Wednesday, May 4, 2011

OSAMA VERSUS USAMA



You would have thought the Washington Redskins had just won the Super Bowl.

A bunch of (mostly young) men and women, standing in the street outside the White House on Sunday night, some with faces painted, chanting "we're number one!" in celebration of the demise of Osama Bin Laden.

Or, as Fox News spells it, Usama Bin Laden.

You say Usama, I say Osama…let's call the whole thing off.

Interesting but worthless tidbit alert! Fox seems to be the only news source that uses this particular spelling, but it is also the spelling preferred by United States intelligence agencies. The FBI’s “Most Wanted List,” now updated to reflect bin Laden’s death, has the name spelled “Usama.” The CIA’s website also spells bin Laden’s name with a “U.”

But I digress. On Sunday night, our warrior king made the announcement that Osama/Usama had been killed. What a shock-his poll number climbed! What a coincidence that just when he needed a boost, we managed to find the man who had befuddled us for almost a DECADE!



Sadly, the D.C. throng did not seem to have any time to reflect on the 2,976 who died in the attacks on that dark day in September, 2001, nor the 5,885 Amercians who have died fighting these wars. And who knows how many innocent civillians in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

All to kill one man.

This was supposed to be about justice, and closure for the families of the 9/11 victims. It looked like an excuse to get drunk.



I am not sorry Osama/Usama is dead, although I would have rather seen him stand trial. I just thought the celebration seemed inappropriate, especially since the crowd looked to be pretty much made up of people who had absolutely nothing to do with bringing Osama/Usama (Rama Lama Ding Dong Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am) to justice.

The celebrations at West Point and on miliatry bases seemed more appropriate to me. First of all, these are people who have put their lives at risk, and second of all, they were singing the national anthem or "God Bless America."

I'm sorry, but chanting "We're number one" and painting your face seems a little bit disrespectful to those who have fallen.

And are we really number one? Our last few presidents have been very willing to cede control of our armed forces to the UN, so isn't it really the United Nations who are number one?

Is there anything left that America is "number one" at?



Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wasted no time getting the rhetoric out. She was talking all badass.

"Our message to the Taliban remains the same, but today it may have even greater resonance: You cannot wait us out. You cannot defeat us."

It took almost ten years for us to exact our pound of flesh for 9/11, and there is still enough meat in the conspiracy theory claims to raise serious doubts about whether some highly placed American government employees should have been included in the revenge-taking.

Does Mrs. Clinton really believe the threat of revenge in ten years is a deterrent to someone who is willing to risk their own life today to perpetrate an act of mayhem?

Finally, it seems like the subject of "enhanced interrogation techniques" like waterboarding has come up again.

Does anyone else long for the days when waterboarding was a recreation on the Jersey shore for people too uncoordinated to surf?



In this case, according to Wikipedia, waterboarding is a form of torture (their choice of word) in which water is poured over the face of an immobilized captive, causing the individual to experience the sensation of drowning.

But now we want to call it an "enhanced interrogation technique."

As if that makes it all right.

I thought the whole point of our various interventions into the affairs of other nations was to bring them our 'more civilized' way of life.

"They hate us for our freedom," right?

I get that there may be things a law enforcement official does in a crisis that may seem similar to what Kiefer Sutherland does on a typical episode of "24." I'd rather not know about it, and if that means they find the nuclear bomb and Los Angeles doesn't blow up, maybe too many questions should not be asked.

But I am not saying that the end justifies the means. And WE are supposed to have the moral high ground.

A civilized country MUST have a policy of being against torture.

We cannot claim the moral high ground from below moral sea level.

Or, to circle back to my first rant, when I mentioned my disgust with the face-painted chanters, a co-worker commented that our celebrations were no different than the Islamic chants when the twin towers fell all those years ago.

To which I replied:

"Yes, but we're supposed to be better than that."

9 comments:

  1. >>>...We cannot claim the moral high ground from below moral sea level.

    Good line. Right on!

    >>>...Does anyone else long for the days when waterboarding was a recreation on the Jersey shore for people too uncoordinated to surf?

    Ha!

    Let's go surfin' now
    Everybody's learning how
    Come on Internet surf with me

    Well, now that Osama/Usama is dead (we’ll just take Uncle Sam’s word for that), this “War on Terrorism” has just about been won. We should have it all wrapped up and placed in the ‘USA Victory Column’ in no more than about 600 years.

    >>>...Osama/Usama (Rama Lama Ding Dong Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am)

    Hey, I’m callin’ “Foul!”
    That line sounds awfully, awfully familiar to me.

    Good thing I never got around to copyrighting it or you’d be appearing soon in a courtroom near you!

    [I guess I’m willing to share it... under the circumstances.]

    ~ D-FensDogg
    ‘Loyal American Underground’

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  2. It oughta sound familiar....

    Rama Lama Ding Dong was lifted from Otis Day & The Knights (Animal House soundtrack)

    Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am was lifted from Suffragette City (David Bowie).

    Good thing you never TRIED to copyright it or you'd be David Bowie and DeWayne Jessie's love slave.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2JFJ6B9xoY

    LC

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  3. >>>...Rama Lama Ding Dong was lifted from Otis Day & The Knights. Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am was lifted from Suffragette City (David Bowie).

