Osama Bin Laden Killed

[ITALIANO]

Damien, there may be times I'm quite pissed at you and some of your (mostly) movie related views (then again, you ARE your view, in the context of whatever connection we have), and then a debate like this comes along and my love for you is totally and unconditionally rejuvenated.

I find him sexy, too.

[Uri]

Damien, there may be times I'm quite pissed at you and some of your (mostly) movie related views (then again, you ARE your views, in the context of whatever connection we have), and then a debate like this comes along and my love for you is totally and unconditionally rejuvenated.

Anyway, since I'm an early-to-bed-early-to-rise kind of person, I usually don't hang around here after early afternoon, eastern time. You were all rather agitated, weren't you. I found my self to be totally unexcited by this all Bin Laden spectacle – and this is what it was, a flashy, PR oriented operation which had no real (you know, as in the original "reality", that harsh, grey, non photogenic entity) significance. But rummaging here, I feel compelled to add some bits of my own, although I'm sure one of those infinite monkeys out there had already typed them all on one of those infinite typewriters at any given moment.

First – Marco and Reza. Leave out the conspiracies stuff. Focusing on the validity of the details is dragging the debate down. It's not about the details (which, anyway, seem to be rather simple and basically non challenged) but all about the way these facts are being conceived by people. Just to illustrate my point – describing that woman who was killed there as being used as a human shield denies her of any kind of self awareness or will – the possibility that a woman can choose to, or being content in being part of the existence Bin Laden and his set led the way the men around him did, including the notion that protecting him or his son is worth scarifying one's life is so foreign to us westerners (myself included) we either accept the way this fact is being presented by the American administration or question its factual validity.

For this global war is all about concepts. It's fascinating to see how people are so captivated by some basic conventions and axioms they believe to be universal – trying to shape this event in a way which follows some accepted legalistic norms only enhance the absurdity of the American desperate if rather genuinely sincere need to be in a safe position they name moral superiority. Off course, the right, legal way was for the Americans to hermetically surround the compound and then call the Pakistani authorities to charge in and arrest the people in it. This is the proper way the so called invited forces of a foreign state are supposed to act in an allied country. But I guess it's against The Constitution not to follow the Lone Ranger code of conduct. (I didn't have to say which country's constitution I was referring to, did I?)

As for me, I always found the way the Chauchescus were demised to be far more morally acceptable than the way Saddam Hussein, for example, ended his life. Human conflicts are ugly. Pretending and presenting them as civilized – that is the actions taken by OUR side – are intellectually and morally attempts which too often blind us to the real nature of events and make it easy for such conflicts to happily flourish. Yesterday's lethal little incident was just another one in an endless chain of such events. It was and will be made into a "significant" one by all the parties, whether they saw that Bin Laden guy as a divinity or as an antichrist, and it will be used in rather the same way by all to enhance whatever view they have.

And yes, the significance of historical events is being determinated by the way they fit into what is almost always a biased narrative. The 9/11 tragic events were to any other political conflict oriented tragedies what the Royal Wedding was to, well, weddings. It was definitely the most spectacular one. And the most photogenic one as well as photographed. And most importantly it happened to people whose existence is, western civilization wise therefore global wise, more valid. American stock brokers are conceptually less anonymous than peasants working in a rice field bombarded by napalm. They are more important. They are not faceless the way the majority of victims usually are, the way the fate of European tourists caught in a Tsunami are far more appealing than that of the Indonesian maid serving them. Therefore the person who's being seen as responsible for denying these people their God given right to indulge in their privileged way of life must be seen a subhuman monster the way an American president would never be, regardless of his actions.

As for the way innocence is being attributed to people killed in such events. The trade center was not a hospital. It was not a school. It was not a temple. It was one of the most definitive emblems of the American culture and what is conceived as the epitome of this culture, Capitalism. For those who were behind the attack as well as the many who share their point of view of the way power and resources are distributed in our world, the people in these towers, many of them willingly being part of the capitalistic system, were as innocence (if not less so) than the people of Dresden or Hiroshima. Their lives were part of the collateral price which must be paid on route for what Bin Laden and his allies see as a better world, the way many people before them lost their lives happening to be on other such routes.

Now – having a gun pointed at my head, having to choose between a universe shaped in Bin Laden's image or one reflecting Bush agenda I would go for the latter one. In a heartbeat. But I don't necessarily confused being spoiled with being morally right.



Edited By Uri on 1304421493

[Damien]

At least I can take solace in that most omy friends, my family and I are.

I want to be optimistic, Damien. I'm sure that there ARE Americans like you and your friends and family - many, even, probably, though of course a minority.

