Since the September 2001, there has been much to criticise America for in its reaction to the Twin Towers attack.
The War on Terror, Guantanamo Bay, the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions, super-rendition, torture, the use of drones and the million plus dead civilians have all correctly been used to condemn George W Bush, Barack Obama and American foreign policy in general.
America has done much wrong in the past 10 years but with its actions this weekend regarding Bin Laden, it got it 100% right.
It used the intelligence available to make sure they only took out the bad guys, they killed Bin Laden rather than take him alive and they buried him at sea before informing the World of it's actions so his funeral never became a potential trouble spot and his grave never became a shrine.
The details are still sketchy, apparently he was killed in a firefight and the body was offered to Saudi Arabia and Yemen who both refused to accept it, but the main details are there is one murderous bastard in the world and that has to be a good thing.
I have read a few conspiracy theories on the internet, mostly concerning America lying about the killing and questioning where is the video and photographic evidence. This particular smoking gun will be quickly doused when the video of Bin Laden's body and sea burial are released within days as the White House have stated.
Rare praise to the American leadership but the fear is Al Queada will continue and the Bin Laden flavour of terrorism will carry on bringing havoc and mayhem to us all under another leader.
One hope is the Arab revolutions that are sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa where the citizens are fighting for freedom and will turn their backs on the Al Queada style of change. They wouldn't fight so hard to remove one tyrannical regime to slip under the heel of another.
The other hope is that those acting under the misguided loyalty to Bin Laden will now realise that while they were risking their lives, their leader was living in a million pound mansion far away from where the bombs and missiles were dropping and get it through their heads that they are little more than cannon fodder and to reject the Al Queada doctrine.
9 comments:
Lucy, don't forget that Osama was once one of America's favorites when he was fighting the Soviets with American assistance.
Didn't you love the description of the commando shooting him in the head and then pulling the trigger a second time to make sure he'd been killed. Osaka obviously had no weapons despite the talk about a firefight and was in bed with his wife who was also killed for good measure (along with a son).
And the dumping of the body from an American aircraft carrier is just so American (don't do as we do, do as we say)!
"By their works ye shall know them!"
I don’t agree that killing him where he stood was preferable to taking him alive. For one thing, he may have had some interesting things to say. About some of his former friends, for example…
I do, however, believe that killing him was far preferable to allowing him to remain at large.
From the very beginning, the US and its allies conferred upon OBL and his mates the legitimacy of being wartime enemies/combatants. Part of the reason for this, was so they didn’t feel they had to allow any captured people recourse to the law. And partly it was to stir up fear and a permanent state of panic among the west, many of whom in the ‘fighting keyboards’ divisions of the internet leaped eagerly upon the rhetoric of The War Against Terror (TWAT) and kept the chickenhawks nice’n’excited by events…
Whereas I believe the best way to deal with terrorists is to treat them as disgusting criminals i.e. Go after the perpetrators (that’s a novel idea, eh Georgie?), and make them subject to arrest and prosecution (and if they die resisting arrest, then so be it… as long as a live capture was the first option).
Whether they then get sentenced to death is another issue, but I think it’s a slightly deficient form of ‘justice’ when someone dies in a firefight, rather than having to face the society that he has wronged in a court of law.
Osama didn't die in a firefight! He was unarmed and was in his bedroom with his wife when he was murdered in cold blood.
It was supposed to be a capture or kill mission but the world knows which one it was.
Obviously the Yanks wanted to shut him up because he knew things about them they wanted to hide.
The dumping his body into the sea was an infantile act by an infantile country, one that is desperately trying to control the world.
Hopefully they fail!
Point taken, David. Currently the word is that Osama himself was unarmed but the others may have put up some armed resistance for a while (40 minutes is the figure currently being quoted). I'll stand-by for further changes though!
It just goes to show: We should never accept the very first story that emanates from events like this... The death of Jean Charles de Menezes should have taught me that... and the 'heroic' rescue of Jessica Lynch.
'The Fog of War' may explain some of it, but so does politics/propaganda.
The 'human shield' story is apparently bollocks too.
I was also guilty of accepting the first chain of events but i still think it is a win/win situation. A nasty piece of work is no longer polluting our planet, we avoid carnage at his funeral and his grave doesn't become a shrine. Whether they should have taken him alive i accept, if the opportunity was there then they should have taken him alive, but i am surprisngly easy with the fact that they killed him where he stood.
Thanks for allowing me a point, Cheezy. Dirty work at the crossroads, methinks!
Lucy, that you are easy with it demonstrates that much of the world's population accepts things like assassinations these days. Such is our indoctrination.
People are claiming Osama got justice too which demonstrates further insidious indoctrination.
Soon the world will be devoid of values! Will anyone notice?
I am also suprprised just how easy i am with it David. There are some things i am uneasy with such as the celebrations in America, the fact that they went into another country uninvited and what an excited America might do next but my over-riding feeling is good, he's dead which doesn't compromise my dislike of American foreign policy, it's a human reaction that someone who has caused so much harm and murder has go what was coming to him.
And how do you feel about the harm and murder caused by America since the end of WW2, Lucy?
America has killed between 10-20 million people since the war that was supposed to end all wars according to some estimates, and its military bases, said to number more than 1,000, span the world.
Osama fought against Afghanistan invaders, first the Soviets, then the Americans. The Iraqis fought against the American invaders too!
When is American imperialism going to be stopped? Will it take a nuclear war?
Are you defending Bin Laden David?
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