OSAMA BIN LADEN DEAD

[Spice Runner]

Wow. They finally nailed the bastard. Congrats to the American special forces who carried out this mission. Unfortunately we had to go through two expensive and ruinous wars, violations of our civil liberties, torture, etc... . Hope we Americans finally have gotten a sense of closure and hopefully AQ and their ilk have been demoralized enough so that just maybe we can look forward to a better decade here in the U.S. But then again I'm just an optimist.

Also I do feel sympathy for Pakistan as they have been going through routine bombings and terror from the assortment of extremists along their Afgan border. If the extremists get a whiff that Pakistan was complacent or cooperated in this killing I think there is going to be a ramping up of already existing violence against the people of Pakistan.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Saw this posted on SB:

The Compound was built across the street from the Pakistani army command and Pakistani intelligence for that province of Pakistan. The Compound where Bin Ladin was in has been there for 5 years and it was built specifically with access to the local hospital's dialysis facility.

The rumors now is that the head of Pakistani intelligence came to the US personally on Monday to assured us that Bin Ladin was not in any urban area and instead in the mountains near the border with Afghanistan. But it appears he was always there and they were lying to us. But not because they supported his cause necessarily but as long as he was at large the US government and specifically the then Bush Administration would pour unlimited money and resources into them. But over the last 2 years Obama has been with slowly with holding money and resources for lack of cooperation rather than just giving unlimited money in the hopes of cooperation.

I don't know the exact details, but I do know that Pakistans equivalent of West Point, the Kakul Military Academy, isn't very far away. If true this could be bad news for American-Pakistani relations and no one will fault us for not informing them, if so it would lend credence to the intelligence documents Wikileaks released saying that ISI had him on ice.

[Thanas]

And I get that people wish the American Public would have behaved "more noble" and a bit more "introspective", but just look at European societies. Britain celebrated their victory as well. I really do not think one can flaunt the Americans in this instant, nor that one could flaunt others in the past who celebrated what they viewed as the downfall of their enemies.

Noble is one thing, but heck I'm surprised they didn't cancel school today and make it a national day of celebration.

Now that would be a distasteful thing to do. You celebrate the end of WWII. You do not celebrate the bombing of Hiroshima unless you are one sick bastard.

[TheHammer]

If killing Osama has been the goalpost, and I kept hearing for ten years that it was, it might be a good time to pause the game and look at the score. You know, figure out how much all sides lost, or what we gained, to get to this point. Put a final political and human price point on this man's death.

Well, the human price is probably the 2.3 million or so people that have been killed as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the billions upon billions the US spent to get there. So it's not looking too good for the US. I mean, unless we divorce the wars entirely from Osama's death, then we can celebrate because we only spent a few million dollars and killed only a few people!!

Killing Osama is important because he was a symbol, but ultimately the war in Afghanistan was about dismantling the base of operations that Al Qaeda enjoyed there. The larger "war on terror" so to speak...

The Iraq war was never really about Bin Laden. There was some attempt to link Iraq and Al Qaeda as the extra little lube to shove that war up America's ass, but the main case made was always "WMDs" and "Saddam is evil".

Something that makes me uncomfortable about this whole thing is that we're overtly celebrating someone's death. Bin Laden was an asshole who got what was coming to him, but dancing in the streets of cities? Having parties and waving American flags? It's not the least bit unsettling to people that we're almost as blood thirsty as he was? Hav was right, it was a vengeance killing. We can wrap it in the packaging of "justice" but that doesn't change the innate motivation behind it.

But hey i'm sure the next time a foreign country is celebrating the death of some American we'll all look at them and say "lol crazy moslums".

I believe the key difference is that this was targeted celebration for the death of a specific individual - One who clearly deserved it in the eyes of most of the world. When Uday, Qusay, and Saddam Hussein's deaths were celebrated in Iraq, I don't think most Americans thought "lol crazy moslums". Same could be said for any dictator that falls. If Ghadaffi ends up getting it in the near future and we see Libyans dancing in the streets I'd wager most Americans will say "Good for them".

Its when they celebrate random deaths of civilians, such as we saw from some groups in the middle east following the 9/11 attacks, that we take a step back and think "what the fuck is wrong with them?".

I can understand the celebration, but on the other hand, I just wish people'd look at the overall cost and reflect a little on whether it's really been worth it.

I think this says it best:

Americans understand the costs of war. Yet as a country, we will never tolerate our security being threatened, nor stand idly by when our people have been killed. We will be relentless in defense of our citizens and our friends and allies... - Barack Obama.

