The type of morally equivalent thinking you exhibit has enabled more horrors throughout history than those who are able to run a simple moral sort algorithm.

Yeah, right on! God save us from morally equivalent thinking! If only Hitler* & Stalin & Pol Pot & the Inquisition & the Crusaders & Joseph McCarthy & Osama Bin Laden… hadn’t indulged in so much namby-pamby morally equivalent thinking – if only they’d been a little more sure of their own self-righteousness – everything would have been fine. (/sarcasm)

Srsly. WTF are you talking about??

The greatest horrors in history aren’t due to “morally equivalent thinking” – they’re due to the EXACT OPPOSITE.

(* Please spare me bleating about Godwin)

Having said that I have no problem with him being taken out this way. However, bizarrely for some I guess, if he’d been captured I’d hope he wouldn’t get the death penalty. Your country does tend to execute with depressing regularity and that is state sponsored murder.

#86 Bob:
You cried for him???? Are you serious? Do you really think any of us should have any sympathy for that piece of sub-human slime? He ordered the indiscriminate slaughter of thousands, and brainwashed others into doing his dirty work for him.

As for him becoming a martyr; as I understand it, when the end came, he couldn’t even die like a man. He died as the coward he always was, cowering in a corner and callously using his own wife as a human shield! Really brave, huh?
All you bleeding heart types, please tell me one single reason why this odious apology for a human being should have been allowed to live.

I get the distinct impression, though, that a very substantial proportion of Muslims (perhaps even a majority of them) are also glad that this monster is dead.

I can’t help wondering how the terrorists reconcile the death of so many of Al Qaeda’s top leadership, and the detection and foiling of so many of their attempts to pull off terrorist acts, with their belief that Allah is on their side. Surely some of them must be wondering, if they fail as often as they do, if maybe they are mistaken about Allah really condoning their actions. If Allah is omnipotent, how can they fail as often as they do if Allah approves of their efforts?

@Greg Fish: “They don’t care about civilian casualties, believing them to be either just because the bystanders “were enemy sympathizers or worked with the enemy,” or waiving them away.”

I think it is even worse than that. I’m sure they figure that even if the civilian bystanders who were casualties were totally “innocent” from the terrorists’ perspective, it doesn’t matter because, Allah will sort the innocent out and send them to a martyr’s reward in Paradise where they would be better off and happier than they could have been in life.

It may be impossible for any man to be entirely 100% evil but OBL came about as close to being that as it is possible to get – so good riddance to him. The world is a better – perhaps not safer – but better place without that mass murdering pyschopathic source of evil in it.

The American people’s celebrations of this news were entirley natural and human reactiosn and quite understandable. Quiet reflection is also a reasonable and justifiable resposne – people react in different, individual ways most of them legitimate.

I think its a shame & a bad move that they buried bin Laden at sea though. Had I been running things his wishes and his religions customs would’ve been last on the list of priorities. I’d have taken his corpse back inside a pig carcass full of alcohol and publicly displayed it until the stink got unbearable then had it cremated with the ashes being put in a garbage bag full of “barker eggs”, bacon rinds and pork bones then disposed of a New York landfill. Good luck making that a shrine!

Yes, that would’ve been provocative and stirred the Muslims up plenty – but know what? I really don’t care what the Muslims think. I respect their culture as much as they do ours – which is not at all. Besides, its really not like they could possibly hate us any more than they already do.

@ 119. Dave, England, #120. Jack C, #114. & #96 Quiet Desperation & #65. Joseph G : Well said – & seconded by me.

@86. bob : “I cried for Bin Laden. I am not sure why. I think I just felt that SOMEONE should, and nobody else was going to.”

Wrong. Lots of people cried for bin Laden – the Jihadist terrorists of Al Quaida first and loudest of all. Kahild Sheik Mohammad would’ve weept withothers inGuantanamo bay, Ayman al-Zawahiri probably sobbed and trembled where-ever he’s hiding and there’d have been a day of mourning and gnashing of teeth in Hamas-ruled Gaza. Plus I think Fred Phelps & Jeremiah Wright may have shed a quiet tear or two. Feel happy to be in that company do you?

Did you cry for the people bin Laden killed in all his terror attacks from the embassy bombings in Africa to 9-11 and beyond too?

The only tears that should rightfully have been shed for this mass -murderer are those of joy. I’m sure his wives (plural) sobbed outwardly but quite possibly felt happiness deep in their own secret hearts to be free of him. Many of Osma bin Laden’s own family rejected him and adopted Western values.

I totally just made that up on the spot. Me = awesome!