If...

...the bin Laden porn stash story is true (and that's impossible to say since dead men tell no tales) then it would explain a lot about radical Islam. The entire structure of AQ and jihad seems to be built around sexual frustration.

Think about it-- the Taliban cuts off the head of a woman because she was unfaithful; Iran stones homosexuals and harasses women if they show any hair; Atta and some of the other 9/11 hijackers went to strip clubs, as did Major Hasan, as did Yousef and KSM back in the day; suicide bombers are almost always lonesome losers and are enticed to blow stuff up with the promise of 72 virgins; Most of Arabia places women in a box so tight that in Saudi they can't even drive. Men aren't even supposed to shake hands with women. And the concept of Muta--temporary marriages so men can essentially engage in one-night stands and keep in good standing with Allah, is still practiced even if the book doesn't really condone it.

The struggle between man, woman and lust goes back to the garden and Eve. Radical Islam's way of dealing with it is to just keep the chicks down, but UBL's long struggle has produced very little aside from senseless deaths over the past 20 years. He died a little worm of a middle aged troll, planning horrible things for innocent people when not flipping channels watching his own tapes and perhaps some porn while living with three wives. So if the great struggle is defined by his way versus creations like Lady Gaga or NOW, the west still wins by a nose.

Crest

Just a few snapshots from the Memphis riverfront at crest..
Looking south over Tom Lee park, which is partially under water.


Looking north towards Mud Island..

This is along interstate 40 several miles west of Memphis..

The long thin line in the background is a railroad trestle. It's up to it's limit..

In West Memphis warning of workers ahead.. apparently frogmen.

The power of nature is truly awesome, as was the authorities' ability to predict the crest. Now the slow fall begins here and the concern moves downstream.

By the way, the mayor wants everyone to know that most of Memphis is open for business. The founders of this city weren't dummies, they built most of the city along a bluff that's well higher than river level. The only areas flooding are directly beside the river and along some of the tributaries, but the flooding doesn't extend very fall inland in this area. Of course that's no consolation for anyone who has lost their home. What's amazing is that in 1937, the last time the water was this high, 500 people died.

It's the Economy, Stupid

Or so we were once told...


More economy talk here, now with hypocrisy!

And a few more on UBL

Some on the Bilderberger circuit are making a deal out of the fact that bin Laden actually looked older around 2001 than he did in his 2007 video (the US Govt outtakes were apparently dated to that video).

Obviously he died--the beard, and trimmed it for the 2007 video. It was back to gray for the channel flipping video. These home movies were designed to leave the impression that he was one vain sucker but of course that's why we want everyone to think. But maybe there's more.

For instance, with binny now swimming with the fishes there's lot of speculation on whether Ayman Zawahiri will take the helm of AQ. But any story of that nature also comes with a caveat--everyone in AQ seems to hate Zawahiri. Now, it's doubtful that everyone hates him, more likely he's just not as charismatic as was UBL so by comparison he comes off as a stiff. He's also several years older. That may be the bigger problem.

The "Arab Spring" revolutionary movement is being driven by the younger folks, the "Facebook" crowd. They didn't even want elBaradei leading them. Even before that the Bush-spurred Cedar Revolution was dominated by youngsters--remember the "protest babes". Yet Zawahiri is the very personification of old fart.

This might explain why UBL trimmed the beard and died it and in recent years had been talking about things like global warming and sub-prime mortgages. It was a sign of desperation--he was losing the youth vote so he had somebody get him some Just for Men.

__________________

The administration wasn't the only Democrats to hit the Sunday shows for some end-zone dancing. Here's John Friggin Kerry:

“Even in the getting of Osama bin Laden, the Pakistanis were helpful,” Kerry said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “We have people on the ground in Pakistan because they allow us to have them. We actually worked with them on certain parts of the intelligence that helped to lead to him.”

Yeah, that's what Hillary said--Pakistan cooperated. If they did it means they knew he was there, yet they never tipped him off, right? Perhaps they didn't because they knew the CIA was watching them? Yet we didn't inform them of the raid in advance because we were afraid they would tip him off. Hmm. It's so great they are on our side in this war.

