Osama Bin Laden Reported Dead, Body In US Hands 1855
Reader Tom Hudson, and now several others, have submitted the news that Osama Bin Laden is reportedly dead, and that his body is in the hands of the US military. A statement from President Obama is expected shortly. Watch this space for more details. Update: 05/02 04:01 GMT by T : More coverage at ABC News, at CNN, and at Al Jazeera. The reports say that Bin Laden was actually killed about a week ago by a bomb in Pakistan, and the time taken to confirm his identity via DNA testing helped delay the news. In downtown Austin, Texas, in the time since the story broke I've heard what sound like numerous celebratory gunshots.
Mission Accomplished (Score:4, Insightful)
Now let's bring 'em home.
Re:bye bye bin (Score:5, Insightful)
And all it cost were our civil liberties, national character, and trillions of dollars...
Well there you go (Score:3, Insightful)
The prez just won his second term
Re:Bin Laden murdered? (Score:0, Insightful)
Enemy combatants and mass murderers don't warrant due process.
Wasn't he already reported dead? (Score:2, Insightful)
Weren't there multiple reports from credible sources that OBL was dead years ago?
I don't trust the media, but I trust the government even less.
Looks like Ron Paul will be vindicated in the 2012 election as his message of "bring the troops home" will resonate loud and clear.
Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good for Obama (Score:2, Insightful)
The folks actually searching for him have been doing so for 10 years, don't give him the credit for their efforts. He just happens to be in office at the right time.
Re:bye bye bin (Score:3, Insightful)
No, our kids are eating lead...
Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a good start. When the next leader of Alqueda steps up, we just kill him too, lather rinse repeat.
Re:Well there you go (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:bye bye bin (Score:5, Insightful)
Or we found him living in a mansion outside Islamisbad and killed him after a firefight.
Not sure what the motivation for making this up would be. There are likely going to be reprisals for this act.
Re:And watch... (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't worry, Obama explicitly said as much in his speech ("we must remain ever vigilant").
From what I'm hearing, expect civil rights to be further restricted in the coming months to protect from "counter attacks" over Bin Laden's death.
After all, this was never the War on Al Qaeda. This is the War on Terror, and Terror still looms... (And don't forget to lock your doors, Al Qaeda is coming to get us back over Bin Laden!)
Re:Competence (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:4, Insightful)
Please: NO POLITICAL POSTURING. (Score:5, Insightful)
My last day of work at the World Trade Center was September 10, 2001. I remember turning around, looking at a lone guitarist playing near that fountain with the Globe sculpture, it was a beautiful Monday night, around 9 pm. I had worked late, so I was going to show up late to work on Tuesday. I woke up to my phone ringing off the hook. I lost my job, but compared to what others lost, I lost nothing.
The people who died that day were liberal and conservative, but all were American. Bin Laden hated us all, just because we were American. So please, no political games here. This isn't about left and right, this is about a cowardly attack on all of us, as Americans. As a hardcore liberal, I embrace my fellow Americans who are conservative on this good news for us all.
Come together, as Americans, left and right, lose the useless political snark and sniping, and celebrate this asshole's death. Good fucking riddance.
Re:Competence (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit. Bush diverted most of our military to a pointless fight in Iraq, and unsurprisingly we never caught Bin Laden. Obama set finding Bin Laden as our top goal in the region, and we found him in a little over two years.
Just think if we had done that from the start. Bin Laden still dead, without wasting a trillion dollars and thousands of lives in Iraq.
Re:Well there you go (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And watch... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would it? It's pretty much accepted that bin Laden was radicalized by the 2nd in command - who, therefore, was the real power behind the throne. What's more, by landing troops in Pakistan, the US risks a great many Pakistanis joining up with terrorist groups.
Further, by killing bin Laden rather than capturing him, the US has created a martyr. That's usually a very bad move. Further, the media's interpretation of President Obama's remarks was that he had ordered bin Laden's assassination. The US has been trying to assassinate a number of other leaders recently - bodily or by character. That could create some extremely unholy alliances, since leaders generally don't approve of being assassinated and Al Queda is likely to be looking for alternative bases.
Tomorrow, then, will be just like today only the US will have fewer people to blame.
Capturing bin Laden would have been the wisest move. By depriving him of martyrdom, the US would have avoided an excalation in the conflicts. Further, it would have likely resulted in a paniced upper echelon of Al Queda as they'd not know what he knew or what he'd say. And in not knowing, they'd likely act rashly. And that is what we needed.
What happened tonight was a PR stunt intended to bolster the ratings of the Democrats and undercut Republican credentials on security. It had nothing whatsoever to do with actual security at all.
Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember a few years ago, when everyone said we had to attack the Iraqis because they were terrorists.
Really. Everyone. I seem to remember some "man on the street" interviews that were used to mock the idea. That's as close to "everyone" as I ever saw. It's like claiming that everyone believes that Obama was born in Kenya.
We had to attack the Afghanis because of terrorism, and of course we had to forget that most 9/11 hijackers were Saudis.
We attack the Taliban because they provided safe harbor and support for Al Qaeda. Whether that is a smart strategy / worthwhile is certainly up to debate. But if you're going to make a complaint about the overall lack of geopolitical knowledge of "most Americans", it might help not expressing ignorance in the process.
Fighting terrorism now means having a TSA agent fondle you or getting photographed naked.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could undo some of THAT damage with this event.
Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:now the US can slash defense spending (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:3, Insightful)
Mission Accomplished ---- Now let's bring 'em home.
Actually no, it isn't. Although Bin Laden's death is going to be very helpful, all that happened is that the current enemy leader was killed. Someone, probably far less effective, will take his place. The Coalition Forces killed the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq multiple times, and he was always replaced. Al Qaeda will fight on despite this. We ignore this fact at our peril.
