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Leaked Doc May Have Forced US To Speed Up Bin Laden Raid
cf18 writes "Wikileaks released a set of leaked Guantanamo prisoner files to the public last week. Among them is a document dated from 2008, which mentioned both Osama's trusted courier's name and Abbottabad, the city in which Osama had been hiding. There are speculations that, fearing al-Qaida realized their courier may have been tracked and move Osama, the US administration accelerated their plan and attacked the target site over the weekend. This link highlights the relevant section of the document."
Except that waterboarding gave us nothing, and it was the tried and true non-coercive interrogation methods that provided us with that information, contrary to what Fox News would have you believe.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/05/the-republican-spin.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+andrewsullivan/rApM+(The+Daily+Dish)
The real question is not whether you or I, or the next guy thinks killing Osama will accomplish anything. It is whether the general public will think so.
The US culture has, for the past few decades, evolved to expect the "Good Guys Always Win" ending. It has been hammered into our heads by practically every movie, TV series, and book targeted for the mainstream audience. You and I may know perfectly well that the world is a complex inter-related network of challenging problems, but for the average Joe there is only a bad guy that needs to be defeated, and a world/girl that needs to be saved. Such a view may be depressing for those of us that can see through the illusion, but that does not change the fact that a huge section of the US society thinks this way.
Killing Osama simply plays right into this mentality; Yet again the US is the stereotypical "Good Guy" that killed the "Big Evil Villain." There was then a big party with a ton of booze and women, and now the credits are rolling, and everyone is getting up to leave the theater. This is a huge milestone not in terms of world events, but in the minds of millions of people in the US that wanted nothing more than to go to Afghanistan and kick one guy in the face.
So again, you can analyze the hell out of the problems of the world. You can create model after model and scenario after scenario for what will happen in all the various organizations. You can point out that the terrorists are still terrorists. However, you can not ignore how all of these things will sail straight over the heads of a good 95% of the population. Given that unfortunately these are the people that decide the elections, I will say that damn right this changed something.
Do you REALLY think that killing Osama changed anything?
Using that logic, do you REALLY think that tracking down rapists will change anything? Maybe you should look up the term, "justice" and see what it's all about.
Would killing the CEO of any large corporation make it fold and cease to exist?
If that corporation was Apple, you bet! I'm not saying that Osama had any real leadership in Al Qaeda, but again... look up what justice means. Would you have preferred we just let him go? "Oh, he killed 3000 Americans who didn't even know who he was, but he's not in charge of Al Qaeda any more. We should live and let live."
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
So, in other words, you do not think Justicia should be blind and provide _everyone_ with the same rights -- that the right to a fair trial can be waived if the commander in chief says so?
Had he surrendered, then sure, give him a trial. Maybe a military tribunal. But they were in a long firefight in a dangerous place, and he didn't surrender. If he wanted to be captured and wanted a trial, then he should have surrendered. I'm not going to ask that those guys put themselves at any more risk than necessary, and I'm not going to ask that they put a more priority on capturing rather than killing him if he isn't going to surrender. Better him dying than any one of them.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Historically, it has been a part of the image of "good civilized guys" (which I hope we're still trying to project) that even the most vile scum is only put to death after a trial. If that courtesy was extended to the perpetrators of the Holocaust, I don't see why it shouldn't be applicable to Osama. The end result is the same, but symbolically it does make a big difference.
Like I said in my other post. If he wanted a trial, he should have surrendered. The Germans surrendered. They got trials. I wouldn't ask the men who raided the compound to take even slightly more risk to save his life just so we can kill him later. Having any one of them die because of that would be beyond tragic.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
"...fearing al-Qaida realized their courier may have been tracked and move Osama, the US administration accelerated their plan and attacked the target site over the weekend."
Awww, so sorry Obama. You couldn't perfectly time the killing of OBL to match your re-election and get that popularity vote behind you. (Sorry, but the more I read about how we've known about/tracked his courier for literally years now, the more I question why the hell we waited this damn long to take action if NOT for some other benefit such as re-election timing.)