Guilt Tripping Bin Laden’s Death

I was following a twitter exchange in which Sirota actually cited increased traffic to his website as evidence of the veracity of his arguments. I suspect he has fully embraced the Jane Hamsher/Glen Greenwald economic model. Throw shit and gorilla dust and what the web clicks increase.

They have to dig for something to bitch about. They’ve painted themselves into that corner. Their followers and fans expect to see bitching and hand-wringing when they open the latest Greenwald column. Its their business model.

adding…..Sirota is less intelligent and an even bigger dick than greenwald. I think they all compete to be the biggest dick.

Do you think they’re compensating for something, Nicole?=P

What grs said. I was thinking similarly, but couldn’t quite get it into words that didn’t make me sound like a total killjoy.

It’s unfortunate that people like them make it hard to talk honestly about something like this. This one side or the other, no nuance to thinking or feeling and no self-contradiction over very complex situations is what used to separate us from the right. To shut down this discussion by labeling this act or that feeling wrong…period…is just another wedge driving us all further apart.For them to presume to have some moral insight and then to chastise others according to their high and mighty judgment is beyond pompous.

The US did no wrong in killing Osama. We were working with the government of Pakistan to hunt down and find Osama and his organization. Like any complex organization, Pakistan had people who were not operating in good faith, but they were helping us in many ways. We launched the attack from one of their bases, so we were in our right to go after him.Celebrating that a man who killed women and children for terror can no longer cause harm to the innocent is fine in my book.

Cenk, Cesca, Ashby and all of you are dishonest. Here is the full context of W’s Bin laden quote which you insincerely select to clip to a soundbite for purely partisan gamesmanship, while at the same time accusing your opponents of dishonesty.

Well, deep in my heart, I know the man’s on the run if he’s alive at all. And I — you know, who knows if he’s hiding in some cave or not? We hadn’t heard from him in a long time.And the idea of focusing on one person is really — indicates to me people don’t understand the scope of the mission. Terror’s bigger than one person. And he’s just — he’s a person who has now been marginalized. His network is — his host government has been destroyed. He’s the ultimate parasite who found weakness, exploited it, and met his match.So I don’t know where he is. Nor — you know, I just don’t spend that much time on him really, to be honest with you. I’m more worried about making sure that our soldiers are well supplied, that the strategy is clear, that the coalition is strong, that when we find enemy bunched up, like we did in Shah-e-Kot mountains, that the military has all the support it needs to go in and do the job, which they did.And there will be other battles in Afghanistan. There’s going to be other struggles like Shah-e-Kot. And I’m just as confident about the outcome of those future battles as I was about Shah-e-kot, where our soldiers are performing brilliantly; we’re tough, we’re strong, they’re well-equipped, we have a good strategy. We are showing the world we know how to fight a guerrilla war with conventional means.QUESTION: Do you believe the threat that bin Laden posed won’t truly be eliminated until he is found either dead of alive?BUSH: As I say, we hadn’t heard much from him. And I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s at the center of any command structure. And, you know, again, I don’t know where he is.I’ll repeat what I said: I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him when he had taken over a country. I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban.But, you know, once we set out the policy and started executing the plan, he became — we shoved him out more and more on the margins.He has no place to train his al Qaeda killers anymore. And if we find a training camp, we’ll take care of it — either we will or our friends will. That’s one of the things that’s part of the new phase that’s becoming apparent to the American people is that we’re working closely with other governments to deny sanctuary or training or a place to hide or a place to raise money. And we got more work to do.

Link to Transcript of Bush press conference March 13, 2002

I’m with drater and grs. I agree, this is cause to celebrate. A great cause to celebrate, but excessive celebration is just going to piss them off even further. When we have elected asshole officials making comments that OBL’s corpse should have been defecated and urinated on, then left to be consumed by unclean animals, it doesn’t bode well for our troops. When a Quaran was burned, it didn’t bode well for our troops. When the world watches us EXCESSIVELY celebrate, I have to be frightened for the troops even more than I am. We’re all happy he’s dead. He deserves to be dead. But perhaps we could just tone down our joy just a notch, out of respect for the troops that defend us every day. They’re in imminent danger every day they go to work. Let’s think about them before we get too obnoxious.

