Is Osama Bin Laden dead or not?

[Joel]

I just heard briefly this morning that he died sometime in December of last year(?) I don't know how credible this is but I know one thing's for sure, Bush wants him dead or alive.

It's a pretty weak attempt at getting our guards to come down.

[This message has been edited by Joel (edited 11 September 2002).]

 

[MYNSX]

hes dead imo
mynsx

 

[steveny]

I think he is still alive and has changed his appearance to blend in. Possibly not even living in Afghanistan.

 

[NyC NsX]

till i see a body......or 60 years pass...i belive he is still alive

 

[cojones]

with available CG technologies, who cares ??

 

[MYNSX]

Originally posted by NyC NsX:
till i see a body......or 60 years pass...i belive he is still alive

This I agree with...as far as when I'm sure.
But isn't there motive on "both" sides to "cover" up if he was dead??Thats what I think.
MYNSX

 

[huckster]

counterpoint: i'm the leader of the free world, my country has been victimized by Osama bin laden and his henchmen, so i now have popular/majority support to go after terrorists.

do i want to present a dead osama bin laden to the world?

probably not, certainly not until ive used the current situation to eliminate as many potential threats to my country as is possible. this means protracting the timeline of osama's death/capture out as much as possible--at least not publicizing his death/capture until ive accomplished the objectives.

once ive made public the demise of osama, popular opinion(national/world) will start to fade away from the continued pursuit of threats to the usa.

so, he could quite possibly have already been neutralized, or we could still be casing him, either way it is less of an issue strategically than taking the opportunity to pursue all agendas to their fullest and disclose the end of osama after these objectives have been met.

to wit, i do not think osama is the entire problem, but rather one piece of a larger mass of threats. the end of osama is not the end of our problem, and the agenda of the usa is to eliminate as much of the global problem as is possible.

 

[Joel]

Originally posted by huckster:
...the end of osama is not the end of our problem, and the agenda of the usa is to eliminate as much of the global problem as is possible.

One, that is never gonna happen because there are going to be extremists in every generation. Osama is but a link in the chain aimed at taking us down. The more we immerse ourselves in global affairs, the more enemies we make. That's just fact.

And two, if we do eliminate most, if not all, of the global problems it can easily be misconstrued as a dictatorship. We are the only superpower nation left in the world and anytime we flex our muscles for whatever reason, we will always be confronted with spite.



[This message has been edited by Joel (edited 12 September 2002).]

 

[cojones]

unrelated, but did folks catch Bill Clinton on Letterman last night ??

I thought he was pretty good...

He probably could've done a better job at the UN this morning than dub-ya

 

[Jeffry]

Regardless if Osama is dead or not, I have a bad feeling that the Al Qaeda is still around...

"Where's Osama been hidin'?"

[This message has been edited by Jeffry (edited 12 September 2002).]

 

[huckster]

missed the point, doesnt really matter. as far as the usa is concerned, osama is one little osamabitch in the big plan.

we need to eliminate the threats from across the world, not the isolated threats only....

 

[huckster]

by the way, i think this was the post that had the canadian dissenter. and i'd like to address his points.

first, why'd we eliminate his dissent??
i dont think that was appropriate.

he was not wrong completely. we have isolated ourselves in our foreign policies.

MANY people hate america. god knows i vaguely remember growing up hating those 'people' who had everything I didnt. it just wasnt fair that some kids had an nsx as a graduation present while i was trying to figure out how to pay for housing and still raise children with the opportunity for a good education.

point is, many people have a different take on 'america' than you do. we have frequently left 'allies' in a lurch, and have frequently used people within our own society to propel a political agenda at the cost of the citizens involved(eg. vietnam).

so i personally dont want to see dissenters of popular opinion banished because of their ideology.

you have to be pretty f#%##ng small minded to not understand that we arent the locus of the universe to a (....)insert your own nationality.

i am personally abhorred by the terrorist attacks but am intellectually cognisant of the significance of this situation.

we are as good as our worst day--that is true of every one of us. until we acknowledge and present our opinions to our adveraries in an honest format, we are wasting our time and engaging in dishonest diplomacy.

 

[Ponyboy]

Hey MAJOR STONER, don't you have anything to add to this?

 

[MAJOR STONER]

...lurker mode...

 

[4AU4LIFE]

I heard something last night on TV that really made me think. If the terrorist, Osama included, think what they did was right then why aren't they all out in public running thru the streets bragging about it instead in hiding. If I were to do something that I that was just so good then I would want everyone to know about it. I guess you could say 'tooting my own horn'. What should they be scared of if they didn't do anything wrong in thier eyes. Apparently they know different and are afraid of the consequences.


------------------
ALL NSX
92 RED/BLACK 5-SPEED

 

[steveny]

Originally posted by 92NSX:
I heard something last night on TV that really made me think. If the terrorist, Osama included, think what they did was right then why aren't they all out in public running thru the streets bragging about it instead in hiding. If I were to do something that I that was just so good then I would want everyone to know about it. I guess you could say 'tooting my own horn'. What should they be scared of if they didn't do anything wrong in thier eyes. Apparently they know different and are afraid of the consequences.

I think they do believe they are right. Their motivation is to stay alive to do more. This is why they hide.

 

[huckster]

yeah, i think the reason they are hiding is no different than the reason anyone hides when they are 'at war'. strike and disappear, strike and disappear.

i hope we havent waited too long to further our interests in eliminating terrorists and their resources. i think the more time passes the harder it is to run into other countries and take military action. at least to do so without the action being completely unilateral.

terrorism seems to be the new method of warfare. we saw it in munich, we used guerilla methods ourselves in the revolutionary war, and we saw both terrorism and guerilla warfare in vietnam. guerilla warfare was used successfully against ussr in afghanistan. seems to me that combat has seen a paradigm shift.

im curious who here has thoughts on our pursuing terrorism into yemeni, iraq, and several other countries. i think our country has a tough choice to make, and it is probably an all out or nothing proposition.