Reply With QuoteCurbed is on the case ...
PriceSpotter: Pakistan Edition
Here are those Abbottabad comps you know you were looking for, and a currency converter.
C'mon, was the place really worth $1 million? [Zameen]
Curbed is on the case ...
PriceSpotter: Pakistan Edition
Here are those Abbottabad comps you know you were looking for, and a currency converter.
C'mon, was the place really worth $1 million? [Zameen]
It isn't a luxury residence. Bin Laden was living as a poor in a farm. These images remember me to Saddam Hussein when he was arrested in Iraq. Can someone lead the greater terrorist group in the world from that miserable HQ?
Please. Saddam was living like a rat underground. While Osama's house wouldn't make it into Architectural Digest, it was quite the compound on some good acreage and in a nice upscale suburban area (at least by Pakistani standards).
Camp Media is back.
Originally Posted by ZippyTheChimp
Camp Media is back.
AMazing shots though of the reconstruction, remember not many people keep up with the work, so it is probably their first introduction to the new World Trade Center.
Also, THIS guy, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is in custody and is awaiting trial.
He wasn't exactly living in a deluxe apartment in the sky either! Hah!! Note the transformation from what he looked like when under the al Quaeda network (in bottom photo) to the time when he was captured. He went from ice cream to cow crap!! Hah!!
These guys seem to live high on the hog when they are with their operatives and plotting attacks, but when they are in hiding and are caught, they look like drunken filthy dirty bums living in the streets!!
Incidentally, it was HIM who had first thought about the plot to carry out the 09-11 terror attacks. He went to Binladen with the idea and Binladen liked it and put the plan into action.
Last edited by Daquan13; May 2nd, 2011 at 11:34 PM.
Although I am glad that Osama is dead, because he caused so much pain for so many, I was a bit disgusted by the politicians already spinning it to their advantage. Sorry to say, I have to include Obama in this. I liked his speach overall, but why all the references to "I" did this, and "I" did that? It sounded like a campaign speach. I think he deserves credit for making the right decisions and getting Bin Laden, but I was a bit put off on the focus on himself, instead of the whole team that made this happen. I was also put off by some of the politicians that came on TV, trying to spin it one way or another.
Oh, and before I get jumped on, I am not a Bush supporter or an Obama hater. I like Obama personally, and think he is doing his best to do what is right was President. I was just put off a bit by all of the references to what "I" did to get Bin Laden. I have already talked to friends of mine who did not have this problem, so I know not everyone had this reaction.
Anyway, although it only brings grim satisfaction, I am glad Osama is gone. We need less evil in the world.
^ What the hell are you talking about?
Binladen had put his own spin on things. I'll NEVER forget those annoying terror-threat messages that used to come on the news! They would say something like;
"Another message has come from Osama Binladen and the al Quaeda network, saying that there will be another attack on America."
I'd get pissed off to no end of constantly hearing this about every 2 weeks, asking why is the media so damn quick to broadcast on the news that Binladen wants to launch another attack, but they can't seem to find him and bring him to justice!!
Will the new Osama live in the same house in your country?
Maybe you're right, but the Spanish have a long experience in matters of terrorism, more than Americans. Unfortunately we suffered the scourge of the terrorist group ETA for more than 40 years. All terrorist groups are quite similar (Al-Qaeda, ETA, IRA, HAMAS ...). It is strange to see the poverty in which Bin Laden was living at Pakistan. Spanish and French police have arrested several times to the leaders of the terrorist group ETA and theirs vehicles, housing, weapons, munitions, computers, money ... were considerably higher.
Was it necessary navy seal units to arrest Bin Laden in Pakistan ? Must be a bad joke, because this work could be made in Spain by local police: Bin Laden's HQ is a waste !... I don't understand what's happened in USA about this issue, but a lot of people around the world is thinking that this story (Bin Laden's death) is a great lie, similar to a Hollywood movie or when americans arrive to the Moon,... you know hahaha
We all wanna see the pics, images, videos and all material about Bin Laden's arrest, because there a lot of people thinking about it and they all say the same: it's a new lie of americans. That's the question.
But not with terrorists that are staying in a country armed with nuclear weapons, whose intentions are unclear.
Similar in what way?All terrorist groups are quite similar (Al-Qaeda, ETA, IRA, HAMAS ...).
The US was funding $1 billion per year to Pakistan to combat terrorism. Assuming there was complicity by the Pakistani government in harboring Bin Laden, do you think it would have been wise to provide him with a luxury estate?It is strange to see the poverty in which Bin Laden was living at Pakistan.
