Bin Laden is Dead!

Wow turn on your tv President is about to address the nation - they actually have bin ladens body or parts of it.

Did not expect this today.

You beat me to it

Good call

Will this change much? We shall see...

seconded, Agbeer....

Hey, we got him before the diabetes did. Cheers.

As he was a monster, I hope his death was fittingly monstrous. Interesting that 8 years under the Bush administration did little to inconvenience him let alone kill him, despite rampant curtailing of liberties which would assist in the pursuit.

Obama pretty much said this will not get us out of Afghanistan.

Man, good news.

Think we're gonna have a party??

Obama's polls are going to go through the roof........

Edit: Wow. I thought it was a drone attack. It was a fucking small spec ops team (SEALS) dropped in via helicopter with probably a large intel team stateside. Firefight. NO Americans hurt. Not a one. 8 months in the planning stages targeted at that single compound. Imagine how in the fuck those guys are feeling right now.

A year and it's going to be movie.

Looooooooong time comin'..............

I'm vapin' to celebrate! I hope you all are, too.

this bin laden asshole got what he deserved, those people at the WTC were innocents. though it shouldn't blind u guys to the oppressive/aggresive american foreign agenda which has led to so much hate of americans overseas. ever since vietnam, lots of innocent people in foreign countires have died, been tortured or just been made victims when the american government thru the CIA 'installed' their puppet dictators in countries for purpose of protecting 'american interest' ie usually oil & big business interest. the american government is always keen to work with/thru those devils like noreiga or saddam until they tried to go their own way and were therefore, removed.

And the american military budget makes up close to 50% of world military spending. War is big business in america; even if peace was prevailing, some people in power would have vested interest to create war and unrest . and the term 'defence budget' which is used in the general papers sounds much nicer than military spending.

yes, people should open their eyes and see the pain and loss that happens on both sides of the equation.

sunsett70 said:

though it shouldn't blind u guys to the oppressive/aggresive american foreign agenda which has led to so much hate of americans overseas

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While I don't deny what you have stated above, in my opinion, the US would be hated by some regardless what her foreign agenda was. The US is the world superpower with a LOT of wealth and a very high standard of living. When ANY entity has that kind of power, there will ALWAYS be those that will hate her. It's human nature. Doens't matter if she's a person, or a country.

But back on topic. How much do you think this will really hurt Al Queda?

I can hear the birthers now. "Ok, we don't want to see just a small DNA report. We wanna see the whole body..............or, it didn't happen".

Or Republicans stating that we could have done this a long time ago, but this was just a political ploy to pull this operation off now. I know no one wants to make this political, but nonetheless, it will have a huge political impact. The Repubs are going to have to make up some lost ground, so it's gonna be interesting to see how they fucking spin this. They may not do it right away............give it a few days to a week.

It just makes no sense. The election isn't for another year and a half.

lwien said:

I can hear the birthers now. "Ok, we don't want to see just a small DNA report. We wanna see the whole body..............or, it didn't happen".

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With something like this, as in something that is genuinely a matter of interest rather than bullshit politically inspired rumours (birth certificate saga), there are inevitably going to be questions from a lot of corner regarding the outcome.
BBC is already reporting that the body was thrown into the sea almost right afterwards? Why?

I'm no conspiracy theorist, and think that they're usually full of unprovable crap, but any natural skeptic will at the very least question how much the truth might diverge from the official media story.

Not trying to take anything away from any celebrations that may be justifiably occurring all over the world, just suggesting a hint of caution regarding details that may emerge in the future.

Note: none of the above states that what we've been reported already isn't the exact truth.

- Also wondering how much this will affect Al Qaeda? How much power did/could one man even have over a global, loosely-affiliated, terror organisation?

wilf789BBC said:

is already reporting that the body was thrown into the sea almost right afterwards? Why?

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Exactly what I was thinking. Why do that?

I'm worried about retaliation by Al Queda now.

I think the reason they buried him at sea was so that he wouldn't be enshrined as a martyr. Maybe the ultimate insult back?

I read something about how some Muslims believe the deceased should be buried within 24 hours.

oh well, another human dead, doesn't really matter
would the US stop existing when the president is killed? no, and so is al queda, and al queda is probably even looser organised with plenty of people waiting to fill the hole
it wouldn't surprise me at all if bin laden wasn't even that important but just a media spokesman and the man talked to by the americans when al queda ca,e to being(what most people forget is that al queda would never have existed if it wasn't for the americans, the americans brought the muslim extremists together, the americans helped them create an organisation, the americans trained them in the use of weapons and fighting and the americans suplied them with weapons untill they turned on them)

The BBC article has changed it's content or I would link.

But, what I gathered:

OBL - Shot in the head while resisting.
A woman being used as a shield (nice!) was killed.
OBL's son killed.
Two couriers killed, another woman wounded.

