I don’t agree with that. I think a fair proportion of young men especially, and people in general, are eager to physically defend their homes, families, country, etc, and I think there is a higher proportion of that type of person in the US as compared to other “advanced democracies.” Not that I’ve done any surveys, but it tends to come out in terms of national policy. America is known the world over for lashing out wildly when provoked. That’s why terrorism has been so effective against us. It’s our national character and unlikely to change for the foreseeable future.
Contra Jimmy Chitwood, I’m not a warmonger by any means, just comfortable with the military having taken out bin Laden and showing his sorry carcass to anyone who wants to see it. Those pictures of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed were hilarious, all sweaty and fat in his crummy T-shirt. Some Americans feel guilty about God knows what and think we should go around humilating ourselves, when in reality it is these terrorist creeps who need to be humiliated and mocked.
I think the kid should get extra credit, and the only thing I am worried about
is jerkweasels like you discouraging him and others like him from wanting to
be Seals and kill terrorists when they grow up.
The fact that it “come[s] out in terms of national policy” doesn’t undermine my point at all; if anything, it supports my point.
Many Americans are quite happy to vote for aggressive, kick-ass foreign policies that they don’t have to take any personal responsibility for enforcing. The nation is filled with chickenhawks who are happy to vote for ass-kicking, but not to actually do it. It’s pretty easy to cheer a war from your loungeroom, especially when no-one from your family is directly involved.
Gaahhh, I posted this in the wrong thread originally.
Oops…too many bin Laden threads. :smack:
:smack:
I don’t think Americans cheering is the same as Palestinians cheering after 9/11, but we are talking about CHILDREN!
:dubious: You are kidding, right? How is this so much different than this?
Um, my son has an IDF kippah and I’m on the cmte to help celebrate Israel Independence Day. I’m not a weenie when it comes to foreign policy and I’d be supportive if he wanted to join the military, though it doesn’t really seem to fit his personality.
HOWEVER. I do like to set a certain standard of *decency *for my six year old. He’s too young to understand (or to have experienced) what terrorism means to modern warfare. Maybe I’m a liberal weenie because I don’t dress him up and rage about dem dayum towelheads in the middle east. :o
I’m here to apologize on behalf of all my fellow Americans who have displayed frat-party levels of hyperbole and crowd mentality while expressing their emaculate disdain over the death of a terrorist… but still a human being(!)… Who had finaly been brought to justice after almost ten years of evading capture for his epic crimes of orchistrating a trifold attack by flying 767s full of innocent civilians of all walks of life, including children into huge, fucking skycrapers, the Pentagon and presumably a failed attempt toward the White House, but nevertheless fell 30,000 feet out of the sky to a firey cataclysm due to a few brave souls on the airline bent on foiling his plans. Anyway… Forget about them, justice shouldn’t be burdened with the very real casualties, because it tends to bring out feelings of retaliation.
While not all of us Americans partook in these despicable acts of public, loudmouthed celebrations of misguided elation upon hearing the news of Osama’s protracted demise, I will concede that there are many of us who may have harbored ill feelings far above and beyond the more globally acceptable, robot-like, detached, somber acceptance of his fatality. Indeed, it ever so pains me to admit this, for even a mass-murdering terrorist’s life is still a life! And thus, should be cherished and respected as such, no matter his deeds. There should be no outward elation, and certainly no uncouth requests to see or even fantasize openly about desecrating further, regrettably, his already mutilated body. Such a tragedy that Bin Laden’s fate had to come to such a violent end! No; it’s clear now that only reserved bereavement should be practiced at such times like this, preferably while sipping a cuppa tea.
Yippee!
I was working tonight and I went to the store for my dinner. I picked up some brownies for everyone that were decorated with red & white frosting and red, white and blue star-shaped sprinkles. I joked when I got back to work that they were Bin Laden is Dead Celebratory Brownies. A coworker, who apparently cannot tell when I am joking, started to go on and on about how people are promoting a culture of death by celebrating Bin Laden’s death. I decided to eat a brownie instead of explaining that OBL actually started the whole “culture of death” thing by ordering the murders of over 3000 innocent people.