The US & NATO need to remain in Afghanistan for at least several more years until their army are police are built up and trained, and their country is stabilized. Otherwise, we can expect another go around of this.
Apparently this is your "Mission Accomplished" moment?
Re:Please: NO POLITICAL POSTURING. (Score:5, Insightful)
The people who died that day were liberal and conservative, but all were American. Bin Laden hated us all, just because we were American.
It's more than that. Al Qaeda has killed Muslims, Iraqis, Afghanis, Pakistanis, Spaniards.....people from all over the world. He was a hater. This is something every sane person in the world can be happy for.
Re:Scumbag President(s) (Score:3, Insightful)
Scumbag Obama: Talk about hope and change. Continue and expand on Bush-era policies.
Hey, I am just glad that He was the one who since last August has personally overseen, analyzed intel, and, finally, authorized the strike which took Osama out. What a guy. And He is so humble about it.
Re:Scumbag President(s) (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Please: NO POLITICAL POSTURING. (Score:2, Insightful)
Absolutely. Bin Laden isn't an enemy of the USA, he is an enemy of civilization itself. In his thinking is the downfall of us all, of every religion, every race, and every nationality. He won't be the last to think like him, but it's nice to land a big fish. The fishing goes on, but today we celebrate the rightful end of one big grade AAA asshole.
Re:Please: NO POLITICAL POSTURING. (Score:1, Insightful)
Come together, as Americans, left and right, lose the useless political snark and sniping, and celebrate this asshole's death. Good fucking riddance.
What's to celebrate?
No, I'm serious. What's to celebrate? Okay, bin Laden is dead. What good will this do, whether it be for the US, Afghanistan, Pakistan, or the world in general?
Will it cause Al Qaeda to curl up in a ball, wither, and die? No. Will it prevent future acts of terrorism that they have planned? No. Will it let the US cut back on "the war on terror"? No. Will it let people in Afghanistan or Pakistan that are being terrorised by the Taliban live in peace? No.
So again I ask: what has been gained by this man's death that gives us (speaking in the broadest sense - US, UK, Europe, etc., etc.) a good reason to celebrate?
(Mild amusement: captcha for this post = "attest". Hm. Somebody check that script for sentience.)
Re:Woohoo! War on Terror is over! (Score:5, Insightful)
Right? RIGHT?!
Oh.
Right.
FML
Yes, it is over in exactly the same sense that the Cold War was over .... when Lenin died.
Re:and here come... (Score:3, Insightful)
We don't need any. Killing political leaders is, at best, useless. At worst, given the failed assassination of Gadaffi and the failed attempt to character assassinate Chavez all within the last couple of days, there's a serious risk that the US has miscalculated and will unite segments of Africa and South America with the terrorist organizations. No, that's second-worst. At worst, Russia and China will see this as confirmation of the failed assassination of Gadaffi and the failed character assassination of Chavez, deem the US to be an immediate threat to global security, and take action to stop the Blue Menace.
However, I'll offer a conspiracy theory if you like. Osama bin Laden has been ill for some time, we know that. The American public is quite incapable of maintaining focus if it perceives the goal as being reached, we know that too. Osama bin Laden gets offered up as a sacrificial lamb, but in a way that radicalizes the whole of Pakistan and could easily lead to a coup. Al Queda loses a man it no longer needs in a gambit to gain a country it covets. You can replace men, but it's much harder to replace a subcontinent.
Terrorists who were trained in Afghanistan by AQ (Score:5, Insightful)
long after most Americans have forgotten why we went to war in the first place.
Pretty funny that you should talk about "forgetting", because then you say:
And of course we had to forget that most 9/11 hijackers were Saudis
Well you seem to have forgotten is that they were mostly Saudis - trained in Afghanistan, by Al Quidea.
Since that was where AQ was based, where the terrorists were trained, that was in fact the single best place to start in striking back and reducing the threat. I mean, here you seem to imply we should have attacked Saudi Arabia, even though there government there did not condone the terrorism. For a long time after we invaded Iraq there were cries in fact that we should ONLY be in Afghanistan. But you seem to have forgotten that too.
You seem to have forgotten we are not fighting the people of Afghanistan but AQ who has people based there, just as in Iraq for a time we were not fighting many Iraqis any more, but instead a coalition of AQ fighters from all over - including Syria and Saudi Arabia again.
Indeed your message about not forgetting is an important one, which is why I felt it necessary to provide historical fact over re-written sentiment.
Fighting terrorism now means having a TSA agent fondle you or getting photographed naked.
I hate the new rules too and think they are silly.
But to be fair, AQ has shown a fetish long after 9/11 of trying to work terrorism through planes, and so that is where the focus has been on protection. It's a matter of finding what is reasonable and what actually works, something I think they are a long way from yet. It's the right focus but totally the wrong technique.
Weird (Score:4, Insightful)
I find it very strange to cheer about somebody's death, but here I am.
It's pretty rare to find undiluted evil in the world, but he sure was it. I was in 5th grade at the time, in northeast NJ. We could see the towers from the top of the slide, and then just two pillars of smoke. Even though I was only 11, I knew damn sure what was going on and what it all meant.
And I'm damn glad he's dead. His organization continues, of course, but he wasn't exactly a figurehead either. I'm not going to speculate on the ramifications of this, because they're happening now and in the next few hours and days.
So good job to all involved. Truly a moment in history.
