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London Zoo: [Closed] Bin Laden Killed in Pakistan

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  1.  (9829.121)
    Yeah, my mechanic analogy is a bit extreme. Tempered point being, there was a length of time when catching him could be considered an example of truly great work, then just what an organization with our resources should be capable of, then just 'more likely to happen by luck or laziness on the other's part by now.' We were in the third stage five years ago. We also crossed, 'man he should have a least accidentally gotten eaten by a bear or something by now' in there.

    That doesn't mean that great work wasn't done, just that victorious cheering is excessive. Congratulatory gestures are entirely appropriate and let's give them to all our brave heroes etc. Again, just a distinction of decorum.
  2.  (9829.122)
    @Brian: Actually I have to argue that (by which I mean, I'm gonna say this, but don't want to argue anything at all). Considering that Osama was blatantly being shielded and protected by our ultimate frenemy Pakistan, putting us in a strange political situation, it was a little trickier than all that. If Pakistan was a true ally, we'd probably have caught or killed Osama six or seven years ago.
    • CommentAuthorOddcult
    • CommentTimeMay 2nd 2011
     (9829.123)
    Point taken, but I think there's an element of 'fucking finally...' in there too. Some of the celebration may be *because* it's taken so long and that bit's now over. I dunno... I'm struggling to find an appropriate analogy and only a crap one springs to mind, but it's sorta like when you've been trying to defeat that final boss level for a few months and then crack it.
    •  
      CommentAuthorHEY APATHY!
    • CommentTimeMay 2nd 2011 edited
     (9829.124)
    The people in the Twin Towers committed no crime against the people of Afghanistan, Pakistan, or which ever country the people you saw belonged to. They were victims

    I think we (the fat white business bastards) are all victims of our own selfish ideologies.
    Big business is destroying the world and is certainly committing crimes but none of us want to realize it or even care. Every time America/Western Civilization makes money people suffer, are enslaved and die and the ocean turns brown and plastic lives forever. THERE ARE NO HEROES NOR INNOCENTS HERE just a lot of ignorant selfish mutherfuckers fucking with each others lives.

    I've a friend who was a soldier in Afghanistan; it was his job to kill civilians, particularly women and children, with a flame thrower. He's home now and they gave him an award and a job with the fire department, it didn't last , neither did his marriage, now he spends his time wandering the streets and in and out of jail.

    I doubt the people he burnt to death are able to stay objective about this one either
  5.  (9829.125)
    Wow Apathy... there's a hell of a lot of bullshit in your comment there. But I'm not gonna step in it...
  6.  (9829.126)
    I'm glad the dude's dead.

    But he's still just one.dead.asshole. Symbolically it may be important, but otherwise, more important stuff is going on in the world.
    •  
      CommentAuthorrazrangel
    • CommentTimeMay 2nd 2011
     (9829.127)
    Dry-eyed look at the facts surrounding this mission and the possibilities now on deck re: al qaeda and Pakistan. New Yorker's Notes on the Death of Osama Bin Laden
    • CommentAuthorRenThing
    • CommentTimeMay 2nd 2011
     (9829.128)
    @doclivingston

    Seconded.
    •  
      CommentAuthorHEY APATHY!
    • CommentTimeMay 2nd 2011 edited
     (9829.129)
    I know i know none of us want to realize it or even care

    & I just really think more important stuff is going on in the world. back to making pizza
    •  
      CommentAuthorAlan Tyson
    • CommentTimeMay 2nd 2011
     (9829.130)
    Well, I'm predicting a thread closing by the end of the night, and speaking as the guy who started it, I'd welcome it. I think we've squeezed all the information out of the internet we can, and this thread has ended its usefulness.
  11.  (9829.131)
    Nobody saw that right? k good
    •  
      CommentAuthorHEY APATHY!
    • CommentTimeMay 2nd 2011 edited
     (9829.132)
    i did. you just said 3000 american deaths are worth more than the mistreatment of the entire 2 & 3rd world populus and the environment. in all honesty I just like to get people's blood flowing but I think the two issues are directly related and the later probably get's a higher body count in the long run



    EDIT so maybe you all won’t hate me too much: I had a teacher once who always had a counter point to any argument no matter how solid it might actually be. The idea was to put out as many questionable and yes even absurd ideas in hopes of achieving some sort of enlightenment. I think we can all agree that the world is pretty messed up and needs some new ideas. I like to push buttons/cause shit not because I think I’m right or because I have any real answers or even believe in what I say, but just in case the alchemy of counter-arguments might lead us to someplace better. I love and respect all of you and your opinions, if any group of smart asses are going to give birth to genius it’ll probably be here.
    • CommentAuthorjonah
    • CommentTimeMay 2nd 2011
     (9829.133)
    Why didn't they fake a suicide? Wouldn't that be more demoralizing to bin laden's supporters? A suicide caused by fear of capture by american troops would be even more reassuring to the american public as well, maybe?

