I pretty symptomatically red repped everyone behaving like a tool on either side of the debate, so I have a pretty good idea of how well this post is going to go down.
This thread made me mildly sad. Everything involving Bin Laden usually does, if only because it has a tendency to confirm that the majority of the western world (both in US and the UK) don't really know who he was.
You see senior politicians going on television who clearly have no idea how to differentiate between such bodies and Al-Qaeda, The Taliban or The Mujahideen. They also have no idea how these bodies operate, what their histories are or who the key players are. I'm by no means an expert, my level of expertise being just high enough to identify when a commentator is full of shit, and this thread is a fucking fecal river at the moment.
Bin Laden is dead. Good? Personally I'm with Ricky here in that jumping up and down celebrating a person getting shot makes me uncomfortable, but I can fully appreciate someone being happy that he's gone. Hell, given what he did people have every right to dance in the streets if they so desire... I won't be joining you, but I wouldn't dare to judge you either.
That being said, what people do not have the right to do is take a massive shit on anyone who questions the relevancy of this development. For one, it makes you an hypocritical asshole, and for two, these people are right.
Bin Laden hasn't been particularly relevant since 2001. He's hardly been relevant at all since 2006. At this point he was nothing more than a symbolic figurehead to an organisation who get collectively wet at the thought of martyrdom. Him being upright and breathing has very little strategic baring.
There are far more relevant terrorists out there. Lots of them. The US has been exploding them with UAV Predator Drones for quite some time. It doesn't change very much, although far more than this latest turn of events will. The people you are fighting are not one organization with one man at the top. You're fighting a vast collection of different groups who cooperate for idealogical purposes. You want to bring them all down then killing everybody is just about your only course of action.
There are of course differing opinions on what I've just said, but the one I've presented above is perfectly valid, so for fucks sake stop acting like assholes to anyone who happens to share it.
It's good to be happy.
It's also good to be informed.
It's seldom good to behave like a jingoistic twat.
