Osama Bin Laden is Dead!!!

Yes, we're the "civilized" nation here, and we should hold ourselves to a higher standard. However, if you've got a rabid dog, you don't feed him a biscuit and put him in a crate and take him to the vet to be put down. You'll probably be heading straight to the ER afterwards, yourself. The whole world acknowledged that OBL was behind the 9/11 attack on the US, as well as many other attacks on other countries around the world. Any one of those countries, due to the attacks planned by him, could lay claim to putting him on trial. But seriously, it would just be a show. He's guilty. Pakistan or Iraq might have found him "not guilty", but pretty much everybody else was going to send him to the chair. Or gallows. Or guillotine. Or frikkin-shark-with-frikkin-lasers-on-their-heads tank. With today's economy, I much prefer a bullet that might've cost $.50 to a multi-million dollar media circus, not to mention all of the other rabid dogs coming out of the woodwork to try to save him, or "we'll blow up one kindergarten playground somewhere in the world every hour until he's released" ultimatums...which I have no doubt that would have been followed through on. He's dead now. Did he defend himself? I dunno. I wasn't there. Did the victims in each and every one of the bombings that he masterminded have a chance to defend themselves? Nope. Has justice been served? Yep. Did we sink to their level? Honestly....I don't think so. My folks always taught me to just walk away from a fight, that if I ignored the bully they would go away. Yeah....doesn't work. Sometimes you just have to stand up and respond in the only way that they will recognize, and beat the living crap out of the bully. The difference between us and them, which makes us the "civilized" country, is that we don't continue to do that. We've drawn the line, and recognize that sometimes it has to be stepped over...but that you return to your side of the line as soon as possible.

ETA: by your own argument, that OBL had proxies do his work for him and therefore he committed no crimes within the US jurisdiction....well, since this is a WW2 forum, I can't recall a single instance where Hitler himself personally killed any US troops, or dropped any bombs on a British city, or pushed the button that lit the fires in Dachau's incinerators. He had proxies do it. Yamamoto didn't fire a single shot at Pearl Harbor. And the list goes on.

RabidAlien said:

ETA: by your own argument, that OBL had proxies do his work for him and therefore he committed no crimes within the US jurisdiction....well, since this is a WW2 forum, I can't recall a single instance where Hitler himself personally killed any US troops, or dropped any bombs on a British city, or pushed the button that lit the fires in Dachau's incinerators. He had proxies do it. Yamamoto didn't fire a single shot at Pearl Harbor. And the list goes on.

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All the other stuff in your quote is answered by the quote I have in my signature from Ben Franklin...basically "any nation who gives up a little liberty to gain a little security will gain neither and lose both"....or words to that effect.

Now, to turn to your questions about hitler and the nazis......there is an enormous elephant in the room that you are not seeing....Hitler, like his lieutenants, would have been tried under international law, for crimes against humanity (and a whole bunch of other associated crimes). that was the significance of Nuremberg...it was the first time that an international body of law was agreed upon, and the first time that criminals were tried under those international laws. If any one of those nations had tried to put Hitler on trial under their own jurisdictions ther would have been a miscarriage of justice. you cannot try a a foreigner for a crime in your country when that foreigner never set foot in your own jurisdiction. uncomfortable as that me read, they are the facts. The only exceptions that arises, is if there is a bi-lateral agreement between the two countries that allows the xtradition of a foreign national to face trial in that home country....this is how organizationas like Interpol work....they rely on pre-existing agreements between nations to extradite nationals to a foreign country to face foreign justice. if the country that the individual resides does not have an extradition arrangement, then its just so much huffing and puffing. Last time I checked ther was no extradition treaty between the US and Pakistan

