Usama Bin Laden is dead.

Grace be to God.

Please Mr Obama lets bring all of our troops home now and end the violence.

Mission accomplished.

enough of the nonsense!

Bring em home.

The world is safe now?
We can reverse the patriot act an all of that....

This would be fully serving justice...now let's see if it happens

Yeah, i'm glad they got him. I think though that there is a danger that people will make a marter out of him. His followers will spin it like osama has won, since the americans didn't manage to get him alive.
They will say that he died like a hero, that he didn't let the americans get to him.
If he would have been cought alive, like saddam, the chance of that happening would be smaller. I would have loved to see him in one of those orange overall-suits, it would have been more humiliating for him and his followers.

Maybe it would have been possible to get him alive if they would have used aerosoles with fentanyl or some gas: By the time you smell something rotten, you're unconscious.

It's good that they've got him though. And good that they didn't informed the pakistani's about what they where doing, because then bin-laden would have been warned days before the mission took place.

Within the last ten years, the western world has been weakened. Economically, militarilly, politically, morally and culturally. This is a minor victory.

Our leaders should spent some time thinking about all of this and what it has done to our world.
I find the current western society significantly less pleasant than it was ten years ago. And from a global perspective we're living in a much more dangerous world.
The unrest in the middle east could potentially escalate to worldwar-3 if saudi-arabia joins the club and the west makes more unwise decissions there.

It realy makes me sad, looking at what the past ten years have done to our world. I hope there will be a day that we can just all forget about all the wars and all the hate. That we can just leave all this shit behind us and get back to normal again. But i fear that the next ten years won't be much better.

Amen.

seems to be everywhere at the moment, but why not:

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy." - Jessica Dovey

It would be amazing to move past it all. But I also fear things will get worse not better. I can see this being the catalyst for more attacks on America leading down same path and keeping the cycle going.

do you really still believe what you are taled by news ? come on people wake up. switch off your tv's

"No matter what country
Under the sun
You can't mete out justice
From the barrel of a gun".

Two good ones.

Rooting for "good" deaths? Not wise. People continue to brutalize each other, they won't stop...but it's best not to be involved with it--even on what might seem to be the "good" side.

Instead, IMO, it's just best to hope that people will settle down and try to discover, learn, and experience true things. That's all. To promote that, it's best to lead by example...

sadly, i'd have to agree with this ^

Proto-pax:

In this case, I think the notion that it would be so easily disprovable lends the news a great deal of credibility: all Osama would need to do to stir things up, if the news were fabricated and he were still truly alive, would be to release a meta-dated (sic) video of himself spoofing the americans.

HOWEVER, the spin on that would surely be that the video was undoubtedly a doctored video made BEFORE he was killed, in the event that he was killed, to discredit news sources and the US government/military. Spin upon spin upon spin - makes the world go round, and makes me dizzy...

But seriously, if you take a moment to think about it, the US would have more to lose by fabricating an easily disprovable tale than by just leaving well enough alone. It is important to always question our news sources and their agendas, and to read widely and variedly to accrue many perspectives, but at the same time, being overly cynical and mistrustful of ALL news can lead to an intellectual paralysis - you have to believe some things, some of the time, or the world grinds to a halt - or, as individuals we cease to truly weigh information, choosing the easier path of just offhandedly discounting ALL wide spanning and traditional sources.

And I, for one, while I do not say this at all lightly, am glad that he is dead. I feel safer for myself and my family. Capturing him alive would have been a legal, security, cultural and punitive nightmare. Someone threatening the lives of so many innocent people all across the globe (lest we forget Madrid, Mumbai, Baghdad and all the other attacks) for so many years, in such a covert and illegal (I refer to international law) manner, deserves to be taken out of play in the interest of international security and safety.

Anyway, this is what I believe. Bravo America and peace to the rest of the world who have quivered under the threat of Al Qaeda for nearly 20 years.

JBArk

I have no faith in the United States Federal Government reversing its oppressive course which was set in motion long long ago. Absolute power corupts absolutely. Every large empire that has existed throughout history has proven this time after time.

^ This.. (and jbark, if one takes a picture next to a newspaper, there's no way to fabricate this ahead of time.... )




^ NOT this..

You know funny enough when I read the "someone threatening lives of so many innocent people", I actually was thinking you were talking about the world leaders such as george bush and obama, lol...

You really feel safer? I mean, do you think now bin laden's sons and daughters and followers will say "ah yeah alright now im gonna find some legal peaceful job, I dont care my dad was killed in a way that ignored all international laws in front of all the children" ? And the fact that all these people (innocent or not) have been tortured for the information to be achieved. So ends justify means? Not for me..

