Osama Bin Laden is dead!

Aetius wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

Going to elaborate at all, or leave it at that? What would you have preferred?

We assassinated him in the night, along with everyone around him. What does that say about us? What makes us different than him?

Well, Aetius, what makes us different than him is that we used a highly trained Navy SEAL team with fancy helicopters, who shot and killed him as he cowered behind a woman.

It's pretty much as cut and dry as you can get, unless you would have preferred we flattened the place with tanks and airstrikes. Of course then he wouldn't have had the chance to surrender so it would have been equally as terrible, right?

Tell me, how should we have done this so we could still be the good guys? Or better yet, how should we have done this so that we are not exactly as evil as Al Qaeda? Bearing in mind that at least one of the reports I read said our guys shot down a helicopter coming to land at the compound.

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

Another thing I am happy for, given the circumstances, that the mission was trusted to the SEALs. If it was CIA, they would absolutely find a way to royally screw it up, as per usual.

Seal Team 6 was involved in a CIA Title 50 action. Based on info obtained at Gitmo on the couriers several years ago. So the CIA was involved and actually in charge of the action according to reports.

Aetius: there's a huge difference between hijacking civilian planes and crashing them into civilian targets, and staging an attack on the compound of someone who, well, is responsible for hijacking civilian planes and crashing them into civilian targets.

Also, I *do* think this will bring the troops home, or at least, it creates the possibility. If we want to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, I can't think of an event that would give Obama more political capital to do that than being the guy who got bin Laden.

Oreo_Speedwagon wrote:

It's like someone at the end of the Civil War going "You know what guys? The South won. We had to suspended habeus corpus. We destroyed Atlanta. POW camps from Andersonville to Fort Delaware were horrifying. How many of our people died? They won man. They won. America is dooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooomed."

The difference is, in the Civil War, the temporary measures were... temporary. Also, they eventually stopped fighting.

This time around it doesn't look like there's any chance of any of that happening. If it does, I will be more than pleased. Until then....

MannishBoy wrote:
Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

Another thing I am happy for, given the circumstances, that the mission was trusted to the SEALs. If it was CIA, they would absolutely find a way to royally screw it up, as per usual.

Seal Team 6 was involved in a CIA Title 50 action. Based on info obtained at Gitmo on the couriers several years ago. So the CIA was involved and actually in charge of the action according to reports.

Yeah, this op has CIA written all over it. As soon as the president said he authorized the mission, I immediately thought the CIA wad involved. Must feel like redemption for them.

Ehh, this crying "Osama won! Look at what we've become!" mantra is crap.

It's like someone at the end of the Civil War going "You know what guys? The South won. We had to suspended habeus corpus. We destroyed Atlanta. POW camps from Andersonville to Fort Delaware were horrifying. How many of our people died? They won man. They won. America is dooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooomed."

Buck the f*ck up, Debbie Downer. It's a damned good day.

We assassinated him in the night, along with everyone around him. What does that say about us? What makes us different than him?

What makes us different is the fact we killed a military target, using ground forces with the intent to minimize collateral, unintended civilian casualties to zero, rather than the wanton and intentional slaughter of thousands of non-combatants. Does this honestly escape you? It's why people are still outraged over the attack on the WTC -- it's different. The Pentagon was a valid target on the same day, and that's why people do not boil over in rage about it.

If we nuke Islamabad later today just because we're pissed, then we'll talk.

I'm happy that Osama has finally discovered that it's not 40 virgins waiting for him. To do the things he has done, is to say "I want to go to hell, but I don't want to wait in line with everyone else!" I have no doubt when he arrived at hell's door, he was told "You're bin Laden? You can go right through. Got a special place waiting for you!"

The world now has one less asshole...

Ranger Rick wrote:

Also, they eventually stopped fighting. :P

I will never get used to this. Back in my 1995 IRC days, the emoticon "[notag]:P[/notag]" was kind of like "bleargh", sticking your tongue out in disgust. Sometime since then, that has turned into a snarky smiley face. I've been mis-cueing my emoticons ever since.