Celebrating the death of OBL is something where I see a fine line in finding the good in justice being done and just general blood lust…the “bitching” should be taken on a case by case basis. If someone is happy/glad/relieved that we can turn the page on this specific objective and psychological moment, that is good. If someone seems a little too happy about the killing for the killing’s sake, I can see where people can be a little uneasy.

Really disappointed in this blog lately, especially the commenters, who seem to have it in for anyone with the slightest difference of opinion.I was dismayed by the celebrations on 9/11, and I was dismayed by the celebrations on Monday. An unarmed man was shot in the head in front of his family, many of whom were also killed. You can cheer if you want, but I say it’s just another violent act on behalf of a reflexively violent nation.I won’t miss Osama Bin Laden, but I do miss the days when I thought that America was somehow different from its enemies.

@ashby: it’s only AlFred.

Here’s where my head is: The celebration and high-fiving seem kind of tragic-comic to me. I am very glad that at long, long last, we got this guy.But he won already. Not with 9/11, but in what we as a nation did after it, for 10 years in response to it. We were led by the worst of all possible people (not Bush specifically, but the whole PNAC crowd) into a war that had nothing to do with 9/11 because we could easily confuse any arab/middle-east country with another and we became, as a nation, objectively *pro-torture*. Like, we had our highest ranking leaders defend torture and define it down. We took a medieval practice from the Inquisition and re-branded it to sound like a summer-sport and had a left vs. right “both sides” debate about how it is fine to do.We spent nearly a trillion dollars going crazy after a plan involving plane tickets and 20 box-cutters was enacted. We rejected the idea of targeted police-style actions as unpatriotic and laughable and went to war, with armies and planes and tanks on a tactic. Then 10 years later, a targeted, police-style action took the guy out.And in the intervening years, we re-fought Iraq, killed hundreds of thousands of people, abused and raped prisoners in Sadam Husseins rape-rooms while fighting a war based on no real discernable reason, other than the yelling of get them THERE to keep them from HERE. We willingly ceded a hundred civil liberties in the exchange for a false sense of patriotism and safety and condemned those who balked at this as weak and hippies and hand-wringers.So yeah, when a small, elite force finally tracked this piece of shit down and shot him in the head, I too had a visceral “Yeah! Fuck him!” reaction and a sense of “Finally, good.”But all this back-patting and self-congratulating and anthem singing and flag-waving is kind of crazy, with any sort of glance back at what was done, ostensibly in pursuit of this moment, that had nothing to do with this moment.If it helps keep Mitt Romney out of the White House, and Paul Ryan out of policy-making, then I’m very glad for the political capital of it, but I don’t pretend that this is my country’s finest moment.The feeling I have is less congratulatory and more like the end of THE CAINE MUTINY:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKeISsYKROI&feature=player_embedded

‘Those people with the “slightest difference of opinion” are concern-trolls posting under multiple names and indentities who only wish to divide people.’Exactly, Ashby, you know their motives, and their methods, and you’re here to save the day.For the record, I said the *cheering* was dismaying, not the *killing*, but you clearly can’t read through a full sentence without putting on your blogger cape and skewering shit people never said.Bob, I’ve contributed in the past, and even got your book placed in the local library, but I’m done helping out. You guys all ought to try and find some new enemies instead of rally-shitting in your fellow progressives’ mouths. It’s really starting to feel like another Free Republic over here these days. Congrats.

I read you perfectly clear. You expressed dismay, and then continued that the reason for dismay was because people were celebrating the death of an “unarmed man in front of his family.”And yes I will skewer that kind of horseshit all day long thankyou.

wow. count me with Ashby.

I don’t give two fucks that they shot an unarmed man. I’m glad as hell they shot them, and his family. I just fear for the troops, as if they weren’t already risking their lives. Remember how many stupid fucks relished the idea of burning the Quaran, and how many people said it was a bad idea? I feel the same way about too much celebration. He’s dead, it’s awesome, way to go…next.

Either you are with us or you are against us. Period. We speak as one – without reservation – without hesitation – without conscious.

