I believe that the truth about the assassination of Bin Laden was deliberately massaged in order to let us appreciate the fact he was dead before knowing he was unarmed... Let's rejoice before asking questions... It's a well known technique of massaging information where the major information is true but secondary elements of it are not quite kosher... It is designed to make sure we're happy about the death of madman before knowing it was an execution in cold blood, eliminating our possible objection that whomever killed him (i.e. the "President") was also a cold-blooded mad murderer, which he is. But we'll make "allowances" for this, by the way — and the order — the information is given to us...

Happy delirious confused emotion!... The three graces have been infiltrated by the ugly revenge lady...

Bin Laden got his just deserts – those who live by the sword tend to die by the sword – but did he get the "justice" that President Obama talked about? Many Arabs – and this theme was taken up by the Arab press, which spoke of his "execution" – thought he should have been captured, taken to the international court in The Hague and tried.

Of course there will always be those who do and will believe he was a brave martyr ignominiously murdered by the proxy arm of "Zionism". Islamist groups in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and many ulema in south-west Asia have said as much already. In reality, needless to say, he was a has-been. His promises of overthrowing the pro-American or non-Islamic Arab dictators were fulfilled by the people of Egypt and Tunisia – and perhaps soon by Libyans and Syrians – not by al-Qa'ida and its violence.

The real problem, however, is that the West, which has constantly preached to the Arab world that legality and non-violence was the way forward in the Middle East, has taught a different lesson to the people of the region: that executing your opponents is perfectly acceptable.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-alqaida-leader-knew-he-was-a-failure-now-us-has-turned-him-into-martyr-2279180.html

From Chris Floyd

UPDATE: Administration officials are now denying that Obama's national security team watched the execution of bin Laden on video feed, as was originally reported. Officials now say that the team was receiving "minute-by-minute updates" -- via unspecified technology  -- and that, according to CIA honcho Leon Panetta, "there was a time period of almost 20 or 25 minutes that we really didn't know just exactly what was going on." That would be the 20 or 25 minutes when the actual killing took place, presumably.

It's hard to understand how this wild story about the team watched the whole thing unfold in real time. Just one of those crazy urban myths, I guess. Or perhaps it was because of this bit of "subconscious mythologizing" that was offered up by the president's own chief adviser on counterterrorism, John Brennan, just two days ago:

"We were able to monitor in a real-time basis the progress of the operation from its commencement to its time on target to the extraction of the remains and to then the egress off of the target… we were able to monitor the situation in real time and were able to have regular updates and to ensure that we had real-time visibility into the progress of the operation. I'm not going to go into details about what type of visuals we had or what type of feeds that were there, but it was – it gave us the ability to actually track it on an ongoing basis."

The sons of Osama Bin Laden have criticised the US authorities for carrying out his "arbitrary killing".

A statement given to the New York Times newspaper said the family wanted to know why the al-Qaeda leader had not been captured alive.

Relatives who survived the 2 May raid in Pakistan should be freed, it said.

Another statement appeared on a jihadist website saying the burial of Bin Laden at sea "demeans and humiliates his family".

Osama Bin Laden was shot dead by US special forces during a raid on his home in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad.

The statement printed by the New York Times was attributed to Bin Laden's fourth son, Omar Bin Laden, who has repeatedly distanced himself from his father's ideology.

The statement said that in absence of a body or photographic evidence, the family were not convinced he was dead.

But if he was dead, it said, they were questioning "why an unarmed man was not arrested and tried in a court of law so that truth is revealed to the people of the world".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13354995

see toon at top...

A Pakistani doctor who helped the CIA find Osama bin Laden has been jailed for at least 30 years for treason.

Shakeel Afridi confessed to helping the CIA confirm bin Laden was living in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, where the Al Qaeda figurehead was killed last year.

The doctor conducted a fake polio vaccination drive in the city to obtain DNA samples from the residents of the compound.

It is believed the DNA was then tested to see if it belonged to members of bin Laden's family.

Afridi has been sentenced to 33 years for treason under tribal laws in the northern Khyber region.

The United States has been calling for his release, arguing that fighting terrorism should not be considered treason and that his actions were in the interests of both Pakistan and the US.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-23/pakistani-doctor-jailed-for-helping-cia-find-bin-laden/4029374

US senators scandalised by Pakistan's jailing of a doctor for helping the CIA track down Osama bin Laden have voted to cut aid to Islamabad by $33mn - one million for each year in the doctor's sentence. 

"It's arbitrary, but the hope is that Pakistan will realise we are serious," said Senator Richard Durbin after the unanimous 30-0 vote by the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday. 

"It's outrageous that they [the Pakistanis] would say a man who helped us find Osama bin Laden is a traitor," said Durbin, the senate's number two Democrat. 

The Senate Armed Services Committee later passed a measure that could lead to even deeper cuts in aid. 

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2012/05/201252503242437959.html

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Ah... the prive of things... The 2007 price for plutonium-239, US$5.24 per milligram, thus for a critical mass of about 6 kg costs about 31 million dollars.

A senior Taliban commander has effectively banned polio eradication in one of the most troubled areas of the Pakistan frontier in an effort to force the US to end drone strikes.

Leaflets distributed in South Waziristan on behalf of Mullah Nazir, the leader of the Federally Administered Tribal Agencies (Fata) accused health workers who administer anti-polio drops of being US spies.

"In the garb of these vaccination campaigns, the US and its allies are running their spying networks in Fata which has brought death and destruction on them in the form of drone strikes," the leaflet said.

It also questioned the sincerity of international efforts to tackle the highly infectious disease.

"On the one hand, they are killing innocent children in drone strikes, while on the other hand they are saving their lives by vaccinating them," the printed note said.

The ban is yet another setback for the polio eradication campaign in Pakistan, which is one of just three countries in the world where children are still struck down by the disease.

It is the third time a Taliban leader has banned polio vaccinations in areas they control.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/26/taliban-bans-polio-vaccinations