I was talking to a good friend of mine -- a lesbian documentary filmmaker -- today and, bemoaning the jingoistic reaction by most Americans at Bin-Laden's death -- we were just marveling at how everyone in our circle always seems to get things right as if by instinct: the war against Afghanistan, the war on the Iraqi people, the use of torture, etc. even though we're usually in a tiny minority while most people blindly accept what the Bushes and Obamas sell them. Almost everyone I am close to was appalled at the thought of waging war in Afghanistan, and yet only one -- ONE -- member of Congress out of 435 voted against it. Sheryl Lee is an American hero, and at the time I wrote her an appreciative letter.

It's one thing when the right wing supports American imperialism. It's dispiriting when supposed liberals do the same.

[ITALIANO]

But I was also 21 at the time and staunchly conservative.

You still are, my dear friend. By European standards, you are extremely conservative. Re-read your posts in this thread and you will realize that, too.

I don't give a shit if I would be considered a conservative in Europe. Over here, in the United States, I'm considered a moderate (my political affiliation is Libertarian). Anyway, I'd rather be a "staunch conservative" by European standards than the condescending, pseudo-intellectual, socialist, Anti-American Eurotrash you appear to be. I'm sorry I'm not as "deep" or "enlightened" as you are, but I'm not a fucking simpleton either.

... And "socialist", I'm afraid, is the worst of these insults according to you.

But be calm. Just keep being a good American as you have always safely been - moderate or conservative or whatever - in all these 28 years. Nothing will change, don't worry. Don't have doubts, keep repeating that you are always right and that your country is always right. It helps, I'm sure.

[MovieWes]

But I was also 21 at the time and staunchly conservative.

You still are, my dear friend. By European standards, you are extremely conservative. Re-read your posts in this thread and you will realize that, too.

I don't give a shit if I would be considered a conservative in Europe. Over here, in the United States, I'm considered a moderate (my political affiliation is Libertarian). Anyway, I'd rather be a "staunch conservative" by European standards than the condescending, pseudo-intellectual, socialist, Anti-American Eurotrash you appear to be. I'm sorry I'm not as "deep" or "enlightened" as you are, but I'm not a fucking simpleton either.

[ITALIANO]

But I was also 21 at the time and staunchly conservative.

You still are, my dear friend. By European standards, you are extremely conservative. Re-read your posts in this thread and you will realize that, too.

[ITALIANO]

At least I can take solace in that most omy friends, my family and I are.

I want to be optimistic, Damien. I'm sure that there ARE Americans like you and your friends and family - many, even, probably, though of course a minority. Most Americans are certainly like Sonic Youth, Mister Tee, flipp and Moviewes, and I'm not judging them now - it's just a fact that I, we, have to accept. The fact that they were so shocked by my simple, even banal truths - truths that in Europe would be easily understood and accepted - shows how protected Americans generally are by anything which might question their way of life, and of thinking. You feel how scared they are by different perspectives - it's as if their world would crumble, and it makes them obviously unconfortable. Jokes, a la Sabin, are just another way of concealing panic - nicer, I admit it, but just an intelligent device.

For such people, an admittedly terrible event like September 11 isn't terrifying only because of its violence and all those deaths - which would be completely understandable. It's even more terrifying for its symbolic meaning - because it shows that "we" are weak, unloved, and that sooner or later "we" all pay for our mistakes (and they know that America makes mistakes) - even unfairly so, sometimes. It's deeply rooted in the American psyche, this fear, but it's there, and it's interesting.

The fact that the Twin Towers attack was so showy, just like in an American movie, made it more humiliating - they HAD to react in the same muscular way and they did, as senselessly as Bin Laden had done, in Iraq - killing even more innocent people than those who died on September, 11.

But like in any (bad) American movie, the "bad guy" had to be destroyed. The parties, the fireworks, the collective sigh of relief that we saw yesterday, and that have been desperately defended here by Sonic Youth and company, are the obvious emotional reaction NOT to the right outrage for those poor 3000 victims - but to that terrible inner fear. They MUST believe that they are right and strong, they must believe that any opponent has to and will be destroyed, that any enemy - real, as in Bin Laden's case, or even invented - will lose, that "our President will defend us".

And that's why Americans NEED enemies. Because having enemies, big ones like Bin Laden or little ones like Italiano, enemies from the outside, make them feel united, make them forget the thousand problems of a society which is in a deep crisis (not only an economical crises). If enemies don't exist, they will create them.

The fireworks will be forgotten tomorrow, and Americans will have to face truth once again - not only the truth about terrorism, which will be as strong as ever and maybe stronger, but what's even worse and more scary, the truth about themselves.

These people, people like Sonic Youth and company, may be very nice when they discuss Best Supporting Actress or things like that - but the real face, the face of terror when confronted with truth, is always there, and it is, I think, dangerous not only for the world, but for America itself - the same America that they so proudly "love", but only if it gives them the illusions they desperately cling to.

I may actually like America more than they do. Because I can see - and accept - its weakness and its mistakes.

[ITALIANO]

(ITALIANO @ May 02 2011,6:07)

(MovieWes @ May 02 2011,5:52)

Too many enemies, I guess. And this is paranoia, my friends.

