Okay, So Osama Is Dead. Now What?

[Selah]

I was thinking about this today. Okay, Osama Bin Laden is dead...now what to we need to do? Is the war on terror over? Will it ever be over, or will we be at war for quite a while now? It also makes me wonder if, now that he is dead, if there will be a successor appointed...

It's just something I was thinking about that I hastily wrote in the posting box. Tell me what you think!

[Ice_nine]

[quote name='Selah' timestamp='1304536992' post='2236996']
I was thinking about this today. Okay, Osama Bin Laden is dead...now what to we need to do? [/quote]

I would say take a serious look at the complaints our enemies have against us. Find out which complaints are legitimate and adapt our foreign policy so that we're not doing slimy things that make people hate our guts.* This will never happen, but I can dream.

[quote]Is the war on terror over?[/quote]

The "war on terror" in an abstract sense? No. The literal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? They seem to be winding down and I heard that the first wave of withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan is slated to be later this year.

[quote] Will it ever be over, or will we be at war for quite a while now?[/quote]

That's the problem with limited war, It drags on and on and on. I assume it will end within the next 5 years or so but I could definitely be way off.

[quote]It also makes me wonder if, now that he is dead, if there will be a successor appointed...[/quote]

He wasn't doing virtually anything in any practical sense. Al-Qaeda is just a bunch of splintered cells everywhere. I don't think they have the clout or organization to carry out something similar to Sept. 11, but my fear is that in time one of the cells will grow and become organized to be a formidable organization it its own right.

[RezaMikhaeil]

[quote name='Ice_nine' timestamp='1304539039' post='2237018']
I would say take a serious look at the complaints our enemies have against us. Find out which complaints are legitimate and adapt our foreign policy so that we're not doing slimy things that make people hate our guts.* This will never happen, but I can dream.[/quote]

This would be ideal but I wouldn't hold your breath if the Democrats and Republicans stay in power. Neither Bush, nor Obama have done this. Ron Paul wants to do this, so I guess he is our only hope.

[quote]The "war on terror" in an abstract sense? No. The literal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? They seem to be winding down and I heard that the first wave of withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan is slated to be later this year.
[/quote]

Well, I wouldn't hold your breath on this either. Obama has more troops in Afghanistan right now then Bush did and talk is cheap. He said that Gitmo would be closed by now too. I think that the real war of terror is on the American people. As long as they can keep the American Citizens afraid, the longer that they can keep a large portion of the constitution suspended, particularly those parts about unlawful search and seizures, invasion of privacy, due process, etc.

[quote]That's the problem with limited war, It drags on and on and on. I assume it will end within the next 5 years or so but I could definitely be way off.
[/quote]

So far, we've been fighting in Afghanistan longer then we fought the Germans and Japanese during WWII. The Taliban do not appear to have been even remotely defeated [and I don't think that they ever will].


[quote]He wasn't doing virtually anything in any practical sense. Al-Qaeda is just a bunch of splintered cells everywhere. I don't think they have the clout or organization to carry out something similar to Sept. 11, but my fear is that in time one of the cells will grow and become organized to be a formidable organization it its own right.
[/quote]

Largely, Al-Quida has been rendered obsolete by the Revolution that is defeating the autocracies backed by the West. Bin Laden was offering them to overthrow the autocracies and replace them with a Caliphate of his choice. He convinced some people to join his ranks but most rejected this. Now that, for example, Egypt has defeated the autocracy of Mubarak by themselves, and are in the midst of replacing it with a government that best represents them, Bin Laden [and Al-Quida]'s offer is worthless.

[Amppax]

Hmmm. War over? No. Bin Laden was merely a figurehead, at this time, and probably not a very visible one. I would assume that keeping him hiding all these years was a good thing. I can't imagine why we had to publicize this information (killing Osama) it only raises his visibility. I honestly hadn't heard anything about him in quite some time. If anything, this strengthens the movement.

Ok back to the discussion, b/c its pointless to talk about how we should have done it. I think that our problems may be getting worse, not better. Pakistan is getting worse at a ridiculous rate. I cannot imagine that the Pakistani's didn't know where Bin Laden was based on his location when killed, and this isn't a good sign for future US/Pakistan relations. Add to that the increased prosecutions of Christians in that country, and you have a real mess. I can honestly see us getting involved in Pakistan sometime in the near future, and this could have been a big part of that.

