I have merged the duplicate thread into this one - please disregard any double posts prior to this.

As for the news. I'm a little shell-shocked that we're celebrating murdering someone. The manner in which it has been reported by the media too, is rather confronting and disappointing.

Alcar...

Personally Im rather disappointed... I can understand giving him jailtime and stuff... But murdering one man solves nothing. I bet Osama Bin Laden was nothing but a good leader to those people. Unfortunately people are not like wolves and they dont run off when their leader is dead. They either had a strong bond to him or at least had great respect for him and now they will most likely avenge him.

But still... Byebye everyone. Living was fun.

To my knowledge, no entity outside of a limited number of governments have access to atomic weapons.

That being said, fuck yeah Australia!

Alcar...

I am actually sorry he's dead.

Sure the USA could withdraw their forces from various middle eastern countries, but why spoil their war on terror?

Hmm, I wonder what the repercussions of this will be. Probably not good ones.

As some of you have said, although he deserved to be removed from power (nobody deserves to die IMO - And if you want to punish someone, there are worse punishments), killing this guy solves nothing and it wasn't worth the effort. He did the damage he was going to do 10 years ago and probably wasn't in a position to cause anything like it again. Perhaps it'll even aggravate problems and give the middle-east more reason to hate the western world. And yet everyone celebrates this guy's death like it's the best thing ever and the answer to all our problems.

This is the type of stupidity that makes me livid.

I see what you did there. {INSERT PICTURE HERE} (Old meme is old)

You can stay at my place.

Can I?

You think that if Al Queda had a nuke they wouldn't blow it up immediately?

What's snooker got to do with this? (For those who don't know, "Judd Trump" is the name of a snooker player who has been on TV very recently)

As for why Osama needed to be killed, technically it was a "kill or capture" mission. There was a forty-minute gunfight before Osama was neutralized... so I assume he didn't want to go quietly.

Everybody deserves to die; that's an intrinsic aspect of mortality. It's that some people don't deserve to delight in the gifts of life. To solve that end, I'd say getting killed in a firefight is a hell of a lot more merciful/honorable of a way to go out than withering away in a cell somewhere for years to come.

I know it can seem that everyone is celebrating in a manner akin to an all-our-problems-are-solved kind of reaction... but, I really don't think most people are so naive as to think that that sort of nonsense (thinking that the U.S. gives a bajillion shits about Middle Eastern oil is a different story, though). It's just one very, very symbolic problem (of our own well-known creation) solved. Being able to take out one specific jihadist hiding in the middle of bumfuck nowhere is pretty damned impressive, not to mention that being able to ask "was it worth it?" is a much more pleasant question than "is it possible?".

And T-Nex, don't even worry. Every region's redneck subculture is equally incompetent at getting complex tasks (like dooming a continent) done :)

So you're saying that the terrorist actually have a nuke, an ICBM to deliver it, the fuel to fire it, the facility to fire and target it and all that hidden well enough for the US to NOT find it even after their extensive search that turned up nothing?

Well.... fuck.

It's called Iran.

That was a joke

Given that oil is a limited (and unfortunately important) resource and the existing investements by US oil corporations I'd say they do care about middle eastern oil.

At the moment for example the USA owes some money to the Libyan government for all the oil they purchased previously. Rather than pay the amount owing they decided to go for a slightly different payment plan (funding & arming a few local dissidents to try to destabalize the local government and then to directly help overthrow the government as the "heroes"). You may have heard about it ;)

Some of you take me a bit too seriously, I suspect. But it's understandable as I do have inside information on whether Al-queda has nukes or not. Super-true story. Really.

Anyway Yea... Bin Laden... He was a champ. He will be missed.


You know... Lets pretend they do have nukes so I can stay with Strike Witch :D

Make video's please.

"Libyan government" is an oxymoron, things as they are. And sure, oil is a necessary and limited resource, but realistically speaking... what's the likelihood of the run-out-of-oil-by-such-and-such-date happening before viable alternative fuel/production/energy reach a large enough scale to comfortably sustain ourselves? If it's not the private market saving the day, than it'll be government funded research that makes the breakthrough. After all, there's *HUGE* international profit incentive for whoever can significantly help advance that area. Greedy ol' American loves its black gold, but it also loves its money, and science is a hell of a lot more fiscally efficient way to save the day than overseas wars. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out, just a halfway decent economically cognizant politician.

This is great news indeed.

Hooray, Bonda-er, Slumber party!

I demand to see his death certificate!

