Moonangie wrote:

Markji wrote:Osama bin Laden is killed May 1.

General Petraeus, chief of military operations in Afghanistan, is appointed CIA director. Announced on April 28, to take effect in July.

Interesting. Afghanistan mission is now accomplished! Taking Gen. Petraeus out of Afghanistan gives Obama the ability to scale back U.S. operations there. General Petraeus was very popular and the chief proponent of the escalation of troops in Afghanistan. Now he has another important position as CIA Director, but no longer the military leader. Obama can have a freer hand to shape U.S. policy. I hope and expect that we will start pulling out of Afghanistan. Bin Laden wasn't even in Afghanistan; he was hiding in the middle of a town in Pakistan.

Word. It's time to GTFO of that hell hole. We got our guy, dumped him in the sea, time to bring our troops home. We should instead build up our CIA assets in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. There's no military solution to be won there and we have pressing needs for investment at home.

Brilliant planning, brilliant execution!

JOE WIEDER, Brooklyn NY

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. ... Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
'Where Do We Go From Here?" as published in Where Do We Go from Here : Chaos or Community? (1967), p. 62; many statements in this book, or slight variants of them, were also part of his address Where Do We Go From Here?" which has a section below. A common variant appearing at least as early as 1968 has "Returning violence for violence multiplies violence..." An early version of the speech as published in A Martin Luther King Treasury (1964), p. 173, has : "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate..."

jusnice wrote:This is the real MLK quote and it was something my Mom had posted on the fridge when we were kids...I remember having a vivid discussion about this quote and MLK as part of a leadership forum in the days following 9/11 as part of my grad school curriculum at Columbia. It is hard not to be happy that Bin Laden is dead, but I am a little embarrassed by the public cheering and celebrations. Either way, I hope that his death somehow leads to a more expeditous withdrawal from the Middle East and Afghanastan. Having said that, it is only a matter of time until these areas produce another whacko intent on mass destruction and death and who doesn't care who they kill (americans or arabs). When that happens en masse again, I wonder if it leads to another cycle of war and occupation in these countries. It is hard to be positive when looking at this area of the world and all of the historic religious strife and violence. Maybe, just maybe, democratic reforms and shift in American foreign policy that is not about ****ing with these governments can lead to a better place for all. We seem to forget that we created Bin Laden, we armed Bin Laden, and he was our buddy when the Soviets were the bad guys...

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. ... Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
'Where Do We Go From Here?" as published in Where Do We Go from Here : Chaos or Community? (1967), p. 62; many statements in this book, or slight variants of them, were also part of his address Where Do We Go From Here?" which has a section below. A common variant appearing at least as early as 1968 has "Returning violence for violence multiplies violence..." An early version of the speech as published in A Martin Luther King Treasury (1964), p. 173, has : "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate..."

Thanks for posting this, some of the reaction and celebration made me want to puke as people seem to revel in death. I don't understand how anyone can celebrate death, it's beyond the level of comprehension endowed on my very limited mental faculties. Not sure where we are headed from here, either.

Nalod wrote:I hit the streets this morning finding out that Isiah won't be coming back!

Now there's something to revel in the streets about.

The end of a national catharsis about Bin Laden was enough reason for the yoots to become frenzied. I felt a measure of revenge accomplished myself. But as MLK pointed out, the feeling won't do any of us good in the long run.

While that may be true, it sure does feel aight bout now.

jusnice wrote:This is the real MLK quote and it was something my Mom had posted on the fridge when we were kids...I remember having a vivid discussion about this quote and MLK as part of a leadership forum in the days following 9/11 as part of my grad school curriculum at Columbia. It is hard not to be happy that Bin Laden is dead, but I am a little embarrassed by the public cheering and celebrations. Either way, I hope that his death somehow leads to a more expeditous withdrawal from the Middle East and Afghanastan. Having said that, it is only a matter of time until these areas produce another whacko intent on mass destruction and death and who doesn't care who they kill (americans or arabs). When that happens en masse again, I wonder if it leads to another cycle of war and occupation in these countries. It is hard to be positive when looking at this area of the world and all of the historic religious strife and violence. Maybe, just maybe, democratic reforms and shift in American foreign policy that is not about ****ing with these governments can lead to a better place for all. We seem to forget that we created Bin Laden, we armed Bin Laden, and he was our buddy when the Soviets were the bad guys...

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. ... Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
'Where Do We Go From Here?" as published in Where Do We Go from Here : Chaos or Community? (1967), p. 62; many statements in this book, or slight variants of them, were also part of his address Where Do We Go From Here?" which has a section below. A common variant appearing at least as early as 1968 has "Returning violence for violence multiplies violence..." An early version of the speech as published in A Martin Luther King Treasury (1964), p. 173, has : "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate..."

MLK was reared in the church and although a Sinner like the rest of us the knowledge dropped in scripture(book of Rom 12:17-19) is too potent of truth for a man such as himself or any other to sidestep. He remixed it very well though and put his own flavor on it.

I feel no safer today than I did yesterday and that's Bin Laden/Gadaffi/Hussein all essentially down and out at this time.

It's unfortunate that with all of our capable brain intelligence and internal qualities to demonstrate things such as compassion and love of neighbor we come up with systems of governments that oppress/exploit/enslave/injust/ruin/defame personal values/pressure for greatest sacrifice etc etc via some Man Made documentation in accordance to where you live.....stating abidance and/or allegiance or else face consequences beyond repercussion not only resulting in the loss of human lives but a slow and gradual death of ruining the earth.

