Osama Bin Laden

[beltic caldy]

if believing some of the shameful behaviour i've witnessed since this event constitutes naivety and folly, then I would rather be simple fool.

[jayl0ve]

I don't have the energy for a real response. All I can say is I guess we're just different kinds of people, because I have no problem with 'murdering' as you call it, these kinds of hideous people.

I'm not ecstatic or anything, that this man has been killed, but I'm definitely not sad and I definitely don't see a damn thing wrong with it.

I don't even know if I totally believe in 'good' and 'evil', like I don't think we got rid of some Evil Guy and Good has won the day, or some BS like that. I just don't see anything wrong with him being dead no matter how it happened, also I'm a little incensed at the way Pakistan has been harboring this guy so shamelessly.

[Sherlock 117]

that's one possible answer Sherlock - for legal confirmation of death in most countries, a couple of things are required - identification of the body by authenticated known relative/friend (who has to provide normal ID etc), and a death certificate - I can tell you for a fact...a fact that if, his wife, for example (bad example in this situation perhaps) went to claim/cash in his life-insurance in this situation, the insurance company would laugh her out the door...
.......

Well, time will tell, but my guess is there were "outside" witnesses and is sufficient evidence of the death. I'm not surprised it hasn't been released publicly though.

Sorry, but I don't really understand the point of your post in response to mine.

[beltic caldy]

i hear you and we will likely have to agree to disagree - i'm just very very cautious about forming strong conclusions based on heavily biased news reports - from any particular side - rather i prefer to listen to all, without emotion and make my own mind up - these reports are becoming more and more emotive-entertainment in content and style, and why?

why why why?

perhaps the world is a safer, better place with a skilled 'terrorist' no longer in it - but wouldn't capture/trial/prison have been better? Or wouldn't a highly dignified 'it had to be done' line have been preferable? This action, and the response to it...well...it's hard to see how a thousand new 'terrorists' didn't just get created when it could so very easily have been otherwise.

apologies if i've offended - the line about 'blowing pakistan back to the Stone Age' just narked me - sorry again.

Have a look at a film sometime called 'The Fog of War', by Robert McNamara - former US Secretary of Defense (during the Cuban Missile Crisis) - he has some very enlightening perspectives on war and foreign policy stuff - highly recommended man

[beltic caldy]

that's one possible answer Sherlock - for legal confirmation of death in most countries, a couple of things are required - identification of the body by authenticated known relative/friend (who has to provide normal ID etc), and a death certificate - I can tell you for a fact...a fact that if, his wife, for example (bad example in this situation perhaps) went to claim/cash in his life-insurance in this situation, the insurance company would laugh her out the door...
.......

Well, time will tell, but my guess is there were "outside" witnesses and is sufficient evidence of the death. I'm not surprised it hasn't been released publicly though.

Sorry, but I don't really understand the point of your post in response to mine.

You seemed to finish your post with a hypothesis as to why he was supposedly buried at sea Sherlock....I was merely attempting to suggest an alternate hypothesis....

[Sherlock 117]

that's one possible answer Sherlock - for legal confirmation of death in most countries, a couple of things are required - identification of the body by authenticated known relative/friend (who has to provide normal ID etc), and a death certificate - I can tell you for a fact...a fact that if, his wife, for example (bad example in this situation perhaps) went to claim/cash in his life-insurance in this situation, the insurance company would laugh her out the door...
.......

Well, time will tell, but my guess is there were "outside" witnesses and is sufficient evidence of the death. I'm not surprised it hasn't been released publicly though.

Sorry, but I don't really understand the point of your post in response to mine.

You seemed to finish your post with a hypothesis as to why he was supposedly buried at Sea Shelock....I was merely attempting to suggest an alternate hypothesis....

That he was buried at sea so his wife could not collect life insurance?

No, I get what you're saying, but I don't really see that hypothesis as holding water. There would be no point in burying him at sea for the specific reason to not leave any evidence behind. Or did I misinterpret?

[VillaJ100]

To be fair i think he's had a fairly dignified death considering his atrocities. Shot in the head - probably a instantaneous death, then buried respectfully. I can imagine a whole lot of people across the world would have wanted justice Mussolini style. Not many terrorist leaders get such a dignified death, apart from maybe Begin.

[beltic caldy]

That he was buried at sea so his wife could not collect life insurance?

No, I get what you're saying, but I don't really see that hypothesis as holding water. There would be no point in burying him at sea for the specific reason to not leave any evidence behind. Or did I misinterpret?

No man, that's pretty much what I was driving at - without a body, there can never be proof-positive.....why on earth would they do that? I'm not saying he hasn't been killed (and unarmed now it seems), but why not have had, I don't know UN inspectors or some believable third party confirm the identity? Barring Bin Laden appearing alive and well in the flesh somewhere, we can now never know for certain - why why why introduce that huge question mark? The logic of it escapes me - sure, maybe he was horribly mutilated by gunfire but even still - live-source DNA would have been fine - all we're left with now is what? Reports from the military and the media......

