View Full Version : Osama Bin Laden is Dead
PanzerJaeger
05-02-2011, 03:45
The butcher is no more, thanks, apparently, to the United States. :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates:
RIP to his victims all around the world.
a completely inoffensive name
05-02-2011, 04:01
I figured he had died many years ago already.
Populus Romanus
05-02-2011, 04:02
DIE YOU SON OF A ****! DIE AND BURN IN HELL! DIE!
Centurion1
05-02-2011, 04:09
hes already dead.............
AND YES!
awesome that he was in an islamabad mansion.......... that should be interesting
Louis VI the Fat
05-02-2011, 04:14
It is .org custom to not speak disrespectfully of the dead until they are buried. :wink:
:unitedstates:
awesome that he was in an islamabad mansion.......... that should be interestingPakistan is gonna have some 'splaining to do. :yes:
PanzerJaeger
05-02-2011, 04:42
It was a firefight, and not a Predator as was first speculated.
I'm glad he saw it coming instead of having it drop through the ceiling, and I hope he was terrified.
I never thought this day would come. I figured he'd die from his kidney problems before he was ever found.
Rest in Piss.
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (Arabic: أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن, ʾUsāmah bin Muḥammad bin ʿAwaḍ bin Lādin; March 10, 1957 – May 1, 2011)
Reenk Roink
05-02-2011, 04:45
For those who just missed Obama's speech here is the short version:
https://i.imgur.com/sdaDJ.gif
a completely inoffensive name
05-02-2011, 04:48
NBC gives additional details about firefight.
"He was shot at least once in the head."
Oh really?
NBC gives additional details about firefight.
"He was shot at least once in the head."
Oh really?
They just released a photo of the man who pulled the trigger.
https://i55.tinypic.com/2uh8hhh.jpg
Initial reports indicate that he put two in his heart, one in his computer.
Ibn-Khaldun
05-02-2011, 04:58
Although this is a good news I wonder what this could bring in the long run. Making him a martyr for the Muslim fanatics is not the best solution I think. Capturing him alive or letting him die naturally would have been better options.
a completely inoffensive name
05-02-2011, 04:59
Although this is a good news I wonder what this could bring in the long run. Making him a martyr for the Muslim fanatics is not the best solution I think. Capturing him alive or letting him die naturally would have been better options.
That was never an option for America or Americans.
Louis VI the Fat
05-02-2011, 05:00
Although this is a good news I wonder what this could bring in the long run. Making him a martyr for the Muslim fanatics is not the best solution I think. Capturing him alive or letting him die naturally would have been better options.I think the message of today is that those who'd have Osama for a martyr now know Uncle Sam will get them, no matter how far and how long they run. :yes: :cheerleader:
Askthepizzaguy
05-02-2011, 05:02
The whole world had an enemy in Osama Bin Laden, and the whole world has one less enemy.
I am grateful that he can harm no one else again, or lead the efforts of a group of mass murderers. I am thankful that the victims of this person finally had justice done on their behalf.
I selfishly hope that we can experience the unity we all felt on 9/11 again, and I hope it lasts for a while this time. Would be very welcome.
Major Robert Dump
05-02-2011, 05:02
DOES THIS MEAN OBAMA IS NOT A MUSLIM??
PanzerJaeger
05-02-2011, 05:06
For those who just missed Obama's speech here is the short version:
https://i.imgur.com/sdaDJ.gif
Props to President Obama for keeping up the pressure and following through with his campaign pledge to kill him.
“Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan,” Obama said at the White House as he looked straight into the camera. “A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a fire fight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.”
Yes, I agree, it is better that he is dead. People that are alive have a bad habit of being alive, and people that are dead have a bad habit of being dead. And one need not worry about one that is already dead. Martyrdom? Sure....he can have. But it is worth it....and when those who are inspired by his martyrdom are dead as well, it wont really matter that much.
https://i.imgur.com/KkkJ8.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/KkkJ8.jpg
Okay, i laughed really hard and way more than I should have.
Crazed Rabbit
05-02-2011, 06:05
https://i.imgur.com/KkkJ8.jpg
Awesome.
No matter how long and how far you run...
:unitedstates:
CR
Populus Romanus
05-02-2011, 06:07
Why am I not allowed to 50 smilies in one post? :brood:
Warluster
05-02-2011, 06:10
That is a brilliant poster! :laugh4:
Will this essentially secure the Presidency for Obama for the next election? This is *obviously* a huge boost to Obama's popularity... and will probably boost his approval rating in the same way Bush's did back in 2001.
Oh, and Osama was killed/assassinated in Abottabad, not Islamabad, and Obama gave full kudos to Pakistan/ISI in his speech so there will, most likely and hopefully, be not political backlash in that arena... unless the media turns it into a big deal.
They just released a photo of the man who pulled the trigger.
https://i55.tinypic.com/2uh8hhh.jpg
Initial reports indicate that he put two in his heart, one in his computer.
Geez how very smart of them.
edit ah I see
Crazed Rabbit
05-02-2011, 06:31
I remember where I was and what I was doing the morning of September 11, 2001.
And I'm going to remember May 1, 2011 for the rest of my life.
Also - America **** Yeah (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhnUgAaea4M). **** Yeah.
Finally - have fun with your 9/11 buddies; (http://www.theonion.com/articles/hijackers-surprised-to-find-selves-in-hell,1445/)
JAHANNEM, OUTER DARKNESS—The hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon expressed confusion and surprise Monday to find themselves in the lowest plane of Na'ar, Islam's Hell.
"I was promised I would spend eternity in Paradise, being fed honeyed cakes by 67 virgins in a tree-lined garden, if only I would fly the airplane into one of the Twin Towers," said Mohammed Atta, one of the hijackers of American Airlines Flight 11, between attempts to vomit up the wasps, hornets, and live coals infesting his stomach. "But instead, I am fed the boiling feces of traitors by malicious, laughing Ifrit. Is this to be my reward for destroying the enemies of my faith?"
CR
a completely inoffensive name
05-02-2011, 06:44
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Populus Romanus
05-02-2011, 06:47
Philosophical question for everyone:
Is it right to celebrate the death of a man who we hated because he celebrated death?
Yes.
Warluster
05-02-2011, 06:49
Philosophical question for everyone:
Is it right to celebrate the death of a man who we hated because he celebrated death?
It's always a morbid affair to celebrate death... but it is justified in this case by that he did not celebrate 'death', as such, but rather he celebrated the death of innocent purely for selfish, fanatical reasons.
Basiclly, I believe he is a guilty, dangerous person who endangered peace with his warmongering and hatred and deserved nothing less then the most gruesome of deaths.
a completely inoffensive name
05-02-2011, 06:49
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Strike For The South
05-02-2011, 06:50
It means less than nothing at this point
I will wake up tommorow and we will still have spent more money and shed more innocent blood (on both sides)
The death or marginilzation of Bin Laden was a fat accompli from the moment 9/11 happedend
I wonder if this will give Obama enough political capitial to continue playing empire
WHO WANTS GROUND TROOPS IN LYBIA
Dont get me wrong I dont care if we cut the mans balls off and fed them to him but I don't see what we are celebrating.
a completely inoffensive name
05-02-2011, 06:51
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Populus Romanus
05-02-2011, 06:58
:unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates:
:unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates:
:unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates:
:unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates:
:unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates:
Philosophy be damned, for now, we drink wish I was old enough to consume alcohol.
a completely inoffensive name
05-02-2011, 07:01
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Ibn-Khaldun
05-02-2011, 07:06
I think the message of today is that those who'd have Osama for a martyr now know Uncle Sam will get them, no matter how far and how long they run. :yes: :cheerleader:
I'm afraid that they are running towards the closest US embassy while carrying suicide vests.. If only someone else would have killed him. Then he would have been forgotten but now.. I'm not so sure..
Askthepizzaguy
05-02-2011, 07:10
There is no doubt about the evil behind this man. And there is no doubt that he deserved death. But can we really say 100% that we are cheering for his death out of a sense of justice for those innocents that were killed, or are we cheering that his blood has been spilled out of a sense of hatred and anger towards him, the same kind of anger and hatred that fueled his evil attack in the first place?
Yes.
I totally understand where you're coming from. I have long ago lost hatred and anger over this person, because I recognized how destructive it is.
As it stands, my position on the matter is the corpse should be given a proper Muslim burial, so as to prevent as much backlash as possible, hopefully sparing the life of even one single human being from the aftermath of this. Justice, has been served by his death. Vengeance has not, barbarism has not, and we can demonstrate that by remembering our priorities: We were after Bin Laden because we sought to protect life from his harm. We can commit him to the ground in a way that is not insulting to people, even if for me, the purpose will be the same.... to protect life from his harm. Not out of respect for him, but for innocent human life, that could be harmed if we directly incite hatred.
That's where my head is at. Level, clear, and compassionate. I seek no blood, no gore, no satisfying vengeance. I think a lot of people can feel the same way.
I can only speak for myself. But justice has been served now, and it would have been served had he been captured alive and he had been thrown in prison. The objective: remove his freedom to harm people. That's been accomplished. And that's what the victims of his cruelty would have demanded.
I feel very comfortable that the feelings I am feeling are not because of a satisfaction of blood lust. They are a "thank goodness it is over" kind of feeling. I have no vengeance in my heart.
Warluster
05-02-2011, 07:13
There is no doubt about the evil behind this man. And there is no doubt that he deserved death. But can we really say 100% that we are cheering for his death out of a sense of justice for those innocents that were killed, or are we cheering that his blood has been spilled out of a sense of hatred and anger towards him, the same kind of anger and hatred that fueled his evil attack in the first place?
I think the only way you can look at this situation is that yes, we are certainly cheering out of a combination of hatred and 'justice', which in this case this hatred is because he must be brought to justice for his crimes committed. His anger/hatred led to him ordering planes to fly into the heart of his perceived enemies, while the response was to simply kill the man responsible.
This hatred certainly does lead to a cycle of disaster... but there are always exceptions to the rule.
Edit: ATPG put it much simpler above... this is bringing the man to justice for what he has done.
a completely inoffensive name
05-02-2011, 07:18
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Strike For The South
05-02-2011, 07:19
Perhaps you two are right. But when but when I start getting floods of statuses on facebook about covering osama's body with pork and burying him in the foundation of the new freedom tower...it makes me worried about what we have become.
:rolleyes:
Askthepizzaguy
05-02-2011, 07:21
I hate the senseless destruction he has brought to the world. That is what I've always hated.
This person was a wrong-headed idealist who believed what he was doing was making the world a better place. And his opinion on what was justice, and what was right and what was wrong, was blindingly ignorant. Ignorance and the idea of crusading for justice is a recipe for great evil.
I hate what he's done. I think his head was screwed up. I think it is tragic what he chose to do with his life. His death, however, is only tragic because it had to come to this to put a stop to his destructive influence. I'm just at a place right now where hatred of people is not what I feel anymore, even sickos like this guy. Bad apples on the human family tree, rotten from the inside out, who might have had the potential to be a decent apple, had they made different choices or were not believers in such a destructive philosophy. I take humanity for what it is... good and bad. Humanity would only be rotten if folks like Bin Laden were not the exception, but the rule. How we react to folks like Bin Laden shows us for who we really are.
We can either be rotten right back, or be better.
Perhaps you two are right. But when but when I start getting floods of statuses on facebook about covering osama's body with pork and burying him in the foundation of the new freedom tower...it makes me worried about what we have become.
It's what we've always been, ACIN.
The difference is that only some of us feel that way, and we get over it. Humanity is maturing. That is why we're so concerned about getting Bin Laden and causing no civilian casualties if possible, or burying him in a way that prevents riots and death.
We are progressing. We're not saints. We're not there yet. Humanity has hope. It doesn't have perfection. But I am okay with that. If I were you, I'd feel hopeful, not worried.
a completely inoffensive name
05-02-2011, 07:21
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Strike For The South
05-02-2011, 07:24
The first step to commit atrocities is a refusal to understand what you are dealing with. Ignorance and intolerance to the Islamic aspect of Osama is a sign that is not healthy. That's all I am saying.
Yes, yes, good job on dressing up a Voltaire quote I'm sure I have a gold star here for you somewhere. Their are plenty of other places you can go play deep thinking college libreal. The reaction to this event is par for the human history course.
a completely inoffensive name
05-02-2011, 07:28
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a completely inoffensive name
05-02-2011, 07:31
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Strike For The South
05-02-2011, 07:33
Lol, I'm not as educated you make me out to be. I didn't even know that was Voltaire.
Also, congrats on a lack of argument. It impresses me how your post marginalizes me and my "deep thinking" by simply stating that this is "par for the course" as if that excuses anything that might come about from this event. As far I know, channeling previous moments in history doesn't excuse or invalidate the concerns I have.
tl;dr Your cynicism annoys me when you try to pretend it is pragmatic. hmm, maybe I am a college liberal.
I've already posted my veiws on post 30
The kids on facebook puffing out their chests mean nothing, the proles now have a voice that went unheard for generations due to the lack of social media.
PanzerJaeger
05-02-2011, 07:37
I see. Blood lust is justified as long as it is for the right side...
Already a moral equivalency drawn between Americans and Osama bin Laden on page one. I guess it was to be expected, but I am still ~:(.
Strike For The South
05-02-2011, 07:39
Already a moral equivalency drawn between Americans and Osama bin Laden on page one. I guess it was to be expected, but I am still ~:(.
I am of the opinon we are better but am perplexed by the celebrating....DO I MAKE YOU CRY
Crazed Rabbit
05-02-2011, 07:39
I don't have blood lust, nor do I think celebrating means you have blood lust.
I feel a sense of justice. And vengeance satisfied.
But I do not think it is bloodlust because my elation at his death comes from knowing it was just that he has died. Bloodlust cannot endure a decade. What remains is the grim celebration that justice was finally, after so many years, served.
CR
a completely inoffensive name
05-02-2011, 07:40
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PanzerJaeger
05-02-2011, 07:41
I am of the opinon we are better but am perplexed by the celebrating....DO I MAKE YOU CRY
If you cannot understand it, I don't know what to say.
Populus Romanus
05-02-2011, 07:42
What are we going to do with his body? That is the question that really has me hooked.
Also, the guy that shot him must be so pumped for the 50 million USD he is going to getting.:yes:
Strike For The South
05-02-2011, 07:44
If you cannot understand it, I don't know what to say.
I think everyone here is smart enough to realize Bin Laden was at best a figurehead in Global terror at this point
And all the cheerleading in the world won't change that
Askthepizzaguy
05-02-2011, 07:45
Yes, I suppose you are right. But humanity only matures when people like me ask seemingly ridiculous questions about what our motivations as a society actually are. After all, could you really make the argument about humanity maturing at the end of 1945?
I don't mind the questions. I just hope that you fully appreciate that people are not all at the same level of maturity, and that while the trend is toward the more intellectual, reasonable, and mature, there will be folks who are on the other end of the bell curve. They're part of our human family still. The objective is to continue to be better and better, so that whatever the bottom of the curve is, it too gets better and better. It's also possible to have differing opinions on the same issue and still be at the same maturity level.
