obama confirms osama bin laden is dead

As much as I can understand and accept the arguments put forward regarding the celebration of another human's death, one can't but help feel fucking pleased that this evil, vile looking reprobate has been killed.  I defy anyone to say that, despite his beliefs, that fucker wasn't terrified as the hitmen piled in - it's human nature.  I hope he was as petrified as the thousands he killed were.  And I don't care what people think of me for feeling that way.

Who said you can't take a bin out on a bank holiday???

What we Indians knew all along, the worl realizes now. Pakistanis a untrustworthy lot. America gifted billions every year to Pakistan and they spent it on "fighting terror" by supplying arms and ammunition to the terrorists. And while looked high and low for osama, turned out he was enjoying the hospitality to the common friend.

[QUOTE]
Donna wrote:
It is too bad they were not able to capture him alive for questioning purposes[/QUOTE]

The questioning would not have helped in anyway. Remember how Saddam was caught alive, and they had months in hand to question him, but still could not find out where his weapons of mass destruction were? ;-)

"Is it OK if from now on every kid can tell their teacher 'I did my homework but my dog ate it' and everybody's got to take their word for it? After all, that's what Obama's telling the world..."

I suppose for every million children who use that excuse, there might be one or two who genuinely fell upon that circumstance.  Allegedly, the whole thing is on helmet-cam - I think it's handy that they hold onto it.  For a couple of decades, people of limited intelligence who only believe what they see with their own two eyes (ie. moon landing conspiracists, JFK speculators) and then, once they've had their fun, the video can come out and clear it all up.  The video will be authentic, but then people can argue for eternity over whether it's fake or not.

I'm being hypothetical, but my point is that whether Osama's dead or not (he probably is), it has the potential for an awful lot of fun.

It's not (always) about limited intelligence, Zeb. Sometimes conspiracy theorists DO have a point (just like the one or two in a million kids whose homework WAS eaten by the dog). He may be dead, or he may not be. I mean, ever seen a politician lying?

"Sometimes conspiracy theorists DO have a point"

Indeed!  I was more referring to the unfortunates that tend to debate things which are established fact.  When you take some of the more fun conspiracy topics - The Moon Landings, and 9/11 - there's a lot of stuff one can argue about.  Unfortunately, there's a tendency for the unscientific among us to continue to debate theories which are implausible; things that have been explained rationally.  People tend to interpret my attitude as ignorance - far from it!  If someone's got new evidence that we didn't land on the Moon, then I'd love to have a look.  But as of writing, there is no evidence that it was faked.  Every theory (without exception) has been debunked, or at the very least has multiple explanations.  It's much the same with 9/11.  There's a myriad of scientific reasoning behind a lot of what happened, and for the rest of it, there are multiple explanations - which simply would not be the case if the conspiracy were really all that effective.  That uncertainty works both ways, of course - which keeps some people very busy indeed - but the fact is that uncertainty cannot be used as proof of a conspiracy.

Like I keep telling these guys, I love a good debate about things that have not yet been figured out.  Were the pilots of the planes really CIA guys?  Who knows!  I couldn't tell you.  But there's a lot we do know - about the lunar landings, about JFK, about 9/11 - and I get a little tired of seeing these things debated when the debate is over, when there's no new evidence to discuss.  It comes down to people boldface refusing to believe established facts, and that's not helpful to anyone.  Hence my use of the words 'limited intelligence'.  It wasn't meant to be insulting - indeed, I understand psychological reasons for people going for a lot of this guff, so perhaps it's a bit much to accuse anyone of being 'stupid'.  There are underlying causes for people clinging to shit, even once it's been solidly disproved.

Like I've tried to say, though - when there is new evidence of anything, or where there is room for doubt - I love conspiracy theories.  They range from intriguing to entertaining to downright amusing.  And it has to be said that, in the absence of dead Osama photos and helmet-camera footage, there's plenty of room at the moment for people to have their say.  But there's a sort of Schroedinger's Cat thing going on here.  In that compound in Abbottabad, certain things happened.  Our not knowing what happened doesn't really mean anything.  Until someone makes a convincing Freedom of Information case for releasing stuff from the raid, this isn't going to change.

