Osama bin Whatever

[zoocoyote]

 So apparently Osama's dead. This, in spite of the pretty persistent rumors that he died up to a decade ago. Maybe things really did go down as they're portrayed in the news, but in all honesty, it would not surprise me one bit if the whole thing was staged and he really did die several years ago. Whether a partisan ploy by the Democrats or a pro-

Comments

(part 1)

[zoocoyote]

It's true that bin Laden's potential earlier death has an element of conspiracy theory to it, but the fact that recent administrations (dems and reps both) have blatantly lied to the American public on multiple occasions leaves it within the realm of possibility to me. Besides, if he did die, for example, 6 years ago, that wouldn't helped Bush much given that he was already reelected. Nor would it have had a major influence on the legislature, where the party in power is cyclic--Americans get tired of one shitty party and switch their allegiance to the other shitty party.

As for Islam--that seems a pretty damned broad brush to paint with, considering its adherents constitute a fifth of the planet, and five times the population of the US. Any religion can be used to justify bloodthirstiness and rabid intolerance, Christianity included--there's no shortage of violence against Gentiles in the Old Testament. A large number of Muslims probably do indeed see the West as morally decadent, but if that were the sole reason for their ire toward us, we'd probably be seeing a lot more attacks on Western nations. Nobody goes and blows himself up without--at least to him--a damned good reason. Cases in point: Christians who bomb abortion clinics. I'm against abortion in the vast majority of cases, as I feel it ends a human life; and while I don't support bombers stooping to the same level, one can see how those bombers rationalize it. Somali pirates are another case--they didn't just go out and start hijacking boats for the fun of it, they did so as a response to many European corporations using their coastline as a convenient unregulated way to dump toxic and chemical waste, decimating the fishing industry there (i.e., the only industry). So while I don't condone any of this sort of violence, understand that people almost always have a reason.

It doesn't take much digging to find that reason out: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-04/thaddeus-russell-does-us-support-for-israel-threatens-american-safety/ . This essay in particular http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/kabd_eng.html? is a must-read, and you'll probably find it very enlightening--I know I did. Oh, and if you think that Christianity isn't also being used as a political ideology, just look around. Taken to its horrifying conclusions, you get something like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda_Anti-Homosexuality_Bill (being proposed in an overwhelmingly Christian nation and advanced in part by several Christian politicians from the US).

I don't have a problem with the US looking out for its own interests, unless doing so results in death and misery for thousands or millions of foreigners (but they're not "real people" like Americans, so they don't count--seems to be the thought process of many). I agree that there are just wars (WWII comes to mind), but far too many of the conflicts we've been involved with since then don't fall into that category. And humanitarian aid (with the exception of disaster relief in places like Haiti and Japan) has been shown to in fact be harmful, in that it reduces self-sufficiency, makes local farmers unable to sell their own crops at a wage that can possibly support them, and funnels aid money into the hands of a few corrupt government officials (see: practically every country in sub-Saharan Africa).