Teabillies: Yes, they are assholes. No they won’t act like adults. 
Despite Obama’s calls for unity in the aftermath of “We killed that motherfucker,” Republicans are still acting like Republicans — that is to say — lying assholes. First, they are falling all over themselves to assign credit to George Bush for nabbing Bin Laden1, despite two undeniable facts:
Fact One: George Bush gave up on the hunt for OBL, both in 2002 (when, at a press conference, Bush stated that he was no longer worried about finding Bin Laden) and then again in 2006 (when Bush closed the CIA unit tasked with finding Bin Laden). Whether or not you fall into the weird contingent of people who are shedding morality tears for OBL, one thing is clear — this was all Obama.
Fact Two: Republicans are assholes (I think I may have mentioned that before):
“The teacher told the student that ‘I bet you’re grieving,'” the mother of a student in the same class told ABC13. “And she basically looked at him and said what are you talking about? And he said I heard about your uncle’s death and she said wow, because she understood that he was referring about Osama bin Laden being killed and was racially profiling her.”
She added that the teacher “just kind of smirked and giggled and walked away” after the Muslim student ended up crying over the comments.
Yeah. That happened.
The teacher, rightfully, has been suspended, but I doubt that will be of any comfort to the student.
Commenting on the incident, the president of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston, Aziz Siddiqi, said that he thought that the remarks were an isolated incident:
“It’s just one individual,” he said. “A lot of people suffer because of the actions of one individual. This little girl suffered. The teacher is going to suffer. I think every society has some people who are a little off. He may be one of those.”
Look, I can’t fault a man for trying to remain positive, but it seems to me that it’s more than “some” people who are a little off. In my view, a lot of people have taken leave of their damn senses.
But hey, I’m not going to pee on his parade and tell him it’s whisky. We could use more folks who aren’t growing more murderously cynical with every passing day.
So, here’s to you, Mr. Siddiqi! You stay positive!
I’ll be over here waiting for the planet to implode.
1 And by “nabbing,” I mean “shooting in the face” and no I’m not gonna fucking cry about whether or not he was armed. He was a mass murderer. Fuck that guy.
[via Raw Story]
[cross-posted at ABLC][Well shit, Cole beat me to it. C’est la vie. (La vie.) – ABLxx]
The Dangerman
There has to be a way for this kid to sue the teacher, the school board, the State of Texas, etc.; I’m sure they will be chortling and giggling after cutting a monster check.
ItAintEazy
So when can we expect the predictable howls from the teabag right over how the teachers are indoctrinating our students?
Ash Can
That’s OK, it bears emphasizing. This guy has no business teaching, or working with kids in any capacity. A commenter in the earlier thread said that suspending him was bullshit; his ass should be fired, period, end of discussion. I agree.
lol
@Ash Can:
No no. Like any unionized teacher, he deserves due process and an open discussion.
And then he should be fired.
SST
Yah, but if it weren’t for the teachers unions, the free market would’ve allowed that teacher to be the one to kill OBL when Bush was president, thus sparing the Mooslem child her embarrassment. Or something.
Villago Delenda Est
Yeah, that commenter was me, and it’s true…There needs to be an investigation, and then he needs a hearing. If all this is true…then he should be dismissed. With prejudice.
Due process is important. I know that’s not the GOP way, of course…
JGabriel
ABL @ Top:
Three times. You forgot the time in March 2003 when Bush decided to distract himself and our military from the search, by invading an entire country that had nothing to do with the attacks. That was productive.
.
JCT
@The Dangerman:
This *is* Texas — they’ll just take the money from prenatal care funds. Assuming there are any left after the tax breaks for yacht purchases. What a loathsome place.
cinesimon
I was pretty darn impressed with the immediate response by the school district, and their public response.
The response of the absolute dude that is Aziz Siddiqi typifies what I know about most Muslims from every part of the world – and his humanity and decency is something right wing America believes cannot exist – be it in a Muslim, or any Arab.
Fucking good on the GOOD folk of Texas.
The bad folk are miserable anyway – let ’em stew in their soulless mire of hate. It’s on them. It’s a reflection of them.
gnomedad
@ABL:
Hahaha, I’ve been saying this for years. Nobody gets it. I feel better now.
Now let’s say …
/ Frank Drebin
Brian R.
What a fucking asshole.
danimal
@JGabriel: Four times. Remember Tora Bora.
General Stuck
To add to the already epic irony that surrounds us everyday with right wing hijinx of hatred, something that doesn’t get near enough shrift, that I was reminded of by the spokesman for the Houston Islamic Society, and his minimizing and gracious statement.
There likely is no western democracy that has welcomed and assimilated Muslim and ME immigrants more than the US has. We simply don’t have a radical problem in our Islamic communities. Aside from the occasional knucklehead planning to topple the Brooklyn Bridge with a blow torch, or the several other entrapments of idiots, and an occasional lone wolf attacker. Not like the French and the Brits.
What we have is a crazy white person problem, not all of em, but more than a few, who are hellbent on creating angry Muslims that most people would become when treated the way the tea tards are treating them.
It embarrasses the hell out of me on a good day, the garbage created by my fellow white citizens. On a bad day, I want to introduce them to the back of my hand for acting so goddam stoopid.
JGabriel
@danimal:
Bingo.
.
Ash Can
@General Stuck:
QFT
Nom de Plume
Look, I can’t fault a man for trying to remain positive
Me neither, but I suspect that it’s not so much about staying positive as it is the realization that he is a Muslim in Texas. He could say, “This is nothing, I hear worse from these ignorant goobers every day of my life”, but that would be imprudent.
billy rae valentine
i think the thing in 2006 is not 100% accurate, though. or maybe not the strongest argument to use.
as i understand it, they ended a program in that they refocused/changed things around. they didn’t make it a smaller priority or stop looking for osama altogether.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/04/washington/04intel.html anyway, that’s what the CIA spokespeople claimed.
hhex65
@lol: do they even have teachers’ unions in Texas?
ABL
@billy rae valentine: Ah, fair enough. (let’s not tell the Teabillies, though.)
Did I type that out loud?
JCT
@General Stuck: And the best part is that many of these crazy white people have been elected to high office. Abandon all hope….
Meanwhile, my teenaged son just told me that some of the teabillies in training at his vile high school have been taunting some of the kids who are Muslim with exactly the same comments – is there some fucking evil meme out there?
TheOtherWA
A really minor quibble.
That article says the unit was closed “late last year” which would make it 2005.
Normally that would be inconsequential, but the house where Bin Laden was found was built in 2005. That’s a fascinating coincidence.*
*-there are no coincidences.
ABL
@JGabriel: Indeed.
PS
This was mentioned in the other thread, but it bears repeating. The jerk taught Algebra. That’s al-Jabr. An Arabic name introduced by a Persian Muslim who worked in Baghdad in the early 9th century, and developed the system from an antecedent Indian tradition. This is important, historically and culturally, and really should be spread around. If that guy keeps his job, he should be made to learn and teach it.