ParisNair wrote: What we Indians knew all along, the worl realizes now. Pakistanis a untrustworthy lot. America gifted billions every year to Pakistan and they spent it on "fighting terror" by supplying arms and ammunition to the terrorists. And while looked high and low for osama, turned out he was enjoying the hospitality to the common friend.
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Sure, take this opportunity to spew your gall and incite ethnic hatred. Of course, it's every Pakistani's fault that Bin Laden lived in a compound near Islamabad. And sure, because their secret service is untrustworthy, every Pakistani is too. NEWSFLASH: there are *no* decent people in *any* intelligence agency *anywhere* in the world. Nor are intelligence agencies very competent. We like to think so, and they like us to think so, but they are not. Odds are, they really didn't know.

The fact that you are abusing this to be racist about Pakistanis just shows what kind of unpleasant creature you are yourself.

Wasn't there a saying about not hiding being the best form of hiding or something like that? Maybe that's what happened. Retrospectively, he should've been 'easy' to find but maybe at the moment it wasn't quite like that. Or maybe it was... they're both feasible options.

And yes, a lot of times intelligence agencies contradict their own definition.

ParisNair wrote: What we Indians knew all along, the worl realizes now. Pakistanis a untrustworthy lot. America gifted billions every year to Pakistan and they spent it on "fighting terror" by supplying arms and ammunition to the terrorists. And while looked high and low for osama, turned out he was enjoying the hospitality to the common friend.
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Anybody who doesn't like the tone of this should check it against some of the anti-American sentiment in this thread.  In both cases there is some truth and some history there, but  there is also glib oversimplification in service of beliefs established long before.

emrabt wrote: There are higher moral imperatives than law and order, and if one is willing to see things as they must appear through American eyes, the killing of bin Laden may be just such a situation.
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I've said it before in this thread and i'll say it now, Hypocrites the lot of them, By this logic Bush and Obama need to be shot dead, for sending people to war and killing innocents. Your argument is one of the most, poorly thought out, stupid things i have ever read. it boils down to "it's right because america say it's okay."
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It boils down to no such thing.  Which part is poorly thought out and stupid?  Is recognizing that Americans have a distinct perspective and distinct relationship with the history here poorly thought out and stupid?  I'd say not. That there are higher moral imperatives than law and order?  I think that's demonstratably true.  In fact in formal theories of moral development, law and order driven moral reasoning is barely past middling.  I think it has to be at least considered that that thinking is too small and too inherently limited for this unique situation.

It needs to be a least considered too that the killing of bin Laden served universal human ethics more important than fastidious adherence to international law.  That outside of American intention and motive a greater good for the greater number of people was achieved by his certain death than would have been otherwise through the emotional divisiveness of extended detention at Guantanamo and a necessarily farcical trial. Of course the questions have to be asked, and the US must answer them, but the world has the option of recognizing that the Americans had every right to pursue him to the ends of the earth and that the Navy SEALs really didn't owe this man a one iota of unnecessary personal risk.

I think people should be skeptical of governments, but unfortunately people tend to just outright deny anything the government tells them.  Maybe that's the safest bet when you consider how often we get lied to, but ultimately they can't be lying *all of the time*.  It seriously would not work.  What I'm getting at is that being properly skeptical means that you'll examine what's put forward, and then make your decision about its veracity - you don't just plug your ears with your fingers and say "gnah gnah gnah, they lied before so this must also be a lie".

In any case, Pakistan hasn't done anything to earn my trust in this affair.  Bin Laden just chilling in a military town?  I'll buy that they didn't know he was there - but there'd have to be a pretty great explanation forthcoming.

Weird.  Both my and Zebonka's posts are timestamped 9:11.

