Pakistani computer programmer unknowingly liveblogs operation against Bin Laden
By Diaa Hadid, The Associated Press | The Canadian Press – Mon, 2 May, 2011
CAIRO - A computer programmer, startled by a helicopter clattering above his quiet Pakistani town in the early hours of the morning Monday, did what any social-media addict would do: he began sending messages to the social networking site Twitter.
With his tweets, 33-year-old Sohaib Athar, who moved to the sleepy town of Abbottabad to escape the big city, became in his own words "the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it."
Soon the sole helicopter multiplied into several and gunfire and explosions rocked the air above the town, and Athar's tweets quickly garnered tens of thousands of followers as he apparently became the first in the world to describe the U.S. operation to kill one of the world's most wanted militants.
Athar did not respond to an Associated Press request for comment — he explained in another tweet that a filter he set up to stop his email box from flooding could be culling out requests for interviews. He was up to more 70,000 followers by Monday evening.
"I apologize for reporting the operation 'unwittingly/unknowingly' — had I known about it, I would have tweeted about it 'wittingly' I swear," he tweeted after realizing what he had witnessed.
Later, he gave an interview to Al-Jazeera's English-language news network via Skype as he sat in a cafe. When asked if he was scared, he said that he's from Lahore, "so I've had my share of bomb blasts."
His first tweet Monday was innocuous: "Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event)."
The noise alarmed Athar, who had moved to the upscale area of Abbottabad to get away from city life after his wife and child were badly injured in a car accident in the sprawling city of Lahore, according to his blog in July.
Nestled in the mountains around 60 miles (95 kilometres) northeast of the capital, Abbottabad is a quiet, leafy town featuring a military academy, the barracks for three army regiments and even its own golf course.
As the operation to kill Osama Bin Laden unfolded, Athar "liveblogged" what he was hearing in real time, describing windows rattling as bombs exploded.
He questioned whose helicopters might be flying overhead. "The few people online at this time of the night are saying one of the copters was not Pakistani," he tweeted.
Athar then said one of the aircraft appeared to have been shot down. Two more helicopters rushed in, he reported.
Throughout the battle, he related the rumours swirling through town: it was a training accident. Somebody was killed. The aircraft might be a drone. The army was conducting door-to-door searches in the surrounding area. The sound of an airplane could be heard overhead.
Soon, however, the rumbling of international events far beyond the confines of this quiet upscale suburb began to dawn on Athar, and he realized what he might be witnessing.
"I think the helicopter crash in Abbottabad, Pakistan and the President Obama breaking news address are connected," he tweeted.
Eight hours and about 35 tweets later, the confirmation came: "Osama Bin Laden killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan," Athar reported. "There goes the neighbourhood."
___
Associated Press writer Eric Carvin contributed to this report from New York.
Is Pakistan a U.S. ally ?
'Osama is alive!' mock Pakistanis outside compound
Tue May 3, 10:33 am ET
ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan (AFP) – Dozens of Pakistani youths on Tuesday demonstrated outside the upmarket compound where Osama bin Laden was killed, mocking the United States and shouting "Osama is alive!"
Unconvinced by news that the Al-Qaeda kingpin had been living in their leafy city of Abbottabad, one protester dressed up as the world's "most-wanted" man, who was killed in a helicopter raid by US commandos.
"Osama is alive, here comes Osama!" he exclaimed jokingly, donning a white turban and hiding his face with a cloth.
Some children as young as four or five joined the spontaneous rally, which was full of laughter and held alongside a heavy police contingent guarding the scene of the now world-famous operation to kill the terror mastermind.
Another in the group, wearing a black turban similar to that sported by the Taliban's supreme leader Mullah Omar, suggested that the raid had been a fake.
"Long live Osama, here come Mullar Omar and Osama!" he proclaimed.
Conspiracy theories, propped up by distrust of the United States, have spread quickly among residents in the quiet, relatively well-to-do garrison town after the news emerged of bin Laden's death on their doorstep.
"We are really surprised about how this is possible," said Mohammad Anwar, another teenager at the gathering.
**************************************************************************
Afghan official says Pakistan must have been aware bin Laden was living in military town
By Heidi Vogt,Rahim Faiez, The Associated Press | The Canadian Press
May 4, 2011
KABUL - The Afghan government said Wednesday that Pakistan must have known Osama bin Laden was living in a military garrison town near the capital, echoing international suspicions about Islamabad in the aftermath of the deadly strike against al-Qaida's chief.
The two countries have long had tense relations, especially over the issue of Pakistan failing to target Taliban militants using its territory as sanctuary to launch cross-border attacks against Afghan and international forces.
"Not only Pakistan, with its strong intelligence service, but even a very weak government with a weak intelligence service would have known who was living in that house in such a location," said Defence Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi.
The house where bin Laden lived in the town of Abbottabad was close to the gate of the Kakul Military Academy, an army run institution where top Pakistani officers train, Azimi said, adding that many neighbouring houses are home to military officials.
"There are lots of questions that need answers," Azimi said.
Others have made similar remarks.
Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron said Tuesday that bin Laden must have had an extensive support network in Pakistan in the years before his death. And White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters that the U.S. is committed to co-operating with Pakistan despite questions about who in the Islamabad government may have known bin Laden was in hiding in the compound in Abbottabad.
Afghan officials have long said that the real war against terrorism is not in Afghanistan, but across the border in Pakistan. And while they have welcomed international troops who are fighting back the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, they have also criticized these forces for backing a Pakistani government that Afghan officials say is double-dealing.
Azimi went on to say that Afghanistan is bracing for revenge attacks following the bin Laden strike, but expects that the al-Qaida leader's death will eventually make it easier to defeat the Taliban.
The nearly 10-year war in Afghanistan started as a manhunt for bin Laden in 2001. Many inside Afghanistan and in foreign countries fighting the war have raised questions about whether his death will shorten or ease the battle with the Taliban insurgency, but the U.S. and others pledged there wouldn't be a rapid withdrawal.
On the day that bin Laden's death was announced, Afghan President Hamid Karzai called it a blow to terrorism but made no predictions about how it would affect the war in his country.
Azimi, for his part, predicted al-Qaida revenge attacks in the immediate aftermath of the terror chief's death.
"The first phase will be for a short period of time, a revenge phase in order show that even if he is gone, others are keeping the network together," he said, adding that Afghan security forces have already increased their presence in key areas and their readiness in anticipation of such attacks.
"Then slowly the situation will become more normal and that will start to show how Osama's absence effects the structure of the network," Azimi said.
International forces say a persistent campaign against insurgents over the summer has driven them out of their traditional strongholds and destroyed the weapons caches they depend on to mount their seasonal spring offensive.
The Taliban, however, have started the spring fighting season with high-profile attacks apparently designed to show their strength and their ability to infiltrate the government. In April, the insurgent group launched deadly attacks from within the Defence Ministry in Kabul, the main police headquarters in southern Kandahar city and a joint U.S.-Afghan base in the east. The militants also managed to break more than 480 of their compatriots out of the Kandahar city prison with an elaborate tunnel escape.
On Wednesday, U.S. officials confirmed that two rockets had struck inside Bagram Air Field — the main U.S. base in Afghanistan — the night before.