Tokyokie
As I was saying to a co-worker today, giving credit to Bush for bringing down bin Laden is pretty much the same as calling me a billionaire. That’d be a completely accurate statement except for the part about my having a billion dollars.
TheOtherWA
@PS: So a math teacher doesn’t realize he uses Arabic numerals every day? Seriously? Wow.
He sure as hell doesn’t teach algebra using Roman numerals.
Anon
Qualitatively, I know how that girl must feel, though to a much lesser degree. As a Chinese-American growing up in Indiana, I was occasionally taunted by other children for being a “Jap” and having something to do with either WWII or taking jobs away from American auto workers.
Having it come from a teacher must be 1000 times worse.
Bootlegger
@PS: Not when your state school board insists that history began and ended with the European Colonization of the Savage Races.
eemom
Sorry, good ABL, but we must all come to terms with the fact that our CiC, President Obama, is defined by Wealth And White Privilege (“WAWP”) before we presume to judge his detractors.
Indeed, redneck-Fuckhead-First-And-Only-True-BJ-Commentator has most respectfully informed us that Obama is so steeped in WAWP that he isn’t even black enough to properly qualify for Affirmative Action.
We need to, like, deal with that. Respectfully.
PS
@Bootlegger: Well, that was sort of the point but I didn’t want the post to turn into a major rant …
Jonas
“I’m not gonna fucking cry about whether or not he was armed. He was a mass murderer. Fuck that guy.”
Good, you’re still a conservative at heart. Boo justice, hooray vengeance.
Bootlegger
@Jonas: Justice and retribution are not mutually exclusive.
Bootlegger
@PS: Ok, I’m still depressed after watching some of that hearing last summer.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jonas: ABL was a conservative? I did not know that. Hmmm…
freelancer
@eemom:
If you’re going to invent your own boutique, new acronyms, people are going to start confusing you with Matoko ibn Granger al-Atreides.
Omnes Omnibus
@freelancer: WAI is that?
Sorry.
Villago Delenda Est
I’m afraid ABL would not pass the “conservative” test of the modern “conservative movement”.
She shares that trait with Barry Goldwater.
freelancer
@Jonas:
You know, when simplistic GOP retards indict Democrats on the charges of being complete wusses, I’ve always been convinced they were burning strawmen to do more chest-thumping.
You vindicate Karl Rove’s absurd caricature of every person on your side, that includes me. Fuck you so much for that.
Violet
@Villago Delenda Est:
She shares that trait with Ronald Reagan. Also, too.
Gwiwer
I don’t really see what’s so weird about feeling a little sad about the way Osama Bin Laden’s life turned out. Obviously, the world is much better with him no longer in it, but he was obviously an inspiring individual from a wealthy background who could have done a lot of good with his life. The fact that he instead chose to do so much evil and came to that end should, to my mind anyway, inspire some sadness and contemplation in someone when they think about his death and what lead him to it. I don’t get why everyone has become so nihilistic that they all seem to think that the existence of Bin Laden was an inevitable thing. Is it really so weird to hold onto the hope that EVERY human life holds the possibility for great potential and be sad about those who’ve squandered that possibility away by choosing to do evil instead? Anyway, I find it kind of disturbing that people could be happy about the death of anyone, even someone as loathsome and toxic as Bin Laden. Rather than be joyful at his demise, why don’t we instead be sad and thoughtful about how a life like that could have turned out so wrong?
Barb (formerly Gex)
@Ash Can: So there’s white people problems and crazy white people problems. They are very, very different kinds of problems.
@JCT: No coordinated meme. It’s just not that surprising that dim, hateful people think alike.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gwiwer: Stalin had a good sense of humor; Pol Pot was nice to his mom; etc. There is a point where the little boy, the promising teen, and all of that is gone.
Roger Moore
@freelancer:
So liberals should refuse to stand up for their opinions because those opinions happen to agree with what Karl Rove says about them? Fuck that. If you refuse to champion your beliefs because Karl Rove will criticize you for them, you’re still letting him set the terms of the debate. Stand up for what you believe in and ignore what the Conservatives say.
Barb (formerly Gex)
@Anon: Chinese American here too! In Minnesota. In the 70’s we’d get anonymous calls telling us “gooks” to go back home or with random death threats.
Worst part? It probably had to be one of the neighbors. Never found out who.
Violet
@Gwiwer:
Everyone? Inevitable? Huh?
There has been quite a bit of analysis over the last decade as to how someone with Bin Laden’s advantages ended up the way he did. Have you missed those articles?
Barb (formerly Gex)
@Gwiwer: Really? I see him like any other rich entitled trust fund baby. He was divisive for profit. End of story. I don’t feel sorrow for people who knowingly and deliberately spread evil for profit.
PanAmerican
Rich Miller had a good piece today on this sort of racialist non-sense in the Mississippi flooding coverage.
Expect a repeat in Louisiana as the crest rolls downriver. Jindal has indicated the Morganza Floodway is going to be opened. The agro-industrial interests are gonna raise a racially loaded media shit fit.
Kyle
@JCT:
Whenever these USA-foam-finger-#1 moments come along, most people celebrate in a variety of ways but there’s always a few creeps who take it as open season to unleash their inner bully.
Someone should retort to these assholes if they wept when McVeigh was executed.
Just Some Fuckhead
@eemom: lol (again)
Have you thought about offering people cash money to join you in your jihad against me? You could get a lot of fake e-friends that way and then your group could shun me in the lunch room.
freelancer
@Gwiwer:
Well, no shit it’s sad. You can’t watch Louis Theroux’s BBC documentaries on the Westboro Phelps clan without feeling immensely sad for them, because they’ve reached an unprecedented level of delusion given their geographical and temporal contexts, but it still doesn’t let them off the hook for being karmic walking malignant brain tumors. Listen up, folks. We complain here all the time that people are mostly fucking stupid and just unredeemable. Why is it, that we engage in a sort of literal affirmative action on that belief, do we suddenly feel a pang of guilt? It’s okay to write some people off. Fuck ’em, the stress and guilt over second-guessing yourself is going to lead to congestive heart failure or stomach cancer or something just as bad, and believe me, the person you’re thinking about would never in their life have a similar empathy to any situation you could ever be in. Fuck ’em, by their actions, they’ve rendered themselves marginal and not worth the concern.
bin Laden is one of those “them”.
Cain
@Anon:
That’s fucked up.. I grew up in Indiana in the 80s, and I was treated like any other kid. We didn’t really have racism. I was teased for being short! I never felt anything other than what I was. High school was pretty awesome except for the whole poor grades thing I had to go through.
Villago Delenda Est
@Barb (formerly Gex):
If you’re paying attention, you can tell a Chinese-American from a Japanese-American or a Vietnamese-American.
If you’re a redneck fucktard, they all look the same.
The interesting thing is, you can tell us white folk apart that way, too, if you’re observant enough.
Non-Existent Patricia
@Gwiwer: His life didn’t “turn out wrong.” He made conscious choices that put him in the situation that ultimately led to his death. I’ll save my sadness and thoughtfulness for the people whose lives turned out wrong because of the actions of this man.