___________________

Speaking of Pakistan, if the hissy fit they are throwing is just an act to cover the cooperation claimed by Kerry and Hillary then perhaps a Bollywood award nomination is in order:

Amid bitter, recriminatory exchanges between the United States and Pakistan over the Osama bin Laden extermination, planned bilateral visits of President Asif Ali Zardari to Washington DC and a return trip of President Barack Obama to Islamabad are both in jeopardy. Ties between the two sides are expected to slide further following Pakistan's "outing" of the CIA station chief in Islamabad on Saturday.

In a sign of how bad ties are between the two countries, Pakistani media on Saturday once again publicly named the CIA station chief in Islamabad, a breach of both protocol and trust, that is bound to enrage Washington.

It's still hard to fully embrace the idea that Islamabad didn't see several helicopters and possibly a drone flying into their airspace (the drone story was included in original reports but became less certain as the narrative evolved). A drone might show up on air traffic radar, flying higher, and would be harder to explain. Unless it was a stealth drone. Or their controllers were asleep on the job like ours!

Pakistan even claimed to have scrambled a couple of F-16s once everyone woke up. Initial stories said they turned back once it was confirmed a US operation was occurring, which didn't sound too good, so the next version said they didn't, just simply got there too late. The Paks then warned us about "disastrous consequences" should we ever steal another harbored enemy leader from their country without permission, which sounds like something bin Laden might say. Confusing. But what's new.

___________________

Finally, about the reported plan to recruit black American converts to Islam to trigger terror attacks in an effort to sow division and a race war. Bin Laden wasn't stupid. The Soviets also had that goal when they were trying to 'bury' us. Even Saddam might have tried it--here's a shameless plug to a previous post about a white supremacist living in Elohim City, Arkansas around the time of the Murrah bombing who was being sent regular checks by the Iraqi Embassy in Washington. They began after he publicly condemned the first Gulf War. Hmmm go the tinfoilers.

MORE 5/9/11

During the campaign Obama said "if we have actionable intelligence on high value targets in Pakistan and Musharraf won't act, we will". He got a fair amount of heat for saying it at the time--mainly from Hillary--but now it's part of his campaign package. But if the London Guardian is correct then it turns out that Bush could have said the same thing:

The deal was struck between the military leader General Pervez Musharraf and President George Bush after Bin Laden escaped US forces in the mountains of Tora Bora in late 2001, according to serving and retired Pakistani and US officials.

Under its terms, Pakistan would allow US forces to conduct a unilateral raid inside Pakistan in search of Bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the al-Qaida No3. Afterwards, both sides agreed, Pakistan would vociferously protest the incursion.

One Pakistani official was quoted as saying that the US is simply executing the agreement. It seems to follow that if an agreement was in place then Pakistan was probably more in the loop than WE have indicated (perhaps told we were coming but not where?) making all this bilge from their leadership about "serious consequences" if it occurs again nothing but kabuki.

It also seems to make things on our end a bit less "gutsy", especially the part about how they were worried the Paks might think the Indians were attacking and the scrambled F-16s. And the stealth helicopters. That is, unless all of THIS is disinformation.

ARCHIVES 5/9/11

Here's a juicy post from Hot Air in 2007 featuring two pertinent items-- 1) Bush saying he would authorize an attack into Pakistan if they got a bead on bin Laden whether Musharraf was on board or not (and Musharraf saying he wouldn't like to allow that), and 2) Musharraf admitting that indeed bin Laden may be in Pakistan between Bajour province near the border and the Kunar province of Afghanistan. As can be seen by looking at the map, bin Laden was a heckuva lot closer to the Indian border than the Afghani border:

Of course Musharraf wasn't going to say "well, he might be 40 miles north of the capital" but with these guys all you get is particles of the truth embedded in multiple lies. The point is Bush said the same thing in 2007 that Obama said in 2008. People hammered Bush all the time; they hammered Obama for saying he would 'invade' Pakistan (guilty here) but in reality this was the government's plan all along.

The Spirit of Tuscon

After years of calling right wingers neocon warmongers over the GWoT, with a few even questioning whether bin Laden was being animated by Rove out of the White House basement or Langley, seems to be a bit of primal screaming coming from the port side of late. And it ain't all about bin Laden. The exuberance seems to be spilling over like a Cairo freedom riot into that age-old pastime involving Bush, Hilter, and death.