Body buried at sea for two reasons... Islamic custom to bury within 24 hours. And buried at sea there is no grave to make into a shrine. Makes perfect sense to me. I'm sure they have all the evidence they need, DNA etc. to know they got the right guy.

BTW the article stated that the courier they used to finally find him was spotted and tracking started 4 years ago.

Oh, and the OBL compound was a few hundred meters from the Pakistani eqivalent of our West Point Military Academy...

lwien said:

The US is the world superpower with a LOT of wealth and a very high standard of living.

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Hmm... the USA is broke, military spending is borrowed dollars, 40% of all US Government spend is borrowed. The US owes 14 trillion dollars. That's almost $45,000 dollars per citizen, or $91,500 per worker. I think we need to realize that now, China is King of the world, they are beginning to own the west thanks to our spending on their cheap goods and borrowing money back from them now we are broke. These wars are hurting the USA much more than these extremists ever did. Just remember who is paying for these wars, it is not the American people or American Government. The image of the USA as perceived from here is one of the cowboy going in guns blazing into somebody else'e fight, while family at home starve. There is something very ironic about the US' attitude to the way other countries are being run, things aint so rosy at home.

I doubt that killing OBL will make much of a difference, he is now a martyr and just as much a symbol of their cause now as when he was alive. Sure, it feels good to kill such an animal but don't for a minute think that it is a big victory.

WE pay china 73.9 million$$$ per day in debt interest

true story

Interesting article from an ex-Director of the CIA Counter Terrorism Centre on why Bin Laden's death is a "good career move": http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/20115272712668919.html

frogbmth said:

Hmm... the USA is broke...

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No, we aren't broke. We have corporations makings billions of dollars in profit each quarter and yet pay no taxes, or they get rebates from us. How much did you pay in taxes? I bet you it was more than Exxon paid.

No, we aren't broke. We have lowered taxes on the wealthiest among us over the last 30 years. Feel the trickle yet?

No, we aren't broke.

^^^ Is this opinion formed through objective and extensive study in the fields of economics and political science, or was it provided by a politically motivated organization to be consumed whole without question?

(Edit: This was not a nice thing to say, sorry.)

To OBL: Burn, baby burn!
US military and CIA: Good show!
Obama: That took guts, good job.

momofthegoons said:

I think the reason they buried him at sea was so that he wouldn't be enshrined as a martyr. Maybe the ultimate insult back?

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Bin Laden was buried at sea from the deck of a U.S. aircraft carrier because there was "no land alternative," a senior Department of Defense official told CNN on Monday.

Another defense official said there was no country willing or able to accept the body for burial, and U.S. forces "took pains to observe Muslim law."

The religious rites were conducted on the deck of the USS Carl Vinson in the Arabian Sea, with the ceremony starting at 1:10 a.m. and finishing at 2:10 a.m. ET, according to CNN.

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It is prescribed by Islamic Law that the body of the deceased is to be buried within 24 hours. The guidelines for sea burial is what the US forces did their best to fulfill considering the circumstances.

Unfortunately now, this "Islamic scholars criticize sea burial" story is REALLY exploding.

See the headline: Muslim Scholars Call Al Qaeda Leader's Sea Burial 'Humiliating'

See the story: "The Americans want to humiliate Muslims through this burial, and I don't think this is in the interest of the U.S. administration," said Omar Bakri Mohammed, a radical cleric in Lebanon.

^The only single place in the article saying "humiliated Muslims." So 1 radical Lebanese cleric says it and now multiple Muslims scholars of all types are?

Shame shame. And on huffington post of all places. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-sea-burial-muslim-scholars_n_856315.html

Some believe that at sea burial is only permissible if the person is killed at sea. Yes, this is true, but this is really just a BS story. In Islam it's clearly established that in extenuating circumstances, use your own judgment based on what you know about Islam. If the US forces can't find grounds to bury him what else are they suppose to do?

"We are ensuring that it is handled in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition," an administration official said. "This is something that we take very seriously. And so therefore this is being handled in an appropriate manner."

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When someone dies, you must clean the body with water. A full cleaning of the body, which I'm not completely sure of the details of but I know it's a process. Apparently, they actually went through that process- washed Osama Enemy #1. It's amazing how seriously they took the Islamic tradition.

There are some stories saying "Islamic burial is an honor." NO. Everyone is equal in death in Islam; we can't judge the dead. So even criminals and murderers are given the Islamic rite of burial.

Thanks for reading all this if you made it this far

There may be some interesting fallout from this, because the closer you look, the more inescapable it seems that Pakistani military and intelligence services sheltered OBL. The military aid we give them is probably in some doubt now and there may be some more showdowns in the border areas with Afghanistan.