The link to the video version of this on my Facebook page gave birth to this exchange worth publicizing:
Jonathan Rich: Actually, our side wasn’t saying “don’t do it – it won’t work.” We were saying “don’t do it because secret assassination is immoral.” Big difference. And we still aren’t wrong about that.
It’s funny that the only thing you agree with Obama on is assassination. Cute.
I [literally] don’t know what makes him think I’m down on Obama at all, let alone 99%, save for “assassination”, but this is a regular theme in his comments to me. I mock aspects of religion and display my hopeful agnosticism and he thinks I’m an Onward-Christian-Soldier variety believer; I mock and debunk some Glenn Beckisms and he thinks I’m a Glenn Beck Republican Teabagger. It’s an endless demonstration of self delusion which I admit to not fighting against because 1) why should I? If a dude can’t read words, repeating them with big denials like I’m on a witch hunting trial aint gonna make a diff and 2) I don’t hate religion or Beck or Republicans, so if someone falsely ascribes me to any of those, it’s no different than when other people assume and call me a full blown atheist or gay. It falls into the “well, you’re wrong and you’d know that if you paid attention…but…meh” category. It all fits into a larger attempt to divide and classify people you disagree with on anything as being bad people who are on an opposing team. Big running theme with this guy. Here is my response, that you’ll recognize in it’s standard “mirroring of the absurd elements of the original” format, but I think was alas, lost on the individual, unfortunately:
Richard: Actually, I didn’t say the Left said it wouldn’t work but I *did* say what you incorrectly presumed to correct me on though so maybe try paying attention and you’ll know what’s going on (it makes commenting on subject matter a lot more productive).
It would be funny that you think this is the only thing I agree with Obama on if it wasn’t so transparent and dumb. You’re too cliche to be cute when you’re wrong. Why let the facts get in the way of an awesome black-and-white view of everything though, right?
Idk what your source is that it was an assassination due to your one-way policy on providing those. Unless there’s been new developments or changes to the originally reported description of the mission – Either you have intel that no other news sources including Al Jazeera has, or you dont know what assassinations are.
I’d be interested in the answer if you were able to show accurate comprehension or memory of something you just read seconds ago, let alone however long ago you learned this news about the SEAL mission.
For those of you following at home: I will update this post if it was in fact reported that the mission was an assassination and not the “capture or kill” military operation that took place in a war with the person who started said war by declaring it on our country and beyond in the 1990s and following through with that declaration with a series of murderous attacks on our civilians through the act of war that this leader remains a fugitive from.
UPDATE: He replied with this:
Jonathan Rich: “”This was a kill operation,” the official said, making clear there was no desire to try to capture bin Laden alive in Pakistan.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/us-binladen-kill-idUSTRE7413H220110502
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/54151.html
None of which is either news, nor supportive of his claim. This dude has no desire to actually pursue truth so I’ll explain it to you after I show you what I responded to him:
Richard: text search for “assassin” yields zero results on both links. so I take it that’s your way of admitting you have no source to back up your claim and that in fact the action was the standard fare of war described in these 2 links and other reports. gotta admit you had me goin for a split second till I remembered that you got 3 things wrong about what I said on this very page, so it’s not really fair to expect anything but the same record of accuracy on wider matters.
Any killing “can” be referred to as an assassination no matter what the context in history, movies or video games, so for the word to have any meaning and for anyone to disagree about it’s usage and application, it obviously can’t mean just killing someone. So if the “same thing as killing any human” usage is out – and it clearly must be since no one thinks I’m denying the dude got killed in the raid – what is the traditional way the term is used? Answer: an unjust surprise murder for political reasons. Lincoln was assassinated. Caesar was assassinated. Malcolm X and Dr King were assassinated. JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald were assassinated. -noticing the trend here? I’ll give you a hint: none of these figures were founders and leaders of a group that their assassins were at war with.
For Bin Laden to have been “assassinated” in the sense that this dude used the term, he would have had to left his position within the group that he lead when he declared war on the United States and renounced that action and surrendered yet still shot in the face anyway…. None of that happened. Instead, all reports say Bin Laden was active in orchestrating American death and fled/resisted the troops when they raided his shithole whorehouse. Whether the conflicting reports saying the SEALS were not allowed to take him captive or whether they were just given orders to kill if necessary, is irrelevant to the accuracy of the application of the term.
When a known killers house is raided by the cops and the killer runs away into a room with guns and gets shot in the head before anything further can happen, that is not traditionally reported as an “assassination”. That’s why I would have found it interesting if any reputable news source used the word in that context and not in the sense of being parallel to “killed”.
UPDATE: He replied with 4 paragraphs that repeated the claim that “assassination = the word ‘killed'” which I’ve already dispatched with here and won’t rehash. It’s crystal clear that he did not use, or even mean to use the word as a synonym for the word “kill”, evidenced not least by the fact that I didnt dispute Bin Laden got killed..soo… if he knows I agree the dude is dead then why would he later argue “all I was saying was that he got killed and thats what assassinate means”? Because it’s easier than facing the actual wrongness of the context he meant it in, obviously. Pathetic.
UPDATE: Go O –
Obama: If I have to send troops into Pakistan again to kill a terrorist, I will