Bin Laden - not universal joy

[allenuk]

There is a large body of opinion over here (and I suspect in the US, too) that has concerns over the American action in going into Pakistan and there killing Osama bin Laden.

Not that we've got any sympathy for bin Laden, far from it; we know he directed 9/11, and at least inspired the London tube (subway) bombings when over 50 were killed and many more maimed. So there's no great sorrow over his death.

It's more this: one, that what was a dwindling group of fanatics has now been raised again to the status of Martyrs, providing yet another reason why misguided and disaffected Muslim youth around the world should hate all things Western. Two, and in some ways a less important but still highly relevant point: since when does the US (or whoever) ride into a foreign country, guns a-blazing, kill a bad man (without trial), and ride off into the sunset? (The answer in the US's case is, of course, they've been at it for years...)

Don't get us wrong. We are PRO-American. We are PRO-US and British troops. We are just against getting ourselves, or our troops, killed in highly dubious battle.


A.

[cherylm]

I need to think about that one for a bit, Allen....you're actually raising some valid points, but after nearly ten years of feeling helpless in the face of the despair 9/11 engendered here--including the decidedly un-US experience of feeling endangered within our own borders--there is a (possibly very primitive) part of me that is quite ecstatic that "we" did unto Bin Laden exactly what "he" did to us.

It is really unfortunate that our folks went into Pakistan in order to bring this about...I wish with all my heart that they'd located Bin Laden in Afghanistan instead. I wonder if that is going to backfire on us in just the ways you describe. It may even be that Bin Laden hoped that would be the outcome and was the reason that he settled in Pakistan in the first place. But in addition to doing away with him, the operation appears to have yielded up some good information on "future terrorist plans" for attacks...and that may help offset any potential backlash............

I suppose that we'll never know what the outcome might have been under other circumstances...but for now, Bin Laden's dead and I'm thrilled about it.

[allenuk]

Fair comment. We were as delighted when we knew Hitler was dead, but I'm not sure whether it would have been the same if it had been 1955 before he shot himself!


A

[abair01]

Well there are many of us in the US that belive there is a lot more to 9/11 than what we have been told. by exicuting binladin there will be no trial, no evidence and the secrets will be kept.

so beilieve me there are some stupid people but not all are stupid