[BigJon16]

The War on Terrorism is not over. This is just a large turning point in it, and exactly who will benefit from it, well, only God knows.

Bin Laden was no longer affecting Al-queda, not from an operational standpoint, that is. He was a symbol. And we turned him into a martyr, which Al-queda will use as a rallying point for there strength. You know the saying, "two wrongs don't make a right", right? Well Al-queda attacked us (one wrong), so we killed Bin Laden (another wrong). (One wrong + another wrong = not right.) Get what I'm saying?

Terrorists hate us. So what? Vilence only causes more violence. If we had just let our enimies be, without endangering national security, they would have just "simmered down". Kind of like how when a child throws a temper tantrum, you let them be, and they get over it.

Now, keep in mind that I am only 16, so my political ideas may have some flaws in them, but I thought I'd add my two cents anyway.

[4588686]

[quote name='BigJon16' timestamp='1304556212' post='2237253']


Bin Laden was no longer affecting Al-queda, not from an operational standpoint, that is. He was a symbol. And we turned him into a martyr, which Al-queda will use as a rallying point for there strength. You know the saying, "two wrongs don't make a right", right? Well Al-queda attacked us (one wrong), so we killed Bin Laden (another wrong). (One wrong + another wrong = not right.) Get what I'm saying?[/QUOTE]

No. How was killing Bin Laden a wrong?

[QUOTE]Terrorists hate us. So what? Vilence only causes more violence. If we had just let our enimies be, without endangering national security, they would have just "simmered down". Kind of like how when a child throws a temper tantrum, you let them be, and they get over it.
[/quote]

Most terrorists of a serious level are not children. They are intelligent, thoughtful men who have put a good deal of thought into their decision to wage war against certain hegemonic powers and to use terrorism as a tactic in that way. If you had let Osama alone he wouldn't have just cooled off like a spoiled child.

I have no problem hating our enemies, but be condescending to them at your own peril.

[4588686]

[quote name='Ice_nine' timestamp='1304539039' post='2237018']
I would say take a serious look at the complaints our enemies have against us. Find out which complaints are legitimate and adapt our foreign policy so that we're not doing slimy things that make people hate our guts.* This will never happen, but I can dream.


[/quote]


With the exception of our military support of Israel while they are continuing their occupation of Palestine I really can't think of anything truely bad that we are doing. I think American foriegn policy is vastly more moral than it was under, for example, Kissinger.

[BigJon16]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1304557226' post='2237266']
No. How was killing Bin Laden a wrong?
[/quote]

"Thou shall not kill.", "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.", "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.", "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."

...Shall I continue?


[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1304557226' post='2237266']
Most terrorists of a serious level are not children. They are intelligent, thoughtful men who have put a good deal of thought into their decision to wage war against certain hegemonic powers and to use terrorism as a tactic in that way. If you had let Osama alone he wouldn't have just cooled off like a spoiled child.
[/quote]

That is a good point.


[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1304557226' post='2237266']
I have no problem hating our enemies, but be condescending to them at your own peril.
[/quote]

In thinking about it, I do not really hate our enimies. To quote GK Chesterton: "The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him."

Now, I am not a soldier of any kind, but my ideas go along the line of what that quote is expressing.

As for the condescending part, well, I'm not sure what you mean by that.

[4588686]

[quote name='BigJon16' timestamp='1304558454' post='2237285']
"Thou shall not kill.", "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.", "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.", "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."

...Shall I continue?[/QUOTE]

[b]Deuteronomy [i]Chapter 7[/i][/b]1 "When the LORD, your God, brings you into the land which you are to enter and occupy, and dislodges great nations before you - the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites: seven nations more numerous and powerful than you - 2 and when the LORD, your God, delivers them up to you and you defeat them, you shall doom them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy. 3 You shall not intermarry with them, neither giving your daughters to their sons nor taking their daughters for your sons. 4 For they would turn your sons from following me to serving other gods, and then the wrath of the LORD would flare up against you and quickly destroy you. 5 "But this is how you must deal with them: Tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, chop down their sacred poles, and destroy their idols by fire. 6 For you are a people sacred to the LORD, your God; he has chosen you from all the nations on the face of the earth to be a people peculiarly his own.



