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London Zoo: [Closed] Bin Laden Killed in Pakistan

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    •  
      CommentAuthorJon Wake
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2011
     (9829.161)
    @Hey apathy
    I don't blame rapists--those bitches waving it around in their face all day, of COURSE they'll act on it.

    Oh wait, how did people act in Yemen, and Egypt, and Lybia, and Bahrain, and all throughout the Middle East? By bombing civilians a world away? It must have been that, because that's the only way they could be heard, right?

    Fool.
    • CommentAuthorRenThing
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2011
     (9829.162)
    @JP

    But please, don't try to sell me this crap!

    I saw someone in a comment over on Scalzi's blog say "This is our V-Day". No, not it really isn't.

    @Hey Apathy

    Ah, yes, so New York got what's coming to it. Thank you for helping along my point. I'm sure the families of the victims of 9-11 would take comfort in your words.
    • CommentAuthorVerissimus
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2011 edited
     (9829.163)
    I don't think this conversation is going to last that much longer...

    But anyway, sure, HEY APATHY! is correct. Partially. Of course the US does bad stuff, I'm sure everyone knows that. That however does not mean that people who end up blowing up the World Trade Center were justified in their actions, they simply killed a bunch of innocent people. There are proper ways to adress grievances, and this really isn't it...

    So the US does deserve its America Fuck Yeah moment, because OBL was just a nasty little shit who brought more misery for the entire world.
  4.  (9829.164)
    @joe.distort
    EELS


    Seconded.
  5.  (9829.165)
    EELS


    Don't you mean SEALS? Any moment now they're going to chopper them in to kill this thread...
  6.  (9829.166)
    absolutely no one is ever justified in blowing anything up and murder is the most horrible thing in the world


    @joe & Chris

    yes we are a bunch of eels, Warren must be busy writing
  7.  (9829.167)
    Victims stop being victims when they decide that the best solution to express their grievances is by killing lots of people at random.

    The is that they profess that they are of the true faith, but the people of true faith,(whatever religion you choose to follow) believe in something better and they do not let themselves be consumed by anger, hate and violence and dedicate all their time and energy to death and destruction.

    I dont think the after life will be the way they think it is.

    null
    •  
      CommentAuthorHEY APATHY!
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2011 edited
     (9829.168)
    Victims stop being victims when they decide that the best solution to express their grievances is by killing lots of people at random


    you are a wiseman BOODOFSTAGE your comment is beautiful (and has destoyed my extreme argument)
    •  
      CommentAuthorJon Wake
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2011
     (9829.169)
    I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of people's motivations for celebration. For the past decade, our entire culture has been twisting in the wind, waiting for the other shoe to explode. We, as a people, watched our civil liberties erode, our wealth squandered, and our impotence on the world stage mocked (most viciously by us). All of this happened because one man scared the shit out of us. Oh, there were bottom-feeding opportunists waiting in the wings, but there always were those people. People who wanted to bomb the Soviets to powder, or take over Iran, or traipse across the globe like infantile giants. They were sometimes powerful, usually fringe voices, but for all the excesses of our crude views of the world, they never gained ascendancy. Then came September 11th, 2001.

    The loss of life was numbing, the motivations so prosaic it boggled the mind. We're sort of used to dumb crackers who blow up abortion clinics, and we know (or knew) how to deal with them.

    But here came this strange ascetic who openly spoke about world domination, who took pleasure in the misery he caused, whose power was so out of proportion with his stature that even the thief-hunters didn't really know what to do with him. He was important to the terrorist subculture, a superhero to suicide bombers. Over a period of ten years he turned a disparate group of bombers into a dedicated cult through sheer charisma. He took a brutalized Egyptian and turned him from being a marginalized failure into a criminal mastermind. He took another marginalized failure and inadvertently turned him into a 'war president'.

    For seven and a half years, the CIA ran in circles, dodging Bush's absurd public statements, following up on every lead until they were spread so thin they didn't know what was happening next door, the FBI was forced to chase domestic phantoms, the military sold it's tarnished soul to private contractors, and the machinery of our dysfunctional government sputtered and failed and splintered. We lost control of our government, all because some rich boy's son decided to make us look like fools. To our shame, we obliged.

