I would put this in Serious Discussion, but since there are some people banned from that forum I feel like I want to give them an opportunity to at least partake in this particular subject. But that's just me since I strongly believe in second chances... admins/moderators if you feel like moving this to SD then by all means go for it.
As we all know, Osama Bin Laden is dead. But the question is, what's next?


There's news/analysis/discussions/debates/etc about this all over the world but I want to have this discussion with my fellow SENers. My thoughts:


I personally feel Bin Laden's death isn't death to be so exuberant about. Sure "justice" has been done but the death of one person, no matter how significant he or she may be, isn't something to celebrate about. As said in Naruto, one of my favorite mangas/animes of all time, death leads to more death and we would only be perpetuating the cycle of hate and vengeance. As quoted by one of my friends on facebook:

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sometimes it's difficult to remember that the object of so much hatred and resentment is one of God's creations. we ought to celebrate the end of the terror wrought by bin Laden, and the cooperation between Pakistan and America, but death is never worth celebrating.

If only we could say that the terror wrought by Al-Qaeda ceased with the death of this man, then there would be a cause for celebration.

But that's not the case. Or is it?

Killing the symbolic leader of terrorism isn't going to put an end to terrorism, it'll only feed the fire to the anti-American sentiment. Also put it this way: say you are in a debate/discussion about politics or religion. If the opposing side argues or tries to prove you wrong, it'll only harden your heart. Same thing can be said for this whole issue: killing Bin Laden will only harden the already ever so hardened and bitter hearts of the terrorists out there and possibly spur then to take greater action or retaliation. If you want to put out a fire, you gotta put it all out.

I'm not saying we shouldn't have killed Osama Bin Laden - rather that this by no means is the end of anything; killing him isn't going to bring back the 3000+ innocents his organization killed almost 10 years ago. Al Qaeda is still out there, terrorists are still out there, and the bitter sentiment people hold against Americans is still out there; the only thing we've done is killed one significant man. Is it a blow to their moral? This is debatable but IMHO I think it'll only incite them; they're going to treat Bin Laden as a martyr and that what he's done is a paragon of what all his followers should be like or do. Bin Laden's death is only the "beginning" of greater things which I imagine may come.

Oh and, I think this would be an appropriate time for:



Feel free to discuss (the issue, not the video itself)

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They have decided to "bury" his body in the sea. The reason, as I heard, was so that future terrorists/people would not treat Bin Laden's burial site as a sacred ground.

Side note to add to this: I read that as part of religious tradition, a body has to be buried at most 24 hours after dying, and no nation would willingly accept Bin Laden's body in 24 hours to allow a funeral (as to avoid any possible implications that may arise from such an ordeal).

Also, I agree that nothing will change. We have killed 1 terrorist leader, and doing so has infuriated at least 100 more to perhaps step up and take his place.

I find the whole story rather suspicious.

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Yes, they DO have the body. They conduct DNA tests on the body and it is confirmed to be Bin Laden.

How did they obtain DNA to compare with? Bin Laden's sister who died a few years back; they preserved some brain tissues of her specifically for a scenario like this.

They DO have pictures of Bin Laden's dead body but they as of this moment are deliberating whether to release them or not. They did say however that the body is unrecognizable but what do you expect after a 21st century firefight?

They have decided to "bury" his body in the sea. The reason, as I heard, was so that future terrorists/people would not treat Bin Laden's burial site as a sacred ground.

All of these informations could've been easily manipulated (not saying they have been, but I wouldn't say I'm 100% sure he is dead).
USA's government have all the means to achieve such a thing. ;o

Conspiracyconspiracyconspiracyconspiracy! =P

Quote from payne

I find the whole story rather suspicious.

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Yes, they DO have the body. They conduct DNA tests on the body and it is confirmed to be Bin Laden.

How did they obtain DNA to compare with? Bin Laden's sister who died a few years back; they preserved some brain tissues of her specifically for a scenario like this.

They DO have pictures of Bin Laden's dead body but they as of this moment are deliberating whether to release them or not. They did say however that the body is unrecognizable but what do you expect after a 21st century firefight?

They have decided to "bury" his body in the sea. The reason, as I heard, was so that future terrorists/people would not treat Bin Laden's burial site as a sacred ground.

All of these informations could've been easily manipulated (not saying they have been, but I wouldn't say I'm 100% sure he is dead).
USA's government have all the means to achieve such a thing. ;o

Conspiracyconspiracyconspiracyconspiracy! =P

Though this is possible, I find it to be unlikely. I would hope the U.S. government is smart enough to recognize that claiming someone is dead when he really isn't could backfire if such a fact were to be revealed.

And as for conspiracies, I do think it is interesting that he was found in a military town in Pakistan where it is considered highly unlikely that he wouldn't have been seen at some point in the months that he has been hiding there.

Payne, basically you're saying nothing is 100% unless you personally were there to witness any such event.

Also, they said that they've first received intel that Bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan back in August. But Obama and his administration didn't do anything yet; they needed more information. And it was only this friday that he gave the official nod to carry out his operation. Here's the whole timeline.

Out of curiosity, what do you guys think of the 9/11 conspiracy theory?
(/related to Osama)

At least they haven't released photographs like the one of Pablo Escobar after he was shot, with a bunch of soldiers crouching over the body, grinning like they'd caught a prize-winning fish.

I'll make a more on-topic post about my views on this later.

Quote from payne

Out of curiosity, what do you guys think of the 9/11 conspiracy theory?
(/related to Osama)

If people want to think our government killed our own people then there's nothing we can do about it. However, if people want to bring in science/engineering/etc to purport that the WTC collapses and Pentagon hit are fake and/or controlled demolitions then I will chew out their asses.

