Osama Bin Laden killed by US forces
Al-Qaeda leader killed after a “firefight” in Pakistan, Barack Obama announces.
By George Eaton Published 02 May 2011 8:26
Just a few months before the tenth anniversary of the 11 September 2001 attacks, Osama Bin Laden has been killed by US forces. In his statement to the nation (at 11.30pm Eastern Time), Barack Obama said the al-Qaeda leader was killed last night in a "targeted operation" in Abbottabad, north-east of Islamabad.
It's a dramatic boost for Obama's presidency and will likely increase his chances of re-election in 2012. During the 2008 election campaign, he memorably declared: "We will kill Osama Bin Laden." He has now done so.
Since the news of Bin Laden's death, crowds have gathered outside the White House and in Times Square, singing "The Star Spangled Banner" and waving American flags. Obama's demagogic opponents, who forced him to produce his birth certificate last week, look irrelevant on a day like today.
But what Bin Laden's death does not mean is "the end of al-Qaeda", or anything like it. The organisation was not dependent on Bin Laden, who had long been its symbolic rather than active head. His death may yet mark a turning point for US foreign policy, but Bin Laden's followers, who have now acquired a martyr, are likely to seek revenge.
In the meantime, attention is likely to focus on Pakistan. That Bin Laden was found in a secure mansion, within a mile of the military academy known as "Pakistan's Sandhurst", will raise more questions over the relationship between that country's security forces and al-Qaeda.
UPDATE: Bin Laden sleeps with the fishes. A US official has confirmed that the al-Qaeda leader was buried at sea, presumably to avoid his grave becoming a shrine for sympathisers. The US reportedly offered to send the body to Saudi Arabia, his country of birth, but the Saudis refused to take it.
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44 comments
Luddite
Don't and having seen your previous comments, you won't let these halfwits get you down!
“Rationality belongs to the cool observer. But because of the stupidity of the average man, he follows not reason, but faith. And this naive faith requires necessary illusion, and emotionally potent oversimplifications, which are provided by the myth-maker to keep the ordinary person on course. It’s not the case, as the naive might think, that indoctrination is inconsistent with democracy. Rather, it is the essence of democracy."
-Reinhold Niebuhr
PromRM
02 May 2011 at 13:43 It was wrong to bury him at sea. That PIG!! should have been paraded through the streets of Manhattan hanging in a cage.
Luddite, why didn't you offer the Americans your cage?
Pakistan is the epicentre of Islamic terrorism. Let's never forget. ALL!! the mass-murders of 7/7 where of Pakistani origin.
matthew fox you are a sad little fucking wankers
How rattled your cage Luddite?
It's 'HAVE I' you retard.
Matthew Fox! How dare you cloud our rational political debate with your TYPO!
I spit on you.
Is this a saatisfactory resolution to the tale? Bin Laden's death I mean.
Temper Temper Luddite, is that a bite my dim-witted friend?
silly boys,thers no daout the world is a safer better place without such a religus FOOL
"I want justice," Bush said. "There's an old poster out West that said, 'Wanted, dead or alive'."
Would I sound like a conspiracy nutter if I said there was something a bit fishy about the whole scenario?
If you read the whole story there are definately some porkies being told somewhere.
Is there an election in the US in the next couple of months?
Is OBL bonking 72 virgins in the heavenly cathouse? May he he be joined ASAP by all other terrorist Islamist scum like those in Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas.
The moral justification here seems to rely on the following argument. If someone kills numerable innocent civilians, that someone provides a moral justification for their own murder. http://www.trainingforcnacertification.org/cna-training-in-florida/
He will not be bonking anyone, and if there is a hereafter, he will be roasting in hell!!
After almost 10yrs of hiden and strugle. Justice has prevail. Kudos to Americans for not relent.
This is the best news for a long time. Now that Bin Laden is dead, shot dead and not taken alive, now at last we can bury Al Queda for good. There may be some activity from them in retaliation, but his demise signals the demise of that facist Islamic tendancy throughout the world.
But Obama and his fellow Americans must be careful not to be triumphant. This is the removal of an evil man but the evil in this world will spring up elsewhere in another guise.
The fact that the Pakistan Govt was not told tells a lot about where previous leaks were and previous operations failed. Well done to the Security Services, but don't be triumphant, the clean up operations begins now.
Btw, if I was an American, I would vote Obama today. No doubts about it. You cannot win a chess game without killing the king. Bush missed that with his Saudi / Pakistani friends
Bush and Blair are still free?
Mustapha Jihad and the boys will be looking for revenge.
Obama wins next American election. F*** another stupid 4 years.
Found in 'Pakistan' now there's a surprise.
Killed in a country which was not at war with the US. Isn't this a summary execution and therefore illegal?
Today I say a big Sorry to Obama for doubting his intelligence and his identity, earlier on.
The man knows what he is doing. Count me in as big fan of Obama.
Rejoice at a death and mourn at a birth... your own. !
Satan has the whole world deceived.
Oh and swatantra nandanwar, Al Queda is pretty much an invention of western media, I'm sure that middle eastern freedom fighters would have no idea what the term means, it's prevailence in the west isn't down to Bin Laden, the term will stick around as long as it sell papers and adds weight to arguments.
@PeteyMcPeterson: Well done for having the courage to say it out loud. Of course something's f**king fishy. No word for almost a decade - he denied resposibility for 9/11 anyway - all videos of him clearly, err...weren't him.
The guy's been dead for years.
Cui bono?
Oh cool. So it's over then? All the troops can go home, no more children need die in Iraq or Afghanistan?
Am I cynical to suggest this is a perfect excuse to withdraw some troops to be ready to invade Lybia?
