Bin Laden Dead

Discussions of things currently in the news.

Postby Arneb » Thu May 05, 2011 7:26 am

OK, I WAS very sensitive :oops: And don't call me Jesus :wink:

I still think that a living OBL wouldn't have materially affected the security situation of the US - if they are able to strike, they strike. Of course, if more and more terrorist action came under the heading of "free OBL", it would create a difficult publicity situation. Some would undoubtedly ask. "Why on earth did those wimps not kill him right away. He's is just a pain in the ass now". OTOH, do you remember Omar Abdel Rahman? He was a highly influential figure in the Islamist terror scene of the 90s and masterminded the 1993 WTC bombing. He is now quietly serving a life sentence, and there haven't been any attempts to force his release in exchange for hostages. Granted, he is no Bin Ladin, but even the terror scene tends to move on. The "German autumn" of 1977 is a notable counterexample, but this was about freeing active terrorists who were in their prime phase of activity. And those trying to free them would undoubtedly have found other ways to wreak terror had their heros been already dead.

Again, I have no regrets for OBLs death. I just think it would have been marvelous to see a moment of glory for the US as teh country that pretty much embodies the concept of the rule of law. As an analogy, just think of the Eichmann trial in Israel.
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Postby Heid the Ba » Thu May 05, 2011 7:47 am

Superluminal wrote:Lighten up Heid, this is a chance to blow off steam. Of course, if the disposition of his body had been up to me, I would have had him buried in a secret unmarked grave. We're not the kind of people to drag bodys through the streets.


Fair enough, I have seen too many posts recently of people who have meant posts like that.

You got your wish with the grave. :D
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Postby Мастер » Thu May 05, 2011 8:00 am

Arneb wrote:And don't call me Jesus :wink:


I'm thinking of John Torturro in The Big Lebowski :P

Arneb wrote:I still think that a living OBL wouldn't have materially affected the security situation of the US - if they are able to strike, they strike.


I think at a current, operational level, that is probably correct. Most reports seem to be, he hasn't really been in the thick of it for a long time. But, independently of any questions about who did the right thing and who did the wrong thing, I think this is an incredible propaganda victory for the US, in an area where such things matter. A highly charismatic symbol of the movement, who claimed (a claim many accepted) to have brought down one of the world's two superpowers, and who had openly defied the other for years (and gotten away with it) - an inspiration (and effective recruiting tool) to many with a broadly anti-western agenda. Now, his head shot off, none of the people who did it even injured, and feeding the sharks in the Indian Ocean - this has got to damage the bin Laden legend. At least I think it must. I guess time will tell if I'm mistaken on that.

Arneb wrote:As an analogy, just think of the Eichmann trial in Israel.


And you remember what they did to him :P Argentina not such a safe haven after all.

Heid the Ba' wrote:You got your wish with the grave. :D


It's not secret just really really big :P

And now I have to go watch South Park :P
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Postby Arneb » Thu May 05, 2011 4:16 pm

Mactep, I am definitely with you on the propaganda aspect. The man who styled himself as the Islamic Lion who would fight till the very end, relentlessly on the heels of the evil infidels, shot in a villa in a well-to-do Islamabad commuter town, and not even a pistol under his pillow. That is good stuff. However, propaganda-wise, there is this aspect about "missing proof" conspiracies on the one, and "cowardly murder of a martyr" stuff on the other hand.

Eichmann - I know what they did to him. OK: No matter if the aim is killing or abduction, covert overseas operations aren't exactly by the rulebook anyway, but still. He got a trial with all the bells and whistles: Good lawyers, plenty food, a suit&tie, simultaneous translation, plenty of time for preparation, all the evidence used against him available to his counsel; the right to cross-examine witnesses; no torture, a priest, and a method of execution that was fast and painless (as I said, I AM willing to suspend my opposition to capital punishment in extreme cases). It pretty much destroyed the evil-almighty aura that the SS Obersturmbannführer enjoyed in the public imagination: To see this lowly, self-pitying, writhing banal bureaucrat making up excuses for himself ("just following orders"). I think it was devastating for any glorifiers of Nazism and a glorious moment for Israel. It would have been a glorious moment for the US to give OBL the same kind of treatment. It would have been a disaster for Islamist terrorism to see their idol well-fed and well-treated supported by a highly-paid lawyer playing every trick in the book to pounce his client off death row. Maybe, after the verdict, the defendant might actually have asked for clemency. And he might even have been granted it: Conversion of a death sentence into 3800x life without parole, to be spent with other convicted killers. I can't help myelf: I like the thought. Remember: OBL stopped suffering the moment the first bullett entered his eyesocket.

