Monday, May 2, 2011

• Jeremy Scahill on Killing of Bin Laden: Obama Has “Doubled Down on Bush Administration Policy of Targeted Assassination”

  
  
  

  The manhunt for Osama bin Laden is over. Nearly 10 years after the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, U.S. forces are said to have assassinated the Saudi-born founder of al-Qaeda inside Pakistan. The U.S. operation was reportedly carried out by 25 Navy SEALs under the command of the Joint Special Operations Command. At the time of his death, bin Laden was reportedly living in a heavily fortified mansion just a mile from the Pakistani army’s principal military academy. We speak with Jeremy Scahill, the national security correspondent for The Nation magazine, who has followed the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts closely as well as reported on the covert war inside Pakistan. [includes rush transcript]

• Talat Hamdani, Mother of 9/11 Victim: I Hope Death of Bin Laden Moves Country Toward Peace, Away from Revenge and Killing

  
  
  

  New York City Police Cadet Mohammed Salman Hamdani died on Sept. 11 after he raced to the Twin Towers to help survivors. He earned a mention in the USA PATRIOT Act for his bravery, yet because he was a Muslim immigrant, the New York Post and others considered him a suspect until his DNA was discovered. We speak to his mother, a member of September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, about the killing of Osama bin Laden. [includes rush transcript]

• Did Pakistani Gov’t Know Where Osama bin Laden Was Hiding?

  
  
  

  "The idea that bin Laden got from Tora Bora to that house over the last seven or eight years without a single element of the Pakistani state knowing about it just doesn’t ring true," said Pakistani journalist Mosharraf Zaidi, who has been reporting in Abbottabad. "What rings even more hollow is the notion that somehow U.S. military choppers and gunships could fly into Pakistan undetected." Pakistani writer Tariq Ali questions how bin Laden could have been living inside a fortified compound within a mile of Pakistan’s premier military academy. [includes rush transcript]

• "One Killer Killing Another": Journalist and Activist Allan Nairn on Obama’s Targeted Killing of Bin Laden

  
  
  

  “Bin Laden is dead, but the world is still governed by bin Ladens. People cheer because they thought they saw justice, but this was not justice delivered by victims. This was one killer killing another,” says Allan Nairn. “I think we need an American uprising, if we’re to put a stop to this kind of killing of innocent people. And we need an American Romero, someone like Archbishop Romero of Salvador.” [includes rush transcript]

• Military Intelligence Analyst Joshua Foust: Death of Bin Laden Will Not Have Enormous Impact on Operations of Al-Qaeda Affiliates Worldwide

  
  
  

  In addition to Afghanistan, the United States is fighting al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula. We discuss the impact of Osama bin Laden’s death on al-Qaeda across the globe with Joshua Foust, a fellow at the American Security Project and former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst. "From an operational standpoint, Osama bin Laden doesn’t maintain very tight operational control over the different al-Qaeda franchises that are out there, including in Yemen, including in Somalia, and other places as well. So, this is mostly a symbolic victory," says Foust. [includes rush transcript]

• Ex-State Department Official Matthew Hoh: With Killing of Bin Laden, Why Are 50,000 U.S. Troops Still in Afghanistan?

  
  
  

  After two tours of duty in Iraq and serving in the State Department in Washington, D.C., Matthew Hoh became the United States’ senior civilian representative and political adviser in Afghanistan. He resigned five months into his contract, making him the highest-ranking U.S. government official to publicly quit over the war in Afghanistan. He joins us from Washington, D.C., to discuss whether the death of Osama bin Laden means the end of that war. “Everybody should be asking themselves today in the United States, if Osama Bin Laden was hiding in an upscale villa an hour or two drive north, northeast of Islamabad, then why did we put 50,000 troops in Afghanistan over the last two years?” says Hoh. [includes rush transcript]