OSAMA BIN LADEN ANNOUNCED DEAD BY OBAMA (renamed thread)

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Re: OSAMA BIN LADEN ANNOUNCED DEAD BY OBAMA (renamed thread)

Postby Belligerent Savant » Sat May 07, 2011 1:11 pm

.

Not sure if this was already referenced; may need its own thread. A pro athlete dares to question the status quo with regards to OBL's reported killing, and is subsequently tarred and feathered, and now lost a sponsor. The cliched references to Orwell/1984 are over-used, but apt regardless.

Some pro-baller makes a comment that could have easily been ignored, but instead a firestorm is made of it [on EDIT, given Mendenhall's comments, it's inevitable that it would receive such PUBLIC denouncement -- can't have such thoughts be left out there to be read and potentially -- gasp -- absorbed in any way].
Seems to me they are VERY concerned with any comments that go against the grain/status quo.

I would theorize we're 1 more major incident away from people simply 'vanishing' after tweeting a comment that may be viewed as contrary to the State's official declarations. Down the Memory Hole.

http://sports.espn.go.com/new-york/nfl/ ... id=6493301

Just days after sending out controversial comments via Twitter about the death of Osama bin Laden and the events of 9/11, Mendenhall was dropped from his endorsement contract with Champion. USA Today first reported the news.


Champion sent the following statement to ESPN.com Friday:

"Champion is a strong supporter of the government's efforts to fight terrorism and is very appreciative of the dedication and commitment of the U.S. Armed Forces. Earlier this week, Rashard Mendenhall, who endorses Champion products, expressed personal comments and opinions regarding Osama bin Laden and the September 11 terrorist attacks that were inconsistent with the values of the Champion brand and with which we strongly disagreed. In light of these comments, Champion was obliged to conduct a business assessment to determine whether Mr. Mendenhall could continue to effectively communicate on behalf of and represent Champion with consumers.

Mendenhall caused a media firestorm this week with his comments, which forced the Steelers to release a statement on Tuesday.

On Monday, in reference to public reaction to the death of bin Laden, Mendenhall tweeted, "What kind of person celebrates death? It's amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We've only heard one side..."
He also tweeted, in reference to the 9/11 terror attacks: "We'll never know what really happened. I just have a hard time believing a plane could take a skyscraper down demolition style."

Mendenhall wrote a clarification and apology Wednesday.


He agreed to a four-year extension with Champion on Sunday, but the company pulled the plug just a few days later. Mendenhall has endorsed Champion products since becoming a first-round draft pick of the Steelers in 2008.


Mendenhall led Pittsburgh in rushing the past two seasons. Last year he rushed for a career-high 1,273 yards and 13 touchdowns for the reigning AFC champions.

--------------------

Steelers President, Art Rooney II, had this to say [unsurprisingly]:

"I have not spoken with Rashard so it is hard to explain or even comprehend what he meant with his recent Twitter comments," Rooney said. "The entire Steelers organization is very proud of the job our military personnel have done and we can only hope this leads to our troops coming home soon."
http://espn.go.com/blog/afcnorth/post/_ ... mendenhall
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Re: OSAMA BIN LADEN ANNOUNCED DEAD BY OBAMA (renamed thread)

Postby JackRiddler » Sat May 07, 2011 1:26 pm

Post-modern McCarthyism. A bunch of DUers even wanted him traded/fired/feathered.
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Re: OSAMA BIN LADEN ANNOUNCED DEAD BY OBAMA (renamed thread)

Postby 82_28 » Sat May 07, 2011 1:32 pm

Belligerent Savant wrote:.

Not sure if this was already referenced; may need its own thread. A pro athlete dares to question the status quo with regards to OBL's reported killing, and is subsequently tarred and feathered, and now lost a sponsor. The cliched references to Orwell/1984 are over-used, but apt regardless.

Some pro-baller makes a comment that could have easily been ignored, but instead a firestorm is made of it [on EDIT, given Mendenhall's comments, it's inevitable that it would receive such PUBLIC denouncement -- can't have such thoughts be left out there to be read and potentially -- gasp -- absorbed in any way].
Seems to me they are VERY concerned with any comments that go against the grain/status quo.

I would theorize we're 1 more major incident away from people simply 'vanishing' after tweeting a comment that may be viewed as contrary to the State's official declarations. Down the Memory Hole.

http://sports.espn.go.com/new-york/nfl/ ... id=6493301

Just days after sending out controversial comments via Twitter about the death of Osama bin Laden and the events of 9/11, Mendenhall was dropped from his endorsement contract with Champion. USA Today first reported the news.


