Editor's Note: Better Than Before

[John Funk]

If you can't discuss and debate in a polite matter, you will not be debating anything on our forums at all.

You're right.

Congratulations.

It is perfectly possible to disagree even strongly with someone and still be polite and respectful. I'm sorry you can't do that. Goodbye.

I pointed out the contradiction in your and Russ' arguments. So did others. You ignore it, claiming you don't have to defend or justify yourselves since your emotional scars are so severe and real. And you insist that you do not need to consider information that might change your point of view, because it's "nor related".

So you can blame yourselves if no one is "debating you" properly.

You did nothing of the sort, and were doing so in a very rude manner. "I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the whistling in my inner ear." Statements like "Let me play you the world's tiniest violin" have no bearing in a constructive debate, and your attitude is what could be problematic rather than anything you've said.

You are misunderstanding my point. The person I was debating with was operating under the bizarre assumption that feeling that the world is a better place for Osama's death somehow means that you implicitly approve of what has been done in Afghanistan and Iraq. I say the two were unrelated because the Iraq war had nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden, and the Afghanistan war only involved him in the very beginning. The operation that took out Bin Laden was done so independently from either war, and as such the two are not related.

For your information, I have vehemently protested both the actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. None of that changes the fact that for those who felt a tremendous loss on 9/11, this brings a small measure of closure. Or should the world have not rejoiced when Adolf Hitler was stopped? Should they have not rejoiced when Japan surrendered - after, mind you, the use of two of the most destructive weapons ever created against civilians.

Human emotions are an incredibly complex matter and using strawman arguments that have logical flaws doesn't help.

 

[nipsen]

Human emotions are an incredibly complex matter and using strawman arguments that have logical flaws doesn't help.

But that is what you are doing. "Should we not have rejoiced at Hitler's death". What sort of argument is that? Are you truly incapable of seeing the difference between the two bogeymen in question, or what their deaths represented, because either of them "feel" evil? If so, you are celebrating - and knocking me over the head with - your ignorance.

By the way: the whistling in my inner ear comes from too many bullets being shot near my head. It was a subtle hint that you should be quiet about who you "feel" is justified to speak about how "the events" had personally affected them. I have been personally affected by remarkably egotistical views like yours and Russ'. And I'm not grateful for it.

But I still think that this is not relevant. Because the issue is how you can possibly defend feeling elated at the death of another. And yeah, explaining the entire feeling in more detail didn't really help - the idea that the United States is suddenly at a united emotional upswing because Osama is dead is disgusting. That you can conjure up mental calm about the death of someone you don't know is, normally not a sign of good mental health. But it's clear that this emotion doesn't have anything to do with your political views, it doesn't have anything to do with the practical causes and results of the events.

And that is my problem. It makes it more obvious than I'd like to admit that we've really been down there for the last ten years shooting people - to make people like you "feel" more secure about themselves. It disgusts me, and I "feel" no compulsion about telling you that much.

 

[cgaWolf]

It's a pretty hollow argument to say that you killed to not worry about those matters, following that train of though where to set the line of when's ok to kill on the spot, instead of going through the bureaucracy of trial after trial. Also they wont stop neither for killing him.( Personally if I were someone like him and I escaped for over 10 years I would have settled a lot of matters in successor, and action at my death, IMO)

(internet ate my previous post, so here a short recap :/ )

I didn't say he was killed to not worry about these matters. The decision to go after him was made a long time ago, and after 9/11 the US government could hardly say "nah, we ain't going after him". I'm saying that given the situation, shooting him wasn't a dumb idea.

He might have gotten captured if he had surrendered: I don't know what ROE were, so i really have no idea whether that statement is true. I am however fairly certain it included "shoot anyone and everyone you have to stop his escape". Operational failure was not an option.

You're suggesting there's a slippery slope (what if he'd only killed 1000? 100? 20? 1?), when there isn't: OBL is the figurehead of AQ, not some drunk guy who shot his ex-wifes new boyfriend.
That's as clear cut as such questions can possibly be - which is exactly the reason why such matters need to be discussed separated from actual incidents. Questions about the legality or morality of state sponsored murder, a "war on terror" that isn't legally defined, etc.. are often very easy to answer for specific cases. The reality is that we need to have a framework in place that guides our hand when specifics aren't involved.

I'm not saying it's not worth discussing, i'm saying if you want to have that discussion, you need to pick a better time and place than OBLs killing. Pick battles you can actually win - I'm pretty sure questioning whether killing OBL was the right thing to do isn't one.


When i said there was little choice, and that i thought it was the smart thing to do, i didn't mean it was moral, legal, right or anything of that sort. When the deck is dealt, you play the cards you have, as best you can - whether the game is the one you actually want to be playing is a question that's a bit late to ask at that point.

