Okay then. The big news after the Pope Paul beatification (beautification?) thing is that Osama finally got nailed. I was actually quite surprised that they didn't find him set up somewhere near Vegas. So anyway, wadya reckon... give it three days & he'll ascend on a little cloud right? Don't rule it out. Such things have been well documented in the past.

I must admit, anyone getting nailed (in the sense we are discussing now, of course) doesn't really fill me with joy or happiness.

I don't think it's as big a win as they are making out - so now he gets to be made a martyr for the cause and other will crop up and continue his work.  
Killing one person never kills an ideal - it usually just makes it stronger.

Give it 300 years and he'll be the Son of God.

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Killing one person never kills an ideal - it usually just makes it stronger.

Young women in Afghanistan are being stoned to death, face washed in acid, for their ideal of wanting to be educated and liberated like you. Young 12 year old boys are being converted into bombs. When will this cause a weakening effect in the Taliban?

Sorry Katus, you are too good for this reality, just think of bin laden as a rabid animal.

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Young women in Afghanistan are being stoned to death, face washed in acid, for their ideal of wanting to be educated and liberated like you. Young 12 year old boys are being converted into bombs. When will this cause a weakening effect in the Taliban? Sorry Katus, you are too good for this reality, just think of bin laden as a rabid animal.

With all due respect & not wishing to imply approval for any of OBL's actions... the atrocities you cite are real & very very nasty; but I am not so sure you can connect them with our current subject. Wacko religious zealots in the Taliban might indulge in that stuff but Osama  directed his efforts against the West. Killing thousands of Moslems among others along the way of course. His goals were politically motivated, not solely religious.

To suggest he was a rabid animal is to give animals - sick or healthy, a bad rap. To engage in extremism the way he did he was definitely disfunctional. It would be very interesting to learn how he came to be what he became. A bit late now I suppose.

Anyway, he's gone & I only hope that we can some day bring his Western compatriots - the Bush / Blair / Howard crew, to some sort of justice. I don't think they should be shot but if you put up a good argument I'll keep an open mind.

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Anyway, he's gone & I only hope that we can some day bring his Western compatriots - the Bush / Blair / Howard crew, to some sort of justice. I don't think they should be shot but if you put up a good argument I'll keep an open mind.

No argument from me, but it'd be a long list if you were being fair. Madeleine Albright should be on it and Kissinger. I'm deeply suspicious of all the Arab nations in rebellion, smells like, 'think tanks'; probably pursuing the 'what's our oil doing under Arab sands?' question.

 Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.

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Young women in Afghanistan are being stoned to death, face washed in acid, for their ideal of wanting to be educated and liberated like you. Young 12 year old boys are being converted into bombs. When will this cause a weakening effect in the Taliban?

And this will still all happen whether Bin Laden is dead or not... and I don't think he was the one to bring these practices into their culture!  

Perhaps we should just drop a nuke on the whole of the middle east and start fresh with all the ideals of the Western civilisation (you know - the ones who have also slaughtered people for centuries in the name of God, but happily turn the other cheek when a little child is being brutally molested and simply give the offender a tsk tsk and a slap on the wrist).

Human beings are arseholes no matter where they come from, and people will suffer because of their actions.  If I killed everyone who pissed me off I'd be the only one left on earth@ lol

Oh, and one more thing... (I'm on a roll!).

If America did this simply because they wanted to "help" the people in this horrible situation, why the f**k is Robert Mugabe still wandering around alive?  Because there's no oil in Zimbabwe - that's bloody well why....

*and breathe.....*

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."
Martin Luther King, Jr  


Yes, I am unashamedly a hippy! :-*

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No argument from me, but it'd be a long list if you were being fair. Madeleine Albright should be on it and Kissinger.

Oh bless me how did  leave off Henry! The N.Vietnamese were making noises about a peace deal with Johnson when the K supposedly suggested they wait till his Nixon got elected so they could get a better deal. His prize was a peace deal for a republican president rather than a democrat.

Here are a couple of cool bits I dragged off michaelmoore.com:

Our Code Name for Bin Laden?

http://static.michaelmoore.com/manual_img/11/05/indian.jpg http://static.michaelmoore.com/manual_img/11/05/indian.jpg

'GERONIMO'
Oh American Indians, we have killed people all over the world, but
we will never forget you were our first

'Indian Country'
"... in a world where mass infantry invasions are becoming politically and
diplomatically prohibitive ... the American military is back to the
days of fighting the Indians." – Robert D. Kaplan,
one of George W. Bush's favorite writers

KatusMaximus wrote on May 4^th, 2011 at 8:10pm:

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." Martin Luther King, Jr   Yes, I am unashamedly a hippy! :-*

Dear Katus, reality is torn between two phrases.

'You can bomb the world to pieces, but you can't bomb it into peace' - Michael Franti

'Pacifism makes a space for fascists to breed in.' - ( I cannot tell a lie, it was me :-)

What you say is true, but there are also opposing truths. What the tree looks like, depends where you're standing  It's best to walk about a bit and pick up as many views as possible. Desirable outcomes are never achieved by closing your eyes to the truth, no matter how lofty your ideals.

I'm with you Katus

Grey -  listen to more Michael Franti /Spearhead. ;)

I agree - definitely about Perspective.
If I change my POV then I think of all the innocent Afghanis who have been blown to kingdom come because the Yanks felt the need to stand on a few necks because someone stood up to them.