The successor to the Nuremberg tribunals is the ICC. It took a long time to get to that point, since the ICC was not formed until 2002. Moreover, it has neve been able to settle on a satisfactory definition of "terrorism", and cannot be applied retrospectively. it does however deal pretty effectively with "crimes against humanity". Problem from the US POV is that they do not recognize the validity of the ICC....its basically a UN organization, and there are lots of head bangers in that organization that would love nothing better than to put US service personnel on trial for crimes against humanity....hence the very valid justification for the US not recognizing the authority of the ICC. But unfortunately, that failure to recognize also means that the avenue to pursue international criminals through the international system of justice is also closed.....to put it bluntly....if Hitler had been captured in the 21st century, by the US, they could not have tried him because they do not recognize the authority of the courts that could try him. Its a legal blind alley for the US, and at the heart of all this controversy about the war on terror and what to do with captured enemy personnel.

My own opinion is that it might be possible for the US to make a unilateral declaration that whilst it will try its own citizens for crimes they (allegedly) commit, it will be prepared to hand over foreigners for justice to the ICC....a kind of half way no mans land similar to Bush's guantanamo solution. if that is a valid position to adopt (and we would need an expert in International law to verify that), then Bin laden could have been ahnded over to the ICC, on one proviso....that the ICC be granted limited retropectivity to its jurisdiction.

+3 Parsifal

Good argument, Parsifal! I am by no means even close to being considered an expert on international law. However, in this instance, I still believe that what the US did was correct. But that's just my personal opinion, and I'm not gonna assume that everyone needs to follow my own personal opinion. Never have, never will!

Its all cool RA, I am not trying to lecture you, just put my POV as well.....

An interesting challenge to my own opinion is perhaps the trial of Adolph Eicchmann.....seeking shelter in South America, this monster was kidnapped by Israeli agents, hauled back to Israel, put on trial and hanged......I am not sure how the legal niceties of that rather pleasing outcome were dealt with....does anybody know?

"... so there we are with an intractable problem as to what to do legally with him..." The key word here I think is "intractable", Parsifal, .

Justice. That concept has changed a great deal in my lifetime - and I'm not sure for the better. I don't know how it is in Oz but in this country we no longer differentiate between criminals and victims of criminals. The "justice system" deems it more important to recognize the "equality" of both as human beings with the result that no justice is served whatsoever.

Your quote from Ben Franklin is a fine quote, Parsifal, but it was spoken by a Christian Euro-American addressing Christian Euro-Americans and was meant to be understood by them.

When one discusses "justice" it is naive to believe that the term is universally understood to mean what one intends it to mean. Osama Bin Ladin spent his life playing "games". He used and was used by America in Afganistan against the Russians. He never advocated American or Christian justice while understanding clearly what American values were as well as American strengths and weaknesses. He knew America better than America knew him. Advantage Bin Ladin.

In the best of all worlds, America would have a trustworthy partner in Pakistan - but that is not the case. Were it the case, Bin Ladin would have been outed years ago by the Pakistanis and received Islamic justice (or not). Whatever his fate under that system, the world (especially the Islamic world) would have witnessed the closure of the Bin Ladin saga. Some would have liked the end, others would have thought it brutal or a travesty of justice. No mind.

Faced with solving the problem with its own resources, and no trustworthy Islamic partner, America did what it had to do. End of story. Sometimes the end justifies the means.

Instead of a message of "justice" - America sent a message that "we are patient, we are tireless, if you attack us we will not stop until we destroy you". At a time when America (and the Christian west) is under the constant threat of subversion and attack, that is not a bad message to send to the world.

What comparable moral situation did Mr. Franklin ever face, Parsifal, despite his fine thoughts? Myself, I prefer the words of Ted Roosevelt. "Talk quietly and carry a big stick". It works in bear country and the world is bear country.

MM

In all regards I agree with Pasifal. Any man no matter what kind of monster he is, deserves a real trial. In a legal sense OBL is no different. He should have been tried and he should have been put to death.

Now the American in me however does not give a damn, the world is a better place without him. When I say the American in me, it is because of my feelings toward what happened in 9-11 in my country (yes it affected the whole world and not just the USA).

I however do not believe that the outcome would have been just if he had recieved a trial in an international court. He would have been found guilty and given life in prison which he would have spent in a Western European "Country Club" prison living like a celebrity. Then 10 years later he would have been released on "huminarian" reasons.

I still think this thread is going down the futile road............... intel if true has given away to much in my own, but understanding of years previous this would not make sense except to use our own media to lead our evil enemies astray. Let's pray so gentlemen, we do not have concrete 100 % proof his body was dumped at sea or really the 100 % proof the mission planned and carried out as we have been told or if in truth sense Bin is actually deceased. I have my own personal opinions and regards in this matter due to . . . . . well I'll keep you guessing. The whole matter appears as a charade

This debate has broken well out of the boundaries of what we should or could have done about OBL. With regard to the alleged moral degeneration of our legal systems, that may be happening, but it is not the legal system that is setting the agenda, its the society that it serves. personally I dont buy it. The world is a more complicated place than it was 100 yearts ago, and that makes it harder to comprehend, but my opinion is that we are not suffering a moral disintegration and the courts are not out of sync with their societies. its just that things are more complicated now. People have far more choices than they did in our parents time, and some choose to take the low path, others aspire to great heights of idealism and nobility. Its part of the complex societies that we live in, and the legal system is just reflecting that complexity.

Conservative elements of society have been complainng about the moral degradation of society since the times of the pharoahs. i kid you not. There are inscriptions in ancient Egypt complaining about this very issue.

No, I dont agree that we have to take matters onto our own hands because the legal system has failed. The law of the vigilante is a definite precursor to the descent into anarchy and the destruction of our society. Once the law has gone, anarchy is only a short step away. Arent we fighting the terrorists to defend our society? Are we not handing them the victory they so keenly pursue if we help them to destroy it by this sort of action, and this trashing of our most cherished values. i fear that more than any suicide jockey with a bomb strapped to his body.

The problems that we are facing, and which these rather hysterical remarks are reflecting, is much larger than the war on terror. Its about the perceptible decline of western dociety in the world stage......and how we deal with the morally decrepid societies that are following us. Look at places like the middle east and china, these areas represent the alternatives to our own societies and value systems, and they are all morally bankrupt. Their power is growing, they will son match our own strength militarily and economically. But they remain moral pygmies when it comes to issues of conscience and morality. As a generalization they have little collective conscience and a sense of fair play. If these societies remain as backward as they are at present, in terms of their moral standards, but their power continues to grow as it is, then the world stands little hope of survival. This debate has moved to the moral plane, which is not where it should be, but if we are going to consider this, then we need to consider what we need to do to raise those moral standards of our successors. How do we get the Ayrabs and chinamen (and all the others) to start to value human life as we do....how can we say to people like the Libyans "you need to find the moral high ground and stop killing each other and us with such lack of concern, when we demonstrate by our own actions that we are absolute hypocrites when it comes to issues like this. How can we say to the Taliban or any other of these nut job outfits "play nice", "be kind to each other" when you guys would have us behave with such utter contempt for due processes. i dont follow your logic if you stop and think it through, you will see that far from hurting "them", we are doing far more harm to ourselves.

I am no bleeding heart. OBL got what he deserved, and I happen to think the guys on the ground did not go out of their way to murder this jerk. I simply dont buy the argument. What worries me are the attituddes being expressed here....essentially it appears that people almost hope that it went down like a nasty little back alley killing. That I dont understand.

the dog got what he deserved... a bullet between his eyes. he was responsible for 1000's of deaths. HE will face a court of Justice,
in front of God, and he will suffer unspeakable horrors now. EXACTLY what he deserves.

parsifal said:

What worries me are the attituddes being expressed here....essentially it appears that people almost hope that it went down like a nasty little back alley killing. That I dont understand.

