Bin Laden shooting offers some vindication for Gitmo.

It appears that the initial intelligence that enabled the US forces to raid and shoot bin Laden was gained from detainees in Guantanamo Bay. While there is no news of the methods used to gain the information, it seems that details of two couriers who were trusted by the arch terrorist was discovered years ago.

Since then there has been an ongoing intelligence effort, firstly to find these people, then track them down and observe their movements. Last year it paid off when they were tracked to the compound where he was dealt with.

Gitmo is something of a difficult issue for libertarians, in finding a balance between individual rights, and how to deal with people who want to kill you. It is reasonably clear-cut though. In a ‘civilized’ war when it is over the combatants go home and get on with their lives. In an Islamic-fascist campaign for world domination, the enemy do not accept your basic right to exist and are forever hostile.

First up there is no end in sight to this campaign, therefore no reason to release enemy combatants, and secondly, those that have been released have a record of going back to fight.

The thing that was most disturbing about the Obama speech was that everything that occurred before he came to office was “WE,” but “I,” did everything afterward. It is clear from the details emerging that by the time he came to power and ordered ….etc, the security services under Bush had already laid the groundwork for what was to become the operation.

Canada gets stable government.

Image: Stephen Harper.

After four elections in seven years, reports from Canada indicate that for the first time in years Canadians have elected a majority government. The best part is that the Conservatives, who support free enterprise, free trade, and are generally more market orientated than any of the others, will hold the majority. They have a way to go to be real supporters of liberty, but they are a hell of a lot better than the alternatives.

The leftist Liberal Party, and Bloc Quebecois not only were smashed, but also lost their leaders in the poll. The big winner for the left was the New Democrats who will be the opposition.

From Newsmax:

OTTAWA - Canada's Conservatives stormed to a decisive victory in Monday's federal election, winning 54 percent of the seats in Parliament and securing a stable four-year term in power after vowing to focus on the economy.

The Conservatives grabbed 167 seats in Canada's Parliament, well above the 155 they needed to transform their minority government into a majority, according to provisional results. They won about 40 percent of the vote, beating expectations.

The victory, a relief for Canadian financial markets, left support for the separatist Bloc Quebecois in tatters and the party's leader without a seat. Bloc Quebecois advocates independence for the province of Quebec.

The Liberals, who have ruled Canada for more years than any other party, were reduced to a dismal third place showing with their worst ever seat haul. …

The market's nightmare scenario of an unstable minority government headed by the pro-labor New Democratic Party never came to pass. Harper now has free rein to keep corporate taxes low in the nation of more than 34 million people and bring in a string of tax breaks once he balances the budget, projected within four years.

But the left-of-center vote split between the New Democrats and the Liberals, the second biggest party in the previous Parliament, and the Conservatives emerged as a surprisingly strong victor with 39.6 percent of the overall vote.

Of the 308 seats in the House of Commons, provisional results showed the Conservatives with 167 and the New Democrats with 102. The Liberals were far behind with just 34.

Bin Laden in hell, FAIR object to jubilation.

Image; America celebrates.

Well its official, a Special Forces group raided Bin Laden’s compound and shot him. Congratulations to all involved. I guess this one of the times the US taxpayer will enjoy seeing their tax dollars working for them.

There is a fair bit of speculation at present as to what effect this will have in the long run. It is not likely to stop the terrorists; they are spread across the world with leaders who are capable of committing their bastardry independently. The likelihood is that they have been given the disruption to their chain of command. Radical clerics are still stirring up hatred in many countries, and serving as recruiting agencies for their cause.

Bin Laden though, has been a sort of legendary figurehead for the extremists and his absence should place something of a dampener on things after a while. Possibly in the short term though, martyr status may bring in some more of them, and there will probably be some retaliatory efforts. The US has denied those who would use his burial site as a shrine the chance by burying him at sea.

George Bush made the valid point in his response by pointing out, “The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done.” Those who have given Bin Laden celebrity status over his ability to avoid capture, will now have to consider the possibility that they will never be safe from retribution.

America is celebrating the news. Crowds have gathered in a number of locations and are in a festive mood. Who could mind this?

Well for a start Kuranda Seyit of the Forum on Australia's Islamic Relations (FAIR) has called the US celebrations over the death Osama bin Laden "disgusting'' and called on people to be more reserved. Killing people over a perceived insult to your religion is apparently OK, but to express happiness over the exit of a mass murderer is obscene.