Don't be discouraged by those who lag behind. They'll catch up, or their offspring will. The progress of humanity is irrevocable, the march towards enlightenment is unstoppable. Just remember that in our parents' lifetimes, and ours, a great leap forward has taken place regarding sexual and racial attitudes. In the past couple centuries we saw the end of slavery. Rights and freedoms have advanced substantially. Fret not about how far we still have to go, and rejoice in how far we have come, and remember that the steps we take rarely get retraced.
I am usually a rationally pessimistic guy, but I seriously see tremendous evidence that we have cause for optimism regarding our fellow man, and ourselves. And I am patient enough to wait for that which cannot be achieved by everyone today, as long as some of us achieve it, and soon.
Back to topic; worst example of humanity ends up dead as a result of his terrible actions. Reactions seem more mature than putting his head on a pike and parading him down Wall Street. Hyperbolic rhetoric from some, as expected, but so far, no rioting.
ajaxfetish
05-02-2011, 07:45
Well, I stopped expecting to hear this news years ago. I'm glad that the world's number one manhunt is finally over, and for the message it sends that we won't let up on something this important. Good work to Obama and US intelligence. I hope this will be a serious blow to AQ morale.
Ajax
PanzerJaeger
05-02-2011, 07:49
I think everyone here is smart enough to realize Bin Laden was at best a figurehead in Global terror at this point
And all the cheerleading in the world won't change that
I don't think the celebrating has anything to do with what he is, or was, today, but instead, what he put into motion 9 1/2 years ago.
a completely inoffensive name
05-02-2011, 07:50
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Strike For The South
05-02-2011, 07:56
I don't think the celebrating has anything to do with what he is, or was, today, but instead, what put into motion 9 1/2 years ago.
And what will still be in motion tmrw....get it now
Every time I read your views, I understand less and less why you roll your eyes at me when I talk about my concerns.
I'm complicated damnit
So in our pursuit of defeating terror and going after Osama, we have shed lots of innocent blood, spent more money than we had, and have continued to expand our empire which you think is a bad thing (obviously).
Correct
And then when I say I am worried about what this war and game of hide and go seek with Osama has brought about within us you go ahead and start yammering about how this is all to be expected. Why complain at all then?
Dehumanizing the enemy is the oldest trick in the book. Getting two different groups of poor people to kill one another for rich mens geopolitical interests has always required a bit of massaging. So in that sense it is to be expected that people would react in such in over the top way
I don't care about the mans humanity or all that post modern bull. I just weep people are this eaisly swayed by a body that changes nothing at this point. Bin Laden won this game when America sent troops into Iraq, killing him makes for a great headline and thats about it
I think everyone here is smart enough to realize Bin Laden was at best a figurehead in Global terror at this point
And all the cheerleading in the world won't change that
True that, in the end it doesn't really matter. Good riddance but don't make him more important than he is.
a completely inoffensive name
05-02-2011, 08:01
Dehumanizing the enemy is the oldest trick in the book. Getting two different groups of poor people to kill one another for rich mens geopolitical interests has always required a bit of massaging. So in that sense it is to be expected that people would react in such in over the top way
I don't care about the mans humanity or all that post modern bull. I just weep people are this eaisly swayed by a body that changes nothing at this point. Bin Laden won this game when America sent troops into Iraq, killing him makes for a great headline and thats about it
Well that is a good point. Maybe next time you could just kindly point that out instead of a rolling eyes emoticon?
Banquo's Ghost
05-02-2011, 08:01
It is .org custom to not speak disrespectfully of the dead until they are buried. :wink:
Yes it is.
However, we can allow some leeway in that rule in this instance, as we did in similar cases of wickedness brought to justice. However, may I remind all posters that this is NOT permission to descend into the more unpleasant depths of the human ability to gloat over the death of an enemy. Please everyone, think before posting.
Philosophical question for everyone:
Is it right to celebrate the death of a man who we hated because he celebrated death?
This is an excellent question (especially for the moderators of this forum).
Referencing this case, I would say that the execution of this man can be viewed from a utilitarian perspective and thus celebrated as a practical outcome. I am entirely opposed to capital punishment or extra-judicial executions. Nonetheless, I recognise that arresting and imprisoning bin Laden would have almost certainly cost many further lives as his followers tried over the years to make "statements" about his captivity. In addition, the United States today would not have been able to give him a fair trial - which most sadly of all, is bin Laden's ultimate victory (but can be reversed at any time with the right will). Therefore his death was practical.
I can celebrate the impressive intelligence operation that led to the execution. If only previous administrations had invested in the intelligence infrastructure and capability a long time ago, there would have been little need for all the invasions. Part of accepting the central role that intelligence plays in defeating terrorism is that occasionally the practical execution is necessary - and preserves lives (particularly those of civilians) more effectively than the blunt instruments of war. Morally, that is a pretty smelly compromise, but justifiable. Celebration of aught but the smooth practicality is however, a step too far, in my opinion.
Again in this example, one must recognise that bin Laden expected this moment for some time and probably welcomed it to some extent. We should not judge men like him by our own appreciation of the joys of life, simple joys that his wickedness denied to several thousand ordinary people who were like us. His single death can never atone for those thousands, or indeed the hundreds of thousands of other innocents who have been caught in the geo-political whirlwind he unleashed. My thoughts are with them, and only flickeringly on this evil corpse. One can only hope that his death may bring a sense of justice to the families across the world that he has left bereft - and that, to me, is the only real cause of celebration.
PanzerJaeger
05-02-2011, 08:01
And what will still be in motion tmrw....get it now
You said you were 'perplexed' by the celebrating. I'm trying to help you understand that it is about long-deferred justice for his many victims. I don't think anyone believes this will end Islamic terrorism, the war in Afghanistan, our involvement in Iraq and Libya, or even the al Qaeda organization.
Strike For The South
05-02-2011, 08:04
You said you were 'perplexed' by the celebrating. I'm trying to help you understand that it is about long-deferred justice for his many victims. I don't think anyone believes this will end Islamic terrorism or even the al Qaeda organization.
Perhaps but it gives people that little shot of America crack to keep our boys dying and debt climbing
You said you were 'perplexed' by the celebrating. I'm trying to help you understand that it is about long-deferred justice for his many victims. I don't think anyone believes this will end Islamic terrorism, the war in Afghanistan, our involvement in Iraq and Libya, or even the al Qaeda organization.
I am a bit annoyed by it personally, the euphoria I see as a lack of convidence.
Warluster
05-02-2011, 08:28
I can't see how this will prolong the current War in Afghanistan? Surely it would shorten now that most people will, inevitably, see the mission as having been 'completed'. With Osama having been forged into the figurehead of terrorism against the United States, and with his organization being touted as the reason for invasion, won't most people see this as 'mission complete'? Bit of a double edged sword for the advocates of the ground war.
I remember where I was and what I was doing the morning of September 11, 2001.
And I'm going to remember May 1, 2011 for the rest of my life.
I was informed by a Total War friend while I was starting a French campaign in Stainless Steel. So Total War forever has the honor of being associated with this day.
Also, more edits and other media
https://i.imgur.com/56dUe.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/809iH.gif
https://i.imgur.com/8cAzR.png
https://i.imgur.com/1ZtvR.jpg
http://www.thelostogle.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/funny-obama-facebook-status.jpg
This is a screen cap of Obama when Seth Meyers made the Osama bin Laden joke
https://i.imgur.com/xTvv8.jpg
Didn't notice it when I watched it yesterday but you can see the "if you only knew LOL" look in his face.
Banquo's Ghost
05-02-2011, 08:34
I can't see how this will prolong the current War in Afghanistan? Surely it would shorten now that most people will, inevitably, see the mission as having been 'completed'. With Osama having been forged into the figurehead of terrorism against the United States, and with his organization being touted as the reason for invasion, won't most people see this as 'mission complete'? Bit of a double edged sword for the advocates of the ground war.
The war in Afghanistan hasn't been about al-Qa'eda since abut Day Three.
The current raison d'etre is to re-build the country sufficiently that the Afghan government can run the place themselves. Since that's likely to be the dark side of never, it's until an arbitrary date for withdrawal can be met. The latter may be politically facilitated by bin Laden's death bit one doubts it - much more dependent on poll ratings/focus groups as the election approaches.
Askthepizzaguy
05-02-2011, 08:44
This is a screen cap of Obama when Seth Meyers made the Osama bin Laden joke
I saw Obama's performance, did not see Seth Meyers'. What was the joke?
I saw Obama's performance, did not see Seth Meyers'. What was the joke?
He was joking about how hard it is to find bin Laden AND how low C-Span ratings are.
"Some people think he's hiding in the Hindu-Kush, but did you know that every day from 3pm to 4pm he hosts a show on C-Span?"
Askthepizzaguy
05-02-2011, 08:51
He was joking about how hard it is to find bin Laden AND how low C-Span ratings are.
"Some people think he's hiding in the Hindu-Kush, but did you know that every day from 3pm to 4pm he hosts a show on C-Span?"
Apparently, his show's been cancelled.
After reading Robert Fisk's interviews with Osama bin Laden, I wonder to what degree he himself was a victim of the mess in the Middle East. This does not justify his actions in any way, but it does make me think. How horrible can your life be if you have to resort to violence acts of such a degree.
I don't think it's a time for celebration. I think it's a time for reflection.
Aparently his body was dumpen in the sea, DNA will be investigated. Que?
sniff sniff what's that smell
Askthepizzaguy
05-02-2011, 08:57
After reading Robert Fisk's interviews with Osama bin Laden, I wonder to what degree he himself was a victim of the mess in the Middle East. This does not justify his actions in any way, but it does make me think. How horrible can your life be if you have to resort to violence acts of such a degree.
I don't think it's a time for celebration. I think it's a time for reflection.
That's the thing, though. He didn't *have* to resort to attacking innocent civilians on 9/11.
Had he legitimate beef with the United States, he might have gone the path of Gandhi and protested bases here or foreign policy there. Instead, he mass murdered a bunch of innocent people, which means he surrenders any moral high ground he could ever have dreamt he had. He also completely destroyed whatever obectives he could have had, because his war against the United States only made things far worse for innocent people in the Middle East because of the wars, and cost him the lives of thousands of sympathizers and allies. I'm all for reflection, as you might have noticed above, but had Osama spent a little bit more time reflecting on the wisdom and righteousness of destroying the innocent, he might still be alive today, and not hated by literally billions.
Banquo's Ghost
05-02-2011, 08:58
After reading Robert Fisk's interviews with Osama bin Laden, I wonder to what degree he himself was a victim of the mess in the Middle East. This does not justify his actions in any way, but it does make me think. How horrible can your life be if you have to resort to violence acts of such a degree.
I don't think it's a time for celebration. I think it's a time for reflection.
Osama bin Laden was a product of rich Saudi society. He was privileged beyond belief and had a perfectly decent education. He was no victim in any manner whatsoever. He used his wealth and privilege to create victims and took pleasure in it.
Wicked and evil man.
Maybe not so much a victim as a product. I don't have any reason to think that he orchestrated the 9/11 attacks just because.
Had he legitimate beef with the United States, he might have gone the path of Gandhi and protested bases here or foreign policy there. Instead, he mass murdered a bunch of innocent people, which means he surrenders any moral high ground he could ever have dreamt he had. He also completely destroyed whatever obectives he could have had, because his war against the United States only made things far worse for innocent people in the Middle East because of the wars, and cost him the lives of thousands of sympathizers and allies.
I'm not giving a moral justification for his action, that would be quite impossible. I'm just not too eager in joining in with the celebration of the death of a human being.
I won't celebrate, but I won't regret his death either. Justice has been served. A nod to the US :bow:
Banquo's Ghost
05-02-2011, 09:36
Maybe not so much a victim as a product. I don't have any reason to think that he orchestrated the 9/11 attacks just because.
I'm not so sure I would offer him the solace of "product" either. Both words indicate a passive "done-unto" status that I consider wholly inappropriate to bin Laden. One might reflect on how those words describe the poor, uneducated fools that he recruited and inspired to kill themselves among others, but not bin Laden.
We can assess the mistakes made in our own governments' facilitation of this mercenary, but we should not mistake him for a person carried by events. Any examination of his life shows him to be a calculating enabler, motivated by his own warped sense of a religious message and a remarkably fluid set of "principles" largely driven by his own self-belief. When someone didn't do what he thought should be done, he changed sides. He entertained no doubts, no lack of certainty, no moral reflections. Whilst he was able to use the Middle East mess to recruit and motivate the foolish to blow themselves up, he knew very well that he was making things worse, not better, for the majority of people in that region. Indeed, that was his whole purpose, as his horrific value system made it imperative that they suffered for not being as "pure" as he.
No, he created his Fate himself, and drew thousands into death because of it.
One head off the monstrous hydra he helped create.
Liquidation no less, no time for all that silly courtroom nonsense, witness testimonies, trial, etc.
I'd liked to have seen him explain why his ideology makes 12-year-olds strap on suicide bombs.
But anyway, now what? NATO can pull out of Afghanistan and save face. Cool. But what about the Afghans? Will the world allow the Taliban to return to power and oust that douchebag president/restaurant owner in Kabul? And what will Pakistan's excuse be? Don't tell me ISI didn't know OBL was living where he did.
Oh, and to whoever collects the reward on this one, thanks for the tip.
I won't celebrate, but I won't regret his death either. Justice has been served. A nod to the US :bow:
Sums it up. kthxbye beard it has been emotional
Goldstein is dead?
Hmmmmmm...
The Celtic Viking
05-02-2011, 10:54
Great news to start up your day with! America, **** YEAH! :unitedstates:
@ACIN: Sorry, old chap, but your question is disingenuous. We did not hate Osama because "he celebrated death". We hated him because, amongst other reasons, he was a massmurdering terrorist. Of course its right for us to celebrate him being brought to justice with our bullets.
@The Mad Arab: Your attempt to invoke sympathy for a massmurdering fascist who wished to destroy everything that is culture and reinstate an old oppressive empire is telling.
Fisherking
05-02-2011, 10:56
I don’t know how anyone else feels about the news that they buried his body at sea, only a couple of hours after they said they killed him but to me it makes no sense.
It can not be a stupid error either.
I think I smell a rat.
a symbolic death of a symbolic figure....he was no more than a figurehead to inspire nutjobs...now the nutjobs will claim he's a martyr...the game goes on.
Step up the security for a few months I guess....a few retaliatory terrorist action attempts are to be expected.
P.S. - Donald Trump says he isn´t buying this and wants to see a verified death certificate!
P.S.S. - Any one like me who is a wrestling fan knows what might have pushed Osama over the edge last night...
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v677/vincent_pt/LadenCenaKillMeNow.jpg
Aparently his body was dumpen in the sea, DNA will be investigated. Que?
sniff sniff what's that smell
I don’t know how anyone else feels about the news that they buried his body at sea, only a couple of hours after they said they killed him but to me it makes no sense.
It can not be a stupid error either.
I think I smell a rat.
there is no way for the US government to win on this discussion....if they buried him at sea people will claim it sounds fishy....
If Obama had Bin Laden's ass stuffed and posed on the oval office people would claim the body was a fake.
parading his body around would probably send the wrong message.....the man's importance was a symbolic one...and there is the whole martyrdom angle....
@The Mad Arab: Your attempt to invoke sympathy for a massmurdering fascist who wished to destroy everything that is culture and reinstate an old oppressive empire is telling.
