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Osama Bin Laden Reported Dead, Body In US Hands
Reader Tom Hudson, and now several others, have submitted the news that Osama Bin Laden is reportedly dead, and that his body is in the hands of the US military. A statement from President Obama is expected shortly. Watch this space for more details. Update: 05/02 04:01 GMT by T : More coverage at ABC News, at CNN, and at Al Jazeera. The reports say that Bin Laden was actually killed about a week ago by a bomb in Pakistan, and the time taken to confirm his identity via DNA testing helped delay the news. In downtown Austin, Texas, in the time since the story broke I've heard what sound like numerous celebratory gunshots.
Indeed. Disclaimer: I posted this in the last discussion because I did not know there would be a dedicated OBL discussion on Slashdot.
Instead of the "official story" , one of two things really happened. The first possibility is that Osama was killed in the attacks on Afghanistan right after 9/11. The U.S. Government and its crooked contractor buddies kept Osama's death a secret so that they would have an Emmanuel Goldstein, an excuse to institute their bloody, wasteful, and oppressive make-work programs(DHS, Blackwater/Xe, Halliburton/Bechtel, US military and associated contractors) promoting the complete internal and external militarization of America.
The second possibility is that Osama and his family are living happy, luxurious lives under aliases. All of the other consequences from the first possibility above still apply. Remember that his family was evacuated from the U.S. shortly after the 9/11 attacks. His public vilification was very different from the safe and respectful treatment he received privately, courtesy of the U.S. Government. He did us a great service in assisting the CIA and helping perpetuate our war machine and international presence. Now, he is given a silent retirement out of the limelight. Osama and his family are eating seasoned lamb on velvet seats while you and your kids are eating Top Ramen.
"If Obama preempts the end of The Apprentice to announce they've killed Bin Laden that is going to be the most epic ownage ever." - Comment on Fark.
I'm studying for finals right now (after taking a 4 year break between MS and BS). I was a freshmen in college when 9/11 hit. Every single other person in this was building was 8-10. Most don't even remember the 1st attack on the WTC. My college had 4xT1s providing 6Mb. My cable connection is faster. ALL of my news came from Slashdot and Fark. Both were barely struggling to survive. Yahoo, MSNBC, CNN all went down. Fark had to roll over to new threads every 300 or so posts (300 posts is considered low these days).
There was no reddit, digg, facebook or twitter. SMS was just a very expensive feature that no one used.
Fark's #1 Thread.
Slashdot's Thread/a
I know it's not really over, but it's still kind of surreal.
Actually, that whole woosy feeling that I got after 9/11 for several years, not unlike getting kicked in the beanbag, has almost gone away. Bringing it back up is kinda like the bully saying "There is that dweeb that I kicked in the balls a few years ago. Ha ha".
One wonders if he was moving around pretty frequently, and this just happened to be where they caught up with him, or if a mansion outside the capital is actually a good-enough hiding spot. If the latter, he must have had the same sort of 'deep roots in the community' that have historically allowed organized crime leaders to live more or less openly for long periods of time...
Better put, people who shoot at you when you go to take them in for questioning don't warrant due process, the mission included bringing him back alive if circumstances allowed.
If i had one dollar for every brain you dont have, i would have $1.
Uh...why is the US army engaged in ground operations near the capital of Pakistan?
Palm trees and 8
Fortunately, TSA agents are starting to get in trouble for their molestation of thousands of innocent passengers each day.
Oh, sorry, not for the actual molestation, you know, but joking about it afterward.
I wish I could have shot Osama myself for all the wasted hours I've spent in TSA lines because of his antics.
You overrate both the memory span of the American voter, and the disaster that $4, $5, and $6/gallon gasoline hath wrought. In fact, the fact that gasoline doesn't immediately now drop to $1.29/gallon will be the great disappointment of the majority of the electorate.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Maybe announce each time that they are being buried in an unmarked grave wrapped in bacon? That might cut down on the religious fanatics.