Re:bye bye bin (Score:5, Insightful)
More coverage at ABC News, at CNN, and at Al Jazeera. The reports say that Bin Laden was actually killed about a week ago by a bomb in Pakistan, and the time taken to confirm his identity via DNA testing helped delay the news. In downtown Austin, Texas, in the time since the story broke I've heard what sound like numerous celebratory gunshots.
That's from the summary. NONE of the three sources state that, and none of the sources I read have said anything like that. I'm not going to jump to conclusions and say he was killed by a bomb in Pakistan a week ago, when the President said he was killed in a ground operation. He was likely killed by American rifles, whether face-to-face or initially from a distance.
Oh goody, another ten years then (Score:5, Insightful)
While Osama has been hard to track down, lower echolon leaders have been killed left and right. Didn't change a thing. Partly because the US managed to always find a way to kill a lot of civilians (by accident they claim) to fuel new hatred.
Thinking the death of Bin Laden will change anything is like thinking the death of Roosevelt in 1945 meant the end of WW2. (For those lacking in history, it didn't).
The world has changed massively after 9/11 but it also has continued to change. Take the current unrest in North Africa and the middle east. Ghaddafi (however you spell it) went from terrorist leader to friend to target in less then a decade. Now there are calls from the left to watch the bombings in Libya but ALSO to interfere in Syria... wtf? I am sure Israel is wondering just what the hell is going to happen next. Do you think it is an accident Hamas is changing its tune now its allies are burning from within?
If anything this shows how silly the idea of control is in the world. Bin Laden became a symbol but had little control. He achieved next to nothing. The uprising against the oppressors in muslim nations is instead against both religious AND secular leaders (Syria is secular, its Iranian ally is strongly religious) and the uprisings are both religious and secular. About the only prediction that stands is that nobody predicted any of this.
What will happen now Bin Laden is death? A symbol is dead but the things that made him a symbol are not. There is severe dissatisfaction in the world and people seem more ready then ever to use violence to made their dissatisfaction known. You might hail this is a fight for freedom or extremists wanting to force their view on the rest of the world, but the fact remains that right now more struggles are happening then in a long time in history.
A leader of a decade ago is dead, few will mourn him but he is a relic. There are new struggles to overcome. Iraq is still a mess, Afghanistan is a war zone. Pakistan is on the verge of collapse. North Korea is facing collapse and won't go queitly, Libya is in civil war. Syria is about to erupt in war. The list goes on and on. Wikileaks Assange has disappeared of the radar of news but that is still far from finished.
No, I don't think we can breath a sigh of relieve just yet.
And that in a way is a good thing. The world has NEVER been a safe place. Better we are aware of it not being safe and work to make it safe even if we make mistakes then to live in false security.
Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference is that drugs are big business. Wherever there's a fortune to be made, there will always be plenty of willing participants. But when you're looking at living in fear of drone strikes, with your leaders dying ever few months, recruiting gets harder.
If the Israeli experience of the last few decades hasn't shown you how ass-backwards this kind of thinking is, I don't think there's anything that will get it through your skull ....
Re:where's the long form? (Score:5, Insightful)
Dead Nailed it, along with the follow comments:
The biggest casualty will probably be our Constitution. Whenever a tragedy likes this occurs, the government always announces a get tough on terrorists policy that will have no effect on the psychopaths who do this, but will severely limit our rights.
Yep. I give it a week before Bush announces a "war on terrorism". And we all know what "war on XXX" means, don't we? Bye-bye Bill of Rights.
Yep. Let's put face recognition cameras in all airports and log activity of anyone who enters or leaves an airport. We all know it wouldn't stop the attack, but hey, it will help us correlate who boarded the planes with their respective political associations.
You don't get it. If the Constitution is a casualty, then the terrorists have won. Their aim is to destroy this country. The Constitution IS this country. It's the only thing that makes us different from any other country in the world.
Re:I for one.... (Score:4, Insightful)
So much for a fair trial. (Score:2, Insightful)
174 comments and nobody's mentioned this, but what happened to the presumption of innocence?
I mean, a guy arrested at the scene of a mass shooting, covered in blood and holding an assault rifle, screaming about how the aliens in his head told him to murder all of mankind... still gets a trial. Timothy McVeigh (the second biggest terrorist to attack US soil) got a trial. People who systematically abduct and rape hundreds of little girls and hide their bodies in barrels get a trial.
If absolutely nothing else, now we'll never truly know if he really did it. Who the power behind him was. Who was sponsoring him, who was protecting him (aside from the obvious: Pakistan), who were his allies. Think of all he could know.
Action movies lie to you. Dead guys give zero intel and create martyrs. Killing him was, by a huge long away, out and out the worst way to handle it. Bring him in alive. See what he knows. Then put him in prison for the rest of his days.
This was a poor choice.
Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:4, Insightful)
So can we now call the "War on Terror" "Won" and try to go back to Normal?
Re:And Yet Tomorrow... (Score:2, Insightful)
And the Far Left and "Moderate" Left will find some way to slam the "Far Right" out of the box...
You know...you'd best just drop the crap, for that's what that was.
Re:Bringing it back up (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry? What exactly did Saddam and Iraq have to do with the 'War on Terror'? I mean, other than pissing off the fundamentalist Muslims even more than before.
War is not for trials (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, a guy arrested at the scene of a mass shooting, covered in blood and holding an assault rifle, screaming about how the aliens in his head told him to murder all of mankind... still gets a trial.
Not if he's still shooting when the police, or anyone with a gun, arrive. Then he gets shot.
OBL and AQ were still planning other operations. Sometimes in the middle of action there is no time for trial. In a real war trials are madness, you cannot fight real bullets with lawyers not matter how many lawyers you have.
Re:And watch... (Score:5, Insightful)
Further, by killing bin Laden rather than capturing him, the US has created a martyr. That's usually a very bad move.