So I heard he was already buried at sea with a proper Muslim tradition or something. I didn't expect the US to get rid of the body so fast, let alone dispose of it in a manner that makes it irretrievable.

Edit: Oh the traditions is why.

I didn't say that alternatives wouldn't be found before oil "ran out", especially since those alternatives are available right now just not on the scale that's needed.

The problem is that there is still a fair amount of oil left, which means that some countries will go to great lengths to make sure their access to it is unimpeded using various justifications. Although now that I think of it the Libyan situation is really more of an example of the USA dodging their debts instead of paying up (but still realize they will get to have their cake and eat it too by keeping access to the oil without having to repay the debt).

Also there are other resources that will still be fought over when the oil dries up.

Being in a state of war is actually pretty advantagous for governments provided that it's handled properly:
1. It's much easier to rally people behind you in a common cause / against a common enemy
2. People don't mind as much when you introduce laws removing their freedoms (eg increased surveillance, arresting and holding people secretly without trial, etc)
3. It's a good boost to certain heavy industries who might just send more "party donations" your way for helping them out
4. It helps keep people distracted from other issues such as public healthcare ranking below various 3rd world countries

Of course for warfare to be viable long term the government needs to mostly engage in sustainable low intensity conflicts. The War On Terror is a good example of a potentially sustainable war however it appears that the USA are overstretching themselves a bit.

Anyways getting back on topic Osama deserved a fair trial so that he could have formal charges brought against him. However now that he's dead the only information the majority of people will have about his guilt will be from the media circuses that we've had about him at various points.

Osama bin Laden is dead, so let me tell you about all this oil

Allright, I admit I went on a bit of a tangent from the original topic ;)

I can scarcely believe it.

YAY

It seems a bit odd to me that they would go through with his traditions as if they're being peaceful and human about it if they just burst in and shot him in the head twice. It's quite scary the world is rejoicing about a murder. Even if it was of a terrible man. Obama is an idiot, killing Osama won't just magically stop everything, it will just make them more angry. It's like if loads of people have a disease, killing the first person who caught it doesn't make it go away

It is scary.... I can understand being relieved that a dangerous man is gone. But certain people like friggin... Get happy from this. you people scare me.

I'm happy whenever a religious idiot like that dies. No amount of prison or un-brainwashing will fix those people. The world is better off with people like this dead, end of story.

I'm shocked more than anything. Can't say I'm particularly happy about it, but not exactly sad, either.

Also, like Havoc said, it's nice to hear the world is free from one more religious extremist. Especially one with so much power in his country. He did have a lot of power there still, right?

I think that his death is only going to exacerbate the problem, especially with all that footage of stupid Americans cheering "USA!".

I remember a lot of news footage of Muslims cheering in the streets when the WTC fell.

That's a different matter. I don't think that the religious extremists among those offended by that incident were as dangerous as the ones offended by this incident.

AN EYE FOR AN EYE

LEAVES EVERYONE BLIND

So that's a reason not to celebrate the death of a person that many Americans believed 'attacked their freedom'? No way, if you start going 'oh, if we do this we might piss off the terrorists' you're letting them win.

You can't disregard the consequences, because that's just utter raw stupidity. I think you're wrong anyway. I think that the only time a terrorist group can win is when their beliefs have been imposed on the rest of the world.

More of a reason that the Americans should be cheering in the streets at the minute in my opinion.

This whole thing is turning into 'the big kid pushed me so I pushed him back, then he pushed me etc..' Seriously that is not the way to resolving problems that exist in the world. And if Obama thinks killing someone then beaming footage of Americans cheering and screaming about it all over the world is gonna stop anything then i'm afraid he needs to be sectioned. Surely he must be aware of the vast repercussions his actions are going to have!

Obama does not control the state media!

Not even the liberal stations.

While killing Osama wont stop Al Qaeda, it will probably slow them down. He was one of their better planners and organizers, not to mention the overall symbolism him evading the US all these years had. Also, your analogy is terrible, if we dont push back, then well worse things happen. Look at how long they let Hitler push before the Allies did anything.

My analogy is far from terrible, it's very close to the truth which is the scary thing people don't want to admit. There are no signs of any halt to the war on terror, just signs of people making it worse. It's just two sides provoking each other more and more. I didn't say we shouldn't push back, I'm just saying that's is what's happening. Of course we shouldn't get trampled on, but our so called goal of 'peace' is far from achievable if our way of going about it is killing Osama Bin Laden, because that will just make them push back, again, and again, and again. Seriously, what are the chances of their not being a revenge attack pretty soon?

Fair, i'll take that part back then.