Pirate's Cove

A little earlier, John Hawkins was discussing the liberal hypocrisy over the death of Osama Bin Laden, linking to a Melissa Clouthier post about liberals not believing their own war on terrorism rhetoric. From John’s post, we get

For example, what about the “cycle of violence?” We’d be hearing about it non-stop if Bush had killed Bin Laden.

Fortunately, some Progressives stood up after their rounds of suddenly liking the USA, the Star Spangled Banner, and the American Flag not being flown upside down and said “wait! This is a bad thing!”

The plane I was on landed in Washington, D.C., Sunday night, and the pilot came on the intercom to tell everyone to celebrate: our government had killed Osama bin Laden. This was better than winning the Super Bowl, he said.

Set aside for a moment the morality of cheering for the killing of a human being — which despite the pilot’s prompting nobody on the plane did. In purely Realpolitik terms, killing foreign leaders whom we’ve previously supported has been an ongoing disaster.

Got that? No one cheered. The writer, David Swanson, is a long fixture at the DU, and was probably the only person on the plane.

The Taliban was willing to turn bin Laden over for trial both before and after September 11, 2001. Instead our government opted for years of bloody warfare. And in the end, it was police action (investigation, a raid, and a summary execution) and not the warfare, that reportedly tracked bin Laden down in Pakistan. After capturing him, our government’s representatives did not hold him for trial. They killed him and carried away his dead body.

No, the Taliban was not willing to turn him over. Bush gave them ample time, and they said “No.” Apparently, the Navy SEALs are now “police”, as are the CIA and other intelligence agencies involved. Oh, and Swanson just accused the SEALs, and Obama, of murder.

Killing will lead only to more killing. There will be no review of bin Laden’s alleged crimes, as a trial would have provided. There will be no review of earlier U.S. support for bin Laden. There will be no review of U.S. failures to prevent the September 11th attacks. Instead, there will be bitterness, hatred, and more violence, with the message being communicated to all sides that might makes right and murder is the way in which someone is, in President Obama’s words, brought to justice.

And there’s the cycle of violence, which is, of course, in DUmmy World, the complete fault of the United States. Then there is the notion that there have been no reviews of 9/11. Because we’ve never had those……oh, wait. Also, I love how liberals, who always say they are smarter than everyone else, fail to understand the US support of OBL and the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan.

But let’s return to the morality of cheering for the killing of a human being. A decade ago that would not have seemed as natural to a U.S. airline pilot. The automatic assumption would not have been that there could be no dissenters to that celebration. A decade ago torture was considered irredeemably evil. A decade ago we believed people should have fair trials before they are declared guilty or killed. A decade ago, if a president had announced his new power to assassinate Americans, at least a few people would have asked where in the world he got the power to assassinate non-Americans.

And, we’re back to the Liberal Hypocrisy, because the following paragraph seems to put the blame on George W. Bush, and fails to mention Obama’s decision to engage in “targeted killings” of terrorists (a policy I fully agree with, and wish he would use more often).

Imagine the propaganda that the U.S. media could make of video footage of a foreign country where the primitive brutes are dancing in the streets to celebrate the murder of a tribal enemy. That is the propaganda we’ve just handed those who will view bin Laden as a martyr. When their revenge comes, we will know exactly what we are supposed to do: exact more revenge in turn to keep the cycle going.

You know, that sounds rather racist. Anyhow, Osama Bin Laden was not just some “tribal enemy”, but the leader of a brutal international terrorist organization, a notion fully lost on Swanson, and many of the commentators at the post, who cheer Swanson on. Others are telling Swanson he’s full of it, some rationalize, like Zorra, who has an avatar of Margeret Cho doing her best Chavez impersonation

Resolved: bin Laden will not be killing any more innocent people. (Zorra should have stopped there)

I do understand where you are coming from.

I look at it this way.

Sometimes you have to take out the mass murdering gunman in the tower before he shoots any more innocent people.

See how easy it is to rationalize away the moral theories of Liberalism/Progressivism?

To wrap up, another DU thread says Obama is not cheering, he’s sober and stone faced about it. Sure seemed like he and his staff were celebrating and taking a victory lap.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.