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!

“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

I’m not exactly overjoyed by it. I’m an Aussie and to be honest I am not sure it is a good thing – keep in mind I’m not trolling here, and I understand some of this may sound off to a US citizen. I disagreed with the war, I accept Osama was behind 9/11 but I haven’t personally seen anything proving it. and to be perfectly honest there should have been a Nuremberg style trial rather than a raid, some gunfire, a death and a body thrown overboard. I know it will give some people much needed closure, but it’s not as if the patriot act or being felt up at the airport are going to go away for US citizens, are they?.

It’ll just be someone else that has the finger pointed at them. I guess what I am trying to say is it won’t outwardly change anything for anyone, those killed will still be gone, things will still be a mess.. but they’ll be relieved some guy they’ve never met is dead. It’s a hollow victory I guess.

btw nice post, phil

I tried to look and all I found was this gem: “When in doubt, attribute quotes to Mark Twain.” — Mark Twain

Actually, I meant to put one in myself.

I note that winds of change are blowing in the Arab and Muslim worlds. Winds that Osama bin Laden, despite his stated intentions, seems to have had little to do with.

Social networking. They younger generations there are being exposed to more than just the Koran and state run media, and they like what they see. Drop iPhones, not bombs. And, yes, for the geekier, we can drop some Androids, too. It’s all good.

Once again we engineers are changing the world for the better. Woot!

other AQ revenue streams,

That’s the part I feel we do not go after enough. A lot funding comes from successful people all over the world- people who you’d look at and just see another businessman. Then it’s revealed they send money to Hamas or some other pack of killers and you’re all like WTF? Him? Huh? Seems like we’ve never been good at that, even back in the IRA days when a lot of funds came from the US.

And, yeah, by “go after” I mean Apache helicopters hovering outside 50th floor corporate corner offices.

Didn’t Tom Clancy do that in one of his books? The one with a short skirmish with Japan? The US goes after the corporate/yakuza instigators right in their business offices in downtown Tokyo. Classic.

So far the evidence suggests someone was killed in Abbottabad. Independent evidence.
It was live twittered.
Pakistani news reports show blood stained rooms and military crawling all over the compound.
The area has been cordoned off.
Wikileaks released something a week or so ago that suggested OBL may be in Abbottabad and may have been the instigation for the raid on Sunday.
No one claims to know anybody who knows of his earlier demise.
And…
Obama himself hasn’t stepped forward to claim he is still alive.
Bring on the DNA and photos.

I have no use for Fox News, but when you begin to believe your own stereotypes, you might want to step back and take a few deep breaths.

It was a joke taking a swipe at the inevitable conspiracy theories and denials that, surprise surprise, have already popped up. Fox News is just a convenient whipping boy. Next time I’ll put in the

What it took was a catalyst. One man frustrated by corruption immolating himself in an Algerian street. That was the spark that lit the Arab world that 10 years of warfare could not do.

Rock on, liberals! Barack Obama pulled this trigger. So you can criticize one of your own, that’s what you do best, anyway.

This individual was as wretched an example of humanity as could be found; he lived and dedicated himself entirely for and to the sole purpose of planning and promoting death and suffering for any and all of us.

By his plans, the ending of your life or those of your loved ones, meant nothing to him except “success”, as literally thousands of families can testify.

A great many plans, from the “imminent” to the “perhaps”, will now be stopped or prevented, both with OBL’s death, and the intelligence recovered on-site.

He committed, funded and orchestrated heinous crimes without regret, restraint or consideration for the lives taken, and when the Law came to his door, as he surely knew one day they would (hence the compound), he had already chosen “suicide by cop”.

OBLs funding was initially critical to AQ, so it’s doubtful he would have released the purse strings, so the on-site intel will likely lead to both his own yet unseized funds, other AQ revenue streams, and the manner by which cell funding is currently performed…and perhaps even to swathes of membership, both active and sleeper cells…indeed, just how much this puts AQ on the back-foot should not be underestimated…no cell truly knows what those above them have in notebooks or on hard-drives…they will have to sweat it out, or expose themselves outright.

Whilst the scenes of “vigorous rejoicing in the streets” was perhaps at the excess end of the scale, and understandably uncomfortable for many of us to watch, it is to be remembered that for current generations, we have long been at war not with a nation to “boo” and “hiss” at, but with a concept, terrorism, and OBL has always been the face of terrorism’s representative Mr Bad Guy.
To see him fall is therefore a quite natural relief, and if similarities with V-Day celebrations are cited in the media, I shall not be surprised.
Aside from some clumsy (but still potentially deadly) reactionaries, maybe, a period of “quiet” from Al Qaeda and terrorism can certainly be anticipated…which is news indeed worth celebrating.

No-one except his own similarly deluded and murderous followers will attribute “martyr” to this despicable man, and we should not give him or they the satisfaction of using that word when describing his death, as it bestows him with a degree of nobility that should remain the reserve of those who have sacrificed themselves for Peace and Life, not diluted to the benefit of those who bring terror, death and carnage to people’s lives.

I therefore see no reason why we need to question any feelings within ourselves of “quiet satisfaction” at his passing, and certainly, this man did not deserve any loss of sleep as a result of wrestled consciences.

Our Muslim friends, on hearing of OBL’s inevitable demise, have (collectively, calmly and merely) remarked “God Is Great”…and I think that nicely sums it up.
Vengeance is, after all, for Gods to administer, not us.

We should quietly close the book on OBL, permitting him no further voice…just as he silenced so many voices.

I do have to wonder, though, if a certain resident of Tripoli still has clean underwear…I hope not.
Oops !

Let’s hope that humanity learns something for a little while at least. I won’t ask for more than that, as every generation reinvents itself. We always find new ways to succeed and new ways to fail.

If a foreign soldior had just killed my wife and kids I would not expect them to come round to my house with bundles of cash. That is totally sick.

So now your are judging another culture for being different from our own? Or do you just not care to understand pashtunwali