[FSTargetDrone]

A bit more about the burial at sea:

The Politics and Logistics Behind Bin Laden's Watery Grave

BY RAY GUSTINI

11:31 AM ET
When the news was breaking last night that U.S. forces had killed Osama bin Laden, special emphasis was placed on the fact the terrorist's body was "in U.S. custody." That didn't last long. By 2 a.m. Washington D.C. time, bin Laden's body had already been buried at sea. An explanation of the political concerns and diplomatic that influenced the handling and burial of the body, and a look at how the U.S. is making the case abroad that they really got their man.

Why so fast?

Because the White House is adamant the body be handled in accordance with Islamic practices, which state a corpse must be buried within 24 hours. A senior administration told Politico's Matt Negrin that properly disposing of the body "in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition" was "something that we take very seriously, and so, therefore, this is being handled in an appropriate manner." That reinforces the point President Obama made in his speech to the world last night, when he declared "the United States is not -- and never will be -- at war with Islam."

Why at sea?

The New York Times says that by burying the terrorist at sea, "American authorities presumably were trying to avoid creating a shrine for his followers." A source tells The Wall Street Journal that Saudi Arabia (bin Laden's country of birth) was initially offered custody of the body, but declined

Will the U.S. release photos of the body?

The White House is weighing that decision right now. (The photos currently circulating the Internet claiming to show the Al Qaeda leader's body are fake.) ABC News reports DNA testing has already confirmed the body is bin Laden's, while a source tells CNN there are "photographs of the body with a gunshot wound to the side of the head that shows an individual that is not unrecognizable as bin Laden." The problem is the photos aren't definitive. Because bin Laden was shot in the face, the U.S. had to use "facial recognition work, amongst other things, to confirm the identity" of the body. This could foster conspiracy theories in the Arab world that bin Laden isn't actually dead and allow "myths of 'escape' [to] build up," writes The Guardian's Paul Harris. (Harris cites similar conspiracy theories that followed the death of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed in a bombing in Iraq in 2003, when his relatives refused to accept his remains and bury them in Jordan.) Appearing on C-SPAN this morning, Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA's Bin Laden unit, predicted the administration would be "forced to put out the pictures" to deal with the conspiracy theories.

There is precedent for releasing such images--the Bush administration released photos of sons Usay and Qusay's bodies 11 days after they were killed in 2003.

Update 1: There's disagreement among Islamic scholars as to whether the sea burial was permissible. "They can say they buried him at sea, but they cannot say they did it according to Islam," Mohammed al-Qubaisi, Dubai's grand mufti, told the Associated Press. "If the family does not want him, it's really simple in Islam: You dig up a grave anywhere, even on a remote island, you say the prayers and that's it..Sea burials are permissible for Muslims in extraordinary circumstances. This is not one of them." University of Jordan Islamic law professor Mohammed Qudah said a burial at sea is a last resort when nobody on land is willing to take the body. "It's neither true nor correct to claim that there was nobody in the Muslim world ready to receive Bin Laden's body," he said.

Reuters is reporting bin Laden was given a religious funeral aboard a U.S. ship in the Arabian Sea before being burried.

Since it's been brought up, I must repeat, I do not care about satisfying people who are conspiracy-minded. Forget them. This is good enough for me. People who don't believe it will never believe it. If you took them into the morgue and showed him the rotting corpse on the slab, they still wouldn't believe it.

[Thanas]

Its when they celebrate random deaths of civilians, such as we saw from some groups in the middle east following the 9/11 attacks, that we take a step back and think "what the fuck is wrong with them?".

I don't follow that argument. After all, what about collateral damage? Case in point, celebration of the Allied bomber commands who carried out the bombing campaign in WWII? Anytime you celebrate a war, you also celebrate the killings of civilians.

[TheHammer]

Its when they celebrate random deaths of civilians, such as we saw from some groups in the middle east following the 9/11 attacks, that we take a step back and think "what the fuck is wrong with them?".

I don't follow that argument. After all, what about collateral damage? Case in point, celebration of the Allied bomber commands who carried out the bombing campaign in WWII? Anytime you celebrate a war, you also celebrate the killings of civilians.

I guess the question you have to ask is "Why are you celebrating?". You can celebrate victory in a war because it means an end to hostilities in your favor, while still mourning the innocent lives lost.

[Thanas]

I would definitely agree with that. But this will not end hostilities, so I doubt the situations are comparable.

[JME2]

I'll do one better.