I could see it going either way. Bin Laden was a charismatic figure head of an ideology. Sometimes death creates a martyr, but more often in history it kills the movement. When it does create a martyr, it is because the movement is rising anyway, like when John Brown's death became a catalyst in the growing abolitionist movement. More often the cause dies quietly, like when Guy Fawkes failed to draw people to the cause of Catholicism.
In this case, it appears Middle Easterners have largely given up on the political ideas of Bin Laden, and instead have started turning towards democracy as a way out of their problems. It's hard to know public opinion for sure in that region, but there have been many uprisings of people demanding democracy.
Re:Bringing it back up (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry? What exactly did Saddam and Iraq have to do with the 'War on Terror'? I mean, other than pissing off the fundamentalist Muslims even more than before.
It was started under the false premise that it was relevant to the War on Terror and the extremists responded. Our soldiers fought terrorists associated with the same terrorists who attacked us.
Re:Well there you go (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the US. NOBODY gets elected without charisma. Hell, we've got front runners with no discernible talents BUT charisma.
Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:4, Insightful)
But why Iraq?
The reality was that the president wanted personal revenge because he blamed Saddam for Daddy losing out on a second term. And Cheney/Rove (who actually ran the country) allowed it because they knew they would be able to funnel not just hundreds of billions, but multiple trillions to their friends and supporters. There was no other reason why the US should invent some coalition and make up reasons to invade. For that, Bush and Cheney should face one murder charge for every dead person. But no, the Republicans talk like they support responsibility, unless it was they who were responsible.
Because Saddam was a viscously successful survivor. The US didn't roll in and oust Saddam during the Gulf War because they didn't want to get involved in the power vacuum that would follow. And they certainly didn't want to provide a wedge for Iran to get involved. So they parked with the intent that Iraq would take care of its own problem. The problem is that Saddam uncovered coups and plots, killing any attempts to do so. When the Shias rose up (likely thinking the US would help), the spectre of Iranian influence reared its ugly head and the US didn't act to protect the uprising - which was put down brutally. Meanwhile, Saddam used his Oil-for-food money to rebuild military and construct palaces. While Iraq suffered, Saddam certainly didn't. So if the US wanted regime change, it was going to have to force it. But by the time that realization came about, we couldn't even make a strike on Bin Laden without "wag the dog" theories. So the Administration took advantage of a bad time in history to bring about the New World Order.
Now - was there WMDs? Its not far fetched to believe there were. The US had sold Iraq the basic chemicals needed to manufacture chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq War. There was a fledging nuclear program. And inspections were not done to the extent that they had been agreed to - certainly not to the extent that the US and former Soviets conducted against each other under various nuclear non-proliferation treaties.
The problem with this is that these were not the talking points of the Administration. They told the public that they had definitive proof. And that proof turned out to be bunk. It doesn't take much cynicism to look at that as not simply mistakes or selective cognition but outright lies.
Of course, this is largely my own take on the situation. I'm also not a Democrat. I'm not a republican. I also wish 3rd parties could be relevant. But none of this has anything to do with the belief the statement "everyone said we had to attack the Iraqis because they were terrorists" which I find to be selective memory with strong political spin.
Celebratory gunfire (Score:4, Insightful)
In downtown Austin, Texas, in the time since the story broke I've heard what sound like numerous celebratory gunshots.
What better way to celebrate the death of a terrorist, than with a potentially deadly act of random violence [wikipedia.org]!
Re:Oh goody, another ten years then (Score:2, Insightful)
Hmmm. I love all of these claims of "civilian" deaths. Over there, US soldiers wear uniforms, so you know when a soldier dies. However, how do you prove that you have killed a "fighter" or a "civilian?" They both wear the same clothes.
Also, I would strongly suspect that suicide bombers have killed far more civilians than the US military has. Muslims appear to be their own worst enemies. I once tried to Google the numbers, but was not able to find anything useful. It is late now, and I am to tired to try again. If anybody very skilled at Google-fu wants to point to links of # civilians killed in suicide bombs and # of civilians killed as a result of US military actions, I would appreciate it.
Re:Please: NO POLITICAL POSTURING. (Score:3, Insightful)
"just because we were American."
Oh my God, why even you don't know how this all started, and why it will keep going. Its the US foreign policy stupid!. Osama and his group was funded by the US to fight evil commies; when that war was over the money stopped, US showed hostility against Afghanistan (people killed, etc) and they felt betrayed and turned around.
This guy was on the CIA payroll, and he isn't the only terrorist. Sometimes they never turn around, and get immunity for life. Posada Carriles is a fine example, right now living in FL; he only blew a jetliner full of people, tortured and disappeared countless victims all over latinamerica, put bombs in hotels and universities, oh but all in the name of your holy nation against evil communism, see? just like Bin Laden, except he remained loyal and didn't turn around.
Do you know where the terrorists are bred from? Did you read that news about children getting massacred by a drone over there? Think!, Feel! that you are there, not carrying the weapon, but on the receiving side, your family and friends dying even when you had nothing to do with either side.
Now remember you are the "most powerful nation", how are they going to get revenge? Not in conventional warfare.
Those misguided to hate Americans, do so because the American government sends Americans to kill them! Some people can't understand how the people of USA is so powerless against their own government! And yes, its the innocent that pay; because YOU didn't act against the policy of foreign intervention.
Tell me, do you think your government will declare Victory, lets return all troops home and now everyone can live safe again? NEVER. None of the liberties you lost in the name of protection from terrorism, will come back; and none of the lands tainted by American boots can be left alone again, because they will turn to revenge for the past.