There is this nagging doubt that OBL was ordered killed simply because the Obama administration didn't dare put him in front of a regular American court for fear they might actually lose. That, to me, leaves an aftertaste of weakness.
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Postby Мастер » Thu May 05, 2011 4:34 pm

Arneb wrote:Eichmann - I know what they did to him. OK: No matter if the aim is killing or abduction, covert overseas operations aren't exactly by the rulebook anyway, but still. He got a trial with all the bells and whistles: Good lawyers, plenty food, a suit&tie, simultaneous translation, plenty of time for preparation, all the evidence used against him available to his counsel; the right to cross-examine witnesses; no torture, a priest, and a method of execution that was fast and painless (as I said, I AM willing to suspend my opposition to capital punishment in extreme cases). It pretty much destroyed the evil-almighty aura that the SS Obersturmbannführer enjoyed in the public imagination: To see this lowly, self-pitying, writhing banal bureaucrat making up excuses for himself ("just following orders"). I think it was devastating for any glorifiers of Nazism and a glorious moment for Israel. It would have been a glorious moment for the US to give OBL the same kind of treatment. It would have been a disaster for Islamist terrorism to see their idol well-fed and well-treated supportedby a highly-paid lawyer playing every trick in the book to pounce his client off death row.


There was some thing on the History Channel a while back, which claimed that the group that found Eichmann in Buenos Aires, missed Mengele by about two weeeks.

Could be an either/or situation though. If one of them fails to show up for the weekly meeting of the Third Reich Refugee Support Group, Buenos Aires Chapter, the others will know not to take their regular route home from work for a while . . .

Arneb wrote:There is this nagging doubt that OBL was ordered killed simply because the Obama administration didn't dare put him in front of a regular American court for fear they might actually lose. That, to me, leaves an aftertaste of weakness.


Seems to me, that's the whole purpose of Gitmo - a place to keep people you can't convict in the regular courts. I guess maybe there could be an informational value to it too, you could potentially find out things there using "persuasion" techniques that can't really be used on the mainland.
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Postby MM_Dandy » Thu May 05, 2011 6:04 pm

Arneb, I'm not sure that having OBL tried, convicted, and punished by "the great Satan (TM)" would make any difference among the extremists. But I do wonder now if it might have helped relationships among more friendly entities.
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Postby Мастер » Thu May 05, 2011 6:22 pm

MM_Dandy wrote:Arneb, I'm not sure that having OBL tried, convicted, and punished by "the great Satan (TM)" would make any difference among the extremists. But I do wonder now if it might have helped relationships among more friendly entities.


They could have made him the director of the CIA for a while. Then most other countries would have supported his execution without trial :P
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Postby tubeswell » Thu May 05, 2011 6:45 pm

Subjecting OBL to the western trial system probably would've just have been another western indignity to hard-line radical jihadist muslims.

Whereas, according to Muhammad, the law of retaliation or lex talionis (best known from the formulation "an eye for an eye" in the Torah) was a bonafide form of restorative sanction. My guess is most (if not all) of the al Qaeda mob are expecting something like that to happen to them one day, and that sets in their minds, a further justification for pursuing their jihad. Why else would OBL (and all the others) have gone into hiding (in wherever)? If they knew they were innocent and were prepared to stand trial (and had the courage of their convictions), they may've just waited to be arrested and put their faith in the (western) justice system.