 

[John Funk]

Human emotions are an incredibly complex matter and using strawman arguments that have logical flaws doesn't help.

But that is what you are doing. "Should we not have rejoiced at Hitler's death". What sort of argument is that? Are you truly incapable of seeing the difference between the two bogeymen in question, or what their deaths represented, because either of them "feel" evil? If so, you are celebrating - and knocking me over the head with - your ignorance.

By the way: the whistling in my inner ear comes from too many bullets being shot near my head. It was a subtle hint that you should be quiet about who you "feel" is justified to speak about how "the events" had personally affected them. I have been personally affected by remarkably egotistical views like yours and Russ'. And I'm not grateful for it.

But I still think that this is not relevant. Because the issue is how you can possibly defend feeling elated at the death of another. And yeah, explaining the entire feeling in more detail didn't really help - the idea that the United States is suddenly at a united emotional upswing because Osama is dead is disgusting. That you can conjure up mental calm about the death of someone you don't know is, normally not a sign of good mental health. But it's clear that this emotion doesn't have anything to do with your political views, it doesn't have anything to do with the practical causes and results of the events.

And that is my problem. It makes it more obvious than I'd like to admit that we've really been down there for the last ten years shooting people - to make people like you "feel" more secure about themselves. It disgusts me, and I "feel" no compulsion about telling you that much.

I liken it V-E day for a reason. The struggle was not over (as it is not over here), and yet millions of people around the world rejoiced that a monster had been stopped nonetheless. And Osama Bin Laden, a man who twisted a religion to hate in order to propagate his reactionary beliefs and had the blood of thousands on his hands - and arguably millions of Afghans in his support for the Taliban - was a monster, there is no doubt about that.

That you're trying to lecture me about egotistical beliefs is laughable, I'll just say that much. Did you know anyone who was hurt or killed as a result of an Al-Qaeda operation? No? Then what on earth gives you the right to judge people who have? Frankly, you haven't any - what's that saying again about walking a mile in a man's shoes before you judge him?

You are making the logical fallacy of lumping everyone who feels relief in together. Some are glad that a monster has been stopped and cannot order the deaths of others. Others are relieved that a figurehead for dangerous Islamic extremism, who inspired countless others to plan crimes of hate and destruction, is no longer around. I have a very dear Kuwaiti friend whose relief at this was because the ultraconservatives in her home country used Bin Laden as an example that they wished to emulate, and she is glad they won't have him as a role model anymore.

Your mistake is to assume that people are glad at another man's death, and that is a grievous error to make. Are there some who are glad that he's dead? Probably, yes - rather, almost certainly. Are there those who simply feel that their loved one who died on 9/11 has been avenged? You bet. The emotions here are way too complex to quantify and to lump together, and for you to do that and then try to pass judgment on them is absolutely ridiculous.

As does your assumption that we've been over there to make us "feel" better. To use your own words, that assumption is absolutely disgusting, and if you can literally not comprehend that A.) people can disagree with the Iraq/Afghan wars and still be glad that Al Qaeda has lost a leader and B.) that a man who stood for hatred and violence has been stopped makes people feel relieved, then I pity you and we are done here.

I would like nothing better than for this event to spur us to leave Afghanistan and Iraq and let them rebuild. I do not, and have never supported those wars. I do not rejoice that a man is dead, but I am relieved that a world without Bin Laden is much better than a world with him in it.

We're done here. Take care.

 

[108Stitches]

I find it amusing that on these boards it's constantly pointed out that "America" brought it upon themselves. The only frames of reference that are mentioned are all of the negatives. Nobody mentioned the $9B worth of aid that Bush sent to Africa, which was not $9B worth of GUNS and VIOLENCE but rather FOOD, SHELTER, EDUCATION, MEDICINE and other social needs. Not to mention the aid provided to all of the other countries and communities around the globe. Its all about the NEGATIVE. All about how 'big bad big brother' is beating me up again.

Perhaps it IS time for the US to go back to it's pre-WWII thinking and not give a rats ass about what is going outside of it's own borders. Secure those borders and tell everyone else to just piss off since they are not AMERICAN.

You cannot be serious. The US has given relief money to Africa and other underdeveloped/under crisis areas, but that's just a drop in the bucket. American policies for Africa are invisible at best, ruthless at worst. American companies (especially oil ones) have caused untold misery, death, dissent and poverty to huge swaths of African territory. A little research will show just how much the "free market" US policies have contributed to keep the already poor completely forgotten and powerless.