ETA: Or what freelancer said, only much better than I did.
Caz
Why must you be so filled with hate? Do you really think that hate and insults are the proper way to respond to everything?
And where did you get that this teacher is a republican? Are you using inductive reasoning to conclude that, because this person is a shitball, he/she must be a republican?
There is just as good a probability that this teacher is a democrat as a republican.
In any event, you’re just as bad as all the people you bash, because your response to everything is hate and insults. Why don’t you dignify yourself with a more grown-up response once in a while?
You’re just as bad as the teacher, except that you level your insults to a much broader audience, whereas the teacher merely insulted a single person.
You’re both assholes.
Ajay
@lol:
I think Texas doesnt allow unions.
Thats the dream of wing nuts: all states should be like TX and have no unions. Except they(TX) are have budget problems of their own and they cant blame the unions.
suzanne
What is it about ninth grade algebra teachers being sociopaths? Mine was not only the worst teacher I’ve ever had, but also a memorably horrible person.
CJ
Yes, now is not the time to think of all the awful things he did; the psychopathic determination to murder as many thousands of innocent people as he possibly could; the utter ruination of Islam in the eyes of the world; the fear and retaliation against everyone near him; the corruption of so many young Muslims to follow him down a path of pointless violence … No. Rather, we should ponder what could we have done to turn that bearded frown upside down.
I think we’re all partly responsible. Don’t you?
Omnes Omnibus
@Caz:
Why do you try to cheat?
And trample people under your feet
Don’t you know it is wrong?
To cheat the trying man
So you better stop, it is the wrong ’em boyo
You lie, steal, cheat and deceit
In such a small, small game
Don’t you know it is wrong
Corner Stone
@Ajay:
Umm, yes. Unions exist in TX. Even amongst the dreaded teacher type lizard peopleses.
suzanne
@Gwiwer:
I can walk and chew gum at the same time, and I can reflect on what cultural forces lead a man into a life of violence AND be thrilled that the threat he caused the world is neutralized. Not either/or. Both/and.
Mark S.
@Caz:
If you think those two things are similar, you’re a fucking idiot. I hope you don’t deal much with children.
hamletta
@PS: Later in the story, he’s quoted saying al-gebra is Arabic, too, and maybe it should be mourning.
So he’s not completely ignorant, which makes him more of an asshole.
hamletta
@Mark S.: Thank you, sir.
Caz, go troll somewhere else. You’re embarrassing your ancestors.
cinesimon
Caz, regardless of what you were saying – you may need to edit your post to address whomever it was you consider assholes – but that teacher did not simply insult one person.
He didn’t see one person – he saw a Muslim.
He saw a member of the Muslim-borg army, who’re apparently intent to destroy the White Man’s world.
His insult was directed at all Muslims. Especially Muslims i HIS America.
Of course, he also insulted the other students, now(and very likely before this incident) victims of his vicious hate and ignorance.
suzanne
The other nonsense I keep hearing from otherwise intelligent people is some variation on, “It’s so horrible to be happy he’s dead!” I’m not fucking happy that he’s dead, I’m happy that he got caught. Dude didn’t surrender, and he could have. I would have been even more thrilled to have the lowlife live out the rest of his days in a sealed cell without bedsheets, Hannibal Lecter-style.
John Weiss
@JCT: Please don’t dis Texas.
Texas is a made up geographical area. It is peopled by all sorts. Dallas is not anything like Amarillo, for example.
Just Some Fuckhead
@suzanne:
Are we talking about Osama bin Laden? Wasn’t he shot in the head while unarmed? I mean, I don’t really care one way or the other but it’s my understanding that surrendering is nearly impossible when yer being shot in the head at close range during a commando raid. Meh, maybe he didn’t try hard enough or none of the SEAL team recognized the Arabic phrase, for the love of Allah, stop shooting us!
freelancer
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Methinks that the most highly trained operators on the face of the planet are trained to recognize “Arjouk La Tutleq Alnar!” when they hear it.
Corner Stone
Honestly, I’ve surrendered more than a few times at 3:00am in the morning.
Usually it involves a porcelain throne, but once in a while there are well armed men with shapely toned muscles around.
God bless those sailors.
Corner Stone
@suzanne:
I guess that’s true. Dude could’ve walked into any embassy or Marine Base anywhere in the world. Took his vest off and set a spell.
scav
@suzanne: logically, I follow, but when a goodly number of this nation seems to be behaving like addled banshees on a bender. . . the happiness patrol routine is getting a little tiresome.
Just Some Fuckhead
@freelancer: Is there any evidence that surrender was an option? I haven’t seen or heard any. Last I heard, only one person in the entire three floor compound had a weapon.
Now, I guess it’s possible they were running at the commandos, robes flying while doing that freaky aliailailaia thing they do but that doesn’t really explain how the person who actually did that got a leg shot while Osama took a perfect head shot from the side. Maybe Osama was rared back with a ninja star or something.
Again, don’t want to belabor the point but I’m not sure what is the point of maintaining a fiction.
Linnaeus
@hhex65:
Nope. In fact, they’re explicitly illegal in Texas.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone:
Christ, I’m an idiot. I was only thinking of surrender in context of the raid. Of course, any time during the last 10 years he was living high on the
hogsheep, he coulda just turned hisself in. Duh.Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead: Well, yeah. Anyone asking eemom a moral question isn’t really too bright.
She lacks the capacity, and the essential humanity.
Anyone who says people delivering aid to starving children got what they deserved when Israeli commandos dropped them lacks some key signifier in their genetic makeup.
I hesitate to say “sociopath” because usually they have some mitigating intelligence or ability, but just don’t have the empathy.
eemom has neither.
freelancer
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I’m not going to pretend to inhabit the mind of a Navy SEAL. But the dude had money and documents sewn into his clothes. Anything could trigger an IED, a cellphone, hey wait! That tall dude is wearing a jacket and it’s really lumpy! This crazy bitch is screaming coming at me [burst] (She falls down, clutching her leg.) The tall, bearded dude’s eyes go wide, his skin goes pale, and he moves two inches. If he’s triggering a bomb, we’re ALL fucked. Tap-tap-tap. Okay it’s done, we’re clear. Check him for devices, do a sweep.
Okay, I did go there. It could have went down like that, but it could have gone down super fuckin’ dirty. But when you’re talking about a mark like OBL, there ain’t such a thing as dirty, so why do folk care? I may be sinking into eye for an eye territory, but there’s nobody alive that doesn’t have an asterisk on their values, ’cause there’s always that exception to the rule.
Just Some Fuckhead
@freelancer:
If it helps, the one across the street and the one two houses down on the right are McCain voters, left their signs in the front yards several months after Obama won, sorta as a protest.
Now, granted, neither is the Fabled Team Six over at Damneck (I think) but they’re just people with families and kids, doing their jobs. They aren’t superheroes.
Corner Stone
@freelancer: Personally, I love this highly detailed walk through. I think I now have a little better understanding. Thank you.
