EDIT: Removed as a bit too controversial.

Counter-point: Cold War

It's an opportunity for government to grab power everywhere. They'll let it go over their cold dead hands.

(Long post) There are two things I want to address from this thread.

Re: Celebrating Osama's death potentially inciting more hatred or worse from al Qaeda & their sympathizers.

I humbly disagree with this assertion. This is b/c most of the moslem world is celebrating Osama's death as well, as he had worked as hard to fuck up Afganistan's & Pakistan's citizens as he did America's, in the last 10+ years of his life. And he was able to do so by way of his reputation for freedom fighting w/the Mujahideen in the 80s vs. the Russian invasion of Afganistan.

While Osama had a close contigent of people who have the same insane agenda as he had, he built up most of his following by his resume w/the Mujahideen, using his wealth to build up his new al-Queda army, and giving misguided young men a way to vent their frustration (ie- spinning America's presence in Saudi Arabia toward's his own end; I'm not saying I like USA's presence there, but I trust Saudi Arabia's leaders as much as I do USA's - that's to say I trust them not at all) and develop at his hidden training camps unto becoming akin to real life 'Princes of Persia.'

But now, the revolutionaries in Egypt, Tunisia & Libya have shown those young men that everything they were blaming America & Israel for, was really something they should've been blaming their own leaders for. These revolutionaries are a loud statement as to how wrong it was for those young men who joined al-Qaeda to allow themselves to fall sway to Osama's charisma.

So while celebrating Osama's death will incite more hatred from al-Queda's top decision makers, it's actually quite irrelevant, as they've shown over the past 10yrs that they'll strike whenever and wherever they have the opportunity to do so, w/o any substantial provocation at that.

But the young men who were attracted to Osama's charisma, wanted to do things for their fellow longsuffering moslems, & misguided to what people in the West are really like unto thinking they need to be nuked, they now have something to help them see past their anger that's clouded their judgement via how the North African revolutionaries operate - specifically Egypt's, centering around Wael Ghonim. These young men now clearly see a better way, clearly see the situation for what it is, and now clearly see that American & Israeli CITIZENS weren't the problem; their own fuckin leaders are the damn problem! The fact that Osama was killed right in his own house ought to make those that are still on the fence to think long & hard about things too, if the North African revolutionaries aren't enough (I think they are, for the most part).

I should add that the same anger & frustration that made those young men want to join al-Queda in the 1st place, is the EXACT same anger & frustration that many (not all, of course - juss speaking about a specific number who refuse to read a book etc) young men in America feel that compels them to join the army and think that killing or torturing a few innocent Iraqi, Afgani, & Pakistani lives is 'okay' or 'justifyable,' so long as its done with the intent to get the big baddies. They both seek to fight & kill, based on seeing their fellow countrymen & women endure such suffering, and both think that the side across the ocean from them is at fault. Think on this.

Re: Justifying civilian deaths, because they fall under the 'accidental' catagory.

I don't feel civilian deaths that happen in pursuit of 'standard' military targets is ever justifyable (you can learn as much by playing video games, for fuck's sake). Yet people always seek to justify it. And it reminds me of a specific story found in Planescape: Torment, and it's one I'll never forget for as long as I exist. I'll share it right here:

(Start)
I stood on the deck of my flagship, the Divine Hammer, asit floated over the continent of Agarheim, held aloft by the winds of magic. The very landscape roiled and shuddered beneath the bombardment of my fleet, one thousand ships’ cannons and bombards hurling their sorcerous fire down like vengeful gods. The shockwaves had begun to hit my ship only minutes ago — a constant vibration that sent shudders through the whole of the ancient craft and moved my very bones — accompanied by a constant, rumbling bass. As the land’s mountains began to sink and the seas that surrounded it begin to boil off into the atmosphere, my first officer came to stand beside me.

“My Lord Admiral… permission to speak freely, sir.”

I nodded my acquiescence, my stomach sinking as I guessed at his question.