Awww common he didn't do that, dead people just don't make him happy, budhist thingie
@Ronin, show pics and dump him in an anonymous grave, presto, no problems
Banquo's Ghost
05-02-2011, 11:07
I don’t know how anyone else feels about the news that they buried his body at sea, only a couple of hours after they said they killed him but to me it makes no sense.
It can not be a stupid error either.
I think I smell a rat.
It strikes me as a perfectly intelligent thing to do.
Islam permits burial at sea and it has been done within 24 hours as required. It removes any possibility of shrines etc or the diplomatic problem of no-one (especially Saudi Arabia) wanting his body.
If you refer to the possibility that people will question his death, there are already enough photographs of the body available to convince the skeptic. DNA has been taken. And those who would concoct conspiracy theories will do so anyway - one awaits Mr Trump's interpretation of events with popcorn.
A good decision among many good decisions by the President and his advisors (if it proves true as reported).
Fisherking
05-02-2011, 11:12
It does make some sense to burry him at sea to deny him a martyrs grave site but to do it so quickly raises too many questions.
It makes me think that this is world class political grandstanding.
Did they kill him?
Was he already dead and this just a way to gain political points?
Is it all a lie?
Also this would have been known at the time of the first anouncment, why not tell us then?
I had a strong feeling he was hiding in Pakistan, looks like I was right.
This thread is tasteless.
Ceremony at see ASAP because of respect for funeral within 24h.
So BQ, you do not have to wriggle your tongue out to try and explain why some rules do not apply if it's a badie, he is buried.
a completely inoffensive name
05-02-2011, 11:23
...
What the heck:
The Abbottabad residence is just 200 metres from the Pakistan Military Academy - the country's equivalent of West Point.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13256676
seems reasonable considering what is known about certain sectors of the Pakistan government.
CHECK Osama bin Laden killed
CHECK Disastrous tsunami
CHECK Nuclear disaster
CHECK Revolution in Tunisia
CHECK Revolution in Egypt
CHECK Civil war to oust Gadaffi
CHECK Mass unrest in Syria
CHECK Yet another Western military intervention
It's been an eventful year thus far, alright. Looks like the world is going to end in 2012, after all?
So, he's gone - but whether it matters much, remains to be seen.
@The Mad Arab: Your attempt to invoke sympathy for a massmurdering fascist who wished to destroy everything that is culture and reinstate an old oppressive empire is telling.Telling of what exactly?
Are you accusing me of sympathising with terrorists or fascists? Even if it were true, does that make me an accomplice in the war on terror? Am I too pro-Islamic? Should I be put on trial? Is my criticism of how the western world has interfered in Middle Eastern affairs for roughly the yest century a reason to suppose that I hate the west or that I would rather see an Islamic state? Me, a non-Muslim? I don't think so.
Paraphrasing Robert Fisk, since the 9/11 attacks and even before that, it has become a trend in western intellectual debates concerning the state of the Arab and Islamic world to accuse anyone that is critical of the way the West has handled its affairs in the Middle East of siding or sympathising with terrorists. The very notion of "terrorism" has stifled any real debate, and the irony of this? It means "the terrorists have won".
I like the ideals of the Enlightenment. I think that at the current state our culture is superior to that of the Middle and Far East. I think that we have allowed room for individualism and tolerance and managed not to kill or try anyone that does not agree with the mainstream. Give me Sartre or Kant over Ghazali or indeed Siddharta any day. The very fact that I have been granted the possibility to look more closely at the reasons why al-Qaeda wants to kill people. Did we ever really wonder why? Maybe we didn't. It was a fair pretension to suggest that the "terrorists" just did what they did because they hate freedom and democracy, and that's that. I don't think that's the reason, and the very fact that I'm allowed to think and write down that I think they've got other reasons is what makes the West superior. For the moment.
Also, what "old oppressive empire" are you referring to? The Caliphate? The Ottoman Empire? What empire?
Skullheadhq
05-02-2011, 12:29
It appears he had his funeral, I believe it's time to flame him now.
Warluster
05-02-2011, 12:52
Paraphrasing Robert Fisk, since the 9/11 attacks and even before that, it has become a trend in western intellectual debates concerning the state of the Arab and Islamic world to accuse anyone that is critical of the way the West has handled its affairs in the Middle East of siding or sympathising with terrorists. The very notion of "terrorism" has stifled any real debate, and the irony of this? It means "the terrorists have won".
I like the ideals of the Enlightenment. I think that at the current state our culture is superior to that of the Middle and Far East. I think that we have allowed room for individualism and tolerance and managed not to kill or try anyone that does not agree with the mainstream. Give me Sartre or Kant over Ghazali or indeed Siddharta any day. The very fact that I have been granted the possibility to look more closely at the reasons why al-Qaeda wants to kill people. Did we ever really wonder why? Maybe we didn't. It was a fair pretension to suggest that the "terrorists" just did what they did because they hate freedom and democracy, and that's that. I don't think that's the reason, and the very fact that I'm allowed to think and write down that I think they've got other reasons is what makes the West superior. For the moment.
You went from entirely criticising the tendency in the West to censor and restrict debate on terrorism to praising our utter freedom of opinion? Doesn't this contradict itself slightly?
The cold truth is, the United States apparently 'declared war on terrorism', and so anyone who sympatheticlly writes about the terrorists will always be branded as a traitor/sympathesizer. Or, to put it in a less biased view - anyone who writes about the extremists motivations.
The fact we can discuss these subjects on a daily basis is proof of the open society we live in... and that your taking his comment out of context a bit too much.
Good news to read over my morning cuppa. The only shame is that OBL was allowed to strut around for ten years or so.
Yes, the man was a symbol and a figurehead, but symbols have power, and his continued existence was a punchline for all the wrong sorts of speeches. Better this way.
Burial at sea within the Islam-mandated 24-hour framework strikes me as extremely wise. Well done CIA, well done Delta Seals, well done President Obama.
The cold truth is, the United States apparently 'declared war on terrorism', and so anyone who sympatheticlly writes about the terrorists will always be branded as a traitor/sympathesizer. Or, to put it in a less biased view - anyone who writes about the extremists motivations.
The fact we can discuss these subjects on a daily basis is proof of the open society we live in... and that your taking his comment out of context a bit too much.
Which is exactly what I was aiming at. As of the moment, I am able to express these opinions. It would be a great loss to the West if free speech would be stifled to such a degree that one is not able to express their diverging opinions. As I mentioned, it seems that free and open debate is being stifled more and more.
His comment was a personal sleight at me and my opinions concerning Middle Eastern politics. Perhaps my position was unclear, I just wanted to point that out.
You went from entirely criticising the tendency in the West to censor and restrict debate on terrorism to praising our utter freedom of opinion? Doesn't this contradict itself slightly?
As I said, it's a trend that has been increasingly prevalent over the last years, but it's not that bad yet. We shouldn't lose this moral superiority.
Major Robert Dump
05-02-2011, 13:56
But what about all the good things Osama did?
Did I read correctly, did he actually get buried within 24 hours? I suppose on one hand it means they stuck with the custom, even though the custom is not conducive to good science and crime solving, and they get kudos for that. On the other hand it reinforces what many Muslims already believe: the world really does revolve around them.
I would have preferred to see him in a museum, or perhaps a comedy act with Joan Rivers.
Movie idea: Weekend at Osama's, where some jihadists use Osamas corpse to help recruit new fighters, and they try and try to keep the new recruits from realizing he is dead (good thing they can't read LAWLZ).
I just copywrited the above, script written last night, I will sue anyone who steals the idea
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
05-02-2011, 14:08
The butcher is no more, thanks, apparently, to the United States. :unitedstates: :unitedstates: :unitedstates:
RIP to his victims all around the world.
Amen. A glorious day here in the US. I was just about to go to bed last night when I heared the news.
Only bad thing is he might have a similiar sick minded person ready to take this place. Hopefully not though.
DOES THIS MEAN OBAMA IS NOT A MUSLIM??
:laugh: :laugh:
Louis VI the Fat
05-02-2011, 14:11
Dont get me wrong I dont care if we cut the mans balls off and fed them to him but I don't see what we are celebrating.Oh, what a lot of partay poopers in here.
I remember exactly where I was on 9-11, and I'm celebrating this man's death, yes. I've always had a thing for justice being meted out.
:cheerleader: :unitedstates:
Also, it would appear the Pakistani military elite thought it practical to shelter this man in their midst. In a heavily military patrolled area. Dear oh dear.
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
05-02-2011, 14:14
Perhaps but it gives people that little shot of America crack to keep our boys dying and debt climbing
Being a wild and crazy Texan I thought you were be in favor of celebrating. Don't tell me you one of those hippes "We should not have invaded at all" people.
Good news if he is dead.
The picture of his face (after death) that's been doing rounds on the Pakistani news channels however, is clearly fake.
And as per usual, Fox News can't help themselves.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/FOX-HEADLINE-FAIL.jpg
The picture of his face (after death) that's been doing rounds on the Pakistani news channels however, is clearly fake.
Just like Obama's birth certificate and the moon landing and the Kennedy assassination and the death of Elvis and Roswell!
Louis VI the Fat
05-02-2011, 15:18
And as per usual, Fox News can't help themselves.Fox is pathetic. It reeks of a continued attempt to subliminally influence people.
Must be a tough day for Fox. Indeed, a tough decade:
'3000 Americans killed in the worst attack on American soil in US history'
Fox / GOP / Bush: 'Let's use public sentiment to spend two trillion dollar of tax money in a confused mix of private and public interest'
Obama: 'I vow to bring the perpetrators to justice'
If I had the vote, the election of 2012 would be over already.
Here's some very good reporting on the operation (http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/inside-operation-brought-osama-bin-laden/story?id=13506413).
Greyblades
05-02-2011, 15:32
Huh. I realy dont feel anything about this. The guy who ordered 7/7 and 9/11 is dead and I dont realy feel triumphantor proud or even glad. Huh.
Still, I dont realy understand why they dumped the body in accordance to some muslim custom, you'd think the americans would be more inclined to parade the body around or something.
I dont realy understand why they dumped the body in accordance to some muslim custom, you'd think the americans would be more inclined to parade the body around or something.
According to the reporting coming out, we offered the body to the Saudis and they declined. Burying him in Pakistan would create a shrine for terrorist-wannabes. Bringing the body back to the U.S. would have a whiff of head-on-pike-ism, as you suggest.
Islamic custom is burial within 24 hours. We honored that, and in a manner that neither disrespected nor glorified the jerk.
It's also coming out that the President was advised to bomb the complex, but he sent in the kill team because he wanted proof positive that we got OBL. A risky but smart choice.
-edit-
Couldn't help myself, checked out Fox News' home page (http://www.foxnews.com/). Nice pic of president Bush, lots of headlines about the SEALs, only a tiny, buried reference to the current Prez. Astonishing, really. See if you can find mention of Obama on the page. Warning, it's quite small. (And yes, I know this is a minor, minor point, but I continue to be surprised by the overt, mindless, unthinking hostility to our President, regardless of context and fact.)
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/FoxNews5211.jpg
Some people simply deserve to die. I have no moral problems with celebrating the death of people like Bin Laden, Hitler, Pol Pot, etc. Point out the hypocrisies all you want, as they are certainly there, but it doesn't change the fact that in this specific case I believe this specific man deserved death.
Just like Obama's birth certificate and the moon landing and the Kennedy assassination and the death of Elvis and Roswell!
:laugh:
Elvis is alive and is learning karate somewhere in Southern China.
Anyway...if you look at the picture carefully, the beard is almost entirely black as opposed to quite a lot of white which has been visible in his pictures lately. Furthermore, everything including his nose and below has a different complexion than the above part of his face. And I might be wrong in this but I felt that the resolution differed in the top and bottom of the image.
I'd post a link, but it's rather...disturbing so...
Greyblades
05-02-2011, 15:39
As long as its only a link instead of the actual image I think the mods would be ok with it.
Banquo's Ghost
05-02-2011, 15:41
I'd post a link, but it's rather...disturbing so...
Wise thought.
The posting of such material is against the forum rules, so please nobody even think of it. It should be perfectly possible for anyone interested to find it on the intertubes themselves.
Thank you kindly.
:bow:
So, buried at sea in 24 hours interval? according to Islamic custom?... hmm.... he actually deserve worse things, but it's OK, USA has a sense of Chivalry afterall.
However this proves that Pakistan is lying to all of us, what now? If this is the time of Medieval wars, the next logical step is exterminating entire Pakistan, but because it's modern war, I can bet soon USA, India, and NATO will invade Pakistan, using this event for Justification.
I'd post a link, but it's rather...disturbing so...
It's a montage of this picture.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9I0BPpUfH3U/TaYJjbC5a6I/AAAAAAAAJ54/bHGcv7xi9Mo/s1600/bin_laden.jpg
Mirrored so that his chin faces the left. Then they did a ver well done photoshop. But yeah, the picture is very gruesome.
Gregoshi
05-02-2011, 16:14
I am completely confused as to what I'm feeling at this moment. In one sense I'm glad justice has been served, but there is no euphoria and some concern as to what this means for the future. Did we strike the heart and soul of AQ? Or did we just provide a super martyr for the cause? One thing I'm relieved about is that we apparently handed his burial appropriately. One concern I had last night as I went to bed was that we'd just make matters worse by mishandling his body.
This is the weirdest feeling I think I've ever had...just wish I knew what it was.
I can bet soon USA, India, and NATO will invade Pakistan, using this event for Justification.
Like we need any further justification to attack Pakistan?
I trust our leaders will be smart enough to not do something so ill-advised, though. Pakistan has been the real problem for over a decade. Invading them would solve nothing. And don't forget the Pottery Barn rule (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pottery_Barn_rule).
-edit-
Did we strike the heart and soul of AQ? Or did we just provide a super martyr for the cause?
UBL was a symbol. Among other things, he was a symbol of the invincible underdog sticking it to the superpower. Taking him down was the right thing to do, no matter how long it took.
However this proves that Pakistan is lying to all of us, what now? If this is the time of Medieval wars, the next logical step is exterminating entire Pakistan, but because it's modern war, I can bet soon USA, India, and NATO will invade Pakistan, using this event for Justification.
Pakistan is supported by China.
Pakistan is a country with nuclear weapons.
India won't do anything.....ever.
USA, well if they really have managed to kill Osama, I don't think they'll want to waste any more time or manpower in the area.
@Jolt
That's exactly it. Now why would someone create a fake picture? Just to boost their channel's ratings?
@Jolt
That's exactly it. Now why would someone create a fake picture? Just to boost their channel's ratings?
they didn´t even create it....that picture was already floating around the internet.
some pencil pusher at the tv station just went to google to look for a picture of a dead bin laden.
as to why?...sensationalism...ratings...yet.
Some very good points (http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/05/what-bin-ladens-death-means-seven-observations/238144/)from a blogger:
1) This is a great moment in American history. There is justice in the world. But where is Ayman al-Zawahiri? Capturing the al Qaeda number-two would close this chapter almost entirely.
2) Pakistan has a great deal of explaining to do -- how could Bin Laden have been living near Islamabad, in a city, Abbotttabad, that is in some ways a military cantonment? This operation will only confirm for many people that Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, knew more about the al Qaeda presence in its country then it shared with the U.S..
3) President Obama has laid to rest, at least for everyone not named Donald Trump, the notion that he is some sort of soft-on-terror, Manchurian-candidate stealth-Muslim.
