Reason Writers on MSNBC: Matt Welch Talks Obama's Bin Laden-Killing Politics on Jansing & Co.

This morning I went on Jansing & Co. to discuss the Obama-vs.-Romney politics of killing Osama bin Laden. Thirteen-plus minutes; the second of my two comments is near the end:

Comments

[Pro Libertate]

When President Obama wiped bin Laden's blood off his KA-BAR on his bare, glistening chest, he knew that he had saved America, once and for all.

No other candidate has personally killed a man for America. Obama has. Vote for victory. Vote for competent, personal execution. Vote Obama.

[John]

Didn't it come out a few days ago that they had an admiral make the final call on the mission so they could throw him under the bus if it failed?

[Enough About Palin]

^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^

Barack Obama: Every Word is a Lie.

[Pro Libertate]

In a world where reality has become too painful to endure, what we need more than anything is a man who will tell us pretty lies.

Vote for illusion. Vote for fairy tales. Vote Obama.

[Marshall Gill]

I think I am going to take this advice, Pro L. Reality IS becoming to painful to endure.

[Pro Libertate]

When Obama reveals his plans to provide each American with full-immersion VR to dodge the pain of reality, he will win the election unanimously.

[o3]

i heard cheney had "the final call" to blow binLaden's face off...cause they told me so.

[Kreel Sarloo]

You would kinda think that three plus years into the new guy's term that no one would call the old "it's all Dubya's fault" tune, wouldn't you?

[Groovus Maximus]

That well, fortunately and unfortunately, depending on the subject at hand, will never run dry.

As JW pointed out a while back, he still has relatives who still crack Reagan jokes.

[Killazontherun]

With finger quotes, knobby head jitters and bushy eyebrow grins when uttering 'trickle down economics.'

[rho]

Can you request what your backdrop will be when you do these video phoners?

I assume they're all green-screened, otherwise there'd be video of somebody with a "Say Anything" poster in the background.

[Richard_KY]

Even with bin Laden dead, Al Qaeda essentially won. The American Empire is bogged down in the Middle East and bankrupt and more Muslims hate it than ever. Exactly what he planned for.

[John]

Oh that is bullshit. First we are not bankrupt because of the war. Second, in the process of being bogged down in the Middle East we have killed 1000s of their best fighters and caused Al Quada to totally discredit themselves to the rest of the middle east. It was one thing when they were killing Americans. But when they started bombing mosques on Al Jezera, that was something else. They are a completely broke organization. And the middle easterners may not like America, but they hate their rulers more and have settled into having a proper civil war rather than going after us.

[Richard_KY]

How do you think all the civilians killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan feel about America right now?

How about the mother who had her five kids killed by a drone screaming, wailing, craving revenge?

[Richard_KY]

Oh, and the Islamist parties are absolutely cleaning up in all their elections.

[XM]

That's not the same as Al Qaeda winning, is it? Al Qaeda is more or less dead. They're running out of money, and their organization is in shambles. Their members are known to give up their allies upon capture, which, coupled with cooperation of citizens, helped wipe them out in Iraq.

Your kind of thinking is a paradox - you think they won because we're "bogged down" in the middle east, but we can't take them out if we don't engage them there. We have to share intelligence and cooperate with semi dictators like whoever runs places like Pakistan so our military can gain foothold there. Pakistan was kinda upset that Obama took out OBL without notifying them.

If you abandon all military intervention and to dry them out with economic sanctions or the like, then so much easier for them to stoke anti western sentiments and extremism.

Not that wars don't come with a terrible price, but you think Al Qaeda of the KKK will stop their hate if we JUST LEFT THEM alone? 9/11 happened BEFORE the war in Iraq. No one in Al Qaeda cares that we had some cause to participate in the first Iraq war or that Clinton ordered weapons facilities taken out for the right reasons.

[Richard_KY]

9/11 happened, explicitly stated by bin Laden, because we had troops on their holy land.

[Enough About Palin]

Fuck 'em. He's wasn't god, so fuck 'em.

[Kreel Sarloo]

Since, IIRC, you arrived on this site posting some leftist populist screed the other day I assume you're the newest leftwing flame warrior.

What you posted today is not altogether out of line with thinking of most on this site (we're libertarians not Republicans) except for, as John rightly notes, we are not bankrupt because of the war.

[Richard_KY]

I know I understand that. On the subject of foreign interventions its more the ruling class/militarists vs. the rest of us rather than right vs. left.

[Richard_KY]

Ruling political class that is...I don't think the ruling economic class (millionaires and billionaires) necessarily likes the wars, either, unless they make their dollars off of the MIC.

[sarcasmic]

...the ruling economic class...

Great.

Another leftist "Hey look at me! I understand nothing about economics but I agree with Paul Krugman so that makes me smart!" retard.

[Richard_KY]

You're saying billionaires DON'T run this country? Hahahahha.

[sarcasmic]

Depends on what you mean by "run".

I would argue that no one "runs" the country.

[T]

It's a fucked-up emergent system. You can nudge it this way or that, but it runs itself, anymore.

[Kreel Sarloo]

I think it's kind of hard to argue that there are not rent-seekers claiming to be capitalists making huge profits from the Military-Industrial Complex, as well as the "Green Energy Complex", the "Mass Transit Complex", the "Highway Construction Complex" etc.

Any resemblance of these people to free market entrepreneurs is wholly contrived.

[Gilbert Martin]

I'm getting tired of Obama crowing about getting Bin Laden.

The military already had the objective to get Bin Laden long before he ever took office.

Obama provided absolutely no added value to the process.

It reminds me of Clinton trying to take credit for an economic recovery that started before he ever took office.

[shrike]

You're full of shit. Obama made the call Bush and McCain both said they would not - violating an ally's sovereign territory without permission.

[Kreel Sarloo]

I'm not sure how that "Obama made the call Bush and McCain both said they would not..." is relevant. Did they actually say they'd leave OBL alone if he was found hiding in Pakistan or that they would work with the Pak govt to get him?

I love how Bush was always a unilateral cowboy until he wasn't. And when he did try to work with allies, he was still he was wrong.

And I'm waiting to see how that whole "violating an ally's sovereign territory without permission" is going to work out in the long run. It's not like shit like that hasn't come back to bite us in the ass before.

[Marshall Gill]

Shorter shriek: Slurp, slurp, slurp

[Gilbert Martin]

I repeat, Obama added nothing of value to the process.

That is an uequivocal and absolute fact.

One that is bolstered by shriek taking issue with it - being that he is always wrong all the time about everything.

[sarcasmic]

in the process of being bogged down in the Middle East we have killed 1000s of their best fighters

Who I'm sure would have happily stayed there and never hurt and American had our military not been sent to occupy their homeland.

[sarcasmic]

*an*