Mytch wrote:
Reaper81 wrote:
Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

Another thing I am happy for, given the circumstances, that the mission was trusted to the SEALs. If it was CIA, they would absolutely find a way to royally screw it up, as per usual.

The political risk for the president was enormous. Had the mission failed for any reason, the fallout for him would have probably cost him the election and destroyed the martial credibility of the Democratic party for years.

The thing I give the President credit for is that he sent men to kill Osama. No hellfire missile, no JDAM, just men.

Bin Laden wins. Sigh.

His successful attack on the US made AQ a household name throughout the world. He "won" years ago. Consider him taking a bullet to the face as the logical consequence of his victory.

Also, Martyrdom > Captured. And for that matter, he'll probably do more to galvanize radical Muslims dead than he was currently doing alive.

Do radical Muslims need an excuse to kill people? They're already pissed off. We might as well kill as many as we can.

I'm glad Usama is dead.

Ranger Rick wrote:

The difference is, in the Civil War, the temporary measures were... temporary. Also, they eventually stopped fighting. :P

Don't talk to Southerners much, eh? Bring up the Reconstruction with a Georgian sometime. Ask 'em what they thought about the temporary measures.

The Civil War rippled for generations, and Southerners still whine about "States' rights".

Coolbeans wrote:

I'm happy that Osama has finally discovered that it's not 40 virgins waiting for him.

Hehe, the @Jesus_M_Christ twitter account said this last night:

Jesus_M_Christ wrote:

Satan just told me he's lining up 72 virgins for Osama. First up? Gary Coleman!

Oreo_Speedwagon wrote:

The Civil War rippled for generations, and Southerners still whine about "States' rights".

Point taken (and... I live in the south, hehe). But at least as far as your example (habeas corpus), things were returned to normalcy. In the end, it still doesn't make me feel that the things that were done by the US government since 9/11 are OK, and I have a hard time believing much of it has even been justified.

For some reason I'm kind of meh about this. It's been ten years, two wars, thousands of dead and maimed troops, a trillion plus dollars down the hole since 9/11. Too much has happened for this to be really significant to me. Like being glad we hanged the guy who fired on Fort Sumter, if Civil War analogies are up for grabs.

The world is not so black and white.

What is evil? If killing innocents is evil are we not guilty of the same thing? Do 10 years of warfare and the systematic dismantling of two countries not count?

Evil is subjective. 9/11 was a terrible act of war perpetrated on US civillians and it has been more than equalled by our military actions around the world over the past 10 years.

No, I don't think our soldiers are evil but I think it is important to remember how we, as a country, got in this situation in the first place. Meddling in the affairs of cultures we do not understand is going to have repercussions. Putting puppet leaders in place and building regimes is going to have repercussions. Gobbling up the world's resources is going to have repercussions.

This holier than thou stuff kind of sickens me.

From a military standpoint he needed to get got. America got him. That doesn't make us winners and it doesn't justify our actions over the past 10 years. If we want to make the world a better place we should pull our troops and focus on making our country a better place where people can get medical treatment, education, and a living wage. We should repeal the Patriot Act and force our government to respect the constitution. We should reach out to build bridges instead of bombing them.

Violence only begets violence. This only serves to perpetuate the cycle of misspent human lives.

Taking joy in this and running around in Times Square in a drunken stupor is ignorant, imo, because it shows an utter lack of understanding for why this war happened in the first place.

Sure, there is some satisfaction to be had in retribution. To paint America as the heavenly host wielding the sword of God against the evil terrorist infidels is to buy into the rhetoric and propaganda that's been spoon fed to us for decades.

We don't fight these wars for freedom or love or God or democracy or "Good". We fight these wars to protect the interests of the rich and powerful who control our society. Never forget that.

