Osama Bin Laden

[DRII]

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?

With all due respect, I find your statements to be credulous and sophomoric.

First off, the wild celebrations you and others speak of, were largely at ground zero and Washington DC, areas directly affected by 9-11. Also those were not celebrations of death (and certainly not the deaths of civilians) but of justice and closure. Why is it hard for you to understand the upwelling of emotion when the perpetrator/initiator of the worst attack on the continental USA, who reached an almost mythical status in many parts of the world, is finally captured or killed?

And believe me, the reaction of the USA, after 9-11 and OBL's death, has been relatively muted. Imagine if 9-11 happened to Russia or China or even Britain or France, and either nation were the uni-polar super power in the world! I am sure we would have seen just as much, probably much more, collateral damage at this point! And I didn't even agree with the policies of the Bush administration after 9-11! I felt, and still do, that he was an incompetent cowboy and was a disaster for America that will take decades to recover from, if we recover.

However, i still find the critique of you and others to be overly naive and approaching apathetic.

[Chederer]

How I dislike derogatory statements about Bush...he may have not been the best president, but he did a lot in protecting this country and standing up for the people. Yes, the economy is in shambles at the moment. But, this is not directly from Bush alone. The economy will recover when we stop spending trillions of dollars on meaningless products in the war. As soon as we pull our troops out and get them home our economy will be on top once again.

[Chederer]

whoops...can someone erase this?

[SlicerITST]

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.

Do you have some time? Detailing the entire history between the two nations would take too much time. In the end the roots of the conflict lie in the hostility between Hindus and Muslims yes. Although i am sure this oversimplifies the issue too much.

[beltic caldy]

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.

Do you have some time? Detailing the entire history between the two nations would take too much time. In the end the roots of the conflict lie in the hostility between Hindus and Muslims yes. Although i am sure this oversimplifies the issue too much.

lol!!! that's a good question - part of the former British Empire's divide-and-conquer policy, in one sense - have a read at this Chederer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India

[Chederer]

okay...okay, this makes much more sense to me now. guess i never really took the time to realize the situation over there.

[DRII]

Hey Beltic Caldy,

I know I ridiculed you in part due to your conspiracy theories. But, if the Obama administration does not release the photos of OBL's death, then I will start to have some serious doubts. Its been reported that Obama has decided not to...

All I know is, somebody needs to release something, (something real!).

He's already cloaked in enough mystery! He promised to be transparent, perhaps he should start now!

[Chederer]

I know OBL deserves no form of respect. If Obama decided to do this it would cause major uproar around the globe. Showing a dead body is just not something you do.

[Bowler2151]

here comes all the conspiracies...

[beltic caldy]

Hey Beltic Caldy,

I know I ridiculed you in part due to your conspiracy theories. But, if the Obama administration does not release the photos of OBL's death, then I will start to have some serious doubts. Its been reported that Obama has decided not to...

All I know is, somebody needs to release something, (something real!).

He's already cloaked in enough mystery! He promised to be transparent, perhaps he should start now!

As i said previously, I'm not saying Bin Laden hasn't been killed (unarmed now it seems....hmmmmm....execution without a trial?) - but again, as before i'm just trying to keep an open, contextualised mind and not join in the media-powered frenzy framed in language like 'terrorists' and 'insurgents', bearing in mind these terms are subjective in reality - todays rebel/freedom-fighter/insurgent is tomorrows founding-father/establishment - on the other hand, the slaying of humans is objective - it's wrong, ethically and morally - if America seriously purports and wants to take the higher moral ground, this is simply not the way to go about it.

Rob - I disagreed with you on one point, while taking pretty much everything else you've had to say on this on board and agreeing with much - I simply don't accept that burying Bin Laden at sea was the right thing to do, under any guise - you cited the main reason, as you saw it, as respect for his religion, or the tenets of his religion - I'm pretty sure Islam doesn't hold much favour in getting executed by an enemy, yet this was pretty much not respected by his killers - ok ok, that's a facetious example - but consider this angle: Bin Laden is or was wanted around the world for terrorist activities and conspiracies surrounding them, right? What honest-to-god right did America have disposing (the dead body) of an international criminal (if you will) without consulting the other countries who were after him for these crimes? If Bin Laden had been executed in France, or lets take a more interesting example and say Iran or Libya by the special forces of one of those countries and the body dropped in the sea in a weighted bag, how do you think America might have reacted? I suggest that they would have been unhappy, to say the least and would have been pretty quick to demand evidence of an irrefutable kind.

This line about Obama not releasing pictures i see as nothing more than a gambit - i suspect they will be released in a few days/weeks, but will prove or change nothing. A known, unarmed criminal/terrorist was executed without trial when I am certain that other options existed - and then the main evidence, if you will, was essentially flushed - if they want to convince me, they're going to have to come up with something a whole pile better than 'we were observing islamic beliefs' or such nonsense.

[Chederer]

Obama shouldn't have to provide pictures to the public. I am very sure all peoples that are in a high rank in various countries have seen the pictures. It would be a disgrace in my opinion to show the whole world a dead body of Bin Laden.

[beltic caldy]

Obama shouldn't have to provide pictures to the public. I am very sure all peoples that are in a high rank in various countries have seen the pictures. It would be a disgrace in my opinion to show the whole world a dead body of Bin Laden.

Why are you sure? There have been no statements from any world figures or UN senior's that i've heard? I'm not interested in seeing the body of an executed man - I AM interested in credible statements from trustworthy or at least third-party credible sources that they HAVE seen evidence, and trust it.

It's a fair and interesting point - how you tastefully prove that a distasteful, arguably wrongful killing actually took place - I don't have the answer, but if you believe it was an ugly act, then perhaps ugly pictures are one avenue to pursue - or, you could get the media to beat the drum and wave the flag and thus strongly disencourage such 'unpatriotic' thinking/talking.

I genuinely don't know - video would be best, i suppose, although very easy to fudge/fake/stage - in the absence of that, or statements from aforementioned who saw photo-evidence, statements from sworn-in officials from outside America who saw the body.

[tigerofintegrity]

Obama shouldn't have to provide pictures to the public. I am very sure all peoples that are in a high rank in various countries have seen the pictures. It would be a disgrace in my opinion to show the whole world a dead body of Bin Laden.

Because the public are just expected to have blind faith in everything a higher organisation says and does? The more power you have, the more you should have to justify your views and actions to prove that the power isn't being abused.

I fail to see why that would be a disgrace. Because it's undignified? It's not like they're cutting off his head, sticking it on a pole and waving it around. It's just photographic evidence of a dead body. People die, dead bodies happen, they're not meant to look pretty... people see them on CSI every week.

[beltic caldy]

here comes all the conspiracies...

nice artwork - do me a favour though, and spare me the act of disagreeing with the presented events as an opportunity to mislabel such people as 'conspiracy theorists'? It's a short-cut to thinking and a discredit to freedom of thought and expression.

out of interest, or not, the oxford dictionary defines conspiracy thus: a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful - i don't think i need to define theory for anyone here - so, conspiracy theory thus, according to the oxford definition is a theory surrounding a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful/harmful - correct me if I'm wrong, but that definition matches exactly with the actual events as depicted by the media?

[djarvik]

I am definitely with Beltic and tigerofintegrity on this one. An I am a 9/11 survivor along with my father.

I just cant process / justify (or whatever the word) the events that unfolded and are unfolding. Just can't accept it in the current form. And I am nowhere near "conspiracy theorist".