Osama Bin Laden is dead

This and the other Osama threads is chock full of

"User ignored (review)"

Since there is only one person I have on ignore, and based on numerous comments from others, I think it's safe to say that JTT is scuttling about the place; dropping fecal pellets hither and yon.

If there is anyone who deserves "ignore" it is JTT, and not because he is offensive (which he is), but because he is utterly boring and inevitably clogs a thread.

[Note: I've seen some comments that suggest JTT is a "she" and not a "he." If that's the case, I'm very surprised. The sort of bitter, banal bile JTT spews certainly suggests a masculine miscreant. If he is a she, she may be the first of her kind.]

Rather than engage him, please, please, please...ignore him.

If you have read one of his comments you have read all of them.

Not that anyone does or should care, but I pledge I will "ignore" anyone who makes it a habit of trading insults with the cockroach known as JTT and therebye clogs up a thread.

4 Replies

@Finn dAbuzz,

Hi Finn, you old coward you.

Doesn't anyone find it odd that the ones who have their fingers jammed solidly in their ears are Americans? One of the few honest ones, CI, has wondered aloud why, if everything I offer is untrue, there aren't more of his countrymen addressing that concern.

I've often wondered that same thing myself.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

Rather than engage him, please, please, please...ignore him.

Not that anyone does or should care, but I pledge I will "ignore" anyone who makes it a habit of trading insults with the cockroach known as JTT and therebye clogs up a thread.

That's awfully American of you, Finn. Where might you have learned to bully?

There you have folks. Cower in fear of the big brave American.

Quote:

If you have read one of his comments you have read all of them.

How would you know that, Finn, when you have me on ignore? But don't let me discourage you from pointing out your perfidy to all the folks who read these threads.

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@Eorl,

Quote:

This so called Christian Nation seems very unwilling to ever turn the other cheek.
I don't think people (or their representitive governments) should kill people if they can possibly avoid it.

How would you have liked the other cheek to have been turned in the case of bin Laden?

Would you have preferred him brought back to stand trial--and then given the death penalty? We have the death penalty, and he would have received it, so no amount of humanistic thinking would have spared this man eventual execution by the U.S. government, in the name of the people of the United States.

Our last three Presidents have wanted this man dead because of the threat he posed to our country. They were actively trying to kill bin Laden before 9/11, because of the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole and the attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people.

In a 2006 interview, Bill Clinton said:

Quote:

Clinton said he “worked hard” to try to kill bin Laden.

“We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody’s gotten since,” he said.

...I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get bin Laden. I regret it, but I did try and I did everything I thought I responsibly could.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14986702/ns/politics/t/clinton-defends-bin-laden-efforts-rips-host/

Bush tried to kill bin Laden after 9/11, with bombings at Tora Bora, but did not commit ground troops to the effort, and then seemed to abandon the search when Iraq became his priority. But the original intention of Bush was to kill him.

And Obama, in 2008, had said

Quote:

"We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority," Obama said during the presidential debate on October 7. [CNN.com, 11/12/08]

And Obama just delivered.

I never, ever, expected that bin Laden would be captured alive and brought to trial. A trial would have been a national security nightmare. And the ultimate outcome would have been the same as that which just occurred--an execution.

The man was a mass murderer, not just of Americans, but of people elsewhere as well, including other Muslims.

I can't even fathom what "turning the other cheek" would mean in a case like this. As long as he was alive he served as a dangerous symbol to inspire other mass murderers. I consider the death of bin Laden to be a national act of self defense.

Ethical decisions can often be uncomfortable and difficult, and involve some compromise, and, in this instance, I believe Obama made the correct ethical decision. I believe the greater good was served by eliminating this dangerous man in the manner that it was done--swiftly, and at the first opportunity. The U.S. has nothing to apologize for in this matter. I admire President Obama's courage in ordering this mission and the courage of the Navy Seals who carried it out.

It is nice to think idealistically, but sometimes we need to be realistic.

2 Replies

@firefly,

Quote:

It is nice to think idealistically, but sometimes we need to be realistic.

Jesus Murphy, Firefly! Yes, it's high time you and the millions of other blinkered souls were realistic.

Quote:

Osama bin Laden: missed opportunities
The CIA had pictures. Why wasn’t the al-Qaida leader captured or killed?

NBC News
updated 3/17/2004 6:40:01 PM ET
Share Print Font:
As the 9/11 commission investigates what Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush might have done to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, one piece of evidence the commission will examine is a videotape secretly recorded by a CIA plane high above Afghanistan. The tape shows a man believed to Osama bin Laden walking at a known al-Qaida camp.

