Reaction to Death of Osama bin Laden
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-05-02/reaction-death-osama-bin-laden
For many Americans, he had become the epitome of evil. Now, 10 years after the 9-11 attacks, U.S. forces finally found al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan - and killed him in a firefight. As the news spread last night, there were chants of "U.S.A." at ballgames and cheers from a youthful crowd that gathered at the White House. But U.S. officials and experts on terrorism warn that the threat Bin Laden did so much to create won't end with his violent demise. In this hour, we'll discuss why it took so long to find Bin Laden, how the operation finally succeeded - and what's ahead in the battle against terrorism.
Guests
John McLaughlin
former acting director of the CIA and now senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Yochi Dreazen
senior national security correspondent, National Journal magazine.
Paul Pillar
director, graduate studies at the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University and a former CIA National Intelligence officer
Ahmed Rashid
Pakistani journalist and author. A second edition of his book "Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia " has just been published. His other books include “Descent into Chaos” and “Jihad.”
Comments
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VERY good news!
Definitely a feather in Obama's cap.
What percentage of the American population are unthinking consumers receptive to any media suggestion? Are we bored children ready to play "cowboys and Indians" again at the drop of President Obama's ten gallon hat? No, this bin Laden thing will soon fade from memory, maybe faster than the fairy tale royal wedding or the death of elderly Liz Taylor. There are some real big issues that should feel like a brick in every purse, a jack rock in every wallet, and these are daily repressed in order to maintain mindless consumption. Already people have forgotten the Japanese nuclear disaster, but they can't forget the rising cost of living and the increasing predation and corruption all around them. Panic over a deteriorating environment, canceled services and benefits, pending job losses, foreclosures, bills and heightening social frictions will not be stilled because some diseased fugitive religious extremist has finally died far away under shadowy circumstances. Another myth bites the dust while none of our questions have been answered. This conveniently placed "good news" only opens more cans of worms for the inquiring mind to ponder. Maybe this corpse was in a freezer for ten years and they finally got desperate enough to thaw him out. (I knew of a couple in Michigan who received many months of Grandma's social security before that terrible power failure.)
I have already heard complaint against the Pakistani government of sheltering knowledge of Ben Laden's prescence/location in their country, but also the U.S. knowledge of his location. And, that there was nothing done sooner by our government.
Simply put, this is a mission which takes extensive and aggressive planning. It is seen that Ben Laden was in a large compound, and that at this compound there were many people. Likely, that he was using these people as human shields.
If we are planning a mission of this sort, militarily, we do NOT want other casualties! We do not wish to rekindle a terrorist movement by doing such. This would certainly take some very extensive planning as well as waiting until a favorable situation presented itself.
Osama bin Laden and his rag tag group al qaida can honestly claim total victory since all their goals have been realized and then some. Great they finally got him but at this point it means nothing. Bin Laden was probably more surprised than anyone he survived this long.
monte wrote:
"Great they finally got him but at this point it means nothing"
Only time will tell if it "means nothing".
I'd bet it makes a LOT of positive difference!
monte wrote:
"Osama bin Laden and his rag tag group al qaida can honestly claim total victory since all their goals have been realized and then some."
I think many people would disagree with this assessment.
I know I do!
The following two quotes come to mind immediately.
"For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD; so turn, and live.”- Ezekiel 18:32
"To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, it is not justice." - Archbishop Desmond Tutu
I can not rejoice in the killing of another person - even this one. I pray that this revenge killing will not lead to the deaths of others as well.
I certainly understand those that lost loved one feeling some sense of closure, but from what I have read that is not the case. Why is it that Americans can't see that their reaction to this event is only adding fuel to the fire? Are people really that short sighted? Is this the message we want to send? Is really necessary to gloat? From the same people I see nothing but displays about how much they support the troops, but don't they realize their reaction to the news of Bin Laden's death is putting those over there in the thick of it in real danger? We wonder why people might think Americans are arrogant. I guess we will always give them a reason.
I would like to live in a country where people didn't cheer the deaths of others. They kill us, we kill them, how long will it be before they kill us some more, meaning we'll have to kill more of them? This makes me wonder just what is the war in Afghanistan all about? Bin Laden's living in a palace that we'll probably see on House Hunters International (hardly a cave, eh?), and our young men and women are dying like ants there for what, exactly?
