Bin Laden Hideout Recreated In Counter-Strike 502
dotarray writes "Osama bin Laden's final hiding spot in Abbottabad, Pakistan, has been made into a playable map for Counter-Strike: Source. Honestly, we're a little surprised that it took this long."
Re:Been here a while... (Score:1, Insightful)
Not to the teabaggers. Remember, they attacked his wife for promoting children's fitness. They claimed that his speech encouraging elementary schoolers to stay in school was Marxist brainwashing. They claimed that letting old people draft a living will was equivalent to setting up death panels to cull the elderly.
These people have no minds of their own. They believe what they are told, when they are told. And if they're told the opposite next week, they'll believe that too.
Re:Floor plans... (Score:1, Insightful)
dammit, my 15 modpoints disappeared before i could use any.
you were so getting a troll mod.
EVERYBODY deserves a fair trial, no matter what they've done.
"fair trial" does not mean "let them go with a slap on the wrist". in OBL's case, a "fair trial" would no doubt be a death sentence. but the trial must happen regardless.
at the very least the SEALs could have dropped their weapons, asked the women present to leave and duked it out like honourable scoundrels.
in military slang, "used his wife as a human shield" no doubt actually means "the wife was closest to the door when we kicked it open, so we shot her first".
Re:Floor plans... (Score:1, Insightful)
Who's the toll, exactly?
Re:Floor plans... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Floor plans... (Score:3, Insightful)
No more than I would mind that same force taking our president captive, locking him up on foreign soil, trying and convicting him.
Is your argument seriously that we should never kill any foreigners because their countrymen might not like it? Or are you one of those comic-book-logic people who thinks that the mere act of a trial is the difference between justice and vengeance? Because that is cargo cult justice - tripe intended to make the hero seem morally superior.
The truth is that the only function of a trial is to ascertain guilt or innocence. The punishment is the part that brings about justice, and when there can be no doubt of guilt, there is no particular need for a trial. We have trials even in cases of "obvious" guilt because sometimes someone who is "obviously" guilty may in fact be innocent. But OBL was at the point where there could never be even a shadow of doubt of guilt.
Re:Floor plans... (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree, I mean taking credit for 3,000+ deaths in one swoop who were also unarmed should give him the right to a fair trial
A few considerations:
First, if in fact somebody is particularly, notoriously, heinous, surely they won't exactly be looking forward to a fair trial? All those cases where the 'obvious' guilt of the suspect offends the public should be cakewalks for the prosecution, given the value of rule of law, is the short procedural delay really a big deal?
Second, there are situations(almost certainly not his; but that isn't the point) where the public/media are incorrect. That's sort of the reason that rule of law is considered superior to lynch mobs.
The third is more pragmatic: Against certain classes of opponent(internationally notorious mediagenic terrorist figureheads definitely being among them) fair trials are among the most powerful things you can do to them, the more boring, the better. You don't want the last few pages of their upcoming hagiography to be something out of an action thriller: 'went down in hail of bullets during a shootout with sinister international assassin squad, a true martyr of the movement'. You want it to be as unbelievably dull as possible. 'Taken into custody, charged with X,Y,Z, went before FOO district court, convicted, sentenced, just like any common criminal.' Obviously, getting shot kind of ruins your day; but it buffs the hell out of your legacy. Only cool people get assassinated. They more shadowy and badass the assassins, the better. Getting tried and convicted like any common scumbag, though, especially if the authorities stubbornly treat you neither better nor worse than anybody else being processed through the system, is basically the most banal exit possible.
Re:Floor plans... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Floor plans... (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay, let's put you in the position of planning this operation. Are you really going to be the guy who says "take him alive at any cost" when he might be armed, might have a suicide bomb strapped to his chest, might be holding a detonator to blow up the whole compound, or any other number of very likely scenarios? This guy is a terrorist, after all, who said that he'd never be taken alive, and so on with the usual terrorist rhetoric.
