News

Open Thread: Bin Laden Dead

By RTH Staff
Published May 02, 2011

As you have no doubt heard by now, Osama Bin Laden is dead.

What does this mean for the U.S. led war on terror? For Canada's involvement in Afghanistan? For Western relations with Arab nations? For Obama's presidency?

Your thoughts are welcome.

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By Mogadon Megalodon (anonymous) | Posted May 02, 2011 at 08:35:44

Pakistan is probably going to take a beating in Transparency International's 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index.

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By Crusader` (anonymous) | Posted May 02, 2011 at 09:38:26

One muslim coward down...how many to go?

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By Undustrial (registered) - website | Posted May 02, 2011 at 09:38:54

Am I the only one bothered by the notion of American troops having firefights inside Pakistani cities, without the knowledge of its government?

Sure hope the region settles down soon.

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By moylek (registered) - website | Posted May 02, 2011 at 10:33:22 in reply to Comment 62927

I'm holding off on worry on this one - who knows, at this point, what the Pakistani government knew or didn't know?

But I'm pretty freaked out by the Navy Seals operating in the middle of Pakistan, hundreds of miles from the ocean. This is not how the Navy Seals are supposed to work (as anyone raised on 80s and 90s action films knows) - flippers are just not very effective in arid mountains.

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By Mogadon Megalodon (anonymous) | Posted May 02, 2011 at 11:14:16 in reply to Comment 62931

Maybe not the Pakistani government proper, but if you accept the USGov version, the ISI has been a little slippery. And as with the relationship of any spy agency to heads of state, plausable deniability would not be unusual.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110426/wl_nm/us_pakistan_isi_1
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/world/asia/30pstan.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/01/world/asia/01pstan.html

On balance, I'd say that this invisible death potentially changes nothing. There are always compelling rationales for the status quo and the broader dynamics of stateless terrorism arguably have/had little to do with the Bin Laden cult of personality.

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By highwater (registered) | Posted May 02, 2011 at 12:14:41 in reply to Comment 62934

On balance, I'd say that this invisible death potentially changes nothing.

If it shuts up the tea partiers for a news cycle or two, that's good enough for me.

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By highwater (registered) | Posted May 02, 2011 at 10:59:50 in reply to Comment 62931

Also, it was apparently only 35 miles from Islamabad, so likely a well-populated area. No collateral damage this time thank God, but let's face it, they don't have the greatest track record in that department.

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By Pxtl (registered) - website | Posted May 02, 2011 at 09:49:27

Silly Americans, you're supposed to catch the bad guy just before your election, not ours.

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By highwater (registered) | Posted May 02, 2011 at 10:20:21 in reply to Comment 62928

Or just before Celebrity Apprentice, which is almost as good.

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By Mogadon Megalodon (anonymous) | Posted May 02, 2011 at 12:33:32 in reply to Comment 62929

"Within a little over an hour of Obama's speech to the nation, the main television networks had decided that there was nothing left to say, and programming returned to Celebrity Apprentice, Desperate Housewives and Undercover Boss on NBC and ABC and CBS.

If one hour is all people feel is necessary to consider all the implications of bin Laden's killing, and the gate keepers of our collective culture and community feel that a 'return to regular programming' was the proper move after the only the briefest of analysis and discussion, the death of the al-Qaeda founder will, tragically wind up little more than a footnote in an ongoing set of wars that long ago lost their meaning and purpose."

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/2011529443412377.html

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By mrgrande (registered) | Posted May 02, 2011 at 10:25:04

So will I be able to bring a water bottle onto a plane again?

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By Ezaki Glico (anonymous) | Posted May 02, 2011 at 11:25:58

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.
April 4, 1967

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By lawrence (registered) - website | Posted May 02, 2011 at 13:31:43 in reply to Comment 62936

Beautiful. Thanks for posting. If that man had only lived on.

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By UndrustialTired (anonymous) | Posted May 02, 2011 at 11:30:33

Only a radical like Undustrial worries about the niceties of terrorist states like Pakistan having its sovereignty pierced. Undustrial grow up and smell the mortar burns. The Pakistani government tacitly hid the world's greates mass murderer and you show sympathy. Give your red head a shake.

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By highwater (registered) | Posted May 02, 2011 at 12:23:07 in reply to Comment 62937

Only a radical like Undustrial worries about the niceties of terrorist states like Pakistan having its sovereignty pierced.

Except, officially at least, Pakistan is a trusted ally in the WOT. Not embarrassing an ally on the world stage may just seem like a 'nicety' to you, but pissing them off will result in more American deaths, not fewer.

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By George (registered) | Posted May 02, 2011 at 12:21:38

From http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/...

The Devil likely died happy

He’s dead, perhaps learning whether his cruel version of deity was at all accurate, and Americans have erupted in patriotic joy.

