OSAMA BIN LADEN CONFIRMED DEAD.

[Dido]

There is a difference between being happy about something and acting like you are at a Superbowl victory party like a lot of people they keep showing on the news.
And the latter group of people are the ones the rest of the world will see. Rubbing it in people's faces and chanting USA! repeatedly will just inspire more terrorists to attack. Overzealous celebrations make the whole country look bad.

Did Germany look bad when the Wall came down?

LET. THEM. CELEBRATE.

Yep. They are happy, they have a right to be.

BTW, Suu, I'll just assume that you aren't really angry with me for wishing that peoples' emotions would not be abused as political capital. Because that's all I was saying.

Remember, the first thing I heard abou this was some twits opinion on how this was affecting the stock market.

[Faust]

There is no resolution in this, it comes far too late and leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

[Cain]

Ok, hold on a second. What would you have preferred, that they put him in a glass box and tour his corpse around the country?

I would have.  And called it a "reverse-Lenin".  Or at least marched him up and down a suitably wide street in DC.

Still, I take your point.  "They" could have done this at any point in the last 10 years.  That it has happened now suggests, at the very worst, Bin Laden is in no poisition to contradict the US claims or, more likely and positively, he is in fact dead.

I'm fairly sure some of the claims about the firefight are bullshit.  I bet Bin Laden wasn't given a chance to come in peacefully, for example.  And he may have had someone with him to ensure he didn't fall into American hands alive, or to an American bullet.  But I'm fairly confident the overall facts of what happened are accurate.

[Cain]

According to the BBC the US didn't let Pakistan know the raid was happening until it had already began. Which is understandable, because Pakistani Intelligence hasn't exactly been the most co-operative group in these matters.

Yes.  Actively helping to hide him is not very co-operative. 

[LMNO]

"Oh, him?  He's who?  By Allah, he said his name was CYOT Dibbler!"
    \

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Ok, I'm with you guys.  But then I turned on my TV this morning and I see footage of a pack of rednecks, drunk, singing that "We'll put a boot up your ass" song, and bellowing "USA! USA!" and... well, yeah.  It had the feel of a bunch of Old Testament vengance-monkeys, howling for blood.

Let them have their moment.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I almost feel like taking off to Manhattan on Wednesday morning after my classes are done and putting down 4 white roses instead of red. It's going to have to wait until September, though.

You and everyone else. And *you* will be totally sincere but *someone* will still be milking the event for what it is worth.

The good part is that political cynicism doesn't bring people back.  OBL will probably stay dead.

Fuck off.

[Cain]

Also, some muslim customs say the body should be buried within a day. If they kept the body, it would be more fodder for the crazies.

If they have pictures and DNA and no videos of Osama saying "HA HA FOOLED YOU" then I think we can safely say that he's dead.

It won't stop terrorism, it won't destroy AQ... but for fucks sake, this is the asshole that inspired some idiots to change my country forever. Idiots on the plane. Idiot Americans willing to hand everything over to Mommy Government, idiot congress that willingly signed away our rights, idiot americans that expressed their anger and fear by backing Very Bad Foreign Policy ideas...

Also, Fuck Yeah for Obama sending in a couple helicopters full of Navy Death Panels.  

Well actually, that was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.  Osama helped fund the attack and train the terrorists, but actually definitely linking him to ordering it is pretty difficult.  Osama acted very much like a state sponsor of terrorism, he was in the background, doing logistical things which were the nuts and bolts of international terror, and letting others work to goals with which he ideologically agreed with.  KSM was actually probably more dangerous, in the long view.  He had recruited the terrorists which had attacked the WTC previously, planned the "Bojinka" operation, the assassination of the Pope and of Clinton, among other things.  Zawahiri's group was behind the Khobar Towers and Tanzania/Kenya Embassy attacks.  Khalid al-Mihdhar was behind the USS Cole attacks, which suggests he was a KSM man.

After the success of the attacks, of course, he was totally willing to be potrayed as the mastermind behind it.

[Adios]

I almost feel like taking off to Manhattan on Wednesday morning after my classes are done and putting down 4 white roses instead of red. It's going to have to wait until September, though.

You and everyone else. And *you* will be totally sincere but *someone* will still be milking the event for what it is worth.

The good part is that political cynicism doesn't bring people back.  OBL will probably stay dead.

Fuck off.

No shit. For one lousy day as a nation we are more united than we have been in many years. Let it happen.

[Cain]

Oh and if anyone wants to have a go at me for being a "cynic", have at it.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Also, some muslim customs say the body should be buried within a day. If they kept the body, it would be more fodder for the crazies.

If they have pictures and DNA and no videos of Osama saying "HA HA FOOLED YOU" then I think we can safely say that he's dead.

It won't stop terrorism, it won't destroy AQ... but for fucks sake, this is the asshole that inspired some idiots to change my country forever. Idiots on the plane. Idiot Americans willing to hand everything over to Mommy Government, idiot congress that willingly signed away our rights, idiot americans that expressed their anger and fear by backing Very Bad Foreign Policy ideas...

Also, Fuck Yeah for Obama sending in a couple helicopters full of Navy Death Panels.  

Well actually, that was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.  Osama helped fund the attack and train the terrorists, but actually definitely linking him to ordering it is pretty difficult.  Osama acted very much like a state sponsor of terrorism, he was in the background, doing logistical things which were the nuts and bolts of international terror, and letting others work to goals with which he ideologically agreed with.  KSM was actually probably more dangerous, in the long view.  He had recruited the terrorists which had attacked the WTC previously, planned the "Bojinka" operation, the assassination of the Pope and of Clinton, among other things.  Zawahiri's group was behind the Khobar Towers and Tanzania/Kenya Embassy attacks.  Khalid al-Mihdhar was behind the USS Cole attacks, which suggests he was a KSM man.

After the success of the attacks, of course, he was totally willing to be potrayed as the mastermind behind it.

Sorry if I was unclear... I meant that he INSPIRED the fucks that did it.

[Suu]

Oh and if anyone wants to have a go at me for being a "cynic", have at it.

You're not American. You're excused.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Oh and if anyone wants to have a go at me for being a "cynic", have at it.

Naw, because you're right.

But it's also true that Americans have been waiting for this day for 9.5 years.  He didn't do the planning, as you say, but he made it all possible.

[Adios]

Oh and if anyone wants to have a go at me for being a "cynic", have at it.

I don't think you are being cynical. Your position is based on factual information and likely outcomes. Having said that, I am still going to take a day to jump up and down about an international terrorist symbol of success being shot dead.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Oh and if anyone wants to have a go at me for being a "cynic", have at it.

You're not American. You're excused.

This is TROOF... today Americans will act like the teenagers we are. The rest of the world can be grown ups about it.

The boogyman is dead.