Now I am pretty much a shameless godless infidel, but I do understand something of the role that culture plays in driving human agendas (one of my degrees is BA in sociology and anthropology - only because Auckland University didn't have a social science faculty when I did social science there, so the social sciences were taught in the Arts faculty, which is why that university has a more theoretical/academic tradition in social science - anyway I digress)

So as I was about to say, culture drives religion (not the other way around). Repeated generations of humans living (somehow surviving) in arid harsh environments for 1,000s of years makes for equally arid harsh cultures whose systems of beliefs are underlined with simple black-and-white, or cut-and-dried philosopies that reflect the environment they have adapted to. If you or I lived in this sort of (semi arid desert) environment for long enough, we may probably come to appreciate the values placed on conserving resources and taking pleasure in the simplest of things (maybe). I think one of the reasons that hard-line islamist militant jihadists resent western culture, is because they see it as extravagant and wasteful and indulgent and it threatens their sense of identity - who they are.

I have come to the conclusion over the years that human beings are hard-wired to need to belong to some kind of group or other, because that is a trait of our species. (You see evidence of the need of people to coalesce into identifiable communities of commonality across the globe - e.g.: where a group of people speak the same language and live in the same area and believe the same kinds of things and (more importantly) depend on each other for survival in that manner, then they come to identify themselves as from that group). The system of beliefs (including religious doctrines) are a part of the rubic of each respective group's culture and traditions. Where the group's beliefs (and culture - and hence the group identity itself) are threatened, then the group may be likely to be pre-disposed to take action, in some way or other, in order to resolve that threat.

Add to this the increasing smallness of our world, intensification of natural resource use and competition for resources, and exposure to other groups and beliefs which may become a threat if competing for the same resources, then that is pretty much a recipe for conflict.

In a conflict for resources, either one or the other group eventually prevails, or the groups reach some sort of mutual accord.

So will responding to OBL in a fashion after lex talionis, endear western political leaders to islam? That remains to be seen.
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Postby KLA2 » Fri May 06, 2011 1:47 am

I think that goes back to the Code of Hammurabi, who borrowed it from predecessors.

Great commentary, tubes. Wish you provided more like it. Don't keep all that education to yourself! :)
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Postby tubeswell » Sat May 07, 2011 12:56 am

Great. So that's the end of the discussion then?
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Postby KLA2 » Sat May 07, 2011 3:59 am

tubeswell wrote:Great. So that's the end of the discussion then?


Umm ... I can not spend a couple of hours to write a thesis basically agreeing with you.

Perhaps others will pick holes in your dissertation.

Discussions here are a process, not an event.

Six months can be a short time, grasshopper. :wink:
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Postby St. Jimmy » Sat May 07, 2011 7:27 pm

KLA2 wrote:
St. Jimmy wrote:So after reading and listening to all these different reports and retraction of comments and statements by officials, I have serious doubts about everything. And not because I'm some conspiracy theorist, but because the way the US officials are releasing information is inviting doubt.

This whole 10 year manhunt hasn't been about justice being served or trying to detain an evil man; it's been a US revenge quest from start to finish. I don't think the mission on Sunday ever including capturing him. Especially when, he was shot through the left eye while unarmed. I can't say I blame us, he claimed responsibility for thousands of innocent American's deaths caused by Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks.

This is the only thing I believe whole-heartedly. I'm gonna take back all other statements I've made on the Bin Ladin situation and wait until some more official statements and info are released from officials, as new things seem to be emerging every day.


Yes. I think most people are annoyed that the US cannot get their facts (lies?) straight. May be due to the "fog of battle" and the speed of news (some, appearently, twittered within minutes of the event.)

Yes, Jimmy, war sucks. It is never about justice and honor; it is about winning at any cost by any means. Probably should be avoided, where possible.

Bin laden was evil beyond guilty, and had to die. I only wish I could die so quickly and easily. :evil:

I wish he could have suffered the pain and loss of every single one of the victims resulting from his actions. Weep for them. Demand justice serve them. :evil:


I have to disagree. I the United States wants to keep trying to play the role of the world's police agency, then it can't be hypocritical. Osama Bin Ladin should have stood trial for his crimes just like any other murderer. The United States has commited a crime. We went unannounced, unauthorized into another country's territory on a mission to murder an unarmmed fugitive in cold blood for revenge. If another country did that to the US, we would go nuts.
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Postby Superluminal » Sat May 07, 2011 7:37 pm

Good question, if someone was responsible for killing 3,000 innocent people in another country and was hiding in the U.S. If agents of that country tracked him down and killed him, without harming any Americans, would we really go that nuts? All sorts of things happen around the U.S. Mexican border and noboby, exept the people who live there, goes nuts.
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Postby Мастер » Sat May 07, 2011 8:16 pm

Superluminal wrote:Good question, if someone was responsible for killing 3,000 innocent people in another country and was hiding in the U.S. If agents of that country tracked him down and killed him, without harming any Americans, would we really go that nuts? All sorts of things happen around the U.S. Mexican border and noboby, exept the people who live there, goes nuts.