“My lord… forgive me, but how? What gives us the right? A billion lives…”

I spoke without turning to him, unable to take my eyes off Rhumos, the nation’s vast capital city, as it vaporized into a cloud of super-heated gasses twelve miles across and growing
ever-wider. “If you only knew the full treachery of the Agarites, First Officer Felm, one which is beyond most any man’s comprehension… then you would know. You would speak of
our right to annihilate them? We've no right to let them live.”

“But… sir? Traitors, all of them? Surely, among the hundreds of thousands. How many innocents—”

“Silence! Speak of it no more — our king has spoken, His will be done. The task set to us is a horrible one, not fit for contemplation or questioning. There is no room for pity, no
room for remorse – only duty.”

The two of us stood silently for a time, watching the last minutes of Agarheim. At long last I sighed… a low, stuttering exhalation that sounded as if something had broken inside me.
Beneath the brazen plate that covered the ruined half of my face, my dead eye began to weep…

“Falm… my friend… I would have you understand. I know now, as I look down at what I have wrought here, that were I to think upon what I have done… what I have truly done… I
would be struck mad. A deed such as this… the anguish would overwhelm, destroy me. So, First Officer Falm, it must be that there *are* no innocents in Agarheim… no mothers, no children, no *people.* Only traitors. Vile, cunning traitors, who deserve no less than the full brunt of our most Holy King’s wrath. Do you understand this?”

“Y-yes, m’lord.”

“Good. Now go… I wish to be alone, here.”

“By your command, Lord Admiral.” Falm bowed his head and returned below deck, leaving me to stand over the end of a civilization.
(End)

Take that what you will of it, but I take it this as Lawful Stupid unto Chaotic Evil.

To put it further into perspective let me add this:

"If people hear of 1 person dying, it becomes known as a tragedy."
"If people hear of 50 people dying, it becomes known as a statistic."

I can't remember where I heard that (it may even have been this mssg. board), but it seems so true. I feel allowing one's self to become desensitized like that is one step before rationalizing & justifying civilian deaths.

I'll end this by saying that military precision isn't so precise when innocent lives are lost.

"The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic."
-J.V.Stalin

It is quite commonly used quote.

Trying to narrow it down to religion I see. Fine. In which country a religious man recently did a Quran burning? In the name of freedom of speech, no less?

But I'd like to take a step back if you allow:
The trouble is that ______A______ believe that all other peoples must convert or, failing that, they must perish. Seriously, that is what they are taught, and it is what they believe. To them, there is no such thing as an 'innocent', just those that believe what they believe. This is what is meant by "______B_______"; those few radicals that have no moral problems DENYING HUMAN RIGHTS, and for whom collateral damage is inconsequential. These are the people we fight.

The only thing I changed, is the "using human shields" part which became denying human rights.
Now go and pick a few names / organisations / ideologies you want and insert them in A and B. Try to shy away from religion and try something else - heck, even economics work. How many did fit in spot on?

That's the closest thing you can think of? Wow. Bummer.

Let's try it this way then:
- allowing the use of methods of torture, which prior where designated as illegal by U.S. generals in the Vietnam War.
- starting a war in a sovereign state, with false / faked / non-existant proof. Once that bucket had too much holes to hold up anything, changing the reason why you had to march in. Once that reason gotten floored too, rinse and repeat. All the while hidding, that you did it for the financial gains of your friends.
- holding prisoners locked up, with no charge, striped of any legal rights.

Do I really need to come up with names, or can you figure it out on your own? After all, you're the one of us paying the "top guy" his rent with your tax dollars.....

Besides, Iran didn't changed it's name around WW2. It was always being called Iran by it's own populace, since ancient times. It's only that the western part of the world started to use that name around 1935, instead of calling it Persia.
Nice try putting the Iranians in the same boat as the german Nazis. But please, at least TRY to do a little research before spreading conspiracy theories - there's a lot more behind Arianism / Iran and the cradle of the world then just Arian = Nazi.

