laws. The Congress is also culpable; its members have failed to assert its own duty to declare war and police the executive. And we, too, are culpable, for not demanding of our respective representatives that we be told why we commit our dwindling monies and the bodies and efforts of our finest to a remote and uncertain conflict. Qudaffi’s tyranny is beyond dispute; but none in the West whether the revolutionaries are budding democrats, jihadists, or tribal factions with no ideological commitment recognizable to outsiders. Some of each element seem to be in play. Yet we cannot say which will prevail until after the rubble settles; or if they could establish any sustainable institution with or without further unasked-for alien nation-building.

Ours would be such a sad nation, if we could not give care to the wars conducted on our behalf.

We honor no one leaving our leaders undisturbed.

“Deather” conspiracy theory claims bin Laden not dead, or was never alive to begin with, or something

Via Brian Smith and Byron Tau in Politico:

[W]hile [a] watery grave may help diminish bin Laden’s status as a martyr to his followers, it was already fueling conspiracy theories; as the administration resisted releasing even photographs of the slain terrorist leader on Monday, a predictable haze of myth and rumor had already, inevitably, begun to rise around him.

No political leader of any weight has doubted the American story, though some Muslim leaders have criticized the action and there will be a delicate political calculation to be made by bin Laden’s presumed successor, Ayman Al Zawahiri, as to whether he confirms or denies the death.

…

But in an age of mistrust for authority, and when the mainstream media has lost its ability to damp down discredited theories, bin Laden’s death is already in dispute.

An arm of a Pakistani Taliban group led the charge Monday, according to Pakistan’s GEO TV, insisting that Bin Laden is still alive. Supporters rallied around a new Facebook group called, “Osama bin Laden NOT DEAD.” Meanwhile, the Pakistani and British media Monday fell prey to a recycled and faked photograph of a dead Bin Laden.

In the United States, suspicious voices rose across the political spectrum. Radio host Alex Jones, a powerful hub of anti-government sentiment and leader of those who believe the American government was behind the September 11 attacks, instantly floated his own theory: “[Inside Sources:] Government had Osama bin Laden frozen [Nearly a Decade].”

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan wrote her supporters [on her Facebook page] “I am sorry, but if you believe the newest death of OBL, you’re stupid. Just think to yourself—they paraded Saddam’s dead sons around to prove they were dead—why do you suppose they hastily buried this version of OBL at sea? This lying, murderous Empire can only exist with your brainwashed consent—just put your flags away and THINK!”

And on the conservative site Big Peace, J. Michael Waller demanded that Obama lay the corpse out in lower Manhattan. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” he wrote.

A fuller quotation from Waller:

The free world, particularly the United States, has a right to make sure Osama bin Laden is really dead. Every American has a right to walk right up to bin Laden’s corpse and view it. We are entitled to know for a fact that the witch is dead. No shroud for dignity’s sake, please – bin Laden’s naked, bullet-riddled corpse should be put on display in lower Manhattan for all the world to see. The entire body should be digitally scanned, inside and out – and made available for everyone to take his or her own picture.

Politico again:

Others speculated that perhaps bin Laden had never existed at all. And throughout a Muslim world in which bin Laden’s guilt in the 9/11 attacks remains, according to polls, widely doubted, the stealthy American incursion could only stir more conspiracy theorizing.

Since the Politico article ran, Glenn Beck has also floated the possibility bin Laden was spirited out of his Abbottabad compound:

There is something bothering me and it has to do with the helicopter crash. Getting Osama Bin Laden out, and the fact that we know that Wikleaks says that al-Qaeda has nukes. And here we have the head of al-Qaeda and we shoot him. Reports coming from the Pentagon, he was unarmed. Now why would we shoot a guy? Did we get the information? Could we have done anything with that? Were poll numbers involved, or are we seeing a show? Is it possible that Osama Bin Laden has been ghosted out of his compound, and we’re seeing a show at this point? Watch the other hand. Watch the other hand.

Tea Party Nation founder: bin Laden “does represent the mainstream of Islam”

I’m reminded of a Dave Chappelle bit when he asks, “Have you ever had something happen that was so racist, that you didn’t even get mad?” But this will make a lot of people really mad, and righteously so.

Via Right Wing Watch (Tea Party Nation’s site is pay-only), Judson Phillips, the head of Tea Party Nation, claimed because bin Laden represented the mainstream of Muslim opinion, we should have violated as many Islamic tabboos as possible in desecrating Osama’s corpse to “send a message.”

He also said something to the effect that Obama wouldn’t have undertaken this opperation if he weren’t up for reelection, but that kind of pales compared to this:

What should have happened, which would not happen under the Obama regime and to be fair, the Bush administration was too politically correct to do this either, but Osama’s body should have not been immediately buried. We should have told everyone that the body was wrapped in pig fat before burial.

Why?

It is not just the visceral insult. It is sending a message. Contrary to what the politically correct say, Osama does represent the mainstream of Islam. By defiling the body, we say that you are not getting your 72 virgins. This should be the policy we have with every Islamic terrorist we capture. If you die, we are going to deny you paradise. If we capture you, we are going to feed you nothing but pork until you talk.

Obama is taking credit for this. He did give the order. Did he really have a choice? If word leaked out that he had solid intelligence on where Bin Laden was and did not act, it would have killed any chance he had at reelection. Of course, he made his announcement right in the middle of Donald Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” show. Of course, that was just a coincidence.

I’m not able to find numbers on how big Tea Party Nation is, but it was connected enough to organize a two-day, 600-person headcount convetion in February last year, featuring keynote speaker Sarah Palin, who appears to have been paid $100,000 for her appearance.

White House counterterrorism adviser: “Inconceivable” OBL had no Pakistani aid

Via The Hill:

President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser called it “inconceivable” that Pakistan was not providing a “support system” for Osama bin Laden, who was killed Sunday in a raid in a mansion north of the capital city of Islamabad.

“We are pursuing all leads on this issue,” Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan said during a White House briefing. “I think people are raising a number of questions, and understandably so.”

Brennan said bin Laden likely would not have been able to hide undetected at the compound — which is in close proximity to a Pakistani military installation — without help from within the country. He declined to speculate on what that help might include.

He said the administration is in contact with Pakistan’s government and intelligence establishment about the situation.

It will be interesting to see if any follow-up stories indicate whether Brennanhad the go-ahead from Obama or another one of his superiors to essentially insinuate “our ally in the war on terror”  was harboring the most infamous terrorist the US was pursuing.

Of course, even if OBL was recieving assistance from, say, the military base a few hundred yards away from his hideout (the “West Point” of Pakistan), that doesn’t mean the assisting officers had governmental approval. In many unstable regimes, Pakistan’s included, militaries and governments are rivals with their own agendas, rather than agreeable actors working towards synched goals.

But if both the government and military had knowledge of bin Laden and refused to act on it, the Salafist may get the last laugh after all. In his death, he would expose the true, impassable gulf between two already uneasy allies, and even  plunge the US into its fourth armed conflict.

“I have lots of options for the future”

Sharron Angle, the failed 2010 GOP nominee for Harry Reid’s Senate seat, who suggested “second amendment remedies” to Obama’s policies, used air quotes around the word “autism,” mocked the concept of paid maternity leave because ”I’m not gonna have any more babies,”  who told a roomful of Latino students “ look a little more Asian to me”, who once belonged to a third party whose literature referred to gays as “sodomites” and “brazen perverts,”  and who once fled her own press conference without answering any questions, has not ruled out a 2012 presidential run. She’s in Iowa–a traditional testing field for would-be runners–this week, previewing a comically un-self-aware creationist movie.