I think its just more and more hatred being generated world wide, which over generations cannot have a good effect, and is certainly not making the world safer for our children and grandchildren. Soldiers in foreign territory, GTFO!! Years and years of invading foreign territory for all sorts of twisted reasons, hypocresy to the max when it comes to "human rights", which western countries keep violating in sneaky ways, and then pointing the finger at others. Argh this all makes me sick as hell....................

I'm glad that he is dead two, but for the sake of preventing new terror attacks it would have been much more effective seeing him in one of those orange suits. Many little boys in pakistan or saudi arabia want to be osama bin-laden when they're old. That's the sad truth. Little childeren grow up being implanted with propaganda about how beautyfull it is to die as a marter for allah. Being caught alive is in their view a lot less glamorous. It would have brought him back to normal, human proportions as well.

The americans have unknowingly contributed to the martyrdom-glamour of osama and al-qaida. Now he has become a mythological creature to all of those little boys who grow up in those drillschools and not the sad and pathetic turd of a human being he realy was.

Seeing him in chains would have been more humiliating and therefore more effective. They don't dream of getting caught like saddam. It's dishonourable and therefore undesirable and therefore he would have lost his iconic status.

Picture next to a newspaper?

PHOTOSHOP

And safer, YES. I wish i shared your optimism, and I genuinely wish I could believe that garbage in garbage out = love in love out, but I don't. Not by a long shot. And certainly not short enough term to provide safety and security for my family.

With this last swoop, Al Qaeda's leadership has been virtually obliterated, or at the very least splintered and scattered.

The things that make you sick as hell also click my gag reflex, but the world is what it is, and in the short term that concerns me, and quite possibly the longer term as well, I am glad that at least some monsters are gotten rid of. The others, well, like it or not, for the most part they are on the "legal" side of things (as grey as that may seem) and conduct their activities (the ones we know about and to which I assume you are referring) in the light of day - Al Qaeda do not. These other "monsters" (the various governments to which you refer), are voted in by large portions of their respective populations, and are acting in what they feel are the best interests of their people - and if they do not, well, hell, vote Obama in!! And if he doesn't, hell vote someone else in! There are no such checks and balances in a dictatorship scenario of an organization like Al Qaeda, and most countries who Al Qaeda claim to represent are in fact vehement in their denouncing of the organization. Al Qaeda indiscriminately kill people in countries all over the world (not just the UK and the US), and wage battles that cannot be fought against traditionally and geographically, or argued in international courts of law. If you don't like the laws that govern the behaviour of the international community, fight the laws. I for one will judge anyone far more harshly who kills massive numbers of people for some vaguely argued principle in defiance of all international laws and principles, as flawed as they may be, and in defiance of almost all international communities - INCLUDING many, if not most, Arab countries.

EDIT: Endlessness, I understand your point of view (it is a common enough one), but i am just wondering, what alternative are you proposing for the outcome?

Anyway, this is one of those threads, so while I will follow it closely, I know I will be in a minority position here, and must agree to disagree on these principles.

Respect,

JBArk

PS - very good point polytrip. You are right - an orange suit would have gone a long way.

Jbark- I too will be watching this thread closely and I must pick you up on one point (initially! )-Al Qaeda has never claimed to represent any country per se.Also seeing Osama in an orange jump suit would only serve to make Western civilians at more risk in any country where Al Qaeda had a presence/degree of sympathy.

We need to remember that Osama has always been the charismatic figurehead of AQ with the main ideologue actually being Ayman Al Zawahiri, and the death of Osama has guaranteed his status as a martyr.

The key issue behind the violent and unrestrained nature of AQs tactics remains, in repeated contravention of the so-called 'International Laws' (which have a tendency to be applied selectively) and this is the Palestine-Israel conflict; the other 2 key issues (sanctions on Iraq of the 90s and the permanent presence in Saudi Arabia) have been 'settled' in one way or another.

There continues to operate a hypocritical double-standard when we consider those Libyans who have flocked to Benghazi and taken up arms against Gadaffi; these noble individuals should be classed as international terrorists if we use the definitions which prevailed only a couple of years ago.

The 'Arab Spring' has the potential for rendering the ideology of Al Qaeda obsolete in terms of using such violence to achieve the required outcome, but if this sea-change doesnt produce such fruits then the approach of Al Qaeda will simply be revived.

In order to put an end to the tragedies of the last decade, the Western powers , I believe, do really need to review their foreign policies and make some changes; they have been forced to do so to some degree as their preferred compliant dictators of choice have already started to topple (Mubarak, Ben Ali....and who knows who will be next?).

How has killing, for any reason - since any reason may be justifiable - ever solved issues on a long term basis? Considering the current status of the world and its' inhabitants, it hasn't ever changed or helped a thing.

When you get punched in the face, before retaliating, consider first whether you deserved it.

On one level I agree with your sentiment Steely... but then again Neville Chamberlain would probably disagree considering where it led when applied to European foreign policy seventy years ago.

I do not know how I feel about all this. The waters are too murky for me.