So, Goodbye Then Osama
I know this topic has been and will be done to death, but here goes anyway.
I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard about the attacks of September 11th. I was behaving as prosaically as those hundreds of people who, little did I know, had been incinerated, crushed or hurled to their deaths as terror and death overwhelmed them.
As it happened I was driving along on my way to buy a new washing machine. Simon Mayo was doing his afternoon show on Radio 5 and he said that reports had started to come in that a plane had crashed into one of the two towers of the World Trade Centre. He sounded rather uncertain about what was going on. I remember that I smiled a world weary smile and raised an eyebrow. For some reason I immediately had fixed in my mind an image of a micro-light piloted by some incompetent nutcase. What a mad world we live in, I thought, full of crazies and idiots!
By the time I reached the electrical shop some twenty minutes later I had been corrected in my delusion. The owners, genial Sikh brothers, had a TV handily perched in the corner and the first pictures were coming in. As it happened I was able to return quickly to the office (I wasn’t a monk back in those days) where we also had a television, and to watch the drastic and dramatic events unfold all afternoon.
I suspect that like a lot of people I could not really begin to take in what I was seeing at first, but by the evening as I watched the endless re-runs of footage, I was deeply upset. I have a fear of heights, and a fear of fire. I was watching ordinary men and women burning, falling, and cart-wheeling to their deaths. I had been up those towers the year before. I had friends in New York. I felt horribly guilty about my stupid initial reaction.
Now as it happens I am a long standing opponent of the death penalty. I find it offensive and disgusting that the state, in cold blood, can terminate a life of even the most heinous criminal. But I am glad Bin Laden is dead.
Why do I countenance the killing of Bin Laden? And I have no doubt, by the way, that the orders of the soldiers sent on their lethal mission were clear: no prisoners. Murder, assassination or execution, call it what you will, the intent was plain, the effect deadly.
First, because in my opinion Bin Laden was not a criminal in the ordinary sense of the word. He was an ideologue and organisational figurehead behind what was and is an assault on civilization itself, in both physical and intellectual terms. He was, in that sense, not a criminal in the ordinary sense but a combatant in an unjust war which he had helped declare.
Now even in a war prisoners are taken. Indeed it is a curious feature of western civilization that whilst we have spent the greater part of the last 2,000 years carefully and efficiently slaughtering each other with a violence and panache that amazes the rest of the world. At the same time, almost as necessary counter balance to the mayhem so that civilization does not completely collapse, we have our rules for the niceties of how to behave when doing so.
But the Al Qaeda ideology espoused by Bin Laden recognises no such rules or limits. It is driven by that most potent and dangerous of forces, absolute and blind theological faith. Therefore it is of course entirely without pity, humanity and Godliness. All who do not subscribe, “the Kafirs”, are unclean and must die. And hence the act committed on that day and indeed on others which was, in the true sense of the word, an atrocity. It crossed the line which civilization can tolerate.
And finally because it was necessary as an act of State and for the preservation of civilization. Necessary because it said to all men like Bin Laden that whilst we in the West may be the lesser sons and daughters of greater ancestors, our reach is still long. You cannot hide forever. This will not end the problems with Jihadist terror. It might even make it worse for a while, but it was an important, symbolic brutal act of state, crucial to redefining the American psyche and perhaps the psyche of those who would order attacks, sending the indoctrinated and gullible to cause death at the expense of their own futile little lives. And necessary that it be a quick and destructive end and not turn into some farcical circus.
And so, well done America. In my view, the abrupt physical destruction of this man was just and proportionate to the crime.
But to those prancing fools whooping and jeering outside the White House, I would say: shut up and go home, little boys and girls. You betray your own country and the standards to which it should aspire. There is no joy in this grim act, but in my view there is justice, remorseless and terrible.
But I hope that he knew what was coming for him, and had time to reflect, just as did those whom he helped to send tumbling thousands of feet to their deaths, terrified and bewildered. I would find that just.
So, good riddance to bad rubbish.
“He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword”
Battle Hymn of the Republic, (Julia Ward Howe, 1861).
Gildas the Monk
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May 3, 2011 at 09:17 -
“But to those prancing fools whooping and jeering outside the White House, I would say: shut up and go home, little boys and girls. You betray your own country and the standards to which it should aspire. There is no joy in this grim act, but in my view there is justice, remorseless and terrible.”
