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

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

#41

Post by kyruzic »

kiba wrote: post #31
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 kil…

Dropping bombs on innocent civilians in a third world country doesn't make you a hero either, but that doesn't stop our media from calling all members of the military involved in the wars in the middle East heroes.

Also read more carefully they never said the "terrorists" were heroes they explained the point of view of the "terrorists"

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

#42

Post by s1artibartfast »

kiba wrote: post #34
s1artibartfast wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

History is literally full of cultures and populations that have bought into the utilitarian ideal that the ends justify the means.

Basically every culture believes this to a certain extent, the perpetrators just dont call it terrorism.

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

#43

Post by xwdv »

norir wrote: post #27
xwdv wrote: post #14

[flagged]

I will never defend terrorism but this line of reasoning converges with that of terrorists very quickly.

No it doesn’t. Terrorists target civilians and incite terror to further their cause.

Hunters of terrorists target the terrorists, and stop them from furthering their cause.

Seems like a pretty clear difference to me.

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

#44

Post by bugglebeetle »

xwdv wrote: post #14

[flagged]

> murderous threats to civilized society who must be destroyed absolutely without question or hesitation, by whatever means necessary.

For those too young to remember, this is an example of the rhetoric in the US that resulted in a million innocent civilians being killed in Iraq.

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

#45

Post by naijaboiler »

user982 wrote: post #17

David Cross: "I don't think Osama bin Laden sent those planes to attack us because he hated our freedom, I think he did it because of our support for Israel and our ties with the Saudi family and all our military bases in Saudi Arabia. You know why I think that? Because that's what he fucking said. " ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggUXa2UVNYc )

I used to get so mad when I heard that simplistic rubbish “they hate us because of our freedoms”

How could any person with even a high school education ever repeat that nonsense, much less accept it as true.

People hate you because you’re doing or supporting something that hurts them

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

#46

Post by dingnuts »

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…

> on the other side of the coin

in this case the other side of the coin is Salafists, who can rightfully go fuck themselves

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

#47

Post by beebmam »

kyruzic wrote: post #41
kiba wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 kil…

Dropping bombs on innocent civilians in a third world country doesn't make you a hero either, but that doesn't stop our media from calling all members of the military involved in the wars in the middle East heroes. Also read more carefully they never said the "terrorists" were heroes they explained the point of view of the "terrorists"

> Dropping bombs on innocent civilians in a third world country

Is this really what political analysis has stooped to on HN in 2023? A total abdication of any attempt at nuance, or framing, or examining underlying intentions.

Such a shame.

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

#48

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

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…

one of the stated reasons by Bin Laden was US military bases in that side of the world, particularly in Saudi

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

#49

Post by panarky »

danso wrote: post #6

Google's cached version as cached by archive.today: https://archive.is/6xSxg

We need a better way to store important historical documents than a website that only works half the time archiving a Google cache version of a page from a midsized newspaper.

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

#50

Post by arp242 »

oefrha wrote: post #39
arp242 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would imagine that traffic is highly distributed over many articles, but I don't know. Does it matter? "Intelligence agencies monitoring the Internet picked up the blip" is certainly nonsense and that's the bit I wanted to address.

And even if The Guardian didn't have that public list, of course they have some insight on which pages are doing well on any given day, because that's how they make money.

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