bil Laden was killed

[zapatos]

To put that into perspective (and I believe CaptainPanic was trying to make the point that perspective is important here):

Unintentional poisoning Deaths : 29,846

Car deaths : 42,031

 

In the USA alone (2007) My link

When the twin towers came down thousands died, and in the years since tens of thousands have suffered as a result of it. Spouses, parents, children. Someone close to my son died because of bin Laden, and now my son is joining the military so that he will be in a position to help keep others safe. So now I get to worry about him every day.

 

Keeping it in perspective is not easy to do when it happens to you. And then being told that what happened is not important, and that we should get back to the more important topics we discuss on this site is somewhat hard to swallow. Especially when it's only been two days since bin Laden died, and those more important topics include such weighty matters as 'Eyelash Length' and 'Music Downloading'.

 

I understand the need to keep things in perspective, and I know no one is being disrespectful to those who are affected, but I also think we need to remember what happened to people and try to see things from their perspective.

[CharonY]

This is a fair point. However legislature affects everyone, not only those affected. Hence policy-making should keep the overall perspective IMO (not that it does, obviously, but technically it should...).

 

Of course, specially tailored bills (e.g. first responder bill) make sense. But policies that e.g. limit freedom w/o significantly improving life quality/outcome should be eyed more carefully and not give a pass because the topic is terrorism.

Edited May 3, 2011 by CharonY

[MatthewF]

This smacks of assassination

 

Poor choice of terms. An assassination is the killing of a world leader for political purposes. The term does not apply to an armed fugitive hiding out in an secret compound. It is particularly inappropriate for an individual who is a self-proclaimed enemy of a nation and has acted on those claims with a private army. In the latter situation, the U.S. would be justified in using military force to eliminate bin Laden. If he had the slightest inclination to exercise rights to due process, then he could have turned himself in years ago.

[CaptainPanic]

I am glad to see that CharonY understands it.

 

The point is that terrorism just is not our #1 priority. Standard response is to ridicule it and indeed, A Tripolation then says we "shrug it off", like we don't care.

And zapatos plays the " emotional card", which always works.

 

A Tripolation, nobody suggests that we just completely stop fighting terrorism... But that impressive list that zapatos posted is so incredibly insignificant if you realize that this is a list of the entire world, which has 6,800,000,000 people on it, and where on average roughly 100,000,000 people die every year of various causes (mostly diseases)! Here is a list of the most common death causes. Diseases of the heart at #1. Cancer is #2. And whaddayaknow, terrorism isn't even on the list.

 

zapatos, I will play my own emotional card too: If a kid dies of cancer, the parents are just as much hurt as when a soldier dies in the line of duty, or when a bomb goes off and kills someone... Did you know that in the USA 3 children out of 100,000 die of cancer? In 1995, in the USA, a total of 2,275 children died of cancer. And I guess that number will rise every year. Can we please give that the same attention as terrorism? Is it really too much to ask to try to prevent the slow and agonizing deaths of innocent children?

 

Does the actual threat of terrorism really justify that for example the USA devotes 4.7% of its entire GDP to defense? Wouldn't it make sense to, for example reduce that by 0.1% of the GDP, and devote that money to cancer research? That 0.1% of the GDP would amount to 14 billion dollar for cancer research and treatment... I dare say that 14 billion dollars can save a few innocent children, children who are the future of the world. And it would still leave 650 billion dollar (4.6% of the GDP) for bombing and shooting the bad guys.

 

So, I repeat, can we please focus on the more important things please?

[Guest jhnmichle]

what difference would make his death?

[zapatos]

I am glad to see that CharonY understands it.

 

The point is that terrorism just is not our #1 priority. Standard response is to ridicule it and indeed, A Tripolation then says we "shrug it off", like we don't care.

And zapatos plays the " emotional card", which always works.

 

A Tripolation, nobody suggests that we just completely stop fighting terrorism... But that impressive list that zapatos posted is so incredibly insignificant if you realize that this is a list of the entire world, which has 6,800,000,000 people on it, and where on average roughly 100,000,000 people die every year of various causes (mostly diseases)! Here is a list of the most common death causes. Diseases of the heart at #1. Cancer is #2. And whaddayaknow, terrorism isn't even on the list.