4) American deterrent power is partially restored. The lesson for terrorists: If you commit an act of violence against America, this country will hunt you down until you are dead or in chains.
5) Islamist terrorism is not over. Bin Laden was not an operator, nor was he seemingly in control of operators. Cells may be activated in the coming days, individuals with jihadist goals might take action. This is a dangerous moment. An inevitable moment, but a dangerous one.
6) Al Qaeda is a diminished force, as a terrorist entity. But its ideas will remain potent among a small minority of Muslims, disaffected males in European countries among them.
7) If President Obama is seeking a quicker exit strategy from Afghanistan, he now has one.
Saw this late last night, and the celebrations left a sour taste in my mouth. A crowd of people gathered in front of the White House, chanting, singing, waving flags. The only things missing were a flag/effigy burning and AKs being fired into the air and the scene could have been any Middle Eastern capitol. How many times on this forum have we decried the reaction in Arab countries when :daisy: hits the fan in the West? And "USA, USA" chants everywhere? Really? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that we finally got to him. But there is no reason to celebrate, not when it has taken so long and cost us so much.
Onto analysis, the two-step with Pakistan is the funniest part of this. They want credit for helping us, even though they don't. We want to credit them, even though we don't. I'm not surprised one bit about where he was "hiding" out.
A crowd of people gathered in front of the White House, chanting, singing, waving flags. The only things missing were a flag/effigy burning and AKs being fired into the air and the scene could have been any Middle Eastern capitol. How many times on this forum have we decried the reaction in Arab countries when :daisy: hits the fan in the West? And "USA, USA" chants everywhere? Really?
I understand where you're coming from, and you have a point, but I don't think the US citizens' reaction to the execution of an internationally recognized criminal is comparable to, say, the Palestinian celebration of the 9/11 attacks. It's been a decade-long hunt for the front-man responsible for the cold-blooded murder of 3000+ citizens. Some cheering and chest-thumping is warranted.
Another great thought (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/the-osama-news/238122/):
As long as the "Global War on Terror" was defined as eliminating all threat of terrorist activity, it could never be ended. That threat -- like other threats -- will never completely go away. But if this admittedly symbolic victory in the "war" can be taken as closing a loop opened ten years ago (and earlier, with previous OBL-inspired attacks), perhaps it could free us to continue the vigilance while beginning to correct the decade-long warping of our values. That is another gift the commandos who carried out this mission may have given America. We will see whether Obama is willing to lead that way, and others are willing to follow.
-edit-
And in sweet irony news, the President's announcement pre-empted Celebrity Apprentice (http://www.mediaite.com/tv/president-obamas-trump-joke-comes-to-life-osama-bin-laden-news-preempts-celebrity-apprentice/) on the East Coast.
Pakistan is supported by China.
Pakistan is a country with nuclear weapons.
India won't do anything.....ever.
USA, well if they really have managed to kill Osama, I don't think they'll want to waste any more time or manpower in the area.
@Jolt
That's exactly it. Now why would someone create a fake picture? Just to boost their channel's ratings?
well, maybe then, the Islamic terrorism was Chinese play all time long, we just didn't want to even imagine it.
Chinese governments hate americans, we all know that. The muslims just become Chinese's victim.
well, maybe then, the Islamic terrorism was Chinese play all time long, we just didn't want to even imagine it.
Chinese governments hate americans, we all know that. The muslims just become Chinese's victim.
Ah yes, the Chinese Communist/Jihadist axis of something or another. Don't you hate it when atheist totalitarians and Islamists team up? I think the Freemasons and the Illuminati are mixed up in it too.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/tinfoil-hat.jpg
Couldn't help myself, checked out Fox News' home page (http://www.foxnews.com/). Nice pic of president Bush, lots of headlines about the SEALs, only a tiny, buried reference to the current Prez. Astonishing, really. See if you can find mention of Obama on the page. Warning, it's quite small. (And yes, I know this is a minor, minor point, but I continue to be surprised by the overt, mindless, unthinking hostility to our President, regardless of context and fact.)
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/FoxNews5211.jpg
What every news anchor is thinking right now:
https://i.imgur.com/zAmEQ.jpg
It's been a decade-long hunt for the front-man responsible for the cold-blooded murder of 3000+ citizens. Some cheering and chest-thumping is warranted.
Cheering I could stomach. Chest-thumping? Not so much.
"Yeah! OBL is dead! USA, USA! We're #1!. (Pay no mind to the trillions of dollars, Constitutional costs, thousands of American soldiers' lives, and countless lives in occupied lands spent)"
Not really much to be proud of. It's a task that needed doing, and one that we botched in a very large, messy way.
well, maybe then, the Islamic terrorism was Chinese play all time long, we just didn't want to even imagine it.
If you're joking then it's OK, because that is so not what I meant.
All I pointed out was that China has been using Pakistan to control the status quo of power in the subcontinent since quite some time. It is not news that AQ Khan researched n-weapon technology using Chinese aid. Infact I remember reading somewhere that recently when a US delegate confronted a Chinese diplomat about their support to Pakistan, he commented that Pakistan was their Israel.
Not really much to be proud of. It's a task that needed doing, and one that we botched in a very large, messy way.
Well, hmm. I don't agree. My personal response has been sober and somber, because you're right, this has come at a high price. But on the other hand, I don't begrudge anybody who wants to chest-thump and chant USA! USA! USA! That's their right, man, and I can understand where they're coming from. This is a moment to focus on what has been accomplished. Does it signal a shift away from some of the stupider elements (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_invocations_of_the_USA_PATRIOT_Act) of the GWOT? I hope so. Will we reevaluate our commitments to three, count 'em, three wars in Islamic nations? I hope so. Does it say something that seven years of torturing enemy combatants didn't yield this result, but two years of diligent intelligence work did? Yeah, I think that's blindingly obvious to anybody who isn't a rabid partisan.
And hey, it's your right to feel revulsion at the celebrations. That's legit too. But I don't share your feelings, and I think US citizens are owed a little kegger right now. It's been a hell of a decade, not a good one for the US by any measurement. Let's bask for, say, 24 hours in a job well done.
-edit-
C'mon, even you must understand and empathize with the reaction at the US Naval Academy. We want our warriors to be pumped up when we take out the enemy. And this is their moment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_104CFkUGzc
Tellos Athenaios
05-02-2011, 17:50
It leaves me utterly unmoved. Good to know there is one less terrorist to not worry about, now please get on with the real job. (Fixing what we broke.)
PanzerJaeger
05-02-2011, 17:54
And as per usual, Fox News can't help themselves.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/FOX-HEADLINE-FAIL.jpg
C'mon man. The Sacramento Fox affiliate makes a common mistake (http://www.fox40.com/news/headlines/ktxl-osama-v-obama-one-letter-mistake-strikes-multiple-networks-and-tv-stations-20110501,0,5601804.story) and it's 'omg faux news attacks!'? I guess MSNBC (http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/02/typo-msnbc-correspondent-accidentally-reports-on-twitter-that-obama-killed/) has chosen to go the same route.
I watched a few hours of coverage on Fox last, the actual cable channel and not an affiliate, and all the hosts and commentators were very congratulatory and complimentary towards the president, as they should have been. This is a good day, let's not mar it with the typical 'fox news/msnbc/cnn said what!' crap that seems to accompany every major news story these days.
Anyway, I feel slightly vindicated (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/world/asia/02reconstruct-capture-osama-bin-laden.html?hp) after years of arguing over Gitmo on this forum.
After years of dead ends and promising leads gone cold, the big break came last August. A trusted courier of Osama bin Laden’s whom American spies had been hunting for years was finally located in a compound 35 miles north of the Pakistani capital, close to one of the hubs of American counterterrorism operations….
Detainees at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had given the courier’s pseudonym to American interrogators and said that the man was a protégé of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.
American intelligence officials said Sunday night that they finally learned the courier’s real name four years ago, but that it took another two years for them to learn the general region where he operated.
A very good thought (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/opinion/02douthat.html?ref=opinion):
This is a triumph for the United States of America, for our soldiers and intelligence operatives, and for the president as well. But it is not quite the triumph that it would have seemed if bin Laden had been captured a decade ago, because those 10 years have taught us that we didn’t need to fear him and his rabble as much as we did, temporarily but intensely, in the weeks when ground zero still smoked.
They’ve taught us, instead, that whatever blunders we make (and we have made many), however many advantages we squander (and there has been much squandering), and whatever quagmires we find ourselves lured into, our civilization is not fundamentally threatened by the utopian fantasy politics embodied by groups like Al Qaeda, or the mix of thugs, fools and pseudointellectuals who rally around their banner.
They can strike us, they can wound us, they can kill us. They can goad us into tactical errors and strategic blunders. But they are not, and never will be, an existential threat.
This was not clear immediately after 9/11. On that day, they took us by surprise. They took advantage of our society’s great strength — its openness and freedom, the welcome it gives to immigrants and the presumption of innocence it extends. And in the wake of their attack, we did not know what they were capable of, or how they might follow up their victory.
Now we know. We know because bin Laden is finally dead and gone, but in a sense we knew already. [...]
Day after day, hour after hour, we learned that we were strong and they were weak.
It's exactly the prelude, not the final act, that should temper our celebrations. Almost 10 years to figure out what should have been done in the first place. And it's hard to enjoy a kegger when all you can afford is Old Swill, Beast, and Cook's.
Actionable intelligence, operators on the ground, no or very little collateral damage. In the end, it was almost 20th century European in it's execution. What's the old saying? "The United States will, after exhausting all other options, eventually do the right thing." I'll pop one for the SEALs tonight, they deserve it and more.
Strike For The South
05-02-2011, 18:36
It's exactly the prelude, not the final act, that should temper our celebrations. Almost 10 years to figure out what should have been done in the first place. And it's hard to enjoy a kegger when all you can afford is Old Swill, Beast, and Cook's.
Actionable intelligence, operators on the ground, no or very little collateral damage. In the end, it was almost 20th century European in it's execution. What's the old saying? "The United States will, after exhausting all other options, eventually do the right thing." I'll pop one for the SEALs tonight, they deserve it and more.
But....But MURRRRHHHHHHHHIICCCCCCCAAAAAAA
Does it say something that seven years of torturing enemy combatants didn't yield this result, but two years of diligent intelligence work did?Well.... technically, the lead that started the years of diligent intel work are said to have come from a Gitmo detainee. They gave up the nickname of OBL's couriers, which eventually led to tracking down Osama.
Another point I'd like to make is that I think too many people are diminishing the importance of Bin Laden's removal. No, it's not going to end the terrorist threat, but by most accounts it seems he was still very much operationally involved in Al Qaeda. His compound had couriers coming and going and there were said to have been multiple computers recovered from the compound.
"Yeah! OBL is dead! USA, USA! We're #1!. (Pay no mind to the trillions of dollars, Constitutional costs, thousands of American soldiers' lives, and countless lives in occupied lands spent)"Eh, aside from the invasive security theater our airport screenings have become (and that's a big aside), I think the Constitutional costs of been comparatively mild. Things like the DMCA have probably caused more long term damage to our freedoms. :shrug:
Edit:
Burial at sea within the Islam-mandated 24-hour framework strikes me as extremely wise. Well done CIA, well done Delta Seals, well done President Obama. Indeed. This was definitely the best course of action I could think of. His corpse is gone with no grave to become a terrorist tourist spot and no one can rationally say we were disrespectful to Islam overall.
Well.... technically, the lead that started the years of diligent intel work are said to have come from a Gitmo detainee. They gave up the nickname of OBL's couriers, which eventually led to tracking down Osama.
PJ provided a link for that point, and it's a fair one. I guess the unknowable will be whether or not indefinite detentions and "enhanced interrogation" were truly useful to this purpose.
Anyway, well done Seal Team Six (http://www.businessinsider.com/the-team-that-killed-bin-laden-seal-team-6-2011-5), the CIA analysts who cracked the case, and the President who decided to go in rather than nuke the site from orbit (http://www.moviesoundclips.net/movies1/aliens/nuke.wav).
Edit:Indeed. This was definitely the best course of action I could think of. His corpse is gone with no grave to become a terrorist tourist spot and no one can rationally say we were disrespectful to Islam overall.
yeah, burial at sea was among the cheapest way of burial, but still acceptable for muslim. Usually, it's done to make the eternal rest for fishermen and sailor's remains, usually the lowest position of peasantry...
that was very2 suitable for osama...
yeah, burial at sea was among the cheapest way of burial, but still acceptable for muslim. Usually, it's done to make the eternal rest for fishermen and sailor's remains, usually the lowest position of peasantry...
that was very2 suitable for osama...
And nonetheless, people are coming out of the woodwork already to complain about how it was insulting/disrespectful (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jG7UJ7x8ozawcWS0Y1tE6OChe3Jw?docId=7079d8b79ab04465a1030dfaf9e04510). To them I say- he deserved much worse than he got.
"What was done by the Americans is forbidden by Islam and might provoke some Muslims," said another Islamic scholar from Iraq, Abdul-Sattar al-Janabi, who preaches at Baghdad's famous Abu Hanifa mosque. "It is not acceptable and it is almost a crime to throw the body of a Muslim man into the sea. The body of bin Laden should have been handed over to his family to look for a country or land to bury him."
Kagemusha
05-02-2011, 19:55
Good riddance. One less madman running around.
In a further response to PJ and Xiahou drawing a link between Guantanamo and the execution of OBL, I think there's a some conflation going on. Doing a bit of reading between jobs, I don't see any evidence that the pseudonym was extracted under torture. At least, nobody with knowledge is saying that (please ignore the bloggers for the moment; they know not what they type). As one writer puts it (http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2011/05/gitmo_prisoners_led_cia_to_osa.php):
When I visited Guantanamo, interrogator after interrogator stressed that the best information comes from standard tactics, not from brute torture.
"[It's] bad interrogation. I mean you can get anyone to confess to anything if the torture's bad enough," former CIA officer Bob Baer told ABC News. [...]
Much credit should go to the interrogators in Cuba who got the info that brought Osama down.
But until I see evidence to the contrary, I don't believe they couldn't have done the same job just as effectively -- without the gross damage to America's reputation abroad -- in any other prison on U.S. soil, under U.S. laws.
And nonetheless, people are coming out of the woodwork already to complain about how it was insulting/disrespectful (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jG7UJ7x8ozawcWS0Y1tE6OChe3Jw?docId=7079d8b79ab04465a1030dfaf9e04510). To them I say- he deserved much worse than he got.
Let's see...the extremists would already be raging that he was killed. So now they just have another reason to rage.....people always find something to complain about.
I'd like to see how many of those who say it was disrespectful would've accepted the responsibility to bury the body themselves....even his own family (I think) do not approve of him.
lol, I am hosting a Don't *$&#! With America party at my house tonight and I already got 32 people confirming that they are coming. I have some awesome entertainment planned! :beam:
@Vuk, I would suggest a theme song, but it would violate Org policy. It's from the film Team America: World Police (https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=team+america&aq=f), and it will make a rousing sing-along.
@Vuk, I would suggest a theme song, but it would violate Org policy. It's from the film Team America: World Police (https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=team+america&aq=f), and it will make a rousing sing-along.
lol, good idea. ~;)
Seamus Fermanagh
05-02-2011, 20:39
It appears that he was buried at sea and following the appropriate muslim traditions. I find this reasonable as the idea of doing outrage to corpses leaves me thinking about my celtic ancestors -- the ones we rightly label barbarians.