[QUOTE]In thinking about it, I do not really hate our enimies. To quote GK Chesterton: "The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him."

Now, I am not a soldier of any kind, but my ideas go along the line of what that quote is expressing.[/QUOTE]

Fair enough

[QUOTE]As for the condescending part, well, I'm not sure what you mean by that.
[/quote]

I mean comparing a man like Osama Bin Laden to a child throwing a tantrum.

[rkwright]

[quote name='BigJon16' timestamp='1304556212' post='2237253']
The War on Terrorism is not over. This is just a large turning point in it, and exactly who will benefit from it, well, only God knows.

Bin Laden was no longer affecting Al-queda, not from an operational standpoint, that is. He was a symbol. And we turned him into a martyr, which Al-queda will use as a rallying point for there strength. You know the saying, "two wrongs don't make a right", right? Well Al-queda attacked us (one wrong), so we killed Bin Laden (another wrong). (One wrong + another wrong = not right.) Get what I'm saying?

Terrorists hate us. So what? Vilence only causes more violence. If we had just let our enimies be, without endangering national security, they would have just "simmered down". Kind of like how when a child throws a temper tantrum, you let them be, and they get over it.

Now, keep in mind that I am only 16, so my political ideas may have some flaws in them, but I thought I'd add my two cents anyway.
[/quote]

I think we have already learned that simply "ignoring" them and letting them be, they don't just simmer down. '93 World Trade Center, '98 US Embassies, '00 USS Cole, '01 9/11... how long do we let a group kill our people before we say we have a right to self defense?

Terrorists are not children. A child will not blow themselves up to get a cookie. These people are willing to take it to the bitter end, killing themselves in the process, to get what they want.

[Ice_nine]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1304557404' post='2237272']
With the exception of our military support of Israel while they are continuing their occupation of Palestine I really can't think of anything truly bad that we are doing. I think American foriegn policy is vastly more moral than it was under, for example, Kissinger.
[/quote]

That's one thing, but I'm not ready to get into a debate over how bad America is or how amesome it is because it's been discussed here ad nauseum and people get riled up and to be honest I don't have the sources handy to form a coherent argument in any direction. I admit that. And I think you are more well versed than I in American Foreign Policy, and exactly what falls under "foreign policy." I'm terrible at political jargon. I concede

But let's say that our ties to Israel is the only exception to our otherwise excellent foreign policy, isn't that a pretty big exception to make? As I understand that is a rather MAJOR point of contention for Islamic terrorists. Again I only know minimal information about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and filtering out the bias from the info pertaining to it is rather arduous, but it seems to be a pretty big freakin deal to put it in the simplest of terms. Even a reason Bin Laden cited for carrying out attacks against us.

I feel like when people feel the need to blow poo up at the expense of thousands of lives there has to be [i]some[/i] rhyme or reason to it. I find it hard to believe that it's [i]solely[/i] militant Islam because I don't think you can brainwash people, to the point of eagerly killing themselves, without having a populace that already feels persecuted or alienated in some way. And maybe the US isn't the sole cause of said persecution, but knowing its involvement in Israel's military, and having witnessed the carnage of two wars carried out at the expense of impoverished Iraqis and Afghans, I can certainly see valid reasons to be pissed off that the US.

Powerful empires can get away with more than the little up-and-comers. And I don't mean to sound like an anti-American anarchist rebel, but like I said I just have a hard time believing all this hate thrown in our direction is coming out of nowhere but evil Islamist fundamentalist ideology.

[BigJon16]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1304559105' post='2237293']
[b]Deuteronomy [i]Chapter 7[/i][/b]1 "When the LORD, your God, brings you into the land which you are to enter and occupy, and dislodges great nations before you - the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites: seven nations more numerous and powerful than you - 2 and when the LORD, your God, delivers them up to you and you defeat them, you shall doom them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy. 3 You shall not intermarry with them, neither giving your daughters to their sons nor taking their daughters for your sons. 4 For they would turn your sons from following me to serving other gods, and then the wrath of the LORD would flare up against you and quickly destroy you. 5 "But this is how you must deal with them: Tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, chop down their sacred poles, and destroy their idols by fire. 6 For you are a people sacred to the LORD, your God; he has chosen you from all the nations on the face of the earth to be a people peculiarly his own.