So please, please, think a minute; do a little research. Where this Osama Bin Laden and the term "Al Qaeda" came from? YOU! Ok, not you, personally, your government and its institutions, but its a thin line to discern for someone whose life is getting destroyed by a faceless foreign force.
Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:5, Insightful)
No point - since they're a martyr, they go straight to paradise.
I seriously doubt that the leaders are religious fanatics. They're certainly willing to prey on disturbed people's religious excesses, but they didn't get on the airplanes themselves.
Re:Competence (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullshit. Bush diverted most of our military to a pointless fight in Iraq, and unsurprisingly we never caught Bin Laden. Obama set finding Bin Laden as our top goal in the region, and we found him in a little over two years.
Nonsense. Military/intel forces are not interchangeable. Except for the actual take-down, getting Bin Laden was a surveillance/analysis problem, not a mass force problem. Taking everything we had in Iraq and throwing it at the task would not have helped, except perhaps for things like UAVs which were not in short supply anyway. A large chunk of the man-hours spent in finding him were probably put in by intelligence people here in the US, going over the data and putting pieces together.
Remember, Bin Laden was found in Pakistan, and has probably been there for most of the decade. Pakistan has been very upset just with the pinprick drone strikes we've been doing. Are you seriously suggesting that Bush should have attempted to get Bin Laden by taking the forces used in Operation Iraqi Freedom -- large formations of tanks, infantry, artillery, presaged by massive airstrikes -- and instead directing them at a confirmed nuclear-armed Pakistan? Because when you blame the how long it took to capture Bin Laden on Bush invading Iraq, that's the alternative you're implying.
If you oppose the war in Iraq, fine, there are valid reasons for doing so, but saying that it delayed Bin Laden's capture is ridiculous.
Re:Bringing it back up (Score:4, Insightful)
Young Georgie had to get revenge because Saddam made his daddy look bad
Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:5, Insightful)
What could possibly go wrong?
Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:5, Insightful)
No they need Obama Skull fucking his dead corpse. That would send a message.
Yeah, because if people in the USA saw some Al Qaida member skull fucking the corpse of someone in our military (or even a political leader), we'd get the message that they are bad-asses and concede the war and back down immediately.
Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the Taliban kill far more civilians than NATO. While you might not have noticed this fast the Afghans certainly have. Some of the tribes (aided by NATO) actively repel the Taliban. Doesn't make good sound bites so the Western News mostly ignores the fact that most of northern Afghanistan is actually ok (by its low standards).
The big problem is not that we won't win the "War on Terror" (and it is important for "us" in the West to win it). The big problem is that we are losing the "War on Corruption", not just petty corruption but the subtle subjugation of the legislative process. This is what is causing revolutions in the Middle East (sick of corruption) and one of the original motivators of Osama Bin Laden. Unfortunately US internal interests (multi-national corps) undermine the laws of sovereign states (eg witness ACTA and the 3-strikes laws popping up etc) is what will create a new wave of disaffected terrorists far more than the bombs. I hope that the US gets its act together with its excessively meddlesome foreign policy (some is understandable - its a linked world after all) and reigns in the corps instead of being a puppet to their tune - but I fear this hope will never come to fruition.
Re:Oh goody, another ten years then (Score:5, Insightful)
>> However, how do you prove that you have killed a "fighter" or a "civilian?" They both wear the same clothes.
If you kill someone, then review their body, and find that they were not wearing a uniform, nor were they carrying any weapons, nor were they strapped with explosives, nor were there any weapons nearby, nor is their likelihood that they were directing others to engage in warfare, then they were a civilian.
These rules are pretty clearly spelled out in some treaties we've signed and ratified. Certainly some of the people claimed as civilians were not, but in some cases they most certainly were.
>> I would strongly suspect that suicide bombers have killed far more civilians than the US military has.
I doubt it, given the 200+ year history of the US military and relatively short history of suicide bombers, even taking into account 9/11.
>> # of civilians killed as a result of US military actions
There's no web source that cannot be dismissed by you or others as "biased", therefore there is no possible source to give you definitive proof. My short web search started here, which is where I would start reading if I was so inclined:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ [iraqbodycount.org]
Re:A few details (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Scumbag President(s) (Score:5, Insightful)
In chief, specific freedoms regarding privacy. Most of that weight is distributed across the Patriot Act and airport security measures. While I haven't heard a lot of complaining about the Patriot Act in quite some time, the what the TSA has been up to in the last two years or so could possibly be regarded as unreasonable search and seizure. Most of this goes unnoticed in the daily lives of a large swathe of the American population, but it's there, to be sure.
Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:4, Insightful)
As a Muslim (Score:4, Insightful)
I am a Muslim, and I'm so happy they finally nailed this creep.
He's killed thousands of Americans, including many Muslims in my community who worked in lower Manhattan. 9/11 even destroyed the local mosque at the Towers.
Bin Laden was never a Muslim leader, back in the 1990s Muslim leaders spoke out against him and called for his capture, after his involvement in bombing of US embassies. Even his "spiritual leader" told the press that Bin Laden is not qualified to speak for Islam and he had no training to make rulings or give fatwas.
God's gonna judge him, and I hope He gives Bin Laden what he deserves, for the misery he's put Muslims worldwide through, and for disgracing Islam and the millions of peaceful patriotic law-abiding American Muslims.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bringing it back up (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing at all.
The real question is why did you wait nearly a decade to question this?
Re:So much for a fair trial. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A few details (Score:4, Insightful)
As a local living in that area, who would you call to report his location and collect your reward? Do you call the police, and hope whoever you talk to is not corrupt?