"The death of one american is a tragedy, the death of millions non-americans a statistic."
That's how a lot see Americas foreign policy and it's interventions. And that's where the hate is coming from. As simple as that.

Yes this is important to know. It's rather rude I think to piss on the legacy of the Iranians\Persians like that. From what I remember the third reich had some influence on the current regime in Iran so they might have influenced the the demand for the outside world to stop calling Iran Persia and use the name Iran instead. Iran is the proper name and Persia is actually a smaller area of Iran that the dynasties of the first and third Iranian empire came from. But since the name Persia has been used in the west since ancient times it could be argued that it is as proper to say Persia as it is to say Iran.

Arian = Iranian. The Nazis were fond of the Persians since they had a language that was related to the main European languages (Indo-European language family) and they seem to have thought that relation in language equaled relation by blood. They were probably not very fond of the Arabs since their language is closely related to the Hebraic language (Semitic language family).

I have to say that I think it is quite dishonest to compare Christian extremists and Muslim extremists like that.
I'm a very liberal atheist that actually welcomes the Muslim immigration to my country. (Although we must of course be careful not to let things get out of hand. The stability and future of a well-functioning nation is more important than the the well-being and lives of a lot of individuals.)

I also think that both radical Islam, conservative Christianity and conservative Islam are huge threats to many of the ideas and values that I deem important. But it should be obvious to anyone that extreme Christians are closer to our liberal, humanistic values than extreme Islamists. A comparison with Christianity 500 years ago would have given a much closer match.

Islam needs more reforms and I think the Muslim populations in modern countries in Europe and America will be able to do that and spread their ideas out in the world.

Islam like Christianity is a very strong religion. But modernism is so much stronger. The prophets and deities will have to bow their heads to technology, like we all will.

I can't really see that Iranians have much in common with Fascists. I don't know that much about them but the current regime seem to have more in common with conservative Christians but they are of course a lot more extreme.

Actually this is something you should be happy about. Of course, Osama was a very bad man and it was good that they did put an end to him for several reasons. But the fact that the leader of a militarist group like al-Qaeda did manage to stay alive and fight against the mightiest nation in the world for so long is in some ways uplifting. Just imagine if the number one superpower were an authoritarian dictatorship and not a democracy. USA won't be the only superpower forever and who knows what can come instead.

He actually didn't do it, fyi. And most conservatives (even the crazy ones) were against it.

Also, burning a holy book is not equivalent to killing a person.

He was killed in his house which was a few klicks away from the Pakistani capitol, according to the various news sources that I have been reading. Is it just me or were the Pakistani people covering for him? As in "That guy who looks like Osama? Nah, that's Odama with a D. He gets mistaken for Osama all the time, it's crazy!"


And is anyone getting a 1984 vibe from all of this or is it just me? I feel a "Two Minutes Hate"coming on.

So, where are the conservatives that are preaching 'convert or die'? Still apples and oranges to me. I can find imams preaching for the death of Jews and Christians fairly easily, but I would really need to dig to find any conservatives (whether religious or not) that are saying anything similar.

Yeah, I was in a rush and I wasn't clear. Heck, I even misspelled 'Aryan'. I was referring to this mainly (yeah yeah, it is a blog, but it had the information I was alluding to when I Googled 30 seconds ago):

http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/nazi-germany-and-persia-iran/blog-258353/

You can cry foul and conspiracy all you want, but this type of thing would make sense to me. Nazis were Jew-hating fascists and the current government of Iran is Jew-hating religious fascism. I am not saying that most Persians are bigoted anti-Semites, merely that their leaders seem to be.

EDIT:
Removed a link for a video, because it was incomplete and was a little too sensationalist.

Called it.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/568930

Quick fact: Some of the settlers of Lithuania were Iranian Persians who emigrated North.

You're making it yourself rather easy with still only taking on the religious part. We both know I can't counter it there. But we also both know, that religion is only being used as an excuse and isn't the source for this hate. So keep your eyes turned blind on everything else - others don't.