 

zapatos, I will play my own emotional card too: If a kid dies of cancer, the parents are just as much hurt as when a soldier dies in the line of duty, or when a bomb goes off and kills someone... Did you know that in the USA 3 children out of 100,000 die of cancer? In 1995, in the USA, a total of 2,275 children died of cancer. And I guess that number will rise every year. Can we please give that the same attention as terrorism? Is it really too much to ask to try to prevent the slow and agonizing deaths of innocent children?

 

Does the actual threat of terrorism really justify that for example the USA devotes 4.7% of its entire GDP to defense? Wouldn't it make sense to, for example reduce that by 0.1% of the GDP, and devote that money to cancer research? That 0.1% of the GDP would amount to 14 billion dollar for cancer research and treatment... I dare say that 14 billion dollars can save a few innocent children, children who are the future of the world. And it would still leave 650 billion dollar (4.6% of the GDP) for bombing and shooting the bad guys.

 

So, I repeat, can we please focus on the more important things please?

It's not a competition between which deaths are the worst. No one is suggesting these other problems not be addressed. It was just a call to be cognizant of the feelings of those who have suffered a loss. Knowing that more people die in car accidents or of cancer does not do much to help those who have suffered a loss due to a less pervasive problem.

 

The feelings of all survivors deserve respect. Please take into consideration the feelings of the family of a cancer victim (or the victim of anything that is not our #1 priority) before saying that the cause of their death "...was never really that important...can we please focus on the more important things please?"

 

I apologize for letting my emotions come through on my previous post.

[CaptainPanic]

It's not a competition between which deaths are the worst.

But it IS!

You can only spend money once. People can only spend their time once. If they fight terrorism, they're not treating children.

 

zapatos, I am not asking you personally to focus... but I demand from my government and from society as a whole that it prioritizes objectively. And I am frustrated to see that it actually doesn't, and that both my government and society as a whole seem to make the irrational choice to over-prioritize terrorism.

[insane_alien]

Poor choice of terms. An assassination is the killing of a world leader for political purposes. The term does not apply to an armed fugitive hiding out in an secret compound. It is particularly inappropriate for an individual who is a self-proclaimed enemy of a nation and has acted on those claims with a private army. In the latter situation, the U.S. would be justified in using military force to eliminate bin Laden. If he had the slightest inclination to exercise rights to due process, then he could have turned himself in years ago.

 

assassination applies to any prominent figure, not just world leaders. I'd say that (judging by the media) Osama Bin Laden was a prominent figure.

 

if he wasn't, then why is everyone making such a big deal of this?

[Marat]

But almost all government funding priorities are irrational, just like those of civil society. Thus 1000 times more per AIDS death is spent on finding a cure for AIDS than is spent per heart attack death to find a cure for heart disease. A wealthy family buys an antique clock which costs ten times more than a poor family needs to send all three of their children through university; but instead of redistributing that excess wealth in the rich family to give the three poor children a chance at a developed mind and a genuine career, the government pursues a low tax policy and lets three lives go to waste for the sake of a Louis XVI clock. Radical utilitarianism is ultimately the doctrine motivating communism, while respect for the arbitrary sequestering of resources by the recognition of private rights is the essential doctrine of the modern, liberal-democratic state.

[CaptainPanic]

But almost all government funding priorities are irrational, just like those of civil society. Thus 1000 times more per AIDS death is spent on finding a cure for AIDS than is spent per heart attack death to find a cure for heart disease. A wealthy family buys an antique clock which costs ten times more than a poor family needs to send all three of their children through university; but instead of redistributing that excess wealth in the rich family to give the three poor children a chance at a developed mind and a genuine career, the government pursues a low tax policy and lets three lives go to waste for the sake of a Louis XVI clock. Radical utilitarianism is ultimately the doctrine motivating communism, while respect for the arbitrary sequestering of resources by the recognition of private rights is the essential doctrine of the modern, liberal-democratic state.

I like it how you somehow dragged the communists into this

 

You shouldn't mix up government spending and private spending. What you do with our money is nobody's business.

However, the government has the responsibility to spend our tax money responsibly. Regardless of how capitalistic or communistic a country is, I would claim that a government has to be utilitarian.