Bin Laden was, apparently, tracked to the location using good old-fashioned intelligence/detective work. Being unable to confirm that Bin Laden was 100% likely to be present, President Obama sent in boots who would not shoot innocent bystanders and the like. Good choice, and well-executed by the multi-part team that put the operation in play.
It remains to be seen how much of Osama's hideout location near the Pakistani capital and military academy was the result of Pakistani complicity and how much was simply the choice to go the "purloined letter" route to hide him. I am reasonably certain that the question will be asked.
This thread has gone from tasteless to disgusting.
So much short sightedness, so many moral compasses ill aligned.
We might as well hand out whiskey and six shooters.
Centurion1
05-02-2011, 20:58
And what is your opinion oh mighty shibumi. I find that this thread is surprisingly tasteful despite the fact that the man did nothing to warrant respect.
This thread has gone from tasteless to disgusting.
So much short sightedness, so many moral compasses ill aligned.
We might as well hand out whiskey and six shooters.
Do you know how many thousands died horribly because of that 'man'? Not to mention all the people who died in efforts to get him and people in his organization.
Your sympathy is touching, but he has done nothing to deserve it. I sure as heck will celebrate when a murderer of his magnitude dies.
And actually, you are right on the money about whiskey and six shooters...well, really close at least. I am actually hanging a bunch of Osama targets up that I bought after 911 and having been waiting on this morning for. After THAT fun, we break out the vodka. I am not a drinking man, but tonight I make the exception.
We might as well hand out whiskey and six shooters.
And then we invite Clint Eastwood....or John Wayne maybe. :clown:
Why exactly do you find it disgusting though?
I don't see anything disgusting in the thread, but maybe that's because I am an Evil Imperialist American (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zKCIf-vfbc). Anything's possible.
Looks like UBL went out of this life with the same class (http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/05/white-house-osama-bin-laden-used-woman-as-human-shield.php) he had throughout:
Brennan also identified bin Laden as the combatant who had used a woman as a human shield. She was the only woman who died in the operation, which also killed a courier for bin Laden, the courier's brother, and one of bin Laden's sons, Brennan said. Brennan later said it was his understanding that the woman was one of bin Laden's wives.
"She served as a shield -- this is my understanding -- when she fought back -- when there was an opportunity to get to bin Laden -- she was positioned in a way that she was used as a shield. My understanding was she was one of bin laden's wives," Brennan told reporters.
Just to show I'm not trying to urinate in the collective punchbowl, I did get one good laugh from the news today. It allowed some sportswriter to post a link to this old (2001) little gem from the Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/arsenal/3016918/Osama-bin-Ladens-Highbury-days.html) today.
I do not believe in evil.
OBM might have been ****** up from our perspective, but at the end of the day he probably was a man who did what he could in the situations he was put in.
Remember back in the days when he was a CIA sponsored freedom fighter? Oh how fast it goes from hero to zero.
Do not get me wrong, I do not think this man contributed with much good to society or the world at large. He has as much innocent blood on his hands as, say, the American general who reigned the first years of the Afghan war (count civilian deaths people).
Does it mean I cheer and pop open a bottle of champagne when he is dead? No - I rather pour me a glass of red, go out on the terrace, and think about the destiny of mankind at large.
I guess this reminds me of a rabid fox. Should they be put down? Yes indeed. Will I cheer at it - no. I will feel sad that the fox got the disease in the first place, and spend some thoughts on the disease.
Same goes here, what is the disease in humanity that made this mess.
But oh well, you all go out partying. The big questions do not matter. All that has changed the past 10 years (for the worse mainly) mean nothing, because an elderly man got assassinated.
Yey.
I do not believe in evil.
OBM might have been ****** up from our perspective, but at the end of the day he probably was a man who did what he could in the situations he was put in.
Remember back in the days when he was a CIA sponsored freedom fighter? Oh how fast it goes from hero to zero.
Do not get me wrong, I do not think this man contributed with much good to society or the world at large. He has as much innocent blood on his hands as, say, the American general who reigned the first years of the Afghan war (count civilian deaths people).
Does it mean I cheer and pop open a bottle of champagne when he is dead? No - I rather pour me a glass of red, go out on the terrace, and think about the destiny of mankind at large.
I guess this reminds me of a rabid fox. Should they be put down? Yes indeed. Will I cheer at it - no. I will feel sad that the fox got the disease in the first place, and spend some thoughts on the disease.
Same goes here, what is the disease in humanity that made this mess.
But oh well, you all go out partying. The big questions do not matter. All that has changed the past 10 years (for the worse mainly) mean nothing, because an elderly man got assassinated.
Yey.
A rabid fox has no conscience and no choice, Osama did. He murdered innocent people, exploited those around him, and only cared about himself and his rewards on earth and in paradise.
The big questions do not matter. All that has changed the past 10 years (for the worse mainly) mean nothing, because an elderly man got assassinated.
Maybe this line of reasoning (http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/05/those-we-celebrate-for.html) will make a little more sense to you:
The reason for the joy is actually less obvious. It is, at its best, I think, not vengeance or relief - although they are within us all, at various levels of suppression. The joy comes because somewhere we feel for the first time in so long that this hideous, bungled, tortuous, torture-filled decade of war and mass murder might, after all, have some smidgen of emotional closure, some sliver of justice in its long arc, some core thread leading to something we can call victory.
I think especially of all those young Americans who, on September 12 2001, woke up and decided to serve their country in her hour of need. I think of all those who signed up for war because of 9/11. And let's face it. They did not sign up because they wanted to re-shape the Middle East, or bring democracy to Iraq, or to bribe Hamid Karzai.
They signed up to find, capture, or kill Osama bin Laden.
They signed up to attack everything he represents.
It gives bin Laden too much credit to say he made them soldiers. But they became soldiers because of his crime and what he had done to the country they loved.
Many of them were cheering last night. But many were not alive to do so. I think particularly of those men and women now. They died in battle not knowing that America would eventually, finally find this murderer, and bring him to justice. Imagine telling them now, as if they were still alive, "We got him! We got bin Laden!" Imagine the look on their faces. Imagine what you see in their eyes.
And then look at their faces as you also tell them that it was done by Navy SEALS, in a gun-battle, where bin Laden was given the option of surrender, and refused. And then we ensured that his funeral was a dignified one, in accordance with the protocols of Islam.
Which is to say to our heroes: You did not die in vain. And your comrades finished the job.
And who can not feel joy at that?
Veho Nex
05-02-2011, 22:44
So Osama Bin Laden is dead... Amazing what the Americans can do when the Playstation Network is down.
PanzerJaeger
05-02-2011, 22:44
Remember back in the days when he was a CIA sponsored freedom fighter? Oh how fast it goes from hero to zero.
This is always brought up by the usual suspects as some sort of 'ah hah!' moment. Well yes, he did go from hero to zero, but the transformation was his and his alone.
He made the conscious decision to transition from fighting the military forces of an unwelcome occupation to the intentional targetting of civilians. Had he stuck to military targets, that line of reasoning would hold more water (although the US military's presence in Saudi Arabia that bin Laden equated to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was in fact sought after and sanctioned by Saudi Arabia).
Remember back in the days when he was a CIA sponsored freedom fighter? Oh how fast it goes from hero to zero.
While there was CIA funding for the mujahideen in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union, Osama bin Laden personally never dealt with America.
I agree with the rest of your post.
Yeah yeah, he was bad. Jesus would throw the first stone I am sure.
Yeah yeah, he was bad. Jesus would throw the first stone I am sure.
weak joke removed. Too much risk of offense for too little humor. SF
Seriously though, why do you sympathize with someone like Obama bin Laden? Why is it wrong to celebrate that we will never have to worry about mass murder from that mad-man anymore?
a completely inoffensive name
05-02-2011, 23:03
...
Seriously though, why do you sympathize with someone like Obama bin Laden? Why is it wrong to celebrate that we will never have to worry about mass murder from that mad-man anymore?
First of all (and more importantly) I try to sympathize with everyone. Give it a try, it open up new worlds.
Secondly (and way less important) I use this forum to help me with TWS2. I honestly had not even noticed a feature to make friends here. This may shock you, but I seek other paths in life to make friends than a forum dedicated for a primarily single player strategical game. [shock!]
ajaxfetish
05-02-2011, 23:08
Wise but now superfluous comment removed. Ajax
Hey, let's not get too personal here. Let's debate Shibumi's ideas, not his person.
Shibumi, surely your "sympathize with everyone" perspective might lead you to consider the feelings of OBL's many, many victims? Consider the immediate victims of his attacks, which number somewhere in the neighborhood of six thousand. Then consider that the most recent Afghan war would not have taken place if he had not attacked us on our soil. Consider the epic loss of life that stemmed from this man's actions. And as the blog I linked discussed, consider the idealistic men and women who signed up for the military in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, many of whom gave their lives to oppose OBL's insane vision of a global caliphate.
Given the toil, sweat, blood and tears that have flowed from OBL's actions, don't Americans have some small right to celebrate his demise?
Hey, let's not get too personal here. Let's debate Shibumi's ideas, not his person.
Shibumi, surely your "sympathize with everyone" perspective might lead you to consider the feelings of OBL's many, many victims? Consider the immediate victims of his attacks, which number somewhere in the neighborhood of six thousand. Then consider that the most recent Afghan war would not have taken place if he had not attacked us on our soil. Consider the epic loss of life that stemmed from this man's actions. And as the blog I linked discussed, consider the idealistic men and women who signed up for the military in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, many of whom gave their lives to oppose OBL's insane vision of a global caliphate.
Given the toil, sweat, blood and tears that have flowed from OBL's actions, don't Americans have some small right to celebrate his demise?
OBM, much like Che Guevarra, fought US imperialism, or so some say.
The USA is a renegade in foreign politics. The blood toll on every dollar is immense. When was the last time USA had a peaceful decade? How far back do you have to go? USA is in a state of perpetual warfare, can anyone not agree? The USA is the Satan of the modern world, and the goals it can not reach militarily it will try to reach through political or financial warfare.
Do I believe what I just wrote? no.
Just as little as I believe assassinations should be a source of national pride.
It is a sick world. Do you want to shoot it out or reason it out?
Veho Nex
05-03-2011, 00:12
The USA is a renegade in foreign politics. The blood toll on every dollar is immense. When was the last time USA had a peaceful decade? How far back do you have to go? USA is in a state of perpetual warfare, can anyone not agree? The USA is the Satan of the modern world, and the goals it can not reach militarily it will try to reach through political or financial warfare.
Satan of the modern world, because we as a country are so inherently evil that every one of our achievements is another country's blemish.
Also, look up a list of any Major power and find a decade where there was some sort of conflict going on. Find me one power who has had a decade of peace in the last 250 years.
I guess it is kind of endearing when you get flamed for something you yourself followed up with
Do I believe what I just wrote? no.
What was that old slogan of the US education system? "No child left behind"?
I think the US would do a lot better waging war on bad education. I am sure a lot less would be killed, and who knows, it might even do some good!
He was a bad dude, I'm glad he's finally been killed. I'm also happy in the manner it was done instead of some missile strike it allowed us to ensure we knew who we killed.
His burial was more than what he deserved, no dragging him through the streets beating the corpse with shoes here.
RIP to all the innocent dead on his account or from our pursuit of him.
Cheers to the Navy Seals!
tibilicus
05-03-2011, 01:31
Moral of this saga- America ALWAYS wins..
Major Robert Dump
05-03-2011, 02:09
While it is easy to focus on the bad things a person has done, we must not forget Bin Laden the Father, Bin Laden the brother, Bin Laden the dancer, and Bin Laden the baker of tastey goods. Everyone has their trying times, and he had no shortage of his. In the end, he was just a man.
Growing up surrounded by Indonesian house servants who wash your balls and let you impregnate them is not an easy life. OBL showed some extra character above others of his kind, for when he got one pregnant he did not send the Shia woman back to her family to be murdered, but rather he murdered her himself. He was a man who solved his own problems.
Let us also not forget that through scientific experimentation and trial and error, OBL helped perfect a method of beheading (front right to back left), carefully avoiding the spinal cord, that ensured the victim stayed alive for the entire ordeal until ultimately dying of lack of oxygen, drowning on blood or bleeding to death. Gone were the days of terrifying, quick beheadings. OBL gave us something that lasted several minutes. While most people may not want to give credit where credit is due, one thing is for certain -- the victims sure noticed!
OBL could also cut a rug. He loved to dance, especially with other men and young boys. While some may call it homosexual, it was not gay because love was not involved. In fact, the term "superman-ing hoes" actually started in the moutnains of Pakistan on thursday night, where it was originally called "superman-ing chai boys." Man, the guys lined up for the gang rape always got a kick out of that one, especially when OBL would do a little jig afterwards. Good times.
And let us not forget the loving father. To show that he was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, he tried to talk his young sons into being suicide bombers. What a selfless man, for if those two died, he would only have 33 sons left! When those two sons said no, he tried to tempt them with tastey home baked cupcakes, and they still said no. Some people are just disrespectful to their fathers I guess, but he loved them anyway, just as much as the other sons he had with his secret 15 year old wives. I mean, to take in a nubile 15 year old and protect her, cuddle her, beat her and leave her to rot in a shack raaising kids all alone while he went around the world playing terrorist -- imagine how much worse off she could have been!
So yeah, laugh all you want, people. OBL may have been a "bad guy," a "meanie," and a "tourorist"(thanks W), but while you all celebrate his death, he is rocking out in heaven with Liberace and Freddy Mercury. The last laugh is definitely his.
Louis VI the Fat
05-03-2011, 02:28
Thank you, MRD, for bringing some nuance and subtlety to this thread. Before celebrating yesterday's succes, one ought to bear in mind the many different roles and the difficult life of Osama. :bow:
For the sake of some other perspective:
Bin Laden threatens France
Al-Qaeda leader says in audio tape hostages will die if country does not pull out troops from Muslim lands.
The leader of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, has called for the withdrawal of French troops from Muslim lands in exchange for the release of hostages, in an audio message.
Referring to French hostages being held in Niger, the speaker on the tape, who sounded like Bin Laden, says their release depended on moves by their own government.
He says France will pay dearly for its policy in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
"President Nicolas Sarkozy's refusal to remove his forces from Afghanistan is nothing but a green light for killing the French hostages," Bin Laden says in the recording, broadcast on Al Jazeera on Friday.
"We repeat the same message to you: The release of your prisoners in the hands of our brothers is linked to the withdrawal of your soldiers from our country."
This is the second tape that Bin Laden, believed to be hiding in the mountainous border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan, has released an audio recording attacking French policy and linking the French presence in Afghanistan to the kidnapping of its nationals in Niger.
Seven foreigners, including five French nationals, were kidnapped in Niger in September, with the group's north African wing Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) claiming responsibility.
AQIM also claimed responsibility for two Frenchmen found dead last week after a failed rescue attempt in Niger, but the group did not say how the men died.
Following the kidnappings last year, an AQIM spokesman, Salah Abi Mohammed, said in an audio message: "We inform the French government that the mujahedeen will later transmit their legitimate demands."
The September kidnapping was an escalation of hostilities between AQIM and France.