I know I'd be keen to collect on the reward, but I don't like being dead either...so I don't really know how I personally would have gone about doing it. Presumably you have to be identifiable at the time that you call in the tip, and that's the catch. (Well, maybe I can think of ways *I* would have gone about it, but the situation would likely be very different for most locals in Pakistan).
Re:bye bye bin (Score:4, Insightful)
Look, for once could we let the partisan crap go? A bad guy is dead. That's cause for celebration. It's not an invitation for every partisan whackjob to whip out his pecker and start pissing all over everything.
We all know the drunk uncle who has to be invited to the wedding, but who can be counted upon to leave the reception cuffed in a squadcar. For today, could you try not to be him?
Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:5, Insightful)
Shame they didn't get him alive and give him a trial.
Perhaps, but it's no longer clear to me that the US feels itself capable of putting Al Quaeda leaders on trial. At least, most of Congress no longer has enough faith in our justice system to allow it.
Re:Oh goody, another ten years then (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a book in my parents' bookshelves with title "Assassinations that were supposed to change the world". Thick book with chapters about (successful or not) attempts to kill important people. From Franz Ferdinand, through Che Guevara, to Hitler, Rasputin, Lincoln, JFK, Ghandi and many others. Attempts to kill the snake by cutting off the head. It never worked.
Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:5, Insightful)
If we heard that a United States General had been captured, crucified, and fed to rats, would that soothe the average American or aggravate him? Would he be more or less likely to support violent retribution or volunteer to fight?
Trumpeting a triumph in victory against our foes is all well and good, but purposeful desecration of the body? We're better than that. A slap in the face against deeply conditioned religious beliefs? I would hope we're smarter than that.
Well two things (Score:5, Insightful)
1) In war, the same rules don't apply. There are rules, but they are different. For the "world rules of war" you can see the Geneva Conventions, though that doesn't cover everything and indeed fighters like bin Laden that do not wear a uniform and attempt to disguise themselves as civilians aren't covered by many of the protections. For more specific US rules you can see the Rules of Engagement. Regardless, wartime rules are different than peacetime rules. You don't have to agree with that idea, but you can't very well claim it isn't how it works, it has been that way in every nation for basically all of history and is codified in national and international law.
2) To get your chance at a fair trial, you have to not shoot the people that come to get you. Apparently there was a firefight and it was one that bin Laden and his people lost. You shoot at troops, or at police, they'll shoot back. They take the Malcom Renoylds advice to heart: "Someone ever tries to kill you, you try to kill 'em right back!" This is true in the civilian/police world as well. If the police come to arrest you for a crime and you and your body guards open fire on them, they'll fire back. They'll then bring in more heavily armed police, and if you keep shooting, they'll eventually kill you. You want your fair trial you need to surrender.
You'll notice that Saddam Hussein did surrender to US forces when found and he was brought in alive. He was either unarmed or threw down his weapons and surrendered. Per the rules of war, he was then captured and not killed. He got his trial, which of course did not end well for him.
You can't honestly say that US troops should have just sat there, gotten shot, and not shot back can you? You really think that they could or should be given the order "Go in and capture everyone alive, no matter what. Doesn't matter how many of you die, no lethal force, just keep going in until they run out of bullets and you can take them alive." Hell no, if they got fired on, they had a right to fire back and the idea that you can shoot someone to knock the gun out of their hand is pure action movie BS. You shoot to kill.
Re:Wasn't he already reported dead? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the audio tapes were more because he had a close call due to video, and the US was dumb enough to talk about it on TV. I can't find a link to it but there was a new segment where they were talking about all the things they could glean from these video messages. My bet is bin Laden (or his security guy) said "Oh shit! So that's how they've come so close! No more video then, audio only."
Re:Oh goody, another ten years then (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:You just proved his point (Score:3, Insightful)
The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings alone took 150k-246k (mostly civilian) lives.
But this is a lost battle for me, so believe what you want to believe. Just the fact people need to discuss who kills more innocents should be enough to show neither side has much regard for human life.
Re:bye bye bin (Score:2, Insightful)
This is Slashdot. Some scholars think the term "Great Satan" for America was actually coined *here*.
Re:Weird (Score:3, Insightful)
Undiluted evil?
Perhaps your youth plays a role in that opinion. I'm not too much older than you, I was in high school at the time, but there's a big difference between a fifth grader and a high schooler. On 9/11/2001 I blamed America for what happened. I blamed America for supporting Israel no matter what they did. I blamed America for building military bases in every country we could force our way into. I blamed America for getting involved in the Soviet Union/Afghanistan conflict. I blamed America for having a bloated military.
We acted like an imperialist bully and still do.
Osama bin Laden deserved to be brought to justice for what he did, but he didn't kill for the sake of killing. He killed because he believed it was the right thing to do. Undiluted evil is a serial killer like Jeffrey Dahmer. The way I look at it, Osama bin Laden is no more evil than George W. Bush. They both cost the world untold destruction, death, and insecurity because of their ideological stubbornness. They both declared each other to be the devil and believed it. That's worse than undiluted evil, it's diluted evil. It's diluted by the silly conviction that the battle is being fought for a good cause.
Re:bye bye bin (Score:4, Insightful)
The giant was not sleeping. What reality are you living in? Or do you like to cling to this fantasy because it helps you think that you are on the side of right and justice? It's pretty convenient to believe that because it avoids a lot of cognitive dissonance.
The reality is more like the giant was hard at work sticking its thumbs in everyone else's pie. An example would be the very fact that Bin Laden was armed and trained by the USA back in the 80s when Bin Laden was a good guy because he was fighting the russkies for us. That's just 1 pie. There are probably 50 others you can use as an example for that period or after.