 

Please note that nearly the entire war on terrorism (which is the topic of this thread) is a government-paid war... so the recognition of private rights is (imho) rather irrelevant. A government has no private rights. It has many responsibilities to facilitate the lives of its citizens. In other words: if the war on terrorism becomes too expensive, the American people will suffer because of it. And then it is the responsibility of the American government to be utilitarian, and seek a way to end the conflict without running the economy into the ground.

[A Tripolation]

zapatos, I am not asking you personally to focus... but I demand from my government and from society as a whole that it prioritizes objectively. And I am frustrated to see that it actually doesn't, and that both my government and society as a whole seem to make the irrational choice to over-prioritize terrorism.

 

Going by this logic, shouldn't we actively be preparing and spending billions on the abilities to destroy Earth-killing asteroids? I might be misunderstanding you though.

 

A Tripolation, nobody suggests that we just completely stop fighting terrorism...

 

Then why does a serial killer who kills ten people in a city of +300,000 garner so much media time and police attention? Shouldn't more important things, like all the other crimes committed by other people, take priority? Again, I may be misunderstanding your position.

[CaptainPanic]

Going by this logic, shouldn't we actively be preparing and spending billions on the abilities to destroy Earth-killing asteroids? I might be misunderstanding you though.

Yes, you seem to understand me.

 

It should be a matter of risk assessment. What are the (expected) odds that an asteroid hits us in the foreseeable future, and what would be the result of being hit? And that should then be compared to other risks (which have other odds and effects). And that will enable us to spend our money more efficiently.

 

So, it might not be wise to spend billions on something that is extremely unlikely to happen. But it certainly is a good idea to make an objective analysis of it.

 

Then why does a serial killer who kills ten people in a city of +300,000 garner so much media time and police attention? Shouldn't more important things, like all the other crimes committed by other people, take priority? Again, I may be misunderstanding your position.

You are absolutely right again.

In a city of 300,000 people, 10 dead people in 1 day IS actually significant... and it should be local/regional news.

But I do not understand why it would have to be national, or even world news. In the Netherlands, we read about murder cases in the USA. That's so unbelievably irrelevant. (We never read about China or India - probably because most Dutch media do understand English, but not Mandarin or Hindi).

 

I guess that serial killers, and other types of news are just sensational. Just like the news that Paris Hilton has given a party (seriously, google for [paris hilton party] - I get 19 million hits). I really don't know why people think it's interesting.

Also, I think that such objective news would be incredibly boring, and sensational news is exciting. But, like any manager, it's important to know the boring facts / news. A CEO of a big company cannot run the place efficiently if his only information is sensationalism. Similarly, a government cannot run a country based on sensationalism... but they seem to do it anyway.

 

But please note that I am not saying that the media should prioritize (although I would say that they at least have to be independent, and not a government propaganda agency). It is the government who should prioritize!

Unfortunately, we (everybody) listen to the media... and most of us cannot prioritize. And governments follow us, because of the elections...

[Marat]

When we had benign, enlightened, absolute monarchs like Frederick II of Prussia, Maria Theresa of Austria, or Catherine the Great of Russia, resources could be directed rationally according to risk-benefit analysis to produce the greatest utility. But it is perhaps part of the price we pay for democracy that governments have to allocate resources to appeal to popular hysteria rather than to genuine need.

 

Although the War on Terrorism is paid for by governments rather than by the private sector, we have to ask why governments are so willing to spend their own money on the basis of such irrational cost-benefit analyses. Perhaps it is because the governments we are talking about are those of capitalist societies, where the basic logic of the entire society is that rational utility does not matter as much as preserving established rights (i.e., my gold-plated swimming pool cannot be seized to pay for a poor person's cancer therapy, since I have a private property right to my gold, so the utility of using it to help the cancer patient doesn't matter). So if a terrorist violates the rights of the public, that is viewed as disproportionately important compared to the actual cost-benefit analysis of the value of addressing or preventing the violation.

[insane_alien]

1/ It was IMO an act of war on his part that was ongoing. Soldiers do not usually ask the belligerents to surrender so they can stand trial. They kill them. Taking the time and effort required to take him prisoner would have put more people at risk. Job well done.

 

Your government itself has declared the war is over(despite ongoing hostilities). This was a round them up and bring them to justice mission, or should have been.

