Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Osama bin Laden's Burial at Sea

I have no problem with the administration's decision to bury Osama bin Laden at sea. There were pluses and minuses to whatever method they chose. But the usual pandering to Islam is ridiculous. Here's Counterterrorism Advisor John Brennan.
Because Islamic law mandates burial within 24 hours of death, there was no time for the US to ask other countries, counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said, according to the New York Times.

At a press conference Monday, Mr. Brennan assured reporters that his burial had been conducted "in accordance with the Islamic requirements."

In the previous post I pointed out that Obama has continued many of the positive policies of the Bush administration with regard to fighting Al Qaeda. But he's also continued some bad ones. One of the worst is the idea that we need to bend over backward to appease Muslims -- and not just any Muslims, but those essentially hostile to America. The last thing the U.S. should be worried about in deciding what to do with the body of an enemy like bin Laden is whether or not his burial conforms to "Islamic requirements." President Bush, and now Obama, have taken great pains to separate Al Qaeda from Islam. They've repeatedly made the case that he doesn't represent Muslims at all, and that our war against his organization is not a war on Islam. But as soon as he's dead, now he's back to being a Muslim and we have to give him a proper Muslim burial.

Trying to appease hostile Muslim opinion is useless and counterproductive. All it does is demonstrate weakness. Any Muslim who cares seriously about the disposal of a piece of garbage like Osama bin Laden is highly unlikely to be well-disposed toward the U.S. anyway. As I've argued on many occasions, it is good that such people are offended by our policies. If they aren't, we are doing something wrong. No matter how much we bow and scrape in an effort to appease them, it won't do any good. They'll still hate us. We should stop worrying about offending them. They are offended by our very existence.

10 comments:

  1. Well, if I'm about to get into a fight and there are people around I want:

    1. As many friends as possible.

    2. Who ever aren't friends, I'd like them to be neutral, at least.

    Obama by doing the burial at sea is simply attempting to keep as many potential enemies into category 2. He is also reassuring our friends that he isn't trying to make their life more difficult.

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  2. Again, I have no problem with the burial at sea, just with the notion that we are in any way required to give a terrorist enemy a proper Muslim burial -- especially someone we've repeatedly argued is not a true Muslim but an enemy of Muslims too.

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  3. "The last thing the U.S. should be worried about in deciding what to do with the body of an enemy like bin Laden is whether or not his burial conforms to "Islamic requirements."

    Respectfully, I disagree with that statement for the reasons I previously listed.

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  4. If Osama bin Laden was a Christian terrorist, would it be a priority to give him a good Christian burial? Somehow I doubt it.

    If our "friends" actually care about how the body of someone like Osama bin Laden is treated, enough that they would hold it against us, then they aren't really our friends anyway.

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  5. @UNRR: no, because a good christian burial would be a generic western burial.

    I don't see reason why we shouldn't have given Osama a proper burial. We won, plain and simple. No need to defile a corpse.

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  6. Our friends have national interests and goals like we do. If we unneccessarily frustrate their goals by making their lives more difficult (turning neutral Mislim countries into active enemies) perhaps they will not be so quick to help us again in a time of need. In one fell swoop the US would have pushed its friends away while possibly increasing our foes - all by not following something so simple as a proper burial.

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  7. Anon,

    I'm not advocating desecrating his corpse. And the burial at sea was fine with me. All I object to is the idea that we have to bend over backward to worry about some Muslims being offended.

    "In one fell swoop the US would have pushed its friends away while possibly increasing our foes - all by not following something so simple as a proper burial. "

    Again, if the treatment of Osama bin Laden's corpse is an issue important enough to turn countries into enemies, then they are already enemies in all but name.

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  8. I think you have a premise (and I could be wrong) that there are no gradations of friendly countries. For example, there is Britain with who we have a "special relationship" with and then there is France. Are they both friends? Sure, but they are certainly not the same kind of friend.

    That being said, if the US is not being prudent or showing good judgement a friendly country who in the past would offer 30,000 troops to assist us may turn into a friend who will only send 5,000. Alliances change over time, and they need to be nurtured.

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  9. "I think you have a premise (and I could be wrong) that there are no gradations of friendly countries."

    No, I definitely don't have that premise. There are certainly degrees of friendliness. My argument only applies to this specific instance -- the disposal of bin Laden.

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  10. Let me clarify, since I don't think you are getting the main point of my argument. If we kill some soldiers we are fighting against, say Libyans, who happen to be Muslims, it would be reasonable to bury them in accord with Islamic traditions. But in the special case of Osama bin Laden, and individual that two administrations have argued does not represent Islam, and isn't a true Muslim, we should not be overly concerned with whether or not his disposal meets Islamic requirements.

    The primary groups that would be offended by his disposal are A)bin Laden sympathizers, and B) Islamists, neither or which we should worry about offending.

    Our Arab allies, such as Saudia Arabia, are not allies because we pander to Muslim sensibilities. I would be willing to bet that they privately laugh at our infidel attempts to pander

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