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Re: Bin Laden dead
I know that my american freinds here are happy at this turn of events but things like this are just weird to me
faldor wrote:USA USA USA ... what are we proud of?
johndivney wrote:love obama's reaction @ 2.19 to the joke @ 2.07: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YGITlxf … ure=relmfu
not really a funny topic to me...but whatever
$1 Trillion dollars and a world in economic turmoil to kill 2 men ... so now what? cheering and laughing?
For the American spirit, it's confirmation that alot of U.S. soliders who are dead, didn't die in vain, and for the families of those who were lost on 9/11, the man who gave the order was finally brought to justice... the end of a gun.
Now I personally don't celebrate death, even for those who are evil, but people are kind of confused as to how to react, and are just reacting the way they feel they should.
My reaction was - "good"
And I moved on.
Re: Bin Laden dead
Not sure if it's justice, or redemption, or vindication, but they got him. The capture & death of one evil person doesn't make up for that of an innocent person, let alone several thousand. It's a good thing nonetheless, and I'm glad. Randall Flagg if you're out there, thanks!
Re: Bin Laden dead
One of the worst things about the Iraq War is that we created a power void in the region. If we leave Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran will march right into Iraq and take over the second largest oil fields on the planet. For decades, Iraq served as a counter-balance to Iran. The two kept each other in check. But now Iraq's military is a complete joke thanks to us wiping them out. We can't leave even if we desperately want to. Shot ourselves in the foot on that one IMHO.
I was referring to an Afghanistan pull out, not Iraq. We will always have a military presence in Iraq. It can be minimized but a presence of some sort will remain. Like you said, a US withdrawal would create a power vacuum that would allow China or Russia,(maybe Iran) to fill that vacuum and that cannot be allowed to happen. If I were president, I would be willing to risk WWIII to keep them out of that region.
Afghanistan would also create a power vacuum with Russia or Pakistan licking its chops, but SOMETHING has got to give. Afghanistan the easiest to pull out of with minimal risk.
We gotta pull out of one, reduce military spending and get an economic recovery going.
The 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed apparently told our interrogators that there was a plan in place for immediate retaliation if we ever killed Bin Laden.
Yeah and people always forget the US is not their only target. They hate Russia almost as much as us, they'd love to see Europe on its knees as well, and don't know their stance on China, but I assume they would be willing to hit them if the opportunity presented itself.
Obama, Putin, and Jintao should hold a summit on their stance on a post Bin Laden war on terror. I have always felt from the start that the US should ally itself with Russia in this war as they have as much to lose as we do and are the second target of these various terrorist organizations.
I do not like Obama but he handled this situation perfectly. I LOVE how he kept allies out of the loop and only let a few people on his National Security team know what was going on.
We'll never know the names of the men who went into that compound to kill anything that moved in there, but men(and women) who put their lives on the line in these types of situations deserve a free ticket to heaven if such a place exists.
Interesting how it was played down from a joint task force(essentially a "death squad") to a team of Navy Seals doing the mission. Doesn't really matter I suppose, but the murder of Bin Laden and the others sends a clear message to these fuckers. Its not gonna be the John Kerry Jimmy Carter bullshit of "lets finds em, arrest em and put em on trial". We're gonna go in there and kill you and don't bother using human shields either cuz it only delays your death about half a second.
USA USA USA ... what are we proud of?
Our government and more specifically our military for accomplishing what they set out to do ten years ago. We said we were going to dismantle Al Qaeda and kill Bin Laden, and that's what we just did. There's more work to be done, but killing the leader of this group is HUGE, whether or not he was still running things or just a figurehead for the organization.
In my opinion, its time to start bombing several countries that have terrorist camps. This was originally on Bush's list of things to do but we got sidetracked by Iraq. I don't remember the entire list of countries, but several african countries and Yemen were on that list.
- tejastech08
- Rep: 194
Re: Bin Laden dead
I do not like Obama but he handled this situation perfectly. I LOVE how he kept allies out of the loop and only let a few people on his National Security team know what was going on.
We'll never know the names of the men who went into that compound to kill anything that moved in there, but men(and women) who put their lives on the line in these types of situations deserve a free ticket to heaven if such a place exists.
Interesting how it was played down from a joint task force(essentially a "death squad") to a team of Navy Seals doing the mission. Doesn't really matter I suppose, but the murder of Bin Laden and the others sends a clear message to these fuckers. Its not gonna be the John Kerry Jimmy Carter bullshit of "lets finds em, arrest em and put em on trial". We're gonna go in there and kill you and don't bother using human shields either cuz it only delays your death about half a second.