Corner Stone
Mozambique motherfuckers! Can you tap-tap..tap it?
Woodrowfan
Jesus fing Christ, this isn’t a raid on some poor slub selling pot out of his basement. This was a raid on a compound housing the most wanted fing man on the planet. “Last I heard, only one person in the entire three floor compound had a weapon.” Give me a fucking break. Last I heard the place was armed to the teeth and I bet my sources are a hell of a lot better than yours.
I swear the firebagger whining that the raid wasn’t carried out with full Miranda rights like a glorified traffic stop is ALMOST as morally obtuse as the chest-thumping “put his head on a pike” that we’re getting from the right.
cbear
@Just Some Fuckhead: Yep, that murderous motherfucker was deader than a W. Virginia Pygmy Goat as soon as those SEALS entered the room—and I could give less than a shit how he got X’ed but this penchant by many for exaggerating what was already a heroic mission is seriously bothersome.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Woodrowfan:
I can only go by what authorities are saying officially happened. If you have more information, you may want to contact them.
asiangrrlMN
@Barb (formerly Gex): Taiwanese-American here, also grew up in MN in the 70s/early 80s. Got called chink and jap as well. Someone spray-painted gook on our car when I was older. In silver paint.
Three taunts, and none of them correct. However, to be fair, There weren’t really any slurs specifically for Taiwanese-American people.
Just Some Fuckhead
@cbear:
Yeah, I didn’t mean to turn it into a pedantic discussion about commando raid etiquette. I just couldn’t fathom how someone surrenders while being shot in the side of the head.
freelancer
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Obviously. But that is because we ascribe superheroes with a sense of long-term strategy and inate altriusm. SEALs are in the most literal sense “operators”, our military trains them to think tactically in terms of only days, hours, seconds, and milliseconds. Their focus is honed and brainpower is spent thinking about the mission and situational awareness within that mission. They do what they’re ordered and they do it very precisely. A scalpel in a surgeon’s hands can save a life. In Dick Cheney’s hands, Seymour Hersh would call it a “Murder Squad” or “Birdshot to the face”.
Jesse Ventura was a SEAL, no one’s saying that because of his elite military training, I should take his conspiracy theories seriously.
@Corner Stone:
I can’t tell if you’re being sincere, or as usual, a total ass. So thanks, or whatever.
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
You! How is your chinky ass doing tonight?
I had a tough day today but am off work tomorrow, so I am having a mini-weekend. Boo-yah!
ETA: No open thread tonight, so I am sort of nibbling around the edges and looking for an opening.
cbear
@Just Some Fuckhead: Maybe if you nod your head really really fast?
cbear
@freelancer: So
JoeyFreelancer, I bet you really like to watch gladiator movies, huh?bago
Was it sexist to only wound the women with a legshot, while the men got the full double tap?
asiangrrlMN
@Steeplejack: Flat as hell! The deities gave me no junk in my trunk. Glad you got a three-day weekend to make up for a shitty day. What are your plans?
ETA: I consider any thread after midnight fair game.
Just Some Fuckhead
@freelancer: I don’t even know what we’re arguing about anymore.
freelancer
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Are we arguing? This is just, well, Thursday for me, I guess.
JenJen
There you go again with “whisky” instead of “whiskey.” Why do you hate American booze? ;-)
Just Some Fuckhead
@freelancer: Meh, whatever. We’re prolly both right. They prolly had orders not to kill him if they found him dead.
Martin
@Just Some Fuckhead:
One person caused a 40 minute firefight against two dozen of our most elite soliders? Either you’re wrong or the guy was hauling an M134 or our JSOC guys suck ass.
And yes there’s evidence that surrender was an option – a number of people were left behind uninjured. Though I’m sure that option got a lot narrower once bullets started flying.
cbear
@Just Some Fuckhead: WTF is up with this 5 minute delay and “Click to Edit” or “Request Deletion” for my comments?
Is that for everyone or did I revert to rookie status by not commenting for awhile?
Anyone know?
freelancer
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I agree to disagree. Jeezus, Tom, I was just speculatin’ about a hypothesis!
asiangrrlMN
@cbear: Your comment gets posted right away. That’s just so you can go back and edit your comment…If WordPress feels like allowing it at the time.
Anecdote relating to topic thread: When I was in junior high school, I had a social studies teacher who was quite racist. He didn’t like Asians. Once, I asked to go to my locker to get something or the other I forgot, and he said, “Are you going to bring back a bomb and kill us all?” Then he laughed. I didn’t. Asshole.
ETA: I am a prolific abuser of the edit button.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Martin: If you have a link to how many armed gunman they faced, I’d be more than happy to take a look at it. And no, there’s no evidence surrender was an option. They originally discussed dropping a bomb on the place and decided to go with a raid. Presumably because they couldn’t get the bomb to eject a little white flag that said “Surrender”.
Just Some Fuckhead
@cbear: No idea. Is your comment showing up immediately with a click to edit/request deletion stamp under it? Because that’s a feature, not a bug. :)
cbear
@asiangrrlMN: Thanks, I was afraid I wasn’t able to keep up my end of the sparkling repartee around here.
asiangrrlMN
@cbear: You seem to be doing fine so far! Although, JSF is just killing it tonight. He’s cracking me up.
Martin
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Um, doesn’t that support the assertion that surrender was an option? Otherwise, why not drop the bomb and not risk our guys? Certainly we have no resistance to using Tomahawks or even an AC-130.
Just Some Fuckhead
@cbear: haha. Did you recently upgrade to a different browser? There’s a lot of cool functionality here but you can’t get it all at the same time in the same browser.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Martin:
Ummmmmm.. maybe because they didn’t want to kill the twenty something women and children living there? I know that prolly sounds crazy to a guy like you that thinks it funny to mock civil liberties by invoking a shootout with the FBI.
So they commando raided, spared the twentysomething women and children and accidentally killed OBL.
cbear
@Just Some Fuckhead: Nah, I’m still “browsing” with the same one, and my left nut has been kinda sore lately. What do you suggest?
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
No three-day weekend. I’m off tomorrow, then I have to work Friday and Saturday as usual. But then I’m off Sunday and Monday, also as usual. I got tomorrow off because I worked this last Monday to help out a manager (who sort of misled me abou what was going on). Won’t be doing that again, if I can help it.
No big plans for tomorrow. R&R, some chores, maybe an expedition to Target or Trader Joe’s. Exciting stuff.
Suffern ACE
@Martin: Was the whole firefight 40 minutes? I thought the whole operation on the ground was 40 minutes, and that included shooting, gathering prisoners, and disabling the broken helicopter. + 30 seconds for a moonwalk out the door.
OK I made that last part up.
Steeplejack
@Martin:
If they just dropped a bomb, presumably they would lose confirmable, undeniable evidence that they actually got bin Laden.
asiangrrlMN
@Steeplejack: Ah. Got it. Still, it’s cool that you get one day off amidst the usual grind. Chilling sounds like a good option. And, sorry your manager was a dick/ette to you.