The strikes resulted in only "a couple very minor injuries," said Lt. Col. Patrick Seiber, a spokesman for U.S. forces in the east. He also noted that rockets hit inside Bagram about once every two or three weeks.
But the strike are a reminder that violence continues unabated in Afghanistan despite the removal of bin Laden.
Separately Wednesday, NATO forces rejected accusations that they had killed a private security guard under contract to protect a road travelled by their supply convoys. The international military coalition said that the man who was killed was not working for a security company and was a militant involved in setting up an ambush.
Afghan police and the man's alleged employer — Watan Risk Management — have maintained that it was a Watan guard who was killed while trying to protect the road.
Tue May 3, 10:33 am ET
ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan (AFP) – Dozens of Pakistani youths on Tuesday demonstrated outside the upmarket compound where Osama bin Laden was killed, mocking the United States and shouting "Osama is alive!"
"Osama is alive, here comes Osama!" he exclaimed jokingly, donning a white turban and hiding his face with a cloth.
Some children as young as four or five joined the spontaneous rally, which was full of laughter and held alongside a heavy police contingent guarding the scene of the now world-famous operation to kill the terror mastermind.
Another in the group, wearing a black turban similar to that sported by the Taliban's supreme leader Mullah Omar, suggested that the raid had been a fake.
"Long live Osama, here come Mullar Omar and Osama!" he proclaimed.
Conspiracy theories, propped up by distrust of the United States, have spread quickly among residents in the quiet, relatively well-to-do garrison town after the news emerged of bin Laden's death on their doorstep.
"We are really surprised about how this is possible," said Mohammad Anwar, another teenager at the gathering.
**************************************************************************
Afghan official says Pakistan must have been aware bin Laden was living in military town
By Heidi Vogt,Rahim Faiez, The Associated Press | The Canadian Press
May 4, 2011
KABUL - The Afghan government said Wednesday that Pakistan must have known Osama bin Laden was living in a military garrison town near the capital, echoing international suspicions about Islamabad in the aftermath of the deadly strike against al-Qaida's chief.
The two countries have long had tense relations, especially over the issue of Pakistan failing to target Taliban militants using its territory as sanctuary to launch cross-border attacks against Afghan and international forces.
"Not only Pakistan, with its strong intelligence service, but even a very weak government with a weak intelligence service would have known who was living in that house in such a location," said Defence Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi.
The house where bin Laden lived in the town of Abbottabad was close to the gate of the Kakul Military Academy, an army run institution where top Pakistani officers train, Azimi said, adding that many neighbouring houses are home to military officials.
"There are lots of questions that need answers," Azimi said.
Others have made similar remarks.
Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron said Tuesday that bin Laden must have had an extensive support network in Pakistan in the years before his death. And White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters that the U.S. is committed to co-operating with Pakistan despite questions about who in the Islamabad government may have known bin Laden was in hiding in the compound in Abbottabad.
Afghan officials have long said that the real war against terrorism is not in Afghanistan, but across the border in Pakistan. And while they have welcomed international troops who are fighting back the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, they have also criticized these forces for backing a Pakistani government that Afghan officials say is double-dealing.
Azimi went on to say that Afghanistan is bracing for revenge attacks following the bin Laden strike, but expects that the al-Qaida leader's death will eventually make it easier to defeat the Taliban.
The nearly 10-year war in Afghanistan started as a manhunt for bin Laden in 2001. Many inside Afghanistan and in foreign countries fighting the war have raised questions about whether his death will shorten or ease the battle with the Taliban insurgency, but the U.S. and others pledged there wouldn't be a rapid withdrawal.
On the day that bin Laden's death was announced, Afghan President Hamid Karzai called it a blow to terrorism but made no predictions about how it would affect the war in his country.
Azimi, for his part, predicted al-Qaida revenge attacks in the immediate aftermath of the terror chief's death.
"The first phase will be for a short period of time, a revenge phase in order show that even if he is gone, others are keeping the network together," he said, adding that Afghan security forces have already increased their presence in key areas and their readiness in anticipation of such attacks.
"Then slowly the situation will become more normal and that will start to show how Osama's absence effects the structure of the network," Azimi said.
International forces say a persistent campaign against insurgents over the summer has driven them out of their traditional strongholds and destroyed the weapons caches they depend on to mount their seasonal spring offensive.
The Taliban, however, have started the spring fighting season with high-profile attacks apparently designed to show their strength and their ability to infiltrate the government. In April, the insurgent group launched deadly attacks from within the Defence Ministry in Kabul, the main police headquarters in southern Kandahar city and a joint U.S.-Afghan base in the east. The militants also managed to break more than 480 of their compatriots out of the Kandahar city prison with an elaborate tunnel escape.
On Wednesday, U.S. officials confirmed that two rockets had struck inside Bagram Air Field — the main U.S. base in Afghanistan — the night before.
The strikes resulted in only "a couple very minor injuries," said Lt. Col. Patrick Seiber, a spokesman for U.S. forces in the east. He also noted that rockets hit inside Bagram about once every two or three weeks.
But the strike are a reminder that violence continues unabated in Afghanistan despite the removal of bin Laden.
Separately Wednesday, NATO forces rejected accusations that they had killed a private security guard under contract to protect a road travelled by their supply convoys. The international military coalition said that the man who was killed was not working for a security company and was a militant involved in setting up an ambush.
Afghan police and the man's alleged employer — Watan Risk Management — have maintained that it was a Watan guard who was killed while trying to protect the road.
The making of the commando that killed Bin Laden
Obama monitored top-secret raid
CBC – Tue, 3 May, 2011 1:40 AM EDT
As helicopters descended out of darkness on the most important counterterrorism mission in U.S. history, President Barack Obama watched from the White House.
It was an operation so secret, only a select few U.S. officials knew what was about to happen.
And after giving the go-ahead for the mission, the president kept a poker face over the weekend while consoling tornado victims in the South, delivering a college commencement address and cracking jokes at a black-tie dinner for Washington correspondents.
The location of the raid was a fortified compound in the affluent Pakistani town of Abbottabad, about 150 kilometres north of Islamabad. The target: Osama bin Laden.
Intelligence officials discovered the compound in August while monitoring an al-Qaeda courier, a Kuwaiti-born man named Sheikh Abu Ahmed.
Ahmed was a shadowy figure for U.S. intelligence, someone it took many years to identify. For a long time, intelligence officials knew him only by his nom de guerre, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti.
The first indications about his significance came shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks from CIA detainees who told interrogators the courier was so trusted by bin Laden that he might be living with the al-Qaeda leader.
Ahmed, his brother and an unidentified woman were killed along with bin Laden in the attack on the compound.
Nestled in an affluent neighbourhood, the compound was surrounded by walls as high as 5½ metres, topped with barbed wire. Two security gates guarded the only way in. A third-floor terrace was shielded by a 2.1-metre privacy wall. No phone lines or internet cables ran to the property. The residents burned their garbage rather than put it out for collection.
Intelligence officials believed the million-dollar compound was built five years ago to protect a major terrorist figure. The question was, who?
The CIA asked itself again and again who might be living behind those walls. Each time, officials concluded it was almost certainly bin Laden.