Champion sent the following statement to ESPN.com Friday:

"Champion is a strong supporter of the government's efforts to fight terrorism and is very appreciative of the dedication and commitment of the U.S. Armed Forces. Earlier this week, Rashard Mendenhall, who endorses Champion products, expressed personal comments and opinions regarding Osama bin Laden and the September 11 terrorist attacks that were inconsistent with the values of the Champion brand and with which we strongly disagreed. In light of these comments, Champion was obliged to conduct a business assessment to determine whether Mr. Mendenhall could continue to effectively communicate on behalf of and represent Champion with consumers.

Mendenhall caused a media firestorm this week with his comments, which forced the Steelers to release a statement on Tuesday.

On Monday, in reference to public reaction to the death of bin Laden, Mendenhall tweeted, "What kind of person celebrates death? It's amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We've only heard one side..."
He also tweeted, in reference to the 9/11 terror attacks: "We'll never know what really happened. I just have a hard time believing a plane could take a skyscraper down demolition style."

Mendenhall wrote a clarification and apology Wednesday.


He agreed to a four-year extension with Champion on Sunday, but the company pulled the plug just a few days later. Mendenhall has endorsed Champion products since becoming a first-round draft pick of the Steelers in 2008.


Mendenhall led Pittsburgh in rushing the past two seasons. Last year he rushed for a career-high 1,273 yards and 13 touchdowns for the reigning AFC champions.

--------------------

Steelers President, Art Rooney II, had this to say [unsurprisingly]:

"I have not spoken with Rashard so it is hard to explain or even comprehend what he meant with his recent Twitter comments," Rooney said. "The entire Steelers organization is very proud of the job our military personnel have done and we can only hope this leads to our troops coming home soon."
http://espn.go.com/blog/afcnorth/post/_ ... mendenhall


Yeah. I meant to bring this up a couple of days ago but forgot. ESPN was all over it with their segue into the fact that NFL kicks off it's season on September 11th this year.
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Re: OSAMA BIN LADEN ANNOUNCED DEAD BY OBAMA (renamed thread)

Postby Nordic » Sat May 07, 2011 1:34 pm

Those of us who can sort, digest, synthesize, and apply relevant knowledge soar--professionally, financially, politically, militarily, and socially. We, the winners, are a minority.


Really? Then where's my car on the Big Gravy Train?
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Re: OSAMA BIN LADEN ANNOUNCED DEAD BY OBAMA (renamed thread)

Postby Nordic » Sat May 07, 2011 1:38 pm

http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2011/05 ... ews-event/

Paul Craig Roberts, being sharp as usual:

The Agendas Behind the bin Laden News Event


The US government’s bin Laden story was so poorly crafted that it did not last 48 hours before being fundamentally altered. Indeed, the new story put out on Tuesday by White House press secretary Jay Carney bears little resemblance to the original Sunday evening story. The fierce firefight did not occur. Osama bin Laden did not hide behind a woman. Indeed, bin Laden, Carney said, “was not armed.”

The firefight story was instantly suspicious as not a single SEAL got a scratch, despite being up against al Qaeda, described by former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld as “the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth.”

Every original story detail has been changed. It wasn’t bin Laden’s wife who was murdered by the Navy SEALs , but the wife of an aide. It wasn’t bin Laden’s son, Khalid, who was murdered by the Navy SEALs, but son Hamza.

Carney blamed the changed story on “the fog of war.” But there was no firefight, so where did the “fog of war” come from?

The White House has also had to abandon the story that President Obama and his national security team watched tensely as events unfolded in real time (despite the White House having released photos of the team watching tensely), with the operation conveyed into the White House by cameras on the SEALs helmets. If Obama was watching the event as it happened, he would have noticed, one would hope, that there was no firefight and, thus, would not have told the public that bin Laden was killed in a firefight. Another reason the story had to be abandoned is that if the event was captured on video, every news service in the world would be asking for the video, but if the event was orchestrated theater, there would be no video.

No explanation has been provided for why an unarmed bin Laden, in the absence of a firefight, was murdered by the SEALs with a shot to the head. For those who believe the government’s story that “we got bin Laden,” the operation can only appear as the most botched operation in history. What kind of incompetence does it require to senselessly and needlessly kill the most valuable intelligence asset on the planet?

