Osama Bin Laden is Dead

[Lemur]

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.

[Tellos Athenaios]

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]

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.

[Shibumi]

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.

[drone]

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.

[Tellos Athenaios]

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.

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.

[Husar]

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.

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.

[Xiahou]

even the Nazis were tried in a court after WW2

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.

[Shibumi]

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.

[Hosakawa Tito]

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.

[jirisys]

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.

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 ()