Bin Laden is alive and well

[Worm of Despite]

Conspiracies are for pederasts and UFO chasers. He's with the fishies, and I'm sure we'll see a photo of the body soon. USA, USA, USA!

[Hashi Lebwohl]

I thought he had died a couple of years ago due to poor health...but apparently I was incorrect.

What I suspect now is that he had been paying the Pakistani military to keep quiet about his location but wound up missing a payment or two, so they ratted him out. *shrug* We will never know the full story, of course.

[Ur Dead]

[Tjol]

That's too bad that he got the sea burial. Which ocean is he now polluting?

And I'll parrot what I've been hearing on the radio... either he is representative of Islam, in which case, we'll bury him to be respectful to muslims... or he isn't, in which case his body should be given the good ole drawing and quartering, because it's the treatment Osama deserves.

So for all apologists, is Osama a Muslim, or is he not? And, before you start going Geneva this and Geneva that, Osama did not represent a country or wear a uniform.

[[Syl]]

Who cares? They verified the identity and stopped short of bringing home a war trophy. It may have taken a few minutes to dispose of the body in a minimally respectful way in case someone felt disrespected, but in the end, he's just dumped in the sea (and still dead as a doornail) - a vast, undisclosed burial that precludes any kind of heroic martyr imagery or focal location. Good riddance, and give my regards to Davy Jones, I say.

[Tjol]

I'll picture Bin Laden covered in barnacles, anenomes, and eels hiding within the various skeletal cavities that remain.

[Vraith]

That's too bad that he got the sea burial. Which ocean is he now polluting?

And I'll parrot what I've been hearing on the radio... either he is representative of Islam, in which case, we'll bury him to be respectful to muslims... or he isn't, in which case his body should be given the good ole drawing and quartering, because it's the treatment Osama deserves.

So for all apologists, is Osama a Muslim, or is he not? And, before you start going Geneva this and Geneva that, Osama did not represent a country or wear a uniform.

There is absolutely zero upside to treating his corpse like that, and enormous downside.

And it's ludicrous to say because he is a Muslim himself [though a fair number of peeps, even Muslim peeps would say he really isn't one, or is a very bad example of one] that he is a "representative of Islam" as a whole.

[Tjol]

That's too bad that he got the sea burial. Which ocean is he now polluting?

And I'll parrot what I've been hearing on the radio... either he is representative of Islam, in which case, we'll bury him to be respectful to muslims... or he isn't, in which case his body should be given the good ole drawing and quartering, because it's the treatment Osama deserves.

So for all apologists, is Osama a Muslim, or is he not? And, before you start going Geneva this and Geneva that, Osama did not represent a country or wear a uniform.

There is absolutely zero upside to treating his corpse like that, and enormous downside.

And it's ludicrous to say because he is a Muslim himself [though a fair number of peeps, even Muslim peeps would say he really isn't one, or is a very bad example of one] that he is a "representative of Islam" as a whole.

There is only downside involved if it can be said such treatment of his body would equate to such treatment of Islam. If not, where's the downside?

Why shouldn't a quarter of Osama's remains be hoisted onto a pike at the four corners of Pakistan, if not for the fact that a great majority of muslims would take it as an insult to Islam rather than an insult to Osama?

If Islam would be insulted by such treatment of Osama, then they deserve to be insulted. If Islam won't (and shouldn't) be insulted by such treatment of Osama, why the political correctness?

edit: Keep in mind, Islam is only offended at poor treatment to fellow muslims. Western ideas of 'mutual respect' and the like don't apply for them. They weren't tearing their garments when Pearl or any other number of westerners were beheaded in front of cameras to screams of 'allahu akbar'. If they're offended by bad treatment of Osama, <expletive> them, because it means they count him as a brother, in full knowledge of the actions he has committed.

[I'm Murrin]

If it were about Islam, then to do such a thing with his corpse would be monumentally stupid.

If it were about Osama personally, then to do it would be utterly pointless - he's already dead, desecrating his corpse won't accomplish anything.

If it's about sending a message to Al Qaeda, then why is it somehow better to commit the kind of display that makes the US seem petty and barbaric?

[Tjol]

ooohhh I'd hate if Al Queda thought poorly of us, it was only just last week they had us over for bbq. Such a shame our long standing friendship with Al Queda has come to this crossroads... *sniff* *sniff*

If to do it would be truly pointless, then it wouldn't have hurt to have done it. That's the point.

