Lars Larson: Let’s remember how we got bin Laden

by Lars Larson

It’s fantastic we got bin Laden, but we should remember how it got done.

I know everybody is happy that we got bin Laden. The man is dead; shot through the head, even though he tried to protect himself behind a woman, and dumped to the bottom of the ocean within 24 hours. He’s now fish food.

That’s great news. The problem is, we have to remember how it got done. And why is that important? It’s not just politics. The fact is, is that if you don’t remember how it got done, then you don’t know how you’re gonna get it done next time.

It got done because we had detainees at Gitmo, and of those detainees we found information from one of them four years ago, that ultimately led to this weekend’s killing of bin Laden.

Without that; without interrogation, without Gitmo, without detainees, without those bits and pieces, things that the current president opposes, we aren’t going to catch the bad guys. It’s gonna take a lot longer, and a lot more people are gonna die in the meantime.

Editor’s note: During an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams, CIA Director Leon Panetta describes the process which led to the death of Osama bin Laden (8:18 min – 9:42 min into the video). Panetta admits that waterboarding was used to obtain information that was part of the intelligence needed to plan the mission.