Breaking News: Osama Bin Laden Is Dead! - Part 3

[steintym]

I would love to see the pics, but I'd be even more interested in seeing the video feed (I know that will never be released). I would really enjoy seeing that turd get popped in the head.

 

[Christopher Nolan]

No one asks them....

cause they dont wanne be asked. why? cause it's not thier business to tell other people how to live. they have their own way of life. do you see a chinese politician going out all the time and tell other nations how to do thier job? no...but in their position, they could actually do it...but it's the asian mentality to not get involved with other nation's business...

 

[Hobgoblin]

I have no need to see the pictures. I can visualize what he looks like with a bullet hole over his left eye.

 

[Kelly]

cause they dont wanne be asked. why? cause it's not thier business to tell other people how to live. they have their own way of life. do you see a chinese politician going out all the time and tell other nations how to do thier job? no...but in their position, they could actually do it...but it's the asian mentality to not get involved with other nation's business...

And how they treat their own people might have a little to do with it...

 

[Christopher Nolan]

And how they treat their own people might have a little to do with it...

actually life in china has improved much over the last years. of course freedom of speech is not welcomed and other human rights, but overall chinese people are happy with their government....

 

[Kelly]

Yeah...

 

[redfirebird2008]

actually life in china has improved much over the last years. of course freedom of speech is not welcomed and other human rights, but overall chinese people are happy with their government....

Slave labor.

 

[dnno1]

I hear that China plans to bring 300 million people out of poverty by 2020. Don't know too much about slave labor.

 

[Pink Ranger]

actually life in china has improved much over the last years. of course freedom of speech is not welcomed and other human rights, but overall chinese people are happy with their government....

You're only getting what China wants you to know. True, they have a large, affluent middle class now, which is the future of their country that they didn't have before, but there is still a lot of extreme poverty and unrest in both their urban areas but especially in the non-metropolitan and rural regions.

 

[Spidey-Bat]

actually life in china has improved much over the last years. of course freedom of speech is not welcomed and other human rights, but overall chinese people are happy with their government....

Because their government tells them to be happy.

 

[Anita18]

Because their government tells them to be happy.

Granted, if it's all you know, it's hard to be unhappy since you don't know there's better out there. I think many of the people who are calling for freedom of speech in China are the youth who are more familiar with the internet - they can find out what's going on around the world and want it for themselves.

 

[dnno1]

Al-Qaeda Deaths: 2 Mid-Level Leaders Killed In Yemen
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/05/al-qaeda-deaths-two-mid-level-leaders-yemen_n_857888.html

 

[LOBO3315a]

Looks like that intel gathered from the mission is all ready paying off, eh?

I know, probably too soon, but it doesn't look good for Al-Qaeda this week.

 

[DACrowe]

I really hope they can get al-Awlaki who has been pushing for an "American jihad" and was the "master" mind behind the Christmas Day Bomber in 2009.

In any case, if we can get at least one or two more, Hollywood will have enough to make their Godfather sequence of Obama joking cooly at the WHCD while everyone gets whacked. Maureen Dowd's comparison to his foreign policy of that of Michael Corleone seems astute.

 

[danoyse]

That firehouse Obama visited this morning is also known as Broadway's firehouse, since they're located in the theater district. When the shows did their winter collecting rounds for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, they also collected for that firehouse.

I walked past that firehouse a few days after 9/11, and they had pictures of the guys they lost taped to the windows. One of them was holding a newborn baby, I'll never forget that.

 

[Christopher Nolan]

Slave labor.

dont you think american companies took profit of that...

 

[hopefuldreamer]

After hearing Obama's reasons for not releasing the pictures, I am actually inclined to change my tune...

 

[danoyse]

Why I need to stop reading these when I'm at work...

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/05/05/st.john.ground.zero.victim/index.html?hpt=C2

(CNN) -- The little boy in the picture is almost 5 years old, and his name is John Esposito.

His grandfather's name was John Esposito, too. He worked at ground zero, which President Barack Obama plans to visit Thursday. He was from Bayonne, New Jersey, and was a structural mechanic for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, part of an elite team that got the call whenever they needed something done right, and right now. After 9/11, they did everything from building a podium for Mayor Rudy Giuliani to supporting the ongoing rescue efforts. John Esposito was also my brother-in-law.

