Radley Balko writes: "Yes, bin Laden the man is dead. But he achieved all he set out to achieve, and a hell of a lot more. He forever changed who we are as a country, and for the worse. Mostly because we let him. That isn't something a special ops team can fix."
Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan during the war with Russia in 1989. (photo: Sipa Press/Rex Features)
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Sep 5, 2010 ... The true cost of the Iraq war: $3 trillion and beyond .... Joseph E. Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University,...
USA is BANKRUPTED - like Soviet Union after war in Afghanistan that could not afford.
Fighting on Chinese credit card -- how stupid ...
Maybe this is true. I honestly don't know. Maybe someone can help me understand how "value" is determined on a national level and a world level.
If the world economy declared all currency invalid, and assigned "value" only to natural resources and the goods and services provided by them, in the grand scheme of things, would America still be "bankrupt"?
Correct me if I'm wrong but, on our side of the ledger, wouldn't we have:
1. Abundant fertile land for crops
2. Abundant intellectual property for defense, farming, etc.
3. An abundant able and willing work force.
4. Abundant water to drink and ability to use it.
I don't know; I see America as a "rich" land playing in a phony game of economic values right now.
We "owe" China "money" but how do they collect? What do they collect? Do they invade us? For what?
Dick Cheney probably told the only truth he ever uttered to the American people when he said "Running a deficit doesn't matter; Reagan proved that". Actually Reagan, and many others proved it. So why is it the central theme/distracti on for American politics now?
Teabaggers; You are all fools. And unless we can change this dialog SOON, all of America will be the fools that the money-changers are making us out to be.
If bin laden wanted us to lose our freedoms, I imagine he could have accomplished the same thing with a strong lobby and a few billion dollars invested after the "Citizens United" case.
I have to admit, hearing that OBL was located and killed, especially the way it went down, did give me a certain feeling of pride in America and reassurance that the right guy made it into the White House.
The Special Ops team can't change the terrible events of 9/11 and the affect they enabled Bush and Cheney to perpetrate on all of America, but they did show us all the difference between a blow hard loser like a GWB and an intelligent and truly courageous leader like Obama. Of course, now we need to see how Obama uses his political capital from all of this. America is ready to see massive troop movement from Iraq and maybe Afghanistan now. Will he do it after the election? We know it won't happen before.
Another thing we saw in all of this is what REAL HEROES are like. The term "hero" has been so over-used that any truck driver or clerk in the PX was one for wearing a uniform. That was to prepare a new generation of canon fodder for the only jobs they had available to them. But the guys that rappelled into that compound and took out OBL; Now THOSE guys are really HEROES.
I only wish I had a better word for them.
Much as many do in the countries we're allegedly reforming.Henry II of England, in 1170, once reportedly said, "will no one rid me of this troublesome priest." His request was soon fulfilled. Our "troublesome priest" is now dead as well. Our "troubles" are only exacerbating. WE are now the image in the mirror, the reflection of all we once held dear.
To the millions who have died during the past 10 years of diversion from actually getting bin laden:
OOPS! SORRY!
In the end, it didn't take several hundred thousand troops and trillions of dollars, but about 15 people and a couple of helicopters. I'd like my money back from Haliburton and Blackwater now.
I'm sick of all the military worship going on in this country since 2001. By the same token, they weren't villains either. They were just doing a job. The real world isn't a Bruce Willis movie.
And you can bet those desperate to gain and hold power understand all the implications quite well.
Infidels are NOT off "sacred" soil.
Hated leaders are NOT removed.
All Americans are NOT dead.
He did NOT achieve his goals.
It has become a series of protection actions. The threat of somebody putting arsnic in our yogurt has never ended. Our protections have just gotten better.
Bin Laden’s goal of proving that the only way to stop a Western Oppressor from insulting and overwhelming non-Western culture was being even more ruthless than them was defeated in Egypt.
The future could he Egypt if the US would declare a unilateral ceasefire in Afghanistan until there is a terror attack or US troops are attacked. More detail on the last point look for “The Afghan War is almost over if we would again join John Lennon in Imagining Peace.
Is OBL's death a "good thing"? Of course it is. But to let it go at that would be a dangerous over-simplifica tion. If there's one thing Americans are very good at, it's over-simplifica tion, usually at the cost of uncovering the truth and the likelihood of history repeating itself.
How did OBL remain at large for so many years? Why wasn't he taken out much sooner? What is Pakistan's true responsibility in all this? What is our own? Don't we have "Google Earth"?
Wouldn't you like to know?
