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[Casiella]

To paraphrase and apply Mark Twain, I didn't wish for bin Laden's death, but I have enjoyed watching his obituary unfold.

[GoGo Yubari]

It is closure for 9/11 and for that I'll give congratulations to those who made it happen.

But it is an event that I can only take with mixed emotions. Here's hoping the intel leaked by Wikileaks regarding a retaliatory nuke in a European city to be blown up after Bin Laden's death was bogus, too. Kinda thinking if they had that type of capability they would've used it at some point.

 

[Senn Typhos]

And it only took 9 years, $3,000,000,000,000+ and about 6000 of our boys.

[Invelious]

How is this going to affect the Bush / Bin Laden relations? Arent the two families close friends?

[Invelious]

And it only took 9 years, $3,000,000,000,000+ and about 6000 of our boys.

That money and man power was well spent into American arms manufacturing corps, as well as the oil industry. Because if it wasnt for Bin Laden then Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction" would not have been stopped and the oil there would not have been secured.

[Aria Jenneth]

How is this going to affect the Bush / Bin Laden relations? Arent the two families close friends?

This is an old leftist kinda-sorta conspiracy theory. ObL was the black sheep (is there a darker shade of black? Perhaps "true black," as per those SitForLess.com sponsorship spots on NPR?) of a powerful and respected Saudi family. They've had business dealings with the Bushes in the past. As far as I know, however, there is no credible link connecting the Bin Laden family or, through them, the Bushes, with the terrorist activities of the Bin Laden family's most notorious member.

Much as part of me would find it emotionally satisfying to think that Bush II was connected to some particularly dark conspiracy (Dick Cheney doesn't count), it looks like he was just a well-intentioned idiot who honestly thought that government sweetheart deals with Halliburton re: Iraq, etc., were just a matter of "doing well by doing good."

The sort of dazed way in which he insisted that "the United States doesn't torture people" pretty much said it all for me: as president, he was an adventuresome cowboy do-gooder who honestly thought God was on his side and governed from within an informational bubble. Poor bastard.

Now if we could just convince the American Right to stop trying to shape national policy from that same basic position....

[Louella Dougans]

On the BBC or Channel4 news type programmes in the UK, a while back, investigating "islamic terror extremists", there were several academic types who appeared on the programme to mention how Usama Bin Laden spoke "very beautiful Arabic". They were very enamoured of how well he spoke.

So, Usama was a well-spoken, intelligent man. And the al-Quaeda organisation, even though Bin Laden wasn't directly commanding things, would take a lot of its morale from him. Eloquent motivational speeches and so on.

Without him, then they will not have this "beautiful Arabic" speeches to motivate and recruit intelligent disaffected islamic people.

So we're left with the ones who make half-baked, clumsy rhetoric, who mostly only manage to recruit the stupider islamic people.
But those have been around for a long, long time. Society can handle them.

As for martyrs, well, many of the extremists go on and on about things such as the Crusades, so really, adding one more martyr won't make much of a difference.

And many of the islamic countries have of late been doing all that pro-democracy stuff, which further sidelines the extremists.

So threat of terrorism may go up in the short term, but I'd think it would decline long term, without a well-spoken smart man to make the speeches.

[Wanoah]

If Obama also manages to withdraw troops from Afghanistan then his presidency will be made, no? That's a lot of political capital right there.

[Aria Jenneth]

If Obama also manages to withdraw troops from Afghanistan then his presidency will be made, no? That's a lot of political capital right there.

It's not nothing, but we're also a bit hung up on the whole "economy" thing. We'll see whether that stops being "the" issue any time this decade. I'm not hopeful: stagnating middle-class wages + layoffs + nearly complete exporting of manufacturing jobs = "Okay, I'm glad you're making money, but don't you have anything for me to do that actually pays well?"

We're not all Fortune 500 company execs, here, and those of us who aren't have kinda been taking it in the teeth-- and will continue to, because low and mid-level job positions are still easy to fill at the wages they were earning two decades ago.

[IzzyChan]

\Dx/

[Morwen Lagann]

♥ Izzeh

[Invelious]

How is this going to affect the Bush / Bin Laden relations? Arent the two families close friends?

This is an old leftist kinda-sorta conspiracy theory. ObL was the black sheep (is there a darker shade of black? Perhaps "true black," as per those SitForLess.com sponsorship spots on NPR?) of a powerful and respected Saudi family. They've had business dealings with the Bushes in the past. As far as I know, however, there is no credible link connecting the Bin Laden family or, through them, the Bushes, with the terrorist activities of the Bin Laden family's most notorious member.

Much as part of me would find it emotionally satisfying to think that Bush II was connected to some particularly dark conspiracy (Dick Cheney doesn't count), it looks like he was just a well-intentioned idiot who honestly thought that government sweetheart deals with Halliburton re: Iraq, etc., were just a matter of "doing well by doing good."

The sort of dazed way in which he insisted that "the United States doesn't torture people" pretty much said it all for me: as president, he was an adventuresome cowboy do-gooder who honestly thought God was on his side and governed from within an informational bubble. Poor bastard.

Now if we could just convince the American Right to stop trying to shape national policy from that same basic position....

So why was the bin laden family allowed to fly out of the states right after 911, and after all flights private and commercial were grounded and not able to leave?

[Crucifire]

Man could you imagine meeting the dude that killed him?

"So, you're the guy."

"Yeah... I'm the guy." /long drag from cigarette and revs motorbike

[Ken]

So why was the bin laden family allowed to fly out of the states right after 911, and after all flights private and commercial were grounded and not able to leave?

Clearly, they booked with Orbitz.

[Invelious]

So why was the bin laden family allowed to fly out of the states right after 911, and after all flights private and commercial were grounded and not able to leave?

Clearly, they booked with Orbitz.

Interesting, soooo Orbitz winz then?