Osama bin Laden: Dead

[maiforpeace]

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!

What's ironic is that many of the same people that are claiming this newest conspiracy theory originally blamed 9/11 on Bush...so tell us, conspiracy theorists, when did you decide that OBL was responsible for 9/11? At least keep your bullshit straight.

[Ian]

The "Osama is not actually dead" conspiracy theories are kinda funny. The only remotely plausible one is that he was actually captured and is now in the custody of a select few CIA interrogators. Personally, I give that a 1% possibility.
Even then, he's dead. I can't help but think of a scene from Pulp Fiction:

"Who's motorcycle is this?"
"It's a chopper, baby."
"Who's chopper is this?"
"Zed's."
"Who's Zed?"
"Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead."

Was Zed actually dead at that moment? Not likely.

[Atheist-Lite]

I think he's been dead a while, quite a while, myself.

[sandinista]

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!

What's ironic is that many of the same people that are claiming this newest conspiracy theory originally blamed 9/11 on Bush...so tell us, conspiracy theorists, when did you decide that OBL was responsible for 9/11? At least keep your bullshit straight.

What conspiracy theories are you talking about? I haven't muddled my way through the whole thread, someone is claiming Osama is still alive? I'm not sure what you're talking about Maiforpeace. I, personally, have no "theory" about any of this other than the official line of the US government is a lie.

[Seth]

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!

Prove you wrong? I devoutly hope you're exactly correct, and even now his gonads are being fried up and served to him.

[sandinista]

good article by Chomsky.

My Reaction to Osama bin Laden’s Death
It’s increasingly clear that the operation was a planned assassination, multiply violating elementary norms of international law. There appears to have been no attempt to apprehend the unarmed victim, as presumably could have been done by 80 commandos facing virtually no opposition—except, they claim, from his wife, who lunged towards them. In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial. I stress “suspects.” In April 2002, the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, informed the press that after the most intensive investigation in history, the FBI could say no more than that it “believed” that the plot was hatched in Afghanistan, though implemented in the UAE and Germany. What they only believed in April 2002, they obviously didn’t know 8 months earlier, when Washington dismissed tentative offers by the Taliban (how serious, we do not know, because they were instantly dismissed) to extradite bin Laden if they were presented with evidence—which, as we soon learned, Washington didn’t have. Thus Obama was simply lying when he said, in his White House statement, that “we quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda.”

Nothing serious has been provided since. There is much talk of bin Laden’s “confession,” but that is rather like my confession that I won the Boston Marathon. He boasted of what he regarded as a great achievement.

There is also much media discussion of Washington’s anger that Pakistan didn’t turn over bin Laden, though surely elements of the military and security forces were aware of his presence in Abbottabad. Less is said about Pakistani anger that the U.S. invaded their territory to carry out a political assassination. Anti-American fervor is already very high in Pakistan, and these events are likely to exacerbate it. The decision to dump the body at sea is already, predictably, provoking both anger and skepticism in much of the Muslim world.

It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.”


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.

There’s more to say about [Cuban airline bomber Orlando] Bosch, who just died peacefully in Florida, including reference to the “Bush doctrine” that societies that harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves and should be treated accordingly. No one seemed to notice that Bush was calling for invasion and destruction of the U.S. and murder of its criminal president.

Same with the name, Operation Geronimo. The imperial mentality is so profound, throughout western society, that no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders. It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.”

There is much more to say, but even the most obvious and elementary facts should provide us with a good deal to think about.

http://www.zcommunications.org/my-react ... am-chomsky

[Seth]

good article by Chomsky.

Chomsky's an idiot, and his article is all about moral equivalency and Bush-bashing.

Osama =/= Bush in the moral equivalency scale, no matter how much Chomsky wishes it were so. The rest is pettifoggery and obfuscation of the known truths about Osama in an attempt to gloss over his crimes and inhuman conduct as a rationalization from an America-hating Marxist moron arguing against decisive military action.

[Svartalf]

good article by Chomsky.

Chomsky's an idiot, and his article is all about moral equivalency and Bush-bashing.

Osama =/= Bush in the moral equivalency scale, no matter how much Chomsky wishes it were so. The rest is pettifoggery and obfuscation of the known truths about Osama in an attempt to gloss over his crimes and inhuman conduct as a rationalization from an America-hating Marxist moron arguing against decisive military action.

mmmh... I dare disagree, bush and his clique definitely rate very high on the sleazeball scale, and it might be a blessing to close one's collective eye if a foreign power managed to send a commando to off him.