Obama definitely handled this very well. This is the one campaign issue that he was consistent on and actually followed through on. He was heavily criticized by McCain and Palin for saying he would go into Pakistan and kill Bin Laden without Pakistan's permission if their government would not cooperate with us. McCain lectured the crap out of him about this during the debates, but it turns out Obama's policy worked about as well as you could want.
Apparently his advisers wanted him to bomb the compound into oblivion, but the problem with this strategy is that we did not have 100% visual proof that Bin Laden was in there. Obama wanted us to get actual proof. Only way of doing that was sending special ops in and making sure that we could examine the bodies. There are quite a few risks with these type of missions though. All kinds of shit can go wrong, and indeed HAS gone wrong in the past. This particular one had a technical glitch with the helicopter, but fortunately for our SEALs it did not cause a problem for the mission.
The amazing thing about this whole deal to me is that Bin Laden was in there with just a handful of people. I always imagined him to have 100-200 guards protecting him. He was arrogant and probably got lazy at some point. We sent 24 SEALs in there and they were probably shocked to find just a few people in there. It worked out great though. Bin Laden and his guards were completely overwhelmed.
Re: Bin Laden dead
I know, I'm simply amazed at how precise and perfect this operation apparently went. You see this type of shit in movies and STILL it doesn't work out this well. Just simply amazing. I haven't been overly impressed with Obama in office prior to last night, but you can obviously see there's a lot of shit going down behind closed doors that we have no clue about. He, and his staff, did a fantastic job planning this whole thing out and keeping it so secretive. It might be a bit premature, but I think he's got a pretty good (sure) shot at getting re-elected now. A few days ago, I wouldn't have said that.
And god bless those Navy SEALS. It's a shame that we probably never will know their identities, but whoever they may be, I thank them wholeheartedly.
Re: Bin Laden dead
Obama definitely handled this very well. This is the one campaign issue that he was consistent on and actually followed through on. He was heavily criticized by McCain and Palin for saying he would go into Pakistan and kill Bin Laden without Pakistan's permission if their government would not cooperate with us. McCain lectured the crap out of him about this during the debates, but it turns out Obama's policy worked about as well as you could want.
While the mission turned out perfect and had I been president would have gave it the go ahead as well, some criticism regarding those remarks was warranted although a rewording of his stance might have lessened the criticism.
An invasion of Pakistan would send the region into chaos and don't forget they are a nuclear power. We do have the capabilities of neutering that deterrent, but it is still dangerous. A special ops mission a different ball game though. While it occurred in Pakistan, the operation had nothing to do with them and doing everything in our power to limit civilian casualties during the operation was a very smart move and definitely being overlooked.
Like you stated, things could have went wrong which would have required a quick decision on how to proceed. Lets say he escapes, a special ops member is killed or wounded, Pakistani troops(or cops) walk in during the operation, you now have a major crisis on your hands. An air strike likely would have been ordered(maybe even the use of a "daisy cutter" to guarantee he is killed) which would have killed many civilians and turned this into an international crisis.
Like everyone else, I am blown away by how well this was handled and everyone involved from the top down deserves major kudos.
As far as how he was living and the lack of guards, I look forward to more information coming out on how he lived following the invasion of Afghanistan. Looks like they were good at propaganda to keep the US and other major powers guessing.
- tejastech08
- Rep: 194
Re: Bin Laden dead
Another thing that was great about the choice to use SEALs instead of bombs is that we were able to preserve every bit of intelligence that might have been in there. Apparently there were computers with a shitload of stuff on the hard drives. We might be able to wipe out all of the remaining Al Qaeda power players as a result. As huge as getting Bin Laden himself is, you could argue that preserving that intelligence treasure trove might turn out to be just as important in the long run. This one operation could end up being the death of Al Qaeda when it's said and done. I just hope there is a shitload of helpful information that the SEALs dragged out of that building.
Re: Bin Laden dead
An air strike likely would have been ordered(maybe even the use of a "daisy cutter" to guarantee he is killed) which would have killed many civilians and turned this into an international crisis.
America's big, but its not dumb. No ones going to invade a country to blow up a boat load of civillians in order to get revenge on 1 guy who invaded a country to blow up a boatload of civillians.
That's like chopping off your arm because there's a spider in your hand.
It'l be interesting to see the photos, and hopefully, Footage?
