No, I don't think it's safer, either. Mind you, I do think Bin Laden, while alive, did his personal best to make it unsafe. But he seems to have become a figure head at most during the last years and Al Quaida went on with other leaders. Now undoubtedly they'll try to make him a martyr.
It's disheartening how many people have announced themselves pleased that bin Laden was executed without a trial. I'm not naive, I know any trial would have been a circus and would have been very embarassing for Pakistan and other US allies - but just to give up entirely on even the idea of justice or law? What do we have left then as a society? Just narrative it seems, and unfortunately it's not Pratchett's.
but just to give up entirely on even the idea of justice or law? What do we have left then as a society? Just narrative it seems, and unfortunately it's not Pratchett's.
That is the crux of it, to me. There was never even a question of a trial in anyone's mind, or as much as an official pretense that was even a possibility.
I'm an American, and I think treating terrorists as anything other than criminals who should be dealt with by the criminal justice system is terrible. I have thought that since 9/11. It's just one more way of dehumanizing the people we fear.
I am not sure how viable bringing Bin Laden into custody would have been. Criminals do get killed in shoot outs, unfortunately.
They do, but in this case, there doesn't seem to have been any question that the desired result was Bin Laden dead, not Bin Laden arrested, that this was anything but a hit squad. There also appear to be some questions about what exactly happened.
Oh, I have no illusions as to the point of the operation. My only point was that aiming for capture of criminals for trial is not necessarily less bloody as 'fighting enemy combatants'.
About the only thing that pleased me about in this whole thing is that Obama didn't just order the area bombed to oblivion. I think a narrowly targeted on the ground operation was by far the better call.
One thing I know - a Bin Laden trial would sure have been more interesting than this. Forget interesting: a Bin Laden trial would have had the potential to be nearly as important a historical event as 9/11, if not more so.
But this? This isn't politics or history or justice, it's just spectacle, and not even very good spectacle.
and immediately renounced American citizenship once the plot kicked in with a vengeance and he discovered an alien ship with high tech that no single nation on Earth should have
And see, between that and Karl May, no wonder we're not always dealing well with Hollywood-type narratives. *g*
Well, you know. That's fiction. Out of this world.
We simply grew up in other stories, partially at least.:)
(One of the articles I've read points out, not for the first time, that the endless US obsession with WWII is because it really fits the Hollywood narrative so well: good guys versus bad guys, no question about the laudability of the war goal, about the evilness of the enemy's goal, no compromise possible, heroes win the day, the end. And ever since, says the article, "we have been trying to get another fix" of that heady drug of righteous violence, but the wars would not conform to the pattern.
...now if your grandparents and their generation were in fact "the bad guys" of Hollywood's most popular war movie genre, you're bound not to feel so comfortalbe in that narrative anyway...
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That is the crux of it, to me. There was never even a question of a trial in anyone's mind, or as much as an official pretense that was even a possibility.
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I am not sure how viable bringing Bin Laden into custody would have been. Criminals do get killed in shoot outs, unfortunately.
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About the only thing that pleased me about in this whole thing is that Obama didn't just order the area bombed to oblivion. I think a narrowly targeted on the ground operation was by far the better call.
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But this? This isn't politics or history or justice, it's just spectacle, and not even very good spectacle.
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Yes, I think so. It also would have demythologized him to his followers.
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And see, between that and Karl May, no wonder we're not always dealing well with Hollywood-type narratives. *g*
Well, you know. That's fiction. Out of this world.
Well said.
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(One of the articles I've read points out, not for the first time, that the endless US obsession with WWII is because it really fits the Hollywood narrative so well: good guys versus bad guys, no question about the laudability of the war goal, about the evilness of the enemy's goal, no compromise possible, heroes win the day, the end. And ever since, says the article, "we have been trying to get another fix" of that heady drug of righteous violence, but the wars would not conform to the pattern.
...now if your grandparents and their generation were in fact "the bad guys" of Hollywood's most popular war movie genre, you're bound not to feel so comfortalbe in that narrative anyway...
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(Too, too true.)
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