Osama Bin Laden is Dead

[Dunno]

Iraq, Panama, Vietnam, Grenada... really, USA break the law more often than we'd like to think. And their motivations are more selfish than we'd like to think, too. They invaded Iraq for some completely abstract reason and ignored human rights broken by Russia in Chechen Republic. Why? Because they have no oil in Chechenia. They sacrificed thousands of lives in Vietnam to demonstrate their power (they failed, btw). And what they did with Japan wasn't very nice either... Yes, I know other countries also break the law, I just can't bare reading about how noble America is and how they defend every human's rights. They don't. Unless you are rich.

[doofus-01]

The thing I love most about being an American is my uniquely noble nature and how I defend every human's rights (all of them). Just this morning, as I - well I don't want to make you feel too inferior, so let me just say it was pretty noble.

[Velensk]

It seems quite plausible to me that many of the wars America has engaged in recently were for more ideological reasons than practical. I don't recall them ever claiming to defend all humans rights. I don't think they could even if they really wanted to. What is more, almost every time they might have tried (hard to say for some incidents, probably not everyone involved is in agreement), either they mess up badly, the rest of the world ignores it (say what you will, but despite not having the largest economy, and despite spending more money on military than anyone else, the United States is still statically the most generous nation in the world but you never hear them getting much praise for it [possibly because everyone else is sick of hearing them praise themselves]), or they manage to earn even more notoriety despite doing good.

Most of the following are my speculations on a few of the things mentioned.

Vietnam was most likely about the ideal of preventing the spread of communism. The idea here is that if communism is bad but powerful and it continues to grow in power by assimilating more nations then eventually it would be strong enough to be a threat to the United States directly. There are problems there though when this idea requires you to support a corrupt government simply because it is closer to your ideology as was the case in Vietnam. Rather telling that despite a kill/loss ratio overwhelmingly in the Americans favor the enemy still managed to continue to recruit enough members to outlast them.

I don't know what everyone involved in the decision to invade Iraq was thinking but here are my thoughts. There does not seem to be a whole lot of practical advantages to it (I've heard people claim that the United States did it for the oil but the numbers I've researched don't really support it, they don't get much oil from Iraq even now), and rebuilding afterward was quite costly. Maybe they really did think that there were weapons of mass destruction, maybe they thought that attacking it would be a solid blow against an area that generates Jihadists, or maybe they sudden encountered a overwhelming urge to cover up loose ends with Sudan Hussain (maybe it was something different for different people). If it was the second one then the move may actually have been smarter than it appears. It is my general belief that education is probably the best answer to terrorism especially if the curriculum is devised by someone without a religious agenda, however I suspect that middle easterners would have roughly the same view of westerners interfering with their education that Americans would have had with communists doing the same during the Cold War (I still run into a ton of Americans who think communist == evil). Establishing a friendly or puppet government through which you could push your agendas might be a more effective way of influencing the recruiting pool of terriorists than any short term plan (or the negative short term effects of invasion). If they were honestly mistaken about the WoMD then that seems a justification as well. If it's the last one then it is something they should have done awhile back. Alternatively, the entire thing could have been a major mistake done for no real reason and justified later.

EDIT: First Gulf war seems likely to have been almost entirely practical to me though.

I don't see any real justification for what I know about Panama but my knowledge of the incident is limited

I've never heard about whatever happened in Grenada which probably means it happened after I moved here (or that it was a small enough incident that I didn't catch wind of it while I was living in Canada). United States news services are amazingly good at glossing over most United States war crimes.

[Sgt. Groovy]

Did the US violate Pakistan's territory? Only because Pakistan was harboring bin Laden.

But the US is also harboring terrorists, so it can't claim any moral high ground. It's just one rogue nation stepping on the toes of another.

[doofus-01]

But the US is also harboring terrorists, so it can't claim any moral high ground.

Strawman.

I'm sorry bin Laden's death upsets some of you so much ...
Actually, I'm not.

[Dunno]

It seems that this thread became a very interesting argument between anti-globalists and American imperialists. I hope it won't become a flamewar and get locked because so far it's one of the most interesting threads I've read.

[thespaceinvader]

On that note:

Play nice, kids. I don't want to have to padlock the swing set.

[doofus-01]

There is no "argument" going on here. Some fashionable dumping on the US, but no argument.

(Swing set?)

[Sgt. Groovy]

Strawman.

I'm sorry bin Laden's death upsets some of you so much ...

Pot, kettle and all that. Please point out where I have expressed any concern over bin Laden's death. My concern is about the legality of the actions of the US, which is a valid concern regardless of the identity of the person having been killed.

There's a very good reason there are limits to what police are allowed to do. One would think they would be more effective at catching criminals if we gave them completely carte blanche, and they probably would. It's just that experience has shown that when the oversight of police authority fails, pretty soon the police become more dangerous to everyone than the criminals they are supposed to catch.