My sister's been listening to that all night.

[Connor MacLeod]

I'd be happy if this meant the end of things, but I doubt it will really change much. This is largely a psychological and propoganda victory (cheers to Obama for that) but I doubt we're going to stop anything we're still at, and I doubt that the terrorism will stop.

[JME2]

I'd be happy if this meant the end of things, but I doubt it will really change much. This is largely a psychological and propoganda victory (cheers to Obama for that) but I doubt we're going to stop anything we're still at, and I doubt that the terrorism will stop.

No, it won't stop. My first thought was, "How is AQ going to retaliate?"

[Bakustra]

If killing Osama has been the goalpost, and I kept hearing for ten years that it was, it might be a good time to pause the game and look at the score. You know, figure out how much all sides lost, or what we gained, to get to this point. Put a final political and human price point on this man's death.

Well, the human price is probably the 2.3 million or so people that have been killed as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the billions upon billions the US spent to get there. So it's not looking too good for the US. I mean, unless we divorce the wars entirely from Osama's death, then we can celebrate because we only spent a few million dollars and killed only a few people!!

Killing Osama is important because he was a symbol, but ultimately the war in Afghanistan was about dismantling the base of operations that Al Qaeda enjoyed there. The larger "war on terror" so to speak...

The Iraq war was never really about Bin Laden. There was some attempt to link Iraq and Al Qaeda as the extra little lube to shove that war up America's ass, but the main case made was always "WMDs" and "Saddam is evil".

Bush deliberately linked Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda as the initial justification for Iraq, and the wave of public support from Afghanistan was what gave him the opportunity to declare war on Iraq, and Iraq was considered part of the "War on Terror".

And the War on Terror was started in response to 9/11, and it focused on Bin Laden from the get-go, and pretending that you can dissociate the consequences of the War on Terror from the results of Bin Laden's death is a frightening level of cognitive dissonance.

Something that makes me uncomfortable about this whole thing is that we're overtly celebrating someone's death. Bin Laden was an asshole who got what was coming to him, but dancing in the streets of cities? Having parties and waving American flags? It's not the least bit unsettling to people that we're almost as blood thirsty as he was? Hav was right, it was a vengeance killing. We can wrap it in the packaging of "justice" but that doesn't change the innate motivation behind it.

But hey i'm sure the next time a foreign country is celebrating the death of some American we'll all look at them and say "lol crazy moslums".

I believe the key difference is that this was targeted celebration for the death of a specific individual - One who clearly deserved it in the eyes of most of the world. When Uday, Qusay, and Saddam Hussein's deaths were celebrated in Iraq, I don't think most Americans thought "lol crazy moslums". Same could be said for any dictator that falls. If Ghadaffi ends up getting it in the near future and we see Libyans dancing in the streets I'd wager most Americans will say "Good for them".

Its when they celebrate random deaths of civilians, such as we saw from some groups in the middle east following the 9/11 attacks, that we take a step back and think "what the fuck is wrong with them?".

They weren't celebrating the random deaths of civilians- they were celebrating a blow against the empire that causes much of the misery in their daily lives, which bombs them and props up their repressive governments, with unfortunate collateral damage, much like we celebrate fighting terrorists and victory over terrorists despite the unfortunate collateral damage of over 2 million people. Kinda like how Americans also cheerlead the targeted deaths of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki as essential to victory over Japan, as well. While this is horrific from your perspective and mine, you have to understand that many people hate or hold no love for the US because of our policies towards their part of the world, and that "collateral damage" exemptions flow both ways. Even without collateral damage, there's still the US trumpeting the fact that it's a democracy, which clearly means that the average American citizen supported dropping the bomb that killed your aunt, and therefore they can be considered culpable. While this isn't true, (and is indeed the most damning indictment of our system) most people around the world don't know that, and so it becomes easy to justify attacks against the US. Not everybody does support said attacks, but can you see why some might? Now do you get why the "War on Terror" is a sick joke?

[Lagmonster]

I'd be happy if this meant the end of things, but I doubt it will really change much. This is largely a psychological and propoganda victory (cheers to Obama for that) but I doubt we're going to stop anything we're still at, and I doubt that the terrorism will stop.

No, it won't stop. My first thought was, "How is AQ going to retaliate?"

This is how the game is played: We kill their people, and those people's orphans grow up angry and kill our people. Then our people's orphans grow up angry and kill some more of their people. Every time someone scores a kill, their team cheers. You can't do anything about the spectators; the game is only over when everyone decides not to play.

