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."
Floor plans... (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, it is an fy_ map (Score:3, Interesting)
The map in TFA uses the "fy_" prefix, which is a long-standing way of denoting community maps with no particular objective. The two letters were originally an initialism for "Fuck You" – often bowdlerized to "Frag Yard" or similar.
Re:Floor plans... (Score:5, Interesting)
The procedural delay would have been a big deal to the soldiers in that compound, if their delay resulted in a notorious terrorist who had sent many on suicide bombings activating a suicide bomb of his own. Going into that room, they had to make a split second decision with a great many situational unknowns. Osama bin Laden was not immediately surrendering, as he most certainly could have, and thus any threat he might have posed to those soldiers was swiftly eliminated. A show trial (and that's all it would be, since everyone knows the outcome already) isn't more valuable than the lives of those soldiers.
This wasn't a lynch mob, this was a military operation conducted by honorable soldiers well versed in the rules of war and military justice. Is there anybody who isn't a complete loon actually saying otherwise? Bottom line, on a battlefield, you are well within your rights to shoot the enemy if they enemy hasn't surrendered. You don't stand around waiting to see if they'll surrender if the enemy is before you. Rules of engagement to the contrary just gets good soldiers killed. The enemy is your enemy whether they're currently shooting at you or not.
I agree with you on your third point, but for decidedly non-pragmatic reasons. Philosophically, Osama bin Laden living out the rest of his days in a jail cell would be so much better than him being dead. But pragmatically, to capture him alive would be an extreme risk to our soldiers in that compound, and a lightning rod for future violence. Yes, he's a martyr now, but there's no shortage of those anyway.
Again, bottom line, he was a military target, not somebody we were serving a warrant to. Our soldiers did what they had to to come home safe in a very dangerous situation. The operation was a massive success, and a charismatic voice for terror has been silenced. This is such a huge win for everyone but an increasingly irrelevant group of murderers. Why is this in any way controversial?
Re:Floor plans... (Score:3, Interesting)
Again, I'd like to have seen us interrogate him, put him on trial, and lock him up in solitary for the rest of a long, miserable life in the dark, forgotten.
That's idealism speaking, though. The reality is, the odds of that happening were very small. The man himself said he would never be taken alive. He was a terrorist, the head of a terrorist group specializing in suicide bombings. Between shooting him quickly when he didn't immediately surrender, and waiting to see if he'd shoot some of our soldiers first, or blow himself up, shooting him is the safest outcome.
As skilled as these SEALs were, I cannot imagine any possible scenario in which we took bin Laden alive if he didn't immediately surrender. The only difference hesitation would have made was some wounded or killed SEALs, with bin Laden still dead. That's not an acceptable alternative.
Again, I believe if he had legitimately surrendered, we would have accepted that surrender. It just didn't happen though. It's very easy to look back with even a partial picture of the inside of that room, and say what should and shouldn't have happened, but until Osama bin Laden was lying dead on the floor, and all other threats were neutralized, the entire situation was filled with unknown variables. Maybe we could've gotten lucky, maybe it could have been a nightmare that served as a propaganda piece for our enemies and an embarrassment for the US around the world, with soldiers dead that are thankfully alive today.