 

2/ An indication of how much the attacks on 9/11 affected people in this country. Sorry they are unable to emotionally react in a manner that others find acceptable.

 

There is a difference between being glad someone is dead and whats been happening outside the white house.

 

3/ Where are you hearing this? Every commentator I've heard has made the point of saying that while his death is important it may have little impact on terrorism, which may even increase in the short term due to retaliation.

 

its not been said exdplicitly but its just the general feeling thats coming off a variety of news agencies (CNN, Fox and i'm sad to say BBC)

 

So bin Laden kills thousands, hides out for 10 years, and ends up dying in a gun battle. And your only comments are to second guess the motives of the US government and military on how it decided to respond, and to criticize the citizens who respond with joy in hearing that this mass murderer is dead.

 

my comments are on what played out in a compound in abbottabad. The previous actions leading up to this by osama are widely known and i really didn't think we'd have to discuss that in talking about how he was killed. I know what he did, you know what he did and we are in agreement on that.

 

You could have at least mentioned in passing that bin Laden was not a nice fellow. Does all your criticism have to be directed at the US?

 

Yes, I know he was a bad guy and I would want him to suffer the death penalty for what he did BUT I'd want it done by the book so that the opposing side CANNOT have any evidence to say we killed him unjustly or were unfairly biased etc. etc. (although i think elimination of bias in judgement about this is impossible).

 

My commentary was directed at the US because the US were the ones who messed up here at this moment in time. Doesn't mean I think Osama is a good guy. Just means I think the operation could have came out a bit better. It's not the nice shining example of a mission gone well and so forth.

[zapatos]

I was in a bit of a twist that day. My apologies for my sarcasm.

 

 

Your government itself has declared the war is over(despite ongoing hostilities).

I don't recall that being the case. What specific declaration are you speaking of?

 

There is a difference between being glad someone is dead and whats been happening outside the white house.

I just read an interesting commentary on the celebrations. It pointed out that the majority of those celebrating were young and in grade school or high school at the time of 9/11. To that group of people bin Laden was the face of the enemy, similar to the way Hitler was during WWII. To them the elimination of public enemy #1 was worthy of celebration just as people would have done in '43 if Hitler had been taken out.

 

Yes, I know he was a bad guy and I would want him to suffer the death penalty for what he did BUT I'd want it done by the book so that the opposing side CANNOT have any evidence to say we killed him unjustly or were unfairly biased etc. etc. (although i think elimination of bias in judgement about this is impossible).

 

My commentary was directed at the US because the US were the ones who messed up here at this moment in time. Doesn't mean I think Osama is a good guy. Just means I think the operation could have came out a bit better. It's not the nice shining example of a mission gone well and so forth.

Would you have found it acceptable to drop a bomb on the compound from 40,000 feet? Did you feel we had to try to take him alive? Is it acceptable to kill other known terrorists in Pakistan with drone attacks or do we have to try to capture them also?

[insane_alien]

I don't recall that being the case. What specific declaration are you speaking of?

 

hasn't it been said a few times by your president (I think one by bush and one by obama) that the war was over? or is it currently in a state of retraction again?

 

Would you have found it acceptable to drop a bomb on the compound from 40,000 feet?

 

no.

 

Did you feel we had to try to take him alive?

 

yes.

 

Is it acceptable to kill other known terrorists in Pakistan with drone attacks or do we have to try to capture them also?

 

yes it is acceptable.

 

taking out foot soldiers (although still a bad thing causing greif and demoralisation) isn't such an issue, in a war individuals at that level are not so very important.(please note that I do not think the life of a soldier on either side is insignificant in itself, I am talking about appearances to commanders and those driving the war).

 

figure heads that are prominent and well known such as Osama or say a president are very high profile. people are going to be affected much more by what happens there than with corporal anonymous.

 

Now, yes, you can just bump off high ups on the hush hush and this is potentially a good strategy for a war as in world war II but the war with 'terror' is very different. At its heart its a war of hearts and minds than soldiers and guns.

 

We cannot hunt down and eliminate terrorism in general it only takes one guy with an internet connection and motivation to make a bomb and be a terrorist. What we have to do is show the terrorists that we are more reasonable than they think we are. By say taking someone it is widely known that we despise (say Osama) capture him alive and give him a trial.