AQIM killed 78-year-old Frenchman Michel Germaneu last July after French commandos took part in a failed raid to free him.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/01/20111211280492354.html
From today's 'Le Monde' newspaper:
https://img577.imageshack.us/img577/2048/097benladen1304354071.gif
How the Americans have arrested Ben Laden
'You have the right to remain silent, anything you say etc' :beam:
Go yanks! :cheerleader:
PanzerJaeger
05-03-2011, 03:43
While it is easy to focus on the bad things a person has done, we must not forget Bin Laden the Father, Bin Laden the brother, Bin Laden the dancer, and Bin Laden the baker of tastey goods.
:iloveyou:
ajaxfetish
05-03-2011, 04:23
The leader of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, has called for the withdrawal of French troops from Muslim lands
So where would all the French troops go? They clearly couldn't remain in France.
Ajax
Crazed Rabbit
05-03-2011, 05:12
A man in Washington has shaved his beard after swearing not to shave it until bin Laden was captured or killed (http://www.krem.com/news/Ephrata-man-keeps-promise-finally-shaves-after-bin-Laden-is-caught-121105169.html)on September 11:
https://img20.imageshack.us/img20/9854/050211garyweddle.jpg
EPHRATA, Wash. – Ephrata Middle School teacher Gary Weddle vowed on September 11, 2001 to stop shaving until Osama bin Laden was caught.
On Monday, after almost ten years, he finally shaved off his lengthy beard.
KREM 2 News covered this story back in 2003, when he had not shaved for almost two years.
At the time Weddle said, "Everyday I'm reminded that there's terrible tragedies in the world and this isn't the first and it won't be the last."
The school’s principal, Jill Palmquist, honored him on Monday and gave the following speech to the students:
Ephrata Middle School would like to take a few moments today to honor and recognize a very unique individual who is among us on a daily basis.
On September 11th 2001, Gary Weddle came to school and told his science students that in support of the United States Military and for the freedoms that America stands for, he would not shave until Osama Bin Laden was captured or killed.
CR
Strike For The South
05-03-2011, 05:13
OBM, much like Che Guevarra, fought US imperialism, or so some say.
The USA is a renegade in foreign politics. The blood toll on every dollar is immense. When was the last time USA had a peaceful decade? How far back do you have to go? USA is in a state of perpetual warfare, can anyone not agree? The USA is the Satan of the modern world, and the goals it can not reach militarily it will try to reach through political or financial warfare.
Do I believe what I just wrote? no.
Just as little as I believe assassinations should be a source of national pride.
It is a sick world. Do you want to shoot it out or reason it out?
Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.
Sometimes you need to crack a few skulls. That's simply the way the world works, one can have reservations but you sound like a blinded college libreal whose spent to much time trying to pretend he's smarter than everyone else simply due to the fact he took a dissenting opinoin
Critical thinking skills, use them
Louis VI the Fat
05-03-2011, 05:27
The more details have emerged, the more I marvel at the quality of the operation. So much was well done: the intelligence was obviously excellent. The choice for and flawless execution of the risky, difficult direct engagement over the much easier missile. The funeral at sea - all of the other options are more problematic, I think. A firefight that killed all of the right people, none of the US ones, and no collateral damage. The operation was done quickly and 'quietly', in-and-out like Frodo sneaking straight into Mordor. Awesome.
~~o~~o~~<<o:cheerleader:o>>~~o~~o~~
Obama looked remarkably confident last Friday. Very defiant in his mockery of Donald Trump, almost smug. I wonder how much he knew already. Was he aware already the nature of his presidency was about to take a decisive turn, a complete game changer?
This can't be beat for pr. I already relish in the one-liners Obama can use againts his critics, againt next year's opponents. I do hope Obama does not get too carried away when he visits New York later this week. He shouldn't milk this for all it's worth. He should just win a re-election with it.
~~o~~o~~<<o:cheerleader:o>>~~o~~o~~
A very good thought (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/opinion/02douthat.html?ref=opinion):
This is a triumph for the United States of America, for our soldiers and intelligence operatives, and for the president as well. But it is not quite the triumph that it would have seemed if bin Laden had been captured a decade ago, because those 10 years have taught us that we didn’t need to fear him and his rabble as much as we did, temporarily but intensely, in the weeks when ground zero still smoked.
They’ve taught us, instead, that whatever blunders we make (and we have made many), however many advantages we squander (and there has been much squandering), and whatever quagmires we find ourselves lured into, our civilization is not fundamentally threatened by the utopian fantasy politics embodied by groups like Al Qaeda, or the mix of thugs, fools and pseudointellectuals who rally around their banner.
They can strike us, they can wound us, they can kill us. They can goad us into tactical errors and strategic blunders. But they are not, and never will be, an existential threat.
This was not clear immediately after 9/11. On that day, they took us by surprise. They took advantage of our society’s great strength — its openness and freedom, the welcome it gives to immigrants and the presumption of innocence it extends. And in the wake of their attack, we did not know what they were capable of, or how they might follow up their victory.
Now we know. We know because bin Laden is finally dead and gone, but in a sense we knew already. [...]
Day after day, hour after hour, we learned that we were strong and they were weak. Excellent thoughts indeed.
~~o~~o~~<<o:cheerleader:o>>~~o~~o~~
So where would all the French troops go? They clearly couldn't remain in France.
Ajax:wink:
I believe such niceties as ten million Muslims living in France don't mean to the terrorists that Frenchmen in Muslim countries oughtn't be blown up. AQ made good on that Bin Laden's promise to attack Frenchmen in the Maghreb. Although completely dwarfed by 9-11, to me this is not only about settling an ancient score. The seven dead Frenchmen of last Thursday's attack have not yet been buried. Lord only knows how stretched and tenuous the link between that, between AQ in the Islamic Maghreb with OBL is, but it is there. Osama is still a figurehead, right up until his death he was still releasing tapes announcing dead Frenchmen, and making good on that promise.
Dozens of other countries throughout Europe, Africa and Asia have similar stories.
This is, and should be, all about 9-11. But it is also more. It is not just an assassination without a fair trial. We are not celebrating just a cold blooded murder. This is about an active mass murderer who got stopped right in his track.
PARIS, April 30 (Reuters) - An explosion that killed 15 people in Marrakesh was triggered by a remote control device, not a suicide bomber as previous reports suggested, France's interior minister said in an interview published on Saturday.
The blast on Thursday ripped through a popular cafe overlooking Marrakesh's Jamaa el-Fnaa square at lunchtime on Thursday. Western security analysts attributed the attack to Islamist militants bent on ruining Morocco's tourism industry."Contrary to what was being said earlier, there was no suicide bomber," Claude Gueant told weekly newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche. "Somebody dropped a bag on the ground and the bomb was detonated remotely."
The bomb contained nails, ammonium nitrate and a high explosive called TATP that was also used in a series of bombings on the Paris underground system in 1995, he said.
"The toll for now is 15 dead of which seven French people and about 10 injured including two very badly wounded."
France has been on high alert for a terror attack over the past year after Islamist militants took five French nationals hostage in the Sahel region of Africa and al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden singled out France in an audio recording.
Stringent anti-terror laws have helped to avoid an attack on French soil since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. But militants are increasingly targeting French assets abroad, particularly in Africa.
Al Qaeda's north African branch released messages this week from four French hostages it kidnapped last September in Niger calling for France to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan (http://www.reuters.com/places/afghanistan) -- repeating Bin Laden's call. [ID:nLDE73Q05S]
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/30/france-morocco-idUSLDE73T02520110430
I think I went to that place on my trip to Morocco. It's crowded, always packed. Lots of tourists and locals mingle there. They knew exactly what they were targetting.
Now I'm trying to see the bigger picture here, but I somehow fail to come up with bigger insights about some AQ murderers who kill French tourists for having tea with their local Muslim friends. Even when I bear in mind all of Osama's political ramblings - so recognisable because they are indistinguishable from those of stoned fifteen year olds getting their first rebel haircut; even when empathisisng how Osama suffered as a young Palestian boy by the hands of Israel; even when sharing his anger that all those white girls at Oxford humiliated him by not immediately dropping on their knees to wash his balls - even when bearing all that in mind, I just fail to come up with much regret over his death.
Call me insensitive, or lacking deeper insight.
a completely inoffensive name
05-03-2011, 06:03
...
Strike For The South
05-03-2011, 06:21
You are parroting my veiws back to me, IDK what you are getting at other than wanting to rant
I took most issue with the line "reason it out or shoot it out"
As if it were that simple
a completely inoffensive name
05-03-2011, 06:41
...
Strike For The South
05-03-2011, 06:44
i am trying to say that i am just annoyed by your insistence to label people who dont like the celebrating as "college liberals" when a comparison of the arguments shows a 99% similarity. i hinted at this earlier but you just replied "im complicated damn it."
Can a man not reach his nadir in peace?
Even Spielberg had Hook
Crazed Rabbit
05-03-2011, 07:01
It's good for this man to die, and it's ok to be proud that we finally killed him in pursuit of justice for 9/11, but cheering on the act of death/murder itself is disgusting. I don't care if that is how the world works and I don't care if Americans are no more civilized than the Roman's cheering on their favorite gladiators as they move in for the kill, it's still disturbing to wave flags and feel happy because a life has been taken. People should be regretting that we couldn't try him in a court of law and then execute him, not having tears of joy because they put one in his head. I mean, that would have been impossible becuase he obviously fought back (and used a woman as a shield, that coward).
Bah. It is right, I think, to feel joy that this sick murderer is dead. Less people will be dead by him, and he has received justice for his crimes.
How can it be wrong to feel happy such a man is dead? How can it be wrong to wave the flag when a man who did his utmost to destroy this nation (though he never came close to an existential threat) has been defeated?
Any trial would be a farce and give his followers yet more opportunities to attack in order to demand his release. It would have meant more dead innocents. I am not sad in the least.
Violence is not always bad; a person being killed is not bad when it is a cowardly murderer being killed, when lives are saved because of that.
CR
[D]id you know that the new Osama could be reaching puberty right now because we failed to realize that militant Islamic terrorism goes beyond one man?
Actually, if you take history as a guide, movements such as Al Qaeda rarely survive the death of a charismatic leader (http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/02/al-qaeda-is-dead/). So this really does mean something, no matter what you existentialist impulses tell you as you smoke your clove cigarettes in a beatnik cafe.
Al Qaeda is not an organization that commands massive resources. It doesn’t have a big army. It doesn’t have vast reservoirs of funds that it can direct easily across the world. [...]
History teaches us that the loss of the charismatic leader - of the symbol - is extraordinarily damaging for the organization. It is very difficult to keep such an organization together, particularly in the absence of great power backers.
In the case of al Qaeda, this is a virtual organization held together by its message and the inspiration it provided. A large part of that inspiration was bin Laden. Ayman Zawahiri may have been the brains behind the outfit, but he did not excite people. When people volunteered for jihad, they were volunteering to be bin Laden’s foot soldiers, not Ayman Zawahiri’s or Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s. The loss of bin Laden’s personality is hugely important because it was so much part of al Qaeda’s appeal.
In addition, we must remember that the death of bin Laden is not occurring in a vacuum. The Arab Awakening has already crippled the basic rationale of al Qaeda.
a completely inoffensive name
05-03-2011, 07:26
...
Cheering I could stomach. Chest-thumping? Not so much.
"Yeah! OBL is dead! USA, USA! We're #1!. (Pay no mind to the trillions of dollars, Constitutional costs, thousands of American soldiers' lives, and countless lives in occupied lands spent)"
Not really much to be proud of
Couldn't agree more, although the cheering is pretty embarrassing as well. If I was a terrorist I'd lol@that, mission ackomplished
a completely inoffensive name
05-03-2011, 07:36
Actually, one more post just because I still like you guys and want to share some cool content with you. Here is a picture of Obama and his team watching the raid live as it was happening.
https://i.imgur.com/tjRP1.jpg
Strike For The South
05-03-2011, 07:44
secert muslim
Not real
Warluster
05-03-2011, 07:53
A man in Washington has shaved his beard after swearing not to shave it until bin Laden was captured or killed (http://www.krem.com/news/Ephrata-man-keeps-promise-finally-shaves-after-bin-Laden-is-caught-121105169.html)on September 11:
https://img20.imageshack.us/img20/9854/050211garyweddle.jpg
CR
I thought I'd contribute to these dicussions... by pointing out that this guy ended up looking a bit like Bin Laden...
Also, ACIN, that shot of the political bigwigs is fascinating - the intense concentration of Obama must only be a fraction of the anxiety they all felt.
^ so true
Couldn't agree more, although the cheering is pretty embarrassing as well. If I was a terrorist I'd lol@that, mission ackomplished
Too true.
Furunculus
05-03-2011, 09:49
"Osama Bin Laden is Dead"
Awesome news, i look forward to wikileaks part deux where some hairy US spec-ops guy tea-bags the osama before slotting him.
Greyblades
05-03-2011, 12:13
You know I think I gotta agree with strike, crazed rabbit, etc on this one, you yanks have been after this individual for 10 years and you finaly found him afer a decade of hell in the middle east I think you deserve your celebrations. Still you realy should have only captured him and put off the execution untill september 11.
rory_20_uk
05-03-2011, 12:32
The head of the CIA was about to be replaced. If I were in that position, I'd want to get the guy on my watch (with all the attached glory that brings) rather than wait a few more months.
He was never going to be taken alive. Trying him in a court would prove very, very messy for oh so many reasons. Shot in the chest and in the head - sounds like one in the firefight and then another one afterwards to be sure.
~:smoking:
I've got some more constructive things to do than to participate in a discussion that results in everyone I talk to calling me a "college liberal", beatnik or what have you.
I know I was kidding, and I rather suspect Strike was as well, since "kidding" is pretty much his home address. Figured the clove ciggies and the beatnik cafe would tip you off. Apologies for any late-night offense.
I should have included further details to make my stab at humor more obvious, something about your beret and your participation in feminist performance art. Maybe elliptical insults about your pencil goatee and your penchant for reading Camus. I never know precisely how absurd to get.
Greyblades
05-03-2011, 12:45
The head of the CIA was about to be replaced. If I were in that position, I'd want to get the guy on my watch (with all the attached glory that brings) rather than wait a few more months.
He was never going to be taken alive. Trying him in a court would prove very, very messy for oh so many reasons. Shot in the chest and in the head - sounds like one in the firefight and then another one afterwards to be sure.
How would it be messy? If I remember correctly he was guilty as sin's less conservative twin brother. The only thing I could imagine becoming messy would be finding a jury that wouldnt try to lynch him he second they enter court.
Banquo's Ghost
05-03-2011, 12:46
The one thing that I find dubious is the tenuous claim that somehow the Guantanamo detainees contributed useful intelligence. This seems a convenient claim, but highly unlikely.
Pretty much everyone in Gitmo has been out of the loop for some time. Someone who has evaded capture for as long as bin Laden is highly unlikely to keep couriers around who could be compromised by people captured by the USA. This is elementary school counter-intelligence and whatever else bin Laden was, he was not an amateur. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that anyone in Guantanamo had knowledge of people like couriers and their names to share.
One suspects this was really informed by clever intelligence work on the ground and careful infiltration of networks, the ISI and/or observations of known al Qa'eda operatives in the field. This detailed and painstaking work should be commended, not obfuscated through implying Guantanamo sources were of any use.
Banquo's Ghost
05-03-2011, 12:52
How would it be messy? If I remember correctly he was guilty as sin's less conservative twin brother. The only thing I could imagine becoming messy would be finding a jury that wouldnt try to lynch him he second they enter court.
