[Artwork by ALEX PREISS]

BY WILLIAM C. HENRY So, we finally got the scumbag. Am I happy? You bet your sweet ass I am! The only thing that could have made me happier would have been his being taken alive, shipped back in a cage, tried in a New York courtroom, found guilty, and publicly hanged (televised worldwide) at Ground Zero in front of a jeering crowd made up of every living relative and friend of every person who lost their life or suffered any harm as a result of the 911 attacks. I’d also have wanted a specially placarded “guests of dishonor” section reserved for all the government officials, including President Bush, who had ignored the literally dozens of verbal and written al Qaeda intercepts divulging the fact that terrorist attacks within the U.S. were imminent, and airplane hijackings were at the TOP of the list of probable means!

The FRONT row would have been saved for those who were provided, and chose to ignore, SPECIFIC factual details about six Middle Easterners who had enrolled themselves in flight schools here and notified the instructors that they were interested ONLY in “in-flight” piloting training! But, alas, as is the case with almost ALL internal government investigations whenever an embarrassing “exposure” raises its unwelcome head, we’ll never know any of the disgusting details surrounding THIS particular chapter of unbridled hubris and inconceivable criminal incompetence either, because the in-depth CIA investigative report identifying the bastards was NEVER made PUBLIC!. Can you spell C O V E R Y O U R A S S G O V E R N M E N T S E C R E C Y again?! Anyway, I think the “guests of dishonor” thing would have been a nice touch.

Regardless of MY feelings on the matter, I’m sure all of you I-can’t-wait-to-start-popping-those-cherries charmers out there busily readying yourselves for your ultimate Slim Pickens ride must have felt a bit deflated upon learning that your “patriarch of the put-upon” had himself been living the high life in a million dollar mansion a thousand miles away from the fray. No doubt that cave-sharing coziness and tree-limb kebob-cooking gets old pretty quick. Oh, well, cherish the memories!

On an extremely satisfying note for all of us non-birther types, isn’t it ironic and altogether fitting that the President the Right Wing so relentlessly ridicules as being “soft” on terrorism should be the very one to ultimately nail bin Laden’s butt! Jesus, how I’d like to watch those callow capture-the-flaggers choke on this crow sh _ t sandwich!

Anyway, was it all worth it? Hell NO it wasn’t! Those who would call 1,570 brave Americans’ lives (so far!), 10,468 brave Americans maimed (so far!), and 400 Billion American dollars (so far!) a fair trade for that bearded barrel of donkey dung are some really sick sons-a-bitches! For all of those who’ve already been sacrificed by the former (and current) “best and brightest,” never-learned-a-f _ _ _ _ _ g-thing-from-the-past, blood-sucking, sociopathic silverbacks, it’s mournfully to late. bin Laden was gotten exactly the way he could have and should have been from the get-go: with a couple of crack Navy Seal and/or Delta Force teams. Period. The rest of this unconscionable mission-creep nation-building abomination is PURE UNADULTERATED FEAR-MONGERING FACT-FABRICATED BULLSHIT! But, that’s just MY humble opinion.

So, are we all done over there? Surely you JEST! Ask yourself this: when has our government ever offered so much as an OUNCE of truth about its depth of commitment, extent of involvement, expected duration, or REAL reason for ANY of it?! I rest my case. Ten years ago they told us that the ONLY reason we were going into Afghanistan was to get bin Laden and destroy or dismantle al Qaeda. Well, folks, BOTH of these goals have been INCONTROVERTIBLY ACCOMPLISHED! Let the lying live on!

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Uncle of the Editor-In-Chief. Fed up early stage septuagenarian who has actually been most of there and done most of that. Born and raised in the picturesque Pocono Mountains. Quite well educated. Very lucky to have been born into a well-schooled and somewhat prosperous family. Long divorced. One beautiful, brilliant daughter. Two far above average grandsons. Semi-retired (how does anyone manage to do it completely these days?) and fully-tired of the bullshit.