    Well, at least when I steal, I steal from class acts like Otis Day & The Knights. You, on the other hand, steal from a thief like me and - (Gasp! To make matters even worse...) - a freak like David Bowie! How sad is THAT?!

    You should at least aspire to be the original thief. Don't be a second-hand thief, and never, under any circumstances, steal from someone as queer as David Bowie!

    In one blog bit you have broken two of the principal unwritten laws of thievery. Shame! There's nuttin' worse than a lawless thief!

    ~ D-FensDogg
    'Loyal American Underground'

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  4. As discussed, I did know this was not an original thought but could not remember where I'd read it. You mentioned using it somewhat recently.

    I applaud you for being a better thief than I am.

    ReplyDelete
  5. >>>....I applaud you for being a better thief than I am.

    Thank you. Well, I don't mean to boast, but it IS something that I earnestly work at.

    Listen, Brother, I would love to send you a list of "The Unwritten Laws Of Thievery" but... then they wouldn't be "unwritten" anymore.

    But don't worry, you'll gradually memorize them as you encounter 'em while progressing and refining your stealing ways. We ALL had to learn these laws the hard way, by first transgressing them and getting called on the carpet for it, when we first started down this path.

    ~ D-FensDogg
    'Loyal American Underground'

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  6. This sort of makes you the Artful Dodger to my Oliver Twist, huh?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Zat zounds zabout right.

    ~ D-FenzDogg
    'Loyal American Underground'

    ReplyDelete
  8. "I am not sorry Osama/Usama is dead"

    Me either.

    "although I would have rather seen him stand trial"

    If you're talking about a US court, that was never going to happen - what happens (and rightly so) in these cases are military tribunals - they are trials with evidence, but they're not ludicrous spectacles like an OJ case.

    "I just thought the celebration seemed inappropriate"

    Sure, that is sensible. I would rather have seen what you noted at places like West Point as well, for the reasons you name. But I've never been all that interested in Osama bin Laden as some sort of goalpost or endzone.

    "In this case, according to Wikipedia, waterboarding is a form of torture (their choice of word) in which water is poured over the face of an immobilized captive, causing the individual to experience the sensation of drowning."

    Wikipedia is...oy. Well at any rate, the victims of genuine torture in Vietnam; in fact, the compatriots of McCain (who, as you'll recall was permanently disabled by the torture he was subject to) do NOT agree that waterboarding is torture. Some of our own servicemen undergo it as part of training, but that isn't really the point. Their point was that the real thing - genuine torture - causes legitimate injury. Broken bones, popped eyeballs, ripped out fingernails - debilitating injuries. Waterboarding scares people. I wouldn't want to go through it, but neither am I an enemy combatant (which are not in any way shape or form covered under the Geneva Convention) going around slaughtering people while hiding behind civilians so I can claim the opponents are recklessly slaughtering women and children. Unlike, for example, Palestinian "warriors" who proclaim they revel in the death of their elderly, infirm, and children for that reason. If I were subject to waterboarding it wouldn't be because I was a real and present danger to honest people.

    "I thought the whole point of our various interventions into the affairs of other nations was to bring them our 'more civilized' way of life."

    To accomplish that necessitates eliminating the genuinely evil element who are using civilians, who slice the heads off of innocent foreign civilians with dull blades screaming Allahu Akbar or whatever screams of orgasmic joy they feel like uttering, who are constantly slaughtering priests and children out of sheer hatred without the slightest censure from their own governments or law enforcement, etc. Those who have information have to be questioned and those who jump up and start shooting as enemy combatants are legitimate targets for kill shots. In other words, if you want an omelet, you have to break some eggs. If you want a civil society you have to find means to rid that society of the truly evil and crazy-making shits who destroy everything they see and touch.

    After seeing the beheading videos and the stoning of 17 year old girls to death by joyous and screaming crowds of evil men, to ask me to feel sorry for the perpetrators is just too much. I don't.

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  9. Conclusion:


    "Well, now that Osama/Usama is dead (we’ll just take Uncle Sam’s word for that), this “War on Terrorism” has just about been won."

    It might be, but not because of that. One man's death when umpteen groups took credit and continued the slaughter after the death of my local countrymen is simply not even close to sufficient. I don't claim to know if we can genuinely civilize barbaric hordes or weed out the utterly evil among them when it's so widespread - but they brought it to us. The men who have fought abroad say they have accomplished their goal if they have succeeded in removing the threat so far away from us that we just don't really have to think about it except to rhapsodize about how much better we are or how much better we should be and how horrible it is that we send people over to foreign countries to fight, etc. It was brought to our door and our goal had to be to bring it back where it came from and eliminate the threat. Yes, I understand you don't think it came from somewhere else, but that's...well whatever. The way things played out it sure doesn't look like that's possible. If it was, then they sure took credit and continued the slaughter on the ground and in the videos and among their own people and continually, conTINually, in the churches and religious sanctuaries of the countries involved (and some who are not involved, such as Turkey.)

    If all this makes me no better, so be it. I know better.

    ReplyDelete