The debate over “enhanced interrogations” has been renewed by the bin Laden mission, but whether it “worked” or not isn’t the question.

Time Magazine has an interesting piece as part of its special edition on the death of Osama bin Laden about the children who were with President Bush when first learned of the September 11th attacks: There has rarely been a starker juxtaposition of evil and innocence than the moment President George W. Bush received the [...]

Former President Bush has declined an invitation to join President Obama at Ground Zero on Thursday: WASHINGTON — Former President George W. Bush has declined an invitation to join President Barack Obama at a New York City ceremony later this week marking the death of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, NBC News reported on Tuesday. [...]

Joe Biden: During several months of planning for the mission that killed Osama bin Laden, ” as many as 16 members of Congress that were briefed on it, not a single solitary thing leaked.”

There’s been some question since Sunday of the role that waterboarding or other forms of “enhanced interrogation” may have played in obtaining the information that eventually led to the location of Osama Bin Laden. In that regard, I give you the words of Donald Rumsfeld himself: Asked if harsh interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay played [...]

Fox News Channel host Shepard Smith seems to think that the operation that took out Osama Bin Laden was illegal: His colleague former New Jersey State Municipal Court Judge Andrew Napolitano agrees: Both of them, however, seem to have forgotten something called the Authorization For Use Of Military Force Against Terrorists, which states: a) IN [...]

The question of how the world’s most wanted man could’ve hidden in plain sight in Pakistan continues to be asked.

The myth that the U.S. armed and trained Osama bin Laden in the early 80′s is rearing its ugly head again.

Cartoonist John Cole of the Scranton Times-Tribune offers this take on yesterday’s big news: His blog commentary: Abottabad, the Pakistani city wherein justice finally caught up with Osama bin Laden, reportedly crawls with that country’s military. A major army base and military academy are located in the city of 100,000, which begs the question: How [...]

Interesting: Could Osama bin Laden have been found faster if the CIA had followed the advice of ecosystem geographers from the University of California, Los Angeles? Probably not, but the predictions of UCLA geographer Thomas Gillespie, who, along with colleague John Agnew and a class of undergraduates, authored a 2009 paper predicting the terrorist’s whereabouts, [...]

Americans are rallying around the President in the wake of the mission against bin Laden, but it’s likely to be short-lived.

Less than 48 hours after the mission that ended in the death of Osama bin Laden took place, the conspiracy theories are already in full bloom: 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 [...]

In addition to taking out the leader of al Qaeda, Sunday’s raid in Pakistan apparently yielded a treasure trove of intelligence: The assault force of Navy SEALs snatched a trove of computer drives and disks during their weekend raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, yielding what a U.S. official called “the mother lode of intelligence.” [...]

Gary Weddle, a schoolteacher from East Wenatchee, Washington, has cut his beard after waiting almost ten years for Osama bin Laden to be killed.

From the White House Flickr page: President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, along with members of the national security team, receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House, May 1, 2011. Please note: a classified document seen in this photograph has been obscured. [...]

Changing our relationship status to Complicated.

I suppose that someone who has no moral compunction about killing thousands of people at a time really wouldn’t think twice about doing this: Osama bin Laden used one of his wives as a human shield during the U.S. raid, chief counterterrorism adviser to President Barack Obama John Brennan said Monday. She was killed during [...]

Osama bin Laden is dead, but he’s succeeded in changing America for the worse.

Rush Limbaugh heaps praise on President Obama for the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Watch this video. Watch Obama’s reaction to the joke. Now keep in mind that the kill order had been given more than 24 hours prior. Damn.

In this classic bit, Robin Williams offers his take on the afterlife for Osama bin Laden (Slightly NSFW):

Apropos of James Joyner’s comments this morning, I am reminded of this quote: “This is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” —- Winston Churchill after the Allied victory at the Second Battle of El-Alamein

Bin Laden spent the last half-decade in a compound where his only contact with the outside world was a few couriers.

How exactly was the most wanted man in the world able to hide in this house without anyone in Pakistan knowing about it?

I think this photo from last night in Times Square sums up the day rather well:  

A Pakistani man named Sohaib Athar unwittingly became part of history in the early hours of Sunday morning when he started telling twitter about some odd events in Abbotabad, Pakistan

I don’t feel the jubilation that came with Saddam Hussein’s capture in December 2003. Sadly, I know better this time.

Keith Urbahn, chief of staff of former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, broke the news.