I’m late to the party as usual, but really? You honestly feel this way?
For the record, I wouldn’t want to see the body or pics of OBL, but I’ve viewed several bodies at funerals.
What part of the world do you live in where there are only closed casket funerals? In my part of the world, the caskets are only closed when the person has been mangled so much that the mortuary people can’t make them presentable, or they are cremated. In which case the urn of ashes is on display.
I never knew that I was a ghoul. Please educate me. Ignorance fought and all.
I’ve always respected Israel for Operation Wrath of God, which went on twice as long as the hunt for Osama. While I admit Israel and the US are more dissimilar than similar, with both I think it goes to the image and that is extremely important in international matters, especially when you’ve as much of a PR problem as we’ve had in recent years.
Would that we could make like a computer and reboot to about September 12 or even May 3 2002 when most of the world liked us and the economy was decent.
I got news for you toots- young boys enjoy wargaming, it is in their genes,
and you are all the other eternal dogooders of the world cannot do anything
about it.
Our best choice is to let them play within the confines of safety, and nothing
could be more harmless than this lego depiction which has your nose all out
of joint. In fact, it is an example of channeling the impulses of young boys in
a productive direction. We do actually need them, some of them, to do duty
as Seals, as trained killers.
Perhaps you need to be reminded of this quotation (attributed, possibly in error,
to Somerset Maugham):
***People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf. ***
No, I am not kidding. I cannot open the 2nd link; wanna try again so I can know
how to continue appropriately.
I had to look up “kippah”. “Yarmulke” I would have gotten.
All this sounds commendable. Don’t spoil it by going to pieces over the
innocuous lego display.
Addressed.
Oh? Well, somebody got the lego kid off to a good start.
And would even a 6-year old have any trouble understanding what it means to
fly airplanes into tall buildings?
You said it, not me.
How about a little bit of raging about people who fly airplnaes into tall buildings,
and you can leave out the part about how they dress when they are at home.
Celebrating the death of an enemy who has killed your countryman is something people are going to do. Not everybody. But some people are going to party hearty at that. Not everybody is a statesman with a sober perspective. Personally, I am not celebrating, but I do have a feeling of satisfaction that bin Ladin is dead. He is bad for the civilized world and his death and the capture of his trove of information will make the world a bit safer after the initial backlash from militants passes and they too are killed.
You guys speak as if “initial backlash from militants” was a short-term annoyance, something to be dismissed out of hand. I’m concerned this whole deal will give fresh inspiration and organization to a new generation of al Qaida, just as that organization seemed like it might be fading away and losing its focus.
Al Qaida is almost dead, so no. The funny thing is, it’s not America’s military might that is killing it. It’s the “Middle-Eastern Spring”. Waves of protest are toppling the states in the Middle East. Tunisia was the first. Egypt second. There’s more happening now. The protestors and rebels across the region are not trying to establish a Caliphate, like Al Qaida wanted, but freedom and democracy.
I’m kinda glad that Osama got to see the beginning of these revolutions. It had to have been his worst nightmare.
Rather obviously, burning someone in effigy is a tad different from simply celebrating a victory. But if you want to play that game, then people in America are only responding to OBL’s death so they can celebrate a victory over the single most murderous killer in America’s history. And if we did start burning OBL’s in effigy in one great big national celebration, it’d just be an ordinary, unremarkable party.
Fair’s fair, and all.
Or, you Brits are a nation of bloodthirsty loons enacting immolation fantasies for almost half a millenium now.
Your call.
Yes, but the important distinction is that when the English burned people in effigy for four centuries they did it with aplomb and class, and not with the tawdry bloodlust that possibly hundreds of Americans are displaying now.