...

In the fall of 2000, in Afghanistan, unmanned, unarmed spy planes called Predators flew over known al-Qaida training camps. The pictures that were transmitted live to CIA headquarters show al-Qaida terrorists firing at targets, conducting military drills and then scattering on cue through the desert.

Also, that fall, the Predator captured even more extraordinary pictures — a tall figure in flowing white robes. Many intelligence analysts believed then and now it is bin Laden.

Why does U.S. intelligence believe it was bin Laden? NBC showed the video to William Arkin, a former intelligence officer and now military analyst for NBC. “You see a tall man…. You see him surrounded by or at least protected by a group of guards.”

Bin Laden is 6 foot 5. The man in the video clearly towers over those around him and seems to be treated with great deference.

Another clue: The video was shot at Tarnak Farm, the walled compound where bin Laden is known to live. The layout of the buildings in the Predator video perfectly matches secret U.S. intelligence photos and diagrams of Tarnak Farm obtained by NBC.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4540958/ns/nightly_news/t/osama-bin-laden-missed-opportunities/

Quote:

"the walled compound where bin Laden is known to have lived"! He wasn't hiding in the mountains, he was "hiding" in plain sight.

You only have to dig a little and the US and its perfidy rise up like a great stink.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

This and the other Osama threads is chock full of

"User ignored (review)"

Since there is only one person I have on ignore, and based on numerous comments from others, I think it's safe to say that JTT is scuttling about the place; dropping fecal pellets hither and yon...

He/she/it is the only person I have on "Ignore". My forum experience is all the better for it. I imagine the person still rants and raves at my posts, but I'll never know. Cool

2 Replies

@firefly,

I would have a trial, yes. In The Hague preferably.

I do not support the death penalty, and would not in this case either.

I'm uncomfortable with the assumption that anyone deserves death. Especially without trial. It's as simple as that. It brings us all down to the same level as the jihadists. One murder, or 3000 murders, it's still cold deliberate killing of a one human being by another.

1 Reply

@FBM,

...and just for the record, it was the partying in the streets that made me express discomfort (disgust?) in the first place, not the outcome of the raid, which was unsurprising.

2 Replies

@FBM,

Another American.

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@Eorl,

Same here. Flag-waving and shouting "We're #1!" by anyone just turns me right off.

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@Eorl,

I, too am against the death penalty. I oppose it on principles. I believe it has been proven not to be a deterrent to violent crime statistically. I think that the biblical admonition that we "shalt not kill" does not make distinctions between killing global villains or killing an infant child.

BUT,
I have the good grace and common sense to allow for the fact that I am a fallible human being. I understand that if I came face-to-face with an individual I had sure knowledge had caused great physical harm or death to a loved one, I would very possibly feel very differently.

AND BEYOND THAT,
I think there are some questions that simply cannot be answered with certainty. I think the question of whether a whole nation of people should feel justified in bringing about the death of someone who has committed an atrocity on the scale of 3000 people dying in a horrible, terrifying inferno is not one that can be answered with certainty.

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@Eorl,

Quote:

I would have a trial, yes. In The Hague preferably.

What makes you think bin Laden would have qualified to have been tried at the Hague? I don't believe he would.

Quote:

I do not support the death penalty, and would not in this case either.
I'm uncomfortable with the assumption that anyone deserves death.

I actually don't disagree with you on that.

However, we do allow for killings in self defense, and we do kill our enemies when we are engaged in wars.

The situation with bin Laden is analogous to an enemy who has attacked you as an act of war. He plotted the attacks on the U.S.S. Cole and on our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He was behind the attacks of 9/11. He had also apparently plotted to personally assassinate President Clinton in 1996.

This man had declared war on the United States, by planning and facilitating acts of war against us. But he represented no country, he was an unlawful combatant.

Quote:

In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the United States Congress passed a resolution known as the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) on 18 September 2001. In this, Congress invoked the War Powers Resolution and stated:

That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_combatant

Therefore, it could be argued that President Obama was justified in using "all necessary and appropriate force" against bin Laden "in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States" by this man--and that might well include killing him in a house in Pakistan.

There is essentially no difference between killing the Taliban in Afghanistan, as we have been doing, or the killing of bin Laden in Pakistan.

We aren't just talking about a man who has committed crimes, we are talking about someone who engaged in acts of war against the United States and was a continuing direct threat to our national security. Is tracking down bin Laden, and killing him, in Pakistan any different than what we have been doing in Afghanistan by killing the enemy there? These are the tactics of war. And we are at war with Al Qaeda--and that included bin Laden.