Late tonight, President Obama addressed the nation to confirm that Osama bin Laden had been killed today in Pakistan in a raid by United States Special Forces. Here’s his statement from the East Room: REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON OSAMA BIN LADEN East Room 11:35 P.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. Tonight, I can report [...]

Former President Bush released the following statement shortly after President Obama spoke tonight: Earlier this evening, President Obama called to inform me that American forces killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al Qaeda network that attacked America on September 11, 2001. I congratulated him and the men and women of our military and [...]

“A man who tried to hijack a Paris-Rome flight and take it to Libya was overpowered by cabin crew during the flight and arrested when the plane arrived in the Italian capital.” One man armed with only a small knife isn’t much of a hijacking plan. But there was still a time when the crew [...]

The Obama Administration has given up on the idea of trying the September 11th suspects in a civilian court. Considering how much that trial would have perverted the justice system, that’s a good thing.

The U.S. seems to be on the verge of changing war strategies in Libya, even as it becomes clear that these rebels aren’t necessarily our friends.

There’s more evidence today that many of the men engaged in fighting against the Gaddafi regime have ties to an organization that killed 3,000 Americans about 9 1/2 years ago: Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against [...]

One of the common comments from critics of the intervention in Libya has been that we don’t even know who the rebels are. Well, now we’re starting to learn about them, and it’s not entirely good news: Shortly after unrest broke out in eastern Libya in mid-February, reports emerged that an “Islamic Emirate” had been [...]

Last week, Donald Rumsfeld was on Piers Morgan’s CNN show and said the thought it was a mistake to use the label “War On Terror””: I’ve said many times myself, that calling the conflict with al Qaeda a “War On Terror” was like calling World War One a “War On Tanks.” I wonder how those [...]

As Muammar Gaddafi's power crumbles around him, secrets are starting to come out: LONDON (BNO NEWS) — Libyan Justice Minister Mustafa Mohamed Abud Al Jeleil on Wednesday told a Swedish newspaper that Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi ordered the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, which killed 270 people. Al-Jleil told Stockholm-based newspaper Expressen that Gaddafi was the person who [...]

CIA Director Leon Panetta says that if Osama bin Laden is ever captured, he’ll be held at Gitmo: What would the government do if Osama bin Laden, the FBI’s most-wanted terrorist for more than a decade, were captured? (…) When faced with that question yesterday during a Senate hearing, CIA Director Leon Panetta said the [...]

DHS Secretary Napolitano issues some vague warnings to Congress.

By all accounts, this is a surprise: A measure to extend key provisions of the Patriot Act counterterrorism surveillance law through December failed the House Tuesday night, with more than two-dozen Republicans bucking their party to oppose the measure. The House measure, which was sponsored by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and required a two-thirds majority [...]

British Prime Minister David Cameron has made public documents which confirm his predecessors role in the release of the man convicted of bringing down Pan Am Flight 103.

The end of a not-very-well-executed and much mocked* idea: WASHINGTON — By the end of April, terror threats to the U.S. will no longer be described in shades of green, blue, yellow, orange and red, The Associated Press has learned. The nation’s color-coded terror warning system will be phased out beginning this week, according to [...]

Here’s how terrorists get past airport security: don’t bother to go through it.

This isn’t a good way to start off the week: Moscow’s Domodedovo airport – the busiest in the Russian capital – has been rocked by an explosion that has reportedly killed at least 23 people. More than 100 more are thought to have been injured in the blast, which reports suggest may have been the [...]

Thirty years after the hostages were freed from captivity in Iran, the United States still hasn’t figured out how to deal with the Islamic Republic.

From last night’s Late Show:

Andrew Sullivan makes a rather bizarre charge offhandedly: “Who among the neocons would have thought that one of George W. Bush’s final legacies would be bringing pogroms, bombings and genocide to Christians in his new zone of freedom?”

On Twitter this morning, Tom McCammon sent out a link to an aviation forum that asks an eerily prophetic question: When the two towers that make up the World Trade Center were built, they were designed to withstand the impact of the largest airliner of the day, the Boeing 707 Intercontinental. The Empire State Building [...]

The TSA’s crusade to fondle whomever they please continues.

Via the BBC:  Mumbai manhunt for ‘four Lashkar-e-Taiba militants’ Police are scouring Mumbai for four Pakistani alleged militants believed to have entered the city to carry out an attack, a top police official said. There was credible information that at least four members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group were in the city, said the [...]