[Traveller]

'Brave Heroic' merican Special forces assasins chase down the diabetic 70 year mastermind of global terrorism.(or the actor playing him)
Osama defiant to the end shouts "You'll never take me alive yankee infidels"
The ever professional and careful american military pulls(all) this off without killing any innocent bystanders Now that is incredible!
The house he (supposedly) was living in, burned to the ground.
Body dumped at sea.
President looks stern and praises american exceptionalism,god, the allmighty merican way of life. Then of course, reminds everyone that the noble war on terror is far from over. Praise God. This comment is not just Obama's, leaders in other western countries are also quick to remind their citizens the endless war is...well....not over, far from it.



Pure Hollywood, Micheal Bay is probably proud, hell, for all we know they hired him to direct this sham. This little side-show has been staged for americas entertainment and distraction, just like the fake global war on terror. Not one of you poping boners right now has ANY evidence OBL was guilty of any crime. Nor do any of you seem capable of wondering how it is that special force assasins can locate, kill, recover a body, handily dumping it at sea, but are somehow unable to apprehend a frail, diabetic 70 year old man to face a public trial

There is precoius little conculsive proof that he was OBL, and dont expect any. Unless you consider the american military-politicos 'take our word for it' to constitute proof. Ah well, Ohama bon Lardner was getting a little stale anyhow. Now can they rotate in some faced new boogeyman for the next False Flag version 2.0.

And yea, President Obomber is now pretty much untouchable come election time.

[Bakustra]

Yeah, except for photographs and DNA samples that were compared with samples provided by his sister- but of course, the US not only framed him for their inexplicable destruction of the World Trade Center, but then faked his death too!!!! Is there anything that Americans can't do?!!?

Check yourself into a psychiatric hospital for paranoid personality disorder.

[Guardsman Bass]

I'd just ignore the Truther troll, unless someone wants to title his stupid ass.

I'm curious as to if they managed to grab anything useful intelligence-wise out of Osama's hiding place when they killed him and retrieved the body. I suppose we'll find out . . . eventually, although some details may come out in the press over the next couple of days to weeks.

[Simon_Jester]

Traveler, I assume you think the 9/11 attacks were a fake, since Al Qaeda appears to be a figment of The Man's propaganda machine for the sake of distracting the sheeple?

It's OK, you can say what you really think about the Twin Towers; this forum is hosted in Canada and we all know that unlike the evil American conspirator-state, Canada has free speech.

I'd be happy if this meant the end of things, but I doubt it will really change much. This is largely a psychological and propoganda victory (cheers to Obama for that) but I doubt we're going to stop anything we're still at, and I doubt that the terrorism will stop.

No, it won't stop. My first thought was, "How is AQ going to retaliate?"

Ineffectively.

If they had the resources to accomplish anything really significant in the way of retaliation, they'd have already used it, because they've already learned that their attacks can provoke us into retaliation vastly larger in scale (and costlier to us) than the damage from their attack was in the first place. If they had really viable options for major terrorist acts "in reserve," it would make infinitely more sense to use them, and let us beat ourselves half to death trying to respond, than to hang onto them just in case we score a major victory.

Holding assets in reserve for a retaliatory strike only makes sense when you have more weapons than you can comfortably use. Say, if you have super-deadly weapons that you would prefer not to deploy because you don't want to find out what happens when things get that ferocious. Or because the costs of deploying the weapons are greater than the payoff for having them, as long as you aren't sure to lose without them.

Given the nature and objectives of the organization, I find it very difficult to believe that Al Qaeda has any weapons they're not willing to use. Which, to me, suggests that they don't have a reserve- what we see is what we get, in terms of their ability to do us harm.

I'm curious as to if they managed to grab anything useful intelligence-wise out of Osama's hiding place when they killed him and retrieved the body. I suppose we'll find out . . . eventually, although some details may come out in the press over the next couple of days to weeks.

I doubt we'll ever know what intel came out of bin Laden's mansion; it's virtually certain there was some unless bin Laden is far more of a figurehead for his organization than the existence of couriers devoted to running errands for him would make me believe.

At least, we won't know until the US government declassifies "top secret sensitive compartmentalized" information (which will happen some time between 2100 and never at this rate), or until someone manages to duplicate the Manning coup on an even larger scale and tosses it to the public by default.

