Osama Bin Laden is dead!

Coldstream wrote:
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.

It's a salient point though. That sort of utter and complete equivelancy is the same sort that justifies torture.

"What is torture?" "Can we say we're not all prejudiced, based upon our experiences? How can you call a man racist, when he is merely a product of his experience?"

It's basic "I took Philosophy 101!" derp.

I think a major mistake people are making about observing celebrations over Bin Laden's death is that they are conflating reactions over his death with the mood towards American foreign policy. I know a lot of people who hate the wars in Iraq and Afganistan and believe the U.S. foreign policy makes America a less safe place. Even they admit to being a little happy about Bin Laden being dead.

My university has a group anonymous chat page. I responded to this post:

"...by no means is anyone trying to defend him as a decent person, but the pack mentality jingoist celebration last night was disgraceful "

with this:

"...for many Americans, the death of Bin Laden represents the end of 9/11. The end of an event that punctuated our childhoods. What you see as pack mentality, we see as a celebration to move forward and consign Osama's legacy to memory. He was a criminal and he paid for his crimes. That's not militarism. That's justice."

The most sensitive liberals among us immeadiately assume that celebrations over this event are indicative of America being a blood-thirsty war machine and that Americans are in support of that.

I disagree. When I heard Osama Bin Laden had been killed, I was happy. I am keenly aware of the crimes America has committed abroad. I am keenly aware of why Bin Laden felt compelled to act against America. The 9/11 attacks were not arbitrary; they were inevitable.

The 9/11 attacks were still a crime against civilians, with civilians being the target. Osama Bin Laden was a criminal for attacking civilians. Now is not the time to condemn Americans for showing joy over the outcome of this action. Now is the time to ask more important questions: Now that the source of 9/11 has been dealt with, can America shift its public policy away from international policing? Can we work on building our image abroad?

I was in 7th grade when the 9/11 attacks happened. There are soldiers currently serving in Afganistan who were even younger (4th grade). For some Americans, blood in the water is all that is needed for celebration. For me, this event marks the true end of 9/11, and hopefully the beginning of something better for America.

I know there is still a long road ahead for us. Terrorism still exists. People still hate America. I can only hope that Bin Laden's real death can be taken symbolically as the end of American aggression abroad.

LobsterMobster wrote:

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.

So we're better than him and can summarily execute him just because we're better at violence? Somehow that doesn't make me feel better.

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?

Arrested and put on trial in court. Hopefully convicted, and sent to jail for a long time. It's not like we don't have a slam-dunk case with public admission of guilt, right? That's how civilized people do it. And they do it not because they are trying to protect the criminals, but because they do not want to become the criminals - ruling by fiat and whim with no regard for the law or for human life. We ARE him - our government has assumed the ability to simply designate who the criminals are and kill them - no proof, no trial, no quarter. Anywhere in the world. Think about that for a bit, and what it means.

HopeChest wrote:

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.

And there's a difference between killing a few thousand people in an attack and invading multiple countries, killing and maiming hundreds of thousands of people. What he did was bad - what we've done in his name is far worse, and more to the point, is continuing right now.

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.

I hope you're right, but it doesn't make what we've done, what we're doing right now, less evil. Consider this: do you really think that Obama wants the political focus in 2012 to be on the economy and domestic policy?

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

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.

You say this like he's somehow unique, irreplaceable. He's not. He's just a guy who didn't like Americans who happened to become famous because he got lucky in an attack. We're creating more like him every day with our wars, bombings, occupations, and torture.

Look, this example I am going to use is hardly America's finest hour, but I personally do see parallels:

Usama (I am using the U just so I don't make that damned repeated muscle memory error with the President) was a symbol to the terrorists out there who seem to do harm to us: He spit in the eye of the Great Satan and lived to tell the tale. America is a paper tiger, all talk. We can win, we just have to outlast them one more year.

Well, we got him. He's dead. America won. Will this end the war instantly? The resentment? No. But I see it similar to Sitting Bull: The man took on the US army and defeated them. He killed General Custard. He routed the army. The Indians rallied to him, made them their hero, but in the end, he was killed by the Indian Police for ghost dancing, in defiance of the United States. The Indian resistance lasted a bit longer, but without their leaders, their symbolic heroes, eventually the long, long fighting ended.

