Osama Bin Laden is dead.

[vynsane]

so, i'm still very conflicted about this whole thing.

the 'burial at sea' thing is odd. i can't argue that they could have a hard time finding a country that would accept his body. that said, i really have my doubts that they couldn't get his body back to america in under 24 hours in order to bury it properly if they really wanted to follow islamic custom. that said, why are we worried about his religious beliefs, if we at the same time call him a 'monster'? a 'monster', who, by his actions, obviously doesn't respect the religious beliefs of others.

take another example: a right-wing christian zealot bombs an abortion clinic. killing others is SO anti-christian that, to me, this right-wing christian zealot doesn't deserve a christian burial.

the thing i don't get is why the muslim leaders who spoke up against the burial at sea are in any way trying to defend bin laden's rights of burial as a muslim - they should be distancing themselves from him as much as possible, denouncing the man as a heretic/lunatic and basically washing their hands of him - as much as any sane christian would do in the case of the right-wing christian zealot.

all this on top of the fact that i feel it's wrong to 'celebrate' his demise, that the pictures of people galavanting in the streets are the exact same thing as the FAKE pictures of people celebrating the attack on the twin towers, making us look like the bad guys, lusting for blood. for the people who are still so afraid (even though, as has been pointed out, the attack on the twin towers was the only successful attack perpetrated in the past decade, and prior to that only a handful of attacks succeeded), it's time to breathe a little sigh of relief and move on.

[anarky]

I can see the logic that they don't want his burial site to be a target or shrine. That makes sense. And that they want to stick to Muslim law to not piss off anyone who might be on the fence about extremism and could be pushed over the line by a perceived attack on Islam.

Agreed about the celebrating--it makes us look bad. Head of the organization or not, Al Qaeda still exists. It will exist for some time, and will try to attack us (maybe by putting bombs in condoms this time?). It may be less effective than before, but it's still around.

What bugs me is the quick DNA turnaround. I don't doubt this really was bin Laden. And I don't doubt that they did DNA testing, since it's a given that the feds have access to technology that's not common (or even known). What is bugging me is why would such a useful investigative tool not be in the hands of law enforcement nationwide? Worldwide, even? LA has something like a 15-year backlog on DNA evidence. If you can get results in 24 hours, that could put a serious dent on that backlog and get some dangerous assholes off the streets.

[Ran]

I can see the logic that they don't want his burial site to be a target or shrine. That makes sense. And that they want to stick to Muslim law to not piss off anyone who might be on the fence about extremism and could be pushed over the line by a perceived attack on Islam.

Agreed about the celebrating--it makes us look bad. Head of the organization or not, Al Qaeda still exists. It will exist for some time, and will try to attack us (maybe by putting bombs in condoms this time?). It may be less effective than before, but it's still around.

What bugs me is the quick DNA turnaround. I don't doubt this really was bin Laden. And I don't doubt that they did DNA testing, since it's a given that the feds have access to technology that's not common (or even known). What is bugging me is why would such a useful investigative tool not be in the hands of law enforcement nationwide? Worldwide, even? LA has something like a 15-year backlog on DNA evidence. If you can get results in 24 hours, that could put a serious dent on that backlog and get some dangerous assholes off the streets.

Agree with the first two. Don't know enough about DNA testing to comment about it.

[Rollo Tomassi]

so, i'm still very conflicted about this whole thing.

the 'burial at sea' thing is odd. i can't argue that they could have a hard time finding a country that would accept his body. that said, i really have my doubts that they couldn't get his body back to america in under 24 hours in order to bury it properly if they really wanted to follow islamic custom. that said, why are we worried about his religious beliefs, if we at the same time call him a 'monster'? a 'monster', who, by his actions, obviously doesn't respect the religious beliefs of others.

the thing i don't get is why the muslim leaders who spoke up against the burial at sea are in any way trying to defend bin laden's rights of burial as a muslim - they should be distancing themselves from him as much as possible, denouncing the man as a heretic/lunatic and basically washing their hands of him - as much as any sane christian would do in the case of the right-wing christian zealot.

That's kind of along the lines of what I was thinking. If, by the own precepts of their religion, there was no way his actions on this world would justify him getting into heaven, who gives a fuck if they bury him correctly or incorrectly? When he gets up to the Muslim equivalent of the Pearly Gates, they're gonna be all 'Uhmmm...yeah. No. A Pope who turned out to be a gay pornstar has a better chance of ascending than you do'