By mid-February, intelligence from multiple sources was clear enough that Obama wanted to "pursue an aggressive course of action," a senior administration official said. Over the next 2½ months, Obama led five meetings of the National Security Council focused solely on whether bin Laden was in the compound and, if so, how to get him, the official said.
Normally, the U.S. shares its counterterrorism intelligence widely with trusted allies in Britain, Canada, Australia and elsewhere. And normally, the U.S. does not carry out ground operations inside Pakistan without collaboration with Pakistani intelligence. But this mission and the need for secrecy were too important. No allies were made aware of the plan, the White House confirmed Monday.
It was a mission that required surgical accuracy, even more precision than could be delivered by the government's sophisticated Predator drones. To execute it, Obama tapped a small contingent of U.S. forces under the command of CIA director Leon Panetta, whose analysts monitored the compound from afar.
Panetta was directly in charge of the team, a U.S. official said, and his conference room was transformed into a command centre.
Details of exactly how the raid unfolded remain murky, but a few things are known.
On Friday morning, Obama approved the mission before leaving Washington to inspect tornado damage in Alabama. A small contingent of the navy's elite SEAL Team Six, a top military counterterrorism unit, was approved to carry out the mission.
On Sunday, Obama cut short a round of golf to return to the White House for a meeting where he and top aides reviewed final preparations. The raid began within hours of that final meeting. It involved four U.S. Black Hawk helicopters, about two dozen troops and took about 40 minutes from start to finish.
"The minutes passed like days," John Brennan, the U.S. government's counterterrorism chief, said at a news conference Monday, adding that Obama monitored the raid from the White House Situation Room and expressed relief that no American lives had been lost.
White House officials said two dozen SEALs in night-vision goggles dropped into the high-walled compound in Pakistan by sliding down ropes from helicopters.
One of the helicopters broke down and was later destroyed so it wouldn't fall into enemy hands. Among many others, the tailed al-Qaeda courier and bin Laden's son are also believed to have been killed during the mission. The compound itself belonged to the courier, the White House said.
A Pentagon official said a woman identified bin Laden name during the U.S. raid.
Brennan said bin Laden used human shields, some of whom were women, in his final moments.
"He was hiding behind women who were put in front of him as a shield," Brennan told the news conference. "I think that speaks to just how false his narrative has been over the years."
Osama bin Laden went down firing at the Navy SEALs who stormed his compound.
"He was engaged in a firefight," Brennan said.
An official familiar with the operation says bin Laden was hit by a barrage of carefully aimed return fire. Three other people were also killed: two of bin Laden's couriers and an unidentified woman.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because aspects of the operation remain classified.
Senior U.S. officials said bin Laden's body was transferred to the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson where traditional Islamic procedures for handling the remains were followed, including washing the corpse, placing it in a white sheet and committing the body to the waters of the North Arabian Sea.
When Panetta and his team received word that bin Laden was dead, cheers and applause broke out across the conference room.
Later that evening, Obama delivered a public address to the world, announcing bin Laden's death. White House officials later revealed DNA testing had confirmed his identity.
Click on the graphic below to get a zoomed in view of the Abbottabad compound that housed Osama bin Laden.
CBC – Tue, 3 May, 2011 1:40 AM EDT
As helicopters descended out of darkness on the most important counterterrorism mission in U.S. history, President Barack Obama watched from the White House.
It was an operation so secret, only a select few U.S. officials knew what was about to happen.
And after giving the go-ahead for the mission, the president kept a poker face over the weekend while consoling tornado victims in the South, delivering a college commencement address and cracking jokes at a black-tie dinner for Washington correspondents.
Intelligence officials discovered the compound in August while monitoring an al-Qaeda courier, a Kuwaiti-born man named Sheikh Abu Ahmed.
Ahmed was a shadowy figure for U.S. intelligence, someone it took many years to identify. For a long time, intelligence officials knew him only by his nom de guerre, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti.
The first indications about his significance came shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks from CIA detainees who told interrogators the courier was so trusted by bin Laden that he might be living with the al-Qaeda leader.
Ahmed, his brother and an unidentified woman were killed along with bin Laden in the attack on the compound.
Nestled in an affluent neighbourhood, the compound was surrounded by walls as high as 5½ metres, topped with barbed wire. Two security gates guarded the only way in. A third-floor terrace was shielded by a 2.1-metre privacy wall. No phone lines or internet cables ran to the property. The residents burned their garbage rather than put it out for collection.
Intelligence officials believed the million-dollar compound was built five years ago to protect a major terrorist figure. The question was, who?
The CIA asked itself again and again who might be living behind those walls. Each time, officials concluded it was almost certainly bin Laden.
By mid-February, intelligence from multiple sources was clear enough that Obama wanted to "pursue an aggressive course of action," a senior administration official said. Over the next 2½ months, Obama led five meetings of the National Security Council focused solely on whether bin Laden was in the compound and, if so, how to get him, the official said.
Normally, the U.S. shares its counterterrorism intelligence widely with trusted allies in Britain, Canada, Australia and elsewhere. And normally, the U.S. does not carry out ground operations inside Pakistan without collaboration with Pakistani intelligence. But this mission and the need for secrecy were too important. No allies were made aware of the plan, the White House confirmed Monday.
It was a mission that required surgical accuracy, even more precision than could be delivered by the government's sophisticated Predator drones. To execute it, Obama tapped a small contingent of U.S. forces under the command of CIA director Leon Panetta, whose analysts monitored the compound from afar.
Panetta was directly in charge of the team, a U.S. official said, and his conference room was transformed into a command centre.
Details of exactly how the raid unfolded remain murky, but a few things are known.
On Friday morning, Obama approved the mission before leaving Washington to inspect tornado damage in Alabama. A small contingent of the navy's elite SEAL Team Six, a top military counterterrorism unit, was approved to carry out the mission.
On Sunday, Obama cut short a round of golf to return to the White House for a meeting where he and top aides reviewed final preparations. The raid began within hours of that final meeting. It involved four U.S. Black Hawk helicopters, about two dozen troops and took about 40 minutes from start to finish.
"The minutes passed like days," John Brennan, the U.S. government's counterterrorism chief, said at a news conference Monday, adding that Obama monitored the raid from the White House Situation Room and expressed relief that no American lives had been lost.
White House officials said two dozen SEALs in night-vision goggles dropped into the high-walled compound in Pakistan by sliding down ropes from helicopters.
One of the helicopters broke down and was later destroyed so it wouldn't fall into enemy hands. Among many others, the tailed al-Qaeda courier and bin Laden's son are also believed to have been killed during the mission. The compound itself belonged to the courier, the White House said.
A Pentagon official said a woman identified bin Laden name during the U.S. raid.
Brennan said bin Laden used human shields, some of whom were women, in his final moments.
"He was hiding behind women who were put in front of him as a shield," Brennan told the news conference. "I think that speaks to just how false his narrative has been over the years."
Osama bin Laden went down firing at the Navy SEALs who stormed his compound.
"He was engaged in a firefight," Brennan said.
An official familiar with the operation says bin Laden was hit by a barrage of carefully aimed return fire. Three other people were also killed: two of bin Laden's couriers and an unidentified woman.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because aspects of the operation remain classified.