I'm not taking any pride in what we did to the indigenous people of America, mind you. But I do think this is one possibility of what might occur with the death of bin Laden. Neither am I making an equivalence with bin Laden and Sitting Bull: Sitting Bull fought the army, he didn't go around killing farmers and settlers. Sitting Bull's death was something of a tragedy, while bin Laden's is 100% a win in my eyes.

I understand what you are saying and I do believe that there is a difference between trying to kill civillians and dropping a bomb that happens to kill civillians as a consequence.

I suppose it's really just semantics and I may have erred in that regard.

I ask you though: Why do these people hate America? Why do they hate Americans? Why was this attack launched in the first place?

Now ask yourself: Does killing Osama change any of this? Does it give anyone less of a reason to hate us? Are we safer? What would make us safer?

Oreo: All due respect no need to ad-hominem. I know it is a touchy subject and I am taking an unpopular stance but it is something I do feel strongly about and we need to be asking ourselves these questions.

Grubber788 wrote:

"...for many Americans, the death of Bin Laden represents the end of 9/11. The end of an event that punctuated our childhoods. What you see as pack mentality, we see as a celebration to move forward and consign Osama's legacy to memory. He was a criminal and he paid for his crimes. That's not militarism. That's justice."

Really? Did we miss the trial where he was convicted and sentenced? What justice can be had from the unilateral decision to simply kill a human being, even one as despicable as him? He saw what he did as justice - just like us.

The most sensitive liberals among us immeadiately assume that celebrations over this event are indicative of America being a blood-thirsty war machine and that Americans are in support of that.

Assume? I'd think it would be obvious to anyone at this point. We are a bloodthirsty war machine, and we do support it - across at least ten Presidents now. What's the difference between bin Laden deciding people had to be murdered to achieve justice and Obama deciding someone had to be murdered to achieve justice?

The 9/11 attacks were still a crime against civilians, with civilians being the target. Osama Bin Laden was a criminal for attacking civilians.

How many civilians have died in our wars? A million? How about the civilians killed by those contractors in Iraq? Shouldn't we be assassinating former Blackwater personnel by this logic, instead of letting them go? And what should we do about our own leaders and their crimes? Seems awfully ... arbitrary that their leaders get assassinated, and our leaders get off without even a slap on the wrist.

Now is not the time to condemn Americans for showing joy over the outcome of this action.

Yes it is. No one should take joy in violent death - people who do might be considered, I don't know, bloodthirsty.

I can only hope that Bin Laden's real death can be taken symbolically as the end of American aggression abroad.

Bin Laden's attack was not the beginning of American aggression, and it almost certainly will not be the end - symbolically or otherwise.

Aetius: I think you've forgotten the original point of yours I was responding to. You wrote: "We assassinated him in the night, along with everyone around him. What does that say about us? What makes us different than him?" That's the question of yours I was answering.

Aetius wrote:

Really? Did we miss the trial where he was convicted and sentenced? What justice can be had from the unilateral decision to simply kill a human being, even one as despicable as him? He saw what he did as justice - just like us.

Do you think every single individual in war deserves a trial? Or only people you deem "important" and "worthy" of it?

Which is it?

Oreo: All due respect no need to ad-hominem. I know it is a touchy subject and I am taking an unpopular stance but it is something I do feel strongly about and we need to be asking ourselves these questions.

All due respect, I'd like you to clarify how your line of logic really does differ from the sort asking "Just what is torture? Is it so black and white?"

I'm not sure what that has to do with my point Oreo and you seem to be itching for a fight.

We've tortured the hell out of people for the past 10 years. What is torture? I don't know. Is it necessary? When should we do it? More questions we need to be asking ourselves.

I would like to see an end to the warring. The only way this cycle is going to be stopped is if we can stop the death.

Coldstream wrote:

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.

How about shooting people and then taking pictures with them as if they were hunting trophies? Or forcing them to strip naked and do unspeakable things while taking pictures? Or locking them in a cage indefinitely even when we know they are innocent? Or were all those people just "terrorists"?

The intent may be different, but the result is much the same - and on a vastly larger scale of human misery.

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.

Yeah, because historically, militaries pillaged and raped as well as killed. We HAVE improved!

Of course, it's not like we haven't carpet-bombed and firebombed cities in wars, so you're saying that our attacks on Dresden and Yokohama during World War II were terrorism, not military action?

gizmo wrote:

The thing that struck me about this was that he was found in a mansion, in an affluent neighborhood in Pakistan.

After all the stories about how he was hiding in some remote cave in the afghanistan mountains, and we would never be able to find him there, and...wait....why are we in afganistan?