Just Some Fuckhead
Does anyone else not want to argue while I’m not arguing? Because I gotta hit the sack.
Suffern ACE
@Just Some Fuckhead: I would have thought that the presence of all those children would have been an indication that the place wasn’t armed to the gills (or full of tripwires – I can’t remember who bought up tripwires as a threat, but that would be rather dangerous combination–kids and tripwires.) But then I have no idea what the soldiers have been facing on similar raids…Maybe they were armed to the teeth, but Osama had the key to the safety locks?
Just Some Fuckhead
@asiangrrlMN:
Yer so sweet. You know I read all yer stuff over on ABL, right?
Steeplejack
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I am not arguing with you. To the contrary, I have found myself warming to the kinder, gentler Fuckhead of the last month or two. Keep up the good work.
freelancer
@Suffern ACE:
I imagine with the physical condition these guys are in, that the last 30 seconds was less moonwalk, and more like this. But maybe my imagination is getting away from me.
Incidentally, I’ve never been in a Turkish Prison.
ETA: @asiangrrlMN:
I feel left out. Like “Abbott’s rocking the joint. Costello not so much.” But I know you’re picky and very specific. Also, I know how to use the Edit button too!
Just Some Fuckhead
@Suffern ACE:
Hell, you know those Arab kids, they were prolly the ones building the bombs and putting tripwires all over the place. Little jihadist rascals, heh.
asiangrrlMN
@Just Some Fuckhead: No, I didn’t know! That’s cool. You really are sharp tonight while making thoughtful points. Hope you sleep well.
ETA: You are definitely letting your inner marshmallow come out.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Steeplejack:
It may actually be you moving in the other direction. :)
cbear
@Suffern ACE: Yeah, and I’ve heard reports that they also took the time to gather a shitload of intel, including personal papers, hard-drives, etc.
I’m half expecting the goopers to start claiming that Obama won’t release the full details of the raid because they found the “whitey tape” under Osama’s bed.
Steeplejack
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Brr! There’s a chilling thought. Get back to me when I get in a raving, foam-flecked argument with Corner Stone or Gen’l Stuck.
Just Some Fuckhead
Night youse. Have a doc look at that testicle, ceeb. It’s prolly just a gland fighting an infection but you never wanna lose yer nuts to something preventable. Hell, that would almost be as emotionally stunting as a dude getting breast cancer. I mean, it happens – you just don’t wanna be the one it happens to.
cbear
@freelancer: Does it make you feel kinda funny when Fluffy does that humping thing on your leg?
Martin
@Just Some Fuckhead:
They didn’t know who was in the building. They only put OBL being there at 50% or so.
I’m sorry, but we’ve had multiple statement that this was a capture or kill order. There’s simply no evidence that can be presented other than the statement of intent to prove that capture was an option. The evidence to disprove was an action that didn’t allow for capture. We can identify several of those, we also have statements that they were considered and even lobbied for, and yet we didn’t do those, so the evidence to disprove isn’t there.
If you’re skeptical that there was a capture order, or that the SEAL team was fired on, you might as well aslo be skeptical that OBL is even dead, or that Obama was born in Hawaii. They’re all affirmations by government officials. But I’m guessing that you trust or distrust based on supporting evidence, motive, and so on.
From a purely self-interest standpoint, why take on all of the risk of a failed mission when a couple hundred grand of Tomahawk would eliminate that? And you suggest that they were of sufficiently moral thinking to avoid collateral damage, yet not sufficiently moral to execute the capture order and then lie about it in a national address. That’s splitting hairs pretty fine there, I think.
Ecks
@Just Some Fuckhead: Yeah, oops.
Look, he had to die because
he was part of the firefight and had a woman as a human shield…he was unarmed but refused to surrender when given the chance…he was too surprised to stick his hands straight up in the air when there was suddenly a lot of chopper sounds and gunfire then armed enemy soldiers in his bedroom in the middle of the night…he offered them a warm smile and a welcome helping of falafel in a slightly menacing way…there were specific orders to spare all the civies, and get OBL preferably accidentally dead so he couldn’t turn the trial congress would never allow him to have into a showcase like Milosivic and all those other nasty guys at the Hague… look it’s an army operation, y’know, shit happens.asiangrrlMN
@freelancer: Sorry, but JSF really caught my eye tonight. He was pitch-perfect all the way through his song. You were pitchy once or twice, dawg. I have full confidence you’ll knock the next one out of the park!
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): Well, I’m not feeling anguish, but…I’ll say no more. I have a blog post of my own percolating about this. That’s all the tease you get.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
My opinion is that OBL hand wringing is an over-broad application of liberal distaste and skepticism for retributive justice.
Generally, I share the sentiment. But not in this case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retributive_justice
I bring this up because of a ranting blog post a friend wrote and it’s making me try to come to grips with the anguish some of my friends are expressing over what is, if ever there was one, a justifiable assassination.
freelancer
@cbear:
What happens at FurCon stays at FurCon*.
*That is, unless ABL pops in with a smartphone to say, “Hey y’all! OMG! WTF?! Srsly?!”
asiangrrlMN
@freelancer: OK. Now that was laugh-out-loud funny. I remember that hilarious post. Good times.
cbear
@freelancer: Furcon? Is that where the young conservatives get together to cornhole the horses(twice)and pygmy goats?
I ain’t clicking that link. Sick bastards.
asiangrrlMN
@cbear: Oh, click on it. It’s really funny. ABL inadvertently got caught in a hotel with the FurCon group. Hijinks ensued.
Ecks
@Martin: To your last question: Yes. Killing a bunch of civilians would look really really bad, and give America all kinds of bad press to the kinds of people who would then want to kill Americans. You really want to avoid that if at all possible. But killing the single most wanted terrorist in the entire world, and getting clean revenge for 9/11 in the process? Heck, there are a lot of people (even some librul types here) who consider shooting OBL in cold blood to be totally fair game.
None of us know how hard they tried to capture him, vs. taking the first flimsy excuse to put a bullet in his head. Heck, possibly nobody in the world knows it except the few people who were in that room, and they ain’t talking. Maybe some day the secret documents will be declasified about how hard the official orders said they were supposed to try. But it’s definitely plausible that the admin and/or the SEALS on the ground were far more happy with him dead than alive (especially if you can be near 100% sure that it actually is HIM that’s dead, and not have to guess based on just a missile crater, and the fact that we haven’t heard from him in a while).
In contrast Obama’s country of birth is documented with multiple forms of official documentation, drawn from several sources, and corroborated by on-the-record testimony from non-anonymous eye-witnesses. Further, lying that Obama is dead when you HAVEN’T killed him would be really really stupid. You would look to all the world like an untrustworthy lying asshole a month later when OBL released his next tape, featuring himself waving a recent copy of his local newspaper. You don’t hand OBL a means to totally humiliate your government just to get a short-lived stupid brag in.
freelancer
@Ecks:
Uh yeah, cause a black ops SEAL raid against this country’s enemy #1 ordered by the highest authority of the Executive Branch of this country with not just Congressional notification, but a popular mandate in that Obama promised he would do this if elected, and then he was elected, thus a team of elite military specialties is ordered in to take him out and it takes more than 40 minutes so now you have reason to think that it didn’t go as planned.