Senior U.S. officials said bin Laden's body was transferred to the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson where traditional Islamic procedures for handling the remains were followed, including washing the corpse, placing it in a white sheet and committing the body to the waters of the North Arabian Sea.
When Panetta and his team received word that bin Laden was dead, cheers and applause broke out across the conference room.
Later that evening, Obama delivered a public address to the world, announcing bin Laden's death. White House officials later revealed DNA testing had confirmed his identity.
Click on the graphic below to get a zoomed in view of the Abbottabad compound that housed Osama bin Laden.
Impact of Ben Laden's death on Obama
Bin Laden’s death is a pivotal victory for Obama. But will it make his 2012 re-election bid any easier?
By Holly Bailey - The Ticket | Yahoo! Canada News – Mon, 2 May, 2011
President Obama's declaration late Sunday night that U.S. forces in Pakistan had killed Osama bin Laden will likely prove one of the most significant moments in his presidency.
Speaking from the White House's East Room shortly before midnight EST, the president offered the nation a long-desired moment of closure nearly a decade after the horrors of the 9/11 attacks.
"Tonight, let us think back to the sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11. I know that it has, at times, frayed," Obama declared in announcing bin Laden's death. "Yet today's achievement is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people … We are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to."
Obama was careful not to gloat about the breakthrough for the struggle against Islamist terrorism--indeed, he went so far as to praise to his predecessor, former President George W. Bush, who Obama had frequently assailed for bungling that struggle on the 2008 campaign trail. At the same time, though, as the smoke begins to clear from this pivotal moment, a no-less significant question lingers: How will the al Qaeda leader's death alter the nation's political landscape, especially ahead of next year's 2012 presidential campaign?
The short answer, of course, is that it's far too early to say for sure. To be sure, as news cameras capture footage of cheering crowds across party lines gathering to celebrate bin Laden's demise, Obama seems almost certain to experience a bump in national approval for his handling of the situation. And the country's mood--usually measured in so-called "right track/wrong track" numbers--will likewise trend upward with a major shot of good news after weeks of angst over issues such as rising gas prices and the struggling economy.
And as the president gears up for his 2012 re-election bid, he can take assurance in his ability to brandish a significant foreign policy achievement: He personally signed off on a mission to capture the world's most wanted terrorist, and it was successful. Obama will be certain to remind voters about that milestone at every opportunity--knowing that it's bound to loom larger in the public mind than the last several months' worth of hand-wringing among candidates and pundits over this administration's approach to Libya and the tumultuous war in Afghanistan.
Many of Obama's likely GOP rivals in 2012 have lambasted him in recent weeks as a president with a weak foreign-policy dossier. But last night, some of his potential opponents--including Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney--carefully offered Obama praise for his handling of the bin Laden operation.
"In the hours after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush promised that America would bring Osama bin Laden to justice--and we did," Pawlenty said in a statement. "I want to congratulate America's armed forces and President Obama for a job well done. Let history show that the perseverance of the US military and the American people never wavered."
In a message posted on Facebook, Romney called bin Laden's death a "great victory great victory for lovers of freedom and justice everywhere." "Congratulations to our intelligence community, our military and the president," he wrote.
But not all GOP candidates were as gracious. In separate messages on Twitter and Facebook, Sarah Palin made no mention of Obama, instead praising the military. "Thank you, American men and women in uniform. You are America's finest and we are all so proud," she wrote. "Thank you for fighting against terrorism."
However, political history also offers some important cautions about how short-lived such victories can be in the heat of a re-election effort. Take, for example, former President George H.W. Bush's sky-high poll numbers in the aftermath of the successful 1991 Gulf War, which made him seem virtually unbeatable by his likely Democratic opponents.
But as the 1992 campaign drew closer, Bush 41's numbers steadily dropped, and lost his bid for a second term, thanks mostly to public anxiety over the struggling economy--an issue that also seems likely to dominate the upcoming 2012 campaign, at least for now.
In policy terms, too, the administration seem averse to gloating over the legacy of his historic moment. Last night, Obama made clear in his remarks that the war in terror is far from over--and that bin Laden's death doesn't mean an end to threats to the nation. "His death does not mark the end of our effort," the president warned. "There's no doubt that al Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us ... The cause of securing our country is not complete."
By Holly Bailey - The Ticket | Yahoo! Canada News – Mon, 2 May, 2011
President Obama's declaration late Sunday night that U.S. forces in Pakistan had killed Osama bin Laden will likely prove one of the most significant moments in his presidency.
Speaking from the White House's East Room shortly before midnight EST, the president offered the nation a long-desired moment of closure nearly a decade after the horrors of the 9/11 attacks.
"Tonight, let us think back to the sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11. I know that it has, at times, frayed," Obama declared in announcing bin Laden's death. "Yet today's achievement is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people … We are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to."
Obama was careful not to gloat about the breakthrough for the struggle against Islamist terrorism--indeed, he went so far as to praise to his predecessor, former President George W. Bush, who Obama had frequently assailed for bungling that struggle on the 2008 campaign trail. At the same time, though, as the smoke begins to clear from this pivotal moment, a no-less significant question lingers: How will the al Qaeda leader's death alter the nation's political landscape, especially ahead of next year's 2012 presidential campaign?
The short answer, of course, is that it's far too early to say for sure. To be sure, as news cameras capture footage of cheering crowds across party lines gathering to celebrate bin Laden's demise, Obama seems almost certain to experience a bump in national approval for his handling of the situation. And the country's mood--usually measured in so-called "right track/wrong track" numbers--will likewise trend upward with a major shot of good news after weeks of angst over issues such as rising gas prices and the struggling economy.
And as the president gears up for his 2012 re-election bid, he can take assurance in his ability to brandish a significant foreign policy achievement: He personally signed off on a mission to capture the world's most wanted terrorist, and it was successful. Obama will be certain to remind voters about that milestone at every opportunity--knowing that it's bound to loom larger in the public mind than the last several months' worth of hand-wringing among candidates and pundits over this administration's approach to Libya and the tumultuous war in Afghanistan.
Many of Obama's likely GOP rivals in 2012 have lambasted him in recent weeks as a president with a weak foreign-policy dossier. But last night, some of his potential opponents--including Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney--carefully offered Obama praise for his handling of the bin Laden operation.
"In the hours after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush promised that America would bring Osama bin Laden to justice--and we did," Pawlenty said in a statement. "I want to congratulate America's armed forces and President Obama for a job well done. Let history show that the perseverance of the US military and the American people never wavered."
In a message posted on Facebook, Romney called bin Laden's death a "great victory great victory for lovers of freedom and justice everywhere." "Congratulations to our intelligence community, our military and the president," he wrote.
But not all GOP candidates were as gracious. In separate messages on Twitter and Facebook, Sarah Palin made no mention of Obama, instead praising the military. "Thank you, American men and women in uniform. You are America's finest and we are all so proud," she wrote. "Thank you for fighting against terrorism."
However, political history also offers some important cautions about how short-lived such victories can be in the heat of a re-election effort. Take, for example, former President George H.W. Bush's sky-high poll numbers in the aftermath of the successful 1991 Gulf War, which made him seem virtually unbeatable by his likely Democratic opponents.