Yes; You are a fool and one of many. But you are also the most un-American among us, despite the fact that you wrap yourself in the American flag. You need to go back to school and take Civics and Government classes to learn what America really stands for and why your post was so misguided and filled with a racist undertone.
Start with 9/11. There is abundant evidence that it was a put up job for which bin Laden was blamed. Americans were distressed over the innocent civilians killed during that attack. In the supposed-attemp t to get bin Laden, how many innocent civilians have we killed in Afghanistan? We don’t think about the suffering of others, do we? When was the last time that someone in either administration talked about getting bin Laden? Could that be because the man died years ago from kidney failure? Get a grip.
Yes, GWB and his cabal has eroded what America stands for and divided this country. But if you can't tell the difference between good leadership and bad; Real threats and fake ones; Real events and invented ones; And insist that everything that you don't see first hand is a lie intended to control you, then you have no more credibility than GWB, Bin Laden or the Teabaggers.
Get a grip yourself and try to learn how to judge reality from your fake, distorted view of the world.
The fuel for conspiracies is something that isn't explained. So along comes a "why did building seven collapse?" or whatever to then be followed by "because it was blown up". Even when another, more plausable explanation is offered, like, "it had the force of debris from the adjacent buildings on it" or "the fires burning inside them weakened the structure" or whatever, it just doesn't feed the emotions as much as "they bombed it; They snuck in the week before, secretly wired it all to blow, called up the CIA and had the fake attack put into motion".
Sorry but, as an engineer, when I hear something really absurd versus something reasonable, I naturally gravitate toward the more reasonable explanation.
Even if I take the huge leap and agree that it was all a big plan that went off flawlessly, how do I THEN make the leap that "that's how they got us all to agree to go to war"? IN IRAQ!
Given Wikileaks and Bradley Manning, am I ALSO supposed to believe they pulled it off without any detection or whistle blowing? That these cowards. who already HAD power, would even RISK a move like that?
What real evidence do you have that trumps that of world wide researchers on the subject?
The U.S. government has not told the truth about anything for decades, and they DON'T care about the suffering of others.
The U.S. is not the end game with facts. Osama bin Laden has been reported as dead for at least 7 years. There are great posts by folks on this subject that site numerous reasons for us to not believe this elaborate exercise by assassins. We would be well advised to remember the lies of the U.S. government in the past.
During the whole stretch of years in which we gave lip service to the hunt for bin Laden, the guy was a poster boy for the power and control nuts. They shredded the Constitution and international law and gutted our treasury and blamed it all on him.
Now he is gone, silenced, and he leaves a legacy of questions. What did he know?
The ball is in our court to educate ourselves as voters and attempt to scare political candidates into paying attention to us if they want to get elected.
Then again, I bet most of those home skooled right-wingers will be "learning" a lot about politics from their parents.
I think the answer is more funding for public education and more civics requirements. It's getting to the point where the average European knows more about American politics than the average American. Personally, I don't think that's an accident. The very people who are always arguing that education has a left-wing bias are the ones underfunding it.
The one silver lining I see is that, as much as I hate most of what has happened to our society due to the internet, I think people are more politically engaged now, than they were a decade ago. Part of that is because of anger at bush, but part of it might be due to the addtional information that's now easily available for anyone willing to actually look for it.
What did oil play in the larger picture of our invasion of Iraq? Is there an oil line that runs east to west out of Iraq?
Were the Brits afraid to be pushed out of the spoils of war by Russia, France, USA, if they didn't send in troops? Was that the reason for Blair's ass kissing of Bush?
All of those things must be brought out to the light of day.
Smoke and mirrors, ladies and gentlemen.
The author assumes that bin Laden was responsible for 9-11. This is just sloppy and stupid thinking. There has been no trial to prove his role in 9-11. There has been no competent investigation of his role or, in fact, of who exactly planned and carried out 9-11. The so-called 9-11 Commission only assumed bin Laden's guilt and then went about boosting up the American police state. Let's give bin Laden the presumption of innocence. Not to do that is to internalize and practice the fascism that the neo-cons have brought to Amerikkka. Not to presume his innocence is to accept the propaganda of the fascist state as true. Then the fascists have won!
Amerikkkan fascism began long before bin Laden was even born. It is the rule by the military-indust rial-banking complex. Pres. Eisenhower saw it growing in the 50s.
"Enmity is never appeased by enmity, but by non-enmity. This is the eternal truth here."