Funkenpants wrote:

For some reason I'm kind of meh about this. It's been ten years, two wars, thousands of dead and maimed troops, a trillion plus dollars down the hole since 9/11. Too much has happened for this to be really significant to me. Like being glad we hanged the guy who fired on Fort Sumter, if Civil War analogies are up for grabs.

I'm sort of in the same boat as you. In my mind getting Bin Laden after almost ten years doesn't really merit a huge celebration, more like a heartfelt sigh of relief and a knuckling down to figure out how we are going to handle the rest of the mess on our plates.

A lot of that is partially because I have assumed that the reason it took us so long to catch him was because he was pretty much on total lockdown. We didn't know where he was because the vast majority of Al Qaeda didn't either, he would have had no ability to lead the group in a meaningful way and still stay low enough under the radar to avoid being spotted.

I'm guessing that him being involved with any actual plans would be a liability for everybody, him because he'd be tracing more connections back to him, and everyone else working on the plan because once anyone found out it was connected to Bin Laden they would be in the center of the spotlight.

There is just no pleasing for some people. Everyone wanted Obama to get bin Laden. He got bin Laden. And now you people are like "meh".

I am pretty sure that if it comes down to choosing between a world WITH bin Laden, and a world WITHOUT him, we all can agree that the latter one is the more preferrable option.

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

There is just no pleasing for some people. Everyone wanted Obama to get bin Laden. He got bin Laden. And now you people are like "meh".

I am pretty sure that if it comes down to choosing between a world WITH bin Laden, and a world WITHOUT him, we all can agree that the latter one is the more preferrable option.

Especially since civilian casualties from *this specific operation* were at or near 0.

TheArtOfScience: we never blew up two very large buildings hoping for civilian casualties. What we have done may be a shade of gray, but that most certainly does not mean that what Osama did is not black.

Ranger Rick wrote:

The reviews are in, Osama bin Laden's compound is a dump.

Oh, Internet, is there anything you can't crowdsource to tastelessness?

Must have been some truth to the rumors of his failing health, his house is right next to a hospital.

He would have been dead sooner had Bush not taken his eye off of him. We've known Osama has been in Pakistan for something like 6 years now.

A view of his compound, via Twitter:
IMAGE(http://a.yfrog.com/img619/1417/w4izm.jpg)

Dirt wrote:

He would have been dead sooner had Bush not taken his eye off of him. We've known Osama has been in Pakistan for something like 6 years now.

From MSNBC story:

Applause broke out in the room around 3:55 a.m. ET, when the team on the ground reported that the attack had killed bin Laden. Obama called his predecessors, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, to inform them of the news, senior administration officials told NBC.

How cool would it have been to listen in on that call? I am sure Obama is too classy to say what you said Dirt, but I bet he was thinking it.

HopeChest wrote:

TheArtOfScience: we never blew up two very large buildings hoping for civilian casualties. What we have done may be a shade of gray, but that most certainly is does not mean that what Osama did is not black.

IMAGE(http://www.libertyforlife.com/images/war/baghdad-bombing3.jpg)

It's war. What is terrorism? Is it not in the eye of the beholder? We have no high ground to take in this. A decade of bombings, occupations, murders, wars, torture, and manipulation brand us as the fallible human beings we are.

Yes, the world is probably a safer place with this guy gone. Yes, he needed to get gone and I feel no pity or remorse at his passing. He deserved his fate. That said, turning a blind eye to the foreign policy of the US that has led to all of this is disrepsectful to all of those who have died in this struggle. From our civillians and soldiers to the innocents caught in the crossfire abroad.

America has dished out, and will continue to dish out, misery on a massive scale. Until we, as a people, are willing to admit that...things will not change and another 9/11 is inevitable.

TheArtOfScience wrote:

What is evil? If killing innocents is evil are we not guilty of the same thing? Do 10 years of warfare and the systematic dismantling of two countries not count?

Evil is intent. You can wax philosophical all you wish to, but on 9/11, the intent was to maximize the deaths of non-combatants who worked in the World Trade Center.