Nope, the giant's been pretty busy at work being an imperialist bastard.
The only difference between "terror" and justice or liberation or whatever misleading labels the propaganda industry uses on death and killing is who is committing it. When we do it, it's "liberation" or "intervention" or whatever and when they do it, it's terror.
Re:Well two things (Score:4, Insightful)
Would Pakistan allow that?
Remember that this was not the US operating in the US, they were operating in a foreign country, one who's citizens are not precisely US fans. While it sounds like Pakistan signed off on the raid I'm betting it was a tacit agreement, a sort of "Well we can't actually support this but for some reason there will be no police and military in that area that night and our radar operators will act like they work for the FAA and be asleep on the job."
A long siege would require direct Pakistani involvement. At the least, they'd have to provide security to keep the populace away from the US forces, and they might well have to execute the operation themselves.
If he had been hiding out in the woods in Colorado, sure then I'd say this is the way to handle it. Send in the police and siege him till he gives up. Hell, treat him like a common criminal, don't give him the status of being someone who the military goes after. He's not a fighter he's a thug. However that wasn't the case. He was in Pakistan, a country with all kinds of problems when it comes to this. You do what you can do to get his ass, dead or alive.
Also at this point I'm not sure his intelligence is of all that much value. He had been a figurehead for a long time, not a field commander. That still means getting him is important, figureheads matter or we'd not have them, but it means that any information he might have is not as useful as it once was.
I'm not saying that taking him alive wouldn't have been better, but I'm realistic about the chances of that. I'm sure the orders were not "And he must be taken alive!" as that would be silly. More likely it was "And take him alive if it is reasonably practical."
Re:Scumbag President(s) (Score:4, Insightful)
Right to a fair trial (Guantanamo detainees).
Right to privacy (wiretapping).
Right to travel (indiscriminate no-fly listing).
The right of congress, not the president, to declare war (Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists - congress' own damn fault for signing this one away, still illegal though).
Re:So much for a fair trial. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure "choice" is a fair word to use.
In a perfect world, sure, I'm certain that the US gov't would have preferred to grab him alive, milk him dry for intel, and then have him found guilty in a trial and executed.
However:
- his capture would simply have resulted in an uncountable number of abductions of US citizens, mostly innocents, in an effort to trade them for his release. How would YOU like to have been the American president faced with telling Mr and Mrs Smith that their little Johnny or Joanna was just BEHEADED on Al-Jazeera when you could have traded this single, nearly-irrelevant, stinky old man for them?
- further, his capture would have opened up a whole new round of deep hand-wringing about how we 'dare' treat him. Could we dare make him uncomfortable, or would that be "inhumane"? Is forcing him to hear Backstreet Boyz for 24 hours a day cruel and/unusual?
- his trial would quite likely have been a mockery of grandstanding and posturing - offering him a world stage he's been too afraid to step up to for the last 10 years.
- finally, in reality, what are the odds that he really was going to EVER be captured? He was not a luxury-loving sybarite like Saddam Hussein, whose narcissism made it likely that - at the end - he wouldn't take himself out. Osama was a different creature, having fought in his 20s with the mujahedeen, and having walked AWAY from wealth and luxury in favor of hardship in pursuit of a 'cause'. Seriously, what is the real likelihood that he could have been so totally surprised and immobilized in less than the 0.5 seconds it would have taken him to put a bullet through the roof of his own mouth?
As I mentioned above, organizationally he's probably largely irrelevant; but symbols matter - and his extinction lends credibility to the near-magical capabilities of American intel-gathering amongst the Al-Qaeda faithful, as well as a useful air of implacability to the resolution of the US gov't, even across administrations.
So no, I doubt it was a "choice" by anyone, except OBL himself. Good riddance to him.
Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:4, Insightful)
According to the following article and United Nations report (linked below) the Taliban were responsible for 76% of civilian deaths in Afghanistan in 2009. NATO were responsible for 12% (although the media likes to pump it up as if NATO are the bad dudes). That's a ratio of 13:2, plus the Taliban will kill indiscriminately, take hostages as human shields (they consider 'involuntary matyrdom' of civilians as acceptable), and seize villagers as 'wives'. NATO generally tries to avoid killing civilians, unless they are within a compound there are armed Taliban in (likely to be wives and children of Taliban members than can't be separated from the gunmen). Then there is the classic Afghan trick of claiming 'casualties' in a village when in fact a goat has been killed (they get financial compensation from NATO for villagers killed, but not for goats - apparently this is a scam that the Afghans are all to happy to use on foreigners).
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/taliban-responsible-76-deaths-afghanistan-un [weeklystandard.com]
Thanks for asking with an open mind - wish more people were like that.
Pics, or it didn't happen. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, here's the problem. Let's say that there actually was a successful raid which led to the killing of bin Laden.
First, the body was buried at sea, according to the US military, which means there's no proof he's actually dead. In other words, he's going to turn into the Elvis of Islamic terrorism. Either there is a conspiracy, and he's not dead, or conspiracy theorists will claim that he's still alive somewhere. We live in a world where (some) people believe that the President of the United States forged his own birth certificate with the collusion of the state of Hawaii; you think a 19-year-old terrorist recruit in Whatthefuckistan is gonna just take the word of the United States government that the leader of Al Qaeda was buried at sea?
Second, I guarantee that within two days a new bin Laden tape will be released. The guy had less value as a strategist than he did as a symbol, and I'll bet that there are pre-recorded tapes yet unreleased, and that there will be audio tapes with a "voice purported to be Osama bin Laden". Probably talking up Ayman al-Zawahiri as the operational leader of AQ.