- Buddha
If you're a Muslim, you deserve to be tense about the current American paranoia directed at your religion and its adherents, but get a grip on the vitriol directed at others here who don't accept your unqualified trust in Obama or his minions. The bigots know who they are; but skepticism about the president or the Pentagon telling the truth? That seems merely reasonable in light of 10 years of serial lying, starting with the EPA announcing just after 9/11 that the air at Ground Zero was safe to breathe.
Pictures relating to Top Secret construction methods were seized off the Internet. Few died on the ground at the Pentagon because allegedly most of that section was closed for repairs. But no construction workers were hurt or interviewed.
No second terror attack meant such as attack would not further bin Laden's goal to hasten Western Bankruptcy. Clearly if bin Laden could have been in the center of things he could have had a second major attack, but the draft is a far less expensive way to fight than private contractors supplemented by a few US troops, and notice every attack meant more money spent. If he hit the far more venerable highway system\, more Westerners would save money and resources on public transit.
Very trenchant comment, requiring the reader to consider the descending arc of our society from its post-WWII, Korean War apex 60 years ago--a decade or more before the horror of Viet Nam began the slow pollution of the well--and the current decadence you so rightly describe, marked by, among so many other blights, political inertia on the part of most young people (not to mention "Dancing With the Stars" and "Celebrity Apprentice").
Until we see many more young Americans once again making their voices heard beyond Facebook and the Internet echo chamber (where they remain "penned up" by the real power outside), in the real world of struggle, the way we've seen it in Egypt, last year in Iran, last month in Madison, WI, we'll be stuck in the ditch we've dug for ourselves, a static paradigm based on endless fearmongering, diminished standard of living, raging unemployment and underemployment , hatred of all Muslims and who-knows-who's -next?, and political impotence as we observe the daily, self-serving circus in Washington.
After WWII, it was said of the German People, regarding the Nazi regime, that they "got the government they deserved". Considering the arc from JFK to LBJ to Nixon to Reagan to Clinton to Bush II to Obama (a slight uptick, but slight), the same can be said for us.
I second that emotion. That was my initial feeling and I thought that I was alone in that sentiment. Good to know that wasn't the case.
That he was not the mastermind behind 911, but he helped fund it?
That 1500 licensed architects and engineers have evidence the 3 WTC building were brought down by explosives puts the whole "Osama did it" into question?
Lastly what has this country become when the rule of law is set aside in favor of extrajudicial murder?
I am waiting for you to add my comment. What gives?
fox news.reality TV.this recent demonstration,t his outpouring of pent up frustration,thi s flag waving patriotism...it makes me sick.look at us!
for the large part we're an overweight, ill informed herd of sheep.bleating merrily at the moment...
However before 9/11 Richard Perle was calling for a new Pearl Harbor, Cheney kept dragging President Bush to hear him talk, and getting CIA and FBI agents fired for doing a good job, insisting that not sharing of intelligence be adhered to in a totally brittle way to make sure it interfered in the gathering of intelligence. Much of the nonsense of an overwhelming conspiracy, came from these small conspirators, so Chaney’s criminal purposely incompetence would hardly show through.
There was going to be a Truth Commission like in South Africa, where people like Cheney could have been jailed if he didn’t reveal all of their crimes and apologize for it. He probably wouldm’t have cooperated, but this was sabotaged by those who pushed 9/11 Truth toward over the cliff. By the way al Qaeda has an amazing knack to escape from prison, even US detention centers at US bases in Afghanistan. There is a bloodbath of Sufi shrines blown up, while Sufis worship because bin Laden thought Sufism gave Islam a soft underbelly. The Awakening Council members Sunnis, who sided with the US are being slowly killed in Iraq. If 9/11 was the only al Qaeda slaughter the massive conspiracy theories may make some sense.
Important link
www.opednews.com/articles/genera_michael__071030_questioning_9_2f11_and.
www.opednews.com/articles/genera_michael__071030_questioning_9_2f11_and
Rep. Robert Wexler went from being Sharon of Israel as a US Representative. Later he pushed Dennis Kucinich to add impeach Bush to his Impeach Chaney resolution. Didn't run for reelection for some unknown reason despite being way ahead in the polls to being a lobbyist at a so-called peace in the middle east firm.
A man who ran for Congress on the La Rouche for President ticket later became prominent in 9/11 Truth and many other examples, which by the way in no way relate to Israel.
To me all this is spilt milk, but new things come along which by the way in no way relate to Israel that I hesitate to talk about out of fear of smearing innocent people.
When oh when will we unite and rise up against the criminally insane ruling class? They are right there in those gated communities on the outskirts of town. Playing golf and laughing all the way to the bank. When?
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