I'll take the other side and say it goes into an entry as "closure". There were only 2-3 "signature issues" for this whole War on Terror campaign - Saddam/Iraq and Bin Laden. BL was left hanging out there as deep unresolved tension driving this whole ugly crusade by .gov.
Now it's a democrat in office, with a year left in his term, and wherever you place the mission ops credit, he has put away the defining Republican meme of the decade.
So now cynicism says ".mil will keep its toys", but without the "But Bin Laden is out there" headline, the sound bites aren't nearly as good. "Be vigiliant". "Against who?" "Oh, some guy, we don't know yet".
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Just grind into their hands a little bit. A little sexy dancing speaks volumes. Even better if you can manage to sport wood for them.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Looks like he gave plenty of credit where it was due, and being Commander-in-chief. It WAS his call.
"They intend to change our values and way of life". Well, they have. Mission Accomplished indeed.
And all it cost were our civil liberties, national character, and trillions of dollars...
TFA quote:
"I met repeatedly with my National Security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located Bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside Pakistan," the president said.
"Finally, last week I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action and authorized an operation to get Osama Bin Laden and bring him to justice," he said.
Nice wording indeed... (I don't decry the assassination of bin Laden by a military/commando squad, just a bit worried this is called "bringing someone to justice")
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Al Queda was not just at war with the west but with many Muslim nations as well. But it is NOT Al Queda (no matter what fox says) that is behind the overthrowing of the corrupt dictatorships in the middle east. Those uprisings have the potential to change the world far more then 9/11 ever did AND for the better. All 9/11 brought the Muslim world was Iraq and Afghanistan on fire and a spreading hatred of Muslims (imagine ten years ago it being MAINSTREAM policy in Europe to close the borders to immigrants AND have headscarf bans in effect or going through legislation in a lot of countries).
But in less then a year, peaceful protests mercilessly cut down by Muslims leaders have resulted in more change then we have seen in a long time and it is far from over. If Syria errupts (so far there seems to be no sign of armed resistance despite some soldiers having defected) then the turmoil is complete. Saudia Arabia and Iran are far from save then (Saudia has send troops to support an allied dictator in an other region, tying itself to the fate of said dictator, Iran uses Syria as a puppet to support Hamas in its push to destroy Israel).
This is changing the world. Without Syria, Iran stands very much alone, Hamas would lose its support (why do you think they have changed their tune so fast recently). Saudia Arabia might face some though questioning of not outright revolt... the middle east might never be the same. Of course, it could also turn very very bad (if you believe fox) but lets hope not shall we (so far Egypt is stable and shows no sign of sliding into a muslim extremist nation despite what fox claimed).
I think it is very significant that all of this happened without Al Queda at all. Bloody attacks, no change. Peaceful uprisings, the world may never be the same.
Bin Laden is dead, the path of Martin Luther King jr and Gandhi seem to get the best results. Who would have thought.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The reality was that the president wanted personal revenge because he blamed Saddam for Daddy losing out on a second term ...
Uh, no, Ross Perot was to blame for that. :-) The Gulf War was popular and considered well executed. It was the economy that did Bush Sr in, not anything to do with the war. The revenge against Saddam angle would hypothetically be for the attempt to assassinate Bush Sr when he visited the middle east after his presidency.
The true reality of the situation was that Saddam tried to hide the fact that he no longer possessed WMD. He wanted others, in particular Iran, to think he may still have them. Saddam feared appearing weak. He admitted this under US interrogation. And no there was no water boarding, it was the effective type of interrogation - long term contact, establish a relationship, use psychology, etc. National Geographic had a pretty interesting documentary about Saddam's interrogation.
If you consider bin Laden a friend and countryman, you need to die, too.
I think the parent poster was referring to the hundreds (thousands?) of Afghans killed by drone strikes over the last few years -- not to OBL.
Btw, when did thoughtcrime become worthy of capital punishment?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.