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I knew 6 people killed during 9-11. As far as I'm concerned a "nasty little back alley killing" was too good for him and I base that on the memories of those people. Here's information on two of them...

SILive.com: Lives Remembered

Lillian Caceres was my brother's ex-girlfriend. The night before the attack she played an angel in a play at her church.

Lillian Caceres Guest Book: sign their guest book, share your condolences, or read their obituary

While I can agree with your points on abiding by the same laws we are seeking to protect with regards to terrorism, I think until you place yourself in a position where you personally knew some of the people who were killed there, you can never understand the anger, hatred and rage some of feel. As I have stated many times on here, I grew up in NYC. My father worked at tower one when it was being built and there's a strong cultural bond that joins many of us who grew up and lived in NYC. I think if there comes a time where we are faced with an evil that is above and beyond what western justice can bring, this is it. I not only hope it went down like a alley killing but I do hope that at least one SEAL pissed on him before they hauled him off and fed him to the sharks.

As far as I'm concerned he got off easy but I do hope he felt terrible pain as his last miserable breath left his corpse.

Even though I agree that Parsifal is correct in what he says, I completely understand Joe's opinion and that is why I said it does not bother me. The world is a better place without him one way or another. He was a murderer and an evil son of a bitch.

I dont have any sympathy for what happened to OBL, and agree that he did not deserve anything better than what happened to him. I didnt lose anyone personally at the Twin Towers, but I do have friends who lost a daughter in Bali, so I know only too well what this nutter has cost us. I have other friends who have suffered indirectly from the stress of dealing with this guy....people whose marriages are placed under stress because of extended absences and the strees of possibly getting killed.

Doesnt alter my opinion on this. I am not worried for OBL when I say a grubby little death in a back alley. I am worried for us. This doesnt hurt that little grub, it hurts us, and it hurts the prospects for our kids, because it cheapens what we stand for and strengthens what Al Qaeda wants the world to believe. All the messages that the US wanted to get out of this ie that we will pursue you until the end of time, in every corner of the world....we will never let you rest,....could have been achieved by capture just as effectively as killing him. And by capture over kill, and more specifically, capture over murder, we could have avoided martyring this loser in the eyes of his followers. I believe OBL was a weak person, and under the right circumstances, would have broken and betrayed his own followers and beliefes. if that had happened, it would have been icing on the cake.

Parsifal, you don't buy that UBL was shot out of hand because you apparently don't understand the politics of these United States. It was absolutely politically unacceptable to bring him here for a trial. Aside from security, cost, and the media circus which would have ensued, the main issue was that a trial would have been going on when the presidential election was being held and the strong possibility that UBL would get off with a life prison sentence would have been wildly unpopular, even to many obama voters. In addition, many left wing bleeding hearts would have come out from under their rocks to mewl about the rights of the accused. To turn him over to some world court would have been political suicide for the democrat party. obama and his minions are far too politically savvy to make that mistake. Surely, you cannot believe that those soldiers could not subdue and kidnap someone who did not even have a weapon if they had been ordered to. Morally and in theory, you are right and I agree with you but politics is the art of the possible and it trumps morals and theory.

maybe all thats true, I dont know, but what i do know is that the pursuit of Bin Laden was not just an American issue, at the request of the Americans it was an international coalition which suggests that the wishes of the coalition members needed to at least be considered. This does not mean that secret intell needed to be shared, it simply meant that the US led coalition needed to decide beforehand what they wanted to aim for with regards to OBL. AFAIK that question was never asked.

Ther is a very strong perception in my country that all we were asked for by the Americans was to give our young mens lives....they were not interested in what we thought should be done...all is not well in Denmark so to speak. I dont think much will come of that feeling, but it is cumulative. To satisfy their blood lust, the Americans appear willing to sacrifice everything, even their responsibilities as coalition leaders. Thats a very high price just to see OBL dead.

If the attacks of 9-11 had taken place in Australia instead of these United States, I would be very surprised if there were not a great deal of "blood lust" and the desire to see UBL dead down under.