Here’s the thing: We NEEDED to get him. He needed to get got. And I was viscerally thrilled that it was a strike-team on the ground and not some faceless drone. SomeONE got to end him. That is good.But– the celebration, I just don’t get. Not for the “oh, we must not be as our enemies,” aspect (a little; I mean, I think showing up at those sites with vigil candles for the 9/11 dead would have been a better and classier spontaneous reaction than the Hacksaw Jim Duggan USA! USA!, but…) but rather because this guy with his asymmetric warfare plan that we rushed headlong into, played us like fools for ten years.It should be a fore-drawn conclusion that we would get him. I had a sense of “FINALLY!” when I heard and a “Fuck, yeah, you cock, I hope it hurt” like everybody else.But the cheering is like applauding wildly for the Globetrotters after the Washington Generals surprisingly upset them and forced an overtime that was only won by one point at the last second, after Meadowlark Lemon fouls out and Curly sustains a career-ending injury. The Globetrotters are supposed to win handily with ladders and puppets while the Generals play the straight-man.This was a vindication of police-style action that Kerry called for and was villified for by a majority of the knee-jerk assholes in our country.It seems like a Pyhrric victory to me, after all that happened to get to it. That’s why I find the cheering and chanting to be jarring.But again, if it helps change the narrative and keeps Romney or Hunstman or Daniels or whoever away from the Whitehouse, then I’ll take it.

I agree with Oliver Willis’s statement, of course.But that’s because Greenwald has failed so many times, and because he’s never signed liberal legislation and because he reminds me of an over zealous elementary school hall monitor who’s fresh out of demerit slips for chewing gum.Or kind of like Spanish speaking Buzz LightYear working for Lotso. You know, he’s still Buzz, he’s not a bad guy, he doesn’t think he’s a bad guy, but he keeps hurting his friends by keeping them in confinement and foiling their attempts to escape Lotso’s stranglehold on a more liberal democratic playroom?I’m still trying to figure how “progressive” can be derived from someone like Glenn Greenwald who seems to dry hump the same three stories over and over.Greenwald has done much in moving the country away from President Obama– and into the nationwide right wing “tsunami of 2010.”He busted the levies.

I’d like to respond to Josh Dobbin’s remarks about “celebrating.”If this is coming from the initial reactions, or “the Georgetown kids” who showed up and whooped it up, I’d like to remind the grownups in the room that most of the college kids who flooded the streets, and it seemed like most of them were, these kids are what 20 years old? Maybe younger?They were children on 9/11. They’ve grown up with the Bin Laden boogie man who they’ve been told “changed everything” on 9/11.I think for those are staking out moral high ground, that’s up to you, and if you want to make this a teachable moment about mortality and justice, that’s fine too.But I think you might be the ones who are insensitive to roaring displays of emotional release, or the quiet sentiments of relief, expressed by those who aren’t robots, or don’t believe “Bush did 9/11,” or those who’ve come of age under the Bush republican blanket of fearmongering.10 years, man, is a long time to milk that bearded icon. That useful symbol of national psychological restructuring.Ding-dong. That symbol’s dead.

I was pretty much just expounding on what you had already said, Nicole.

I’m sorry, but this has got to be the most pointless liberal-versus-liberal argument ever.If people want to celebrate, why shouldn’t they? If people don’t want to celebrate, why should they? Do we really need to dig trenches and mark borders here?grs: You’re right. Osama’s death didn’t bring back any of the lives lost and didn’t really affect Al Qaeda in any real way.MrBrink: You’re right. Most of those celebrating (who weren’t gun-nut conservatives) were kids who’d grown up vaguely away of some scary bearded guy named Saddam Bin Laden. Now, as adults, there’s a natural urge to celebrate. That’s cool.Ashby: You’re starting to go a little McCarthy about “concern trolls,” man.

I know that Sirota and Greenwald were completely misrepresented here. Had Sirota or Greenwald so blantently misrepresent, say, Bob in this way you would rightfully be screaming about it. I would join you. The fact that we mostly get silence in the face of such intellectual dishonesty makes this whole thing look personal. Honestly, had I so blantently misrepresented a source as a sociology undergrad they would have drummed me out of school.