I'm sorry, but a US Navy SEAL's life is worth more than a mass murderer. Enough people have died because of bin Laden. Take no chances. If he doesn't immediately have his hands up and be face down on the floor spread-eagled and screaming "I surrender" when you burst into that room, yeah, you shoot him. You make that very clear to the men you send into harm's way to get him, and at the end of the day you trust their judgement on the battlefield when they kick down that door and have to make a split-second decision. We who are Monday morning quarterbacking are lucky that we didn't have to make that decision, but I think 99% of people would neutralize the threat when they see he's not prone with his hands up, and the other 1% probably doesn't live long enough to feel smug and superior about it.
I am not for the death penalty, but in a military operation, you do what you have to do to come home safe. If Osama bin Laden wanted a fair trial, he could have turned himself in to the nearest US Embassy on 9/12. Let's stop with the silly idealist nonsense and recognize we're living in the real world, with real consequences to our men and women on the battlefield. I'll say it again, an American soldier's life is worth more than bin Laden's, and any operation to get bin Laden had to have recognized that basic truth.
Re:Floor plans... (Score:5, Insightful)
He had two guns: a pistol and an AK. They were just out of reach in the room. The only good having the guns to hand would have done him is to die with the gun in his hand and maybe taking an American with him on the way out. He'd have died anyway. When they kicked in the door he was asleep and surprised - which is the freaking point of using a Navy SEAL team and top-secret stealth helicopters deep in foreign territory. He declared himself a combatant in war on the US, and acted on that. He was "under arms."
You're offended they didn't fight fair. Well boo freaking hoo. The goal is not to fight fair. It's not to die for your country. The goal is to secure the objective. It's to make the other poor bastard die for his. How this went down was right and proper. The SEAL team doesn't have to let the bad guy pop some rounds off to make you feel better about this.
Re:Floor plans... (Score:4, Insightful)
In theory I agree about a fair trial too. The best outcome possible, in my opinion, was have this guy rot in solitary for the rest of his life in a Federal prison, in the dark, never hearing a single human voice ever again. I wish just such a fate on every terrorist arrested by the police.
This was not a police action, however. These were military soldiers going into an unknown situation, and I have no doubt in my mind they did what they had to to be safe, and come home alive and well afterwards. Osama bin Laden could have been wearing a suicide vest, his finger on the detonator behind his back. He could have rigged the whole compound to explode. He could have had a weapon in his hand, obscured by the woman rushing the SEALs. There are so many different scenarios, each more dangerous than the last, and while I'm against the death penalty, including summary executions, I recognize that in the battlefield, a soldier has to do what a soldier has to do to come home safe. Osama bin Laden was a terrorist, and the difference of a split second might mean death for you, and your whole team. By all means, if he's not spread-eagled, his hands up in the air, and his face on the ground screaming "I surrender" in perfect American English, don't risk it and pull the trigger. These are highly trained operators, and I would never question the split-second decisions they make in that situation.
The fact of the matter is, Osama bin Laden chose to be a terrorist, chose not to turn himself in to the nearest US Embassy to be arrested and taken to trial, and chose not to surrender when we finally caught up to him. His death was entirely of his choosing, he just didn't get to pick the time and date.
Re:Floor plans... (Score:4, Insightful)
and yes i think america should stop killing people, especially in cold blood.
Re:Floor plans... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ignoring the legalities of what you're saying (because that won't get anyone anywhere), what you are saying is that the President lied when he said there were no orders to kill Bin Laden. Orders can be implicit as well as explicit, but we'll go with your scenario that they were very explicit indeed. Since he couldn't have known in advance that the door was going to get kicked in, and since no general giving orders was likely to have taken chances on him not having a concealed detonation device, what you are saying is that the orders were indeed to kill him on sight and to not take him alive. There's simply no other way to read your post.
I am not saying here whether I agree or disagree with that decision, tactically, legally, politically or by any other measure. What I am saying is that I find the idea of concealing any such order in order to avoid tactical, legal, political or other consequence, to be highly denigrating and insulting to both the office of the President and to the US itself. If the highest in the land is not willing to face up to their own actions and take full responsibility for them, publicly and honestly, what chance those who model themselves after the nation's selected role-model?