[/quote]

Ok. Good point

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1304559105' post='2237293']
I mean comparing a man like Osama Bin Laden to a child throwing a tantrum.


[/quote]

I see. Well I always liked to compare my enimies to small children. The image that comes up in my head is quite comical. hahahaha

Edit: typo.

Edited May 5, 2011 by BigJon16

[MithLuin]

It's more complicated than all of that, of course.

The reason people are willing to die for their cause is because they are extremely desperate and feel they have little to lose. So, how did the Muslim nations end up so poor and broken? That isn't something that happened in the past 10 years. In medieval times, Christian Europe was the 'backwards' part of the world while the Middle East was a center of culture. Obviously, that has changed. It wasn't one single action of the West that inspired the hatred of the terrorists, but rather a culmination of many things.

The targets were not just military...but also financial. The World Trade Center was attacked in 1993 and 2001. They hate that we're well off while their people are starving. There is certainly injustice involved in how that happened, but it's not like it was one thing we've done that we can stop doing.

I mean, unless we could stop being more than twice as wealthy as any other nation in the world. Our GDP is just under $15 trillion. China is the next runner up...at under $6 trillion. Israel is also much more well-off than her neighbors, as well.

British Imperialism isn't our fault, of course, but we are a convenient target.

It would be nice to view it simply as a result of Muslim fundamentalism - they hate us because we are Christians. But such hatred is born of poverty and oppression, so the support for such interpretations of the Koran is fueled by...economic causes as much (if not more) than religious causes.


As far as I am aware, Osama bin Laden was rather cut off from the operations of al Qaeda, and not serving much of a practical role any longer. Certainly, he financed a lot of what was happening earlier, and he served as an inspirational leader. This was a significant event, but certainly it does not mean that anything is 'over.'

[dairygirl4u2c]

now what?
now i can't over use the phrase, 'where's osama bin hidin?' cause we found where he was hidin.
we dont know where in the ocean he is now, but he's not hidin anymore.
*coughs

[Socrates]

[quote name='MithLuin' timestamp='1304606752' post='2237504']
It's more complicated than all of that, of course.

The reason people are willing to die for their cause is because they are extremely desperate and feel they have little to lose. So, how did the Muslim nations end up so poor and broken? That isn't something that happened in the past 10 years. In medieval times, Christian Europe was the 'backwards' part of the world while the Middle East was a center of culture. Obviously, that has changed. It wasn't one single action of the West that inspired the hatred of the terrorists, but rather a culmination of many things.

The targets were not just military...but also financial. The World Trade Center was attacked in 1993 and 2001. They hate that we're well off while their people are starving. There is certainly injustice involved in how that happened, but it's not like it was one thing we've done that we can stop doing.

I mean, unless we could stop being more than twice as wealthy as any other nation in the world. Our GDP is just under $15 trillion. China is the next runner up...at under $6 trillion. Israel is also much more well-off than her neighbors, as well.

British Imperialism isn't our fault, of course, but we are a convenient target.

It would be nice to view it simply as a result of Muslim fundamentalism - they hate us because we are Christians. But such hatred is born of poverty and oppression, so the support for such interpretations of the Koran is fueled by...economic causes as much (if not more) than religious causes. . . .
[/quote]
Yeah, I suppose "poverty and oppression" was the reason oil millionaire Osama bin Laden, who was born into a life of wealth and privilege, took up the life of a terrorist.

And as from what I've read, it doesn't seem the 9-11 hijackers themselves came from a background of extreme desperate poverty.

Also, oil-rich Saudi Arabia is one of world's greatest hotbed's of Islamic extremism, and home to the world's biggest funders of Islamic terrorism.
Since these oil-rich jihadists earn most of their wealth selling oil to western countries, blaming their activities on poverty simply makes no sense.

While claiming most of the world's violence is caused by economic inequality is a popular left-wing cliche (which unfortunately seems to be blindly accepted by many), it simply is not true.
While it may be hard for us in the modern day secular-liberal west to comprehend, religion and ideology can often be more powerful factors in human behavior than dollars and cents.
Most of bin Laden's and Al Qaeda's statements have a lot to do with Islamic ideology, and nothing to do with economics or money.

While liberals won't say much about it (unless attacking Christians), the Islamists hate the West for its perceived immorality and secularism, rather than for its wealth.