But as the 1992 campaign drew closer, Bush 41's numbers steadily dropped, and lost his bid for a second term, thanks mostly to public anxiety over the struggling economy--an issue that also seems likely to dominate the upcoming 2012 campaign, at least for now.
In policy terms, too, the administration seem averse to gloating over the legacy of his historic moment. Last night, Obama made clear in his remarks that the war in terror is far from over--and that bin Laden's death doesn't mean an end to threats to the nation. "His death does not mark the end of our effort," the president warned. "There's no doubt that al Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us ... The cause of securing our country is not complete."
The secret team that killed bin Laden
By Marc Ambinder - National Journal | Yahoo! Canada News
May 2, 2011
From Ghazi Air Base in Pakistan, the modified MH-60 helicopters made their way to the garrison suburb of Abbottabad, about 30 miles from the center of Islamabad. Aboard were Navy SEALs, flown across the border from Afghanistan, along with tactical signals, intelligence collectors, and navigators using highly classified hyperspectral imagers.
After bursts of fire over 40 minutes, 22 people were killed or captured. One of the dead was Osama bin Laden, done in by a double tap -- boom, boom -- to the left side of his face. His body was aboard the choppers that made the trip back. One had experienced mechanical failure and was destroyed by U.S. forces, military and White House officials tell National Journal.
Were it not for this high-value target, it might have been a routine mission for the specially trained and highly mythologized SEAL Team Six, officially called the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, but known even to the locals at their home base Dam Neck in Virginia as just DevGru.
This HVT was special, and the raids required practice, so they replicated the one-acre compound at Camp Alpha, a segregated section of Bagram Air Base. Trial runs were held in early April.
DevGru belongs to the Joint Special Operations Command, an extraordinary and unusual collection of classified standing task forces and special-missions units. They report to the president and operate worldwide based on the legal (or extra-legal) premises of classified presidential directives. Though the general public knows about the special SEALs and their brothers in Delta Force, most JSOC missions never leak. We only hear about JSOC when something goes bad (a British aid worker is accidentally killed) or when something really big happens (a merchant marine captain is rescued at sea), and even then, the military remains especially sensitive about their existence. Several dozen JSOC operatives have died in Pakistan over the past several years. Their names are released by the Defense Department in the usual manner, but with a cover story -- generally, they were killed in training accidents in eastern Afghanistan. That's the code.
How did the helicopters elude the Pakistani air defense network? Did they spoof transponder codes? Were they painted and tricked out with Pakistan Air Force equipment? If so -- and we may never know -- two other JSOC units, the Technical Application Programs Office and the Aviation Technology Evaluation Group, were responsible. These truly are the silent squirrels -- never getting public credit and not caring one whit. Since 9/11, the JSOC units and their task forces have become the U.S. government's most effective and lethal weapon against terrorists and their networks, drawing plenty of unwanted, and occasionally unflattering, attention to themselves in the process.
JSOC costs the country more than $1 billion annually. The command has its critics, but it has escaped significant congressional scrutiny and has operated largely with impunity since 9/11. Some of its interrogators and operators were involved in torture and rendition, and the line between its intelligence-gathering activities and the CIA's has been blurred.
But Sunday's operation provides strong evidence that the CIA and JSOC work well together. Sometimes intelligence needs to be developed rapidly, to get inside the enemy's operational loop. And sometimes it needs to be cultivated, grown as if it were delicate bacteria in a petri dish.
In an interview at CIA headquarters two weeks ago, a senior intelligence official said the two proud groups of American secret warriors had been "deconflicted and basically integrated" -- finally -- 10 years after 9/11. Indeed, according to accounts given to journalists by five senior administration officials Sunday night, the CIA gathered the intelligence that led to bin Laden's location. A memo from CIA Director Leon Panetta sent Sunday night provides some hints of how the information was collected and analyzed. In it, he thanked the National Security Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency for their help. NSA figured out, somehow, that there was no telephone or Internet service in the compound. How it did this without Pakistan's knowledge is a secret. The NGIA makes the military's maps but also develops their pattern recognition software -- no doubt used to help establish, by February of this year, that the CIA could say with "high probability" that bin Laden and his family were living there.
Recently, JSOC built a new Targeting and Analysis Center in Rosslyn, Va. Where the NationalCounterterrorism Center tends to focus on threats to the homeland, TAAC, whose existence was first disclosed by the Associated Press, focuses outward, on active "kinetic" -- or lethal -- counterterrorism-missions abroad. Its creation surprised the NCTC's director, Michael Leiter, who was suspicious about its intent until he visited.
That the center could be stood up under the nose of some of the nation's most senior intelligence officials without their full knowledge testifies to the power and reach of JSOC, whose size has tripled since 9/11. The command now includes more than 4,000 soldiers and civilians. It has its own intelligence division, which may or may not have been involved in last night's effort, and has gobbled up a number of free-floating Defense Department entities that allowed it to rapidly acquire, test, and field new technologies.
Under a variety of standing orders, JSOC is involved in more than 50 current operations spanning a dozen countries, and its units, supported by so-called "white," or acknowledged, special operations entities like Rangers, Special Forces battalions, SEAL teams, and Air Force special ops units from the larger Special Operations Command, are responsible for most of the "kinetic" action in Afghanistan.
Pentagon officials are conscious of the enormous stress that 10 years of war have placed on the command. JSOC resources are heavily taxed by the operational tempo in Afghanistan and Pakistan, officials have said. The current commander, Vice Adm. William McRaven, and Maj. Gen. Joseph Votel, McRaven's nominated replacement, have been pushing to add people and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance technology to areas outside the war theater where al-Qaida and its affiliates continue to thrive.
Earlier this year, it seemed that the elite units would face the same budget pressures that the entire military was experiencing. Not anymore. The military found a way, largely by reducing contracting staff and borrowing others from the Special Operations Command, to add 50 positions to JSOC. And Votel wants to add several squadrons to the "Tier One" units -- Delta and the SEALs.
When Gen. Stanley McChrystal became JSOC's commanding general in 2004, he and his intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn, set about transforming the way the subordinate units analyze and act on intelligence. Insurgents in Iraq were exploiting the slow decision loop that coalition commanders used, and enhanced interrogation techniques were frowned upon after the Abu Ghraib scandal. But the hunger for actionable tactical intelligence on insurgents was palpable.
The way JSOC solved this problem remains a carefully guarded secret, but people familiar with the unit suggest that McChrystal and Flynn introduced hardened commandos to basic criminal forensic techniques and then used highly advanced and still-classified technology to transform bits of information into actionable intelligence. One way they did this was to create forward-deployed fusion cells, where JSOC units were paired with intelligence analysts from the NSA and the NGA. Such analysis helped the CIA to establish, with a high degree of probability, that Osama bin Laden and his family were hiding in that particular compound.
These technicians could "exploit and analyze" data obtained from the battlefield instantly, using their access to the government's various biometric, facial-recognition, and voice-print databases. These cells also used highly advanced surveillance technology and computer-based pattern analysis to layer predictive models of insurgent behavior onto real-time observations.
The military has begun to incorporate these techniques across the services. And Flynn will soon be promoted to a job within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, where he'll be tasked with transforming the way intelligence is gathered, analyzed, and utilized.
