Top Taliban Leader Killed by U.S. Airstrike

[NickCole]

I mentioned "any progress." I do not mean one man's death is the progress that is going to change the war. But I do believe this is good news for Afghanistan and a step in the right direction.

We don't know for sure that it's a step in any direction. The US says Osmani was killed, the Taliban says he was not. Unfortunately, both the Taliban and Bush & Co are liars. But even if he is dead, he's not the first "top Taliban commander" to be killed in the past few years -- a quick Google search can find a dozen similar reports while Taliban strength and violence has continually escalated in the region. There's no evidence that killing one man results in any progress for us or any steps in the right direction. There are more terrorists being created every day, thanks in part to Bush & Co's unbelievably disasterous management of the "war on terror."

This Taliban leader will not be "simply replaced." Read his credentials that the article has listed: ... "Anybody" just won't fill his shoes. He's had connections with Omar and even Osama bin Laden. The monster was good at hurting people and now that he's dead, the Afghan people are just that much more safer.

He was (or is?) a bad man, close to other powerful bad men, and he has been complicit in destructive actions. We don't know that he can't be easily replaced by a man younger and even more angry and hateful, less wearied by age and war. His "credentials" include demolition of property and hurting people -- that kind of "credential" doesn't take a lot of brains it only takes a lot of hate and disrespect, which is not hard to find in that region. There is no reason to assume the Afghan people are any more safe; in fact events of the past few years indicate that the death of one man, even a commander, won't mean anything at all to the safety of the Afghan people.

And he helped blow up those beautiful ancient Buddha statues. That was a crime against religion, archeology, and art! Good riddance to a bad man.

Nobody here is disagreeing that he was a bad man who did bad things. Whether or not his death means "progress" is questionable, and human beings killing human beings is not something to celebrate, it's a time of tragedy and that's what BushRepublicans don't seem to get. Bush & Co are contributing to the tragedy, making it worse rather than moving us into a more stable and peaceful time. Their management of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made things worse, not better. And their attitude about death is disgusting. It's not new. When George Bush mocked and celebrated the death of Carla Faye Tucker that was disgusting in the same way. Not that she hadn't done heinous things, but killing people is not funny and not cause for celebration. Some of us have been trying to tell our fellow Americans for the past half dozen years that losing our humanity, as Bush & Co encourage, diminishes us individually and as a people. Can't we please not become like the terrorists who celebrate death?