 

The results of the trial would likely be excecution but its the alive and trial bits that are important. Its symbolic. Its breaking out of the cycle of violence that we are perpetuating in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is not a war that can be won with guns.

[Marat]

International lawyers are now objecting to the U.S. execution of bin Laden on the grounds that his killing does not meet the technical requirements of action against an enemy commander in war. First, they say, there are strong indications that bin Laden was no longer acting in a role of command and control over terrorist forces, so while he was a criminal for his earlier acts and could legally be arrested to face trial, he was no longer actually an enemy commander who could just be shot unless he actively signalled his surrender. Second, they add, an enemy commander has to be killed in the theater of war for the action to be covered by international law, and the area of Pakistan in which he was living was not an active war zone.

 

So while Eric Holder holds on to his assertion that this was the killing of an enemy commander in war, the rest of the world doesn't hold that view.

[A Tripolation]

The results of the trial would likely be excecution but its the alive and trial bits that are important. Its symbolic. Its breaking out of the cycle of violence that we are perpetuating in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is not a war that can be won with guns.

 

I think this is naively optimistic. I agree with what you're saying morally, but realistically, the people who wish to commit terrorism (radicals) will not be swayed by a trial where their leader ends up being executed anyways.

[Mr Skeptic]

Seriously, how could someone not be happy about this?

 

I would much have rather they had captured him instead, and had a nice chat with him. And since when do we rejoice in death? Doesn't large mobs of people rejoicing in someone's death bring anything to mind?

 

from what i've seen he was severely out numbered, chuck a can of tear gas in and wait for him to run out.

 

Yup. If the mission is "take him alive", as it sometimes is, you accept a slightly higher risk to your own people, but if he had some info it might have saved enough lives to compensate for that risk. Then there's the difference in reaction to capturing him alive vs killing him.

 

I don't think that was ever a real threat. Osama was not a Muslim leader; he was a leader of Muslim extremists. His following was extremely small. His death might galvanize his small following, but that's fighting against the division of a power struggle. Comparing his following to the Catholic Church is simply absurd.

 

I think its also important that bin Laden's approval ratings had been dropping before his death.

[insane_alien]

I think this is naively optimistic. I agree with what you're saying morally, but realistically, the people who wish to commit terrorism (radicals) will not be swayed by a trial where their leader ends up being executed anyways.

 

It's only naiively optimistic if you think i'm talking about all terrorists everywhere packing up shop and deciding to become peaceful members of society overnight.

 

I do not expect this. especially from the extremists.

 

What I would expect is that the more moderate people who back terrorism will begin to think twice about their opinion of 'westerners' as infidel scum who want to destroy them. If the terrorist factions lose general support amongst the population then they will have lower recruitment rates so less resources for conducting a large scale campaign.

 

sure there will still be attacks, there would still be a surge after Osama was hypothetically captured and tried but its a step in the right direction.

 

We're (US, UK EU etc. etc.) meant to be the good guys, we should hold ourselves to a higher standard than everyone else. Sure, we will still make mistakes and so on but we should acknowledge those mistakes are infact mistakes and as soon as possible. We should be acting better than we are, We need to be acting better than we are.

 

I think the best thing Obama could do right now is to commission a report to be publically released detailing the particulars of what happened in Abbottabad. And I don't mean the usual heavily redacted trash, be open, publish more than you normally would (granted some info should remain confidential to prevent peoples lives being put at risk). Have a detailed breakdown of what decisions were made and why they were made.

[zapatos]

hasn't it been said a few times by your president (I think one by bush and one by obama) that the war was over? or is it currently in a state of retraction again?

Not as far as I know. The only thing I can think of is when Bush got just a wee bit carried away in 2003 and declared that hostilities in Irag were over. I don't recall any similar declaration regarding the war in Afghanistan, or the 'War on Terror'.

 

 

What I would expect is that the more moderate people who back terrorism will begin to think twice about their opinion of 'westerners' as infidel scum who want to destroy them. If the terrorist factions lose general support amongst the population then they will have lower recruitment rates so less resources for conducting a large scale campaign.

Do you have any reason to believe this is true other than it is how you would react? I don't know the mindset of moderate backers of terrorism, but I wouldn't be surprised if the long term humiliation of putting bin Laden on trial according to Western secular laws, and then finally executing or imprisoning him for life, might instead turn moderate supporters into hard core supporters. I'd be happy to hear of any data that points one way or the other.

