Thanks for the comments regarding my last post, but questions remain about Operation bin Laden, aka Gernonimo.
Even to you folks who cursed me and called me names, I thank you for your responses. I love it when people demand evidence when I just ask questions (they may not like). I don't have the answers, but if we don't ask the questions, they will never be answered and most likely will be covered up and/or purposely forgotten. I have a couple of new ones after the news of the last 24 hours or so.
First, many comments were about burial at sea for Muslims and how they have done so for centuries. Maybe so, but this does not imply that Muslims, whether mainstream or extreme, accept sea burial as legitiamate Muslim practice. Further, were there any Muslims aboard the ship? Just putting his body in a white sheet doesn't cover it, no pun intended. Did anyone pray in the Muslim traditions of grief? To assume the Navy practiced respectful Islam is difficult to believe. Here's one more point on that: the news reported bin Laden's son was also killed in the raid, along with others. Did he, or they, receive sea burials as well? What happened to them? Did the SEALs just take Osama's body and leave the rest for Pakistani cops to clean up? Let me know how that is respectful to Muslims or anyone else.
Second, the Geneva Convention supposedly "forbids ill treatment of enemy dead." Did we violate that? Or did the Pentagon decide that burying bin Laden would've given extremist Muslims a shrine, a place to meet and plan atracks, so therefore, burial at sea would deny this. If so, would you call that moral? And don't bother with the "bin Laden killed 3,000 Americans, so he doesn't deserve morality" argument, since I would counter with what Mom taught you when you were 5: two wrongs don't make a right.
We're supposed to be bigger than terrorists.
Lastly, there is one more American tradition we need to sever: scapegoating the powerless instead of confronting the powerful. If you want to blame teachers in Wisconsin for their budget crunch, you should have no problem buying everything the Fed says about the War on Terror and Personal Freedom. The truth is we are part of the reason al Qaeda exists, b/c we as Americans think we are better than everyone, we are the world's cops, and we practice imperialism every day, whether governmental or corporate. Do I need to remind you we lost more Americans (pointlessly, or is it so Cheney could make money?) in Iraq than on 9/11? Anyone want to deny this?