Off course, if a foreign power can do such a thing, it might be wiser to nuke it into a glass desert because an enemy with that potential is definitely a bad thing.

Pakistan might be in the right to declare war on the US... I doubt it would do them any good, and anyway, they'd have to explain how come OBL lived under their very nose without their being aware.

Of course, I'm not too qualified for that discussion since my public stance is that if a country is obviously unable to govern itself, it might be better for it to come under western colonial power.

[sandinista]

good article by Chomsky.

Chomsky's an idiot, and his article is all about moral equivalency and Bush-bashing.

Osama =/= Bush in the moral equivalency scale, no matter how much Chomsky wishes it were so. The rest is pettifoggery and obfuscation of the known truths about Osama in an attempt to gloss over his crimes and inhuman conduct as a rationalization from an America-hating Marxist moron arguing against decisive military action.

mmmh... I dare disagree, bush and his clique definitely rate very high on the sleazeball scale, and it might be a blessing to close one's collective eye if a foreign power managed to send a commando to off him.

Off course, if a foreign power can do such a thing, it might be wiser to nuke it into a glass desert because an enemy with that potential is definitely a bad thing.

Pakistan might be in the right to declare war on the US... I doubt it would do them any good, and anyway, they'd have to explain how come OBL lived under their very nose without their being aware.

Of course, I'm not too qualified for that discussion since my public stance is that if a country is obviously unable to govern itself, it might be better for it to come under western colonial power.

Of course, the obvious needs to be pointed out. If seth calls someone an idiot, it does nothing but bolster the so-called idiots credibility.

[Robert_S]

...they'd have to explain how come OBL lived under their very nose without their being aware.
...

Yes, I'm just a little curious about that...

[Svartalf]

Mmmmh, I admire Chomsky's work as a linguist, that does not mean I have to agree 100% with his politics

[JimC]

sandinista wrote:
I, personally, have no "theory" about any of this other than the official line of the US government is a lie.

That is your automatic response in any debate on international issues, so you have no need to state it anymore...

But it depends what you mean by a "lie"

Special forces did not invade Pakistan?

1 chopper was not damaged and destroyed?

Bin Laden was not in the compound?

He was, but esacaped (having had secret Ninja training)?

He wasn't killed, but captured alive?

They always intended to give him the chance to surrender?

The last was probably a lie, I suspect, and there may be other details that have been left out, fudged, or given some spin...

What you haven't done is engage in any real debate. The issue of international law, the adverse effects of the action on relations with Pakistan and the precedent this sets in international affairs for "might is right" solutions are real issues of concern. Many in the threads about this issue have clearly stated they are worried by aspects of the US actions, including many of our American members, such as CES... One can do that, without descending into Chompsky-style denialism, somehow pretending that Bin Laden was not responsible for the 2 towers, or that he was not a self-declared enemy of the US who intended to harm the citizens of that country as much as he caould, or that Bush is the Great Satan in person...

[Robert_S]

If OBL was deliberately assassinated, I don't particularly care. I don't think it sets up much of a precedence for cases where the US was not attacked on a 9-11 scale by a guy who declared war on the US and called for Americans and their allies, both civilians and military, to be killed wherever possible.

[sandinista]

sandinista wrote:
I, personally, have no "theory" about any of this other than the official line of the US government is a lie.

That is your automatic response in any debate on international issues, so you have no need to state it anymore...

I wonder why, the US government is know for it's truth telling Pat Tillman, WMD, jessica lynch.

[JimC]

If OBL was deliberately assassinated, I don't particularly care. I don't think it sets up much of a precedence for cases where the US was not attacked on a 9-11 scale by a guy who declared war on the US and called for Americans and their allies, both civilians and military, to be killed wherever possible.

I'm not sorry he's dead, either, but I think that there are some worrying aspects about how it was done. It's not quite me saying that the ends can never justify the means, but that a valuble end might be accomplished by means which somewhat tarnish the achievement, and can have negative consequences down the line.

Take this scenario:

A Chinese activist has escaped from China, and is part of a movement of chinese dissidents actively working to get rid of the communist leadership. The Chinese government would like him to go away, permanently - he is charismatic and effective, and actively urging disobedience and even acts of violent resistance against the state. They learn that he is living under an assumed name in a suburb of Maniila. Their special forces repeat the American actions, brushing aside any Phillipine forces quite easily.

When criticised by the international community, all they have to do is say that, if it's good enough for America, it's good enough for them...