Osama bin Laden dead (Official)

[anvi]

I feel badly for the woman used as a human shield.

Yeah, me too.  The al Qaeda legacy of cowardice is now complete, from mass homicide missions against unarmed civilians to hiding behind a woman during a raid. 

[anvi]

I feel badly for the woman used as a human shield.

Yeah, me too.  The al Qaeda legacy of cowardice is now complete, from mass homicide missions against unarmed civilians to hiding behind a woman during a raid.  

Was she harmed?  President Obama said no Americans or civilians were harmed, so I assume she wasn't, but there are undoubtedly others who know more than I do.

She was killed--total casualties reported as, I believe, three men, two of them Osama and his son, and one woman.  I don't know any details about the woman, though the fact that she was in the compound probably prompts U.S. officials to count her as a bin Laden sympathizer.  When the president said no civilian casualties, I assume he meant that, despite the fact that the bin Laden compound was in a civilian neighborhood, no one else in the neighborhood outside the compound died or was hurt.

[anvi]

Just a comment on to back up what's been said about former Pakistani president Musharraf.  He is an asshat.  Pakistani "sovereignty" is a joke, they ceded great portions of the frontier to the Taliban and al-Qaeda sympathizers, and they knew full damn well where bin Laden was holed up.  If we had given advanced notice to the Pakistani government before the raid, somebody in the ISS would have tipped off the people in the compound and it would have been empty by the time the special ops team got there.  And, besides, when the raid went down, the Abadabad police and ISS units present wisely did not interfere.  Those guys in Islamabad are sandwiched between hostile Talibani and Afghan forces on one side and relatively hostile India on the other, and they're quite frankly not in a position to do lots of bitching.  By making that dumb-ass comment, Musharraf is playing to the nutbags in Pakistan, aforementioned asshat that he is.

[anvi]

For those who don't read German, the headlines of the article posted above read:

"Bin Laden was shot in cold blood."
New, weighty accusations against U.S. soldiers.

"There was no standoff."
Pictures of the Bloody Victims
U.S. Senator: Bin Laden wanted to grab a weapon.

The article goes on to recount Pakistani charges that no one inside the compound was armed except one of the curriers who fired shots from a "guesthouse."  It claims that there was no 40-minute shootout.  It also recounts U.S. responses to the effect that, when the Seal unit entered the compound, bin Laden was trying to reach for a weapon and the U.S. soldiers decided "to take no risks."  

What I have seen from the German press in the last few days has been quite scathing; they have chastised Merkel for expressing "joy" at bin Laden's death, and argued that bin Laden's burial at sea was in fact not respectful or observant of Islamic burial practices, but was merely done in "revenge."  One article I read even pointed out that Germany was a more Christian nation than the U.S., and the sheer vengefulness shown by the U.S. demonstrates just how different American and German societies are!

Just conveying the stuff in the articles and some of the other things I've seen in German papers recently for those who may be interested.

[anvi]

Franzl,
I completely agree.

[anvi]

Jonathan,

This is the piece I primarily had in mind in my previous post.

http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/0,1518,760151,00.html

[anvi]

Just as an aside, I don't really get too worked up that bin Laden was not buried according to strict observance of Muslim practices.  He may have recited the shahada, but he and his organization intentionally targeted unarmed civilians and killed many Muslims in their numerous attacks.  I certainly don't mean to be insensitive to Islamic traditions, and his actions don't excuse things that anyone else does by any means.  But that guy was a mass-murderer, and, to my mind, he didn't deserve the honor in the first place. 

[anvi]

I don't want to be too hard on the Germans.  Sometimes, I find their complaints about the U.S. legit.  I lived there for the first time in the mid-'90's, and there was lots of criticism of the U.S. in the country even then, and certainly during the Cold War.  But the criticism always came mixed with some gratitude on the part of older generations and with great gravitation toward American pop culture among the younger.  

I've always found that, when living in the U.S., I am often quite critical of our politics and society and so forth, but when I live overseas, when I see the country is not being understood, I feel compelled to defend it.  I think it's a common sentiment among anyone who transitions to another country, because I've had lots of friends from other countries now living in the U.S. say they experience the same thing.

In the end, it's really hard for people to understand one another.  I think that's where a lot of human conflicts come from in the first place.  Anyway, despite the stuff written in these articles, I miss Germany often; I look forward to a chance to visit there again.