But in so many ways, Osama bin Laden died the victor.

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By UrbanRenaissance (registered) | Posted May 02, 2011 at 12:46:13

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By Interesting (anonymous) | Posted May 02, 2011 at 13:11:26

Only some kind of twisted logic would have us believe that a fugitive hunted down in the dead of night and shot in the eye like a paranoid mobster 'died the victor'. The CBC is a dullard's dream.

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By Brandon (registered) | Posted May 02, 2011 at 14:47:24 in reply to Comment 62946

What did he accomplish?

Trillions down the drain in Middle East wars.

America's freedom sacrificed.

Pastor's burning Korans.

Congressmen investigating Muslims for being Muslim.

Sounds like a pretty good scorecard when you consider the difference in size between the US and Al Qaeda.

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By lawrence (registered) - website | Posted May 02, 2011 at 13:45:18 in reply to Comment 62946

Well, I don't think anyone wants to die but I think he would have died happy for how he turned America against one another. Mission accomplished for him.

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By blind (anonymous) | Posted May 02, 2011 at 15:16:12

It seems that people have drank the Kool-aid. I watched this news bried and I was rolling my eyes in disbelief.

How can people actually believe all the newspeak.

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By Kiely (registered) | Posted May 02, 2011 at 15:44:04

The Boogeyman is "dead". Long live the Boogeyman!

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By Undustrial (registered) - website | Posted May 02, 2011 at 15:56:07

Sympathy? No. It's called concern.

Concern that Osama was living near in a military town near the capitol, not in some tribal mountain area. Concern that the US doesn't feel that it needs the permission of sovereign nations to operate within their borders, or it's own citizens/representatives to take such actions. Concerns that America's increasingly willing to put bombs or troops where/when ever it suits them, from the west side of Africa to India's border. Concern that Pakistan has been angered by such actions since Bush was in office, and perhaps most of all, concern that a war Pakistan isn't going to be be nearly as easy as one with Afghanistan or Iraq.

It took us months short of a decade, countless billions and a few hundred thousand dead people to catch this man. Do we feel better now?

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By Woody10 (registered) | Posted May 07, 2011 at 17:38:38 in reply to Comment 62963

Yes, because if they hadn't got him then it would have been a total waste.

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By just me (anonymous) | Posted May 02, 2011 at 17:50:40

What if RTH offered a signaling system, so that by and in the 3rd trolled message, the troller could select the "troll alert" signal--anything RTH thinks appropriate--there could be a contest--maybe a caricature of Dreschel, say, or a commonly accepted proctological symbol might work. This would alert the sought-after trollees [most of us] to IGNORE! IGNORE! Surely most trollers would agree to this system since they are surely proud of their space-gobbling "work" and would want to show off even more. What you all think?

Also, a friend says that bin Laden's death--killing, other like words--just last night could play to some voting good for Harper, depressingly. At least Harper was and had to be constrained in his response unless he appeared to be milking the events for advantage. Depressing also to see people cheering the killing. It's not a contest. People cheered when WWII was over; everyone was exhausted--but they were relieved when they heard Hitler was dead.

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By more airstrikes please (anonymous) | Posted May 02, 2011 at 18:33:23

Well, up until last night I was thinking that Osama died in mid December 2001 of complications of kidney failure in Tora Bora, as was widely announced in the Arabic press at the time. That would have explained quite reasonably his lack of public appearances since then. No video just sketchy audio recordings. I'm sure even in Afpac they have cellphones with cameras.

But no, it seems that Mayday, the anniversary of Hitlers death, and the 8th anniversary of George Bush's "Mission accomplished" speech, (wearing a codpiece on an aircraft carrier), was to mark the end of "Operation Cyclone". No CIA pension for Osama, maybe it will help with the US deficit. A single day for all those events, keep building that meme.

So, the official story is he died with a rifle in his hands attacking the infidel, and invader of the nation of Islam. Sweet! a martyr on Jihad go to heaven, directly to heaven, do not pass "the horrors of the grave".

OBL can now get busy with those 72 virgins for the rest of eternity; White, beautiful, obedient, never on the rag or pregnant, free of feces (no fudge packing required in paradise) and "locked in their tent" so they are all there when you get home.
Of course, to go with, the super hard on, 100 times the sexual potency he had when he was alive! Whats not to like?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOHIVX0TA9M



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By UndustrialTired (anonymous) | Posted May 03, 2011 at 00:32:42

LeninUndustrial said, "It took us months short of a decade, countless billions and a few hundred thousand dead people to catch this man. Do we feel better now?"

I say: YES YES YES

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By rednic (registered) | Posted May 04, 2011 at 15:17:06

cool now we can move on to the real war criminals bush and cheaney

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