I know it's easy to miss in our modern world, but the USA still operates their justice system (in the main) on the basis that someone is innocent until proven guilty. To arrest bin Laden would have been to require a fair trial - which as you note, might have been challenging. In addition, the attempts by lunatic followers to force his "release" would have been costly to innocent lives. Therefore better to give him what both the Americans and he wished - a swift, unmessy (save for the bed linens) execution in "battle".
Not the idealistic thing to do, but a lot less mess.
rory_20_uk
05-03-2011, 12:55
How would it be messy? If I remember correctly he was guilty as sin's less conservative twin brother. The only thing I could imagine becoming messy would be finding a jury that wouldnt try to lynch him he second they enter court.
OK...
First off: Jurisdiction. The Hague? Pakistan? Saudi Arabia? USA?
Second: getting a jury that isn't biased - in any country
Third: evidence that stands up in court. Most is probably inadmissible. His acts are so extreme that what if he were to plead insanity?
Fourth: sentence. Would anything but death be sufficient? Not all jurisdictions do that.
Fifth: length of trial. It could turn into a circus, and take years.
Sixth: type of trial. A nice military kangaroo court would hardly help future international standing.
I agree that anyone in Cuba is well past their sell-by date. Where he was wasn't even built when they went in there. But it's an easy claim to make and right about now people will believe anything. A clever political ploy to limit the damage that not closing the place could cause. To protest about it now is going to be very difficult.
~:smoking:
Seamus Fermanagh
05-03-2011, 15:04
Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats. ...
I always did enjoy the bard of Baltimore. What a charming cynic!
Seamus Fermanagh
05-03-2011, 15:10
Actually, if you take history as a guide, movements such as Al Qaeda rarely survive the death of a charismatic leader (http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/02/al-qaeda-is-dead/). So this really does mean something, no matter what you existentialist impulses tell you as you smoke your clove cigarettes in a beatnik cafe....
A fair point. AQ was, in many ways a "coalition of the willing" that coalesced around Bin Laden. They may well splinter into a much less coherent group. Though that would make continued extirpation efforts more difficult, it would also limit their total threat potential.
https://i.imgur.com/tjRP1.jpg
Brigadier General Webb is playing Farmville. :yes:
Strike For The South
05-03-2011, 17:19
I always did enjoy the bard of Baltimore. What a charming cynic!
I'm fully aware of the man I quoted
I figured the esteemed backroom didn't need me to hold their hand through every refrence I make, of course times being what they are....
gaelic cowboy
05-03-2011, 17:54
A fair point. AQ was, in many ways a "coalition of the willing" that coalesced around Bin Laden. They may well splinter into a much less coherent group. Though that would make continued extirpation efforts more difficult, it would also limit their total threat potential.
He was like a figurehead monarch or the Leader from the Simpsons basically groups all over the place gained press and funding by invoking his name however the majority never met him or anyone even remotely connected to him. Broadband Jihad is what were dealing with here and it will likely be impossible to get rid of, maybe we need an Islamic version of angry birds for web enabled radical muslims to give em summit to do other that downloading the terrorist cookbook from rapidshare.
I'm fully aware of the man I quoted
I figured the esteemed backroom didn't need me to hold their hand through every refrence I make, of course times being what they are....
You'll get kicked out of uni one day, I fear. ~;)
Don Corleone
05-03-2011, 19:40
I'm not exuberant, as I had imagined I would be. I am very, very glad my children no longer have to share the planet with that murderous, dehumanizing, misogynistic bag of puss. And as Lemur and others have related in excellent fashion, the viper of Al-Queda has been defanged. Yes, Islamic militancy will continue, but it will exponentially less effective in the years to come. Beyond the cult of personality OBL brought to Islamic Terrorism, many of you have missed his second, only slightly less beneficial gift to the jackals of the terrorist world: He was the conduit of funds/exchange of communication to the Saudi, et. al., financial sponsors of all of this mayhem.
When Leon Panetta talked about "a startling amount of actionable intelligence", I strongly believe that chief among that is a names list of the boys back in the Kingdom coughing up for all of this. Were I a Saudi wife-beather, funding Wahabist lunatics to try to ease the pressures at home, I would be wetting my bed on a nightly basis, especially given the current political clime of the Middle East. Al-Queda has always been only half the problem... their support network, which we could not penetrate, has been the other half. First, I imagine we picked up at least some directly actionable intelligence yesterday. But secondly, the great-qualifier, the one man who stood in both worlds and could tell the Saudi sheikhs which bomb-throwers were real and which ones were CIA plants (and vice-versa) is gone. They must now either accept that this link can and will be breached (leading to their capture) or they must sever it. Either way, those who pursue freedom come out ahead.
And I am very, very proud of our military, our intelligence services, and yes, our President, of whom I have the highest praise. He made many diffficult decisions over the past few weeks, and did so with a jackass taunting him on international media at every turn. I may not always agree with the man's politics, but I give a heartfelt salute to our Commander in Chief, who earned the title.
But none of this raises to the level of exuberance or joy. Why?
I guess even though Bin_Laden got what he had coming to him in a much more merciful way then he deserved, my friend Jim Greenleaf (http://www.jamesgreenleaf.org/about.html) didn't... and I won't/can't equate their two deaths. Jim was so much more, and his death, a true loss, is not validated or felt less painfully because this flyspeck of humanity has been removed.
But I certainly welcome the cheering in others. Make merry for me.
Seamus Fermanagh
05-03-2011, 19:43
I'm fully aware of the man I quoted
I figured the esteemed backroom didn't need me to hold their hand through every refrence I make, of course times being what they are....
I was simply complimenting your choice.
Strike For The South
05-03-2011, 19:48
I was simply complimenting your choice.
Well then my new thread sounds insane
Mea Culpa, I'm seeing things that aren't their
Greyblades
05-03-2011, 21:42
Hmm... Ive seen alot of these images of a dead osama floating on google's image search and found this image while searching the net, I gotta say while it isnt exactly 100% convincing me I realy got to wonder, where did the first image come from?
Link is pretty gruesome so NSFW:
http://img4.sankakustatic.com/wp-content/gallery/safe-ix/osama-bin-laden-killed-4.jpg
Its probably just that the image is faked and not one of the actual images taken by the US SEALs.
so, there's a possibility OBL is still alive....
Hmm... Ive seen alot of these images of a dead osama floating on google's image search and found this image while searching the net, I gotta say while it isnt exactly 100% convincing me I realy got to wonder, where did the first image come from?
Link is pretty gruesome so NSFW:
http://img4.sankakustatic.com/wp-content/gallery/safe-ix/osama-bin-laden-killed-4.jpg
Its probably just that the image is faked and not one of the actual images taken by the US SEALs.
that image has been floating around the net for a very long time.
some moron in a tv station or newspaper picked it up yesterday and started circulating it.
now people are using it as "proof" that the US is lying.....the US government hasn´t released any photos yet.
so, there's a possibility OBL is still alive....
Anything is possible. The sun could be made of cheese. It is overwhelmingly likely, however, that OBL is dead.
Askthepizzaguy
05-03-2011, 22:12
Anything is possible. The sun could be made of cheese.
*devises plan to bake the largest pizza of all time using the sun's own heat... and cheese
*devises plan to bake the largest pizza of all time using the sun's own heat... and cheese
But how are you going to deliver it? :inquisitive:
Askthepizzaguy
05-03-2011, 22:19
But how are you going to deliver it? :inquisitive:
Deliver it?
Gravity, my friend. It's so large that you're delivered to it, not the other way around.
Azi Tohak
05-03-2011, 23:26
that image has been floating around the net for a very long time.
some moron in a tv station or newspaper picked it up yesterday and started circulating it.
now people are using it as "proof" that the US is lying.....the US government hasn´t released any photos yet.
I hope they don't. I don't know what would be gained by releasing a brutal picture of some old bearded guy with half a face. If you believe he's dead, it will be Osama himself. If you don't, then you'll claim it is some innocent old dude who happened to get REALLY unlucky. Keep the images, keep the names of those who participated, and give me a Call of Duty level where I can pretend I get to infiltrate his compound.
Tellos Athenaios
05-04-2011, 02:28
Deliver it?
Gravity, my friend. It's so large that you're delivered to it, not the other way around.
Won't work: we're doomed to orbit it, until the pizza becomes a red pizza giant and it will have incinerated us all.
This video is so full of win, I had to share:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxVdU2eVYSg
PanzerJaeger
05-04-2011, 03:11
This video is so full of win, I had to share:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxVdU2eVYSg
Sigh. Sometimes gun owners make the best case for gun control. So many firearms safety rules broken... :shame:
1. Never fire a weapon into the air.
2. Never fire a weapon while riding a motor vehicle.
3. Never fire a weapon indiscriminately into a wooded area with no clear backstop.
Hilarious video nonetheless. Thanks for sharing. :laugh4:
a completely inoffensive name
05-04-2011, 06:47
...
Also, I got called a liberal in a derogatory way by my friends all the time ...
Off topic, coming from Europe where the word is not used in the same derogatory way, I would recommend you wear the label with pride. It's word with great connotations - Western liberal values, liberty etc. Who wants to be illiberal?
Ask your friends why they hate freedom. :wink:
a completely inoffensive name
05-04-2011, 08:17
Off topic, coming from Europe where the word is not used in the same derogatory way, I would recommend you wear the label with pride. It's word with great connotations - Western liberal values, liberty etc. Who wants to be illiberal?
Ask your friends why they hate freedom. :wink:
You try explaining the difference between 18th-19th century liberalism with modern day terminology to a bunch of high school kids that would rather brag about their K/D ratios on CoD than actually have a conversation.
Askthepizzaguy
05-04-2011, 08:19
You try explaining the difference between 18th-19th century liberalism with modern day terminology to a bunch of high school kids that would rather brag about their K/D ratios on CoD than actually have a conversation.
I would; I tried to get a degree in that but I ran out of money.
Papewaio
05-04-2011, 10:26
I'm still looking for a headline along the lines of:
Obama Bined Laden.
Hosakawa Tito
05-04-2011, 10:56
Hope the last thing he saw was the US flag patch on the Seal's right shoulder, then the double tap muzzle flash. Ding dong the :skull: is dead.
Hope the last thing he saw was the US flag patch on the Seal's right shoulder, then the double tap muzzle flash. Ding dong the :skull: is dead.
It was not a double tap. First shot went through the eye, second shot was when he was downed, to assure he was dead. By the looks of it, a pretty well executed assassination.
This video is so full of win, I had to share:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxVdU2eVYSg
you must need an electron microscope to see this guy's penis.
yes...Bin Laden being dead is good news...but damn.
Seamus Fermanagh
05-04-2011, 13:43
Pappy: Nice one.
ACIN: Don't worry, eventually we'll get down to people being awarded degrees FOR their comparisons of CoD and MAG clan interactions WITH the idealism movement of the enlightenment. No doubt it will be argued that the 12-year-old gamer IS the flowering of that noble philosphy.
gaelic cowboy
05-04-2011, 13:58
I'm still looking for a headline along the lines of:
Obama Bined Laden.
The Sun obliged yesterday
https://img809.imageshack.us/img809/2296/binbagged.jpg
ACIN: Don't worry, eventually we'll get down to people being awarded degrees FOR their comparisons of CoD and MAG clan interactions WITH the idealism movement of the enlightenment. No doubt it will be argued that the 12-year-old gamer IS the flowering of that noble philosphy.
Unfortunately, that day will not come fast enough to save my philosophy degree.
Actually, one more post just because I still like you guys and want to share some cool content with you. Here is a picture of Obama and his team watching the raid live as it was happening.Am I the only one that took note of the fact that they were all HP laptops? :book:
This video is so full of win, I had to share:And for the nomination of best parody of a Little Mermaid song on the topic of Bin Laden's death, I submit the following (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXIbxGdmmxU).
Am I the only one that took note of the fact that they were all HP laptops?
Once you get the adware and trialware off 'em, pretty good laptops. That said, you would think the top echelon of our military and executive branch would all have Alienware or Voodoo. I mean, come on.
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
05-04-2011, 21:12
Fox is pathetic. It reeks of a continued attempt to subliminally influence people.
Must be a tough day for Fox. Indeed, a tough decade:
'3000 Americans killed in the worst attack on American soil in US history'
Fox / GOP / Bush: 'Let's use public sentiment to spend two trillion dollar of tax money in a confused mix of private and public interest'
Obama: 'I vow to bring the perpetrators to justice'
If I had the vote, the election of 2012 would be over already.
And you think the other networks are any better?
Here's some very good reporting on the operation (http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/inside-operation-brought-osama-bin-laden/story?id=13506413).
So Fox is crap and ABC, a liberal network is better? You make me laugh Lemur. :laugh: :juggle2:
Ah yes, the Chinese Communist/Jihadist axis of something or another. Don't you hate it when atheist totalitarians and Islamists team up? I think the Freemasons and the Illuminati are mixed up in it too.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/tinfoil-hat.jpg
Hmmm maybe because in the long run China is benefiting from us screwing around in the Middle East? Ever hear of how broke we are? :inquisitive:
Tellos Athenaios
05-04-2011, 21:19
Once you get the adware and trialware off 'em, pretty good laptops. That said, you would think the top echelon of our military and executive branch would all have Alienware or Voodoo. I mean, come on.
Alienware? Voodoo? Surely not. A Thinkpad, maybe.
Hosakawa Tito
05-04-2011, 22:44
It was not a double tap. First shot went through the eye, second shot was when he was downed, to assure he was dead. By the looks of it, a pretty well executed assassination.
Thanks for the eye witness account. I didn't feel any remorse when the Wicked Witch of the West melted either, go figure.
Once you get the adware and trialware off 'em, pretty good laptops. That said, you would think the top echelon of our military and executive branch would all have Alienware or Voodoo. I mean, come on.
Don't know about Voodoo, but Alienware has sold out to Dell. Yeah, they're toast.
Alienware? Voodoo? Surely not. A Thinkpad, maybe.
I think Lenovo is a no-go with the US government at this point. ~;) They probably have a government-rate bulk deal with HP, so they get business lappies with no crapware.
The really cool hardware is going to be with the SEAL team on the other end of the link. :yes:
Tellos Athenaios
05-04-2011, 23:37
I think Lenovo is a no-go with the US government at this point. ~;) They probably have a government-rate bulk deal with HP, so they get business lappies with no crapware. HPs are as much made in China as the rest of them, and software wise I would be astounded if the govt admins actually bought OS software licences at all through HP for the laptops. I'd expect them to have some kind of Enterprise type licence directly with Microsoft so they can make a pre configured image of what they need and deploy those in bulk on their hardware...
The really cool hardware is going to be with the SEAL team on the other end of the link. :yes:
Dell make some military laptops, actually. Hardware wise actually pretty slow kit (as little moving parts as possible and low thermal envelope required) wrapped in layers of protective stuff.
You'd think those NWO types in the white house etc. would have nuclear powered laptops with ultrasuperdupercores that they are deliberately keeping away from us normal people to prevent us from advancing.
