President Obama has decided against releasing the death photos of Osama bin Laden. More here.

Osama had 500 Euros and 2 telephone numbers in his clothing when killed. No word yet (if ever) on whose telephone numbers they were. [More...]

Glenn L. Carle, a retired C.I.A. officer who oversaw the interrogation of a high-level detainee in 2002:

[C]oercive techniques “didn’t provide useful, meaningful, trustworthy information.” He said that while some of his colleagues defended the measures, “everyone was deeply concerned and most felt it was un-American and did not work.”

The usually clear headed Glenn Greenwald misses the boat in his argument on the question of whether torture "works:"

It is sometimes the case that if you torture someone long and mercilessly enough, they will tell you something you want to know. Nobody has ever denied that. In terms of the tactical aspect of the torture debate, the point has always been -- as a consensus of interrogations professionals has repeatedly said -- that there are far more effective ways to extract the truth from someone than by torturing it out of them. The fact that one can point to an instance where torture produced the desired answer proves nothing about whether there were more effective ways of obtaining it.

(Emphasis supplied.) This passage completely misunderstands why torture does not work as an interrogation technique - to wit, because there are "desired answers," the person being tortured will supply them in order to end the torture, making the information garnered through torture unreliable. Is the "desired answer" truthful? Who can know under the circumstances of torture? It's not that there are "more effective ways" of obtaining information, it is that torture is a wholly ineffective way of obtaining information. For this reason, it does not work, EVER. More on the flip.

Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued this statement Tuesday on the actions of the U.S. in raiding the home in Abbottabad and killing Osama bin Laden.

As to Osam'as amily members who were present, some of whom were injured:

They are all in safe hands and being looked after in accordance with law. Some of them needing medical care are under treatment in the best possible facilities. As per policy, they will be handed over to their countries of origin.

As for the U.S.'s dubious assertion that Osama could have chosen to surrender and avoided being killed (something that could only have happened after the commandos were assured he wasn't hiding an IED under his clothes), as one senior congressional aide puts it: ""He would have had to have been naked for them to allow him to surrender." [More...]

I'm done with Osama for a while. There has to be other news, the world hasn't stopped.

The singers on The Voice are really good.

Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

How could John Brennan have gotten so many things wrong yesterday? Today we learn not only was Osama bin Laden not armed, he wasn't shielded by his wife (she "rushed" his attacker); she wasn't killed (she was shot in the leg and survived); the Osama son who was killed wasn't Khalid but Hamza (Update: the White House has changed the transcript and it's back to Khalid who was killed); and most importantly, there were no guards at the compound.

Was John Brennan not in the Situation Room Sunday? If he was, he would have seen the action with his own eyes and known what happened. If he wasn't, why not? Did the White House not invite him?

If Brennnan wasn't part of the "inner circle", why did Obama send him out to give yesterday's press conference? Because he had such little knowledge he couldn't give anything away?

I don't care about seeing the photo of Osama bin Laden's body, or his burial at sea, but I sure would like to see the video from the cameras on the helmets of the commandos (as Jay Carney called them today.)

This was an attack carried out in a foreign country without that country's knowledge, in a private residence, with young children present. Was it legal? It's seeming more and more like an assassination raid and extra-judicial killing with no due process. Even Nazi war criminals received trials.

Vengeance is not justice. What else are they hiding. Let's see the videos.

Via DougJ, I present Condi Rice on the "greatest moment in American history:"

“President Bush had at Ground Zero probably the most important moment maybe in American history. It was when this wounded nation watched their commander-in-chief stand on that rubble and say that they will hear us, we are going to avenge this.”

(Emphasis supplied.) Words fail.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney is holding a briefing right now. He said Osama bin Laden was not armed when he was shot during the raid. You can watch live here.

Carney says the photo of bin Laden is very gruesome. No decision yet on whether to release it.

If you'd like to follow the trail to Sheikh Abu Ahmed, aka Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, the Osama bin Laden courier who made a phone call in 2010 that led to the authorities to focus on the home in Abbottabad where Osama, the courier and his brother were killed, here's a good start:

Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman, Associated Press:

[I]n 2004, top al-Qaida operative Hassan Ghul was captured in Iraq. Ghul told the CIA that al-Kuwaiti was a courier, someone crucial to the terrorist organization. In particular, Ghul said, the courier was close to Faraj al-Libi, who replaced Mohammed as al-Qaida's operational commander. It was a key break in the hunt for in bin Laden's personal courier. "Hassan Ghul was the linchpin," a U.S. official said.

The Telegraph and Wikileaks

The Wikileaks Guantanamo files on Muhammad Mani Ahmad Al Shalan Al Qahtani and Abu Farajal Libi (al-Libi).

Marcy (Empty Wheel) [More...]

Oral arguments before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals raise the question of whether Donald Trump could sue to have President Obama removed from the ballot for the 2012 election:

Leaders in the so-called "birther" movement argued their case over President Barack Obama's U.S. citizenship before a federal appeals court Monday in Southern California, claiming the full birth certificate he released last week had been doctored.

[. . .] The appellate panel wonder[ed] how the lawsuit could have merit, given it was filed after the election and Obama had already taken office. "You did not file a claim at the time when the kind of relief you would be talking about might be plausible," Judge Raymond Fisher said. "It doesn't do anything for your candidates now."

[. . .] Assistant U.S. Attorney David DeJute acknowledged the courts may be the proper venue had a lawsuit challenging a candidate's citizenship been filed before an election. "I think a candidate can challenge the qualification of another candidate, assuming of course that candidate does so in a timely manner," DeJute said.

(Emphasis supplied.) It appears that if Donald Trump runs for President, he could file a "birther" suit against President Obama and seek his removal from the ballot. The ball is in The Donald's court (pun intended), no?

Speaking for me only

ABC:

"We are looking at releasing additional information, details about the raid as well as any other types of material, possibly including photos. We want to understand exactly what the possible reaction might be to the release of this information," said White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan on "Good Morning America."

[. . . ] The gruesome photos show bin Laden shot in the chest and the head by elite Navy SEALS on Sunday. The head wound is above his left eye and is a particularly grisly picture which has tempered officials willingness to display it.

I found this from the NYTimes interesting:

Prisoners in American custody told stories of a trusted courier. When the Americans ran the man’s pseudonym past two top-level detainees — the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed; and Al Qaeda’s operational chief, Abu Faraj al-Libi — the men claimed never to have heard his name. That raised suspicions among interrogators that the two detainees were lying and that the courier probably was an important figure.

You see? The key was the denials extracted from Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and Abu Faraj al-Libi through torture. Or maybe not: