>> ^aaronfr:

Although I applaud her for using comedy as a way to bring the truth out and challenge the status quo (which is what most good comics do), something about this clip bothered me. It had more to do with the crowd than anything. Telling jokes to a room full of stuffy, white people at a dinner party hardly seems like the way to achieve her stated goal of re-training the Islamic fundamentalists. It was more like the audience got a chance to laugh and snicker at jokes about scary Muslims they would be too afraid to tell themselves.


You should see this video then, in which she picks up a sharia law apologist (a women can't do that according to sharia... silly, I know)

I highly doubt that "stuffy white people" are her only audience, but seriously, do you think she could get away with this kind of humour in front of Islamist fundamentalists without being killed? When she says we need to reeducate the fundamentalists in Europe, she means "we" the society, including the "stuffy white people".

As for "snickering at jokes about scary Muslims", a) a non-muslim telling such a joke would make no sense and b) the multiculturalist relativists would be screaming RACIST* and probably suing. Humour is a great way of communicating controversial subjects, and that is one reason why Islam officials are trying to silence its opponents with Blasphemy laws, when the humourists are not simply being attacked/killed by fanatics.

*which is ridiculous because Islam is an ideology, not a race. But a lot of ignorant people here in Europe, on both the right and the left, don't seem to understand that.

@Payback

Since the following videos are in the top sifts at the same time as this video, it's curious to see which un-self-reflective people will fall for the idea that professional comedians are literally incapable of thinking of anything funny to say about a huge part of global news and culture. Under normal circumstances, nobody would agree with that idea.

http://videosift.com/video/Pakistani-comedienne-in-Oslo-takes-on-Islam
http://videosift.com/video/The-Good-Muslim-Wife-Joke

Congratulations! Your comment has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.

>> ^blankfist:

@NetRunner, then I suppose it isn't worth it, is it? Because this all started because of US interventionism, I'd probably take steps to close out US hegemony in that area of the world, and then seek a diplomatic dialog in the hopes of having Osama turned over for trial.

The Pakistani say they don't know where he is. Jumping back to the real world, they still insist they didn't know he was there, even now.

So...you'd tell the American people what, exactly? Never mind about bin Laden. Yes, we know where he is, no we're not going to try to capture him, because I'm afraid we might kill him accidentally, and I'm definitely not going to kill him, not because it'd be illegal, but because I think I'm some sort of saint?

How did you win the election in the first place?

>> ^blankfist:
I think what's important here are the things I wouldn't do. I wouldn't continue to kill people with drone planes. I wouldn't continue to create more wars in that part of the world. I wouldn't seek to radicalize more militants by making their families casualties of war. I wouldn't occupy sovereign countries.

I'd withdraw from Afghanistan, if I'd replaced Obama from the start I'd have never surged there. I'd never have gone into Libya. I'm not so mad about the drones, but I'd mostly been giving them a pass because I thought they were the only force we were truly applying to Al Qaeda. If they're not even doing that, I'm all for stopping them.

Oh, and nobody's "seeking to radicalize" anyone. Nor are we occupying a sovereign nation.

>> ^blankfist:

If I had to take over where Bush left off, I'd probably seek the advice of my intelligence advisors and see if tracking down Osama was doable within a reasonable timeframe.

That is in fact what Obama did. They found him two years later.

>> ^blankfist:
If yes, I'd bring him to trial.

You're skipping some steps. First you find out that he's living in a compound with 22 people, including armed guards. It's also just down the street from the Pakistani equivalent of West Point, and intelligence believes that bin Laden is under the protection of the Pakistani military.

The military says to just bomb the building with a pair of B-2 bombers, because sending special forces poses a lot more risk, both to the soldiers themselves, and to the mission of killing or capturing bin Laden.

So how are you going to capture him, with no possibility of him winding up dead? If for whatever reason, your mission to capture him winds up with him dead instead, are you to automatically be treated as a murderer?

Thank you for the promote!

In reply to this comment by kulpims:
*promote

"death that there is no proof even happened."

Except of course the photos of his dead body that are confirmed by several sources in the US government, Statements by Pakistani intelligence confirming they have his wife and kids in custody, witnesses live-tweeting the raid, pictures of his dead guards/men in the compound, confirmation by Al Qaeda.. Add that to the whole "How fucking retarded would it be to fake it"- question that bareboards2 describes, and "no evidence" isnt really a good description of what we have.

Sure, you could say the photos might be evidence, but in an age of Photoshop and whatever, how is this gonna count as evidence for the conspiracy nut? The truth is that if they did kill bin Laden (and they did), there is no way to prove it to people who don't regard as evidence the amount of information thats already out there now.

If you dont believe it now, you never will.