    I remember obama talking about pakistan a lot during the election campaign in large part because of fox news, et al mocking his pronunciation.
    •  
      CommentAuthorAlan Tyson
    • CommentTimeMay 2nd 2011 edited
     (9829.134)
    If the idea was considered, it was likely rejected because it would be too hard to believe. That, and that if it ever got out that it wasn't the truth, it'd be far more damaging to us than if we'd never got him at all.

    EDIT: The more I think about it, the more tempting that idea must have seemed. Suddenly, I'm actually really glad we didn't do that. Right now I feel sorta neutral and weary about the whole thing - if we'd fucked with it like that, I'd've have been searing mad. Likely others would have been, too. It would show that we'd been that corrupted by this whole whatever-you-want-to-call-it that, in the moment of what lots of people would consider victory, we chose lies over truth.

    Which would, hilariously, mean the terrorists win.

    EDIT 2: I just realized I'm not sure what I mean when I say "we" in this context, anymore. Fuck.
  15.  (9829.135)
    I just realized I'm not sure what I mean when I say "we" in this context, anymore. Fuck

    @ Alan that's is a beautiful question , the kind of genius I've been looking for
    • CommentAuthorErisah
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2011
     (9829.136)
    @gov spy:I can't think we could have dodged the bullet more when Bin Laden didn't.
    I had an interesting chat about this with my housemates last night about just this. The question came up as to what orders were the soldiers who actually stormed the compound were probably given. My housemate M was convinced that the order would have been out and out "bring back the body". My housemate B was leaning more towards "Officially, we want him alive, but if that's too hard, we want him dead. Unofficially, you are a group of elite US soldiers, who are well aware of the fact that you are being ordered to bring down Big Bad Bin. It's been ten years since 9/11, so you probably signed up for this job at least indirectly because of him. Try not to enjoy this too much."
    I was with B, but leaning more on the fact that if you're the "good guys" you just can't, by the unwritten rules of spin/diplomacy/media wrangling, ever say that you fully intended to kill a dude in cold blood. Even if it's bin Laden. Even if everyone knows that with UBL dead, Obama is getting re-elected. The reactions on this forum are why- pretty much everyone agrees that in the end, bin Laden being dead is almost definitely for the "greater good" (whatever that is), but a fair few are including the rider: "but we don't have to like the situation/we wish it wasn't necessary/all human life is sacred".
    It makes me wonder though what sort of Nurembergesque media-circus would it have been if Osama had actually got a trial. More to the point, how would they have been able to go about it in a half-way convincing way? Osama was no Hitler, but he's definitely been (and will be) portrayed as the last decade's next best thing, as far as pop culture is concerned at the very least. Whether or not he is deserving of that degree of infamy when there are people like Gaddafi and Mugabe running around is debateable, but nonetheless, that is what I can see happening. After all, I've never heard a joke about Gaddafi, but I'm sure everyone has heard some variation of "Where you Bin?"

    In any case, having Osama shot "for resisting" would have definitely cut down on prolonging the almost definitely inevitable.

    It was interesting watching the commentators speculating about the motivations and planning for the whole thing tonight. Apparently some poor bastard in Gitmo surrendered the alias of one of Osama's most trusted couriers about eight years ago under "interrogation", and then that set off a slow-moving chain reaction (it took years for a real name to be found, and then longer before surveillance on the dude turned up anything useful) that led to the CIA figuring out where UBL was likely to be. Apparently they'd been watching the compound for months.

    @ Jonah:Why didn't they fake a suicide?
    If he had committed suicide, it would have been Osama controlling the result, albeit in a pyrrhic sense. The outcome of some unnamed US grunt(s) shooting him dead means that it was by extension the US completely controlling the situation, so there is no ambiguity- the message is, if you piss off the US, they will eventually find you, kill you, and then bury you at sea.

    Speaking of which, am I the only one to think that the reason why they did that is linked to why they haven't posted pics (like they did with Saddam) is probably that the body was such a mess after whatever they did to it that they wanted to get rid of the evidence ASAP?

    On the other hand, if I wanted to start a conspiracy theory, I'd suggest that UBL is actually still alive, and being interrogated by the US in some deep dark pit somewhere, where no one will look for him, because the world thinks that he is dead.
    The alternative is that South Park got it right, and he's been dead for years. Obama needed a boost to his political capital, so he had the military re-enact UBL's death.

