Let's ignore the justice that was done for the thousands of our countrymen that his organization murdered. He was the world's most prominent symbol for terror and anti-Americanism. As long as he thwarted our efforts, he was an inspiring symbol for our enemies and an embarrassment to us and our allies. His death sends a clear message to our enemies that while they might escape us for a while, we will get them in the end. Not only that, but the raid also captured computers, phones, and documents from his house - valuable sources of intelligence in our efforts to degrade the AQ network. Yes, there was a clear point to killing OBL. This is about as straightforward of a win as you're going to find in the real world.
That's a great point. There was a lot of intel regarding Al Qaeda that has proven valuable taken with Bin Ladin.
OBL wasn't priority 1, to be sure. Bush' s giant mistake. Bush isn't the brightest bulb but to say something so dumb in a moment of pique...jeez, talk about underlining your failure. http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/05/03/163155/bush-did-not-catch-bin-laden/ ANALYSIS: Bush’s Lackluster Hunt For Bin Laden By Alex Seitz-Wald on May 3, 2011 at 1:45 pm Politico reports that supporters of George W. Bush are “irked” that the former president isn’t getting more credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden, despite the droves of conservatives lawmakers and pundits who have been rushing to give Bush equal credit as Obama. But this praise for Bush relies on rewriting history to obscure the fact Obama re-prioritized the hunt for Bin Laden after Bush had largely abandoned the effort to focus on Iraq. While many conservatives are triumphantly replaying Bush’s September 2001 declaration that he would find Bin Laden, just months later, by Bush’s own account, he was unconcerned about the terrorist mastermind. Asked about the hunt for Bin Laden at a March, 2002 press conference, Bush said, “I truly am not that concerned about him. I am deeply concerned about Iraq.” “I really just don’t spend that much time on him, to be honest with you,” Bush added. By 2006, the trail for Bin Laden had gone “stone cold” and Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes said Bush told him that hunting Bin Laden was “not a top priority use of American resources.” (Indeed, there was a flailing war in Iraq to fight.) That year, it was revealed that the administration had shuttered the CIA’s Bin Laden unit in late 2005. As the New York Times reported at the time, the move reflected a shift in resources to Iraq: In recent years, the war in Iraq has stretched the resources of the intelligence agencies and the Pentagon, generating new priorities for American officials. For instance, much of the military’s counterterrorism units, like the Army’s Delta Force, had been redirected from the hunt for Mr. bin Laden to the search for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed last month in Iraq. But Bush’s biggest misstep in the Bin Laden hunt occurred years before, in the early days of the war in Afghanistan. As a 2009 Senate Foreign Relations Committee report found, the Bush administration blew a critical opportunity to capture Bin Laden in 2001. Bin Laden was wounded and on the run, but top Bush national security officials rejected repeated pleas for reinforcements from commanders and intelligence officials fighting the terrorist leader in the caves of Tora Bora, despite the availability of resources: Fewer than 100 American commandos were on the scene with their Afghan allies and calls for reinforcements to launch an assault were rejected. Requests were also turned down for U.S. troops to block the mountain paths leading to sanctuary a few miles away in Pakistan. The vast array of American military power, from sniper teams to the most mobile divisions of the Marine Corps and the Army, was kept on the sidelines. Instead, the U.S. command chose to rely on airstrikes and untrained Afghan militias. [...] Even when his own commanders and senior intelligence officials in Afghanistan and Washington argued for dispatching more U.S. troops, [Commanding Gen. Tommy] Franks refused to deviate from the plan. The report “removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora,” but that decisions made by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his deputies, and other top administration officials allowed Bin Laden to escape. The consequence of this missed ooportunity are tremendous. As Lt. Col. Reid Sawyer, the director of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, told NPR yesterday, “if bin Laden had been killed in Afghanistan eight years ago in the caves of Tora Bora, al-Qaida might well have died with him. Now the organization is diversified enough it could weather bin Laden’s death — and hardly miss a beat.” Moreover, as Rumsfeld himself acknowledged, Bush’s extra-legal torture and rendition policies did not help capture Bin Laden. Enhanced interrogation techniques did not work. Bush ordered one final push to capture Bin laden shortly before he left office, but this effort too was unsuccessful.
I guess in that same vein you could ask if invading or occupying Afghanistan was worth it; I don't think anybody's gonna pull off another 9/11.
It matters for the sake of justice. It matters because he had credibility in the world of terrorism. In other words he wasn't just some fool telling people to blow themselves up, he had cred in pulling major events. It mattered because some people in the world have something about them that makes people want to believe and follow, its the same reason Al-Qaeda murdered Ahmad Shah Massoud right before 9/11. One last reason it matters is something you're just not going to hear about. The intelligence they must have gathered from all the papers and computers they took from that compound.
You could make an argument that Afghanistan was a systematic problem where the government was actively allowing a place for terrorists. Although I believe the Afgan war is a failure, OBL is just one guy who got messages from a courier. That is probably pre 1900s messaging technology. Is it justifiable we spent billion(s) of dollars of money we don't have have and the lives of hundreds of individuals on this guy. Why didn't we just offer a 500 million dollars tax free reward for this guy plus a get out of jail free card. Who cares about 72 virgins when you can probably get a 100 high class escorts and some blow. I think greed is one of the strongest human emotions. It just seems like the government wasted so many resources on one guy. It makes you wonder if the CIA is competent. I also found the Maya character completely unlikable. It seemed like the analyst who figured out that the brothers switched names should get just as much credit.
If only UBL had had some money...then maybe he would have spent more time partying and less time on jihad...
We had a $25 reward for info leading to his capture. Do you think someone would have stepped forward for $500 million but not $25 million? Why? Not sure what this has to do with anything. It's a movie.
I think that says more about you. If my father committed a crime, whether I would turn him in to the police or not would have nothing to do with any cash reward the police would offer.
Terrorism is the waging of an unwinnable war, it demands irrational risks for correspondingly irrational rewards. The perception of Bin Laden as a prophet, and the prospect of emulating him or currying his favor, motivates terrorists to act against their own practical interests and societal norms. Capturing him, or in this instance as he resisted, killing him, removes that motivating factor towards global terrorism. Don't allow your burgeoning anti-Western contrarianism to blind you from a basic appreciation for social order, tranquility and human decency.
Because it is about pride and greed, but for us. Even if it costs our own lives. Is that why you continue to support Japanese right wingers and their persisted pilgrimages to shrines housing war criminals?
Well if your dad was crazy mad man maybe that 500 million dollars would make you come to your senses.
Of all the things that have been done in the horrendous "War against Terror," killing Bin Laden was the best use of resources and money I've ever seen. Better than the war in Afghanistan, gazillion times better than Iraq, better than ridiculous Patriot Act and Homeland Security that has done jack squat, all of those trillions of dollars we've spent and all the freedom taken away from American citizens. Compared to everything above, killing Bin Laden regardless of the cost was the best bang for the buck we've ever spend on this god forbidden "war." And yes, Bin Laden deserved to die, killed in cold blood like the mass murderer he is. I don't care if it's for justice or out of vengence. It doesn't matter if treaties were violated. Killing him was both necessary from a practical standpoint and from a moral standpoint. It had to be done. And no cost is too much. Not in terms of money. Not in terms of any backlash from the other countries. To me, this isn't even a debatable. Most other things we've done since 9/11 may be debatable in their necessities. But not going after Bin Laden.
Osama Bin Ladin grew up rich and in luxury. He gave millions in support of Mujahadeen in the 1980's and voluntarily left his luxurious life to live with radicals in places like Afghanistan and the Sudan. He was an evil man but money and luxury weren't his vices.
