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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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.