Last I heard, Iraq is the most unpopular war American since Vietnam. Someone, please correct me if I'm wrong...
Last you heard, maybe. But before I didn't see all those people, including you, marching in the streets against that war.

I did it, in Rome. I didn't see any of you.

I did. And so did countless friends of mine. There were scores of protests of the past decade, Marco. A lot of them didn't make the news. Not fair.

Well, no, sorry - the majority of Americans was completely indifferent if not supportive of the war, and this is a fact.

And the very fact that you think that only Fox or assholes should wonder about the corpse, Sabin... well, let's just say that joy made you blind, too.

[ITALIANO]

A human being who often times loses track of those decades, centuries sometimes, of said grief and is simply glad the man who attacked their city and killed their friends is dead.

And it's a mistake. Emotional and everything, but still a mistake. We are well educated people, we go to university, we read books - EVEN not to lose track of those decades, centuries. It's our duty, as intellectuals first of all (a word which may sound foreign to people like Sonic Youth) to see the difference between history and a football match or an Oscar night.

[Big Magilla]

The news story changes by the hour. Now there are reporters in the town where it happened. There are pictures now, too, of the bloody bed in which Bin Laden died after using a woman as a shield. Not sure if she was the one who was killed or one who got away. It was one of his wives who first identified him as having been killed.

The entire operation took 40 minutes. Bin Laden was killed in the last ten.

[MovieWes]

It was hugely popular for a while, and supported by the vast majority of Americans, including you, Wes. It was only when it dragged on and was seen to be the folly that those of us against it predicted it would be did the you sheep turn against it.

I can remember being at a candlelight vigil in Rockefeller Center protesting Bush's inevitable war on the Iraqi people. A busload of tourists stopped next to us at a red light, booed and screamed epithets, including that old favorite, "Why do you hate America?"

I never denied that I at one time supported the war. But I was also 21 at the time and staunchly conservative. I wouldn't exactly describe myself as a liberal now, but I'm definitely a lot more moderate compared to the way I was back then. I'm not even a Republican anymore. So I don't think it's quite fair to call me out on opinions I held 7 years ago considering that the maturity level of a sophomore in college and a man in his late 20s can be very different as one experiences life and gains more perspective. I was still very much a teenager, at least as far as my mentality and maturity level went, back then.

[dws1982]

And yes, anyone who even remotely believes that Bin Laden would have ever allowed himself to be taken alive is probably the biggest idiot of all.

The specific mission was to kill him. Not to capture him, but to take him out.

Right, I realize that, but even if the mission had been to capture him, does anyone believe that he would've ever, under any circumstances, surrendered and allowed himself to be taken? Italiano keeps saying that he should've been taken alive. (I actually don't disagree.) But he was never, ever going to be, even if the military operation had been to go in like police officers and arrest him as if her were just some common thief. I don't think it's wrong of Italiano to say that he wishes Bin Laden could've been taken alive. I just think the idea that he ever would've been taken alive is seriously mistaken. It's like expecting to see a five year-old knock the ball over the fence at a T-Ball game.



Edited By dws1982 on 1304392834

[Damien]

if Osama Bin Laden was this monster etc, why did most American approve of the war against Iraq? Bin Laden wasn't Iraqi, didnt live in Iraq, etc... So why did Americans cheered when thousands of Iraqi civilians were murdered?

Too many enemies, I guess. And this is paranoia, my friends.

Last I heard, Iraq is the most unpopular war American since Vietnam. Someone, please correct me if I'm wrong...

It was hugely popular for a while, and supported by the vast majority of Americans, including you, Wes. It was only when it dragged on and was seen to be the folly that those of us against it predicted it would be did the you sheep turn against it.

I can remember being at a candlelight vigil in Rockefeller Center protesting Bush's inevitable war on the Iraqi people. A busload of tourists stopped next to us at a red light, booed and screamed epithets, including that old favorite, "Why do you hate America?"

[Damien]

We all know that he could have been taken alive.

Assumes facts not in evidence. I guess you just know it in your "gut". (Tell us, class: what American president does that sound like?)

I get the feeling some here would have considered the V-J Day celebration gauche.

The guy issued a declaration of war against America 13 years ago. He's responsible for ordering many American deaths -- not just the 9/11 attacks, but the USS Cole. Americans are happy the rat-bastard is dead. It takes a special purity to get all uptight about that.

Bo, the V-J celebrations were expressing jubilation for the end of a war. These people were hooting it up for the death of one man, the way some people used to make celebratory parties and picnics for lynchings,

I'm not mourning the man, of course, I'm just saying that a death shouldn't be a feel good event, it should be treated serious and soberly, and it can be accomanied by a sense of both relief and a feeling that an evil individual has been eradicated.

[Damien]

And yes, anyone who even remotely believes that Bin Laden would have ever allowed himself to be taken alive is probably the biggest idiot of all.

The specific mission was to kill him. Not to capture him, but to take him out.