[I'm Murrin]

Al Qaeda wouldn't be the only people watching. You'd aid in demonising yourselves to the entirety of the civilised world.

[Vraith]

There is only downside involved if it can be said such treatment of his body would equate to such treatment of Islam. If not, where's the downside?

Such treatment of a corpse isn't only an insult to Islam, it's an insult to human beings in general.

[[Syl]]

Exactly. We're not animals.

[Tjol]

We're not animals? Somebody better break the news to PETA. After all these years of trying to equivocate humanity and animals, this is going to be a disheartening revelation. Likewise, it'll be tough news for all libertines who have always claimed that all we are in fact, is a different kind of animal. Lastly, the moral relatavists, where will they be, if we are not in fact animals?

[Orlion]

I just think it odd that DNA testing was done quickly... not impossible, but odd... and they could still have some tissue for verification...

As far as trying to treat the body with respect, it was lost on part of the Islam world.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Why should we be concerned with treating the former bin Laden's body with the respect normally shown to Muslims? That man was no more a devout follower of Islam than I am, which another way of saying "not at all". At best, he and his organization present a very warped, narrow, and radicalized vision of Islam with which a majority of Muslims do not agree.

When you decide to treat human beings worse than dogs by killing innocent people, you deserve to be treated like a dog in return. Personally, I would have let the body sit in a morgue for a week and then broadcast the cremation live.

Naturally, the conspiracy theories are already wildly bouncing around teh interwebz. So far I have seen "he is still alive", "he was killed days ago", "this mission was timed to counterbalance the birth certificate", and "we knew where he was all along". China's "news" agency initially stated that one of the helicopters crashed and inadvertently caused his death but they later retracted that story (which was based on only one person's "eyewitness" account).

[Avatar]

There is only downside involved if it can be said such treatment of his body would equate to such treatment of Islam. If not, where's the downside?

Such treatment of a corpse isn't only an insult to Islam, it's an insult to human beings in general.

Agreed. Find all this posturing faintly distasteful myself. Congrats, he's apparently dead. Vengeance is yours. It's not bringing anybody back.

--A

[TheFallen]

There is only downside involved if it can be said such treatment of his body would equate to such treatment of Islam. If not, where's the downside?

Such treatment of a corpse isn't only an insult to Islam, it's an insult to human beings in general.

Agreed. Find all this posturing faintly distasteful myself. Congrats, he's apparently dead. Vengeance is yours. It's not bringing anybody back.
--A

100% agreed. Tjol's attitude might as well make him the posterboy for drumming up anti-US feeling.

Tjol, it's hard to see how your opinions differ that much from those that you execrate. Presumably, in Bin Laden's death, a blow has been struck against a great Satan... sounds familiar, anyone? Mindless jingoism at its most toe-curlingly disturbing.

[Loredoctor]

There is only downside involved if it can be said such treatment of his body would equate to such treatment of Islam. If not, where's the downside?

Such treatment of a corpse isn't only an insult to Islam, it's an insult to human beings in general.

Well said, Vraith.

[Zarathustra]

Such treatment of a corpse isn't only an insult to Islam, it's an insult to human beings in general.

But abortion isn't an insult to human beings in general, I suppose? What could it possibly matter how we treat a collection of dead human cells, if it doesn't matter how we treat a collection of live ones?

The only respect a human corpse deserves--since it truly is a bit of matter, nothing more--is in proportion to the respect that particular being who once manifested himself in that body, deserved. In this particular case: zero.

All our burial rituals are kind of pointless, when you think about it. What's so damn respectful about putting someone in the ground? Or burning them like trash? Why is it "humane" to respect a rotting corpse in the first place? In as much as we're going to respect rotting flesh, it's only a measure of our irrational inability to separate our emotions for the human mind from the flesh which once produced it. You might as well treat someone's bodily waste products with respect. Or their fingernail clippings.

No, our burial rituals are about getting rid of the rotting corpse to put it out of sight, out of mind, to deny this end that we'll all face. For our loved ones, it's understandable to feel this emotion of denial and turning away. But there is nothing disrespectful about confronting and even celebrating the end of this particular human being. His end is a good thing.

Think about the people who ended up as a wet bloody smear on the sidewalk after they jumped to their deaths. Or the bodies buried under the rubble after they were crushed under millions of pounds of concrete and steel. Those people will never get the respectful burial that Bin Laden--our #1 enemy received.

I think that not being able to understand people's perfectly natural emotions in a time like this is disrespecting their humanity.