Obama made a statement too about "no matter what God you pray to"....but then closed his speech by saying "One Nation Under God" when addressing the Nation of confirmation of Bin Laden's death. And we wonder why there is this great demonstration of setting oneself apart from his neighbor it's because of confusing statements from Leaders saying things like this. We've had a lot of time to make things better but nevertheless they still get worse and it's going to take something more than what we have today to stop this train wreck of implosion facing us.

Nalod wrote:

misterearl wrote:"What may turn out to be even more important than the powerful symbolism of Osama bin Laden’s death is the trove of documents that the commandos seized at Bin Laden’s compound. As his operations center, the compound probably contained records, hard drives and notebooks filled with information about Al Qaeda’s operatives and their whereabouts, bank accounts and so forth. The Central Intelligence Agency may now have names and numbers with which it can dismember the organization after having cut its head off. Clearly, that’s one of the reasons the United States went in with commandos as opposed to an airstrike. Apart from confirming Bin Laden’s presence, we wanted his records."

Brilliant planning, brilliant execution!

JOE WIEDER, Brooklyn NY

And, as Jon Stewart said, We'll know whats on his iPod play list!

Wouldn't be suprised if since we knew the location if we had not hacked it all anyway?

We had been cutting it all down pretty good. If the enemy knows its been compromised they usually go deep underground. Its logical we have known where he is and been informed about the network for some time.

There is **** we ain't never going to know.

IM happy for G. Bush, Im happy for Obama and his jump in the polls, and above all IM happy for AMERICA!

Obama gets a bad rap for too many things.

BTW, Trump will unravel himself. I think its better to let it happen later than sooner.

Palin has been very quiet on all this. Maybe she is learning a thing or two. Too bad, she needs to stay irrelevant until she loses her looks. Then she has nothing.

Sorry, but what we should have done is announce, with feigned disappointment, or course, that we found the documents and hard drives in the compound destroyed... we could have said that bin Laden had managed to burn and destroy them during the 40 minute siege.

Why lets them know that we may now know what they know and what they are doing.

Reminds me of the Bush administration announcing that they were using cell phone transmissions to find terrorists, thereby ensuring that the terrorists would change how they communicated and make it more difficult to track them down. I also recall the British getting pissed off with us for announcing some breakthrough in the "war on terror" before the British could take full advantage of what they had been doing.

Foolishness, IMO.

TymeLessKnicks wrote:This is as far as I will go on this forum in regard to politics and all things related...

Think outside the box...that is your television set.

Go Knicks!

Think Outside the box and do what? The informing of abounding theories is nothing more than entangling everyone deeper into the sheer corruptible world we live in. I mean let's be real most conspiracy information which very well could be more true than not essentially pegs government and the secret societies that work in close conjunction with them as pure lawlessness. Okay so now that you being the one bringing this to our attention let's say you're a voter does this mean you'll stop voting? Does this mean you'll find away to avoid paying taxes? Does this mean you'll move to a country where there is no real presence of government? Does this mean you'll put more faith in god? I never understand when posters bring these videos into a discussion.

loweyecue wrote:

nixluva wrote:You know I've long debated how I should feel about violence but one thing we should keep in mind is that the universe thrives on violence. All life depends on the death of something else. When resources get tight men will fight to survive by claiming those resources. We have societies that are struggling to buck the natural state of things by finding peaceful ways to coexist but it's not the nature of things.

Colonists came here to North America and supplanted the native populations. That has happened over and over thru history. I don't know if man will ever achieve the peace they seek.

Nix, I have grown to respect your posts over time and I agree with what you stated. In fact to be completely honest I don't even know exactly how I feel about this. I think the first and strongets emotion was that of relief, that the world and more selfishly the people of my beloved New York can sleep better at night knowing this monster was dead. But there was also a tinge of sadness over the fact that his wife and possibly his children had to see him being killed in a manner deemed too violent for public viewing. And there is a good deal of revulsion in seeing people throw parties to celebrate his death that in my opinion is reprehensible. But, over time as the story unfolds I am sure I will end up feeling differently as I try to mix rational thought with the initial knee-jerk responses.

It's always easier to be ethically correct when it doesn't effect you directly, however, when it's not some other person, but you that has been wronged it really is hard to not be vengeful. A relative of yours gets attacked and sexually molested, perhaps a young girl and i'm sure that if you caught the guy that you would hardly be able to control your rage and wanting to hurt that person. It's only natural. I think that no human deserves to be treated like an animal UNLESS they behave as an animal. The problem is that human justice isn't perfect. Sometimes we're wrong and the law charges the wrong person for a crime. It's that doubt that stays my belief in a death penalty. However, in the case of a person like Osama who is proud of his murderous ways, I have no pity for that person and the violence that he basically has brought upon himself is well deserved.

But we view the innocent as those not bearing arms. If a bomb builder is "taken out" in his home and his family is there what is the protocal? They are innocent as they are not armed but the bomb builder has put them in arms way, perhaps as a shield, or to blend in more, and is it not the bomb builders responsibility? But if he views his wife and daughters as property and his son will be glorified and rewarded in death then what is our role? Al Jazerra then puts it out as news that innocent family is killed. Is that really fair?

If they set the rules then we should be pounding them without remorse but thats not how we value things.

In a nuclear incident either a dirty bomb in Times Square or a full destruction of israel and see how we start to feel about that. Israel will retaliate and I suppose if we had an event that kills or poisons 10-20,000 people on our soil we might change our minds. That is how we work in this country BTW. We must feel morally correct. Maybe this is the whole basis for 9/11 conspiracy theory: "do on to others as they do on to you"?