Third, while there is potent symbolism for the West in killing bin Laden, keep in mind that he headed an organization which advocated suicide bombing as a tactic. Bin Laden's death is going to make him a martyr in the world of radical Islamic terror. While there may not be a single figure that can replace him right now, there are plenty of other affiliated groups, with plenty of other members, and a successful attack can be planned and carried out by an uncharismatic moron just as easily. For that matter, an unsuccessful attack can have a significant impact, too. Ask Richard Reed.
Fourth, to the West, this looks like the USA is still the baddest motherfucker around, and we always get our man. To people who live in Pakistan, the Middle East, and other, non-Western places, this looks like the only superpower in the world spent ten years and billions of dollars to kill one guy who pissed it off, in a campaign culminating in the use of clandestine intelligence and spec ops, in someone else's country. How's that for international diplomacy?
I'm not saying I'm sad the guy's dead, because I'm not. I think it's great. I just wish he'd gotten hit by a truck, or ate some bad dates or something. I have a strong feeling that this is not going to make our lives any easier.
Re:Oh goody, another ten years then (Score:3, Insightful)
> Thinking the death of Bin Laden will change anything is like
> thinking the death of Roosevelt in 1945 meant the end of WW2.
It means the USA can credibly claim "mission accomplished" and get the hell out of Afghanistan. As long as he was still breathing, there was simply no politically viable exit strategy.
Re:bye bye bin (Score:4, Insightful)
Bin laden was never trained or funded by the US in the 80's.
That's pretty much not true. Bin Laden, while he did use his own funds as well, was a Mujahadeen leader and it's pretty well established that the Mujahadeen were given vast sums of money and arms to fight the Russians (indirectly via Pakistan).
Google around to see that lots of people agree Bin Laden was a CIA asset at one point. That fact is politically embarrassing but plainly true.
Also, I stand by my definition that the weapon of the US government is terrorism. It's just not called that when they do it. They sometimes call it liberation or exporting democracy. (which is pretty ridiculous but what's more ridiculous is that the population buys it).
Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Formalities (Score:4, Insightful)
Who precisely are we supposed to declare war on? You declare wars on countries. Even when it was running Afghanistan, the Taliban wasn't even running the whole country and it had almost no recognition anywhere.
Declarations of war are courtesies between nation-states who maintain diplomatic relations and who actually attempt to negotiate with one another in good faith. For terrorist groups, you either ask the country that they are sheltering in to get them, or you ask permission to get them yourselves, if they can't pull it off. If there is no government, you just go and get them.
The OP point is still valid. These guys don't wear uniforms. If there was a government that could handle actual law enforcement, we probably would ask Afghan law enforcement to arrest them and turn them over. As it stands, the very idea of that is currently a bad joke and will be until we secure the country and the Afghans figure out how to not be corrupt and borderline useless in running their own country.
Killing civilians is a terrible thing, but the reason that they are dying is the one of the reasons that terrorists are so awful, even to their own people. Uniforms are worn so that the enemy knows who is fighting them, and who is not. If they did wear uniforms, and acted in an manner that followed various conventions and laws of war, they would probably be treated better when captured, and fewer of their own civilians would be killed.
Of course saying that the killed civilians are "their" civilians isn't even true. The terrorists don't care about anyone outside their own group. Their neighbors are just human meat shields for them. If those same meat shields were not ignorant of the Taliban or al Queda's true nature, they probably wouldn't have the sympathy for the terrorist groups that they do. In the end, there are probably more people alive today, despite the collateral damage, than there would be if people like the Taliban were allowed to keep running their own little patch of Hell. Neighbors are much more efficient at killing civilians than any military. Just look at some of the places we haven't launched Hellfire missiles in, like Sudan or Rwanda.
Re:Oh goody, another ten years then (Score:4, Insightful)
I hope that book was not saying that the death of Franz Ferdinand didn't change the world. From what I can tell, it was pretty much the most pivotal single act of the entire 20th Century, if you realize that it directly started WWI, and through the loss of WWI turned Germany into a state bent on revenge and world domination and allowed the Communists to take over in Russia.
Of course, I don't think the assassin actually meant for things to go down that way, which might be the point of the book, but sometimes killing one person can have a huge effect. Not to mention he did manage to indirectly topple the Hapsburgs, even if they pretty much did that to themselves by overreacting and trying to get a little Serbian soil out of it.
As for Osama, the very manner of his death could have a larger meaning that we cannot predict. History does have a number of examples where killing a leader does end the movement. While considered very, very unlikely, this *could* be the end of al-Queda due to an unforeseeable chain reaction.
However, the facts are that being a martyrdom-based group, all leaders of these terrorist groups will likely be expected to die eventually, even if the leaders really had no intentions of seeking out martyrdom. That means that the rank and file terrorists should be able to fit the death into their world-view and not crumble because they lost their leader.
The real question is how much they relied on his reputation for being elusive and uncatchable to maintain high morale, and what his role in operating the group was. If he was more directly in charge of operations, this could cause at least a partial disorganization, even if a decapitation did not happen. If he was more like the Queen of England, a figurehead, then al-Queda will probably maintain full capabilities and now just be really pissed off.
Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:3, Insightful)
That's his point. Terrorists and criminals desecrate bodies. Evil people desecrate bodies. If the US really wants to show itself to be on the side of Good and Right, then the US needs to hold itself to standards of decency. If the US goes around desecrating the enemy just because the enemy did it to us once, then the rest of the world will see no difference between the two.
You tell the good guys from the bad guys because the good guys have principles. They're not willing to resort to any means necessary in pursuit of their ends. Symbolic desecration of vanquished or captured foes serves only to strengthen the resolve of remaining foes and to turn neutral parties in favor of the foes.