Strong Horse, Dead Horse, Wagging Dogs, Sharpened Razors

As usual, Mark Steyn nails it...

The belated dispatch of Osama testifies to what the United States does well – elite warriors, superbly trained, equipped to a level of technological sophistication no other nation can match.

Everything else surrounding the event (including White House news management so club-footed that one starts to wonder darkly whether its incompetence is somehow intentional) embodies what the United States does badly. (Mark Steyn – OC Register)

Two questions trouble thinking Americans:

1. Why did we get Osama Bin Laden when we did?
2. Is President Obama purposely screwing things up?

We Got Him!
There are many corollaries to the first question: Was Osama already dead, and we just held that knowledge in our back pocket to wait for the opportune time? Did the raid even really happen, or was it faked?  Is Osama still alive?

Al Qaeda answered the last question in the negative, essentially confirming the official story.

“Occam’s Razor is a principle that generally recommends selecting the competing hypothesis that makes the fewest new assumptions, when the hypotheses are equal in other respects” (Wikipedia)

Occam's Razor says the most plausible answer is the official story. Intelligence has been working this for years, and the time became ripe a month or so ago. That doesn't disprove other theories, it's just that this is the most plausible one.

What do you get when you take a community organizer from Chicago...

The second question can also be explained by Occam’s razor. Barack Obama had nothing in his past experience, training, or education that even remotely qualified him to be president, so his poor performance is no surprise.

He compounded our nation’s ills by surrounding himself with pointy-headed intellectuals who share his embarrassing poverty of real-world experience. National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon may be a fine man, but his foreign policy experience consists of being a lawyer on the periphery of US diplomacy. The administration is full of people like him.  No wonder President Obama is screwing everything up.

Hanlon’s Razor also comes to mind…

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” (Wikipedia)

This paragraph of the Wikipedia article is also instructive…

A practical observation on the risks of stupidity was made by the German General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord in Truppenführung, 1933:

"I divide my officers into four classes; the clever, the lazy, the industrious, and the stupid. Each officer possesses at least two of these qualities.

Those who are clever and industrious are fitted for the highest staff appointments. Use can be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy however is for the very highest command; he has the temperament and nerves to deal with all situations. But whoever is stupid and industrious is a menace and must be removed immediately!"

I’ll leave it to you to decide if the paragraph fits, and if so, which part.

TMI: Beautiful Operation Overshadowed by Shabby Messaging

Our government gives up way too much information. And not just under the Obama administration--Bush did it too.

We ascertained UBL’s whereabouts by patiently studying the ways of Al Qaida, watching their movements and methods. The enemy learns about us the same way, only instead of spying, they simply read newspapers and watch TV. Our government needs to curb its urge to brag about every accomplishment. Much of it serves no purpose besides feeding our entertainment culture's prurient interests anyway.


President Obama is Right on the Bin Laden Death Pictures

It’s the right decision to not publish the pictures. It would have become a holy icon to the macabre jihadi death worshipers, a gruesome propaganda poster to the sweaty hordes, and it would not have convinced the skeptics. And to those Taliban idiots and other terrorists who taunt us to produce the picture as proof we capped him, the burden is on them. Produce the picture? You produce Bin Laden!

Unfortunately, there is little else about this operation we are unwilling to release.

“There I was…”

Everybody likes to tell stories, especially if they’ve played even a marginal role in it. Whether it’s a forklift accident at work or a world-famous terrorist takedown, everybody wants to be first to spread the news, and we just can’t help regaling others with the juicy tidbits. It is understandable coming from ordinary folk, but it is irresponsible when the United States government does it. In the past, congressmen have inadvertently released damaging classified information in their rush to look important, and VP Joe Biden does it practically every time he opens his mouth.

Multifarious government officials rushing to the microphones has produced an incoherent message that leads a slavering press and fever swamp conspiracy theorists to put hammer and chisel to the exposed fissures, eventuating more official explanations and further fractured incoherence.

Are they lying, or are they simply stupid?

As time goes on, more details emerge. We know how many troops were involved, how many helicopters, how long it took. We even know which eye the skilled marksman shot out. All of this information, that none of us needs to know, fills in the blanks for bad guys hoping to dodge Osama’s fate.

Less serious but still troubling, as the “facts” change and the different government agencies struggle to amend earlier comments and keep their stories straight, the US government loses credibility and risks tarnishing the brave deeds of patriotic Americans.

Disinformation?

This is all too much information. "TMI!" as my sassy daughter would say. Unless it’s disinformation, in which case our government could do a much better job.

Here's how you do disinformation...

I want the bad guys and the superstitious hordes who cheer and shelter them to think our soldiers are hiding underground right now spying on them, ready to come up through the soil and strangle them at any moment. I want these 7th century obscurantists to believe we can read their thoughts, see through the walls of their grimy cinderblock huts, and swoop down and grab them at any time with trained invisible eagles. I want them to think every crawling bug and slithering reptile is a trained US spy.

It's not so far-fetched. They blamed the shark attacks off an Egyptian coastal resort on Mossad-trained predators. If the gullible dingbats actually believe Israel made a pact with King Poseidon to produce a flotilla of submersed Muslim eaters just to wreck Egypt's tourist industry, they'll believe anything

This should have been the only official statement:

“Through diligent intelligence work, we discovered Bin Laden. We dropped into his walled hovel and shot him and his son dead."

Let the speculation, conjecture and fearmongering run rampant. It would all work to our favor by leaving the press, the European pacifists, and the pompous UN global citizen crowd sputtering with outrage. Best of all, it would strike fear of the unknown into evildoing America-haters everywhere, leaving them glancing nervously over their shoulders, knowing no haven is truly safe.