I'm thinking of that Chilean guy the Pinochet regime took care of in Washington.
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Postby Мастер » Sat May 07, 2011 10:35 pm

St. Jimmy wrote:I have to disagree. I the United States wants to keep trying to play the role of the world's police agency, then it can't be hypocritical. Osama Bin Ladin should have stood trial for his crimes just like any other murderer. The United States has commited a crime. We went unannounced, unauthorized into another country's territory on a mission to murder an unarmmed fugitive in cold blood for revenge. If another country did that to the US, we would go nuts.


It's possible that that's what happened, but I don't know if we can really tell for sure.

The United States is stating publicly that they did not inform Pakistan of this operation. If so, and if some existing blanket agreement does not give authorisation for this sort of thing, then they did indeed enter Pakistani territory without permission. Although if the cover story is true, it sounds like they probably could have gone into Pakistan, captured/killed Usama, returned, and claimed they found him on a ride at Eurodisney, and the Pakistanis would have been none the wiser. Maybe they left enough evidence (like a broken helicopter) to require sticking with the actual story.

But I rather wonder if Pakistan was informed, and the two countries agreed to present the story to the world in this way, for internal Pakistani political reasons. I don't know if we have any way to tell.

Regarding going there to kill someone, I don't know if we can be sure about that either - their instructions might have been to capture if possible. But the US has been launching missile attacks in Pakistan and Yemen for years, those are clearly designed to kill rather than capture. So I think you've definitely got them on that account on other occasions, just not necessarily on this one.
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Postby Arneb » Sat May 07, 2011 11:27 pm

MM_Dandy wrote:Arneb, I'm not sure that having OBL tried, convicted, and punished by "the great Satan (TM)" would make any difference among the extremists. But I do wonder now if it might have helped relationships among more friendly entities.


That is an interesting point, and I think you're right. However the point (propagandawise, and totally leaving aqside my personal views on things like "justice") is: Bin Laden was the hero, the idol of some significant portion of the Arab Muslim world - young people who can very well, but need not necessarily, become wild-eyed Islamic Fundamentalists. For them to see that OBL was NOTHING like a hero, and that the US is NOTHING like the jingoistic imperialist ruthless enemy of all Islam as which it is portrayed would have been extremely valuable. It might have swayed a lot of people.

It's a bit like the Moon hoax saga: You will never get hold of the diehard believers, nor of the snake oil salesman in this business. But you will convince a lot of folks who are willing to listen to a good argument.
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Postby KLA2 » Sun May 08, 2011 2:22 am

Arneb, I state the obvious; the Muslim population is not a monolithic block.

The educated, the moderates, the normal human beings realize that what OBL did/caused/advocated was monstrous, did enormous harm to the world, including Muslims. His end was swift and merciful. I think they will not object.

The militant anti-Muslim fringe, will not object.

The militant anti-west/civilization fanatics who call themselves Muslim, pretty much only respect force and terror. (Try explaining truth and justice to a religious robot who is prepared to strap dynamite to himself … or a retarded child … and detonate in a crowd of innocent civilians.)

Such a person probably despises justice and due process. (Duh.) Force and ruthless retribution is a code they subscribe to, respect, and perhaps fear.

My initial reaction was disappointment that OBL was not captured alive and tried.

A few minutes of thought convinced me that a long incarceration and trial would be the perfect forum for him and his fanatical followers to unleash more horrors on mankind, including however many torturous deaths of innocents were deemed necessary to obtain OBL’s release. How many could liberal western democracies justify?

Not intended as a cheap shot, Arneb, but how many could you, would you justify? 10,000? 1,000? 100? 10? 1??

Do not think that I do not see your point of view and agree with it, in part.