Quote from DevliN

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They have decided to "bury" his body in the sea. The reason, as I heard, was so that future terrorists/people would not treat Bin Laden's burial site as a sacred ground.

Side note to add to this: I read that as part of religious tradition, a body has to be buried at most 24 hours after dying, and no nation would willingly accept Bin Laden's body in 24 hours to allow a funeral (as to avoid any possible implications that may arise from such an ordeal).

Also, I agree that nothing will change. We have killed 1 terrorist leader, and doing so has infuriated at least 100 more to perhaps step up and take his place.

x2

Its great and all, but I'm skeptical to what it will actually accomplish. Different people have been claiming that he's died of various causes for nearly ten years, right? Why would it change anything now? The only thing it has changed is Obama's ratings.

Quote from Fire_Kame

The only thing it has changed is Obama's ratings.

To the ill-informed, it will. The death of one man does not affect Obama's economic policies, his health-care plan, his approach to addressing our debt, his foreign policies (actually, it may depending on what we do next), and his views on how to run this country. If anything, this "victory" also equally belongs to former presidents Bush and Clinton. Osama Bin Laden's death belongs to America as a whole.

Quote from MillenniumArmy

Quote from Fire_Kame

The only thing it has changed is Obama's ratings.

To the ill-informed, it will. The death of one man does not affect Obama's economic policies, his health-care plan, his approach to addressing our debt, his foreign policies (actually, it may depending on what we do next), and his views on how to run this country. If anything, this "victory" also equally belongs to former presidents Bush and Clinton. Osama Bin Laden's death belongs to America as a whole.

Unfortunately there are a large amount of Americans who think this was timed because of his approval ratings dropping (funny considering apparently his ratings are still nowhere as low as Bush's, but alright). Said Americans make me .

Quote from DevliN

Quote from MillenniumArmy

Quote from Fire_Kame

The only thing it has changed is Obama's ratings.

To the ill-informed, it will. The death of one man does not affect Obama's economic policies, his health-care plan, his approach to addressing our debt, his foreign policies (actually, it may depending on what we do next), and his views on how to run this country. If anything, this "victory" also equally belongs to former presidents Bush and Clinton. Osama Bin Laden's death belongs to America as a whole.

Unfortunately there are a large amount of Americans who think this was timed because of his approval ratings dropping (funny considering apparently his ratings are still nowhere as low as Bush's, but alright). Said Americans make me .

Exactly. Also on a related note: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/WorldNews/conspiracy-theories-proof-bin-ladens-death/story?id=13508746

Now we're going to get fucked by all of the terrorists who will retaliate.

The two best responses. Also, I think it's more of a symbolic victory more than anything, but otherwise, it's still very empowering to the 9/11 victims. smh at at the conspiracy theories that Obama made up the whole thing, or that he doesn't deserve the credit for giving the operation the green light.

Oh and:

Quote from Dem0nS1ayer

Now we're going to get fucked by all of the terrorists who will retaliate.

Yeah, those terrorists are going to come out of the woodwork and completely destroy the US because they hate democracy and they hate freedom!

I sincerely hope you were trying to be ironic or something. Al Qaeda has only had 1 successful attack since 9/11 and that was bombing the London underground, and al Qaeda didn't even play a big part in that (it was mostly domestic terrorists that communicated with al Qaeda over the internet). Almost any attacks that happening in the forthcoming months/years were probably going to have taken place any way.

Now attacks in Afghanistan or uprising in Pakistan is another matter.

Again, I guess I agree with DevliN

Also

Everything sxephil basically said I agree with. He definitely said it with more passion than I could come up with. This is because some of us were younger and didn't quite understand what 9/11 was. We didn't get the same emotional impact. I definitely know now what this means to most Americans.

Quote from Lanthanide

Quote from Dem0nS1ayer

Now we're going to get fucked by all of the terrorists who will retaliate.

Yeah, those terrorists are going to come out of the woodwork and completely destroy the US because they hate democracy and they hate freedom!

I sincerely hope you were trying to be ironic or something. Al Qaeda has only had 1 successful attack since 9/11 and that was bombing the London underground, and al Qaeda didn't even play a big part in that (it was mostly domestic terrorists that communicated with al Qaeda over the internet). Almost any attacks that happening in the forthcoming months/years were probably going to have taken place any way.

Now attacks in Afghanistan or uprising in Pakistan is another matter.

I imagine that the "attacks" wouldn't necessarily be on US/European soil, but rather in other foreign countries - they will probably try to kidnap/kill/hold ransom traveling Americans and/or important US figures more than ever, even in countries we probably would least expect it. That's why homeland security has been issuing out warnings to all traveling Americans as well as US embassy's all over the world.

Lol Kame where is that video from??? Why is he kicking down a door?

_____

OK with Osama being dead I mean I imagine most people are happy about it because he was the guy who had the blame heaped on him very early after 9/11, yet it took 10 years to actually kill the guy. I imagine that's why people are so happy about it, because of the whole 'revenge' thing.

I think that same train of thought really wrecks the conspiracy theories as well. If the govt is just making shit up, why say Osama bin Laden is the big bad and then take 10 years to find and kill him? Why implicate someone after they've been captured and assign all the blame to them, and save them all the trouble? Just doesn't add up. This is how conspiracy theorists work, they always flock around important events. You never hear conspiracy theories over banal events, only important ones.

Also another thing to be careful about is lots of conspiracy theories revolve around negative evidence, not positive evidence. Aka, they could have been lying, he could still be dead, we don't know for sure that was him, etc. Never: the DNA evidence is different, pictorial evidence clearly shows its not him, satellite imagery shows there was no fighting going on in Abbottabad, etc. And that is because it is lot harder to disprove a negative, and that is how conspiracy theories thrive...