 

We're (US, UK EU etc. etc.) meant to be the good guys, we should hold ourselves to a higher standard than everyone else. Sure, we will still make mistakes and so on but we should acknowledge those mistakes are infact mistakes and as soon as possible. We should be acting better than we are, We need to be acting better than we are.

I will go along with the idea that we can and should act better than we do. I'm just not prepared to concede the point that the killing of bin Laden is acting bad. They shot at us, we shot at them. I don't feel the distinction of relative rank within the beligerents is an obvious cutoff. At one time combatants would not purposely target any officers because it was believed they were needed to maintain control of their troops. And you don't mind us killing the lower ranking people, but not the top ranking. Too fuzzy for me. I don't know if I can make a compelling argument that you should be able to target bin Laden, but I also don't believe a compelling argument can be made for not targeting bin Laden. And so I don't second guess this decision made by Obama and the military. Either way a sizable portion of the populace will think you were wrong.

 

If you attack a foe you have to expect the foe will fight back. I seriously doubt that bin Laden's last thoughts were that the Americans were not being fair to him by not taking him into custody.

[rigney]

I'm probably not the one to be offering this comment, since I hated that bastard Bin Ladin so much. But is it possible the US and Pakistan may have been in a sweet clandestine operation these past five or six years? Think about it? We've known for monts the bastard has been holed up in that compound. Why not years? We likely monitored each piece of correspondence in and out of the place since he set up housekeeping? Perhaps that is why we continue funding Pakistan? Hey!, it's been one hell of a source of information if true. Ain't saying it's so, just speculating?

Edited May 7, 2011 by rigney

[Moontanman]

I received my copy of the economist today, the cover had a picture of OBL with the caption "Now Kill His Dreams" I think this was very telling...

[swansont]

I'm probably not the one to be offering this comment, since I hated that bastard Bin Ladin so much. But is it possible the US and Pakistan may have been in a sweet clandestine operation these past five or six years? Think about it? We've known for monts the bastard has been holed up in that compound. Why not years? We likely monitored each piece of correspondence in and out of the place since he set up housekeeping? Perhaps that is why we continue funding Pakistan? Hey!, it's been one hell of a source of information if true. Ain't saying it's so, just speculating?

 

No, and no. None of this is backed up by any of the reporting I've heard. We didn't know he was there, we suspected he was there. There were no phones to tap, so how would we have monitored correspondence? Especially without tipping them off?

 

I suspect the reason that we did not involve the Pakistanis in the op is that it would require informing a number of people in their government, and nobody could guarantee that the information wouldn't leak — the US likely has a ton more confidence that the top echelon of their government/military has no al qaeda sympathizers than that Pakistani government, and a lot more control over who would be told in accordance with need-to-know. Once you share the information, you have no control over it. The Pakistani government has to know this, and I'm guessing that their histrionics are at least in part a show for their own people.

 

The "they should have known" stance is a lot of hot air, too. We've had people on the most-wanted list hide out in the US for twice as long. If the Pakistanis were incompetent then so is the FBI, and I don't think they are.

[rigney]

No, and no. None of this is backed up by any of the reporting I've heard. We didn't know he was there, we suspected he was there. There were no phones to tap, so how would we have monitored correspondence? Especially without tipping them off?

If our Ops. weren't sure Bin was holed up in that compound these past few months,(or years?) they took one hell of a chance of compromising that Seal Team to what could have been a terrible fire fight. Since these guys don't work on whims, or an "I think" scenario, you can bet some cold hard facts were laid out before committing them to such an adventure; no matter how well trained they are. A bullet is just a bullet!

Whether the Pakis knew or didn't know isn't important, we did. And what that courier didn't know when he finally put a battery in his phone, is that he was being monitored by more than his intended receiver. I'd even bet they knew what Bin ate for lunch every day.

 

The "they should have known" stance is a lot of hot air, too. We've had people on the most-wanted list hide out in the US for twice as long. If the Pakistanis were incompetent then so is the FBI, and I don't think they are.

Where did this quote come from, since I don't recall making the comment?

Edited May 8, 2011 by rigney