I did not favor the death penalty in the case of Timothy McVeigh--also a terrorist and a mass murderer. But McVeigh, as a criminal, was entitled to, and received, a fair trial in accordance with law. Regardless of his anti-government political convictions, he was not engaged in a war against the United States, nor was the U.S. at war with McVeigh. That was not the case with bin Laden.

Bin Laden was wanted--Dead or Alive--and he remained at large. When the Navy Seals laid eyes on him they had every reason to consider him dangerous and to use "all necessary and appropriate force" to neutralize the threat he posed. I do believe this was an execution, but a necessary execution, and I can live with that. This particular war is unlike no other.

2 Replies

@firefly,

Never mind that - the fact is that Osama bin Laden was a mad torturer of his own sons' puppies, murdered while testing his poison gas concoctions. Death by gunshot was kindness in his case; finally justice has been served, as the SEAL team brought along their own dogs to help in tracking down this monster:

http://cdn.theatlanticwire.com/img/upload/2011/05/05/Screen%20shot%202011-05-05%20at%2010.32.35%20AM.png

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/05/breeders-battle-right-claim-hero-navy-seal-dog/37376/

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

georgeob1 wrote:
Well since the original contrary proposition can't be proven either, and we are faced with the necessity of a pragmatic choice, it appears the results so far suggest we made the right and most effective choice.

No, the original assertion didn't depend on a causal analysis, and so we're not faced with any kind of "pragmatic choice" (nice bureaucratic doublespeak for "let me pull something out of my ass" -- your years as a government employee obviously paid off). We could simply count the number of terrorists we have captured (that shouldn't be too hard) and compare that number to the number of Guantanamo detainees who have been released and who have then gone on to become terrorists. No counterfactual analysis needed. Easy peasy.

georgeob1 wrote:
I suppose liberal closet authoritarians find this line of reasonong difficult.

I would hope that everyone would find that line of "reasoning" difficult.

I think you are trying too hard to make a counterpoint but without much going for you. Perhaps just fodder in which to place your effort at a snide comment. I was indeed an employee of the government , but the fact is that service as a naval aviator is not at all like that of some fatass bureaucrat or attorney shuffling papers in his cubbyhole.

What in the hell does the ratio of prisioners relaeased from Gitmo to those who are known to have subsequently returned to their old terrorism organizations (a relatively high percentage) have to do with anything we were discussing? You are merely grasping at straws for your fodder - and with little effect.

1 Reply

"A lawyer who served as a prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials after World War II says Osama bin Laden should have been put on trial.

American lawyer Benjamin Ferencz, now 91, has written a letter to the New York Times, questioning whether the death of the terrorist leader was justifiable self-defence or premeditated illegal assassination"

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/06/3210195.htm

1 Reply

@Eorl,

Al Quaeda have acknowledged the death.

Quote:

Al Qaeda confirm death of Osama Bin Laden and vow to continue their attacks on the U.S.

By RACHEL QUIGLEY
Last updated at 2:14 PM on 6th May 2011
Comments (0)
Add to My Stories

Al-Qaeda have confirmed their leader Osama Bin Laden is dead and have vowed to continue attacking the U.S.
In a statement posted in jihadist internet forums, the group confirmed that Bin Laden died in a raid on his compound in Abbottabad, news that is hoped to take the pressure of President Obama to release the photos of the slain terrorist.
The purported Al Qaeda statement said his blood would not be 'wasted' and that it would continue attacking the US.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1384260/Al-Qaeda-confirm-death-Osama-Bin-Laden-vow-continue-attacks-U-S.html#ixzz1LZxcRlYF

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/05/06/article-0-0BEE92FD00000578-230_634x395.jpg

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1384260/Al-Qaeda-confirm-death-Osama-Bin-Laden-vow-continue-attacks-U-S.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

1 Reply

@High Seas,

Quote:

the fact is that Osama bin Laden was a mad torturer of his own sons' puppies, murdered while testing his poison gas concoctions.

You wouldn't have a source for that, would you, LtCol Flagg. How do you think that compares to this?

Quote:

Sailors Sprayed With Nerve Gas In Cold War Test, Pentagon Says
By THOM SHANKER with WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: May 24, 2002

The Defense Department sprayed live nerve and biological agents on ships and sailors in cold war-era experiments to test the Navy's vulnerability to toxic warfare, the Pentagon revealed today.

The Pentagon documents made public today showed that six tests were carried out in the Pacific Ocean from 1964 to 1968. In the experiments, nerve or chemical agents were sprayed on a variety of ships and their crews to gauge how quickly the poisons could be detected and how rapidly they would disperse, as well as to test the effectiveness of protective gear and decontamination procedures in use at the time.