[anvi]

Franzl,
Yes, I only lived in Germany for two years, and not all at once, but I feel much as you to.  Actually, my parents were first generation Americans and they spoke German at home when growing up, and had to go to a North Dakota rural school to learn English.  So, when I first went to Germany in '94, I was pretty fluent in the language, had grown up eating German food my mom made, still had relatives in Germany ect. ect., so I fully expected to meld in well with the culture...and found, of course, that I often didn't.  It turns out that one's upbringing, the culture one grows up in, is  very formative.  But at the same time, while I often didn't agree with the German perspective, there were many things I found I did agree with, and I really learned a very, very great deal when there.  It is a strange experience living in another country, but I find it also helped me grow in many ways I wouldn't have otherwise, so I'm most grateful I had the chance.

It's also important to remember that hardly all Germans will agree with everything written in these pieces.  No matter where one lives, people disagree, and that's perfectly fine, it's what democracy is about.

So, in the meantime Franzl, you're living in a wonderful country. 
So, Prost!

[anvi]

Davy Jones beat me to it again.  Damnit. 

[anvi]

Jonathan,

This is the piece I primarily had in mind in my previous post.

http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/0,1518,760151,00.html

Not surprising that it's Spiegel, actually. Comforting actually that it is from them.

Its polemics aside, I actually think that this SPIEGEL article makes some legitimate points. Nothing particularly "outragous" here.

There were a couple of paragraphs in the Speigel piece, which I agree made a few thoughtful points, that I nonetheless found rather self-righteous and self-serving, as well as based on lots of assumptions of fact, and with a little nab at Judaism thrown in.  The implications of the argument, it seems to me, are that the U.S. really has no business thinking of itself as a "Christian civilization" and that it is the state ideology and the state enshrinement of capital punishment that motivated the overblown demonstrations in the streets.  As far as the critique of what went on in the streets, well, I do think there is room for criticism there, but the same criticism could be leveled against celebrations of Israeli and American civilian deaths in some places. But that's just my impression, you all are welcome judge for yourselves.

"Viel bildet sich der christlich geprägte Westen ein auf seine zivilisatorische Überlegenheit den islamischen Ländern gegenüber. Doch das, was gerade in den USA geschieht, vermittelt einen anderen Eindruck. Wenn US-Amerikaner den Tod Bin Ladens mit Tänzen und Sprechchören feiern, graust es den hiesigen Betrachter - der Jubel wirkt befremdlich, weil er uns zeigt, dass die US-Gesellschaft uns fremder ist, als es scheinen mag.  'In God we trust' steht auf jeder US-Dollar-Note, doch dieser Gott ist nicht der verzeihende, neutestamentarische Gott - sondern der rachsüchtige aus dem Alten Testament. Hierzulande gilt Resozialisierung als Ziel von staatlicher Strafe - in den USA ist es die Vergeltung, bis hin zur Todesstrafe.    Dass die Todesstrafe, wie bei Bin Laden, auch ohne Prozess verhängt werden darf, wenn nur das Verbrechen und der Zorn darüber groß genug sind, und dass ihr Vollzug euphorisch gefeiert wird, belegt, wie tief die "Auge um Auge"-Ideologie in der US-amerikanischen Gesellschaft verwurzelt ist. Die Rachsucht mag mächtig sein - moralisch überlegen ist sie nicht.

"The Christian West bases a great deal on the sefl-conceit that it is superior as a civilization to Islamic countries.  However, what is happening in the U.S. now leaves a different impression.  When American citizens celebrate the death of bin Laden with dancing and chanting, it fills the local onlooker with dread--the jubilation estranges, because it shows us that American society is more distant from us than it may appear.  'In God We Trust" is on every U.S. dollar, but this is not the forgiving God of the New Testament, but rather the vengeful God of the Old Testament.  In this country, re-socialization is the aim of government punishment--in the U.S., (the aim) is retribution, all the way up to capital punishment.  Capital punishment, particularly when it is accompanied by no (legal) process as in the case of bin Laden, and when criminality and rage suffice to invoke it, and when in its implementation it is euphorically celebrated, belies how deeply the "eye for an eye" ideology is rooted in American society.  The quest for revenge may be powerful, but it is not morally estimable."