According to the US government, the terrorist movements of the world operated through bin Laden, “the mastermind.” Thanks to a trigger-happy stupid SEAL, a bullet destroyed the most valuable terrorist information on the planet. Perhaps the SEAL was thinking that he could put a notch on his gun and brag for the rest of his life about being the macho tough guy who killed Osama bin Laden, the most dangerous man on the planet, who outwitted the US and its European and Israeli allies and inflicted humiliation on the “world’s only superpower” on 9/11.

When such a foundational story as the demise of bin Laden cannot last 48 hours without acknowledged “discrepancies” that require fundamental alternations to the story, there are grounds for suspicion in addition to the suspicions arising from the absence of a dead body, from the absence of any evidence that bin Laden was killed in the raid or that a raid even took place. The entire episode could just be another event like the August 4, 1964, Gulf of Tonkin event that never happened but succeeded in launching open warfare against North Vietnam at a huge cost to Americans and Vietnamese and enormous profits to the military/security complex.

There is no doubt that the US is sufficiently incompetent to have needlessly killed bin Laden instead of capturing him. But who can believe that the US would quickly dispose of the evidence that bin Laden had been terminated? The government’s story is not believable that the government dumped the proof of its success into the ocean, but has some photos that might be released, someday.

As one reader put it in an email to me: “What is really alarming is the increasingly arrogant sloppiness of these lies, as though the government has become so profoundly confident of their ability to deceive people that they make virtually no effort to even appear credible.”

Governments have known from the beginning of time that they can always deceive citizens and subjects by playing the patriot card. “Remember the Maine,” the “Gulf of Tonkin,” “weapons of mass destruction,” “the Reichstag fire”–the staged events and bogus evidence are endless. If Americans knew any history, they would not be so gullible.

The real question before us is: What agenda or agendas is the “death of bin Laden” designed to further?

There are many answers to this question. Many have noticed that Obama was facing re-election with poor approval ratings. Is anyone surprised that the New York Times/CBS Poll finds a strong rise in Obama’s poll numbers after the bin Laden raid? As the New York Times reported, “the glow of national pride” rose “above partisan politics, as support for the president rose significantly among both Republicans and independents. In all, 57 percent said they now approved of the president’s job performance, up from 46 percent.”

In Washington-think, an 11% rise in approval rating justifies a staged event.


(and then, what I've been thinking, and hoping, and articulating here:)

Another possibility is that Obama realized that the the budget deficit and the dollar’s rescue from collapse require the end of the expensive Afghan war and occupation and spillover war into Pakistan. As the purpose of the war was to get bin Laden, success in this objective allows the US to withdraw without loss of face, thus making it possible to reduce the US budget deficit by several hundred billion dollars annually–an easy way to have a major spending cut.

If this is the agenda, then more power to it.
However, if this was Obama’s agenda, the military/security complex has quickly moved against it. CIA director Leon Panetta opened the door to false flag attacks to keep the war going by declaring that al Qaeda would avenge bin Laden’s killing. Secretary of State Clinton declared that success in killing bin Laden justified more war and more success. Homeland Security declared that the killing of bin Laden would motivate “homegrown violent extremists” into making terrorist attacks. “Homegrown violent extremists” is an undefined term, but this newly created bogyman seems to include environmentalists and war protesters. Like “suspect,” the term will include anyone the government wants to pick up.

Various parts of the government quickly seized on the success in killing bin Laden to defend and advance their own agendas, such as torture. Americans were told that bin Laden was found as a result of information gleaned from torturing detainees held in Eastern European CIA secret prisons years ago.

This listing of possible agendas and add-on agendas is far from complete, but for those capable of skepticism and independent thought, it can serve as a starting point. The agendas behind the theater will reveal themselves as time goes on. All you have to do is to pay attention and to realize that most of what you hear from the mainstream media is designed to advance the agendas.
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Re: OSAMA BIN LADEN ANNOUNCED DEAD BY OBAMA (renamed thread)

Postby 82_28 » Sat May 07, 2011 1:41 pm

Home videos show Osama bin Laden watching himself on TV

WASHINGTON — Newly released videos show Osama bin Laden watching himself on television and rehearsing for terrorist videos, revealing that even from the walled confines of his Pakistani hideout, he remained a media maestro who was eager to craft his own image for the cameras.

The videos, released by U.S. intelligence officials Saturday, were offered as further proof that Navy SEALs killed the world's most wanted terrorist this week. But they also served to show bin Laden as vain, someone obsessed with his portrayal by the world's media.

One of the movies shows bin Laden, his unkempt beard streaked in gray, sitting on the floor, wrapped in a brown blanket and holding a remote control. He flipped back and forth between what appears to be live news coverage of himself. The old, small television was perched on top of a desk with a large tangle of electrical wires running to a nearby control box.