    Then, in 2006, Bush essentially threw his hands in the air and gave up. We all knew he had no real interest in finding Bin Laden, at least not any more. We were trapped in two wars, our wealth was funneling to the upper 1% at an astonishing rate, and for me and my generation, we were watching our futures vanish. Absurdity piled on absurdity, each encroachment on our dignity justified with more fear, another attack in Mumbai, or London, or Indonesia. In the back of our minds we knew that terrorists were empowered by Bin Laden-- his power wasn't in planning, but in championing, in letting a teenager with a pipebomb and a hatred of dancing feel like the daring man who escaped the clutches of the infidel time and time again.

    Things changed in the past six months. The mostly peaceful (but willing to use force is self-defense) uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt did what Bin Laden's coterie never managed, and all without a single bomb. It put the lie to myth Bin Laden told the Middle East, that murder was the only tool that could affect change. It put the lie to the Liberal myth of the powerlessness of third worlders in the face of American wealth and influence, too.

    Bin Laden's death marks the end of an era. Reasons to stay in Afghanistan will be hard to come by, the justifications for detentions and human rights abuses thinner and thinner. Change will not come overnight--there are still thousands of angry little men with bombs, warring tribes in the hills, countries in shambles-- but we can finally straighten our spines and look to the future without the demons of the past hounding us. Our mistakes are, were, and will be many. We will misstep and fall, we will back dictators to avoid the worse unknown, we will go broke and fail our citizens. But we will do all these things of our own misguided, arrogant, painfully well-meaning reasoning, and not because of some shadow in the mountain.

    That is what they are celebrating. Not the death of a man, no matter how vile. Was there dancing in the street when Dahlmer died? Or when Oswalt was shot? No. We did not dance in the streets when Afghan civilians were killed in bombings, we did not rejoice when the town of Mai Lai was massacred. We are not that people. Attempting to claim an unbroken line of moral causality from the tears of joy in Times Square to dragging bodies through the street is superficial reasoning, more about smug self-satisfaction then serious thought.

    People celebrate because it's over. A decade long fever dream is over. We can wake up now.
    •  
      CommentAuthorAlan Tyson
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2011 edited
     (9829.170)
    We can wake up now.

    We can, yes. Does that mean we are going to, though? I think we could have easily woken up long before this happened. What was stopping us?

    I mean, I hope we do. I really do. Because I like America. All my stuff is here, and most of my friends. There's still lots of work to be done, though, and there's no reason to pretend there isn't.

    I don't really care if anyone gets punished or talked to for anything they've said on this thread, but I really, really think it's time for it to be closed. Since I can't do it myself, please Lord and Lady, close it for me. I don't think we're going anywhere that anyone wants to go right now. Whitechapel's better than this.
  11.  (9829.171)
    That murder/war is always wrong has never been and won't soon be a viewpoint favored by natural selection, the societies that get by are the ones who believe in retribution.

    In other words, an era where a valid discussion of pacifism can take place hasn't yet arrived. there's really no need to employ arguments against a viewpoint that can't compete in the marketplace of actual human actions, that's like towling off a sidewalk after it sprinkles on a sunny day.
    •  
      CommentAuthorCDoring
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2011
     (9829.172)
    @Jon Wake

    Well said, sir.
  13.  (9829.173)
    @Jon Wake: sorry to burst your bubble, but it's not over. It's never over. Your Military, and thus your government, just killed A FACE. SOMETHING THEY CAN PUT ON T-SHIRTS AND SAY "HEY, THE MOTHERFUCKER'S DEAD! WE CAN ALL GO TO SLEEP NOW!".Meanwhile, hundreds of AMERICAN citizens that "work" in Wall Street just stole billllions and billions of dolars from, hear this, not only the rest of the world, but from millions of AMERICAN citizens.
    In a couple of weeks, they'll come up with another boogeyman. 'Cause do not forget that Bin Laden, though a criminal, was mostly THE BOOGEYMAN THAT THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX INVENTED TO SCARE THE SHIT OUT OF THE AMERICNA PEOPLE and thus keep them controlled. Scared and controlled. Just like Saddam, who, by the way, turned out as another grea example of america's civilized manners. "He did what?!! Well, let's hang him!! After the execution, beers are on me!! Yeee-haw!!!". NIce, nice, now that's civilized. Right at the beggening of the 21st-fucking-century. A public hanging.



