I wish it had been announced on 9/11. What ironic poetic justice.
Pretty much wide open to interpretatoin based on the desires of the individual. Yes, radicals will see it as a victory, a martyr’s death during jihad. Others, myself included, see it as a guy who, because of our hunt for him couldn’t even get basic, life saving treatment and suffered a painful, early, non-natural death.
Regardless, his legacy will be carved up by all more fervently than any holiday turkey.
This is undoubtedly true. As for myself, if it’s true, I cannot get over the fact that he got away. He was the most hated man in America, and he evaded capture for five years (more if you count the pre-9/11 era, which you should). That’s an accomplishment for him and an embarassment for us any way you cut it. He got away and now we’ll never catch him.
If this is true, which frankly, I doubt.
I was hoping for something that the sort of people inclined to follow him would regard as a divine judgment (leprosy, AIDS, that sort of thing).
Well, yeah, if it’s a war on an actual country with a flag and a capital and everything…
On the other hand, in some countries, his birthday will probably be celebrated as a national holiday.
I told my dad about this and his response was, “Well, sounds like a rumor. I wish him well. I hope he burns forever.”
– IG
Ahh yes. The perennial “<insert date> Conspiracy Surprise”. And if I had a dime for every time I read of the October Surprise of the previous US presidential election I would be on a my 75 foot yacht in the Mediterranean with my butler and a beautiful blond chick with big tits. Too bad there wasn’t one after all. But of course there’s a conspiracy. There’s always a conspiracy.
Supposedly, by the very suspect sources, he died of typhoid. I don’t know how it is around where you’re at – but around here typhoid is not so normal or usually considered a natural death. I doubt millionaires anywhere regularly die by typhoid. How is death by typhoid anyway. Worse than being shot or blown to bits I should imagine.
Anyway. I’d wait a couple of days before celebrating. His head on a pike would do it also.
Typhoid’s still a worry in undeveloped countries. But yeah, death from it is a sign he couldn’t get medical care. Fatalities with proper antibiotic treatment are around 1%. Untreated, it kills about 10-30% of the people who get it.
It’s a fever, with fevery symptoms - letharga, weakness, diarrhea, fever and chills, stomach ache. Sometimes your intestines perforate and you go septic. It’s not pleasant, but it’s not death by rabid weasels and lemon juice, either.
Although, it worth thinking about that typhoid fever is almost always spread by water or food contaminated with the fecal matter of an infected person. Which means, if true, that Bin Laden likely ate shit before he died. Fitting, that.
Time magazine is reporting that he is “possibly dead.”
I hope to hell and back that this is true.
I think you may be misunderstanding the expression “natural death”. It’s a technical term meaning simply “death caused by disease or old age rather than by an act of violence or an accident”. Death from a typhoid infection does indeed fall into the category “natural death”, so Menocchio was correct.
Considering the conditions he is undoubtedly in, and factoring in his age and other health concerns, I wouldn’t be surprised. Typhoid wouldn’t be the most pleasant death either, if there was no treatment and in very rough and basic conditions (imagine going through that in a cold, damp cave for instance, or a rough hut somewhere with no running water). As for not catching him being a shame on the US, I don’t buy it. The man is in some of the roughest, most inhospitable country known to man, he is among those who completely sympathize with his cause, and who are VERY clannish and distrustful of strangers…even strangers offering large cash rewards. One man, who doesn’t have an aversion to constantly having to move and hide, who doesn’t mind privation and harsh living, and who isn’t stupid enough to venture out of the mountains into more civilized regions (at least not very often) would certainly have a better than even chance to avoid the types of nets the US can throw down. Our chance to really get him was before he knew he was so hunted, when his guard was not quite up as high as its been post-9/11…when we were monitoring his cell phone converstaions (before we stupidly leaked that we were doing so). THAT was when the odds would have been a bit more in our favor. Of course, before 9/11 it wasn’t as urgent to catch or kill the man either…so its kind of a wash.
