I’ve given my opinion on Chomsky, others have given theirs.
One question, though: for those of you who argue that it was wrong to kill Bin Ladin, rather than treat him like a criminal suspect in the U.S. and try to arrest him and bring him to trial: do you also believe it is wrong for Obama to kill other terrorists via various means, such as the drone attacks? I assume so, for consistency.
Yes. There’s no substantive difference between the actions.
Well I think it is different to use targeted drone attacks against the Taliban, who are less criminal terrorists and much more akin to guerilla fighters. It seems legitimate to use drones as another weapon in an ongoing war. I think this is quite different from what amounts to an extra-judicial targeted killing of a criminal who is living in a country with whom we are nominally at peace. Again, I’m not saying that it was wrong to go after OBL, but it is not quite the same as using drone attacks against insurgents, in my view.
I am not sure if giving false statements to the Police is a crime in Norway, it is in most/all state in the US. Presumably most of the folks who confessed in Norway need mental treatment not incarceration. Although if you guys want to lock a few of them up as warning to others not to impede murder investigations, it might reduce the number of false confession.
Are you saying that Bin Laden is like one of the 175 people just a mentally ill publicity hound? Let assume that you are right and Bin Laden really had nothing to with 9/11 and all he did was making videos claiming credit, and taunting and declaring war on the US and the West. IMO someone who is seeking suicide by US special force, is so stupid and present such a threat to the human gene pool that he deserves the Darwin award of the century. The Navy SEALs preventing him from breeding further and should be commended for helping improve the gene pool.
I know it’s Janster you are responding to, so you’re trolling to a certain extent. But would you be in favor of sterilizing the mentally ill? And Bin Laden wouldn’t have to be mentally ill to take credit for something he didn’t do. If the administration was hell bent on pinning it on him, he might as well take credit and get some positive spin for his group that’s antagonistic toward the US. Better to be seen as a threat (part of the method of terrorism) than ineffectual.
Except for, you know, the overwhelming evidence that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed planned 9/11, trained the hijackers and paid for everything with al-Qaeda funds after consulting with Bin Laden, yeah, I can’t see why anyone would take their word for it. I mean, it’s much easier to just blather on the Internet then actually research your opinions!
Yeah, well, if Chomsky doesn’t convince you, what if I were to post a Doonesbury comic? Then what would you say?
Lum, you should try reading. I didn’t say Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda weren’t behind it. I was arguing that it wasn’t entirely irrational to take credit for something like that, in their position, even if they didn’t do it. Strollen was framing that only insane people would do that. In fairness, that’s in response to Janster, but just because crazy people in Sweden falsely confess, doesn’t mean every false confession is due to insanity.
Ayup.
Guilty
And Bin Laden wouldn’t have to be mentally ill to take credit for something he didn’t do. If the administration was hell bent on pinning it on him, he might as well take credit and get some positive spin for his group that’s antagonistic toward the US. Better to be seen as a threat (part of the method of terrorism) than ineffectual.
I favor harsh treatment for any person or group of people who consume massive amount (in the order of $100 of millions) of society resources, or put large groups of people in harms way as result of their stupid actions, mentally ill or not. The opportunity cost is too large for society to tolerate these actions.
So to counter one silly strawman with another. Think of all of the hundreds of thousands of lives that could have been saved in Africa or smaller number in the US with the billions we spent tracking Bin Laden. Undoubtedly people were killed trying to track down Bin Laden. Even if Bin Laden was guilty of producing nothing but words, he has a moral obligation to stop the madness, or at the very least stop taunting the US by claiming credit. I think the legal term is he acted with depraved indifference, because of the enormity of his indifference, death is a suitable punishment IMO.
I liked SNL’s Seth Meyer’s line last night, “President Obama became the only black man in history that has to prove he killed someone.”
That’s not evidence, that’s various US officials purporting to describe the evidence (in other words, hearsay), which is part of Chomsky’s point. I have no doubt the evidence exists, but it frankly it has not been released to the public. If you don’t believe the US government, which clearly Chomsky does not, then to the best of my knowledge there is not much clear evidence showing OBL planned the attacks. I do believe the US government, but I understand why some people do not.
E: for accuracy
I am sitting here fantasizing about the takedown Christopher Hitchens is going to write about the Chomsky article. Oh, Christopher, please, please, please.
The chapter in Hitchens’ autobiography where he talks about Chomsky a bit is perfect in terms of covering some of the weaknesses in Noam’s intellectual perspective.