My thoughts exactly. I will shed no tears for OBL, but it is never right to rejoice at the death of another human being. The dog may have been put down, but that should be an end of it. People who celebrate death are wrong, whichever side of the fence they sit.
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May 3, 2011 at 11:03 -
“but it is never right to rejoice at the death of another human being”
Sorry, but that is bollocks.
I can think of several deaths that have been or would be rightly deserving of celebration. Osama Bin Laden was high on the list. Those Americans were celebrating justice, the alleviation of a particular threat, the bravery and professionalism of their troops, the focus and decisiveness of their leadership, and dare I say it, rightful revenge. All worthy of celebration, nay, rejoicing.
I hope they got plenty pissed.I shed a tear for OBL. A mixture of pride and joy at the nature of his demeaning and violent death.
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May 3, 2011 at 13:22 -
I quite agree. I shall stay with the prancing fools.
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May 3, 2011 at 13:41 -
Self righteous bollocks.
So I suppose that you would also have been po- faced at all the rejoicing in London, and all over the free world at the death of Hitler and end of the war.Give me one sensible, understandable, reason why it is wrong to rejoice at the death of certain evil people? Is it more righteous, more human or more wise, more noble, and if so, says who?
I wonder, am I a lesser person because I see a cause for rejoicing.
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May 3, 2011 at 13:50 -
Bob, surely the rejoicing in London was for the ‘end of the war’ – I have never seen any evidence of people doing high fives and saying ‘justice has been done’ when news of Hitler’s suicide broke – have you?
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May 4, 2011 at 15:21 -
Anna,
Not sure that many people in London high-fived back then. But are you suggesting corks weren’t popping up and down the land? Did our then more Christian outlook really mean people were not openly expressing joy?
I think they did not say ‘justice had been done” because taking his own life was not justice. I will however bet that many said ‘bloody good news’.
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May 3, 2011 at 09:34 -
When reflecting on someone’s passing, it’s often said that the world was a better place for their presence. Their actions may have been very small in the great scheme of things – the chap who kept the Churchyard tidy and asked for no reward, the nurse who always had a kind and reassuring word for her patients, the craftsman who never did a sub-standard job. But they did their bit; they did more good than harm.
The world would have been a better place if bin Laden had gone to work in the family firm – property developers, I believe. He would never have been known to the great majority of the world’s people, but his contribution would have been far greater, nontheless. As it is, he leaves a legacy of spilled blood, shattered lives and destruction across many countries, and for what? A blinkered belief that one faith is better than the rest, and a capacity to infect the impressionable minds of others with the same twisted thinking?
The world was not a better place for Osama bin Laden’s presence in it. The world is a better place without him.
Perhaps if we learn anything from his actions, it is that terrorising others is the worst possible way of resolving the problems of the world. Perhaps now we can all try, in our own small ways, more positive means.
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May 3, 2011 at 09:53 -
What a superb, well thought out response, Engineer, congratulations.
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May 3, 2011 at 12:07 -
Thank you, Anna. From one who’s standards of writing and of thoughtfulness on the human condition are far ahead of my own, that’s praise indeed.
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May 4, 2011 at 00:52 -
Nicely presented, however wishing the world were a better place and all it’s inhabitants acted rationally is the stuff of fairy stories. We have to react to actual conditions.
OBL set into motion his piteous attack on civilians, similar to Hitlers blitzkrieg. He deserved no special niceties regarding hid death.
Given our current knowledge (and here I incline to others comments, that we know very little and what has been announced could easily be spin) he could easily have been surgically killed by a predator drone at little or no risk to American servicemen. Therefore for some unknown reason Obambi decided to make this a “spectacular”, you may come to your own conclusions why he felt this necessary.
At every opportunity our leaders have deferred to “good taste” when dealing with these medieval terrorists, as a result the terrorists are unafraid to be captured. It is beyond time that we terrorise their sensibilities, perhaps by ensuring their leaders look death in the eye and show fear, I doubt OBL showed the courage to shout “This is how an Italian dies” as one unfortunate captive did before they beheaded him-release the video of his squalid death to show this coward for all to see.
I would rejoice in that unashamedly, and believe it would hasten the day when these monsters might learn.
