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Porn Reportedly Found At Bin Laden Compound
Hugh Pickens writes "Reuters reports that a stash of pornography was found in the hideout of Osama bin Laden by the US commandos who killed him. The pornography consists of modern, electronically recorded video and is fairly extensive, according to the officials, who discussed the discovery with Reuters on condition of anonymity. Officials said they did not know if bin Laden himself had acquired or viewed the materials and it is unclear how compound residents would have acquired the pornography but a video released by the Obama administration confiscated from the compound showed bin Laden watching pictures of himself on a TV screen, indicating that the compound was equipped with video playback equipment. Officials familiar with evidence gathered during investigations of other Islamic militants said the discovery of pornography is not uncommon in such cases." Is it too cynical to mention that the US government has a vested interest in denigrating Bin Laden, and that he's no longer around to deny this claim?
Is it too cynical to mention that the US government has a vested interest in denigrating Bin Laden, and that he's no longer around to deny this claim?
No, probably not. I'm not sure why they would release this detail if it's true. It's not like people's opinion is going to change. "Well, I sort of liked bin Laden until I found out there was PORNOGRAPHY in his compound." Also, it's not like Muslims are going to believe the US government anyway, whether they were bin Laden supporters or not.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
No, it's not too cynical to mention that. It's also not too cynical to mention that such behavior is also fairly predictable among religious extremists of any stripe.
The things they want to deprive others of on religious reasons are usually the things they are most guilty of.
Doe anyone really find this strange, since my own personal made-up statistics show that most men have some porn stashed somewhere....?
It would be more discomforting if they couldn't find his porn....
cheers,
You must not be married if you think having a wife around means someone will usually fulfill your desires :)
The Koran expressly forbids pornography of any kind. Hell, all the women have to be covered from head to toe... literally!
Since Bin Laden was an extremist, finding that he has porn which is totally against the Koran IS pretty big news.
Hey, kill him if you want, but digging into his porn collection and going public with it is beyond good manners. Boo on you, USA!
Is it too cynical to mention that the US government has a vested interest in denigrating Bin Laden, and that he's no longer around to deny this claim?
That level of "cynicism" does pass over any rational line, sounding more like Les Nesman finding a conspiracy under every rock. Who else don't you trust? Just a general paranoia or specific techie-anarchist? The submission would have been better without cheapening yourself that way.
I have worked in a variety of military operations centres.
What you are seeing is likely not willful deception, but rather a common phenomenon that "The first report is never right".
When people are under stress, they report the details wrong, or they mis-hear, or they make assumptions to fill in gaps in knowledge, or there or misunderstandings, etc etc.
So the details in an initial report are almost always wrong. You learn to not leap into action based on an initial report, but to be patient and wait for follow-up reports, because they tend to be more accurate. As time goes by and people calm down, the true details start to resolve.
So for example, if the operative on the ground reported that Osama was "resisting" (by which, he meant that he did not immediately surrender) the next guy up the chain may have interpreted "resisting" to mean "armed and shooting" - and that's what he reported. Later debriefs would reveal what actually happened, and the story would change.
That's nothing nefarious; that's just the nature of crisis reporting.
If you are old enough to remember 9/11, for the first few hours of the attacks, all kinds of crazy crap was being reported. It wasn't until later in the day the the actual nature of what had happened had resolved itself.
By the way, Bin Laden's standing amongst the world's Muslims is not very high, and never was. His standing amongst the worlds Jihadist Terrorists was much higher. Please don't confuse the two.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
If you watch porn you're a perv? Ouch.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
One of the things that made Osama so dangerous was that he had set himself up as a kind of religious aesthete who, to his followers, had claimed the moral high ground and was thus an example to be emulated.
He was claiming to be more pious than Islamic religious leaders who were preaching a more moderate course of action.
If his claims of piety can be shown to be demonstrably false; if he can be shown to be as flawed and "sinful" as every other man, much of the righteous indignation that mobilizes his followers can be neutralized.
Having disillusioned former terrorists and jihadists renounce their former ways and return to the Muslim mainstream is a win for everybody - it's a win for Islam, a win for the West - and a win for the former jihadists, who will get to live more normal lives that won't have to end violently.
Killing one's enemy is never the ideal course of action. Sometimes it is necessary. But far better for everyone if they become your friends - or at the very least, renounce being your sworn enemy.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Which is incredibly stupid. Sex is a natural and good act. There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing it, watching it or just rubbing one out when you feel tense.
There were (apparently) lots of people at OBLs compound and a steady flow in & out, too. Just like any large residence with "staff" I would expect there would be some porn somewhere. It's not exactly a surprise and if it hadn't been there before the kill-squad arrived, I'm sure it was after they'd all been through the place.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
This is a textbook example of the selection bias.
