No More Bin Laden

[Taem]

Just thought I'd pass the news to those who don't know yet. I'm personally glad that bastard finally got what he had coming! However, I do fear retaliatory attacks from his mickey mouse gang on US troops for this one.

Read about it here.

Anyways, as terrible as it sounds, I believe this is a great relief for many Americans; justice has been served. It's funny, because I honestly thought he had died from kidney failure in a cave somewhere in Pakistan years ago. But I like this ending much better. Not even a drone, but ground troops! US ground troops! Awesome.

[--Pete]

Hi,

I'm personally glad that bastard finally got what he had coming!

He got less than 1/3000 of what he had coming. I'm glad he is dead. I'm not so glad that he died as cleanly as he did. Put him on a cross until he's almost dead. Take him down and nurse him back to health. Repeat for each of the deaths he is responsible for. Then put him in a 1 x 1 x 2 meter cell until he dies that last time. Preferably not for a long time. Then hell can have him.

--Pete

[Jim]

Hi,

We Built him, We KILT him. :p

No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. ~ George S. Patton

[--Pete]

Hi,

We Built him, We KILT him. :p

Did we build him? How?

As to the Patton quote, most likely never happened. It's a George C. Scott playing the role of Patton quote. Not sure why it's applicable in this situation anyway.

--Pete

[Jim]

Hi,

We Built him, We KILT him. :p

Did we build him? How?

As to the Patton quote, most likely never happened. It's a George C. Scott playing the role of Patton quote. Not sure why it's applicable in this situation anyway.

--Pete

Hi,

Bin Laden's, CIA roots. How We Created Our Own Terror

I'm going to bed now.

[eppie]

Hi,

We Built him, We KILT him. :p

No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. ~ George S. Patton

Interesting the way Obama has specifically mentioned that they are not at war with Islam but with the terrorist groups that misuse Islam. Also muslim organisations in the US have told they were happy with Osama's death because he didn't represent Islam.

On the other hand the US decided to give Bin Laden a burial at sea according to muslim custom.
And this I find weird. First why do you want to pay this kind of respect to Osama? I mean, you can tell the people that you don't give him a muslim funeral, because to you he isn't even a real muslim. This way you could keep the normal peaceful muslim organisation on your side (because they could agree with this), while the remainders of Al Qaeda, will be pissed off anyway.

I foresee hundreds of conspiracy theory's coming up saying he isn't really dead......so why didn't they just keep the body?

[LavCat]

I foresee hundreds of conspiracy theory's coming up saying he isn't really dead......so why didn't they just keep the body?

And put it on public display for many years!

[LennyLen]

And put it on public display for many years!

A better reason for keeping the body would be to pass on to Interpol, or some other third party, to do the DNA analysis. Now they've opened themselves up to accusations of fabricating the DNA evidence.

[shoju]

I'm really torn on how to feel. On one hand, I feel relieved. The man who orchestrated a string of attacks on the United States is dead. Don't forget, 9/11 was not his only go around. It was the most deadly, but it was by far the first or only.

But what did it solve? Was he even still involved in the day to day operations of the terror organization? Is this really going to make my friends who have been in harms way for almost a decade any safer? Are my friends any closer to coming home for good?

I want to be happy, and I don't want to rain on the parade. I just wonder if and or what effect this will have on the current situation in Afghanistan.

[Tal]

"I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure." - Mark Twain

[Jim]

We Built him, We KILT him. :p

No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. ~ George S. Patton

Did we build him? How?

As to the Patton quote, most likely never happened. It's a George C. Scott playing the role of Patton quote. Not sure why it's applicable in this situation anyway.

--Pete

Hi,

I was relieved to read he was KILLED not Captured, one less to feed, house and pamper, also no prisoner exchange.

Hello, that's a Gun in Bin Laden's hand not the Quran, no religious burial for the Bastard.

"No bastard [Combatant] ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb combatant bastard [OASMA BIN LADEN] die for his country". ~ George S. Patton

@ --Pete, How we built Osama Bin Laden is common knowledge. How the CIA created Osama bin Laden.
Sometimes you make me wonder Pete, Mr. Bin Laden was Combatant not curmudgeon:

Combatant –noun
1. a nation engaged in active fighting with enemy forces.
2. a person or group that fights.
–adjective
3. combating; fighting: the combatant armies.
4. disposed to combat; combative.
Related Words for : Combatant
battler, belligerent, fighter, scrapper

[DeeBye]

It's about damn time. I find it strange that after 10 years, 2 wars, over a trillion dollars, and thousands of deaths later he is found holed up Pakistan - a supposed ally of the US.

I see pictures of people dancing in the streets, but it doesn't seem like something to celebrate.