Arrest? What are you talking about? The raid was conducted without the knowledge of Pakistani security. There was no way they were going to risk an international situation over who had jurisdiction over a captured Bin Laden.Was it necessary navy seal units to arrest Bin Laden in Pakistan ? Bin Laden's HQ is a waste
It was done exactly as it should be done. Killed and sent to sleep with the fish.
Local police? Bin Laden was in a foreign country. The ETA is where?Must be a bad joke, because this work could be made in Spain by local police:
To what purpose?I don't understand what's happened in USA about this issue, but a lot of people around the world is thinking that this story (Bin Laden's death) is a great lie,
You can be in charge of the list. I think Bin Laden should have no trouble getting on, but he'll have trouble bumping Elvis.
Last edited by ZippyTheChimp; May 3rd, 2011 at 01:07 PM.
These guys really are a breed apart. A guy I worked with a long time ago had a friend who was a NS. He was given a mission to assassinate some high-ranking Chinese military bigwig. He's going through some jungle/wilderness area through a river, & he hears people coming. No where else to go, he sinks down under the surface of the water. The people were a Chinese military unit who would have killed him on the spot.
They decided to set up camp. This guy's only way out was to either give up, or stay where he was, which is exactly what he did for the next 2 days, under water. He was able to breathe through a bamboo chute. All the while, the enemy were washing there clothes & urinating only a few feet away, never knowing he was there. After 2 days, they picked up & left, & this NS carried out his mission.
Their commitment level & focus is just incredible.
Inside the SEAL team that 'doesn't exist'
'Quiet professionals' make up the fabled SEAL Team Six that reportedly killed bin Laden
NBC, msnbc.com and news services
updated 1 hour 28 minutes ago 2011-05-03T15:51:37
WASHINGTON — The raid that killed Osama bin Laden will earn permanent bragging rights for the the elite Navy SEAL team that carried it out.
The SEALs won't confirm they carried out the attack, but their current chief, Rear Adm. Edward Winters of the Naval Special Warfare Command in California, sent an email congratulating his forces and cautioning them to keep their mouths shut.
"Today we should all be proud. That handful of courageous men, of strong will and character, have changed the course of history," he wrote, adding, "Be extremely careful about operational security ... The fight is not over."
It was a warning few needed in the secretive group, where operators are uncomfortable with media coverage, fearing revealing details could let the enemy know what to expect the next time.
Even their families are kept in the dark about many of the details of their operations. "There's a lot of times too when they say, well I can't talk about that. And we don't know half the stuff... But what they can share they do when they get home," the wife of a SEAL told NBC News. The network revealed only her first name, Casey.
Eric Greitens, a former SEAL and author of "The Heart and the Fist," told NBC News that the unit that carried out the raid on bin Laden's compound was "the elite of the elite."
"The word is that when they heard that bin Laden was their target, there was a huge cheer that went up," Greitens said on NBC's TODAY. "These guys were excited for the mission, they had been practicing for months."
"They will be honored and revered," Greitens said of the group that carried out the mission. As for the man who fired the shot that killed him: "He's a hero in my mind, and I think for all Americans."
The SEAL team that raided bin Laden's compound reportedly came from a unit based in Dam Neck, Virginia, called the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or "DEVGRU." They call themselves the "the quiet professionals."
Video: Practice makes perfect mission, former SEALs say (on this page)
SEAL Team Six raided targets outside war zones like Yemen and Somalia in the past three years, though the bulk of the unit's current missions are in Afghanistan.
The unit is overseen by the Joint Special Operations Command, which oversees the Army's Delta Force and other special units. JSOC's combined forces have been responsible for a quadrupling of counterterrorism raids that have targeted militants in record numbers over the past year in Afghanistan. Some 4,500 elite special operations forces and support units have been part of the surge of U.S. forces there.
CIA Director Leon Panetta was in charge of the military team during the covert operation, a U.S. official said. While the president can empower the SEALs and other counterterrorism units to carry out covert actions without CIA oversight, President Barack Obama's team put the intelligence agency in charge, with other elements of the national security apparatus answering to them for this mission.
Team Six 'doesn't exist'
SEAL Team Six actually works so often with the intelligence agency that it's sometimes called the CIA's Praetorian Guard — a partnership that started in Iraq as an outgrowth of the fusion of special operations forces and intelligence in the hunt for militants there.
