Sunday, May 01, 2011
Osama bin Laden has been killed
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St. John of San Francisco
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17 comments:
Great! So we'll expect the troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan tomorrow?
To the extent that Bin Laden's death contributes to the cause of justice and the security of our nation, it is a good thing. And yet, the death of a human being is always an outrage. Bin Laden, as evil as he was, was made in the image of God, and was a sinner for whom Christ died. We may perhaps breathe a little easier, and for that we may be grateful. But I will not rejoice in his death. God does not rejoice in it.
Interesting coincidence... May 1st was also the day that Hitler's death was announced in 1945.
I can't in good conscience allow myself to wish "the hot stinky bad place" on even Bin Laden, but I can't say that I'm terribly disappointed at the news of his demise, which I assume was, shall we say?, unrepentant.
John, I'm with you! This is fantastic news!
So, the US finally kills a monster which it helped to create in the first place by supplying bin Laden and his companions with weapons when they were considered to be freedom fighters battling the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Forgive me if I take no part in the revelries.
Parepidemos
So ummm you feel bad for Bin Laden or was it the Soviet Union? Yes, the whole business is yet another instruction in why we should mind our own damn business and stay out of other countries that don't attack us. But our poor judgment in choosing friends aside, he did send a mass murder team here that killed thousands of people. Nothing we did in any way justified that.
If you did not mean to imply such then I apologize. But that's how your comment is coming across.
http://www.infowars.com/red-alert-government-had-osama-bin-laden-frozen-for-years/
John, I think you're making a logical leap in reading Parepidemos'comment that's all too common. Parepidemos calls OBL a monster, but refuses to rejoice in his death. You take that this means he is saying OBL was justified in attacking the US.
Isn't it possible to say 'He was a monster, the US govt is a monster, and I'm not going to rejoice when the two monsters kill each other'?
rabidgandhi:
Indeed. I'm reminded of something a certain Ustinov said about war.
I don't think bin Laden's death is even that newsworthy.
I too keep asking God for forgiveness for my feelings jublilation at OBL's death. But noone more richly deserved justice than he did.
I think God himself would understand the confusion of our emotions at this moment. Hopefully we rejoice more for justice served than for blood-spilled.
It was too long in coming but Thank God the day has finally come. For the 3000 souls who were minding their own business one moment and who died in terror and pain in the next, the balance has been in some small degree righted.
-Peggy
You are on record as saying that capital punishment should be abolished. Osama's only distinction is the scale and sheer drama of the one-time criminal WTC attack, but he's a piker compared to a lot of modern heads of state. In fact, he didn't even manage to kill a quarter as many Americans as Americans themselves kill in a given year.
And by the way, 6% of the American population was responsible for about half those murders. By those metrics, should we be occupying downtown Kabul, or downtown New Orleans, Detroit, Atlanta, etc.?
And where is the outrage against the people who invite the members of a hostile and antithetical religious sect to our shores?
Obama killing Osama is a distraction. For that matter, it seems the only reason this happened was he had outlived his usefulness to the Pakistanis.
AG
I am assuming your comment is directed to me.
You are on record as saying that capital punishment should be abolished.
I am, though I fail to see the connection since this was not an execution. OBL was killed while violently resisting apprehension by US Naval commandos. Although even if he was targeted for death I believe it would have been justified on the grounds that he is a self proclaimed enemy of the state and mass murderer. As such killing him would have been justified as an act of societal self defense if it were determined to be impossible to arrest him. One can also justify it as an act of war since OBL had "declared war" on he United States (though I find that position rather dubious).
Osama's only distinction is the scale and sheer drama of the one-time criminal WTC attack, but he's a piker compared to a lot of modern heads of state.
When any of these other odious heads of state attack the United States I will be perfectly happy to call for their removal.
And by the way, 6% of the American population was responsible for about half those murders. By those metrics, should we be occupying downtown Kabul, or downtown New Orleans, Detroit, Atlanta, etc.?
You are comparing apples and oranges. Domestic crime is not the same thing as attack by terrorists with the connivance of a de-facto foreign government. I also question your statistics. The vast majority of homicides in the United States are not perpetrated by spree or serial killers. They are committed by lone individuals against a single victim, usually in the heat of passion or during the commission of another crime.
And where is the outrage against the people who invite the members of a hostile and antithetical religious sect to our shores?
I have already expressed my views (repeatedly) about Know Nothing Nativism. I see no need to repeat my points yet again.
Obama killing Osama is a distraction. For that matter, it seems the only reason this happened was he had outlived his usefulness to the Pakistanis.
Actually all evidence strongly suggests that the Pakis have been hiding OBL and we basically caught them. They have a lot of egg on their face right now and are struggling to come up with some kind of explanation (which should prove very amusing) as to how their police, military and secret intelligence services never bothered to notice or question the construction of a multi-million dollar fortified compound by anonymous private persons, without any phone or electronic communication service of any kind, smack in the middle of their most important military base-community.
And no, I don't believe they are that incompetent.
In ICXC
John
People point out the obvious consequences of choosing sides in overseas inter-tribal conflicts and then inviting the protagonists from both sides here. They are rebutted by those who insist hostile peoples with an antithetical worldview will be magically transformed into American patriots once they breathe the free, social democratic air. But it's the former who are called "Know-Nothings." Never figured that out.
AG's right: no white immigrants to America, no Osama Bin Laden.
What a perfectly useless statement. America was conquered three centuries ago. Warring indigenous tribes conquered each other before that, often scrupulously exterminating the entire male genetic line. And then we can talk about the Saxons, the Normans, the Mongols, and on and on. And the Mohammedans, who extinguished dozens of diverse cultures and languages in their largely successful effort to homogenize North Africa and the Middle East.
It's also a lame attempt at cleverness. The Anglo-Celts who conquered North America with rifles can hardly be described as 'immigrants.' But if you think they were, ask the Native Americans how open borders worked out for them.
Are you going to bring anything to this debate other than your bizarre, vicarious sense of grievance?
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