Okay, great. I get that because this is JSOC, we have every reason to second guess the timeline or minute, jingoistic details of the op as initially described. But don’t act like it’s borne out of Hitchcockian tension and that the confrontation between the SEAL and OBL was as drawn out as the Bride and the titular “Bill” from the Tarantino flick.
The team busted in the room, bin Laden went “eh, eh, eh, er…” then flinched, and they blew his head off because that’s how Tier 1 does it when they have their orders to “either/or”. I’m not troubled by this, and I think even the inevitable Michael Bay movie will have too much subtlety in portraying this pivotal scene.
OBL was the highest singular enemy this country has encountered in the form of a single person since Jefferson Davis or Robert E Lee, and we didn’t even hunt those traitorous fucks down out of back-breaking compassion and reconciliation. There is none of that to be found with the philosophies and activists of Al Qaeda or Wahabism. None.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@asiangrrlMN: Cool. I’ll look forward to your thoughts.
cbear
@asiangrrlMN: Inadvertently? AsiangrrlMN, I remember the first time you ever commented here and it’s really nice that you haven’t lost your sweet disposition and naivete, but, protip, when someone gets “caught” standing next to a 7ft rat with a 2ft cock chances are it didn’t happen by accident.
:)
ABL
@eemom: hrm, I must have missed that thread on account of my little vacay into jägermeisterville. sounds ludicrous, though.
Ecks
@freelancer: Not sure exactly what your point is.
Their orders could have been to blow his head off if he so much as twitched, or if he failed to immediately throw his hands up in the air. Or their orders could have been that unless he was actively shooting at you with a weapon you need to taze his ass, tackle him to the ground, and slap him in cuffs and get a bag on his head.
I’m thinking that if he wasn’t immediately armed and yet he ended up dead, then they weren’t trying SUPER hard to keep him alive. Maybe they yelled “hands up” and gave him 0.5 seconds to obey, who knows. Also, OBL, in person, might be one of the few things that the SEAL operators felt strongly enough about to fudge their rules of engagement on. Maybe they walked in, thinking that no matter what happened, nobody was later going to be able to say for sure that he DIDN’T cooperate… We just don’t know.
asiangrrlMN
@cbear: Hahhahhahhahahahah. Snort. I can’t…stop…laughing…..
ETA: Especially at the sweet and naive description!
eemom
@Corner Stone:
“A fool will always find a greater fool to admire him.”
Chapter 1 in Stoned & Fuckhead: A Case Study in Homoerotic Blog Losers.
Coming soon to a DSM-V Manual near you.
cbear
@asiangrrlMN: Me too. G’nite all.
ABL
@Caz: First, I laugh at your suggestion that this asshole was a democrat. Give me a break.
Second, Republicans are assholes. You may have missed the post wherein I explained why I would no longer mince words about my opinion in this regard. That is not to say that all conservatives are assholes, but any person who self-identifies with the current anti-women, anti-POC, anti-gay, anti-elderly, anti-children, anti-everythingnotrichandwhite, is an asshole.
If you’re a Republican, you’re an asshole irrespective of your dumbass comment. Now I may be an asshole as well. But I’m an asshole who believes in fairness and social justice.
And you’re just an asshole making sweeping generalizations about me when, in fact, you don’t know dick about me.
On the asshole hierarchy, *you* rank just below Republicans and I’m somewhere at the bottom with hipsters and people who wear Crocs.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Mark S.:
Fix’t.
asiangrrlMN
@cbear: Night.
From me as well. Last one to leave turn out the light.
ABL
@freelancer: Oh man, I forgot about that! I think I blocked it out.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I think it’s hilarious how the pearl-clutchers whining about how Osama was shot and killed while being unarmed seem to think that a SEAL team is like some kind of SWAT team or such. As if they were going to act like cops when they saw Osama, telling him to put his hands above his head and peacefully surrender while preparing to take him down with non-lethal force for the cuff-n-stuff if he resists.
They are trained to kill and they did their job, as trained.
Good for them. The way that fucking crazy asshole thought I wouldn’t be surprised if we found that the place was wired to blow up at a press of a button on a remote that Osama carried with him.
Osama’s dead. Get over it already you whiny little shits.
Martin
@Ecks:
And yet we’ve gone down that path how many times in the last 10 years? How many wedding parties wiped out? Clearly we’re willing to risk civilians or to light up a minivan with women and kids in it with a helicopter gunship. We’ve weathered that bad press countless times, so to heap one more incident on there doesn’t seem like a huge political cost. It’s not like Obama needs to go on national TV and say ‘whoops, we blew up a family thinking it was OBL’. It’d just get lost in the shuffle of every day bad shit that happens in AfPak.
Yeah, missiles do that, but gunships don’t. Why not soften up the building with a couple of gunships. Stick a few thousand 7.62 rounds through those walls and then storm in. He’ll still be identifiable. We’ll still get the intel in the building. Less risk to the SEAL team. I mean, they took the hardest and riskiest path here. Why? And we’ve invested a shitton of money and energy eliminating those hard and risky paths. Fuck, we’ve got a plane in theater specifically designed to make an action like this easier, if your goal is to kill the building occupants without explosives, under the command of the guys that went in.
Why did we put all of these options aside in favor of a face-to-face encounter that we had to assume would be met with at least some armed resistance if OBL was indeed living there?
Yutsano
@freelancer:
Benedict Arnold called. He would like his reputation back plz and thank you.
Martin
@Ecks:
I’d be surprised. They had a vice admiral on the ground, and someone laid down the law on this operation as nothing has leaked from it. Everything we’ve seen so far suggests these guys are total pros.
Yeah, I’m sure they went in with the order that they were to defend themselves, and we’ve been told that OBL was killed near the end of the operation. Even if OBL wasn’t armed, it sounds like these guys were in a hot situation for quite a while before they encountered him. I’d expect if they’d been shot at for 20 minutes that their tolerance for resistance was pretty low by then. But that doesn’t mean that had they encountered OBL under a situation that was less dangerous that they wouldn’t have captured him instead.
There’s quite a lot of ground between Law and Order and assassination to allow for a capture order without forcing these guys to risk coming home a man down.
eemom
@ABL:
I’d dig up the thread if it were not so late and I didn’t gotta work tomorrow.
IIRC it was one of the Trump ones, about him saying that our President is an Affirmative Action baby.
To which little fuckie retorted, in effect, WHAT! Obama an AA baby! “HIS ENTIRE LIFE WAS DEFINED BY WEALTH AND WHITE PRIVILEGE.” Elaborated with details about luxurious Indonesian private schools, Bush-esq unmerited entrances into Harvard, and bizarre attacks against the President’s mother.
