I know where you're coming from Ben-Dan. But, getting too far into a theoretical land in which, for example, Bin Laden and Bush are the same is dangerous. They were both reprehensible leaders, but for different reasons. Not everything bad is the same.
Glad everyone could tell my post was a joke, and that I'm really just saying that if it's our team we will find all sorts of rationalizations and justifications for whatever we do, and if it's the other side we will find every way to distort and twist things so they are automatically wrong and more importantly - inhuman.
The killing of Osama, no matter how bad he was, was clearly an assassination. And yet we were first greeted with information of a "fierce fire fight" and "using a human shield," which would make it NOT an assassination. But over the day the story has become that Osama's 29 year old wife merely "lunged" at the armed Navy Seals and so they shot her in the leg and shot Osama in the head. Holy Smoke, if they hadn't shot her she might have, er, scratched one of them, by Gad. Why can't people just admit it was an assassination, for example? [Note: Osama was assassinated in front of his wife and possibly children. A question remains in my mind why barbarism is the response to barbarism. Is greater violence the way to end international terrorism? Couldn't we have set an example by being more humane? The lack of images or video – originally the confrontation was said to have been filmed, and there's a pic of leaders supposedly observing it – may have something to do with it not exactly looking honorable and perhaps being a bit of an embarrassment if you forget for a second that the victim is the devil.]
Yes Bush and Osama aren't the same. Bush wears a suit and tie for instance, and some find his down to Earth lack of interest in the world and befuddlement with the English language comforting. Osama has a long beard and wears entirely different clothing. Personally I don't find him the least bit charming. Bush we might imagine sitting in the White House or tooling around his ranch in a pick-up truck. Osama we might imagine hiding in a dusty cave, and who wants to live like THAT?!
Both of them are responsible for a lot of deaths, but for different reasons. I forget Osama's original rationale, but it had something to do with sanctions in Iraq, US backing Israel in it's conflict with Palestine, and other matters to do with the American involvement in the Middle East. For this reason he plotted to have planes fly into various targets in America. One thing I keep forgetting is that if they were all successful it would have been MUCH worse, and that the Twin Towers weren't the only target. If he were the leader of a country this would obviously be the start of a full on war.
The Bush team's reason for going to war with Iraq and Afghanistan was to fight the bad guys that attacked us on 9/11 and to prevent a "mushroom cloud" terrorist attack in America. Only problem was Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and didn't have weapons of mass destruction (they'd already been cleaned out after the first war with Iraq under Bush Sr.; "Desert Fox" under Bill Clinton, in which 100 cruise missiles were fired at suspected WMD sites; and with subsequent thorough weapons inspections before the latest wave of weapons inspections).
Because it was becoming very clear Iraq had no WMDs one day Bush faced a terrible problem. No WMDs = No War. He tried to say Saddam was hiding WMDs in his palaces, so Saddam let the weapons inspectors in the palaces. Supposed photos of WMDs or manufacturing sites were found to be bogus. So the Bush team came up with a solution = Give Saddam and his sons 2 days to get out of Dodge, or we blow the place to shit.
At this point I was protesting up a storm, along with hundreds of thousands of other American citizens, and people all over the world. We all knew the War on Iraq was completely bogus and a lot of people were going to die. We also knew the risk of terrorist attacks and retaliation would increase. Everywhere people were waving American flags and festooning their homes and cars with them. In New York employers were cynically using 9/11 as an excuse for unnecessary layoffs. The "We Support Our Troops" stickers were plastered everywhere. The irony and hypocrisy in the air could be cut with a chainsaw.
And we learned about the antidote to "terror" = "shock and awe." When it came to frightening people, we could do it better with fighter planes instead of jets, and with bombs instead of kamikaze tactics of making one's plane into a bomb. So we showed the world who was the most powerful and frightening, terrifying if you will.
The death toll began to rise. Now it's over 200,000 Iraqis. This was the solution to 3,000 Americans killed. Attack a country that had nothing to do with it, destroy the country, cause civil unrest [protect only the Ministry of Oil], and murder people by the thousands.
So, I can basically understand why Osama is a monster and why he'd get assassinated [even if it would make much more sense to interrogate him, after all the song and dance about how interrogation is actually necessary to preserve freedom and setting up Guantanamo…], but I can't get why Bush is human and able to freely go about his business. I guess it comes down to the white lie about thinking Saddam had WMDs even though there wasn't a shred of evidence and Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and was cooperating. Even if he really did believe there were WMDs (I find this impossible to believe because I knew from what the weapons inspectors said that there weren't any, and I'm just your average citizen), there was still no justification for a "preemptive strike." If it's just a "white lie" that separates a despicable villain from a goofy savior, perhaps Osama should have said his rationale for attack was he was certain the Bush administration was going to launch an attack on the Muslim world, and he was doing a preemptive strike. Hindsight is always too late.
So, if someone can tell me the real difference between Bush and Osama, I might be less confused. For now I still stick to my old adage, which is that there are just two types of people in the world: people and people. There's no them and us. There's just different bullshit excuses to commit heinous atrocities, and every culture is guilty of them. Some countries, like Cambodia and Germany can't hide from their history, but the rest of us are the same and if we look carefully our history is pretty dark and murky and sinister. And the way out of that is first to admit it.