In countries like Afghanistan, the segment of the population that have Internet access and are capable of search in English terms, probably have little in common with the rest of the population.
He admitted his guilt for a great many things, enough to get him executed, so there is no innocence.
Ah, so you've seen the entire trail? You wouldn't last five seconds on any legitimate forensics team.. In fact if you would have done what the government did, like withholding or destroying evidence, you would face some serious charges... That kool-aid tastes mighty fine, doesn't it?
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
Invasion of a country is an act of war, often an unjustified one, but no act of terrorism.
Lies are not an act of terrorism (otherwise we would have to arrest all politicians as terrorists ;-))
The number of deaths also does not define terrorism.
Now if Bush had given the explicit command to intentionally kill random civilians in Iraq (as opposed to "just" accepting their death as collateral damage), then the term "terrorist" would be justified. But I don't think he did.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I'm a little surprised that (a) this surprises _anybody_, and (b) that there are plenty of Slashdotters who are convinced it's lies and propaganda. You're making the mistake that because Bin Laden subscribed to an ideology that was sexually repressive, he must also have been sexually repressed. This isn't the case. The sexual mores of the conservative (read: fundamentalist) Islamic world are pretty twisted; the reason burqas are mandated for women is because the men supposedly can't help themselves if shown a bit of ladyflesh, even a bare ankle. The onus for sexual purity is placed almost _entirely_ on women (which sounds a little like the US, come to think of it); it's no surprise, then, if Bin Laden is a total pervert. Honestly, I'd be surprised if there _wasn't_ porn in the compound.
You are thinking like an occidentalist, don't forget about the rights of spouses and women in general in the Taliban's culture.
Achille Talon
Hop!
Sex is natural and quite some great thing, and I don't think, biblical views saw it ever different (just think about it, what did adam and eve do? they had a lot of children according to the story). In fact, the bible does address pervertion, it never adresses sex.
However, you will notice, porn is not about real sex. It is about sex, no doubt, it shows people enjoying an almost ritualic show, accessing the viewers lust for sex simply by depicting it, and we males are dominantly visually adressable, so it works. Real sex however includes intimacy, relationship, trust.
Condemning sex is actually based on the personal shame of Augustin, who himself quite a ladiesman, later felt bad about his past life. Augustin, like many great christian teachers, did have a lot to say, most of which is considerable good - but to accept his whole teachings, some people felt the need to accept every aspect of it.
You see a lot of religious teachers suffer from personal affairs in their life, including those personal pains in their teachings. I take them as a warning, as for being addicted to porn, or losing touch with sexuality in terms of relationship can damage people in great effect.
But to go so far as saying: its not bad at all to be sexually centered and have no self control - thats just ridiculous.
I would not feel worse after a cigarette, than after watching porn, but I dont have to accept addictive behaviour as something benevolent towards my life.
Modern christianity is often considered antisexual.
At the same time, non-christian westernism is very much concentrated on this topic, maybe fighting for a freedom, which was never really taken away.
Not by having faith at least.
Just because boundaries make you suffer, breaking them does not make you heal nor free. Christianity is more about peaceful stopping at boundaries, because they were taken away, or stop feeling ashamed if you can't otherwise than cross them.
The antisexual tendism of some christian lines just damages our respect of people who really suffer from addictions, like porn, lies, drugs, anger, fear, and so on. But they are not strict about sex, because they don't like sex.
Everybody likes sex. It's weird if you don't. But is it so important, that it dictates your daily actions?
That's not really the point or what he's arguing. The presumption of innocence is something we give to our worst, our very, very, very worst, most obviously guilty criminals. It was also something tribunals gave to the Nazis, some of the very worst criminals in all of world history. It is a bedrock prinicple of Western society. But we didn't give it here. Why? Well, we still don't know all the details. But if he resisted in a way where he couldn't be subdued, they sure haven't told us. It looks, from the information we do have, that he was simply assassinated, without due process of any kind.
Look, almost every single one of us thinks Osama bin Laden was responsible to murdering 3,000 people on 9/11. But the court of public opinion doesn't have legal standing. Someone isn't exempt from due process simply because we all think he's very, very, very bad as opposed to merely very, very bad. The only legal way that we have for establishing Osama bin Laden's guilt as a legal fact is through a trial. And we didn't do that.
Seems to me that government officials and religious officials have one major thing in common.
They are more than willing to demand that you live your life a certain way but tend to shy away from doing so themselves.
Both will have ardent followers who will defend their leaders infractions. Royalty simply assumed a new title.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
If his followers - i.e. muslims - don't think that being a mass murderer denigrates him, then perhaps we should just scrap the pretense about the war on terror and go all out with the war on ass-lifting moon-worshipping dune-coons?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."