A month after the attacks, he died. His sudden heart attack at 53 -- he had no history of heart problems -- was almost surely the result of exposure to the toxic environment where the World Trade Center used to stand.

It's easy to forget, amid the gradual re-imagining of ground zero as an orderly construction site, but in the weeks that followed the attacks, the giant pile of rubble was still smoldering, and small pockets would still occasionally burst into flames. John worked there 16 hours a day, seven days a week.

The last time I saw him, at my nephew's wedding in late September of 2001, he looked tired as he straightened my tie, like a guy who's seen things that no one should have to see. I figured I'd get the chance to talk to him about all that. I didn't.

His name can't be found on any memorial plaque and has never been read aloud among a list of the victims. But if not for the man whose death dominates the news this week, my brother-in-law would be alive today.

He missed the birth of his two grandchildren, John and his little sister, Abby. He missed his daughter's college graduation. He missed barbecues and brake jobs, softball games and Christmas dinners complete with the ritual arguments over the cold cuts platter. ("No, that's not the sopressata. That's the capicola. The sopressata's on the other side.")

He used to tease my niece and nephew, as they approached adulthood, "I can't wait till you and your brother have kids so I can teach them all of the bad things you two used to do." He missed that, too. He missed, well, life. We miss him, too. Every hour. Of every day.

It seems that most Americans are echoing the sentiments of my Facebook friend who's celebrating this moment in history by "loving the idea that the last thing this $%@#* saw was an American uniform." At some level, I can understand that.

But for me, and my family, this week is bittersweet at best. The sacrifices made by John Esposito, the people who loved him, and thousands of others like him and their families, are what matter now.

If there's such a thing as unmitigated evil in this world then He Who Must Not Be Named is as close to it as any of us hope to see. John Esposito, on the other hand, was a good man with a big heart. He was wise and funny. He could fix anything, and when he found the time, make beautiful things out of wood. And he was strong in every sense of that word.

After his wife -- my sister -- died the day after Christmas 1996, he insisted on keeping up the family tradition by cooking the next Thanksgiving dinner. It was, well, kind of a mess, highlighted by a turkey not quite medium rare. But even as we listened to our stomachs grumbling, we all knew that no one had ever put more love put into a turkey dinner. And we also knew that if he had a few more holidays, he would have served up a feast that would have made Martha Stewart jealous. It was a day to remember.

These are our stories, but every family touched by America's tragedy has its own, just as funny and sad and important and enduring.

The reason why there's been dancing in the streets is this: Americans crave closure, and a Navy SEAL raid is as close as we're going to get. But our family doesn't get closure, and given the price that comes with it -- forgetting someone we loved dearly -- we don't even want it.

So Monday, when my kids came home from school talking about the news of the day, I steered the conversation in a different direction. I told them about the man who bought me my first baseball glove -- a Rawlings Roberto Clemente autograph. I told them about the time he drove clear across New Jersey to take me to McDonald's, back before there was a Golden Arches on every corner.

I showed them the walk-in closet he built as a housewarming present. It wasn't closure but instead an opening of sorts. And when they get old enough to understand, I'll tell little John Esposito and his sister the same stories about their grandfather.

"Did I ever know him?" asked my son Ethan, who was almost 5 in September 2001.

"Not really," I replied. "But maybe you will."

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Allen St. John.

Don't think pictures matter to them, either...

 

[Marx]

I thought this 'new edition' of the thread could use a new poll. The question is 'do you agree with President Obama's decision not to release any Bin Laden death photos?' Please be sure to vote in the poll above!

 

[dnno1]

I don't see it.

 

[Marx]

It should be there now. A couple people have already voted on it.

 

[Christopher Nolan]

good decision from barack hussein obama....

 

[steintym]

I don't know that I really agree with the decision, but I do definitely understand.

 

[Marx]

good decision from barack hussein obama....

Is there any particular reason why you didn't refer to him as President Obama or Barack Obama?

 

[Marx]

UPDATE: DEBATE OVER 'LEGALITY' OF KILLING BIN LADEN RAGES ON
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/04/bin.laden.legal/index.html?hpt=T1