Anyway, I’ll await further data on this. As I said, I wouldn’t be surprised if he died as described…but I also wouldn’t be surprised if the report was yet another false alarm.
-XT
I won’t be satisfied until I hear that he is really, most sincerely dead.
As for being able to evade capture for five years, if we had gone after him rather than wasting our time in Iraq, we probably would have had him.
:mad:
Yes, thank you.
bin Laden dying from disease, even a preventable disease, or anything other than by the hands of a military strike before being captured is an offense to my sense of justice. Thousands, hell, millions, of people die from typhus and similarly preventable diseases. The overwhelming majority of them aren’t hiding from the biggest military in the world. It’s like Ken Lay dying before sentencing. Yeah, he’s dead, but we’ve been cheated out of our retribution and of making him an example of what happens to people like that.
And if he was shot in the shoulder and died as a result of infection in the wound, that could not be treated in his hideout, that would be a natural death also. However there is little doubt that a man with his resources would not normally die as a result of typhoid and that this must be the result of the pressure he was under following the hunt on him. So yes, the US did in fact kill him – if in a circumspect indirect way. If the reports are true. Of course a turn in the electric chair would have been to be preferred.
If he was captured you would have called for death sentence and execution?
I’m pretty sure that this isn’t a Blackadder episode.
Couple of thoughts on what I hope is this blessed morn:
- It’s not above Osama to spread rumors, even via the sainted French, to make people believe he’s dead and gone. Let’s face it, without him the hunt for Al Qaeda in that part of the world will taper off.
Then, a few months later, a full-color trimphant gloating omg-it’s-undeniably-him videotape. The civilized world throws up.
-
If it’s true, then we avoid a trial that would be an endless source of contention from its placement to every second of its conduct, another Slobodan/Saddam speechifyin’ spectacle.
-
I had gotten the strong impression that the absolute happiest death for Osama was to be shot by U.S. Marines or “apostate” Muslim troops, with him taking thousands of them down with him, of course, and ideally a son or two dying right by his side, shouting “Allahu Akbar”. With the whole thing on tape. Not burning up in a cave or hut somewhere. Any country whose soldiers or agents killed Osama would be subject to (even more) Al Qaeda hatred, and the bombs would be going off in Karachi or Paris or London or maybe DC before the DNA tests had come back.
Somehow, “Death to Bacterial Infections!” doesn’t have the same ring to it, unless you’re Doctors Without Borders or the Bill Gates Foundation.
As for the whole thing being futile anyway–hey, girls got shot before they caught the Son of Sam when I was a brunette teenager (read: target). They sure got shot afterwards, too. But Lord, was I glad when they caught that sick bastard.
Not nearly as powerful, but tougher. Not that it matters, since he/she was speaking of the “War on Terrorism”; terrorism, being merely a tactic is indestructable short of exterminating all of humanity. You might as well try to eliminate lying or theft.
So he’s a martyr and he shows how the west can’t touch those who fight against them?
I’m against the death penalty on general principles, but in bin Laden’s case I wouldn’t have groused very loudly.
The important thing would have been the capture and the trial, not the sentence. By capturing him (or even killing him outright), we show that our military is a force to be reckoned with, not a bunch of impotent bumblers that can’t even catch one man, and that you can’t fucking get away with something like what bin Laden did. A trial, a fair and open trial I mean, would have shown that our way works, that civilization is better than barbarism. That even someone who has wronged us as much as bin Laden did gets his day in court, and that democracy and the rule of law is much much stronger than that piece of shit. And then, only after we’ve demonstrated to bib Laden and the world how much better we are, we get to mete out whatever punishment the system decides is fair.
I didn’t just want Bin Laden dead. I wanted to rub his face in how much better we are. I wanted to demonstrate to the world how a civilized people deals with people like that, with justice and equity under the law. And if he died of typhus, we don’t get to do that. We don’t even get the pleasure of blowing his ass away.