May 2, 2011
From Ghazi Air Base in Pakistan, the modified MH-60 helicopters made their way to the garrison suburb of Abbottabad, about 30 miles from the center of Islamabad. Aboard were Navy SEALs, flown across the border from Afghanistan, along with tactical signals, intelligence collectors, and navigators using highly classified hyperspectral imagers.
After bursts of fire over 40 minutes, 22 people were killed or captured. One of the dead was Osama bin Laden, done in by a double tap -- boom, boom -- to the left side of his face. His body was aboard the choppers that made the trip back. One had experienced mechanical failure and was destroyed by U.S. forces, military and White House officials tell National Journal.
Were it not for this high-value target, it might have been a routine mission for the specially trained and highly mythologized SEAL Team Six, officially called the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, but known even to the locals at their home base Dam Neck in Virginia as just DevGru.
This HVT was special, and the raids required practice, so they replicated the one-acre compound at Camp Alpha, a segregated section of Bagram Air Base. Trial runs were held in early April.
DevGru belongs to the Joint Special Operations Command, an extraordinary and unusual collection of classified standing task forces and special-missions units. They report to the president and operate worldwide based on the legal (or extra-legal) premises of classified presidential directives. Though the general public knows about the special SEALs and their brothers in Delta Force, most JSOC missions never leak. We only hear about JSOC when something goes bad (a British aid worker is accidentally killed) or when something really big happens (a merchant marine captain is rescued at sea), and even then, the military remains especially sensitive about their existence. Several dozen JSOC operatives have died in Pakistan over the past several years. Their names are released by the Defense Department in the usual manner, but with a cover story -- generally, they were killed in training accidents in eastern Afghanistan. That's the code.
How did the helicopters elude the Pakistani air defense network? Did they spoof transponder codes? Were they painted and tricked out with Pakistan Air Force equipment? If so -- and we may never know -- two other JSOC units, the Technical Application Programs Office and the Aviation Technology Evaluation Group, were responsible. These truly are the silent squirrels -- never getting public credit and not caring one whit. Since 9/11, the JSOC units and their task forces have become the U.S. government's most effective and lethal weapon against terrorists and their networks, drawing plenty of unwanted, and occasionally unflattering, attention to themselves in the process.
JSOC costs the country more than $1 billion annually. The command has its critics, but it has escaped significant congressional scrutiny and has operated largely with impunity since 9/11. Some of its interrogators and operators were involved in torture and rendition, and the line between its intelligence-gathering activities and the CIA's has been blurred.
But Sunday's operation provides strong evidence that the CIA and JSOC work well together. Sometimes intelligence needs to be developed rapidly, to get inside the enemy's operational loop. And sometimes it needs to be cultivated, grown as if it were delicate bacteria in a petri dish.
In an interview at CIA headquarters two weeks ago, a senior intelligence official said the two proud groups of American secret warriors had been "deconflicted and basically integrated" -- finally -- 10 years after 9/11. Indeed, according to accounts given to journalists by five senior administration officials Sunday night, the CIA gathered the intelligence that led to bin Laden's location. A memo from CIA Director Leon Panetta sent Sunday night provides some hints of how the information was collected and analyzed. In it, he thanked the National Security Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency for their help. NSA figured out, somehow, that there was no telephone or Internet service in the compound. How it did this without Pakistan's knowledge is a secret. The NGIA makes the military's maps but also develops their pattern recognition software -- no doubt used to help establish, by February of this year, that the CIA could say with "high probability" that bin Laden and his family were living there.
Recently, JSOC built a new Targeting and Analysis Center in Rosslyn, Va. Where the NationalCounterterrorism Center tends to focus on threats to the homeland, TAAC, whose existence was first disclosed by the Associated Press, focuses outward, on active "kinetic" -- or lethal -- counterterrorism-missions abroad. Its creation surprised the NCTC's director, Michael Leiter, who was suspicious about its intent until he visited.
That the center could be stood up under the nose of some of the nation's most senior intelligence officials without their full knowledge testifies to the power and reach of JSOC, whose size has tripled since 9/11. The command now includes more than 4,000 soldiers and civilians. It has its own intelligence division, which may or may not have been involved in last night's effort, and has gobbled up a number of free-floating Defense Department entities that allowed it to rapidly acquire, test, and field new technologies.
Under a variety of standing orders, JSOC is involved in more than 50 current operations spanning a dozen countries, and its units, supported by so-called "white," or acknowledged, special operations entities like Rangers, Special Forces battalions, SEAL teams, and Air Force special ops units from the larger Special Operations Command, are responsible for most of the "kinetic" action in Afghanistan.
Pentagon officials are conscious of the enormous stress that 10 years of war have placed on the command. JSOC resources are heavily taxed by the operational tempo in Afghanistan and Pakistan, officials have said. The current commander, Vice Adm. William McRaven, and Maj. Gen. Joseph Votel, McRaven's nominated replacement, have been pushing to add people and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance technology to areas outside the war theater where al-Qaida and its affiliates continue to thrive.
Earlier this year, it seemed that the elite units would face the same budget pressures that the entire military was experiencing. Not anymore. The military found a way, largely by reducing contracting staff and borrowing others from the Special Operations Command, to add 50 positions to JSOC. And Votel wants to add several squadrons to the "Tier One" units -- Delta and the SEALs.
When Gen. Stanley McChrystal became JSOC's commanding general in 2004, he and his intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn, set about transforming the way the subordinate units analyze and act on intelligence. Insurgents in Iraq were exploiting the slow decision loop that coalition commanders used, and enhanced interrogation techniques were frowned upon after the Abu Ghraib scandal. But the hunger for actionable tactical intelligence on insurgents was palpable.
The way JSOC solved this problem remains a carefully guarded secret, but people familiar with the unit suggest that McChrystal and Flynn introduced hardened commandos to basic criminal forensic techniques and then used highly advanced and still-classified technology to transform bits of information into actionable intelligence. One way they did this was to create forward-deployed fusion cells, where JSOC units were paired with intelligence analysts from the NSA and the NGA. Such analysis helped the CIA to establish, with a high degree of probability, that Osama bin Laden and his family were hiding in that particular compound.
These technicians could "exploit and analyze" data obtained from the battlefield instantly, using their access to the government's various biometric, facial-recognition, and voice-print databases. These cells also used highly advanced surveillance technology and computer-based pattern analysis to layer predictive models of insurgent behavior onto real-time observations.
The military has begun to incorporate these techniques across the services. And Flynn will soon be promoted to a job within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, where he'll be tasked with transforming the way intelligence is gathered, analyzed, and utilized.
Obama ridicules Trump at Correspondents’ dinner, mocks ‘birther’ crusade
Sun May 1, 12:38 am ET
By Rachel Rose Hartman
After weeks of keeping his thoughts about Donald Trump largely to himself, President Obama on Saturday night ridiculed the real estate magnate in front of a live televised audience at the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington, D.C.
As Trump and wife Melania sat among the guests gathered at the Washington Hilton, Obama poked fun at Trump's reality show, said Trump lacked the "credentials" to be president, and mocked the businessman's recent crusade to get Obama to release his long-form birth certificate.