Of course. i agree. I would gauge the mood down here as somber, rather than angry or exultant. We suffered 10 deaths September 11, a furthe 88 at Bali. we have lost 24 ADF personnel in Afghanistan and about the same number in Iraq. Australians are angry about those losses, and the vast majority blame islamic extremists for those deaths. We have a good hand in participating in operational control matters, but virtually no control over strategic decisions, like what to do with captured personnel. Americans guard that role jealously as their own. That causes a great deal of discontent within Australian society and a lot of unspoken disquiet at professional military level, and even at our political levels. We are being asked to fight and die for a cause. We are given the right to determine how the risks might be minimised and the results achieved, but we are given virtually no say in the outcomes, or the desired outcomes. That is a problem, a big one, and it needs to be addressed.

For the record, the majority of military deaths within the coalition in Afghanistan remain American, but a significant proportion are also British Commonwealth. Of the 2430 or so western soldiers killed, 1400 or so are American, but 570 or so are British, Cannadian or Australian. Does that not gives us at least a say on what should be aimed for, and where we are going with all this, or is the coalition unimportant????????'

As for grief driven diplomacy, well, spare a thought for Iraqis themselves. There are no reliable figures on this, but various studies put the death toll somewhere between 104000 and 1000000 million civilian casualties. Most estimates accept a figure of around 150000. If we are basing our positions on the death toll, then the iraqis have suffered roughly 100 civilan casualties for every American lost in 9/11. not one of those caualties has made any difference to the losses suffered 9/11. Virtually none of those people killed had anything to do with the deaths that day. Doesnt mean we shouldnt be there, dosent mean we shouldnt pursue the low lifes that did cause the grief, and doesnt mean I dont see the need to do all this. But to allow grief, or pain to dictate our responses in all of this is absolutely the wrong way to go. We have to do our jobs, remain professional and finish the job we started, if all that blood spilled is to mean anything at all

FLYBOYJ said:

I think if there comes a time where we are faced with an evil that is above and beyond what western justice can bring, this is it. I not only hope it went down like a alley killing but I do hope that at least one SEAL pissed on him before they hauled him off and fed him to the sharks.

As far as I'm concerned he got off easy but I do hope he felt terrible pain as his last miserable breath left his corpse.

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I dont give Bin Laden and his band of loonies that much credence. He was a lunatic good for nothing dog, if we cant deal with that without keeping our hands clean then we have a bit of a problem.

As for "I not only hope it went down like a alley killing but I do hope that at least one SEAL pissed on him before they hauled him off and fed him to the sharks", when I was in the service, we were confronted once or twice during board and search operations with smart arse little twirps that decided they might give us a bit of stick. One ferret decided to take a few shots, which drew fire from us before he laid down his weapon. One sailor under my command decided he was going to beat on that little idiot. Whilst he was resisting I was firing with deadly intent, as soon as he surrendered in my estimation the equation changed. I admit I was more than a little fired up on testosterone, and as soon as i saw what this sailor was doing he was grabbed by the hair and hauled off this little twirp. In my mind, once the threat was eliminated it was over...just a piece of baggage to be processed as far as I was concerned. In the post operational debrief, the CO backed me 100%...that sailor was lucky not to be put on report. So, based on my own experience, I would say the chances of any SEAL member doinfg that is almost zero. They would (or should) have been completely focussed on the task

The problem with Osama, in that regard, is that even in jail he was still a threat. Alive and incarcerated, in my opinion, he would have had all of the faithful militants threatening to blow up day-care centers and old-folks homes (and everything in between) to get his release. And can you think of a prison to hold him where 100% (every single one of them) would be guaranteed to NOT smuggle notes/bombing orders out of the prison? As you said before, he did not do any of the attacking himself. He had others do it for him. This fact would not have stopped once he was put in cuffs. So to eliminate the threat he posed, simply put, was to eliminate him.