300+ comments ensued in which the appalled among us tried to point out how, um, totally fucked up this whole story line was — but fuckie clung to it like a drowning rat to the hull of the Titanic.
That’s mr. “treat fellow humans with respect” for ya.
Keith G
@ABL:
Satire?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Yutsano:
I think the operative word in freelancer’s statement is “since”.
:)
stuckinred
@Martin: I bet the SEAL’s will be really glad to know that you have decided they are “really pros”.
Ecks
@Martin: Oh sure, we’ve blown up a ton of wedding parties, but our M.O. on them is to pretend it never happened, and we generally get away with it because, really, who ever listens to a bunch of whiny brown people who don’t even speak English?
But wiping out Bin Laden? THAT is a high profile endeavour. It’s one EVERYBODY is going to pay LOTS of breathless attention to – in the western world, and in the potential terr’rist world. If we blow up a whole bunch of little kiddies along with Osama, that is really high profile bad PR.
Plus the reason you don’t send in a whole lot of gunships, is that you couldn’t get them flown in there without attracting the attention of the Pakistani Air Force. And if they catch you flying around their country, they generally want to shoot you up a bit first, then ask questions later. Small infiltration teams can MAYBE sneak in past radar, though it’s difficult. Sending in artillery and armor and gunships, there’s no chance.
No, the options were either to sneak a small elite infiltration team, or drop a lot of very big bombs from very very high altitude. The latter option turns the compound into fine dust… But you now have genuine uncertainty about whether he’s even dead or alive anymore, and it’s not a very satisfying press release to say “We maybe got him, but who knows”. It becomes an even worse one if Osama then pops up somewhere and mocks you for it.
JR in WV
@Caz:
No, no no! NO!
I’ve been in TX a lot, brother lives there, Dad treated for Leukemia there, been there a lot. There are a lot of good Texans, maybe even some folks who are good Republican Texans.
But
someonea teacher who torments a schoolchild after the searing experiences we have all shared the past 10 years, they are a repugnant, despicable, redneck Republican bastard. They want our President to suffer, even though it will cause the whole country to suffer with him.They may be broken enough … well, I’m not gonna go there. ’nuff said.
JR
Ecks
@Keith G: Not really. ABL’s statement about republicans is a valid modus ponens logic form. The generalizations made about ABL, on the other hand, were just random stab-in-the-dark assertions.
BTW, the Modus Ponens goes like this:
The Republican party supports this list of extremely horrible policies
People who support those policies are assholes
Therefore, Republicans are assholes.
The first premise is clearly true – even Republicans admit that they support these things.
The second you could debate, I guess, but you’d be on rather weak ground, because they really are a very assholey collection of policies.
The third follows logically from the first two. If they are true, then the third MUST also be true.
She even distinguishes that conservatives aren’t necessarily assholes – just the ones who support the current Republicans.
No satire required, just logic.
piratedan
nsfw… but my sentiments exactly
http://afterdark.memebase.com/2011/05/04/naughty-memes-well/
Amir_Khalid
Um, he’s the president of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston. I doubt that he values whisky much more highly than pee.
Jamey
@Caz: I don’t always nod in assent at her posts, but I think you’re missing the point, Caz: ABL didn’t single out one weak, defenseless kid to pick on. For the modern GOP, that seems to be a modus operandi.
Ever heard the phrase “afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted?”
Ecks
@Amir_Khalid: Oh I don’t know about that. While Muslim’s can’t drink alcohol, as far as I know, they can surely SELL it. That’s value, right there my friend:)
Keith G
@Ecks: IIRC (yes there were a few philosophy courses in the dark ages of my life as a college student), a Modus Ponens aguement may be logically valid without being factually true in the real world.
BTW, no offense, but as satisfying as the argument may be may be, there is a bit of wiggle room in the statement:
Being a liberal, I do not disagree with the over-all notion expressed, I just don’t want my side to appear less than intellectually rigorous.
stuckinred
@Keith G: If it quacks like a duck. . .
Amir_Khalid
@Ecks:
Do you think it plausible that Mr Siddiqi runs a liquor store?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@stuckinred:
If it looks like a pile, and smells like a pile…
Yup.
Keith G
@stuckinred:
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
It is probably a shame that the real world is not that simple.
soonergrunt
@Gwiwer: I can feel a little sad over the choices bin Laden made in his life, and be wistful for something more. I can be sad that he chose to be a mass murderer who incidentally killed far more Muslims than Christians AND be happy that he won’t be able to mastermind any more atrocities because that motherfucker is as fucking dead as David Broder and Richard Nixon, two more individuals whose last years didn’t benefit anyone either.
The sad fact is that some people make the world a better place only when they leave it. In some cases, such as the mass murderer whom you mourn, it is to society’s benefit to help them out the door.
soonergrunt
@Just Some Fuckhead: No, they used SEALS and not a 2,000 LB bomb because bomb fragments can’t tell children apart from Osama bin Laden.
And they don’t have to ask for surrender. That’s a courtesy that has never been required by the law of armed conflict. If he wasn’t standing there with his hands in the air, screaming “don’t shoot!” or its Arabic equivalent, then there was no reason to believe that the enemy commander is attempting to surrender, and no reason to wait and see.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Keith G:
… for some people.
I have no problem differentiating between one thing or another but when there is a clear trend that leaves little doubt? For me, it’s like my former Catholic church. Lots of good people were (and some still are) giving cover for some reprehensible behavior.
Call it enabling or whatever, evil is evil and our world is full of it.
Everywhere.
Ron
@Martin: Gunships? Uh, have you looked on a map to see where Abbotttabad is?
MikeJ
@Ron: Helicopter gunships he meant. He used the long form of it the first time, short form the second.
PIGL
@Keith G: Selective quotation is misleading. What you dropped was the part where ABL distinguished between conservatives and those who self-identify as Republicans supporting the mysogynist, classist and downright poisonous policies currently in vogue. If you’re a one of those then you (in the general sense of “one”) are an asshole, no matter how nice you are to puppies and the servants.
I’m with ABL on this.
Keith G
@PIGL:
ABL said:
That is quite catagorical and definitive. I know many Republican who personally support (to me)untenable politial positions and therefore deserve the title asshole.
I also know Republican partisans who have been working to minimize the cultural wingnuttery that is so forceful in their party. They are not assholes.
Just Some Fuckhead
@eemom:
Jesus, what is it with you and Allan and the gay slurs? You realize homosexuality was taken out of the DSM 25 years ago, right?
Hint: calling someone gay as an insult suggests there is something wrong with being gay. I really shouldn’t have to be telling the blog nannies this.
Omnes Omnibus
@Keith G: Are you familiar with ABL’s blog writing style? She does hyperbole. In the comment to which you objected, she also wrote of the assholishness of Croc wearers. Shouldn’t we object to that as well?
ornery curmudgeon
I feel sorry for the nameless and forgotten dead and refugeed Iraqi’s that America bombed, shot, ran over, tortured, and generally massacred in an orgy of self-aggrandizing bullying bloodlust … dead innocents who didn’t get this putrid public airing of suddenly sensitive, heartfelt questing doubts and quibbles.