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May 3, 2011 at 10:48 -
“For some reason I immediately had fixed in my mind an image of a micro-light piloted by some incompetent nutcase…”
For good reason – the first reports were that ‘it’s thought a small aircraft has hit the WTC, possibly dazzled by the bright sunshine’.
My mother can remember seeing the second one hit live on tv, and at first, thinking it was a reconstruction…
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May 3, 2011 at 11:25 -
Yes, I remember now…
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May 3, 2011 at 10:49 -
May 3, 2011 at 11:00 -
Well, I’m glad that I am not the only one who is disturbed by the joyous and gleeful reaction to this man’s death.
I was beginning to think that I was alone. -
May 3, 2011 at 11:14 -
The prancing fools in America are a bit premature. Yes you can celebrate the death of an evil person, but to dance around as if the war has finished is premature. This is only the end of a battle, the war has still to be won.
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May 3, 2011 at 11:24 -
A slightly different point but quite correct. The death of Bin Laden probably has no operational relevance at all. The question is: was it a moral and just act?
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May 3, 2011 at 12:06 -
I think not, but then I wasn’t at all happy about the hanging of Sadam, let alone the filming of it.
But this is a gut reaction and probably related to my feelings on The Death Penalty. -
May 3, 2011 at 12:19 -
Someone who is ex-military made the point on another blog that the Americans personalise war. I’ve certainly seen that they place more emphasis on individual responsibility than we do. Whether it’s moral or just is going to vary from country to country.
An early example was the fate of Admiral Yamamoto once America learned that he had been the planner of the Pearl Harbor (their sp) attack.They spared no efforts to track his movements and shot down his transport plane at the earliest opportunity. -
May 3, 2011 at 19:40 -
“The question is: was it a moral and just act?”
I find dispensing with the idea of ‘morals’ altogether is an important step in thinking about politics or economics. It is a relative concept and leads to many backward outcomes.
Instead of asking what is moral simply don’t. Just evaluate the available options.
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May 3, 2011 at 11:24 -
Twin Towers, sorry no humour.
Ignore the soles of dancing feet
Just think of souls you’ll never meetThree thousand of all types and creeds
Who once had lives and loves and needsA routine day, no thoughts of death
Some died at once, no time for breathSome died who knew their fate was sealed
More cruel an end, less grieving healed -
May 3, 2011 at 12:47 -
We the post WW2 generation living ever increasing properous or even not so properous lives have no conception of Evil and its consequences. Not an ephemeral term but wickedness and horror such is the stuff of nighmares. Nazi Germany, Stalin`s Russia, East Germany`s Stasi, and current monsters whose self agrandisement and survival is their only motivation. Oppenents of the killing of OBL, may he rot in hell, should allow themselves just a moment to consider what he and those of his ilk before him did to their fellow man.
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May 3, 2011 at 13:48 -
The thing is how were the Americans able to land four choppers in the middle of a garrison town, spend 40 minutes shooting and exploding things secure in the knowledge that none of the local miltary were going to come out and start shooting at them?
Of course the Pakistanis knew OBL was there, they probably built his mansion for him. They also knew the Americans were coming, they probably invited them.
OBL was Pakistan’s contribution to the Obama re-election campaign and in return they will no doubt get something of value to them.
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May 3, 2011 at 14:11 -
“Probably… probaably… probably… etc ad nauseam.”
Thank God some of us proceed on the basis of facts, and not probablies.
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May 3, 2011 at 16:13 -
“Thank God some of us proceed on the basis of facts, and not probablies.”
You couldn’t make it up!!!! (Oh, hang on, I think they did).
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May 3, 2011 at 14:19 -
Would you be so quick to abandon your libertarian principles and welcome the ‘death penalty’ if it was The Queen that had been killed, without trial, by a bunch of highly paid Muslims, storming Buckingham Palace, shooting her in the face and murdering her remaining family in cold blood, based upon nothing more than her position as a figure head.
If the assassin were to state –
In my opinion The Queen was not a criminal in the ordinary sense of the word. She was an ideologue and organisational figurehead behind what was and is an assault on civilization itself, in both physical and intellectual terms. She was, in that sense, not a criminal in the ordinary sense but a combatant in an unjust war which She had helped declare.