On the actual topic of bin Laden, I guess what makes me sad about this, however "justified" this may be, is that America, the country that is trying to say to people around the world, "hey, look, we're civilized and we don't want to harm you, we just play by the rules" and the country that wants to teach Afghans to drag their neighbor to court instead of shooting him, is now telling the world "hey, we think it's perfectly fine to just shoot someone if you just hate them enough", the latter part obviously being up to individual interpretation.
That's not to say bin Laden wasn't absolutely guilty, scummy and evil in a way but we also dragged Milosevich and others to court, even the Nazis were tried in a court after WW2, but somehow so many seem to think in this case it's appropriate to purposefully ignore everything we usually see as holy, everything we hope other countries will finally introduce into their justice system and just say "screw it, let's just shoot him!" To me this screams the guy has won, he found the button that makes Americans throw away all their standards and celebrate a murder, because if he wasn't sentenced by a judge and it wasn't necessary to shoot him to save someone directly, then that's all this was. :shrug:
That said, apart from him being gone now, what have we gained with this? I'm not a big fan of "symbolic victories", that's just the short form of "we didn't actually gain anything but want to celebrate anyway", it would be more worthy of celebrations if we could now finally do away with all the anti terror laws and regain all the freedoms we gave up/had to give up because of this guy and his "life project" that seems to have survived him easily though.
Thanks for the eye witness account. I didn't feel any remorse when the Wicked Witch of the West melted either, go figure.
Eye witness report? It is how I understood it from Swedish and American press.
Some American media indeed reported it as a double tap, meaning two shots fired in quick succession, pretty standard practice in the military to assure a kill, or at least assure some serious injury is done.
As I understood it however, OBM hid behind a woman (brave). DEVGRU however are not the worst marksmen around, and they simply shot him in the eye with one well aimed shot. When the body was on the floor, the assassination was completed with a shot in the heart, for good measure - or rather to make 100% sure the guy was dead.
No, not an eye witness report, just what I have been able to gather from the sources available. I might very well be wrong, but regardless I am sure we will find out in time. It is not like the US has anything to hide (hardy har har).
Why does it matter? Well, saying the two shots was a double tap make it seem way less callous and cold blooded.
Am I against the assassination? Not really, he had it coming.
I would have preferred other solutions though. It is a bit too vigilante style to send troopers on assassination missions on another nations ground. I get why the US did it, but do not be surprised if it will have a backlash effect.
even the Nazis were tried in a court after WW2Yes, after WW2. Do you think anyone would have given it a second thought if someone managed to successfully assassinate Hitler during the war? In combat, the enemy is a legitimate target until they surrender. If it comes to light that Bin Laden threw up his hands and was exclaiming "I surrender!" when he was shot you might have a point- otherwise, I don't see the issue.
Yes, after WW2. Do you think anyone would have given it a second thought if someone managed to successfully assassinate Hitler during the war? In combat, the enemy is a legitimate target until they surrender. If it comes to light that Bin Laden threw up his hands and was exclaiming "I surrender!" when he was shot you might have a point- otherwise, I don't see the issue.
If it is a war, you should treat the prisoners by the Genevé convention.
If it is not a war, you should not assassinate civilians.
I just wish the US could make up their minds, instead of going with whatever is easiest (and most immoral) at the moment.
On the actual topic of bin Laden, I guess what makes me sad about this, however "justified" this may be, is that America, the country that is trying to say to people around the world, "hey, look, we're civilized and we don't want to harm you, we just play by the rules" and the country that wants to teach Afghans to drag their neighbor to court instead of shooting him, is now telling the world "hey, we think it's perfectly fine to just shoot someone if you just hate them enough", the latter part obviously being up to individual interpretation.
That's not to say bin Laden wasn't absolutely guilty, scummy and evil in a way but we also dragged Milosevich and others to court, even the Nazis were tried in a court after WW2, but somehow so many seem to think in this case it's appropriate to purposefully ignore everything we usually see as holy, everything we hope other countries will finally introduce into their justice system and just say "screw it, let's just shoot him!" To me this screams the guy has won, he found the button that makes Americans throw away all their standards and celebrate a murder, because if he wasn't sentenced by a judge and it wasn't necessary to shoot him to save someone directly, then that's all this was. :shrug:
That said, apart from him being gone now, what have we gained with this? I'm not a big fan of "symbolic victories", that's just the short form of "we didn't actually gain anything but want to celebrate anyway", it would be more worthy of celebrations if we could now finally do away with all the anti terror laws and regain all the freedoms we gave up/had to give up because of this guy and his "life project" that seems to have survived him easily though.
There is nothing to celebrate when a life ends, no matter what life it is. It just shows how savagely human we are, no other animal has a thirst of blood like this. It makes me sad that so many people in the US actually celebrate this horrendous bazar of human rights violations. Weren't they supposed to be inalienable? What made Osama any different than a common killer? I doubt he ever killed someone, which is even worse. Like instead of doing the Nuremberg trial, they would have been shot. Sure, it was said he planned the deaths of thousands of people. But didn't the US government do the same with civilians in Central America, in South America? They sure did support the dictatorial savagism of my country. The amount of life is what matters, not whatever they represent or what we make of their meaning.
In any case, there was no true victory, not when a life ends, not when Osama was killed.
I'm not saying it was right for him to kill all those people, I'm saying it's not right to kill anybody at all, especially when there is no need, and hate is what drives to it.
The only death I approve of is that of the tree of evil, not of the people that lie within it.
Side Note: I just compared TWC's thread (which they insulted bullied us moderates and proclaimed our ideas to be phoney), to this enlightened conversation with a much better tone. It's a shame.
~Jirisys ()
Hosakawa Tito
05-05-2011, 02:20
Double tap is SOP training for all police & military to ensure you're not killed by a wounded dying perp. There are so many versions of what happened, how many do you think were interviews with those who were really there? The correct answer would be zero. We'll never know the name/names of those involved, who shot who, or anything else save what the people in charge want us to know. The "facts" have been changing since the incident.
How many hostages do you think the jihadists would take and behead on videotape during the years of an Osama trial? They've killed far more Muslims than Westerners, and haven't been sqeamish about that at all, so the possible list of victims for their snuff films would be endless. So, how many more innocent victims are you prepared to offer up for this mass murderer? The ivory tower idealism of a "fair trial" doesn't work too well in an ongoing global guerilla war that will last for decades, especially when the jihadis don't play nice and civilized. The best most pragmatic choice for all was suicide by Seal. We just brought a little justice to the Al Queda mascot, that's all he's been since he was flushed out of Tora Bora. It ain't over, not by a long shot, but it puts the others on notice.
Double tap is SOP training for all police & military to ensure you're not killed by a wounded dying perp. There are so many versions of what happened, how many do you think were interviews with those who were really there? The correct answer would be zero. We'll never know the name/names of those involved, who shot who, or anything else save what the people in charge want us to know. The "facts" have been changing since the incident.
How many hostages do you think the jihadists would take and behead on videotape during the years of an Osama trial? They've killed far more Muslims than Westerners, and haven't been sqeamish about that at all, so the possible list of victims for their snuff films would be endless. So, how many more innocent victims are you prepared to offer up for this mass murderer? The ivory tower idealism of a "fair trial" doesn't work too well in an ongoing global guerilla war that will last for decades, especially when the jihadis don't play nice and civilized. The best most pragmatic choice for all was suicide by Seal. We just brought a little justice to the Al Queda mascot, that's all he's been since he was flushed out of Tora Bora. It ain't over, not by a long shot, but it puts the others on notice.
I doubt the unnecesary and simbological death of OBL would be much different from capturing him, forcing him into submission. What is here is an unnecesary bloodshed. Fueled by hate and remorse.
~Jirisys ()
Askthepizzaguy
05-05-2011, 02:49
I don't know about you guys, but if Osama was trying to 'surrender' I would have shot him anyway. The dude is a mass murdering maniac. What if he was wired with grenades and just wanted to take out a cluster of American soldiers before he died, in one final act of idiocy?
Better safe than sorry. Tap tap, no more Laden.
And if that makes me a bad man, I'm a VERY BAD MAN and wouldn't have it any other way.
I don't know about you guys, but if Osama was trying to 'surrender' I would have shot him anyway. The dude is a mass murdering maniac. What if he was wired with grenades and just wanted to take out a cluster of American soldiers before he died, in one final act of idiocy?
Better safe than sorry. Tap tap, no more Laden.
And if that makes me a bad man, I'm a VERY BAD MAN and wouldn't have it any other way.
Preventive death? I could say that for about half of the people in the streets of my country, doesn't mean I'm going to kill them out of fear.
Specially if I don't really know anything about what they carry.
~Jirisys ()
ajaxfetish
05-05-2011, 04:42
Preventive death? I could say that for about half of the people in the streets of my country, doesn't mean I'm going to kill them out of fear.
I'm sorry the streets of your country are so dangerous.
Ajax
I'm sorry the streets of your country are so dangerous.
Ajax
The military have become policemen. But let's not derail the topic.
~Jirisys ()
Washington lied their tongues out. Anyone surprised?
First of all, it seems like OBM did not hide behind a wife. Just propaganda to make him look cowardly.
Secondly, President Obama did not see when OBM got captured/killed because of a technical error (HP machines remember?).
As a side note, eye witness reports say OBM got captured and then assassinated, the source might of course lie. On the other hand, that source might lie, where as pentagon and washington have their pants on fire already.
Something is rotten here.
Washington lied their tongues out. Anyone surprised?
First of all, it seems like OBM did not hide behind a wife. Just propaganda to make him look cowardly.
Secondly, President Obama did not see when OBM got captured/killed because of a technical error (HP machines remember?).
As a side note, eye witness reports say OBM got captured and then assassinated, the source might of course lie. On the other hand, that source might lie, where as pentagon and washington have their pants on fire already.
Something is rotten here.
Source is his daughter. If they didn't want him alive bomb -> roof
Strike For The South
05-05-2011, 07:52
Washington lied their tongues out. Anyone surprised?
First of all, it seems like OBM did not hide behind a wife. Just propaganda to make him look cowardly.
Secondly, President Obama did not see when OBM got captured/killed because of a technical error (HP machines remember?).
As a side note, eye witness reports say OBM got captured and then assassinated, the source might of course lie. On the other hand, that source might lie, where as pentagon and washington have their pants on fire already.
Something is rotten here.
Do you have links to go along with your unbiased claims?
Or do I have to continue to suffer through your posts?
Something is rotten here....your continual denial that this is the way the world works. If I am going to have to sit here and endure 10 pages of forigeners running through every little gotcha moment they can dig up I'll be beside myself
Your telling me the story of a covert raid which resulted in the killing of the most wanted man in the world has confliciting stories just days after it happend?
Why people continue to idulge these kind of childlike delusions on this board is beyond me. Not soley picking on you but the Scandanavian members as a whole seem to be the most out of touch in everything ranging from realpolitik to social interaction. Trying to pull the rope tighter, stroking and reading the latest snippit from the AP that reveal the tiniest inconsistoncey in Americas "official" story may be sporting where you come from
But here you just look misinformed
I will take my ban now
See everyone after exams
Banquo's Ghost
05-05-2011, 07:53
Washington lied their tongues out. Anyone surprised?
First of all, it seems like OBM did not hide behind a wife. Just propaganda to make him look cowardly.
Secondly, President Obama did not see when OBM got captured/killed because of a technical error (HP machines remember?).
As a side note, eye witness reports say OBM got captured and then assassinated, the source might of course lie. On the other hand, that source might lie, where as pentagon and washington have their pants on fire already.
Something is rotten here.
Yes, bin Laden thankfully.
Source is his daughter. If they didn't want him alive bomb -> roof
And therein lies the real story for those of us who champion human rights. President Obama could have bombed the entire complex flat, thus killing many civilians and probably half the Abbottabad suburbs. No risk to US forces, no confused after action stories, just as much acclaim.
The fate of Jimmy Carter looms large to any Democrat president. Those rusting hulks in Iran's desert must have weighed heavily in Obama's mind. Yet he took the right decision and saved a lot of lives. As Xiahou rightly notes, the US is at war with al-Qa'eda so the killing is perfectly justified as an act of self-defence. Even as an extra-judicial execution it is justifiable - the world is sometimes thus. Note that bin Laden also considered himself at war - and almost certainly welcomed death to incarceration at the hands of the "infidel". All the combatants got what they wanted, and because of an extraordinarily brave decision by the president, no further innocents had to die because of bin Laden's evil.
Well done sir, very well done.
Washington lied their tongues out. Anyone surprised?
I am not surprised. I did not believe the "wife as human shield" story; it did not sound remotely plausible. The wife trying to protect him and getting shot in the leg makes more sense. I'm also dubious about what exactly "resisting capture" means, given that he did not have a gun. The reason why I was not surprised is that we have seen several times with initial reports of missions or high profile combat episodes that the story changes later on (e.g. the Jessica Lynch episode; the sportsman who died in service in Afghanistan).
Whether they lied, I don't know. One thing that makes me give Washington the benefit of the doubt is that they change the story quite quickly and do seem remarkably open about such matters compared to almost any other government I can think off. If they were going to lie, you'd think they would brazen it out for longer. Because lying and being caught out within a few days just damages your reputation. On the other hand, the initial stories always seem more favorable from a PR purpose. "OBL kills his wife" is great black propaganda. And no doubt there's a segment of the population who catches the initial headlines, then never sees the corrections or cares. Many people are still confused about the lack of any connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. But on balance, I'm inclined to think it's a case of confusion of warfare and PR people spinning initial reports in the most favorable way they can. I'd rather the PR people were reined in and more circumspect, but in today's climate with all the bizzare birther stuff gaining traction, I can see why they fight fire with fire.
PanzerJaeger
05-05-2011, 07:58
If it is a war, you should treat the prisoners by the Genevé convention.
If it is not a war, you should not assassinate civilians.
I just wish the US could make up their minds, instead of going with whatever is easiest (and most immoral) at the moment.
And what do the Genevé conventions say about a man such as bin Laden?
Strike For The South
05-05-2011, 08:02
And what do the Genevé conventions say about a man such as bin Laden?
LOL, Anytime someone throws out the Geneva conventions I know two things
They know nothing about the topic at hand
They have an agenda so the topic at hand is nothing more than a springboard
I'll have gray hair and be thriced divorce before someone on her proves this killing was illegal using Geneva
heh quite the rant back there Strike, don't ever go to Scandinavia trust me, it would be bad for your heart.
Fragony, Banquo's Ghost, if he bombed it would have been hard to confirm the kill. Also, bombing civilians in "neutral" territory was probably advised against. Do I have to explain why or can you figure it out?
econ21, I was not very surprised either, the whole hiding behind a woman thing just seemed too good to be true. Small matter, maybe, but I just hate propaganda. Like with Obama not watching the assault. Does it matter? Not really, it is just worth pointing out he did not because they started the whole propaganda-look-at-our-commander-in-chief-yee-haa-and-here-is-the-cool-picture-to-show-thing. Not vital at all, just showing the theatrical side of US politics. That is the picture that will be remembered, you know. Just like when I think of the Iraq war I see this picture of Saddam's statue falling with a cheering crowd around - even though I now know that was completely staged and the cheering crowd was paid to be there and cheer.
Strike for the south, I will adress you when/if you learn proper manners. Or when/if you write something interesting. Whatever happens first.
PJ, My talk about Geneva was directed to the WW2 comment from before, and I made a whole other point than what you seem to have got. I do not believe I claimed OBM should be handled by the Geneva convention as you seem to think.
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