In another, he has apparently dyed and neatly trimmed his beard for the filming of a propaganda video. The video, which the U.S. released without sound, was titled "Message to the American People" and was believed to be filed sometime last fall, a senior intelligence official said during a briefing for reporters, on condition that his name not be used.

The videos were seized from bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Officials said the clips shown to reporters were just part of the largest collection of senior terrorist materials ever collected. The evidence seized during the raid also includes phone numbers and documents that officials hope will help break the back of the organization behind the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Intelligence officials have known that bin Laden and al-Qaida monitored the news. But for years, when it was assumed that he was living in Pakistan's rugged, mountainous tribal region, some believed he might not be able to get real-time news.

After the CIA discovered bin Laden's suburban compound, they realized that a satellite dish provided a television feed to bin Laden's compound. The video also reveals that bin Laden had a computer in his home, though officials say there were no Internet or phone lines running from the house.

Bin Laden and four others were killed in a daring pre-dawn raid Monday after U.S. helicopters lowered a team of SEALs behind the compound's high walls. The terrorist leader's death leaves al-Qaida with an uncertain future and represents America's most successful counterterrorism mission.


http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_18016227

What is "real time news" to an Osama bin Laden? The news he makes? Jesus. :ohno:
There is no me. There is no you. There is all. There is no you. There is no me. And that is all. A profound acceptance of an enormous pageantry. A haunting certainty that the unifying principle of this universe is love. -- Propagandhi
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Re: OSAMA BIN LADEN ANNOUNCED DEAD BY OBAMA (renamed thread)

Postby Nordic » Sat May 07, 2011 1:45 pm

My weather prediction: An El Nino of propaganda, almost daily, resulting in record levels of knee-deep propaganda inundating us until some other major event occurs, thus distracting us.

IN other words, get used to it.

They have an entire 11 years of pointless war and trillions of dollars handed out to "contractors" to justify.

Oh, and those drone strikes which continue, and continue, and continue .....

Damn "militants!" They're like ants!
"He who wounds the ecosphere literally wounds God" -- Philip K. Dick
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Re: OSAMA BIN LADEN ANNOUNCED DEAD BY OBAMA (renamed thread)

Postby gnosticheresy_2 » Sat May 07, 2011 2:23 pm

kelley wrote:sort of a long piece but very descriptive in an abstract ontological way:

<lots of cool Mark Fisher stuff>


His book, Capitalist Realism is excellent and highly recommended. He also blogs at http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/

And lol, never in a month of sundays did I think I'd see "hauntology" mentioned on RI :bigsmile
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Re: OSAMA BIN LADEN ANNOUNCED DEAD BY OBAMA (renamed thread)

Postby thatsmystory » Sat May 07, 2011 2:40 pm

News without context because the context isn't up for review.

There is no deep state. There is no such thing as corruption.
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Re: OSAMA BIN LADEN ANNOUNCED DEAD BY OBAMA (renamed thread)

Postby JackRiddler » Sat May 07, 2011 2:48 pm

thatsmystory wrote:News without context because the context isn't up for review.

There is no deep state. There is no such thing as corruption.


Of course there is. In Pakistan. Visitations of it are known to happen in other countries, in fact a little bit in every country but one.
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Re: OSAMA BIN LADEN ANNOUNCED DEAD BY OBAMA (renamed thread)

Postby Nordic » Sat May 07, 2011 2:59 pm

Image
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Re: OSAMA BIN LADEN ANNOUNCED DEAD BY OBAMA (renamed thread)

Postby 8bitagent » Sat May 07, 2011 5:58 pm

To Ianeye: I fully concede your point, and am disappointment I dipped from such an ugly well, even in trying to explain disappointment and frustration. I feel there are probably those who want everyone to descend into grunting servile racist comments toward the President rather than rational debates of merit. To reduce Obama to some minstrel caricature. In reflecting upon my poor choice of anger/disappointment induced wording, I can pretty much see why so many supporters abandoned Nader in the wake of his november 2008 comments. The fact Native Americans resisted genocide and death as much as some did, yet still on Fox and other establishment memes are portrayed as terrorists shows we have a long way to go. The bin Laden/Geronimo flap reveals this.

I do sometimes wonder, and this is pure unsubstantiated conspiracy theory right here, but I do wonder if Bush's cabinet was more diverse than any previous administration in part because they then could get away with any devious constitution shredding action and hide behind diversity.