This applies on international level as well. If extrajudicial execution becomes the accepted norm for criminals who are "bad enough", the bar on what constitutes "bad enough" will become lower as time passes, never mind all the innocent people we end up executing because of bad intel.

In short, my concern is not over bin Laden's death, but over the deaths of the people who are going to get the same treatment in the future.

[thespaceinvader]

Swing set.

I defend my inane non-sequiteur to the last.

[doofus-01]

Swing set.

I defend my inane non-sequiteur to the last.

Cheers, I just wanted to be sure.

Pot, kettle and all that. Please point out where I have expressed any concern over bin Laden's death. My concern is about the legality of the actions of the US, which is a valid concern regardless of the identity of the person having been killed.

There. You did it right there. Pots and kettles, made of irony.

On a more serious note - Saying assassination is bad is not particularly going out on a limb. As for lowering the bar, I'd say bin Laden getting killed by SEALs is hardly doing that. There wasn't any question of his guilt/innocence and he was a murderous criminal intent upon continued killing.

The US violated Pakistan's territory without telling Pakistan because Pakistan could not be trusted, there was nothing about morality or whatever. Plenty of really bad things have been done (and I'm certainly not going to discuss them here) in the name of War on Terror, but in this particular case, the only pity is that bin Laden wasn't killed years ago.

[Sgt. Groovy]

The plot thickens...

As for lowering the bar, I'd say bin Laden getting killed by SEALs is hardly doing that. There wasn't any question of his guilt/innocence and he was a murderous criminal intent upon continued killing.

And you have reliable information from independent third parties that all the people CIA has assassinated in drone attacks were also criminals, and not some other people the governments of Yemen, Pakistan etc. just wanted to get rid of?

[Bellerophon]

http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2652/no ... ion_to_os/

Some food for thought.

[Maiklas3000]

http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2652/no ... ion_to_os/

Some food for thought.

Although I don't follow Noam Chomsky's political writings closely, he was a figure on the edges of my academic studies decades ago, so I know he is brilliant. But is he crazy too? I wish I knew. I suppose "over-opinionated" might be the best way to put it. He makes questionable assertions with the same zeal that the Bush administration made about WMD's in Iraq. In the linked essay, Chomsky invokes an irony device on George Bush, but perhaps Chomsky should subject himself to the same scrutiny.

Chomsky's comparison of Bush to Hitler only begs the reader to search for and find important fundamental differences in their actions, and so the reader may find the comparison a bit nutty. If Chomsky had a legitimate point there, he undermined it by forcing the reader to recall Godwin's Law: that as any Internet conversation continues, the probability of a comparison to Hitler converges to 1.

Getting to the point of his essay, even before the assassination of bin Laden, I had been feeling that the U.S. government has been behaving lawlessly, both internationally and towards its citizens. So, the assassination of bin Laden has heightened my concerns, because it has the appearance of being potentially unlawful, and so that's where I agree with Chomsky. America's behavior seems more than a little questionable of late, and this is just one more question mark.

What concerns me most is that America's rabid actions overseas are mirrored by America's actions against Americans at home. There are all sorts of questionable laws in America, many pushed through by the Moral Majority or other extremist special interest groups, many created undemocratically via loopholes in the democratic process, many contradicting basic constitutional rights. Something that might be legal in the rest of the world can land you in prison for many years in America. The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world. And American prisons are a kind of hell that rival Soviet Siberia. America, land of the free, is anything but.

[Dunno]

Saying assassination is bad is not particularly going out on a limb. As for lowering the bar, I'd say bin Laden getting killed by SEALs is hardly doing that. There wasn't any question of his guilt/innocence and he was a murderous criminal intent upon continued killing.

I agree! But this is no longer about Bin Laden per se, it's about America performing an illegal (in a way) action in the name of justice. That's why we have courts- so someone not involved could give a verdict. This time it's pretty obvious, but giving one nation a right to judge who shall live and who not is dangerous. Very dangerous, even.
Besides it would be good to hear from him why did he do all of this, and to let him give a final speech. And then comment on what he said. I've seen in TV an interview with a Muslim philosopher who said that Islam was hurt more than anything else because of Osama's deeds, because now everyone thinks Muslim=terrorist when in reality, Islam religion is peaceful just like e.g christianity. A trial of Osama would be a perfect place to say to public this and other rectifications.

EDIT: I've just read in a newspaper (a Polish one, mind you!) a very interesting thesis. Because Osama got killed without a trial and without interrogation many conspiracy theories are going to be created. And those may be more dangerous to USA than Osama himself, making communication between parties and people harder. Because you can't debunk a theory without evidence, and none were presented to public. I've already heard one: American government wants to keep Osama silent because of connections he made with US during the war with soviets (connections with e.g Bush family).
Terrorist have actually won. They brought "civilized" and "democratic" country to their level. Level of assassinations and executions.