Osama bin Laden: Dead

[Hermit]

That wording could be intentional or it could be a cultural thing. Wanted posters in the old American West read "Wanted Dead or Alive." It's hard to say without knowing a hell of a lot more about how much of the delivery was influenced by culture and how much by planning - and we all know what happens to the best laid plans of mice and men.

True, but in the same speech Obama also said that bin Laden was killed AFTER a firefight. I don't think there was any evidence in his entire speech that there was any intention to bring him back alive, let alone give him a Nuremberg type trial. The president, I think, would have mentioned something along those lines, had that been the case. He pointedly did not even waste one sentence on it in his nine minute speech.

[charlou]

As Obama said (paraphrasing), justice has been done.


Edit: listened to his speech again .. and posted what he did say: http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 75#p843475

[Ayaan]

All I've heard are snippets of the speech, so I do not know everything he said. Could be there was little or no intention to capture him alive - and despite Osama's vow not the be captured alive, I don't think one can know for certain how one would act until in that situation.

[charlou]

All I've heard are snippets of the speech, so I do not know everything he said. Could be there was little or no intention to capture him alive - and despite Osama's vow not the be captured alive, I don't think one can know for certain how one would act until in that situation.

Actually, listening to the speech again, Obama didn't say justice is done ... He said: "I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorised an operation to get Osama bin laden, and bring him to justice."

Best read and interpreted in the context of the entire speech ...


Ayaan, here's a link to the speech: http://media.smh.com.au/news/world-news ... 38526.html

And a transcript: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/0 ... 56122.html




Edit: reading the transcript, I found where Obama said justice is done: http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 86#p843486

[Ayaan]

Thanks, charlou. I was at work when the news broke here and the first real news I got to listen to was BBC World Service on the car radio on the way home (hurray for St. Louis Public Radio) and all I got to hear was soundbites of the speech.

[charlou]

Thanks, charlou. I was at work when the news broke here and the first real news I got to listen to was BBC World Service on the car radio on the way home (hurray for St. Louis Public Radio) and all I got to hear was soundbites of the speech.

You're welcome.



re the justice thing .... Reading the transcript of Obama's speech, here's where I got the 'justice is done' impression from:

We will be true to the values that make us who we are. And on nights like this one, we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to al Qaeda’s terror: Justice has been done.

Justice without trial is being true to American values?

Nevermind what the rest of us think, here's a president who tars all Americans with the same brush.

[Ayaan]

That doesn't sound like justice to me either. Silly me, wanting to think the best of everyone - even politicians.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

That wording could be intentional or it could be a cultural thing. Wanted posters in the old American West read "Wanted Dead or Alive." It's hard to say without knowing a hell of a lot more about how much of the delivery was influenced by culture and how much by planning - and we all know what happens to the best laid plans of mice and men.

True, but in the same speech Obama also said that bin Laden was killed AFTER a firefight. I don't think there was any evidence in his entire speech that there was any intention to bring him back alive, let alone give him a Nuremberg type trial. The president, I think, would have mentioned something along those lines, had that been the case. He pointedly did not even waste one sentence on it in his nine minute speech.

That's a phrasing you see a lot in the US. "After much struggle, the enemy was killed" doesn't mean he was killed AFTER the struggle, but after much effort was expended to kill him.

ETA: It's another way of saying, "As a result of a firefight, Osama was killed."

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Chomsky, crazy as usual:

I find it hard to believe that anyone who isn't a radical Islamist would give an asswipe about Bin Laden's demise. Who honestly wishes he was still alive?

I tell a lie. I don't find it hard to believe. Like a fundamentalist preacher claiming a hurricane is punishment for sin, the radical left have been using Al-Qaeda and 9/11 and a vicarious lash against the society and culture they despise.

Chomksy is a known supporter of the Iranian-backed Shiite terrorist group; Hezbollah.

Chomksy is upset of course, that we "invaded Pakistani territory" and "carried out a political assassination".

He claims George Bush is more evil than Bin Laden, and comparable to Nazi war criminals.

Quote:
We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a “suspect” but uncontroversially the “decider” who gave the orders to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country, the bitter sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region.

http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2652/no ... ion_to_os/

If you start war, you get war. Al-Qaeda are not entitled to any sort of kid gloves.

[kiki5711]

That doesn't sound like justice to me either. Silly me, wanting to think the best of everyone - even politicians.

There's never "really" full justice done in any situation, because the harm that's been done cannot be UNdone.

[kiki5711]

Maybe we should have mailed him a "Warrant for your arrest", 30 day notice to give up willingly. Then, if he doesn't for some odd reason, we get FBI to bust into his "now empty" compound, and look for him (suprise, suprise, he's not there!) to arrest him.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Comparatively speaking, he was handled kindly.

Not for squeamish.

Trigger Warning!!!1! :

[kiki5711]

The UN will find that if there never was any plan to capture him IN THIS INSTANCE, and that it was an assassination, then it may very well be murder under international law. Whether it's Osama or someone else doesn't matter.

Well, it does matter whether it be OBL or someone else. OBL loved the fact he was given "credit and responsibility" for taking down WTCs, (even though it wasn't HIM alone acting on it) but now all of a sudden when it comes the time to pay the piper, he don't want that? Sorry, but it don't work that way.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

We had no plan to capture Yamamoto alive, either. SFW?

[Robert_S]

I am severely disappointed in the quality of conspiracy theories on this board.

Here's one for you: Osama is still alive and being tortured for information and/or shits and giggles right now.

Prove me wrong!