If, on the other hand, NO such order was given, implicitly OR explicitly, by the President or any person of appropriate authority beneath him, I would want a full, honest, complete and realistic account of how the soldiers would have accepted a surrender or affected a capture of any kind.
In other words, someone is not taking full responsibility. I don't care whom, I don't care why. These are adults, they should be expected to behave like adults. (Ok, they should behave like society asks adults to behave, as we all know that no adult ever actually does and that lying, cheating and swindling are indeed indicators of behaving like adults actually behave.)
Re:Floor plans... (Score:3, Insightful)
The best outcome possible, in my opinion, was have this guy rot in solitary for the rest of his life in a Federal prison...
In solitary? Why let such a nice hot piece of Arabian ass go wasted in such a way?
Re:WHENNNN (Score:5, Insightful)
It's still one of the best online FPS games for the PC, and has a large player base and active community. PC games have more longevity, the original Starcraft was only recently replaced with a sequel, and people still play the first one.
Re:Floor plans... (Score:1, Insightful)
What if that president and ex-presidents ordered the meddling in affairs, playing sides against each other and backstabbing entire countries all for the US government's greed of oil for decades? What if they trained and then shit on the very people whom they once called allies?
What if they also ordered the cold-blooded murder of countless civilians with bullets and bombs? Why would the weapon used to kill make a fucking difference?
Oh, it's because you're a one-sided, blindly "patriotic" tool who does and thinks exactly what he is told as long as he gets to drive around in his gas guzzling truck and eat his big mac.
Re:Floor plans... (Score:4, Insightful)
Roper: "So now you'd give the devil the benefit of law?"
More: "Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the devil?"
Roper: "I'd cut down every law in England to do that."
More: "Oh, and when the last law was down, and the devil turned on you, where would you hide, Roper, all the laws being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast, man's laws not God's, and if you cut them down -- and you're just the man to do it -- do you really think that you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the devil the benefit of the law, for my own safety's sake."
Re:Floor plans... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm one of those foreigners who're a little worried about what USA will do next in the name of "justice".
Wikileaks has exposed corruption in my own government, is perfectly legal, and is basically doing the job our newspaper journalists should do, so I want to support them. But according to the logic of many Americans, anyone who indirectly helps their enemies is also an enemy. If I donate money to Wikileaks, will I also be put on the list for "supporting terrorists"? Will the US government try to seize my foreign assets and arrest me if I put my foot on US soil?
The truth is that the only function of a trial is to ascertain guilt or innocence. The punishment is the part that brings about justice, and when there can be no doubt of guilt, there is no particular need for a trial.
There are a number of reasons there should always be a trial:
1. People are "certain" of someone's guilt and turn out to be wrong all the time.
Osama Bin Laden is actually a good example of this. Everybody's assuming he's behind the 9/11 bombings, but there wasn't enough evidence for FBI to put out an arrest warrant. Until his death, Obama was formally only wanted for the bombings against the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. (FBI Most Wanted [fbi.gov])
The video released shortly after the 9/11 bombings, where he allegedly took the blame for the attacks, was badly translated. Osama certainly seemd to applaud the bombings after the fact, but it's not clear what part, if any, he took in actutally perpetrating them.
The Guantanamo prisoners are another example. American politicians assured us they were "the worst of the worst", and now it turns out some of them weren't even held because they were suspected of terrorism; they were held only because the US military wanted information from them.
2. Allowing assassinations without trial provides the people in power with a convenient way to do away with their political enemies, as long as they can whip up a public frenzy against them. This can and will be abused.
3. A trial lets all the facts on the table.
... plus everything else which has been going on behind the scenes and we don't know about yet.
Perhaps Osama is guilty, but not of what he is accused of. Perhaps there are more guilty parties, but the people in power wants some of them to go free. Executing someone without trial is a convenient way to punish your guilty enemy, while letting your guilty friends get away.