"I know that he's taken some flack lately," Obama said of Trump. "But no one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than The Donald."
But then the president quickly changed gears. "And that's because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter, like--did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?" Obama said, referencing rap icons Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur.
You can watch Obama's 19-minute speech here
But Obama didn't stop at making light of the mutual infatuation of Trump and the birther movement.
The president next mocked Trump's background, saying, "All kidding aside. Obviously we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience," a dig at Trump's political background that evoked laughter from the audience of journalists, politicians and celebrities.
Obama then chose to reference a recent episode of "Celebrity Apprentice" that featured Trump, the star of the program, firing actor Gary Busey instead of singer Meatloaf and rapper Lil Jon in an Omaha Steak challenge. "And these are the kind of decisions that would keep me up at night," Obama said as the audience roared with laughter and applause. "Well handled, sir. Well handled."
It's typical for the speeches at the annual dinner to play out as a roast, poking fun at the self-importance of the national political scene. But Obama's lampooning of Trump and the birther crusade held special significance, since the Correspondents Dinner festivities marked the first time the president and Trump were in the same room since Trump began his highly publicized campaign to get Obama to release his birth certificate.
The president made fun of the controversy, saying that he was prepared to "go a step further."
"Tonight, for the first time, I am releasing my official birth video," he told the audience. But then he played a clip of lion Simba's birth in Disney's cartoon movie The Lion King.
"I want to make clear to the Fox News table--that was a joke," the president said of the Disney clip.
Obama also made some jokes at his own expense, noting how his "honeymoon" as president was over and referencing the perception that he's too professorial and arrogant. At the star-studded gala, he also paused to note that he's even losing support from Hollywood—a mainstay of fundraising for the president's 2008 campaign. (Though he dinged actor Matt Damon for the celebrity's recent criticism, saying "Matt, I just saw 'The Adjustment Bureau,' so right back at you, buddy.")
Obama also joked about starting conspiracy theories about his potential 2012 opponents: Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) was born in Canada; Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has the middle name "Hosni"; Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman is Chinese; and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney passed universal health care. (The last allegation, of course, falls into the "funny because it's true" category, since Romney had presided over the passage of a state-level version of the same individual-mandate plan that Obama signed into law in 2010.)
The light-hearted evening was interspersed with more serious matters. The Correspondents Association issued awards students and journalists for their achievements, while also honoring journalists abroad who have lost their lives or faced grave physical hazards in the course of their work.
But that didn't mean journalists were spared any ridicule Saturday night.
The evening's celebrity host Seth Meyers, "Saturday Night Live" writer and star, mocked some of the industry's best-known faces.
"Katie [Couric] was known best for asking those tough questions like, 'name a newspaper," Meyers said, referencing Couric's 2008 interview with Sarah Palin. "Years of hard-hitting questions, and she's going to be remembered for the one that could have doubled as a category on 'The Family Feud.' "
On Juan Williams, the NPR journalist fired after saying he gets nervous on a plane when he sees people dressed in "Muslim garb," Meyers said, "so Juan is black and afraid of Muslims, making him the least likely man to get a cab in New York City."
But some of Meyers most biting remarks were reserved for 2012 hopefuls and the president himself.
Meyers suggested Romney's book "No Apologies" actually indicated Romney made many mistakes. "If I come home from a trip to Vegas and the first thing I say to my girlfriend is 'no apologies,' we're gonna have a follow up conversation," Meyers quipped.
Meyers made fun of Trump's hair, likening it to a fox that would be happy to finish the leftovers at his table, said Pawlenty makes Al Gore look like drag queen RuPaul, and joked that Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and son Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) have something in common with Meyers and his own father: "we're also not going to get elected president."
Meyers also took a few digs at Obama.
"Who knows if they can beat you in 2012?" Meyers said of the potential GOP field. "But I'll tell you who can definitely beat you, Mr. President--2008 Barack Obama," he said, standing feet from the commander-in-chief as the audience roared with laughter. "You would have loved him--so charismatic, so charming. Was he a little too idealistic? Maybe. But you would have loved him."
And Meyers also took note of the toll the presidency has apparently taken on the president's appearance. Meyers said the First Lady looked even more beautiful at Saturday's dinner than she did on Inauguration Day 2009. "But you, Mr. President have aged a little," Meyers said. "What happened to you? When you were sworn in you looked like the guy from the Old Spice commercials. Now you look like Louis Gossett Sr.," he said, referencing 74-year-old actor Louis Gossett Jr.
"Maybe you should start smoking again," Meyers said. "If your hair gets any whiter, the tea party is going to endorse it."
(Photo of Obama: Martin H. Simon-Pool/Getty Images)
By Rachel Rose Hartman
After weeks of keeping his thoughts about Donald Trump largely to himself, President Obama on Saturday night ridiculed the real estate magnate in front of a live televised audience at the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington, D.C.
As Trump and wife Melania sat among the guests gathered at the Washington Hilton, Obama poked fun at Trump's reality show, said Trump lacked the "credentials" to be president, and mocked the businessman's recent crusade to get Obama to release his long-form birth certificate.
"I know that he's taken some flack lately," Obama said of Trump. "But no one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than The Donald."
But then the president quickly changed gears. "And that's because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter, like--did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?" Obama said, referencing rap icons Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur.
You can watch Obama's 19-minute speech here
But Obama didn't stop at making light of the mutual infatuation of Trump and the birther movement.
The president next mocked Trump's background, saying, "All kidding aside. Obviously we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience," a dig at Trump's political background that evoked laughter from the audience of journalists, politicians and celebrities.
Obama then chose to reference a recent episode of "Celebrity Apprentice" that featured Trump, the star of the program, firing actor Gary Busey instead of singer Meatloaf and rapper Lil Jon in an Omaha Steak challenge. "And these are the kind of decisions that would keep me up at night," Obama said as the audience roared with laughter and applause. "Well handled, sir. Well handled."
It's typical for the speeches at the annual dinner to play out as a roast, poking fun at the self-importance of the national political scene. But Obama's lampooning of Trump and the birther crusade held special significance, since the Correspondents Dinner festivities marked the first time the president and Trump were in the same room since Trump began his highly publicized campaign to get Obama to release his birth certificate.
The president made fun of the controversy, saying that he was prepared to "go a step further."
"Tonight, for the first time, I am releasing my official birth video," he told the audience. But then he played a clip of lion Simba's birth in Disney's cartoon movie The Lion King.
"I want to make clear to the Fox News table--that was a joke," the president said of the Disney clip.
Obama also made some jokes at his own expense, noting how his "honeymoon" as president was over and referencing the perception that he's too professorial and arrogant. At the star-studded gala, he also paused to note that he's even losing support from Hollywood—a mainstay of fundraising for the president's 2008 campaign. (Though he dinged actor Matt Damon for the celebrity's recent criticism, saying "Matt, I just saw 'The Adjustment Bureau,' so right back at you, buddy.")
Obama also joked about starting conspiracy theories about his potential 2012 opponents: Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) was born in Canada; Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has the middle name "Hosni"; Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman is Chinese; and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney passed universal health care. (The last allegation, of course, falls into the "funny because it's true" category, since Romney had presided over the passage of a state-level version of the same individual-mandate plan that Obama signed into law in 2010.)