[Metahive]

First off, Osama was closer to 50 years old (54 I think), second, do you really think the US government would lie about something which could be proven wrong in the simplest of ways just by, say, alive and well Osama holding his mug in front of a camera and cursing his would-be assassins? Third, Osama was most probably not without any defenders on that compound and why exactly should he surrender to the Americans when that would just end up with him getting paraded around as spoils of war and then getting shoved into some torture cellar? Criminals who violently resist arrest are fair play.

[MKSheppard]

Link to Briefing released to ABC

Location of Compound:
34 10' 09.40" N 73 14' 33.51" E (or 34.169358,73.242547)
(Current Google Earth Standalone Program only has imagery up to 15 June 2005; but location was verified by looking at the road map network.)






BTW, This is only about 1,370m from the Pakistani Military Academy, Kakul as the crow flies. If you're going by driving distance, it's about 2,140~m to get to PMA Kakul; or about 3 minutes of driving at 30 MPH (50 kph).

[Mr Bean]

So even money the house Bin Laden was staying in was built an maintained by the ISI?

[Captain Seafort]

On a different note, Osama is dead. Good.

Still a pity they didn't nick 'im though.

[TheHammer]

Killing Osama is important because he was a symbol, but ultimately the war in Afghanistan was about dismantling the base of operations that Al Qaeda enjoyed there. The larger "war on terror" so to speak...

The Iraq war was never really about Bin Laden. There was some attempt to link Iraq and Al Qaeda as the extra little lube to shove that war up America's ass, but the main case made was always "WMDs" and "Saddam is evil".

Bush deliberately linked Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda as the initial justification for Iraq, and the wave of public support from Afghanistan was what gave him the opportunity to declare war on Iraq, and Iraq was considered part of the "War on Terror".

I stand by my statement that the war in iraq was sold to Americans as being about oil WMDs and what Saddam would supposedly do with them. The tacit link to Al Qaeda, something Bush was routinely challenged on by the left, was just some extra icing on the shit cake Bush fed us.

And the War on Terror was started in response to 9/11, and it focused on Bin Laden from the get-go, and pretending that you can dissociate the consequences of the War on Terror from the results of Bin Laden's death is a frightening level of cognitive dissonance.

No one is disputing that Osama "got it all started", but invading Iraq was part of the broader "war on terror", it wasn't about "getting Bin Laden". They might be two sides of the same coin, but not one and the same.

".

Its when they celebrate random deaths of civilians, such as we saw from some groups in the middle east following the 9/11 attacks, that we take a step back and think "what the fuck is wrong with them?".

They weren't celebrating the random deaths of civilians- they were celebrating a blow against the empire that causes much of the misery in their daily lives, which bombs them and props up their repressive governments, with unfortunate collateral damage, much like we celebrate fighting terrorists and victory over terrorists despite the unfortunate collateral damage of over 2 million people.

Like I said earlier, the question you have to ask is "why are you celebrating?". The key difference here is that civilians were deliberately targeted on 9/11, not collateral damage. Americans don't celebrate deliberate attacks on civilians, and generally we mourn collateral damage and insist that our government do what it can to minimize it. I realize people in other countries might not understand that, particularly when most of the information is filtered through anti American sources.

Kinda like how Americans also cheerlead the targeted deaths of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki as essential to victory over Japan, as well. While this is horrific from your perspective and mine, you have to understand that many people hate or hold no love for the US because of our policies towards their part of the world, and that "collateral damage" exemptions flow both ways. Even without collateral damage, there's still the US trumpeting the fact that it's a democracy, which clearly means that the average American citizen supported dropping the bomb that killed your aunt, and therefore they can be considered culpable. While this isn't true, (and is indeed the most damning indictment of our system) most people around the world don't know that, and so it becomes easy to justify attacks against the US. Not everybody does support said attacks, but can you see why some might? Now do you get why the "War on Terror" is a sick joke?

I'm not aware of any "dancing in the streets" over the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If you've got an example of that, let me know.

[Metahive]

Only nations can declare war upon another nation, not private persons or criminal organizations, no matter how full of themselves they are, otherwise there wouldn't be a reason to even try anyone in court since every criminal could be claimed to have "declared war upon the nation" and be deposed of without trial. I also already said in another post that "getting killed while resisting arrest" is fine by me.

[Ubiquitous]

This is wonderful news, I feel good for everyone in the US and for the families of those lost in AQ attacks. The mission sounds like a complete success and we should be pleased with this, because it could have very easily gone badly wrong!

[DPDarkPrimus]

On a different note, Osama is dead. Good.

Still a pity they didn't nick 'im though.

They double-tapped him because they weren't sure if he was wearing a suicide vest.