    disclaimer: I do not hate America and/or [north]americans. It is often assumed that we foreigners do that. However, I am and shall remain extremely critical regarding the US' foreign politics and speech and to most amercian's viewpoints, ideologies (or lack of), ways of life, etc. Anyway, I am NOT throwing stones here, for I don't think I have the right to do so. "He who is free of sin..." and all that. Blah.
    •  
      CommentAuthorrazrangel
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2011
     (9829.174)
    The wave of relief that hit me when I heard that the nameless wife Osama used as a body shield wasn't killed really caught me off-guard. Still, she was shot. Furthermore, the news that a treasure trove of intel was found in documents, phones, etc at the compound is simply excellent.

    The uncertainty over whether torture gave up actionable intel on OBL's location may have been the reason for a kill order. A trial would be much, much harder per our own laws, never mind international law, if the use of extreme coercion/torture could be proved.

    After more time to think about it, I realized that maybe as late as 03 I would have been far more ecstatic over the news of OBL's death. I don't know about dancing in the street, but much more pleased. Now my relief is dissipated by irritation with my government the troubles that have had time to metastasize since 9/11.
    • CommentAuthoratavistian
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2011 edited
     (9829.175)
    I'm just going to leave this article with Sarah Palin entirely crediting George Bush for the bin laden op here.
    • CommentAuthorOddcult
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2011
     (9829.176)
    Yub Nub.
    • CommentAuthorRenThing
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2011
     (9829.177)
    @Jon Wake

    Very well said but it's not over. Killing OBL won't get rid of the charismatic people he's inspired, like the American-born cleric in Yemen who has been working on getting people in the US to do his dirty work (I believe the NYC subway bombing plot was inspired by his speeches). It won't get rid of the Patriot Act or the TSA and it won't close Gitmo or any of the other secret prisons scattered about the world.

    JP Stargazer is right in some respects; the US has always had and needed a bad guy. Until my generation, and for all of my father's, it was Communism. Then it was terrorism in some shades, then Saddam, then terrorism again with Al Queda, the Taliban and, to some people, Islam, then it was Saddam, and then it went back to being Islam and radical Muslims. There are some people who need to have a bad guy, a boogeyman, and they'll use that boogeman, real or fictional, to keep us asleep.

    Like Alan said, I do hope we wake up.

    @all

    Alan said, "Whitechapel's better than this." and it is. I got emotional and there were probably better ways I could've responded. I apologize if my words insulted anyone.
  18.  (9829.178)
    We might 'wake up'. We might not. Tomorrow is never certain; but at least now there's a bit more hope in the world with one of the latest boogeymen gone.
    Yes, he was human. And it's not moral to cheer at his death. But he's also been a symbol and a cultural demon. The person pointed to to explain the horrors of the world. It's all his fault, we were told. And many people -rightly or wrongly- believed it. With him gone, they can now focus on other things instead of the OBL paranoia that got us a molesting TSA and other joys of the ...er... modern... world.
    It's not an instant fix, but it still is something of a victory; and in world where we seem rather ruled by fear I think some celebrations should not be instantly condemned.
    Let the people have their victory lap. I'd prefer THAT to whinging and vicious fear mongering. It is a step in the right direction, I believe. A small one-- but you have to start somewhere.
    •  
      CommentAuthoroldhat
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2011 edited
     (9829.179)
    Oh man, this just descended in to...wow.
  20.  (9829.180)
    @JP Stargazer,
    Yeah that was pretty bad. In our defense, though, Saddam was tried, convicted, and sentenced by Iraqi authorities. We just stood and took pictues.

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