Well there were reports back in 03/04 that he was in the Afghan mountains, and then that he crossed the border to Pakistan. Somewhere around the time that we diverted troops from Afghanistan to Iraq and basically let him escape.

If we'd never bothered with Iraq, this operation probably would have went down 7 years ago.

And yeah, it's pretty likely some Pakistani officials knew where he was, with him being in such a populated area. Maybe we would have got him sooner with more cooperation.

But whatever, it's done now. We should get out of Afghanistan and Pakistan as soon as logistically possible.

Aetius, if you're trying to argue against open celebration of Bin Laden's death, I have found this to be significantly more convincing than what you've been saying.

Aetius wrote:

How many civilians have died in our wars? A million? How about the civilians killed by those contractors in Iraq? Shouldn't we be assassinating former Blackwater personnel by this logic, instead of letting them go?

I don't think I'm going to get very far debating with you, because really, I'm just trying to share my feelings. I do not support America's belligerent foreign policy. I do not support America's war in Iraq. I do not support America's extended military empire nor do I support America's strong-arming of weak nations through the spread of soft power.

Osama Bin Laden was wrong for attacking civilians. The U.S. is wrong for having killed so many foreign civilians as well. But if you want to criticize this act as being unjust, then you must hold to the understanding that there is a difference between manslaughter and first degree murder. It was Bin Laden's stated aim to kill civilians; the U.S. has never made such statements.* I believe that is an important distinction.

I'm not blood-thirsty. I don't like death. I wish we had taken him alive. I don't know the details of what happened on the ground. That said, I don't feel guilty that I feel hope that this action will open a new chapter for America. I don't care if you think that is naive.

*Not in recent decades anyway.

Grubber788 wrote:

Osama Bin Laden was wrong for attacking civilians.

Correct.

The U.S. is wrong for having killed so many foreign civilians as well.

Correct.

But if you want to criticize this act as being unjust, then you must hold to the understanding that there is a difference between manslaughter and first degree murder. It was Bin Laden's stated aim to kill civilians; the U.S. has never made such statements. I believe that is an important distinction.

The part you're missing here is that Bin Laden's stated aim was kill Americans - not civilians. He saw no difference between those in the Towers and those on the ground in Saudi Arabia or a hundred other countries ... just as we saw no difference between the innocent people we've extra-judiciously imprisoned, tortured, and killed, and him. He assumes he can order someone dead to fit his aims, and so do we. There isn't any manslaughter or first degree murder here, because there is no court, no jury, no trial, and no law - only an executioner. And we did it exactly the way he did it.

I'm not blood-thirsty. I don't like death. I wish we had taken him alive. I don't know the details of what happened on the ground. That said, I don't feel guilty that I feel hope that this action will open a new chapter for America. I don't care if you think that is naive.

I'm glad - just don't be surprised when it doesn't.

I thought I'd never say this, but I agree with Aetius.

Aetius: if for you intent is not important (that's what I'm gathering from your postings--tell me if I'm wrong), and just the scale of human misery is the only metric, I think your difference of opinion with those you disagree with is not over the line between terrorism and (just) war, it's over a much more fundamental aspect of the concept of justice.

Grubber788 wrote:

Aetius, if you're trying to argue against open celebration of Bin Laden's death, I have found this to be significantly more convincing than what you've been saying.

I liked this one.

TheArtOfScience wrote:

I ask you though: Why do these people hate America? Why do they hate Americans? Why was this attack launched in the first place?

I think that the answer to those questions are deeply complicated, with attitudes, decisions, and situations as ramifications from events as far back as World War 1. I'm agree with LilCodger's earlier tweet that we speak in black-and-white terms while acting in a very grey world. People like easy talking points, so the reasons for all this are variously given (depending upon political persuasion) as imperialism, oil, geopolitical influence, religious extremism, philosophy, revenge, ambition, and so forth. The truth is probably some combination of all of those, with some other intangibles inevitably mixed into that.

The reality is that people love symbols, because they're easy to understand. The USA, since its inception, has stood as various symbols to different people. Ultimately, I think it would be difficult to argue that overall the USA has been a force for good. We've done some crappy things, sure, but I think the sum of the USA's influence in the world is overall a positive one. If the USA decided to suddenly retreat to the isolationist policies of pre-WW1, the outcry from most of the planet (including the Middle East) would be one of "where the hell are you going?"