Would you still agree that her death was right?.
Would you still maintain that killing figure heads was cool if you didn’t agree with their way of life, even if it happened to be your own Queen on the slab.
I doubt it somehow.
I’m a Libertarian, and thats why the cold blooded murder of Bin Laden and the following celebrations/vote whoring leaves me horrified and sickened.
Can you say the same.
Libertarian my arse, I can suspend my horror at the death penality if it punishes the person I personally find responsible for a day I found mildly upsetting.
Really, this is total shit, As a Libertarian You claim to abore the death penalty. So parents, grand parents, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, friends etc are wrong to demand it when they lose a loved one in horrific circumstances yet a country, half a world away, shoots dead 1 man and you are all for it.
This is why I no longer blog. Until you Libertarians can make up your fucking minds and decide what is right and what is wrong there is no hope for the rest of us. You all bitch like fuck about the folks in power changing the rules as and when it suits them. You then go right ahead and do it yourselves.
Mummy x
I do expect to be shot on site for this comment.
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May 3, 2011 at 15:02 -
“Until you Libertarians can make up your fucking minds and decide what is right and what is wrong there is no hope for the rest of us. ”
If you believe in a God, Mummy x, then perhaps there is, in this Universe, someone who can say now, and for all time, what is right and what is wrong in all conceivable circumstances. Could it be your own inability to do so that persuaded you to blog no more? I’m afraid the rest of us mortals seem to just muddle along in the inconsistent, confused way you observe. Some of us, it has to be admitted, are better than others in actually avoiding evildoing. But does being a Libertarian necessarily involve pacifism, turning the other cheek whatever is perpetrated against one? Sometimes it’s right to fight back, to oppose the evildoer.-
May 3, 2011 at 15:22 -
PT,
But does being a Libertarian necessarily involve pacifism, turning the other cheek whatever is perpetrated against one?No it bloody doesn’t, and I never said it did. It involves a simple set of rules that one must abide by, even if situations arise that we, as individuals, don’t like.
If you claim to abore the death sentence there are no special circumstances, unless of course you proclaimed the death sentence awful right up until someone you held dear was affected and that crime changed your mind. It’s called hypocriscy.
A person cannot shriek one rule for them etc in one breath and then change their own tune if the circumstances beg it.
It’s just wrong.
Mummy x
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May 3, 2011 at 15:30 -
May 3, 2011 at 17:45 -
Stalin. He killed, or ordered to be killed, literally millions of people. He called this “statistics.”
Would you not have stopped him by killing him, had you the power? I certainly would. Or, in your terms, I fucking would. Please define your “simple set of rules.” Do they apply universally, and for all of time? If so, I bow to your godlike perspicacity. And no, I do not abore the death penalty…. or even abhor it. Life is complicated. Simple sets of rules apply only to simple situations. -
May 3, 2011 at 19:33 -
“But does being a Libertarian necessarily involve pacifism, turning the other cheek whatever is perpetrated against one? No it bloody doesn’t, and I never said it did.”
And neither does being a libertarian require moral absolutism.
I’m a libertarian, and yet I still sanction the government using force to appropriate money for public spending. Simply on a significantly smaller scale than is currently the case ( and I do stress ‘significantly’).
You seem to believe that ‘libertarianism’ should be some sort of prescribed absolute set of rules that need strict adherence to. I think you are missing the point by a good margin.
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May 3, 2011 at 15:21 -
Nice to see you back in the Blogosphere Mummy x. The break seems to have calmed your savage breast.
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May 3, 2011 at 15:22
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May 3, 2011 at 16:42 -
In a sense, bin Laden himself changed the rules. The decent people of the world try to resolve their differences by discourse, by negotiation, and when that fails, by going to war – but following the rules of war (in the main). Bin Laden didn’t do that, he just ordered the deliberate killing of innocent, uninvolved people who had no quarrel with him; indeed, didn’t even know of his existence. When he did that, he stepped outside the boundaries of cilivised behavior. When the Armed Forces kill in the name of Queen and Country, they do so under the aegis of international law, and do all they reasonably can to avoid slaughtering innocents. The comparison between bin Laden and the Queen are therefore invalid (and rather distasteful – the Queen is no terrorist).