SEALs and Delta Force both, commanded by then-JSOC chief Gen. Stanley McChrystal, learned to work much like FBI agents, first attacking a target, killing or capturing the suspects, and then gathering evidence at the scene.
McChrystal described it as building a network to chase a network, where the special operations forces work with intelligence analysts back at a joint operations center. The raiders, he said, could collect valuable "pocket litter" from the scene, like documents or computers, to exploit to hunt the next target.
The battlegrounds of Iraq and Afghanistan had been informally divided, with the SEALs running Afghanistan and Delta Force conducting the bulk of the operations in Iraq, though there was overlap of each organization. There is considerable professional rivalry between them.
Delta Force units caught Saddam Hussein late in 2003 and killed his sons Uday and Qusay in a shootout in Mosul earlier that year. Delta Force later tracked down al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, pinpointing the building where he sheltered for the aerial bombing that ended his life.
Video: New details on mission to kill bin Laden (on this page)
The race to be the unit that captured bin Laden had been on ever since.
"Officially, Team Six doesn't exist," says former Navy SEAL Craig Sawyer, 47, who advises Hollywood and acts in movies about the military.
After undergoing a six-month process in which commanders scrutinized his every move, Sawyer says he was selected in the 1990s to join the team.
"It was like being recruited to an all-star team," he said, with members often gone 300 days a year, only lasting about three years on the team before burning out.
"They train around the clock," he said. "They know that failure will not be an option. Either they succeed or they don't come home."
Other special operations units joke that "SEAL" stands for "Sleep, eat, lift," though the term actually stands for Sea, Air, Land.
"The SEALs will be the first to remind everyone that the 'L' in SEAL stands for land," says retired Army Gen. Doug Brown, former commander of U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Florida. "They have skills on the land equal to their skills at sea."
Brown, who led the command from 2003-07, said the operation against bin Laden is the most significant mission conducted by U.S. commando forces since the organization was formed in 1987 in the wake of the failed attempt in 1980 to rescue the American hostages in Iran.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42877036...h_of_bin_laden
This seems to be the current meme, that it was all about Obama. But it's a bunch of bunk ...
If you look at the transcript of Obama's speech you'll see he used "I' about 10 times in the course of the nearly 10-minute speech. Many referred to what Obama personally did, leading up to and after getting OBL:
"... I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda"
Only the President can give such a direction.
"Tonight, I called President Zardari, and my team has also spoken with their Pakistani counterparts."
Note how he immediately credits his "team' for their actions.
This excerpt contains the most concentrated use of "I" (he said it 3 times here). But he's describing the actions he took as Commander in Chief. That's a one-person gig ...
... last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice.
On the other hand, Obama used the word "we" about 75 times in the speech. One excerpt:
On September 11, 2001, in our time of grief, the American people came together. We offered our neighbors a hand, and we offered the wounded our blood. We reaffirmed our ties to each other, and our love of community and country. On that day, no matter where we came from, what God we prayed to, or what race or ethnicity we were, we were united as one American family.
We were also united in our resolve to protect our nation and to bring those who committed this vicious attack to justice. We quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda -- an organization headed by Osama bin Laden, which had openly declared war on the United States and was committed to killing innocents in our country and around the globe. And so we went to war against al Qaeda to protect our citizens, our friends, and our allies.
Over the last 10 years, thanks to the tireless and heroic work of our military and our counterterrorism professionals, we’ve made great strides in that effort. We’ve disrupted terrorist attacks and strengthened our homeland defense. In Afghanistan, we removed the Taliban government, which had given bin Laden and al Qaeda safe haven and support. And around the globe, we worked with our friends and allies to capture or kill scores of al Qaeda terrorists, including several who were a part of the 9/11 plot.
And the President used the word "our" about 50 times in the speech, most notably in the final moments:
Finally, let me say to the families who lost loved ones on 9/11 that we have never forgotten your loss, nor wavered in our commitment to see that we do whatever it takes to prevent another attack on our shores.
And tonight, let us think back to the sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11. I know that it has, at times, frayed. Yet today’s achievement is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people.
The cause of securing our country is not complete. But tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to. That is the story of our history, whether it’s the pursuit of prosperity for our people, or the struggle for equality for all our citizens; our commitment to stand up for our values abroad, and our sacrifices to make the world a safer place.
Let us remember that we can do these things not just because of wealth or power, but because of who we are: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Thank you. May God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.
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