I do hold that my point of view is over 50% more justifiable. How much over, I decline to say.
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Postby Arneb » Sun May 08, 2011 10:37 am

I'll have to think about that... :-k
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Postby tubeswell » Sun May 08, 2011 7:35 pm

Depends on whether it was 'law' or 'war' to some degree. I understand US govt officials said they officially were going to stop using the phrase 'war on terror' back in 2009. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/ma ... operations

Al-Qaeda are not any form of nation state, but rather are a group of like-minded wannabes who obviously consider themselves at war with the US in particular and western civilisations in general. But are they 'war criminals' as such, or merely outlaws? Usually war criminals are people who have committed attrocities whilst they were in control of nations who were at war (and presumably assert justifying their deeds as acts of war). Historically when war criminals have been tried, it is after their regimes have been toppled or dismantled and they are no longer in power, and the inhumanity of their acts can be examined without the distraction of war.

Either way, war criminals or outlaws are usually tried and sentenced when they are caught, but not always I guess.

I think the context needs to be examined. Let's face it - GW was a loose cannon who shot his mouth off all over the place. His general incompetence has something to answer for in branding the 'war on terror' in the first place (because arguably the killing of OBL was in-part, a consequence of that mindset).

In terms of how the Obama administration has dealt with it, I guess it comes down to expediency (in terms of how long it might take to capture an outlaw), and the general feeling antipathy/angst towards the said outlaw and the amount of grief the said outlaw has caused and the general extent of culpability that the sanctioning populace (or those in charge) perceives and/or accepts the alleged offender/outlaw to be guilty of without needing further evidence. The US Govt must've had a massive body of intelligence on OBL over the last 10 to 15 years (at least), and possibly may have decided that a trial would've been quite a lengthy and costly process and that it was far more expedient to execute him.

So was this a mistake in hindsight? Time will tell...
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Postby KLA2 » Mon May 09, 2011 1:44 am

Well. A war, you send in the armed forces with planes and tanks and stuff.

An outlaw, you send the police in cars with sirens and six guns.

GW pretty much had to call this a war, pardner. :wink:
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Postby tubeswell » Mon May 09, 2011 10:05 am

KLA2 wrote:Well. A war, you send in the armed forces with planes and tanks and stuff.

An outlaw, you send the police in cars with sirens and six guns.

GW pretty much had to call this a war, pardner. :wink:


Well I'm sure he felt as if he had to call it something (if only in order to attempt to portray even a faint semblance of competence). Unfortunate for him (and perhaps the rest of the world) that he is really a dufus, and that he called it a 'war'. He could've just called it something like 'an unprecedented heinous act of terrorism' or some such. He really didn't have to dignify the lunatic (al-Qaeda) fringe by referring to it as a 'war' (which is just the sort of infantile acknowledgement they were craving). But no - he had to go and put his clod foot right in the slippery brown stuff. (And to think that he got into power in the first place by slight of hand too).
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Postby Мастер » Mon May 09, 2011 10:12 am

War seems to be the pretty standard terminology for lots of major political initiatives in the US - war on poverty, war on drugs, war on terror, etc. I haven't noticed whether other countries have an inclination to declare war on inanimate objects, socioeconomic conditions, or tactics.
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Postby Lianachan » Mon May 09, 2011 10:36 am

In my view, referring to (and treating) a criminal act as an act of war was a huge mistake.
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Postby Superluminal » Mon May 09, 2011 9:02 pm

Mactep wrote:
Superluminal wrote:Good question, if someone was responsible for killing 3,000 innocent people in another country and was hiding in the U.S. If agents of that country tracked him down and killed him, without harming any Americans, would we really go that nuts? All sorts of things happen around the U.S. Mexican border and noboby, exept the people who live there, goes nuts.


I'm thinking of that Chilean guy the Pinochet regime took care of in Washington.


If that's the one I'm thinking about, that was more of a hitman taking him out than a special ops raid.
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Postby KLA2 » Tue May 10, 2011 1:10 am

tubes, I am not sure how President Bush could have got NATO to bomb and invade Afghanistan except if it was a war.

And that surely needed doing.

But it was not a war on Afghanistan. It was a war on religious nutjobs the Taliban and al Qaeda.

That did not have a nice ring to it. "War on Terror" did.
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