Oreo_Speedwagon wrote:

Evil is intent. You can wax philosophical all you wish to, but on 9/11, the intent was to maximize the deaths of non-combatants who worked in the World Trade Center.

And what is our intent? What was our intent when we installed the Shah in Iran? What was our intent in Vietnam? What was our intent when we go to war when one people are genocided and conveniently ignore it when a less important people are genocided?

America is not some preternatural bastion for goodness. We have our reasons for doing things as well and trust me, the average citizen is not privy to those reasons.

I am not justifying their actions, merely pointing out that America does many unjustifiable things ourself.

TheArtOfScience wrote:

What is terrorism? Is it not in the eye of the beholder?

No, it's not, and this is a crucial point that the "it's all relative" crowd misses.

Terrorism is the deliberate use of force, or threat of force, against civilian targets, to create fear, uncertainty, and doubt, for the purpose of social, ideological, or political change.

The key is highlighted. There must be a deliberate intent to attack civilians. Attacking the Pentagon wasn't terrorism. Attacking the WTC towers was. Similarly, the accidental deaths of civilians during a firefight or missile strike, while a tragedy, isn't terrorism. Deliberately blowing up a mosque during a civilian worship would be.

Make no mistake, the death of any civilian is a terrible thing, and the extreme measures taken by the military to avoid such casualties is why this crap has dragged on for so long. If we really were the cold-blooded, morally-equivalent killers that the apologists would have everyone believe, then there's no reason we couldn't have just carpet-bombed or nuked the major cities in Iraq/Afganistan and went on with our day. The reason our enemies hide in civilian populations is because they know that we're loathe to risk civilian lives in our operations. Were it otherwise, it would be pointless to hide in a civilian population if we would just killed everyone to make sure we got the bad guys.

Rant about our loss of civil liberties, the agonising stupidity of much of our political maneuvering, or the terrible cost of this war in terms of lives, liberty, and economics, and I'll be right there with you.

But don't suggest that military action = terrorism. There's a fundamental difference based on intent that goes to the core of how almost every civilisation in history has differentiated between murder and other kinds of death. This is not an eye-of-the-beholder thing.

TheArtOfScience wrote:
Oreo_Speedwagon wrote:

Evil is intent. You can wax philosophical all you wish to, but on 9/11, the intent was to maximize the deaths of non-combatants who worked in the World Trade Center.

And what is our intent? What was our intent when we installed the Shah in Iran? What was our intent in Vietnam? What was our intent when we go to war when one people are genocided and conveniently ignore it when a less important people are genocided?

America is not some preternatural bastion for goodness. We have our reasons for doing things as well and trust me, the average citizen is not privy to those reasons.

I am not justifying their actions, merely pointing out that America does many unjustifiable things ourself.

You know what, I don't think I'm going to engage in this sort of conversation. You're the kind of guy who'd justify racism.

No one here, as far as I am aware, is arguing that in 230 or so years, the United States has never been unjust. But to try to water down what's right and wrong to such a pedantic and stupid level is... Why am I even trying to discuss with you, you just think you're all too clever.

TheArtOfScience: I think you missed the part of my comment where I wrote "*hoping* for civilian casualties." (emphasis added--can't use HTML yet on here). This is not just about the scale of the misery, it is about the *intent* behind the acts that create the misery; there is no need to turn a blind eye to our own failings in order to say that what he did was objectively evil.

I think maybe you are ascribing positions to those who disagree with you about the objective evil of Osama that they do not hold. However much I may disagree with your first paragraph/earlier post/the meaning you find in that picture, I do not find anything I can seriously disagree with in the rest of what you say.

Oreo_Speedwagon wrote:

Emotional stuff

Relax, friend. TAoS is a good dude and we can all have differing opinions without resorting to ad hominems. It's an emotional point, clearly, but let's keep it friendly for the sake of a good discussion.