Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Guardian Deletes Osama Bin Laden's 'Letter to America'

404media.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 171 posts

Re: The Guardian Deletes Osama Bin Laden's 'Letter to America'

#31

Post by kiba »

jameslk wrote: post #21

> The Guardian has removed a letter written by Osama Bin Laden, explaining his war against the United States is partly because of its support of Israel, after it had gone viral on TikTok. If I recall correctly, the terrorists attacked the US because they "don't like freedom". That was the narrative on TV nonstop and any wavering from full support of the wars or "supporting the troops" was tantamount to supporting ter…

The terrorists don't like the US for many reasons, some of them seem legitimate. Either way, they're still folks who hijacked planes and crashed them into the towers.

The irony being "terrorists" are just viewed as "martyrs" and "freedom fighters" on the other side of the coin, and every bomb dropped fighting them resulting in civilian deaths creates new terrorists/freedom fighters, who then go on to attack again killing more civilians, creating more radicals on the other side, who then bomb killing even more civilians. It's a cycle that never ends.

I am sure some of them viewed themselves as freedom fighters, and that us dropping bombs which inflict collateral damage generates the kind of people who are willing to fight the US. That doesn't make them heroes or martyrs.

Re: The Guardian Deletes Osama Bin Laden's 'Letter to America'

#32

Post by arp242 »

oefrha wrote: post #20

A few hundred thousand views isn’t “viral”. Smells like intelligence agencies monitoring the Internet picked up the blip.

It was in The Guardian's "most viewed" list that they have at the bottom of most pages, at #4 IIRC. That's why I read it earlier, before it was deleted. Was wondering what this old article was doing there...

Re: The Guardian Deletes Osama Bin Laden's 'Letter to America'

#33

Post by s1artibartfast »

nverno wrote: post #26
rootsudo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One persons terrorist is another persons freedom fighter. Your thought pattern only adds more fuel to the fire that there is wrong think.

No, I think it's pretty clear what a terrorist does - target civilians on purpose. But, terrorists can certainly be freedom fighters as well or vice versa.

The real question is if civilians are morally culpable for their choices, actions, and their consequences.

Re: The Guardian Deletes Osama Bin Laden's 'Letter to America'

#34

Post by kiba »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #30
xwdv wrote: post #14

[flagged]

So here is the thing, Terrorist and terrorism is orthogonal to all that. It is a description of action. It says nothing about goals, which can be right, wrong, noble, or despicable. Someone can spread terror for a good cause or bad cause. Terrorism fully compatible and justifiable with utilitarian ethics. As utilitarian ethics become increasingly popular, you should expect terrorism to become less repugnant.

Terrorism fully compatible and justifiable with utilitarian ethics. As utilitarian ethics become increasingly popular, you should expect terrorism to become less repugnant.

Anybody with ounce of brain cells would realize that such actions are contradictory and counterproductive to any sort of ethical system seriously espoused by anyone.

It's absolutely self defeating and likely won't convince anyone to change their mind.

Re: The Guardian Deletes Osama Bin Laden's 'Letter to America'

#35

Post by [deleted] »

Natsu wrote: post #19
derbOac wrote: post #11

This is outrageous to me, especially coming from a news outlet. As an American, though, I'm wondering if there's some UK legal context I'm missing?

It went viral on TikTok, apparently, and some people there are finding out that Osama was a communist who wanted to attack Jewish control of capital and now are endorsing that.

[deleted]

Re: The Guardian Deletes Osama Bin Laden's 'Letter to America'

#36

Post by arp242 »

jameslk wrote: post #21

> The Guardian has removed a letter written by Osama Bin Laden, explaining his war against the United States is partly because of its support of Israel, after it had gone viral on TikTok. If I recall correctly, the terrorists attacked the US because they "don't like freedom". That was the narrative on TV nonstop and any wavering from full support of the wars or "supporting the troops" was tantamount to supporting ter…

The Bush era rhetoric was stupid, but it wasn't completely wrong in the sense that some of these people really are evil. "One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist" is just as simplistic and wrong as "terrorists hate our freedom".

Some people consider Anders Breivik, Timothy McVeigh, Brendan Tarrant, etc. "freedom fighters".

Some of these "freedom fighters" literally strap bombs to small children and send them to troops or civilian targets to explode. e.g. Boko Haram, but Hamas has also done this (although they stopped quite a few years ago).

etc. etc.

I feel conferable in saying that this is evil no matter the context, and that we need to fight this. Full stop, end of story.

There is lot of variety here.

In the end I feel that "terrorist" is a meaningless classifier, and you need to look at the full context.

Re: The Guardian Deletes Osama Bin Laden's 'Letter to America'

#38

Post by peyton »

jameslk wrote: post #21

> The Guardian has removed a letter written by Osama Bin Laden, explaining his war against the United States is partly because of its support of Israel, after it had gone viral on TikTok. If I recall correctly, the terrorists attacked the US because they "don't like freedom". That was the narrative on TV nonstop and any wavering from full support of the wars or "supporting the troops" was tantamount to supporting ter…

The suitcases of cash handed to leaders are probably a bigger factor in their ignoring normal diplomatic channels.

Re: The Guardian Deletes Osama Bin Laden's 'Letter to America'

#39

Post by oefrha »

arp242 wrote: post #32
oefrha wrote: post #20

A few hundred thousand views isn’t “viral”. Smells like intelligence agencies monitoring the Internet picked up the blip.

It was in The Guardian's "most viewed" list that they have at the bottom of most pages, at #4 IIRC. That's why I read it earlier, before it was deleted. Was wondering what this old article was doing there...

Well, then I highly doubt a few TikTok videos with merely x100k views (according to TFA) are driving all those Guardian views. How many people search for the source material after watching a TikTok? 5%? But maybe I overestimate typical Guardian traffic.

Re: The Guardian Deletes Osama Bin Laden's 'Letter to America'

#40

Post by Daz1 »

jameslk wrote: post #21

> The Guardian has removed a letter written by Osama Bin Laden, explaining his war against the United States is partly because of its support of Israel, after it had gone viral on TikTok. If I recall correctly, the terrorists attacked the US because they "don't like freedom". That was the narrative on TV nonstop and any wavering from full support of the wars or "supporting the troops" was tantamount to supporting ter…

>The irony being "terrorists" are just viewed as "martyrs" and "freedom fighters" on the other side of the coin, and every bomb dropped fighting them resulting in civilian deaths creates new terrorists/freedom fighters.

"It's your fault I hit you, because you made me mad."

Post reply on HN