[shoju]

I can understand why people are celebrating it. I personally have no intentions of dancing a jig in the street when I get home today, But I know people who have and will dance and be overjoyed by it.

And I like the Mark Twain Quote. It fits my mood about the situation. I'm still apprehensive for those who still serve in hostile areas, and the effect that this could have there.

[kandrathe]

I foresee hundreds of conspiracy theory's coming up saying he isn't really dead......so why didn't they just keep the body?

Think it through psychologically. The best case scenario would have been for OBL to recapitulate, and denounce his own violence. The next best solution was to capture him, and defeat his ideology in the court of public opinion. Barring that, the US strategy needed to be the Pyrrhic victory of merely defeating him as demonstration that the US is not impotent (although a 13 year man hunt is pretty darn impotent). I'm sure they kept DNA evidence, but even so, most won't believe what they don't want to believe.

For those that wanted him dead, he's dead. For those who want him to be alive, he'll be alive -- like Elvis. Living his retirement in some hidden compound in Pakistan. I'm sure we'll be peppered with occasional OBL sightings. If they had wanted to perpetuate the hatred, and enrage the panoply of Islamo-facists, then they'd have broadcast a video of US soldiers stuffing him into the belly of a pig, and allowed his corpse to rot inside it for a month or so.

Realistically, OBL doesn't matter, and he hasn't mattered for about a decade. He's the guy we pinned the blame on for masterminding 911, and so for his part, some people in this world have called for justice. But, for these kinds of massive atrocities, justice can never be served, and never served quickly enough. Once we lost him at Tora Bora, we should have backed off, and shut down our operations in Afghanistan turning it over to whomever wanted to rule that bedraggled opium den. But, in the play book of stupid moves, unfortunately, the US has engaged in every single one both internationally, and domestically.

Since 911, and heck, going back to the Carter administration, all we've done is to make the US and the world a more dangerous place. Some of it was inevitable with the end of the Cold War, which kept many nations paralyzed in a WWII state of totalitarianism. But, once the grip a tyranny loosened, people were free to express their old rivalries and former hatreds emerged. Our world has taken a bad turn, and I'm a bit afraid of where the next decade is going. If our objectives are peace, prosperity and harmony in the world, then we're going about it in a pretty crazy manner. We are sacrificing freedom for merely the perception of security, whereas we end up with neither freedom, or security. And, I mean that financially, socially, and physically.

[Libertarian Rant]As opposed to... my position, which is the end of our military adventurism around the globe. But, rather to rededicate the US to its roots of personal freedom, making the US the best example of how a free society can be prosperous, and thrive peacefully. That doesn't mean we need to get into bed with dictators and despots, but it does mean we would engage our efforts and treasure into those things that are beneficial to everyone's short and long term interests. Our current leaders are not leaders, but propagandists, and have mostly usurped mass communications to ensure their grip on power, and temporarily enrich their supporters, to the detriment of everyone's future.[/Libertarian Rant]

Here are some of the relevant questions I ponder... How many lives, and dollars have been sacrificed chasing down this one guy? In the bigger picture, what does OBL's "assassination" mean to creating a more peaceful Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Jordan, Sudan, Nigeria, etc., etc., etc? Was the UN ever intended to be a force involved in taking out it's own member states? Obama, and Bush before him, has stated that the the US is not at war with Islam, but is Islam at war with the West? What happens when the US runs out of credit with Asia, and the propping up of psuedo-Western regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan collapse?

For me, the bottom line is that the US cannot afford to continue its adventuresome interventions in everybody's squabbles. I believe NATO and the UN's purpose have been corrupted into mechanism's for projecting force, which is antithetical to most everything we believe ethical in the treatment of nations. This corruption is possible because there is little opposition to this "New World Order", where a majority of the worlds economies have aligned to engage in an orgy of consumption. For smaller, non-aligned nations, this NWO represents a form of capitalist driven police state, where profiteers wield the worlds armies organized at the UN to enforce their vision of what is "right". This exposes profoundly challenges by the most outspoken enemies of the NWO, like Qaddafi, Ahmadinejad, and Chavez, but we are increasingly seeing political and economic "pressure" being wielded against the little peaceful and non-aligned nations. But, as Lord Acton said, "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely." And, in nation building, we continue to attempt to plant trees, where cactus are meant to grow, and then wonder why it's hard to keep them alive.

[eppie]

Obama, and Bush before him, has stated that the the US is not at war with Islam, but is Islam at war with the West?

I don't think Islam is at war with the US (or the west). I think Islam is used by people in the general arabic area to unit people that are angry because of being less wealthy than the west, and at the same time see so much influence of the west in their countries, mainly because of the oil.
Already 1500 years ago people changed religion now and then, after their countries got invaded again, but basically their everyday life didn't change so much.
Every honest person see that western christianity is much more similar to Islam then for example western christianity and atheism are. And the last two groups are living in more or less state of peace without many big issues.
But it is not very difficult to let a whole population hate another group of people living on the other side of the world based on some information they see on TV. So if this whole Islam versus the west thing is over, we will find some other reason to hate strangers.