Americans are incredibly defensive when these issues are brought to light, because it is a horrid heritage that it is historical: proven by facts, documents and testimonies. You name it: support for South and Central American petty dictators, suppression of freedom or social movements around the globe (too numerous to comment: Cuba, Philippines, all over Africa, Middle East, etc, etc), establishment of commodity slaves (from which they bought commodities for peanuts and sold industrialized products, thus damaging the industrialization efforts in several areas), interventionist policies, indiscriminate weaponry trade, etc, etc. The list is very, very long.

Of course, the man on the street is not (usually) to blame. It is a bigger, governmental issue. But it lead, during the decades, to the extremely poor view many areas have of the US and its inhabitants. These seeds are constantly sprouting, and religious zealotry in the Middle East is just one facet of the problem.

Let's not be naïve, then. The US is not the ultimate "bad guy", but it is suffering now from years and years of wrong decisions and a greedy financial policy. It's Karma biting, and these poor souls in the Twin Towers and the streets of Kabul, American and Afghan, are paying the price for that.

Yes, all of the aid which America has given out since WWII was for the all mighty oil dollar and had zero human compassion. How naive of me.

 

[nipsen]

As does your assumption that we've been over there to make us "feel" better. To use your own words, that assumption is absolutely disgusting, and if you can literally not comprehend that A.) people can disagree with the Iraq/Afghan wars and still be glad that Al Qaeda has lost a leader and B.) that a man who stood for hatred and violence has been stopped makes people feel relieved, then I pity you and we are done here.

It was an observation from what you said, not an assumption. And unfortunately stopping violence is a bit more complicated than killing the Wicked Witch.

But you're right. We're done here. Maybe some god or other will forgive you one day. I will not.

 

[Hive Mind]

I'm not going to answer your strawman question, as the two are not related.

Your defensive resolve to desperately cling to the notion that the ends and means are unrelated is not unlike America's foreign policy on a whole. The cataclysmic end to the second world war springs to mind.

How you can so easily shrug off the mass murder of hundreds of thousands and find time to rejoice in one man's death is something I will never grasp. 'Oh but they are unrelated', I hear you interject. If I walk into a room, open fire and kill every person therein, my motive having been to kill a murderer, the bystanders outside don't stand up and announce how much more easily they will sleep now.

Benign as a damn bullet.

Edit: English error

Edit 2: two in one post! I'm on a roll.

 

[StrixMaxima]

Yes, all of the aid which America has given out since WWII was for the all mighty oil dollar and had zero human compassion. How naive of me.

Compassion is hardly a topic in international politics. That's quite easy to see in numerous, numerous examples throughout History. The US is no worse than other rich countries, inherently. It simply had a much greedier, self centered policy from the beginning of the 20th century on.

US' aid is NOT largesse. It was surgically given to certain countries to:

1 - Establish local influence;

2 - retro-feed American industrialized products, by creating a new market;

3 - Create some sort of dependency (cultural, financial, political, etc).

Again this is not exclusive to the US. All countries do that, in some degree. But thinking that the US "gives aid to poor, poor people" IS naïve, and completely debunked by the historical flow of the last 100 years.

 

[John Funk]

I'm not going to answer your strawman question, as the two are not related.

Your defensive resolve to desperately cling to the notion that the ends and means are unrelated is not unlike America's foreign policy on a whole. The cataclysmic end to the second world war springs to mind.

How you can so easily shrug off the mass murder of hundreds of thousands and find time to rejoice in one man's death is something I will never grasp. 'Oh but they are unrelated', I hear you interject. If I walk into a room, open fire and kill every person therein, my motive having been to kill a murderer, the bystanders outside don't stand up and announce how much more easily they will sleep now.

Benign as a damn bullet.

Edit: English error

Edit 2: two in one post! I'm on a roll.

Have I ever said that I'm ignoring it or shrugging it off? No, I am not. Please read more closely.

The war in Iraq and the (continued) war in Afghanistan were ultimately not connected to the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. As early as 2002, GW Bush was saying that he didn't think about Bin Laden anymore. Bin Laden may have been the original pretext for Afghanistan, but it quickly went out the window, and we were barely pretending that Iraq had anything to do with Al Qaeda in the first place.

Note: I am not approving of this. Please do not read that in my words, because it couldn't be farther from the truth. I have been against the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan from the beginning.

The only possible connection between the operation that killed Bin Laden and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is that the war in Afghanistan denied him safe haven there, forcing him to live in Pakistan. That's it. Otherwise, it was an operation that could have been carried out independently of any other actions in the region - and THAT is why the two are unrelated. It isn't that the "ends justify the means," it's that the Afghan/Iraq wars weren't ever the "means" in the first place.

And as I have always said, I do not rejoice that a man is dead, I am relieved that he has been stopped.