''(The celebrations) are just like the so-called reports by American television of Muslims celebrating after September 11, this is just as bad. "We need to show a little bit more respect towards humanity, even if they're the bad guys.'' He claimed; "A lot of people see him as a negative representative of the Muslim community, but then, other people see him as someone who is at least having a go at some of those colonial powers interfering in Muslim affairs.''

For a start, Americans are celebrating the death of a mass murderer who ordained the killing of around 3,000 of their people, mostly civilians. The only place where they attacked anything military was the Pentagon, where apart from the passengers in the plane, 125 people were killed, most of them civilians. Most of those in uniform killed on the day were firemen and emergency workers trying to get people out of the WTC.

The celebrations in the reports after 911 were not, “so called,” they were well documented, and were initiated over the murder of those mentioned above. Mr. Seyit should get his head out of his arse, if he wants to improve relations between the people he represents and the wider Australian community, and act with a little less bias in favor of terrorists.

And by the way Mr. Seyit, there is no point in waiting for confirmation, your hero is as dead as last weeks road-kill.

Top terrorist, Bin Laden dead.

Reports are sketchy at present and there have been speculation in the past, which has proven to be false. This one seems to be official though and comes from the White House, which is not offering any further comments other than the announcement at this stage.

Reports variously refer to him being dead, and sometimes as killed, so we are not certain at this stage whether it is the result of military action or natural causes, but there are claims that the US has the body. Not sure what they want to do with it, the age of displaying the head on a pike and sending the associated bits to the far corners of the nation has long gone and has never been a Us tradition.

While its nice to know the bastard is gone, I doubt that it will make much difference in the long run. We have seen any number of reports of leading terrorists getting their comeuppance in the past, only to see them quickly replaced with little change.

Dumbing down democracy.

Cartoon; by Warren.

Former finance Minister, Lindsay Tanner was interviewed tonight on the 7:30 Report on his book 'Sideshow: Dumbing Down Democracy'.

Among the statements he made are:

We got to a situation where spin, robotic scripting, all of the things that you've heard lots of complaints about over the past few years I think have seriously distorted the picture of politics even more distorting than usual, that is conveyed through the media. I've tried in this book Sideshow to ask why is this happening. The answer is politicians are reacting to how the media portrays them. They're getting more and more defensive because of "gotcha journalism" and more and more are drifting into a world of flimflam and stunts and gimmicks, announcables and spin, both to protect themselves and also to stay in the media. …

And:

... It is possible that a big political dividend will come to somebody who decides to try to break out of these shackles, but there are endless examples of where distortion, trivializing, misrepresenting by the media sends signals to politicians about what they'll get punished for and what they'll get rewarded for.

Full transcript here.

I don’t believe any of this, it is a politician trying to blame the media for the way politicians tend to be today of their own volition. They are not reacting to the way the media portrays them as he states, but are acting in the manner that the media allows them to get away with. Current politicians are a pretty shoddy lot who generally recite the party line no matter what it is and regardless of their own opinion, if they have the intelligence to actually have one.

I recall my father being ‘persona non grata’ with the Nationals for telling one of their ministers in a public meeting, “Look Max, if it wasn’t for the Labor Party split, you would still be in opposition voting against every piece of legislation, good or bad.” Little has changed in 40 years. Apart, that is for the quality of representatives declining dramatically.

While much of the focus (if it can be called that) of the press is rather puerile, servile, sycophantic, and self-serving, when it suits them, they are not to blame for the way politicians are. They have a heavy responsibility for the way they have allowed them to breezily get away with it.

The first interview with Gillard after she rolled Rudd and became PM was done by the sleuth, Kerry O’Brien on the 7: 30 report. After in depth, probing questions, and prying inquiries for some time, he managed to establish that she was a redhead. Kerry was considered one of their best and brightest. Really says it all.

If we want better politics we have to replace the current crop and demand an end to the rather incestuous relationship that exists between politicians and reporters.

Meanwhile, over at Bawbs place on Friday.

(Just kidding.) It's not really Bawb's place, there is not a gun in sight.

Klavan's advice on our misunderstandings with Islam.

Andrew Klavan offers some valuable 'advice' here about how to avoid, or at least defuse some of those little cultural misunderstandings we have from time to time with radical Islam. Satire certainly highlights the stupidity of the "peace in our timers" like Lindsay Lohan Graham, (sorry, its hard to tell the difference sometimes.)