@ MagicalF - I do not blame you for your feelings - revenge, triumph, satisfaction or whatever else. Victims of crimes feel that wish for revenge, it's natural. But a government MUST obey the rules of law, it cannot go uncriticized when a democratic country disregards national and international laws only because it's convenient. Revenge can never be a higher value than the rule of law or "law and order" as GFF puts it so derogatorily. Each one of us can become a target of unlawful actions by a government if we are unlucky - if someone mixes us up with a suspect we might get kidnapped and vanish in a torture prison with no legal help for ten years - and this is not propaganda, it has actually happened. Being proud of your country is all nice and well but what if the government turns against you? I know the George Carlin bit Zebonka referred to - he said that there are no citizen rights, just privileges which can be taken away in a second as anyone can see when he googles "Japanese Americans in the 2nd world war". As citizens we have to defend our rights against the governments who want to take them from us.

Only because governments have broken the law in the past does not give anyone the right to break it now and continue to break it now. I am not anti-American, I am pro-legality and pro-democracy. When President Obama was elected we were all very pleased hoping he would put an end to the cowboy policies of the Bush-Cheney regime but unfortunately he did not close Guantanamo and now he did not put justice higher than revenge - this is very unfortunate for the whole world. We can hope that something good comes out of the killing of Osama Bin Laden - maybe the war in Afghanistan will end now but there is no victory over terrorism. Victory would mean that the  values of the West win over the brutality of the terrorists. Just killing a terrorist is not a victory, it's just another killing.

With respect, YV, I don't see this as 'revenge' any more than I see local police arresting - or killing in the process of arresting - a murderer as revenge. It's bringing a criminal to justice. I also don't see how the US disregarded national or international law by carrying out this mission. And THIS mission is what I've been talking about. US troops were already in Pakistan with Pakistani permission. Some were lingering from August of 2010 and some were/are specifically there to train Pakistani forces. The US was already on the ground and in communication re. al Qaeda with Pakistani officials. CIA operatives occupied a home within view of the compound for months before this mission was launched. There was and is - though it may not be openly admitted - cooperation between the US and Pakistan. No international laws were broken in this mission.

And I can honestly say I do not feel satisfaction from this. I feel that indeed some justice has been done because the figurehead of an vicious gang has been taken down. But this was only one battle in a very long war. There will be times I'll feel relief and times I'll feel more concerned. However, after the horrors this organization has unleashed on the world, I doubt I - or any other American - will ever feel triumphant.

Many of your other points are very well taken - and for the most part, I agree with them. In this case, however, I stand by my earlier sentiments. I'm proud of my country and the Navy Seals for their handling of THIS mission and am not sorry in the least that this bloody devil has been destroyed.

"he did not put justice higher than revenge"

Really? I wonder how you come to that conclusion. Some elements of the Palistan govt and military are cooperating with the US and the West; some actively oppose the US and the West. The lines aren't always clear. I'm making the assumption you believe the US has no legal authority to operate within Pakistan; however, the Pakistan govt. allows the US to operate within its territory in operations against the Taleban and AQ. Because there is such hostility to this from elements of the Pakistan military and intelligence services, the Pakistan govt. has occasionally to make a public statement denouncing American actions. In the meantime, it condones and supports American military action within its borders. What we're seeing at the moment  is probably an exaggerated version of that, with a lot of "soul searching" (lol) from the Pakistan military that they couldn't find OBL and a bit of bitching from their Govt about the USA. Behind the scenes, both the US and Pakistan govt are probably cooperating quite closely. Don't you think that this topic has come up before now, for example? More than likely, various scenarios for the capture/killing of OBL have been worked out between the US and Pakistan. Once he was found, one of these scenarios was enacted, and the subsequent media stories that we're now seeing have all been planmed well in advance, including the Pakistan govt's fake indignation and (some of) the Pakistan military's fake "shock" that OBL was hiding in Pakistan. On another level, I wonder if you think OBL was murdered ("revenge") rather than (for want of a better term) "killed in action". He has said he wouldn't  be taken alive and that's how it turned out. He is the equivalent of a Japanese soldier on Iwo Jima in 1945, determined not to surrender, with US soldiers equally detemined not to let him surrender. Were US Marines criminals for not accepting the surrender of Japanese soldiers who had demonstrated their willingness to kill themselves as long as they killed some Americans too? Similarly, should a US Navy SEAL have risked his life to try to arrest OBL when the safer option was to kill him? Surely Bin Laden, through his previous actions and stated intentions, gave up his right to be given the benefit of the doubt in a life or death situation like this.