Bin Laden’s killing was in a sense justice served; rough justice, for sure, but justice nonetheless. He set the rules, others followed them. He reaped what he sowed. The triumphalism shown by some is a tad distasteful, but it is not unreasonable to feel a sense of deep relief that the world has been purged of an evil influence, and justice done for 9/11 victims and many servicemens’ families, and for the other innocents caught in plces like the London 7/7 atrocity, the Bali bombings, Afghans caught in the cross-fire of other peoples’ battles and too many more.
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May 3, 2011 at 14:36 -
For what it’s worth –
My opinion on Osamas death?.
Meh.My opinion on Obama knowing exactly where Osama was these last how ever many years?
Meh.My opinion on Obamas sudden urgent desire to kill the fucker 2 days after Britain holds a massive street party in honour of the Royal Wedding.
Vote Obama.Tis coincidence and nothing more.
Mummy x
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May 3, 2011 at 15:16 -
Firstly, how do you know he was even still alive? The authorities told you? The same ones who lie about so much else?
Secondly, how do you know he was even there? The authorities told you? The same ones who lie about so much else?
Thirdly, how do you know he was killed there? The authorities told you? The same ones who lie about so much else?
Fourthly, how do you know it was even him? The authorities told you? The same ones who lie about so much else?-
May 3, 2011 at 16:19 -
Shame on you!!! Don’t spoil it for them.
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May 3, 2011 at 15:53 -
Bob
A small issue with your comment. When Hitler died, Eamon de Valera, President (I think he was then) went to the German embassy in Dublin and personally signed their condolence book.-
May 3, 2011 at 21:12 -
Mike
Haha? LOL.
To be sure he did, but then most Irish leaders hated Britain, so why would he not sign Hitlers condolences.
However pray tell me, how does your single fact about Eamon deValera help you in taking issue against my comment.-
May 4, 2011 at 08:50 -
Bob
I said it was a small issue. However you said there was rejoicing ‘all over the free world at the death of Hitler’. Since the Republic of Ireland comprised one nineteenth of the democracies then in existence, (may have been seventeenth) I think I made a valid point. There will always be someone who disagrees, even when its something blindingly obvious.
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May 3, 2011 at 16:23 -
Gildas – you seem to be rather conflicted over your feelings on capital punishment.
I am not. From my pro capital punishment stance I could make a better job of justifying my position than you have yous and without alluding to retribution or punishment.
The whoops from the US citizens are what the SEAL’s operation was all about. Otherwise there wouldn’t have been much point to it.
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May 3, 2011 at 16:55 -
I have heard that Pakistani IT Admin LEAKS his Tweets on Twitter about Osama Bin Laden Raid Is this real…have seen this info on internet …
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May 3, 2011 at 17:07 -
“There is no joy in this grim act, but in my view there is justice, remorseless and terrible.”
So should it always be Gildas. Taking joy in the act of killing is not a legitimate pleasure, although it is natural to rejoice in the ending of an enemy. The deed itself was no more than an act of bleak necessity, political cautery.
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May 3, 2011 at 18:24 -
I refer the honourable ladies and gentlemen to the comments I made some moments ago… How do any of you know this story is even true? Why believe it – any part of it? Obama seems to be claiming the credit for the killing of the person they’re CLAIMING was Bun Larder – notice that the body was dumped at sea before anybody could verify anything… oh yeah, ‘WE GOT DA DNA!’ – when the person that they’re CLAIMING was Bun Larder was actually killed by the Pakistani’s, and the body simply swiped by the American’s…
Osama Bin Laden killed in Abbotabad near Islamabad of Pakistan
http://tinyurl.com/3lb723b
‘Pakistani Urdu TV channel Geo News quoted Pakistani intelligence officials as saying that the world’s most wanted terrorist Osama Bin Laden was killed in a search operation launched by the Pakistani forces after a Pakistani army helicopter was shot down in the wee hours of Monday in Abbotabad, a mountainous town located some 60 kilometers north of Pakistan’s capital city of Islamabad.
At about 1:20 a.m. local time a Pakistani helicopter was shot down by unknown people in the Sikandarabad area of Abbotabad. The Pakistani forces launched a search operation in the nearby area and encountered with a group of unknown armed people. A fire exchange followed between the two sides.