The public responses I find more disturbing are from within Pakistan's National Assembly and Senate hearings. Articles from the Pakistani news outlet "The News" can be found here and here. Here are some of the deeply disturbing comments being made by members of Pakistan's National Assembly and Senate:

Deputy leader of the JUI-F, Mufti Kifayatullah said "We assure the world that Pakistan is not a killing field for the Muslims. Osama is a hero and we consider such incidents an attack on the sovereignty of Pakistan".

Dr Khalid Soomro of the JUI-F said "Who can believe that Osama was living in Pakistan and Pakistan was unaware of it," He later said a warning had to have been given before the operation and the operation was launched subsequently and questioned what Pakistan had received as a result of cooperation with the US against bin Laden.

Professor Khurshid said heads must roll for not fulfilling responsibilities towards Pakistan’s security and integrity. “The intelligence agencies and Army who take a big share of the budget are answerable to the people and parliament,” he said.


It seems a very large number of top ranking Pakistani officials are agreed that Osama could not have been hiding there without the help of the ISI and/or military. That it is an outrage that the ISI and/or military allowed Osama the operation against Osama. And their outrage isn't the harboring of a terrorist responsible for killing tens of thousands of Pakistani muslims, their outrage is that Osama was a muslim hero and how dare the ISI and/or military betray such a hero. I find that infinitely more disturbing than these celebrations.

As to Mr. Paul, he doesn't seem to be able to accept a complex situation.

He wants to simplify things down by acting like providing financial aid to Pakistan and bombing Northern Waziristan at the same time is contradictory. The reality that any pundit or commentator has to recognize is that Pakistan is NOT a single unified nation. Even it's intelligence services and military are not unified in their allegiances. The official ISI stance is to fight the Pakistani Taliban and their terrorist attacks against Pakistani schools and hospitals. The official military stance is to fight the Pakistani Taliban in their attempts to take over the tribal regions of Pakistan. At the same time though, the former head of the ISI publicly states that all good muslims should hope for the victory of the Taliban, as a matter of course. Operations by the Pakistani Military are frequently leaked by internal elements before the operations are put in place.

The problem is that America has both it's closest allies and it's deepest enemies within Pakistan's government. The pro-democracy parties of the country like Benazir Bhutto's PPP sit in the National Assembly with members of the JUI-F who decried the tragic death of Osama as he was a muslim hero. It's worth remembering that Benazir is dead now, just as her father before her.

Ron Paul isn't alone, but every commentator that want to have some binary friend/foe label to place on Pakistan collectively will never find a foreign policy that makes any sense, because the very premise they are working from doesn't make any sense either.

>> ^criticalthud:

are there other people out there who would have liked to have heard OBL speak? the only information i have about the man came almost exclusively from my government, which sells information to me like it's selling me deodorant.


Google GEO TV. It's a Pakistani news network that has been frequently banned in the country and employs the only journalist to have interviewed Bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks. The coles notes version is that they largely agree on the facts regarding Bin Laden on both what he has done and what he says. The only difference, as usual, is the spin that is put on it.

>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^Opus_Moderandi:
>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^Opus_Moderandi:
>> ^luxury_pie:
Could some American provide us with the context explaining why everybody acts like their government was just brought to their knees?

They're Americans.
I cannot, in good conscience, upvote this video. These people are no better than the people that cheered when the towers went down. They are both the basest form of human beings. I am thoroughly disgusted with these my fellow Americans.

The only difference is that the towers killed 3000 innocent civilians meanwhile Osama was the one that killed them. Some would call that difference non-trivial.


To me there is no difference. If you have any kind of moral conscience or respect for life you would see that running through the streets celebrating the death of anyone (1 or 3000, terrorist or innocent civilian) is a terrible and unconscionable thing to do.

So when Germany was defeated and Hitler was dead, celebrating his death was a terrible and unconscionable thing to do?
Osama was responsible for civilian deaths on a weekly basis right up until the day he was killed. The fact most of them were Pakistani in origin may be lost on you and many in this crowd as well, but I will say his death brings me some joy in the knowledge that it is a big step towards SAVING innocent lives.


Hitler doesn't really have anything to do with this but, since you mentioned it, Yes, celebrating Hitler's death by cheering in the streets was terrible and unconscionable. Although, in that instance, I think more people were cheering for the defeat of Germany and an end to the war than they were Hitler's death. Can't be certain as I wasn't there but, that's the notion I get from the information available.

Do you really think killing Osama is going to be the end of Al Qaeda and muslim radical terrorists wanting to kill us? Wake up and smell the burnt toast!

I DO believe the death of both Hitler and Osama is a good thing. But I feel running through the streets and cheering about it is the wrong reaction, especially when so much loss is attached to the name. I'm as disgusted watching Americans do it as I was when I watched Muslims do it because it all leads back to the same thing. Ignorance.

But that's me...

So they have 'evidence' that no one is allowed to see and that wouldn't hold up in a court of law.