Totally against an eye for an eye, and am in no way endorsing what OBL apparently did on Sept 11, but hell - is it only OK to fight back if you're on "our" side?

I was calling for war against the Taliban well before 9/11, on account of their treatment of women in particular. I agree the international community should've moved against Mugabe long before this. I agree the conduct of the war has been appalling. Yanks are much better at killing than winning, they can't get over the fact that wars are won by infantry and not aircraft or big guns. They're only ever motivated by self interest and 'hearts and minds' stuff just confuses them.

the world actually needs a globalised police force under UN control. There's no place for crack pot despots in the 21stC. It also needs a stable global currency free from speculation, universal health care and children free from poverty and crappy education systems.

That said you have to admit that we in the west have freedoms that most of the worlds people only dream of. If our freedoms are being erroded and if scant progress is being made towards a more egailtarian playing field we only have ourselves to blame.

There was no opposition to war in Afghanistan because people could see that the Taliban and El Quaeda were a bad thing. By the way Arab fighters outnumbered Afghan fighters 3 to 1 in the mujahadeen and Bin Laden co-ordinated most of them. A million people took to the streets in London against the Iraq war, demonstrated peacefully and went home. They should've stayed on the streets and laid siege to Downing street until Blair resigned. In another age they would've done.  Get Up Stand Up indeed! Don't give up the fight, never give up the fight. Pacifism pah!

All good stuff Grey.


Grey wrote on May 6^th, 2011 at 10:51am:

They're only ever motivated by self interest and 'hearts and minds' stuff just confuses them.

So what motivates everyone else?


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the world actually needs a globalised police force under UN control.

Would it look anything like NATO? Uncoordinated. Overstretched. Disinterested. A tool.


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It also needs a stable global currency free from speculation

Now you're gettin' somewhere. Same could be said for stock markets. Reduce them to their basic purpose of raising & securing investment capital. Let them survive merely on their member company's performance rather than their gambling potential. Boring  I know, but the casinos could take up the slack.


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If our freedoms are being erroded and if scant progress is being made towards a more egailtarian playing field we only have ourselves to blame...     A million people took to the streets in London against the Iraq war, demonstrated peacefully and went home. They should've stayed on the streets and laid siege to Downing street until Blair resigned.

Compared to the resolve shown by the Arab Spring we certainly are a buch of gutless wonders. A sure sign of that is our acceptance of "protest zones" behind chain link fences at least a mile from a protest target. Either that or we genuinely have nothing to protest about.

I sense a debate about protest coming on.... Like what is the purpose of the big P? Just to say 'hey, I'm angry about something'? Or to actually effect change - hopefully peacably.

Grey wrote on May 6^th, 2011 at 10:51am:

the world actually needs a globalised police force under UN control. There's no place for crack pot despots in the 21stC. It also needs a stable global currency free from speculation, universal health care and children free from poverty and crappy education systems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z8iKVayOKk&feature=fvst

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I sense a debate about protest coming on.... Like what is the purpose of the big P? Just to say 'hey, I'm angry about something'? Or to actually effect change - hopefully peacably.

I think we need to move beyond protest. We need a proper grass roots democracy that elects represntatives that aren't preselected by one of the two main gangs. People need to understand that GET UP isn't grass roots democracy, it's just another player run by a hierarchy. We need to build communities not gangs.

I think China should invite KJ2 for a cup of tea, put him under arrest for crimes against humanity and take control of Noeth Korea's military prior to handing it over to Seoul.

China doesn't want more territory, if it did it wouldn't have a one child policy. It does need cred on the humanities and it does need a large trading partner. China could fix that N.K problem without a voice being raised in anger and have the world cheering in a week.

Excellent OBL obit in the Guardian this week - still the best newspaper in the world IMO.

I wouldn't accept the account as definitive. The setting up of Al Quaeda in full co-operation with the CIA as a training and co-ordinating facility for the mujahadeen has been the subject of plausable accounts for many years and this is the first time I've seen it denied. The very idea that 'the CIA had no contact with such figures', is frankly daft. At the time the CIA's game plan was to send the USSR broke by clandestinely backing the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan. Contact with figures like Bin Laden was basic to that.

For decades I wouldn't have heard a word against the Guardian. It's not the paper it was in the sixties, there's an element of pragmatism that has emerged since its campaign to take a stake in the American market.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/02/osama-bin-laden-obituary?intcmp=239

Read diligently. British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook is sober.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda#Alleged_CIA_involvement

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_theories_of_Al-Qaeda#Jihad_in_Afghanistan

I still think the Guardian obit was pretty good, although obviously cobbled together in a hurry it provided a potted history with no obvious bias IMO. The "CIA had no contact with such figures" statement suggests to me the CIA were probably dealing with people they thought were significant at the time, al-Qaida and Bin Laden not emerging until later, a year or so before the Soviets left. Robin Cook's observation that al-Qaida and Bin Laden were "a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies" is true, but the operative words are "a product", something that developed from that miscalculation. However I agree with you that the Guardian is not the paper it once was. My dad always extolled the quality of the old Manchester Guardian. Like you probably, I’ve been reading the international edition for many years and have noticed with each physical decrease in size it’s become more like the website version with shorter, eye-catching articles. It definitely ain't what it was, but I still prefer it to most of the competition.