    Honestly, I think it is what it looks like. Otherwise I'm surprised how numb I am concerning this whole episode. On the upside, no one is talking about the Royal Wedding anymore.
    • CommentAuthorFlabyo
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2011
     (9829.137)
    @Erisah - oh, they're still talking about the wedding. There's a fun conspiracy theory that Obama waited until after the wedding so as not to provoke a knee-jerk attack on it by terrorists.
    •  
      CommentAuthorFinagle
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2011 edited
     (9829.138)
    My wife and kids are both Muslim; my wife's lived in Egypt and was married to an Egyptian. She does Middle Eastern stuff, is a leftist, but not any kind of pacifist. She has reason to be extremely concerned about the Patriot Act, is all kinds of pissed off about Guantanamo, and thinks the Predator drone attacks in Pakistan that blow up wedding parties are bullshit. She's a huge supporter of and blogger about the Arab Spring. She holds dual citizenship and my kid potentially has triple citizenship.

    All that being said, the wife offered the following from Mark Twain this morning in the kitchen: “I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.”

    States are going to be running around knocking over other states for the forseeable future. If they can get what they want by going in and quietly capping one guy like proper gangsters should, I'm all for that. To our mind, it is so much more preferable than the potential death and displacement of hundreds of thousands due to the effects of sanctions, which is simply modern siege warfare. How many die due to an embargo on vaccines, computers, or medical isotopes? How many die every year just trying to get out of Cuba? How many die due to internal displacement and ethnic cleansing while the white-helmet crowd stand around just making sure nobody actually gets shot?

    Yes, the world is run by international gangsters. Given that this is not likely to change anytime soon, I *vastly prefer* the notion of just going in and taking out the guy, accepting full responsibility for it, and proclaiming justice has been done, then getting the hell out. If the same thing happened in Libya, I wouldn't cry over it either.
    •  
      CommentAuthorbjacques
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2011
     (9829.139)
    I was watching CNN on 9/11, channel surfing on a boring afternoon. In the spring of 1945, a B-29 accidentally bounced off the Empire State Building, and I figured this was something like that. Until the second plane hit. Me and my then girlfriend, familiar with George W. Bush's earlier stated desire to attack Iraq, both thought "we are so fucked." We were right.

    What bin Laden did (or organized) was bad enough; worse were all the people who *profited* from the crime, materially or ideologically or both. Some used the attacks as an excuse to really go nuts, like the anthrax letter guy (who never got caught--so much for Homeland Security). Others, even liberals, shat themselves and declared that clean underwear and refusal to re-legitimize torture betrayed a "pre-9/11" mindset. Hurricane Katrina (and the 2007-2008 financial crash proved that the "adults" then in charge were not only crooked but useless as well.

    After 10 years of that, I'm not in a very celebratory mood.

    I'm glad it was Obama who bagged bin Laden (Bush having disbanded the OBL search unit in 2006), He showed how quiet determination beats hot air. (And well done to everyone who made it happen.)

    I'm glad the timing made Donald Trump and the birfers look like the morons they are. I'm enjoying the butthurt of the Right.

    I'm OK with making cheap jokes at the fucker's expense, and the internet memes swirling about are pretty damn funny.

    I'm happy that some people are getting joy in a time that doesn't provide much of it.

    And I'm not especially bothered to learn bin Laden was probably shot on sight.

    Relieved, sure. Celebratory, not really. I want my country back. If killing bin Laden was a small step toward bringing it closer, I'll celebrate that. I'll raise a glass of the hot, angry tears of the tribal Right.

    But right now, I just feel ten years older.
  20.  (9829.140)
    The question came up as to what orders were the soldiers who actually stormed the compound were probably given. My housemate M was convinced that the order would have been out and out "bring back the body". My housemate B was leaning more towards "Officially, we want him alive, but if that's too hard, we want him dead. Unofficially, you are a group of elite US soldiers, who are well aware of the fact that you are being ordered to bring down Big Bad Bin. It's been ten years since 9/11, so you probably signed up for this job at least indirectly because of him. Try not to enjoy this too much."


    I'm no military expert, but I'd hazard a guess that it's more dangerous to capture and 'kidnap' (for want of a better word) a live prisoner, than to kill someone and carry away their dead body. So I'm guessing the (official) orders were along the lines of "don't risk an American soldier's life to keep bin Laden alive" (with a heavy subtext of "shoot to kill").

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