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After weeks of not posting due to various reasons, I have returned to post once again. Note that in the future, I will avoid not posting if at all possible. This week’s topic is right in the title; the culmination of American efforts to find and end Osama Bin Laden. The reason I address this is not because I supported the man, or Al-Qaeda, but rather because of the ethical issues our mission and treatment of said mission bring about. This week's quote is from current president of the United States Barack Hussein Obama, after Bin Laden had been killed. It holds no significance separate from this post, but I thought it would be good to include.
Now on to the topic at hand. Osama Bin Laden was not a good person. This is undeniable; his actions over the years allowed terrorism to grow and many people to die without reason. However, we also murdered him. Yes, I know that he has killed many. But we can't allow our nation to pull stuff like this. Even after World War 2 ended and Nazi leaders were captured, we didn't kill them immediately. They were put on trial for their horrendous crimes first. They got the death sentence, but we were still willing to give them the rights of due process before acting against them. The Nazis killed far more than Bin Laden ever did, and yet we shot him on sight. While I would not have opposed the death sentence for him, I do believe he deserved his right to a fair trial before having his life taken. This is what makes us different from other nations, and if we wish to declare our superiority or feel good about ourselves as a nation, we must use this as evidence. By extinguishing Osama before he had a chance to trial by jury, we eliminate the possibility of ever redeeming ourselves of our so-called greatness. Michael Moore made this point a while ago, and I agree with it in full (http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/some-final-thoughts-on-death-of-osama-bin-laden).
But many still argue that it was a just cause, due to the way Bin Laden struck against the U.S. without provocation. This isn't entirely untrue, but unfortunately this is another instance of us bringing terrible things upon ourselves. It starts in the early 1980's, when we backed and trained the Taliban against the pro-Soviet government in Afghanistan. While it served our interest of beating communism then (an unjust cause, I might add), the Taliban would later become the group that would shelter and train Al-Qaeda. We did another disservice to ourselves in the Iran-Iraq War when we backed both sides as part of double containment. When Iran-Contra was exposed, Iraq and Iran found out we backed both of them in order to destroy them both. This created serious hatred for the U.S. Afghanistan watched this, as the Taliban and Al-Qaeda growled. Now they were trained, armed, and had a common enemy. Then Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, and they watched as the U.S. and coalition western forces trounced Saddam Hussein. Their drive against America was fueled. In 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed, with Bin Laden responsible. No surprise there. But everything culminated starting in 2000 and ending in 2001. During this short period, the Bush government provided aid to Afghanistan, unaware of what was going on. And then, the September 11 bombings occurred. We were devastated and afraid, and finally saw how the Taliban worked. So we invaded Afghanistan and crushed them, forcing Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden to flee. But the damage had been done at this point. We have given weapons and training to our enemies, and then given them reasons to hate us and even attack us. So while the terrorist strikes against the U.S. came from Osama, it's not like we didn't help push him to it.
But some would still say that capture was impossible, and therefore killing Osama was the only viable option beyond allowing him to flee. Bullcrap. We had him surrounded by highly trained men with strong weaponry. We mowed down the guards, and had him ready to surrender. But the "shoot first, ask questions later" motto apparently also applies to the military, because that's what we did. We could have captured him and held a trial, and then put him to death. But we forfeited that opportunity to improve our image by at least a little. However, what's done is done I suppose. Now that Bin Laden is gone and Al-Qaeda is falling back, we can finally rest a little easier knowing terrorism won't be an enormous threat for sometime as long as they have no coordinated leader. That's what I thought, until just weeks later when I heard a movie would be made about the mission. Are we serious? Not only do we have to murder a guy and then cheer about it, but then we have to glorify said murder by making it into a film? Nothing got better when I saw the trailer just days ago, with the ad going along to the soundtrack of Eminem. This is sad. We kill a guy, and then make murderers into heroes while mixing in a drug-addled white rapper. Perfect. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, seeing as this is acceptable as true American spirit nowadays. None of this is right, and we should be ashamed at least to some degree. We need to try to preserve our integrity.
Well, that is all for this week, and I hope I have provided a full response to the issue at hand. If you'd like to say something to me, ask a question, or anything else you can do so in the comments section here. I also have a Facebook and a twitter, and my email at zerospintop@live.com is still open. That is all, and this is SuperJew McLovin, signing off.
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