“Comparing Al Quaeda’s use of stolen airplanes with President Clinton’s certainly atrocious use of cruise missiles against Sudan three years before (which were at least ostensibly directed at Al Quaeda targets), Noam Chomsky found the moral balance to be approximately even, with the United States at perhaps a slight disadvantage. He also described the potential civilian casualties of an American counterstroke in Afghanistan as amounting to “a silent genocide.” As time had elapsed, I had gradually been made aware that there was a deep division between Noam and myself. Highly critical as we both were of American foreign policy, the difference came down to this. Regarding almost everything since Columbus as having been one continuous succession of genocides and land-thefts, he did not really believe that the United States of America was a good idea to begin with. Whereas I had slowly come to appreciate that it most certainly was, and was beginning to feel less and less shy about saying so. We commenced a duel, conducted largely in cyberspace, in which I began by pointing out the difference between unmanned cruise missiles on the one hand and crowded civilian airliners rammed into heavily populated buildings on the other. We more or less went on from there.”
URL’s to the Hitchens-Chomsky “duel”:
http://humanities.psydeshow.org/political/chomsky-1.htm
http://humanities.psydeshow.org/political/hitchens-1.htm
http://humanities.psydeshow.org/political/chomsky-2.htm
http://humanities.psydeshow.org/political/hitchens-2.htm
http://humanities.psydeshow.org/political/hitchens-3.htm
http://humanities.psydeshow.org/political/chomsky-3.htm
WARNING - POST done after AMBIEN not sure how coherent
Jan, you’re one of my favorite friends here, but I don’t think you’re getting the whole picture (though I’m only 50% tho rug this thread). So I’m going to list a few things most people aren’t talking about which greatly increases the complexities and risks of the operation:
They are IN Pakistan pissing the Paki’s off. You get in and out ASAP. Stick around too long and stuff gets REAL messy REAL fast.
Trying to bring a resistant, live body on board after on of your copters had just touched itself is ramping up the “the shit’s going down the wrong hole”.
THIS IS HUGE: Osama Bin Laden may have had the room, the wing, or the whole house wired for destruction. A nice little trigger on his belt is all that would need to be tripped to have the entire facility decimated.
IF #3 HAPPENED WE’RE IN DEEP SHIT. Osama is dead but he took out our bright abd best soldiers with his. He is immortalized, he finally did the thing he always asks others to do,… sacrifice themselves. We al;so come away with ZERO data and no hard numbers on whether Osama really is dea. This is a worst case scenario, as we look like bumbling idiots.
Flashbang ands other incapacitating grenades/devices only work on individuals with 1 “ONE” weapon and you fully understand the repercussions of that weapon use against you.
The only way to take him alivr is if he crapped his pants , ;aid flat on the ground, arma wife and screamed" Surrender don’t hurt me!"
Germ Warfare, Biological Warfare, Chemically warfare. Did we have information stating with 100% reliance he had none of these? If not, then the release of any 3 substance could have wiped out the city block and all of half the city depending on release. Once again, a single button press and the stuff is “out there”
–
To reiterate. Unless Osama just laid down with his arms out and screamed surrender, shooting him in the head was the only responsible response. You can’t trust a guy wounded duck with a potential playful of God-knows-what around the room.
MOre thoughts.
what if the hd deletes files if user x gets the password wonr g4x in a row? Does soem secrutyi work like that?
What s he had tons of pron on his drive. Thaty’s against radica Islam right? sO WULD THET ALL FALL BACK AND NOTE HOW STUPID AND MORNIC THERE WERE TO Follow him? It would it embolden antoher crazy cleric to stand up and say, “Isama Bin-Laden” wasn’t the real leader, he was short of morality, not we do it right under my name!!! Osalam Bin Lost because of his reliance on western goodfs (Pespsi) I’m Moramurm Mrburrbaby Sheik Own wilsonman
Winning!
Ambien?
Dude, there’s a thread for that.
Thank you, having debated here for a quite a while I’m getting pretty thick skinned these days, but I do love reading and participating if I can.
The question for me is more like this, is terrorism an automatic death sentence, or is it a stupid relabelling of criminals or war enemies, the latter two actually enjoying some protection in various treaties
To quote Tyrion ‘I would have liked to hear what the man had to say’
Yeah, post 1061 totally got across what you were trying to say, Jeff… 1062? Well, I guess we now know how long it takes Ambien to kick in. :)
Fact is, Osama may have been unarmed when shot, but he turned to run into a room where there were multiple weapons. I could be wrong, but somehow I don’t think he was running in there to hide under the bed.