As we mark the death of the leader of Al Qaeda, who planned and financed the 9/11 attacks and was evidently worth preserving in a secured mansion/compound while communicating through a special courier, let's not fail to credit mainstream Republicans for all they've done to secure his capture.
4/25/02 -- ‘The goal has never been to get bin Laden’, said General Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, on 6 April 2002. President George W Bush might have declared on 17 September 2001 that bin Laden was ‘Wanted: Dead or Alive’ – but Myers told CNN that a far more important aim than bin Laden’s head on a platter was the ‘capture, killing and scattering’ of ‘mid-level al-Qaeda operatives’. ‘The goal [in Afghanistan] was never after specific individuals’, he claimed.
But four days later, on 10 April 2002, army secretary Thomas White said that one of America’s ‘strategic objectives’ in Afghanistan is ‘to get bin Laden…and we are pursuing that’. Asked if the war on terror could only be hailed a success once bin Laden was found, White said yes – claiming that ‘no one said it was going to be easy’.
‘I truly am not that concerned about him’, said President George W Bush on 13 March 2002, after being asked the million-dollar question ‘where is bin Laden?’ once too often. ‘Deep in my heart I know the man is on the run, if he’s alive at all’, said Bush, brushing bin Laden off as ‘a person who has now been marginalized’ [see link for footnotes]
September 13, 2004 So in the event that Osama is captured is the election over? In reality I would have to say yes. We as a nation will then have four more years of one of the most disastrous administrations to date. People will have forgotten all the other issues that are just as important to their every day lives. I wonder if the same fervor that embraced this nation after September 11th will occur where it has become unpatriotic to say anything negative about George W. Bush. Oh yeah, I can see that happening. But let us not forget that President Bush with all the intelligence at his disposal had three years to bring this monster to justice. I call upon the American people to remember his infamous statement where he said, “Dead or alive” or “We will smoke ‘em out!” But, that soon faded away where people did not remember that or that it became totally unimportant. At a later date [3/13/02], President Bush even said concerning the capture of Osama bin Laden, “I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not important. It’s not our priority.”
2/23/07 FORT WORTH — The Army's highest-ranking officer and the former leader of the secretive world of Special Operations offered his thoughts on the importance of capturing or killing Osama bin Laden during a luncheon here Friday.
They're probably not what anyone expected.
"I don't know whether we'll find him," Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, said in a speech to the Rotary Club of Fort Worth. "I don't know that it's all that important, frankly."
Schoomaker, pulled out of retirement in 2003 to lead the Army, pointed to the capture of Saddam Hussein, the killings of his sons, Uday and Qusay, and the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as evidence that bin Laden's capture or death would have little effect on the threats to the United States.
"So we get him, and then what?" Schoomaker said. "There's a temporary feeling of goodness, but in the long run, we may make him bigger than he is today. He's hiding, and he knows we're looking for him. We know he's not particularly effective. I'm not sure there's that great of a return" on capturing or killing bin Laden.
9/11/09 -- [T]he weight of opinion [is] now swinging behind the possibility that Bin Laden is dead - and the accumulating evidence that supports it - makes the notion, at the very least, worthy of examination.
The theory first received an airing in the American Spectator magazine earlier this year when former U.S. foreign intelligence officer and senior editor Angelo M. Codevilla, a professor of international relations at Boston University, stated bluntly: 'All the evidence suggests Elvis Presley is more alive today than Osama Bin Laden.'
Prof Codevilla pointed to inconsistencies in the videos and claimed there have been no reputable sightings of Bin Laden for years (for instance, all interceptions by the West of communications made by the Al Qaeda leader suddenly ceased in late 2001).
Updated by Seneca Doane at Mon May 02, 2011 at 08:30 AM PDT
Rick Massimo has collected some nice quotes from Republicans giving anyone except President Obama President Obama's due. (Although shockingly, the quote from Cheney is appropriate.)
Something just occurred to me: this operation could have gone completely wrong. Obama's Presidency could have been ruined -- and the same people who don't even mention him today would have been the one's piling on. Perhaps that can be a clue as to his due? He put his Presidency on the line in this operation. Get it, Republicans? That's leadership.
Updated by Seneca Doane at Mon May 02, 2011 at 08:42 AM PDT
Militarytracy would like a moment of your time. Excerpt:
Let us remember that Bush probably never wanted to get Bin Laden at all because he needed all that fear and anxiety to talk us all into Iraq. Let us remember that after two terms Bush and the Conservatives had no idea where Osama was and they literally destroyed our military at that time and bankrupted us. Let us remember that it took a Democrat who said he was going after the real danger and get us out of Iraq two years and a couple of months to literally find a needle in a haystack.