When the fire exchange ended, the Pakistani forces arrested some Arab women and kids as well some other armed people who later confessed to the Pakistani forces they were with Osama Bin laden when the fire was exchanged and Bin Laden was killed in the firing.
Local media reported that after the dead body of Bin Laden was recovered, two U.S. helicopter flew to the site and carried away the dead body of Bin Laden.’ -
May 3, 2011 at 18:48 -
Experience is one’s reality whereas knowledge is others’ reality, should that not merely be their [2nd, 3rd or 4th hand] knowledge too and the knowledge which lacks realisation is known as [the religiosity within] a religion. Those who accept knowledge as defacto are known as worshippers and just look at where the religious and their religions have taken humanity to. To sheer stupidity, whose abortion is the ego/egotism, stupidity being dumbness expressed and dumbness being stupidity suppressed, the two faces of the same coin.
It doesn’t matter what others are doing so long as you don’t become judge and jury or else not only have they succeeded in making you stupid-cum-dumb, they have made you believed in your own stupidity-cum-dumbness in the manner of The Emperor’s New Clothes. Even the chimps are having a laugh at the know-it-all-really-know-nuffin’s. Once a human accepts his [masculintiy for brevity] name/personna as his identity, subsequent to the hardening/ossification of his fontanele bone area, he cannot be taught. Thereafter, he has to learn and learning is about witnessing and not reacting. Is it any wonder that most react to knowledge as the stupid-cum-dumb accepts that knowledge is power. Your handler’s power, why of course, but never yours. For those who have yet to learn how to witness but is forever reacting for their Fame, Fortune & Immortality, oka their vested interests, they will be taught the same lesson over and over again until the lesson/resistance/guilt becomes an addiction.
The sheer complexity of Truth must also be simplicity or else the truth is meaningless. Afterall, when we see, we do not need Quackery & Handler telling us how to do so. Likewise, when one or more vital pieces of the jigsaw are missing, have full faith in your confidence and not your stupidity-cum-dumbness [or vice-versa] that it is not the real truth. Realise this and start witnessing and learning or else your mesmeric state and its myriad of rationalities will be the reasons why you are who you are. Be simple but innocent and wisdom will be your guide but be naïve, glitzy and forever chasing your FFI rainbow and you won’t even know you’ve been had until it is too late.
As matters stand, it is almost too late for many, but that is not the point, your enemy being the point/reality and the individual’s enemy is not the other who is the closest, it is actually his own stupidity-cum-dumbness, stupidity being the father of one’s egotsim, oka objectivity-projectivity, and dumbness being the mother of one’s conditionings, oka subjectivity, the former being one’s futuristic thoughts and the latter, one’s thoughts from the past. As they say, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing – more dangerous than stupidity-cum-dumbness could ever imagine. Being made a patsy but thinking that one is the best judge and jury there ever was – until the next court case proves otherwise. That is why it is called stupidity and dumbness, which regardless of the modernity of it all, has zero time constraints, there being nothing modern about being stupid or dumb. The same goes for the truth, being infinite and unyielding to any perturbation whereas once the individual reacts, untruth is then his reality, to react being to lose one’s real power and all because of some knowledge accepted as empowerment – by one’s stupidity or dumbness, why of course. One reason why all have to die is to prove the existence of Truth. What or who Osama was is nothing when compared to the destructiveness and wickedness of those demonising him whilst not forgetting that evil does not needs demonising unless one is truly stupid and/or dumb.
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May 3, 2011 at 19:06 -
I am solidly against the death penalty.
I consider myself something of a libertarian.
I’m very pleased that OBL was killed, not captured.
If I discovered that the kiling was intentional, I’d approve.
I realise that some will find all this inconsistent, but I don’t care.
Life is too short to explain.
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May 3, 2011 at 22:10 -
Zaphod
“Life is too short to explain”
Capital punishment/assassination
Or put another way – deep down even you know you are wrong on at least one of the two beliefs and wouldn’t have a clue how to justify your stance.
Your position on capital punishment is the one which holds sway at the moment. I would very much like to hear you rationalise your ideas – or try.
Will someone from the anti capital punishment camp who supports the execution of Bin Laden please explain to me how they can reconcile their dual position here.
