Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

This rather sums up my sentiments last night.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Pretty! A little rainbow with all the colors of Obamacare. It's amazing how they've buried its costs inside of so many other rubrics.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

2

We ought to do this like civilized people, and celebrate deaths indoors, over scotch, feeling suitably guilty about the warm feeling we get from knowing our enemy is dead. Or by going to their wake and lying about them in toasts.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

afaik, that was the official response.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Agreed, although maybe not with the use of the word "punishment."

I did celebrate with scotch, though, and a bit of facebook arguing.

Yer doin' it wrong
 

Obama might need to work on the seating chart:
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5226/...d4696d593d.jpg

bigger version

Re: Yer doin' it wrong
 

At least Joe's awake for this.

Re: Yer doin' it wrong
 

It's sad how movie-based my understanding of this sort of thing is. To my boyfriend (whose understanding is more hands on): Oh, it's like the retasked satellite in "Clear and Present Danger." Right?

Him (shaking his head slowly): Something like that.

Re: Yer doin' it wrong
 

More images here. My main thoughts are I woulda thought the room would be bigger, and to wonder what the updates were like and if they could see real-time video.

But my understanding is even less reality based than yours, mostly based on video games.

That and how there's no fighting in the war room.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

While there was celebratory feel to it, I also worry. A nephew just joined the marines and is now in boot camp. He wouldn't take our advice to do college first and go in as an officer. He will likely be in the field as the assholes try to reassert themselves.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I couldn't find it just now, but this AM the lead photo on aljazeera.com was a bunch of young Americans in front of the White House widely celebrating. It had the exact feel as the Palis dancing on 9/11- ummm, except we are the good guys so it's okay for us to dance?

Re: Yer doin' it wrong
 

Yeah, they had better equipment in much cooler rooms in 1964 and 1982, at least according to Dr. Strangelove and War Games.

Re: Yer doin' it wrong
 

bunch of old white guys sitting around a room. shit, if this were a W-ear shot there'd be more people of color in the frame.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Since when is celebrating the death of an enemy something new in the US?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Really? People celebrating the murder of 3000 Americans, and people celebrating the killing of the guy who ordered that mass murder, give you the same "exact feel"?

It's okay for us to celebrate the killing of an enemy.

Re: Yer doin' it wrong
 

Here's a helpful guide.

Meanwhile, yesterday's big losers:

http://c0013754.cdn1.cloudfiles.rack...com/x2_5d9cdf4

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

We are their enemy. And I meant photographic feel. I definitely am on a side.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

If "we" are their enemy, then we would be cheering the random death of a few thousand Palestinians.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

No. That would be if they were our enemy. All I'm saying is most of the Arab world woke up to an image of some over fed Americans cheering the death of a guy that lots looked up to. It's all propaganda Sidd.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Yes, it feels very different. Still doesn't feel good.

What we have to celebrate is all the people and all the suffering saved by his death, but I still have to feel bit of tragedy at the death of any human being. Well, and also, I guess, a desire to tether the feet of bin Laden's bloody corpse to the back of my chariot and drag it in the dust behind me while I scream war cries at the top of my lungs. (Sorry, NPR had readings from the Illiad on the other night...)

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I don't see an obligation to approach this man's demise with any level of reverence beyond what I mentioned earlier: Proper interment of his remains.

The cheering was fine. I wouldn't do it, but I understand it, and given the fact we've so little to be proud of right now, fuck it... let those with quick emotional triggers revel in their revenge.

What wasn't fine was that stupid burial at sea. The body should have been given back to family and buried in a manner that assured no offense to even the most rabidly fundamentalist Muslim.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Those asshole - AQ - will not be asserting themselves in the field against Marines.

Taliban might, but surely you understand the difference.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Similar picks on Weigle blog on Slate, elsewhere, and video on Fox News last night. Not particularly comfortable.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

You know that's probably zero, right? What we have to celebrate is retribution. I won't condemn celebrating that, but I'm not entirely comfortable with it either.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Reports are that it was offered to the family who didn't want it.

But it's goo you found something to criticize.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I'd have taken it. I bet people would pay $10 to see it.

the "don't make a grave for the fucks to go visit," makes sense.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Don't they just go somewhere else, then?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

the first part of my post was the more interesting thought. for that matter obama could probably sell the "dead osama" pix to the inquirer for a million or more to help pay down the deficit.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Seems like as good of a solution as any once you're past "we killed him" and "we took his body."

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

The triumph of free markets?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Goo is between you and the target of your deposit. Otherwise, thank you. That's what I do - find Fault.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

That's the question I'd have expected us to ask before we dumped his corpse off the side of a destroyer. And the perfect answer would have been 50 yards outside the Fukishima nuke plant.

"We've followed your book. Facing Mecca... Right over there. Just follow the robot guide. If you'd like a mask, 1500 yen."

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Unlike certain past administrations (for which you voted), they actually seem to have considered the question ahead of time and decided that burial at sea off the side of an air craft carrier after the administration of religious rites and generally in keeping with Islamic law (at least with respect to timing) was the way to go.

But I'm sure there isn't some mythic other choice they could have made that you wouldn't question.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I don't believe they actually dumped the body.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Birther, deather... this would make you a dumper.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Probably many places. But we don't create a mini-mecca where everyone gets together and swaps bomb recipes.

Maybe we should have buried it someplace highly visible and easily watched - say, in the middle of Camp Lejune.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Apparently they took video to prove it. Don't expect it to get released until Donald Trump joins the dumper ranks.

I suspect they found a particularly deep trench somewhere, and used our finest technological resources to make sure the thing was weighted down so that it would never come up. That shroud is probably made with lead cloth and riveted closed.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

He's probably still alive and palling around with Ayers and Rev Wright in Chicago right now.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Since when do we have to be slaves to irrational feelings of Arabs, or anyone else? You going to tell a NYC firefighter who lost a dozen friends on 9/11 that he can't go cheer, because it might offend the people who really liked bin Laden?

Fuck them. I'd have sooner told Simon Wiesenthal to stop hunting down Nazis because some people really liked them.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I agree with the first two paragraphs.

The third, no. It would have unleashed a celebratory parade in his honor -- just like, for example, the funerals of the Black September killers did. Think about how that would have affected Americans. And, while I'd be greatly concerned about how that would affect "average" Americans, as well as members of the military or those who lost friends and family on 9/11, I'd be at least as concerned about the reaction from the more rabid anti-Arab Americans -- because they would likely respond in a way that would only fuel the cycle of hatred. A quiet, non-public burial that did not get any coverage or crowd, and that does not leave the possibility of his grave as a shrine, was best.

Beyond that, I have certain (relatively minor) questions, that I don't know enough about Islam to answer, and I'm sort of curious. These include:

-- would this have been possible? I believe Islam requires burial within 24 hours of death (I'm not sure, see above). In that timeframe, could we have located family or others who would have agreed to accept the body, and the choice of whom would not have offended some?

-- when devout Muslims bury a murderer, a criminal, someone who has been executed for blasphemy, etc, what do they do? Head pointed towards Mecca still? Or is that a burial of honor that is only given to honorable people?