As you rightfully say, on the basis of all of this are overconsumption in one part of the world and poverty in another part.

What happens when the US runs out of credit with Asia, and the propping up of psuedo-Western regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan collapse?

I think in our every day life we wouldn't notice so much from regime changes in those countries. The people living there however will be noticing it.....probably for the worse, but who knows. Iraq used to be a more or less secular society with a relatively high education level among the people (men and women).....when the west pulls out chances are of course that the fundamentalists will come to power, making people wish back to the Saddam times.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Every honest person see that western christianity is much more similar to Islam then for example western christianity and atheism are. And the last two groups are living in more or less state of peace without many big issues.

I think you are completely missing some very important points here. The issue is differences in practice and not differences in philosophy.

The Western Christian and the Western atheist pretty much subscribe to the same moral code, pretty much agree on issues like equality, etc. They agree on what democratic government is, how it should work, and why it is good. Only some of the Christians think that they have a duty to either convert or subjugate everyone else.

In the modern Western milieu, religion is just one of many characteristics that distinguishes mostly similar individuals. In the Islamic countries, religion is the defining characteristic. And that makes Islam much different.

--Pete

[shoju]

The difference really between "the west" / christianity / atheism divide, and the Islamic countries is more about the fact that many of these countries are just now entering a revolutionary period of their history, whereas "the west" (for the purpose of my point western Europe is included here), has already gone through social, and religious revolutions.

The significance of the "secular" movements in places like Tunisia, Egypt, etc... is really the beginning of the breaking of the hold that Islam has held over their society similar to the revolutions that happened starting with say.... Martin Luther and moving forward. I know it isn't an obvious and easy parallel, because there were many revolutions for the west, while Islamic countries are revolting all at once. And the fact that these rallies are being done without extremist islamic control, really points towards a new era of freedoms being ushered into some of these countries.

I don't expect that they will all end up as democratic / republic states, but I do believe that there will be increased freedoms and ideologies in parts of the world that were still very much ruled by "their church".

[Tal]

"I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure." - Mark Twain

My apologies - Twain didn't say it. But he did say something similar

[TheDragoon]

Personally, I don't think that Osama Bin Laden was completely helpless as some people seem to think. Sure, right now as the US has a major military presence in that part of the world he has been kept more-or-less bottled up and unable to take part, personally, in the planning and execution of terrorist attacks. However, in the coming years as the US is looking to scale back its military presence in the region, had they not dealt with him now, Bin Laden could very well have reemerged and pick up where he left off.

Beyond his functional support and leadership for his terrorist organizations, Bin Laden was also an effective figurehead to help draw people to join his cause. From what I have read, he was seen as a very charismatic person whose image was effective for recruiting. The other terrorist leaders do not appear to be on the same level as Bin Laden at attracting people, so perhaps that will reduce the recruiting and support given to those organizations leading them to be less effective at spreading their terror.

Overall, the theme I see throughout this operation was a goal of trying to discourage the terrorist network while minimizing the long-term recruiting tools and symbols that the terrorists would use to try and grow their organization. The burial at sea denies the terrorists a grave that they could use as a rallying point or symbol for their cause. The death of the charismatic leader will reduce recruiting. And finally the US was able to finally show the terrorist organizations that regardless of the lengths he went to in hiding, the US counterterrorism forces were able to find and kill him will certainly show them there is a consequence for making attacks against the US. Hopefully the care that was taken throughout the operation to minimize the ability of the terrorists to twist this to their own ends will pay out and the net result will be an eventual reduction in the ability of the terrorist organizations to strike against the law-abiding people of the world.

[[wcip]Angel]

Question from an outsider:

It's a sad state of affairs when our cynicism has reached such a heinous level that we don't trust the news stories out of the US anymore. For me personally, I fully believe that US marines shot and killed Osama Bin Laden and put his remains to rest at sea. Here comes the question: How do Americans view the speed with which this ceremony has been undertaken? What we read on the intarwebs, and what is being insinuated from politicians and media this side of the pond, is that the US should publish the photos of a dead Bin Laden in order to assuage people's fears that this is indeed NOT a criminal conspiracy. The people vocal in this matter are NOT of the breed of insane conspiracy theorists who claimed GWB to be responsible for attacking the WTC, but people who - over the years - have developed a level of cynicism that makes it very difficult for them to accept the claim that Osama Bin Laden has been caught and killed, especially without any evidence.

Osama's swift burial at sea - problematic or honoriffic?