BJohnson wrote:
""For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD; so turn, and live.”- Ezekiel 18:32"
This IS "justified" Justice...not simply revenge.
Sometimes you just gotta step up.
Was the war against Hitler revenge?
Do you want to turn the other cheek to Jiadist attacks?
I'm surprised at all of you who are cheering the assassination of OBL! I would have thought that, like me, you would have wanted him brought back for a trial in New York City!
Now ... Don't you hear how SILLY that sounds????!!!!!
Is it just me, or is anyone else out there thinking that this supposed victory is just pointless.
They attacked our embassies, we attacked back, they blew up the twin towers, we recklessly got into 2 wars killing and made the lives of millions of people (unrelated to Bin Laden) a complete nightmare. They helped wreck our economy and we will never forgive them.
What next.
Well it's their turn isn't it?
Why do rational and supposedly Christian people keep doing this?
I am an atheist (someone who a lot of people are probably scared of) and I cannot for the life of me understand the logic here.
Lets forget the revenge and start talking with our enemies and take a really good look at our own hypocritical behavior.
So what have we really accomplished with this? Do we seriously believe there will be fewer terrorist attacks or global ill-will against America now? Isn't this just an act to preserve American pride and ego, and to justify the $$billions spent and thousands of lives unnecessarily lost (ours and innocent Afghan and Iraqi at American hands)? Only the shallow will rejoice.
Regarding the compound in which bin Laden was found, when was it built? Who built it? Who owns it? Who purchased it? Is the US government following up on these matters?
ecgberht wrote:
"I'm surprised at all of you who are cheering the assassination of OBL! I would have thought that, like me, you would have wanted him brought back for a trial in New York City!"
But we can't do that...we couldn't with KSM, so how could we with OBL?
Then if OBL were to be convicted, what do we do with him then?
Execute & bury him, thus creating a shrine?
Give him life w/o parole? What state would accept him as a prisoner?
Send him to Gitmo?
VanFromGreensboro wrote:
"But we can't do that...we couldn't with KSM, so how could we with OBL?"
Read the whole post, Van. I was using a literary device called sarcasm.
"Don Rumsfeld has stated ['W'armonger] deserves partial credit for this act." Yeah, Don, our horribly misguided and unjustified war in Iraq did a whole lot to bring a tactical team to a compound in Abbottabad. What a moron.
Maria Fenwick wrote:
"I am an atheist ... and I cannot for the life of me understand the logic here."
I know, Maria. Me either. What your logic seems to be is that you, the atheist, are more Godly than the rest of us?!
Van I think you miss the point. Killing Bin Laden will not bring back those that died on 9/11, it will not bring back soldiers, and it is not going to stop terrorism. Gloating however will keep terrorist bent on destroying lives of innocent people. It's something I feel people are not considering.
Maria Fenwick:"... helped wreck our economy..."? get real. "Our economy" was already being purposely wrecked when Osama bin Laden was a 20 something year old student in the "country of two shrines and a million oil pumps." In fact, this whole terrorism thang is a device to maintain the outmoded economy of global Oligarchs. Anyone stupid enough to blame their job loss or foreclosure or defrauded investments on Al Queida is whistling Old MacDonald right past the bank. Even worse, Osama and his mujahadeen gang are far from sufficient material cause for the TV carnage of 9/11. It doesn't require an engineering degree or an officer's commission to understand that the 3-ring circus we witnessed was an inside job utilizing foreign intelligence assets. "Our economy", as a productive or self-sustaining enterprise, was already in the ditch because of the casino called financialism, offshoring of assets and production, and the absolute busting of American labor. Add to that the ravaging of the environment and the disaster capitalism model... and what else could you expect. Even if we "taxed the rich and big business" it would be too late because the cow is out the barn because their money is in tax havens, not here. Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin and Tim Geithner (to name a few) are way higher on the list of wreckers of your household budget than any brand name Islamic terrorist. If you think this claimed rub-out solves any of your problems you'd likely buy swamp water in a pretty bottle and call it Fab.
