So, if you haven’t heard Osama bin Laden is dead. The president made a statement around 11:30 ish and he was taken out by a group of american special forces.
This can’t make up for the 3000 lives taken on 9/11, but it is a historic moment for the war on terror. This thread is not rejoice in the death of another human, but to remember all those who were lost on that sad day.
Vengeance SERVED.
That said, I remember reading about the last remnants of the Third Reich after World War II. Expect a very violent response over the next few days.
I don’t see this as the BIG victory that everyone was clamoring for, This isn’t a video game or a big budget action pic where the big bad guy goes down and everyone lives happily ever after. In the real world they jusst get another guy to do the old guys job.
There will be others to take his place.
There will still be terrorism as long as his ideals live on.
The fight will still remain.
I’ve got to completely agree with Ed on this one. The fact that it took us this long to track down Bin Laden is a sign of how much work there is ahead of us.
When al Qadia has been dismantled (it’s gonna take more than guns to do that) then we can all breathe a sigh of relief.
On a completely different note the best comment I ever saw on the story from someone was “I bet Bin Laden regrets allowing his iPhone app to use his current location” That would be amazing if that was what really happened.
I heard that Osama bin Laden’s information was on PSN, but then it got hacked.
President Obama said it best last night. This is not nor should it be, interpreted as a statement against muslims. It is simply a statement that terror in any form, imposed on anyone, by extremists must be dealt with for the good of us all.
I feel the response is going to be violent, but not for a while. Maybe a year or two of planning.
I don’t believe that there will be violence like the wars. Osama was not a person that people liked in his country. If he was a high ranked president,king, empire, prime minister, then maybe somethign would happen. But do you really think that his former country is sad that he is gone?
His former country isn’t going to be terribly mad. I think they wanted him for the same reasons we did.
It’s his terror network that we need to be worried about. How are they going to respond? More terror. We don’t know when or where–yet.
Food for thought: If you fear the terrorists - then they’re winning. That’s exactly what they want, hence the name.
Who said I was afraid?
Might have been better if they’d gotten him alive–would have been easier to deal with the rest of the group–but I’m reasonably confident that the counter-terror units on our side can deal with threats as they crop up. They probably won’t tell us for certain yet, but I’d be very surprised if they weren’t already on high alert/high detection mode when the announcement was made.
Hey guys… While this subject is interesting, I’m not sure if it would not be more appropriate for some other discussion board…
JMHO,
I think that’s why it’s in Chit-Chat Mike. Chit-Chat isn’t on the Portal by default (I think), so the majority of people wouldn’t even see it.
There are a great many details about his time line of events after he finished college if you poke around the internet. I think the best analogy I’ve read is that he was the “franchise owner” of Al-Qaeda, and that the organization itself will be difficult to demolish 100%. The organization was more about the Soviet-Afghan war, at least in the beginning.
If you ever read the books on what happened in Afghanistan during the 70’s with the Soviets, you may gain some insight into the ‘why he was the way he was’. Shantaram is an interesting book about a guy who escaped prison and went to India. On page 700-something he goes into Afghanistan with some group and gets caught in the middle of the Soviet-Afghan war. The imagery the author puts out at that point is pretty lasting, especially about the Afghan who has such pure hatred for the Soviets because he lost everything but his life. Living life the way they did during that war is a totally different paradigm than what I’d ever conceived before I read that book.
Add in some misguided religious ideologies from a college and it’s not difficult to see how bin Ladin slipped into a relentless hatred of foreigners. As for how to prevent it – well, people have willpower and unalienable rights until crimes are committed. Thus the best way is to detect and prevent the crimes; unfortunately before the U.S. put more resources towards that specific goal, it simply wasn’t possible to detect a whole lot.
Moving forward, rather than living in fear I think it’s best that we remind ourselves that we (the U.S. civilian) are part of the U.S.'s line of defenses in combating terrorism.
"I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy." MLK Jr.
That actually was my reasoning for putting this thread up in chit-chat. Besides, this is indeed a historic event and I just wanted to see what the robotics community had to offer.
"I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy." MLK Jr.
The second paragraph of the thread introduction explains this, however, I like MLK’s wording better. Should’ve used this quote.
To comment on the topic of terrorism and Al Qaeda: yes, Al Qaeda still exists, yes there will still be terrorism. BUT, the killing of bin Laden is an event which will unite Americans in a way we haven’t seen in almost a decade. I for one believe that bin Laden got what he deserved.
This event shows that America will not back down. We won’t cower in a corner in fear. If you mess with the bull, you get the horns, and America has some pretty big horns.
I’m not saying we should be having a party, just that we should be glad that we finally got the man responsible for the deaths of so many people.