The light-hearted evening was interspersed with more serious matters. The Correspondents Association issued awards students and journalists for their achievements, while also honoring journalists abroad who have lost their lives or faced grave physical hazards in the course of their work.
But that didn't mean journalists were spared any ridicule Saturday night.
The evening's celebrity host Seth Meyers, "Saturday Night Live" writer and star, mocked some of the industry's best-known faces.
"Katie [Couric] was known best for asking those tough questions like, 'name a newspaper," Meyers said, referencing Couric's 2008 interview with Sarah Palin. "Years of hard-hitting questions, and she's going to be remembered for the one that could have doubled as a category on 'The Family Feud.' "
On Juan Williams, the NPR journalist fired after saying he gets nervous on a plane when he sees people dressed in "Muslim garb," Meyers said, "so Juan is black and afraid of Muslims, making him the least likely man to get a cab in New York City."
But some of Meyers most biting remarks were reserved for 2012 hopefuls and the president himself.
Meyers suggested Romney's book "No Apologies" actually indicated Romney made many mistakes. "If I come home from a trip to Vegas and the first thing I say to my girlfriend is 'no apologies,' we're gonna have a follow up conversation," Meyers quipped.
Meyers made fun of Trump's hair, likening it to a fox that would be happy to finish the leftovers at his table, said Pawlenty makes Al Gore look like drag queen RuPaul, and joked that Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and son Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) have something in common with Meyers and his own father: "we're also not going to get elected president."
Meyers also took a few digs at Obama.
"Who knows if they can beat you in 2012?" Meyers said of the potential GOP field. "But I'll tell you who can definitely beat you, Mr. President--2008 Barack Obama," he said, standing feet from the commander-in-chief as the audience roared with laughter. "You would have loved him--so charismatic, so charming. Was he a little too idealistic? Maybe. But you would have loved him."
And Meyers also took note of the toll the presidency has apparently taken on the president's appearance. Meyers said the First Lady looked even more beautiful at Saturday's dinner than she did on Inauguration Day 2009. "But you, Mr. President have aged a little," Meyers said. "What happened to you? When you were sworn in you looked like the guy from the Old Spice commercials. Now you look like Louis Gossett Sr.," he said, referencing 74-year-old actor Louis Gossett Jr.
"Maybe you should start smoking again," Meyers said. "If your hair gets any whiter, the tea party is going to endorse it."
(Photo of Obama: Martin H. Simon-Pool/Getty Images)
These athletes went broke
Bankrupt stars: Athletes who lost it all
By Daniel Bukszpan, Special to CNBC.com
In 2008, the NBA Players’ Association claimed that 60 percent of pro basketball players go broke within five years of retirement. It’s not hard to see why. In the annals of “easy come, easy go,” few people see it come and go like professional athletes.
While it’s true that many take their salaries and invest them in sensible and enduring business ventures, many others squander their multimillion-dollar salaries on expensive cars, jewelry and mansions, and when the checks stop coming in, they have little to show for it.
Basketball player Latrell Sprewell first made headlines during his tenure with the Golden State Warriors. During a 1997 practice, he choked his coach, P.J. Carlesimo, and earned a 68-game suspension. Sprewell still went on to a substantial career, earning almost $100 million.
It all came to an end when he turned down a three-year contract extension from the Minnesota Timberwolves worth $30 million. According to Sprewell, this was simply not enough money. He said, “I have a family to feed … [team owner Glen Taylor] better cough up some money. Otherwise, you’re going to see these kids in one of those Sally Struthers commercials soon.” (Sprewell was referencing ChildFund International commercials, which provided sponsorship to deprived children around the world.)
The Timberwolves’ upper management, unmoved by his family’s tragic situation, didn’t offer him one more cent, and by the end of the 2005 season, he was unemployed. By 2007, his yacht, “Milwaukee’s Best,” had been repossessed by federal marshals after missed payments and insurance worth over $1 million. In 2008, he defaulted on the mortgage on his Milwaukee home, sending it into foreclosure. His Westchester mansion went into foreclosure two years later.
For a while, no boxer on earth was as feared as “Iron Mike” Tyson. The powerful puncher won his first 19 professional fights by knockout, some of which took place during the first round. He quickly became the heavyweight champion of the world, but in 1992 he was convicted of sexual assault and served three years in prison. When he got out, no amount of comeback matches could get him back his mojo, and after biting off a piece of Evander Holyfield’s ear during a 1997 fight, Tyson was disqualified. He never again won another championship.
Money shouldn’t have been a problem for Tyson. After all, according to the New York Times, he had earned more than $400 million in his boxing career. However, he had spent almost all of it, frittering it away on extravagances like mansions, luxury cars and pet tigers. He also owed $9 million for his divorce settlement and $13 million to the IRS. When he filed for bankruptcy in 2003, he claimed debts of $27 million.
By Daniel Bukszpan, Special to CNBC.com
In 2008, the NBA Players’ Association claimed that 60 percent of pro basketball players go broke within five years of retirement. It’s not hard to see why. In the annals of “easy come, easy go,” few people see it come and go like professional athletes.
While it’s true that many take their salaries and invest them in sensible and enduring business ventures, many others squander their multimillion-dollar salaries on expensive cars, jewelry and mansions, and when the checks stop coming in, they have little to show for it.
Basketball player Latrell Sprewell first made headlines during his tenure with the Golden State Warriors. During a 1997 practice, he choked his coach, P.J. Carlesimo, and earned a 68-game suspension. Sprewell still went on to a substantial career, earning almost $100 million.
It all came to an end when he turned down a three-year contract extension from the Minnesota Timberwolves worth $30 million. According to Sprewell, this was simply not enough money. He said, “I have a family to feed … [team owner Glen Taylor] better cough up some money. Otherwise, you’re going to see these kids in one of those Sally Struthers commercials soon.” (Sprewell was referencing ChildFund International commercials, which provided sponsorship to deprived children around the world.)
The Timberwolves’ upper management, unmoved by his family’s tragic situation, didn’t offer him one more cent, and by the end of the 2005 season, he was unemployed. By 2007, his yacht, “Milwaukee’s Best,” had been repossessed by federal marshals after missed payments and insurance worth over $1 million. In 2008, he defaulted on the mortgage on his Milwaukee home, sending it into foreclosure. His Westchester mansion went into foreclosure two years later.
For a while, no boxer on earth was as feared as “Iron Mike” Tyson. The powerful puncher won his first 19 professional fights by knockout, some of which took place during the first round. He quickly became the heavyweight champion of the world, but in 1992 he was convicted of sexual assault and served three years in prison. When he got out, no amount of comeback matches could get him back his mojo, and after biting off a piece of Evander Holyfield’s ear during a 1997 fight, Tyson was disqualified. He never again won another championship.
Money shouldn’t have been a problem for Tyson. After all, according to the New York Times, he had earned more than $400 million in his boxing career. However, he had spent almost all of it, frittering it away on extravagances like mansions, luxury cars and pet tigers. He also owed $9 million for his divorce settlement and $13 million to the IRS. When he filed for bankruptcy in 2003, he claimed debts of $27 million.
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