The compound was probably recognized as something, but it is in an area with many military training facilities related to the nearby Kashmir conflict with India. The analogy mentioned on the show, "like he was living in Bethesda" is more "like he was living next door to Quantico" or Fort Meade. Even military people would assume it was an official safe house, or one of Pakistan's ISI's many semi-official operations. Not everything there is a Pakistan-U.S. issue. Kashmir is a deep and deadly continuing low-intensity conflict.
Dead men tell no tails.....When will the mainstream media get some guts and investigate 9/11 as it should be? How do you keep a secret within the system? Come on.... The corruption and lies exist at every level and a media that promotes the system is just a guilty.
well osama baby you can run but you just die tired. rot in hell
ecgberht wrote:
"Read the whole post, Van. I was using a literary device called sarcasm."
Sorry, ecgberht I will re-read it....it must have sailed right over my head!
(There should be an emoticon for sarcasm.)
Sorry again
Van
mysterious Van coming from Greensboro: "...A feather in Obama's cap..." made me laugh like a hyena. I can see The Man spouting bloody patriotism with his little porkpie wagging an ostrich plume cocked like Sinatra's. What did the square dance caller in chief do to catch the Baddy? Staying up the White House and looking residential ain't nothing really. "Sport the toops" is about as meaningful as a cheesehead hat. The 4 branches of indentured servitude are not America's team unless only big corporations hold real citizenship.
"And it's one-two-three, what'er we fightin' for, Global hedge funds and BP scams, Taxpayer underwriting of nuclear plans.
And it's four-five-six open up the Top Secrets, Ain't got time to wonder why, the whole planet Earth gotta die." (CJ&fish)
Except for a lucky change of plans, I would have been inside the World Trade Center when the first plane struck. I was on the street when the second tower collapsed and dust cloud roared toward me.
Obama declared war on us. And that war is not done. To those who consider this all a distraction and say we have to solve all our social ills, I can only ask that you stop and re-evaluate.
Some people have ignored the war, ignored the threat of radical Islam, blamed this country for the woes. LIfe is not that simple. And for all of Obama's apologies for America's sins, it was our troops, acting alone, that had to do the deed.
If you believe that this country should just focus on itself, that every person should have a home, that every person should have full health care, that no one should ever want for anything, then explain how the national deficit is beyond believe, soaring a like a space shuttle and equally bound for disaster.
In the real world, there are people you kill. In the real world, people have to be responsible for their own care and feeding. And in the real world there will always be poverty and sadness, and too the opportunity to strive and to succeed.
So, national security advisor Condoleeza Rice was "using sarcasm" when she said "We never thought of planes being used to strike buildings."
Or maybe it was explicit denial? Denial of the well-planned Second Pearl Harbor? As in "It shore wasn't us that thunk it up, no mam, didn't do it, couldn'ta been US."
I have a suggestion for this site. You can flag some comments as being offensive. How about being able to flag them as stupid.
bribery
War is the cause of poverty and sadness, not the solution to it.
People in this country have the potential self-sufficiency and personal choices of goldfish in a tank and you want to turn off the aerator. A sadist gets all his joy from watching the big'uns eat the littl'uns, and he loves war for its own sake. I'd hate to be a pet and have you as my owner. People deserve opportunity and they ain't getting any. The people who took opportunity away are liable for their needs. When all the wealth is in so few hands there is no economy, just power exercised as sadism. Blaming people who happen to be a little different is scapegoating. "Our toops" is not a steroid pumped football team you bet on: They are mostly a bunch of poor people without college money who couldn't find a job in an imploded predatory economy. Not everyone is suited to be a conjobber or a bill collector. Some people have a heart.
Grady Lee Howard wrote:
"So, national security advisor Condoleeza Rice was "using sarcasm" when she said "We never thought of planes being used to strike buildings."
As NSA Rice would have known of previous attempts to do just that. But to use hijacked passenger planes into those particular targets, no. Former National Security Advisor (under Clinton) Sandy Berger testified "We heard of the idea of planes as weapons, but I don't recall being presented with any specific threat information about an attack of this nature, or highlighting this threat, or indicating it was more likely than any other" NORAD had even performed drills of planes being used as weapons prior to 9/11; but the one drill they cancelled was the one where "the target was the Pentagon — that drill was not run after Defense officials said it was unrealistic."
Truthers and birthers ... I see very little difference.