1,570 = The number of brave Americans sent home from Afghanistan in BODY BAGS.
10,468 = The number of brave Americans that have been seriously wounded in Afghanistan.
0 = To date the number of financial industry kingpins indicted for having committed the most massive FRAUD in American history.

REUTERS: Photographs acquired by Reuters and taken about an hour after the U.S. assault on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan show three dead men lying in pools of blood, but no weapons. The photos, taken by a Pakistani security official who entered the compound after the early morning raid on Monday, show two men dressed in traditional Pakistani garb and one in a t-shirt, with blood streaming from their ears, noses and mouths. The official, who wished to remain anonymous, sold the pictures to Reuters.[…] Based on the time-stamps on the pictures, the earliest one was dated May 2, 2:30 a.m., approximately an hour after the completion of the raid in which bin Laden was killed. MORE

WARNING: Extremely Graphic

RELATED: I don’t advocate the photos’ release because I think it will convince the unconvincible that Bin Laden is dead or because I desire a “trophy” or a football “spiked,” as Obama puts it in his 60 Minutes interview. I’m for the publication of the pictures because they’re an essential part of the war on al-Qaida. Withholding the photos and couching their suppression in the name of national security misjudges what makes al-Qaida tick and infantilizes the nation. It also sets a precedent for “news that’s too gruesome to reveal.” Here’s how CBS News reporter David Martin describes the photos, based on a description provided to him: “It does sound very gruesome. Remember, bin Laden was shot twice at close range, once in the chest and once in the head, right above his left eye, and that bullet opened his skull, exposing the brain, and it also blew out his eye. So these are not going to be pictures for the squeamish.” MORE

[Illustration by mark_hue]

LOS ANGELES TIMES: As the leader of Tibetan Buddhism, the 14th Dalai Lama says he practices compassion to such an extent that he tries to avoid swatting mosquitoes “when my mood is good and there is no danger of malaria,” sometimes watching with interest as they swell with his blood. Yet, in an appearance Tuesday at USC, he appeared to suggest that the United States was justified in killing Osama bin Laden. As a human being, Bin Laden may have deserved compassion and even forgiveness, the Dalai Lama said in answer to a question about the assassination of the Al Qaeda leader. But, he said, “Forgiveness doesn’t mean forget what happened. … If something is serious and it is necessary to take counter-measures, you have to take counter-measures.” It was, perhaps, an example of the Dalai Lama confounding expectations, something he appears to relish doing. The 75-year-old leader spoke on the first day of what was to have been a four-day trip to Southern California. MORE

RELATED: Osama bin Laden’s young daughter has told Pakistani officials that she saw her father shot and killed by armed Americans when they raided a house here early Monday, an official with Pakistan’s spy agency said Tuesday. The official, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject, said the daughter, whom he described as being 12 or 13 years old, was one of eight or nine children in the house when a team of U.S. Navy SEALs stormed the complex by helicopter. “We have no independent confirmation of Osama bin Laden being there or dying there except what we got from the daughter,” said the official, a member of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency. MORE

RELATED: President Obama has decided not to release photographs of Osama bin Laden’s body, CBS News reported on Wednesday. Mr. Obama apparently concluded that images of Bin Laden bloodied by gunshots would do little to reassure skeptics but could inflame tensions in the Muslim world. He disclosed his decision in an interview for the CBS program “60 Minutes,” part of which will be broadcast on the network’s evening news programs Wednesday. The debate over whether to release photos of Bin Laden had consumed the White House over the last two days. Some senior officials said the release of photos was inevitable. On Tuesday, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta, said he did not think “there was any question that ultimately a photograph would be presented to the public.” But officials at the Pentagon and State Department expressed qualms about releasing gruesome photos of Bin Laden’s bloodied corpse, with some arguing that the photos would not silence those who doubt that he was killed. Some lawmakers also opposed releasing the photos, arguing that doing so would serve little purpose and could endanger American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. MORE

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