JackRiddler wrote:Post-modern McCarthyism. A bunch of DUers even wanted him traded/fired/feathered.


There has been an interesting lineage of football players and 9/11 truth. One famous NFL pro baller said he witnessed something odd with Flight 93 as his flight was about to take off. That he saw passengers loaded from the tarmac and that he noticed some passengers demand to get off the plane. Pat Tillman before he was killed was said to be angry and writing protest letters. NFL football players who fully have come out in strong support of the 9/11 truth movement are Mark Stepnoski and Bill "Earthquake" Enyart. Finally, major news and sports writers wrote about that hot new rookie in college sports a few years back whom they suspect the NFL wouldn't draft because his dad appeared connected to 9/11, WTC 1993 and OKC.

But I remember many teachers and substitutes were fired for expressing(even privately) 9/11 truth views. And remember that French actress they wanted to take the oscar from since she questioned 9/11.
I myself have lost/angered so called leftist friends over the years for my views on 9/11 and other positions...it's almost like a Ward Churchill view on 9/11 is more acceptable!
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Re: OSAMA BIN LADEN ANNOUNCED DEAD BY OBAMA (renamed thread)

Postby JackRiddler » Sat May 07, 2011 9:03 pm

.

Editors and writers will understand the appearance of the following, as a headline from CBS at the top of Google News, as a new milestone in the breakdown, due to economics, electronics and education, of the multi-stage editing system that once produced flawless copy in the major organs of the mainstream media, at least as far as spelling and grammar went:

A vane Osama bin Laden shown in new videos
CBS News - Bob Orr - ‎1 hour ago‎
Osama bin Laden, in a video recovered from his compound and released by the Pentagon. (CBS) One of the most revealing videos of Osama bin Laden released by the Pentagon today presents a startling image: A haggard-looking Osama bin Laden ...


I now spot typos and often egregious copy errors in the Posts and Times-es pretty much every time I look.

To those of us who grew up reading complete novels in English prior to Internet and cell phones, these are the end times!

.
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Re: OSAMA BIN LADEN ANNOUNCED DEAD BY OBAMA (renamed thread)

Postby DoYouEverWonder » Sat May 07, 2011 10:31 pm

Video at link - Of course, they've obscured the faces and admit none of the dead look like Osama.


-----------------

Pakistan leaks Bin Laden death scene photos

http://english.aljazeera.net/video/asia/2011/05/201155161514334290.html

The White House has said it did not tell Pakistan of the operation targeting Osama bin Laden as it did not want him to be tipped off.

Since then, the release of photos from the scene - apparently sold by a Pakistani security officer to the Reuters news agency - has added further embarrasment to the government there.

Al Jazeera's Imtiaz Tayib reports from Abbottabad where Osama bin Laden was killed.
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Re: OSAMA BIN LADEN ANNOUNCED DEAD BY OBAMA (renamed thread)

Postby Belligerent Savant » Sat May 07, 2011 10:53 pm

.
JackRiddler wrote:.

Editors and writers will understand the appearance of the following, as a headline from CBS at the top of Google News, as a new milestone in the breakdown, due to economics, electronics and education, of the multi-stage editing system that once produced flawless copy in the major organs of the mainstream media, at least as far as spelling and grammar went:

A vane Osama bin Laden shown in new videos
CBS News - Bob Orr - ‎1 hour ago‎
Osama bin Laden, in a video recovered from his compound and released by the Pentagon. (CBS) One of the most revealing videos of Osama bin Laden released by the Pentagon today presents a startling image: A haggard-looking Osama bin Laden ...


I now spot typos and often egregious copy errors in the Posts and Times-es pretty much every time I look.



Ha -- just noticed the same exact typo and was trying to click the link to the article, but it asked to install language packs for some reason, and the page subsequently did not load for me. When i went to the cbsnews.com front page however, i noticed they corrected the typo to say "vain".

Regardless, I am in line with your sentiments Re: the increasingly egregious editing jobs. Rising illiteracy is one cause, and by that I mean an increasing amount of adults that simply don't READ nearly enough, creating a general ignorance in 'the art' of sentence structure, grammar, and spelling nuances. It's becoming rampant among the current [and particularly younger] generations, who are more likely to properly type cell texts in shorthand, but stumble on relatively routine written statements.

Brings to mind a very fitting quote by H.L. Mencken, who wrote that the aim of public education is not “to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. … Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim … is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States.” [The American Mercury, April 1924]

At any rate, back to OBL...
Last edited by Belligerent Savant on Sun May 08, 2011 9:54 am, edited 4 times in total.
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