Shut up about OBL and the oh gosh sorrow of how his wealthy advantaged life might have turned out differently. Hypocrites. There was much, much worse done than killing an at-minimum complicit Bin Laden … how about crying that we as a nation accepted ‘not doing body counts’ as permissible military conduct? Or that when the lies seeped through our closed-tight eyes we turned away and made jokes or pretended self-righteous anger at those revealing the lies?
Chattering NOW about Bin Laden’s death is worse than useless. Bin Laden has been the ‘evil’ target since we ‘all’ so instantly believed the Bush administration and focused on distant sands instead of red domestic hands. For all we know the guy is with Ken Lay taking beach retirement … that’s the problem with a secret military, but I will accept possible lies that might end a war, since we as a people never collectively reacted to known lies that got us in.
suzanne
@Just Some Fuckhead: Dude’s been hiding for how many years? He could have turned himself in to the authorities of almost any freakin’ country in the world at any point. Just because those SEALs surprised him and he didn’t happen to have a gun in hand at that moment doesn’t mean that surrender wasn’t an option.
WereBear
I’ll take your word for it. But may I say those folks don’t seem to be effective at all?
And thus, why are they staying in the Republican party? Their present state has been a pernicious trend since 1964, and took a steep dive in 2001.
Mr. Horse, he dead.
Keith G
@Omnes Omnibus: But Croc wearers are assholes.
/sad attempt at humor
I know OO, I just had some time to spend and I always like to argue for the power of the correct use of language and rhetoric – even if I can fall short of the ideal as well.
One can be fierce and witty and correct all at the same time.
Keith G
@WereBear:
Short answer – they may not.
Our political parties are always in flux as they (to some degree) reflect the greater society. The Democratic Party of the early 70s was quite different from the Democratic Party of the early 60s. As LBJ tracked the party to be better on civil rights and later others pried open a bit of space for the peace movement, new folks joined the party and others left.
The Democratic Party of 1960 was quite conservative on race and war. Did that make all Democrats ass holes?
WereBear
@Keith G: I gotta see, and support, ABL’s point, one I happen to agree with.
What part of the party’s racist, sexist, pro-torture, attacking the wrong country, and “letting people die in the street from preventable conditions” policy positions are keeping them in the Republican party, may I ask?
Because that’s what they stand for NOW. And have for some time.
Chris
@Martin:
Other people have pointed out that the Tomahawk/AC-130 route was a sure way to cause more collateral damage. I’m sure that occurred to some people.
But I think the main reason is probably that they wanted an eyes-on-target, visual confirmation by human beings, that Osama Bin Laden was there and was dead. (Or not). Which a missile or bomb fired from miles away would not have provided.
rikryah
I’d be in jail right now if this were my kid, because I would be locked up for beating the shyt out of this teacher.
gelfling545
@Caz: The teacher’s audience was much more than a single person, although that would be bad enough. A remark of this type will have “gone viral” through the student body. There is an entire school full of students who will have heard of this remark long before it hit the internet and either 1. been offended and appalled or 2. taken it as permission to release their inner bigot.
Chris
@Keith G:
That’s very true, and I’m sure that’s part of the reason for the eternal search for a mythical “reasonable conservative” by people on our side of the aisle. We know parties evolve over time, so we keep hoping to find an Arnie Vinick type to lead them out of the nineteenth century, the same way Johnson finally led the Dems away from their Dixiecrat roots.
But the fact is that right now the GOP has no Arnie Vinicks and no prospects for one emerging. I’d be thrilled if that changed, but I don’t see it happening for quite a while.
Keith G
@WereBear: I’ll ask.
celticdragonchick
@Corner Stone:
Understatement of the day.
celticdragonchick
@eemom:
Thinking of doing Latino slurs next since it is Cinco de Mayo, after all?
You should always want to be topical, and gay slurs have a limited humor shelf life…
Oh…fuck off, bitch.
kthxbai.
Jamey: Bike Commuter of the Gods
@Keith G: They are also not (by the current defition) Republicans, res ipso loquitur.
In polite company, True Believers call these people RINOs.
eemom
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Whooooosh.
The “homo” part is merely descriptive. The “erotic” is the crux of the apostrophe.
IOW, you and Corner Stone as lovers. A ludicrous spectacle of loserdom no matter what genders you are.
Also, how many times does it need to be pointed out to you that Allan is, like, a particularly poor choice of target to accuse of gay bashing?
All in all, a particularly clunky attempt to change the subject from the white trash racism of yours that is on the record for all to see.
eemom
@celticdragonchick:
go fuck yourself, celtic twat. Seriously.
eemom
Just in case anyone has lost track, let me remind you that this whole shitstorm started because I expressed outrage at the Texas teacher on the last thread.
For some reason that eludes me, that prompted Fuckstain to tell me to FOAD.
I guess he’s not on board with my outrage.
Oh, and celtic twat? Have I mentioned GFY?
celticdragonchick
@eemom:
Now that’s a new variation…
You forgot that “seriously” is actually “srsly”, though.
Smooches, dearie.
grandpajohn
@Chris: I expect another justifiable reason for bodies on site was the perceived amount of intelligence material that was probably available making this a mission with 2 objectives not just 1 . It was reported that some time was spent in collecting documents and electronic materials.
Jonas
@freelancer: No. Liberals want to give terrorists a trial, convict them, and punish them humanely.
I thought we liberals were still for trials and against capital punishments. If you weren’t, then you seem to be taking a pretty conservative position to take. So, fuck you too.
gex
It is kind of interesting that the right wants to portray bin Laden as just a guy hanging out in his PJs at home, minding his own business, when mean old Obama sent a swat team in to kill him in cold blood.
Because even if you posited that, they’d be fucking thrilled by it if Bush had done it. It would have been codpiece worship to the nth degree.
ETA: Still even more absurd that there are some “leftists” who believe OBL would be taken alive. I don’t see many others discussing that. But once we knocked on the door, the game was up. Does he go the martyr route, or does he let the world see him get perp walked? That would be such a PR boost for us at the expense of Al Qaeda.
ABL
@Keith G: like ten thousand spoons…
Just Some Fuckhead
eemom’s first rule of holes: dig faster
eemom’s second rule of holes: throw dirt at everyone
eemom’s third rule of holes: blame someone else for hole
eemom’s fourth rule of holes: redouble digging efforts
eemom
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Weak sauce, asshole.
Standard fuck-fare.
And you are still a redneck racist loser.
Keith G
@ABL: Now that’s ironic.
Eric Arthur Blair
The student should have said, “No. Are you still in mourning for Hitler?”
Tehanu
@freelancer:
Can I join you in telling jonas to eff off?
Holden Pattern
What’s the inverse of Godwin’s law, where Hitler *should* have been invoked, but wasn’t?
OBL was a mass murderer, but not an existential threat except to the extent that his actions caused us to tear ourselves apart in blind rage and fear. Valorizing him this way is just pathetic.