A few recent examples:

• Some gloating over the takeout (keeping score);
• Condi Rice getting hectored for 10 minutes by Lawrence O'Donnell about her Iraq war criminality;
• Former congressman Alan Grayson telling us that George W. Bush didn't accept Obama's invitation to Ground Zero because he was probably "passed out drunk";
• Will Ferrell represents Big Hollywood's response;
  
• Noam Chomsky imagining Bush being assassinated by an Iraqi hit squad and dumped in the Atlantic as a parallel to our raid to kill UBL;
• Mike Malloy fantasizing about the same thing, only with Navy Seals;
  

Yes, these are the usual suspects. The broader question is how our victory might be used politically going forward as domestic showdowns loom over the budget and Obamacare. Grayson mentioned the bin Laden raid was on the very same day Bush gave the infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech on the carrier, something derided ad nauseum by the bulk of the left since it occurred in 2003. Coincidence? Or is it racist to ask?

Whatever the case it's nice to know that as Americans we don't spike the football after big victories over dangerous foreign enemies--no sir--we treat the vanquished with respect even if they don't deserve it. As for domestic enemies? Sounds like a little end zone dancing.

As to the trove, more later on bin Laden's plan to use converted black American Muslims to stage terror attacks here in the homeland to sow racial division. First off, it's already happened. Second, it seems to be a reach-out to the white supremacists, something that also might have already happened.

Finally, the newly released bin Laden outtakes seem to leave America's former most trusted newsman Mr. Cronkite as the real fake behind the camera, don't they? Scream out.

Side Tracks

Perhaps a bit thematic this week..

One More on Bin Laden

One more thought about the video feed. Woodward seems to suggest they saw the take-down, as the White House itself suggested originally. Then Panetta came out with the tape gap story a few days later after the initial explanations were proffered to the press about a "fire fight" that included UBL hiding behind his wife. In other words if the politicians sitting in the room saw the event go down why did they make up stuff?

RELOAD

Whomever is now in control of AQ has taken the predictable next step by suggesting bin Laden really wasn't much of a player anymore--matter of fact Zawahiri's Egyptian clan actually betrayed him (the courier was one of theirs):

Zawahiri's Egyptian ally Saif Al Adel is said to have moved to Pakistan last autumn as Al Qaeda's 'chief of staff' after a period of house arrest in Iran.

With his return, Al Qaeda's Egyptian faction then hatched a plan to dispose of Saudi-born Bin Laden after irresolvable divisions developed between the terrorist group's top two men.

Zawahiri may not be charismatic but he's one ruthless sucker and has a long history of his own, something the public might not fully understand. Saif al Adel, another Egyptian, is also unknown to the public but not to the counter-terror people, and he's still at large. Not to mention Shukrijumah. So the war is far from over. The administration has made a decent effort to remind folks of this but they need to resist the temptation to recreate Bush's photo-op on the carrier. It was more like a major battle won, say D-Day in the GWoT.

After D-Day there was the Bulge. Thomas Joscelyn just reported a few weeks ago that the WikiLeaks document dump from Gitmo contained detainee statements about the 2001 anthrax attack, pointing towards this or that jihadi connected with Zawahiri's Vanguards of Conquest anthrax program. Terrorists are known for taking credit where not due, so possibly it was confusion or disinformation. But certainly the USG knows via KSM that the Egyptian branch were the ones pursuing the WMDs, including the man who facilitated the notorious 2000 'terror summit' at Kuala Lumpur, who is now free:

The 9/11 Commission report also details Sufaat's efforts to make weapons for Al Qaeda. The terror group's leaders sought Hambali's help in finding a scientist to "take over" Al Qaeda's biological-weapons program. Hambali introduced Sufaat to Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. In 2001, the report says, Sufaat spent "several months attempting to cultivate anthrax for Al Qaeda in a laboratory" he helped set up near the Kandahar airport in Afghanistan.

Wonder if anyone recorded Sufaat's reaction to the bin Laden news?

Zawahiri once penned that AQ needed control of a state at some point. Having control is quite different than being coddled by a state, which has no doubt happened along the way with AQ (as with all proxy terror outfits). He must be salivating over the chance to gain control in Egypt about now, even if he never lives to see it.