We have spared murderers the death penalty who have killed tens, and in one case hundreds of victims. Often with appalling cruelty and sometimes causing terror within our communities. Numbers of victims ought not come into it.
Where is the difference ?
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May 4, 2011 at 00:35 -
Life imprisonment would have been sufficient and morally preferable, but impractical. He was a self-confessed and unrepentent killer with a huge fanatical following. Keeping him alive and secure would have been a risk we couldn’t afford. We’re not strong enough.
War is very different to peace. It involves both sides killing people. He started it. He was an enemy, not a criminal.
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May 4, 2011 at 10:02 -
“Life’s too short.”
Some perspective on “we’re not [the Americans one presumes] strong enough”
Forty thousand people killed and a city raised in one WWII bombing raid compared to Osama’s 3000 dead, two buildings demolished and never likely to be repeated.
There will be a backlash and we will cope.
If it’s a war then please let’s stop calling Bin Laden a murderer. And it’s debatable as to whether he did start it. It was western armed forces occupying his territory after all – and imposing western liberal interventionism on a culture which doesn’t seem to want it.
I’m all for the assassination of Bin Laden too – but then I’m not in contortions as I wrest my conscience with a disbelief in capital punishment as well.
Ultimately I get the feeling here that people who actually stand against capital punishment believe in it and certainly would if their own were the victims.
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May 4, 2011 at 18:51 -
No.
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May 3, 2011 at 22:51 -
Some people need killing, its a matter of survival for everyone else. Always been like that, always will be.
In the case of Bin Laden job done, move on and deal with the next threat.
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May 4, 2011 at 11:48 -
Bilderb*rgers, Moss@d, EU Commie_sars…????
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May 3, 2011 at 23:17 -
Probably no one actually agrees with the gunning down of Bin Laden but sadly it’s a bit naive that a ban on any form of legalised revenge killing is the right thing. This seems to send out a signal to these fanatical terrorists that they can just go on killing. So if this kind of revenge serves to send a message to any terrorist or even dictators such as Ghadaffi then it somehow seems justifiable.
After all if terrorists can justify their actions i.e. mass killings and bombings etc. then it’s difficult to feel much sympathy for them if they are dealt some of their own medicine.
I personally find their actions so grotesque that I just cannot find any sympathy whatsoever for what happens to terminate the life of a mass murderer………… and I’m a pacifist! -
May 4, 2011 at 00:00 -
Oh come on, does anyone really believe it was Bin Laden? Really? I thought it was a rule that such ‘evil,bad’ people….you know despots,war lords, terrorists …had to be found working in a chip shop in Catford or similar.
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May 4, 2011 at 00:05 -
So Obama could have ordered a drone attack. OBL would have ended up just as dead but maybe there would be doubts in the media.
Far better to order a 100 US troops into harm’s way … after all this is about 2012
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May 4, 2011 at 06:43 -
Message sent loud and clear, from America and perhaps on our behalf too, to the coloured Islamic chappies.
Anyone recognise this:
“It has been said — and it is a fact — that these 11 men were the lowest of the low; subhuman was the word which one of my honorable Friends used. So be it. But that cannot be relevant to the acceptance of responsibility for their death . . . In general, I would say that it is a fearful doctrine, which must recoil upon the heads of those who pronounce it, to stand in judgement on a fellow human being and to say, “Because he was such-and-such, therefore the consequences which would otherwise flow from his death shall not flow.”
Nor can we ourselves pick and choose where and in what parts of the world we shall use this or that kind of standard. We cannot say, “We will have African standards in Africa, Asian standards in Asia and perhaps British standards here at home.” We have not that choice to make. We must be consistent with ourselves everywhere.”
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May 4, 2011 at 14:20 -
I worry that one day history might regard the west as the villains of the piece. If the story starts on 9/11/2001, then perhaps the narrative (deadly international terrorist killed in only means possible, world is better place, USA! USA!) is correct.
But if the story began a long time ago. Where a dark hegemonic empire manipulated the world populace for their own purposes – callously killing women and children for oil and textile contracts and supplying despots with chemical weapons and funding dissidents to overthrow legitimate governments so the evil empire can further rape and pillage. Then the men who stood up against this evil would be called freedom fighters.
So perhaps in context something else entirely has been going on. Yet we’re so confused by modern double speak we can’t really tell our arse from our elbows.
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