In this particular case, embarassing facts that may surface during a trial include
a) Incompetence on the part of Homeland Security
b) Facts regarding the close ties between the Bush family and the Bin Laden family
c) The US government's previous support to the terrorists they are now fighting
4. Legality. If we start making exceptions to the law when someone is "obviously guilty", people will start abusing it for their own ends, or simply do it out of laziness, and point to the previous cases as justification. The only way to avoid this is to err on the side of caution and always follow the law, even when someone IS obviously guilty.
Re:Floor plans... (Score:5, Insightful)
you should not compare the life of the soldier to the life of bin Laden but to the lives which could have been saved by interrogating him.
Re:Floor plans... (Score:4, Insightful)
When we waltz into someone's country and kill their people, we're no better than the people who waltzed onto our planes to kill ours.
We've also set a terrible precedent: "It's A-OK to assassinate someone on foreign soil." But only when we do it, I guess...
Re:Floor plans... (Score:2, Insightful)
The fact of the matter is, Osama bin Laden chose to be a terrorist, chose not to turn himself in to the nearest US Embassy to be arrested and taken to trial, and chose not to surrender when we finally caught up to him. His death was entirely of his choosing, he just didn't get to pick the time and date.
president Obama chose to be president and chose to continue killing innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan, because he hasn't turned himself in to the nearest Iraqi embassy to be arrested and taken to trial then he is to be killed in cold blood after his wife is shot, and its his own fault.
Re:Floor plans... (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't worry. Bin Laden has been given all the weapons he always used : women and children hide behind, and babies to throw at the soldiers. Oh and you have to walk through the local kindergarten, which is booby-trapped. I don't mean an empty kindergarten, of course. And, of course, at the end of the level you get blamed for every kid that died by all lefties worldwide, as it's so obviously your fault that Bin Laden likes to bomb toddlers.
Sounds like fun ?
Re:Floor plans... (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't know what crazy media you're listening to, but what I've been hearing has been pretty consistent, from the start, and even as new details emerge. There was the ability in place to extract him alive if he surrendered. He didn't, and was killed. Nobody was shedding any tears about that, but hey, nobody really expected him to surrender anyway. Do you really think they planned a mission this dangerous and complex without accounting for every possible outcome?
Something like this, we may never really know. I will always err on the side of the soldier's judgement in that situation, having to make that split second decision. I'm not going to second-guess the honor of one of our soldiers when I have no reason to do so. These soldiers have a duty to their mission, the solider next to them, and to themselves. If there's any doubt in that split second that he might cause harm to any of those things, it's better to pull the trigger, is it not? Regardless, Osama bin Laden was an enemy on the field of battle, and you kill the enemy on a field of battle. That's war-fighting 101, and it's what Osama bin Laden signed up for when he declared war on America.
The important thing is, every one of those SEALs got to go home safe to their families. I'm not going to question any decision that led to that outcome. Perhaps some of those decisions were irrelevant to that outcome, and everything would have worked out okay anyway, but I wasn't there and I can't know. I'll err on the side of that soldier's judgement who pulled the trigger. The rest of the Monday morning quarterbacking and political nonsense, I don't think it's necessary.
Re:Floor plans... (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously. Where should we, as America, start compromising on Sharia law? Should we abolish the Constitution? Should we stone adulterers? Ban alcohol? Abolish religious freedom? (Or from a moral standpoint, Osama wasn't a US citizen. I am, and I don't get to demand any of that shit. Why should my government listen to this guy and not me?)
I'm not a fan of Obama, but I agree with the counterproposal he used in the negotiation with bin Laden. You know, the proposal that was most likely 5.56 mm wide and delivered at about 3500 feet per second by a SEAL "negotiation team."
Re:Floor plans... (Score:5, Insightful)
The case is closed. Everything was done in accordance with international law.
I guess you missed the whole unsanctioned-military-operation-within-the-border-of-a-country-that's-technically-an-ally part, then?