I do think it's likely he has been killed as the authorities could not risk him appearing at a later date - but there are unanswered oddities to the whole affair.....

[Rob ITST]

I'm not happy he was killed, and I didn't care for the celebrations, but...

1) I can understand the celebrations we saw. Keep in mind that this wasn't happening all across the country, but really only in New York and D.C. - so the people celebrating were likely to have been those most directly impacted by the September 11 attacks (lost family/friends/etc).

2) He was given the chance to surrender. Not surprising he didn't take that offer, as I'm sure he'd rather be killed in "battle" than rot in prison or be executed.

3) He would have been executed anyway, which would have sparked a whole other world-wide issue about whether or not the US should have capital punishment. He was killed in a military action - I think most people accept death in war as being all but unavoidable.

As far as Pakistan, I would not be surprised at all if we ever find out that they actually did turn him in. Pakistan basically had three options, politically speaking:

Claim to have turned him in - which would not have been well received by many in the Muslim/Arab community.

Claim to have known where he was, yet not turned him in - which would not be well received by pretty much anyone else in the world.

Claim ignorance - probably the easiest to swallow for everyone. Maybe the hardest to believe, but easier to accept.

[tigerofintegrity]

I just don't think that wild celebrations over the man's death is either necessary or smart. I mean, firstly it's incredibly hypocritical, regardless of whether you were directly affected by 9/11 or not. Don't forget, in order to get to this point where Bin Laden was killed, the US had to go through lots of innocent lives first. So in essence, Americans ended up inadvertently celebrating the murders of many innocent Pakistanis and Afghans. Now surely, if you were a victim of innocent murder, you wouldn't be happy to celebrate something that resulted in a lot of innocent lives being lost too right?

Secondly, what is the point of that other than to anger Al Qaeda and other related supporters? I mean, when extremists celebrated the 9/11 event, I bet that angered a lot of Americans and from that anger, they retaliated. Surely counter-celebrating is merely provoking the same response from the other side?

[Rob ITST]

I seriously doubt that any of the people celebrating were thinking "yeah, this'll piss those terrorists off".

I don't even think it was necessarily celebrating his death. Sure it was to some, but to others it was celebrating a victory - the guy managed to hide for nearly 10 years, so I'm sure there was a feeling of relief that the hunt was finally over.

As far as burying him so quickly, that was the right thing to do. Surely the people who made that decision knew that they were giving up the opportunity to show the body to the world, but his religion dictates that he should be buried as soon as possible. Maybe they were respecting his religion, or maybe they were just avoiding the criticism they would receive if they had not respected it - it doesn't really matter. Plus, we got a bunch of crap from people when Sadam Hussein's medical exam was shown, I could imagine the backlash if we had paraded Bin Laden's dead body around.

[jayl0ve]

Saddamn was treated much too well both immediately before and after his death. I hated all the people whining about the Saddam situation, it really made me sick...the guy gassed to death 300,000 of his own countrymen, I thought he deserved to have his corpse left in the desert for vultures.

You got me in a vendetta kind of mood, now....

[Chederer]

I'm not happy he was killed, and I didn't care for the celebrations, but...

1) I can understand the celebrations we saw. Keep in mind that this wasn't happening all across the country, but really only in New York and D.C. - so the people celebrating were likely to have been those most directly impacted by the September 11 attacks (lost family/friends/etc).

2) He was given the chance to surrender. Not surprising he didn't take that offer, as I'm sure he'd rather be killed in "battle" than rot in prison or be executed.

3) He would have been executed anyway, which would have sparked a whole other world-wide issue about whether or not the US should have capital punishment. He was killed in a military action - I think most people accept death in war as being all but unavoidable.

As far as Pakistan, I would not be surprised at all if we ever find out that they actually did turn him in. Pakistan basically had three options, politically speaking:

Claim to have turned him in - which would not have been well received by many in the Muslim/Arab community.

Claim to have known where he was, yet not turned him in - which would not be well received by pretty much anyone else in the world.

Claim ignorance - probably the easiest to swallow for everyone. Maybe the hardest to believe, but easier to accept.

Rob...these are all excellent statements...you pretty much took the words right out of my mouth and I thank you for that....I wanted to add a bit of personal experience from just the other day....I went into the store the other day and there was a new cashier that just moved here a few weeks ago. He told me he was from India in Punjab to be more precise. This guy just started going off about Pakistan and how they are the bad ones and they are the ones who screw everything up for everyone else. His exact words were F___ING!! PAKISTAN!!! and then I left---he also noted that Texas was beautiful and he loves "the country music"

[SlicerITST]

The relation between Pakistan and India is very bad so thats not that odd Chederer

[Chederer]

oh...okay---what is causing the conflict between the two? Religion? Because I am serious this guy was starting to scare me a bit about how bad he hated Pakistan.