Shaping the Narrative

Bin Laden’s Daughter Confirms Her Father Shot Dead By US Special Forces In Pakistan
-- Al Arabiya News

Senior Pakistani security officials said Osama bin Laden’s daughter had confirmed her father was captured alive and shot dead by the US Special Forces during the first few minutes of the operation carried out at the huge compound in Bilal Town, Abbottabad. 
 


Besides recovering four bullet-riddled bodies from the compound, Pakistani security agencies also arrested two women and six children, aged between 2 and 12 years, after American forces flew toward Afghanistan. Some reports suggest 16 people, including women and children, were arrested from the house, most of them Arab nationals.
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Sure, not the most un-biased person in the world to quote. But, for the Muslim world, this will become the narrative of what happened to Osama Bin Laden. He will be treated as a martyr who was murdered by American crusaders. Which was probably inevitable anyway. At least there's no doubt what happened, right? Right?

Hold on, the White House is changing the "official story" again --

The Slippery Story Of The Bin Laden Kill
-- Garance Franke-Ruta, The Atlantic

The early narrative of the assault on Osama bin Laden had him using his wife as a human shield and firing from behind her. Now we learn he wasn't armed.

The White House Tuesday blamed "the fog of war" for conflicting statements in its recounting of the events surrounding the Abbottabad raid that killed Osama bin Laden, but the history of misstatements from U.S. government officials about various combat operations raises questions about whether briefers also were subjecting us to a counter terrorism strategy and not just completely confused in their initial statements.
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Hold on, weren't they WATCHING it, LIVE? Perhaps, and this is not just my own opinion here, perhaps the White House shouldn't politicize things that should not be politicized? Ooops. Too late on that one. The general politic out of the Obama Administration has been incompetent, and that's on their best day. If they don't get a handle on this quickly, it's going to spin out of their control. (Pun noticed, and moving on)

Meanwhile, the Secret SEAL Team will likely be honored in Secret for their Secret Raid. No ticker tape parade for the GI Joe Team.

The team that killed Osama bin Laden will likely be honored in the only way such a covert group can be: in private with nobody but themselves and their commanders in the know.

Quietly recognizing heroic actions for clandestine operations is not new in the military. Some service members wear war decorations but refuse to talk about how they earned them. Others stash away their medals, either because they've been ordered to hide them or they have chosen to for their own security.
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It's not over. It's the end of the beginning.