OBL's death is a symbol. I hope it's a symbol of national catharsis that allows us to pull out our troops and let the Middle East (and indeed the rest of the world) return to choosing its own fate, for better or worse. At worst, it'll exacerbate things. At best, we'll all go home and start trading peacefully with each other. As with everything in the real world, the reality will be somewhere in the middle.

For what it's worth, I'm a serving military officer. Speaking personally, I find our use of torture to be reprehensible, our involvement in many parts of the world to be inadvisable, and our loss of Constitutional liberties to be abhorrent to the society I want to protect. That said, I'm sworn to obey the will of the American people, as expressed through their elected representatives. The military will come home the moment the American people collectively allow it to.

Aetius wrote:

Of course, it's not like we haven't carpet-bombed and firebombed cities in wars, so you're saying that our attacks on Dresden and Yokohama during World War II were terrorism, not military action?

Those cities also had industrial value to the war effort as well, but I'd agree that you could probably correctly classify them as being acts of terror.

The Battle of London would then have to be classified as an act of terror as well, albeit nowhere near as successful.

HopeChest wrote:

Aetius: if for you intent is not important (that's what I'm gathering from your postings--tell me if I'm wrong), and just the scale of human misery is the only metric, I think your difference of opinion with those you disagree with is not over the line between terrorism and (just) war, it's over a much more fundamental aspect of the concept of justice.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

I really don't think that the families of the million or so Iraqis and Afghanis we've killed or caused to die give two sh*ts that we killed their loved ones them for the "right" reason.

Tanglebones wrote:

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

It needs a big "VACANCY" sign now.

OG_slinger: I was watching Mob Wives last night, and those women were carrying on about how terrible it is that the Feds come and take away their husbands and leave crying children and weeping wives as if they'd been the victims of criminals themselves. I don't think you can always go by the reactions of loved ones when figuring out what is moral and just, and what isn't.

Coldstream wrote:

Really well though-out post.

Nice post. I want to make it clear that I don't think America is evil either. We're all just people and people are flawed. I have a rather dim view of the human race as a whole and I think our natural tendencies still lean towards barbarism.

This is all very complicated and goes back a very long time. It is not a simple "they attacked us first and then we p0wned them". That is the sort of attitude I am cautioning against. It lacks any sort of introspection and makes me doubtful that we will behave differently in the future.

I hope you can come home Coldstream. You are doing a job. I hope soon that your job will involve helping Americans be safe at home. Helping tornado victims and keeping our borders secure.

Continuing to occupy other countries will only lead to more strife. I can only hope that one day the people who control our country will see that.

So now every Iraqi and Afghani we killed was actually a secret terrorist? Think again.

Or are you just saying that because we were shooting at the bad guys that it magically makes us blameless when we hit a civilian?

Osama is dead. Mission Accomplished. Time to get out of Afghanistan.

TheArtOfScience: I have a feeling I would agree with your answers to those questions (I think comment-1833414 was intended for me) but I think we're getting beyond the question of bin Laden's death, and into bigger questions. I should have made this clear earlier: if you don't personally see this as a reason to celebrate, I can understand and respect that. On the other hand, I think this is a big enough deal that it's valid to have some good feelings about this event even though there's still a heck of a lot we have left to fix.

Bin Laden's even more of a monster than I thought. He made me agree with Aetius.

I can't remember if I read this in this thread or the other one (and I'm too lazy to go look for it so I'm going to paraphrase). Somebody said this was good because it showed that we would go to the ends of the Earth to catch somebody. I don't see how bankrupting our country every time somebody wrongs us isn't doing exactly what they want.

According to the press conference on Fox being given now by Brennan, the special forces were instructed to capture or kill Usama. They wanted to capture him alive, but suspected that he would resist to the death. So not quite an assassination.

While intellectually I'm glad we honored Muslim burial customs, emotionally I would have been just as satisfied if they launched him off the flight deck with the steam catapult. A lot of his victims were never given the honor of a proper burial.

Ballotechnic wrote:

According to the press conference on Fox being given now by Brennan, the special forces were instructed to capture or kill Usama. They wanted to capture him alive, but suspected that he would resist to the death. So not quite an assassination.

Except reports have it that he was killed by a double tap the left side of his head...

Dirt wrote:

Osama is dead. Mission Accomplished. Time to get out of Afghanistan.

Seems to me like Bin Laden hasn't been all that relevant in Afghanistan for awhile. While this news may help matters there by hurting terrorist morale and helping civilian morale, I don't really see this having much of an affect on speeding everyone home.