What's more appalling though is the scenes of celebration in America. The US officially has no moral high ground over those it percieves to be it's enemies. Perhaps this (supposed) death is really announcing the death of the US as the world loses respect and turns it's back on her? One can only hope.
This event undermines the Iraq War, instead of going after Bin Laden, Bush and the Right where more interested in getting even with Saddam.
PeteyMcPeterson
02 May 2011 at 10:11. Yes you are a conspiracy fruit-cake. I see the usual extreme left-wing contributors are mourning the death of another mass-murdering icon.
PromRM
02 May 2011 at 09:17 Isn't organising and financing mass-murder also illegal, or do we frequent a parallel universe.
matthew fox
02 May 2011 at 10:45 No one in interested in Iraq anymore, please move on. You are always playing catch-up
As is the case with all these monsters, living in a walled compound, a villa in luxury, with his 6(?) wives and children whilst sending young innocent brainwashed children to their deaths in suicide bombings, but not risking his own, this man was evil personified.
Instead of waging war against his own corrupt Saudi Regime, with which he had issue, he decided to turn the world updside down and wage war on the innocents in this world.
Lets also hope America learns from this tragic episode and nightmare and reassesses it foreign policies and finds out who its real friends are and works for real liberty and equality and peace, otherwise God will not bless America.
Reminds me of 'the old man of the mountain', Rashid ad-Din Sinan, who apparently threatened the lives of Kings and Princes during the Crusades. After his passing, the Crusades went on and on to no avail.
Seems cyberpunkery is claiming credit for locating Bin Laden. We thought it was some opportunist with a cell phone who had provided the visual evidence.
We'll never know whether Obama held back his special forces until the 'birthing' dilemma had been resolved and then let them off the leash as the clincher for 2014.
Perfect Timing!
scampy
02 May 2011 at 08:56
Bush and Blair are still free?
'Mustapha Jihad and the boys will be looking for revenge' That's reads like a comedy script.
Apologies. Re-election campaign has 2012 as target date. Sorry, Donald!
Clunk!
Of course it is good that Bin Laden is dead and that it sends a strong message to the remaining al-Qaeda network - but there is large amount of hypocrisy. The truth is that the US and UK killed significantly more civilians, in Afghanistan, in the subsequent reprisal, than al-Qaeda did in the US in 2001.
A successful strike on Bliar would really,really complete a memorable, momentous week.
usual mongs on here conspiracy theories or going on about Blair and Bush as war criminals, what guff.
As Maggie said, just rejoice at the news! Fucker had it coming, I just wish he had been hung like the common criminal that he was.
With a bit of luck - Gaddaffi is next!
Yea Gaddafi has already been hit hard. It's like Harry Cooper's soul is taking revenge on the bad boys.
Yeah, man was an ass. Crackpot religous fritcake. I would argue that Blair is just as bad, I don't see how anyone could argue otherwise.
Luddite, you think I am mourning him? You think I am left wing? Your response seems to be typical cowboy, hollywood, black and white oversimplified us versus then nonsense. If you want to carry on shouting "we're number one" and not think that maybe some politician somewhere would try and work his death to his advantage, you are naiive. I know without a shadow of a doubt that the media will sometimes alter little facts for it's own end (I've had stories written about me, guess how much was fact), and if you try and find out anything about it, you'll see that there is definately some kind of alteration somewhere along the line, it might just be to make a lightly jucier story, I'm assuming nothing.
Mouring a mass murderer? What an interesting world it must be inside your tiny mind
Luddite,
The mass murder of Iraqi and Afghani citizens will not receive any form of justice. That aside, my point remains- he did not face trial but was executed by US forces. This did not take place in a war zone. We cannot change the standards of international law because an American president told us he was guilty. The burden of proof (innocent until proven guilty) is the basis of Western law and values- it is now a joke. Even we all agree we think he was a mass murderer, only a court can decide this. Wake up and smell the death of our core values!!!!
Quintessential example of western double standards.
The idea that the death of Osama Bin Laden is morally acceptable since he was allegedly behind the Sept 11 attacks - not that I or many others have seen the evidence - seems spurious to say the least. The moral justification here seems to rely on the following argument. If someone kills numerable innocent civilians, that someone provides a moral justification for their own murder.
According to such an argument to kill president Bush would would be morally justifiable, since it was his executive orders that mandated both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, in which a far greater number of innocent civilians were killed.
We don't need to defend the moral reprehensibility of Osama's actions; what we do need to do is to resolve the moral jeopardy the west has placed itself in, in the last decade.
Either we stand against killing in the name of peace and persuasion, and we find alternative non-militaristic means to engage non-agreed states, or we continue to endorse violence, and punitive action, and continue to provide sufficient justification for the revenge attacks, now inevitable, by Osama Bin Laden's followers and sympathisers.
The west needs to sort out its duplicitous moral values, before they posture on the global stage about what is right, wrong, or what is or isn't step forward.
However, I see no evidence of Osama's death. No documentation, photographic evidence, the only circumstantial evidence is that Osama had not issued a video press release, thus precluding the possibility he has been killed.
How gullible are we prepared to be? America says they've killed Obama, and buried him at sea. They did not preserve or take evidence of his death, since they did not want to make him a martyr? But he is a martyr, and has been since the very day that America waged a personal war on him.
Osama is not symbol that justifies wanton killing, since there are no defensible grounds on which such killing could be defended, but he is symbol of a maverick challenging western hegemony and hypocrisy, something that has kept the majority of the worlds population, subjugated and impoverished.
Poor Luddite, the weasel who thought Osborne was still on Budget One, yes he is that slow.