Come back and look at the real world. Arrest warrants for Osama were already issued in 1998 for murder. He was formally indicted by an American court that listened to first hand witness testimony and satellite phone records for the embassy bombings long before 9/11 ever happened. He was unquestionably the leader of Al Qaeda, a terrorist organization responsible for 10's of thousands of civilian deaths, even if you exclude the victims of 9/11 from the count. And you still have the audacity to question if Osama was guilty?

What is wrong with you?!?!

As to 9/11 there is no if around Osama's guilt there either, even though it matters not to his guilt as a mass murdering terrorist leader. Ahmad Shah Massoud was the leader of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance. He spent most of 2001 warning Europe and the west that Al Qaeda was planning something 'bigger' than it had done before against America, and that it would happen soon. On September 10th, 2001 he was killed by assassins working for Al Qaeda. It's worth noting that Ahmad Shah Massoud was also one of the few people that the Afghan people could have been united around in a push to remove the Taliban and Al Qaeda. But I suppose you would call that circumstantial evidence, right? It's pure coincidence that the man warning of the attacks of 9/11 and able to help in retaliating after was assassinated the day before the 9/11 attacks were carried out! So if that is insufficient, when Hamid Gil interview Osama Bin Laden AFTER the 9/11 attacks, Osama spent a great deal of time and effort showing all the evidence that he and only he could have been the one that planned and coordinated the attacks.

No, you don't see that whether at war or not, you don't just start treating people like sub humans.
No, you don't see. Killing Osama as part of a military operation against a terrorist leader is different from a routine traffic stop. In a military operation ethics around killing go as far as offering a chance for surrender when it is possible to do so without risking your soldiers lives. If that offer of surrender is refused, bullets fly. Do really advocate for a world where the American's should have called up the Pakistani police and asked them to go knock on the door and ask Osama to come out? That leads to dead police officers, and Osama's escape. Assuming of course the police officers sent weren't sympathetic to Osama and called him up so he could leave even before the police arrive. That kind of failure is NOT respecting human life. It directly results in the continued killing of Pakistani civilians by Osama's terrorist network.

You seem to fancy yourself as someone who's objections to seeing Osama dead are based on a respect for life. You need to take that thought and give it an additional 5 minutes of critical analysis. Every day Osama remained free was another day that he directly provided support and leadership to the intentional killing of innocent civilians.

>> ^Opus_Moderandi:

>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^Opus_Moderandi:
>> ^luxury_pie:
Could some American provide us with the context explaining why everybody acts like their government was just brought to their knees?

They're Americans.
I cannot, in good conscience, upvote this video. These people are no better than the people that cheered when the towers went down. They are both the basest form of human beings. I am thoroughly disgusted with these my fellow Americans.

The only difference is that the towers killed 3000 innocent civilians meanwhile Osama was the one that killed them. Some would call that difference non-trivial.


To me there is no difference. If you have any kind of moral conscience or respect for life you would see that running through the streets celebrating the death of anyone (1 or 3000, terrorist or innocent civilian) is a terrible and unconscionable thing to do.


So when Germany was defeated and Hitler was dead, celebrating his death was a terrible and unconscionable thing to do?

Osama was responsible for civilian deaths on a weekly basis right up until the day he was killed. The fact most of them were Pakistani in origin may be lost on you and many in this crowd as well, but I will say his death brings me some joy in the knowledge that it is a big step towards SAVING innocent lives.

Killing him is not some great victory.

Yes it is.

It seems our difference of opinion on this may be very fundamental.

A victory would have been capturing him, having him tried in a proper court and actually convicted of something with real evidence.

I agree that would have been an even bigger victory. This is still a victory too though as it greatly reduces the capacity of a group of Islamic terrorists that were actively killing people nearly every day. Sure they hadn't killed very many Americans for some time now, but Pakistani civilians are dying everyday to terrorist attacks that WILL be put under pressure and disarray thanks to Osama's death.

If he could actually be shown to be responsible...
If????????

Shame on you for your ignorance. You have access to the internet. go read Al Jazeera, where they have on several occasions reported letters they've received from Osama taking full credit for multiple terrorist attacks on civilians. Go read the English language Pakistani news papers if you don't trust the pro-Western
propaganda of Al Jazeera. Even Pakistan's papers report on direct admission from Osama himself of being responsible. There are elected Pakistani officials that declare Osama a muslim hero, BECAUSE of the attacks he is responsible for.

If??????

Basically they are saying that they turn off their morals at a certain point...

Then you don't see the difference between fighting a war, and enforcing the law. Seeing as you don't even admit Osama's guilt though I shouldn't be surprised.

If you want any respect for your opinions on this from me your passion needs to be matched by your knowledge of the situation, not your ignorance...

>> ^blankfist:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=10
0002312963255#!/profile.php?id=100002312963255&sk=wall
Pretty messed up.


Apparently that picture is a fake. It was from 2009 and was arranged... the Pakistani newspaper that released it has withdrawn it.