Hundreds of sailors exposed to the poisons in tests conducted in the 1960's could be eligible for health care benefits, and the Department of Veterans Affairs has already begun contacting those who participated in some of the experiments, known as Project Shipboard Hazard and Defense, or SHAD.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/24/politics/24NERV.html

Or, how do you compare what you allege OBL did with the US supporting and supplying Saddam with chemical weapons used against Iran and the Kurds? Or the US being the only country in the UN to block censure of those uses of banned chemical weapons?

Quote:

http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/arming_iraq.php

Arming Iraq: A Chronology of U.S. Involvement
By: John King, March 2003

What follows is an accurate chronology of United States involvement in the arming of Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war 1980-88. It is a powerful indictment of the president Bush administration attempt to sell war as a component of his war on terrorism. It reveals US ambitions in Iraq to be just another chapter in the attempt to regain a foothold in the Mideast following the fall of the Shah of Iran.

...

This chronology of the United States' sordid involvement in the arming of Iraq can be summarized in this way: The United States used methods both legal and illegal to help build Saddam's army into the most powerful army in the Mideast outside of Israel. The US supplied chemical and biological agents and technology to Iraq when it knew Iraq was using chemical weapons against the Iranians. The US supplied the materials and technology for these weapons of mass destruction to Iraq at a time when it was know that Saddam was using this technology to kill his Kurdish citizens. The United States supplied intelligence and battle planning information to Iraq when those battle plans included the use of cyanide, mustard gas and nerve agents. The United States blocked UN censure of Iraq's use of chemical weapons. The United States did not act alone in this effort. The Soviet Union was the largest weapons supplier, but England, France and Germany were also involved in the shipment of arms and technology.

Why do you folks continue to leap up and vie with one another to see who can be the biggest hypocrite? Is there something in the water in the US that makes practically everyone do this?

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@firefly,

Quote:

In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the United States Congress passed a resolution known as the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) on 18 September 2001. In this, Congress invoked the War Powers Resolution and stated:

By your illogical reasoning, what the Nazis and the Japanese did was legal too because their respective branches of government authorized invasions of other countries.

No country is allowed to invade another unless there is an imminent threat. There was NO threat from either Iraq or Afghanistan. You are all busting your balls trying to make a case when the case is clear - the US has illegally invaded two sovereign nations.

Quote:

There is essentially no difference between killing the Taliban in Afghanistan, as we have been doing, or the killing of bin Laden in Pakistan.

In this you are right. Once a country commits the ultimate war crime of a war of aggression against another country, all further acts that flow from that are also war crimes. It's abundantly clear that the US has, in this case, been guilty of numerous war crimes.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

I think you are trying too hard to make a counterpoint but without much going for you. Perhaps just fodder in which to place your effort at a snide comment. I was indeed an employee of the government , but the fact is that service as a naval aviator is not at all like that of some fatass bureaucrat or attorney shuffling papers in his cubbyhole.

I'm glad to see you've finally admitted that you were a government employee. That must have stung just a little.

georgeob1 wrote:

What in the hell does the ratio of prisioners relaeased from Gitmo to those who are known to have subsequently returned to their old terrorism organizations (a relatively high percentage) have to do with anything we were discussing? You are merely grasping at straws for your fodder - and with little effect.

How soon you forget. Here's a link to your post, where you responded to ItP's assertion that "Guantanamo has recruited far more Islamic terrorists than it's ever caught." You claimed that terrorism has decreased since we "took out their sanctuary in Afghanistan." I addressed that contention, which you dismissed as unprovable. I pointed out, however, that we could easily determine if ItP's assertion was correct simply by comparing the numbers of terrorists captured and the terrorists "recruited."

I'm sorry that you can't follow the line of this conversation. There are helpful links in each post that you can use to navigate your way back to the starting point, like a trail of breadcrumbs on the forest floor. If you need any additional assistance, I'll be happy to oblige. In the meantime, you can count on me to keep up with the leisurely pace of our discussion. It's the least that one of us can do.

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

georgeob1 wrote:
I think you are trying too hard to make a counterpoint but without much going for you. Perhaps just fodder in which to place your effort at a snide comment. I was indeed an employee of the government , but the fact is that service as a naval aviator is not at all like that of some fatass bureaucrat or attorney shuffling papers in his cubbyhole.

I'm glad to see you've finally admitted that you were a government employee. That must have stung just a little.

Unlike georgeob, I am a fatass bureaucrat shuffling papers.

0 Replies

Osama Bin Laden is dead

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