Oliver said:

The serially stupid David Sirota, writing in Salon, compared this to those who cheered on the September 11 terrorists

Sirota said:

However, somber relief was not the dominant emotion presented to America when bin Laden’s death was announced. Instead, the Washington press corps — helped by a wild-eyed throng outside the White House — insisted that unbridled euphoria is the appropriate response. And in this we see bin Laden’s more enduring victory — a victory that will unfortunately last far beyond his passing. For decades, we have held in contempt those who actively celebrate death. When we’ve seen video footage of foreigners cheering terrorist attacks against America,

How did Bob or Oliver misrepresent what Sirota said, TDK? I don’t see a “misrepresentation”Be right back with a comment on Greenwald. .

[Okay, sorry, had to do something.]This is all directed at TDK’s handwringing.Oliver said:

Glenn Greenwald similarly spent a whole lot of overwritten paragraphs expressing a similar sentiment).

in Greenwald’s he simply moralizes about celebrating “two bullets in someone’s head”, and intentionally has a holier than thou attitude. Nothing new there, but it gets very old.What you said about Bob and Oliver misrepresenting Sirota and Greenwald is simply not true. If you honestly believe that, you just have a failure to understand where they’re coming from (sirota & greenwald).Finally. Get a clue. This is their business model. Criticism, no matter how far-fetched, is what they do. It pleases their lost and lonely clueless bots, and it makes them money. Period.

I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.

~ Mark Twain

Actually, they’ve walked back the armed and human shield things. Some reports say one of the women rushed the strike team and she got shot in the legs.Honestly, I don’t care if the dude was waving a white flag and was reading a copy of CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL, there’s no way that team wasn’t going to be dropping him. The “capture or kill” thing is window-dressing. Look at the logistical sticky situation his friggin’ corpse provided; you think that, given the chance for a live-or-dead Bin Laden, they’d opt to keep him and figure out where to hold him, how to try him, etc.? Dead solves a bunch of problems and there are no backsies.And he deserved dead. Fuck him, honestly. But he deserved dead like Ted Bundy or a rabid dog who bites children deserves dead: as a necessary function to get on with the business of living in a world without them in it.I’m really not one for fanfare at a death, even a very well deserved one. Again, I think the best move would have been for a display of *true* day-after-9-11 style grace and make it about the ones who were innocently killed; candles and dignity vs. whooping and dancing.But that’s really just an aesthetic point. In other news, I am very glad they’re not releasing the FACES OF DEATH style photos. That’s the kind of class and circumspect wisdom I hoped Obama had when I voted for him. How he has conducted this whole affair, start to finish, has been exemplary.

TDK:

None of what you posted addresses the obvious misrepresentaions at hand.

Well then, TDK, please be very specific and tell me exactly what the “misrepresentations” are.TDK:

Also, I grow weary of the “business model” argument. Its cheap and meaningless. I can do it too you know. Like this: Gods Bob is such a sellout. He doesn’t believe anything he says, he just does it to corner his part of the liberal blogosphere, and make money of niave obots. I think he might even get paid by the white house PR flacks. See how easy that was? Complely without evidence? Sure. Cynical to the extreme? Yep. But it sure was easy and costed me nothing. Never mind that its almost certainly wrong..

Actually, there is evidence in Greenwald’s case. But even if there weren’t, it has become pretty clear to many of us. However, I won’t argue this with you since of course, this is primarily about opinion and you are certainly entitled to yours.Just remember whose blog it is.

Greenwald is not a liberal. He’s affiliated with the Cato Institute. He’s a libertarian. Not and never will be on my side.

Selective quoting only works if people haven’t read the pieces in question. Since I have, and since other commenters have already posted the relevant quotes that prove Willis is lying through his teeth to score points with the faithful, attempting to distort Greenwald or Sirota’s words is a waste of time.Isn’t it time that Bob and his buddies admitted that their dislike of Greenwald is all about style and not about substance? It’s getting pretty blatant with all these allusions to his nefarious motives and unacceptably pious tone.