Political & Elections

Woodwork · Senior Member

RE: Osama dead!

hayden · Senior Member

and we all know Yoo is a disinterested party.

Let me edit this to say that virtually no one is a disinterested party, on either side. But Yoo is still fighting to defend his torture memos. I can't take seriously any opinion from a man who believes that pulling out fingernails and waterboarding don't constitute torture.

-- Edited by hayden on Saturday 7th of May 2011 05:31:56 AM

Woodwork · Senior Member

WSJ:

From Guantanamo to Abbottabad

The bin Laden mission benefited greatly from Bush administration interrogation policies, but President Obama still prefers to kill, rather than capture, terrorists. This costs valuable intelligence.

by John Yoo

Mr. Obama's policies now differ from their Bush counterparts mainly on the issue of interrogation. As Sunday's operation put so vividly on display, Mr. Obama would rather kill al Qaeda leaders—whether by drones or special ops teams—than wade through the difficult questions raised by their detention. This may have dissuaded Mr. Obama from sending a more robust force to attempt a capture.

Early reports are conflicted, but it appears that bin Laden was not armed. He did not have a large retinue of bodyguards—only three other people, the two couriers and bin Laden's adult son, were killed. Special forces units using nonlethal weaponry might have taken bin Laden alive, as with other senior al Qaeda leaders before him.

If true, one of the most valuable intelligence opportunities since the beginning of the war has slipped through our hands. Some claim that bin Laden had become a symbol, or that al Qaeda had devolved into a decentralized terrorist network with more active franchises in Yemen or Somalia. Nevertheless, bin Laden was still issuing instructions and funds to a broad terrorist network and would have known where and how to find other key al Qaeda players. His capture, like Saddam Hussein's in December 2003, would have provided invaluable intelligence and been an even greater example of U.S. military prowess than his death.

White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said Monday that the SEAL team had orders to take bin Laden alive, "if he didn't present any threat," though he correctly dismissed this possibility as "remote." This is hard to take seriously. No one could have expected bin Laden to surrender without a fight. And capturing him alive would have required the administration to hold and interrogate bin Laden at Guantanamo Bay, something that has given this president allergic reactions bordering on a seizure...

Mr. Yoo is a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He was an official in the Justice Department from 2001-03 and is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Woodwork · Senior Member

Soccerguy,

I was refering of course to the American tradition, not to the tradition of Ghengis Khan, Attila the Hun or the Visigoths. As I refelect on the American tradition, only the outliers raped and pillaged and they were ususually prosecuted for their actions because that is not our tradition, it is the opposite. What you call the outliers, Nuremburg, Saddam, etc are examples of The American Tradition and we could add a whole lot more to that list.

And in America, since when has a trial ever been just a charade, seriously when? even if it was completely clear the accused was guilty before the evil individual was put on trial. It was not a charade for Timothy McKeigh, it will not be a charade for KSM and it would not have been a charade for Osama Bin Laden. A trial would have been, as it has always been, justice. American justice. Whether military or civilian. And American justice historically involves a little more than summary execution, not to mention, as you say, rape and pillage. I am sure such "justice" has been rendered, but THEY were the outliers and looking back we judge them to be legal, ethical and historical errors at best.

Well, he's dead now. Everyone will be eventually, but I am certain history will judge the "execution," "assasination" etc, of this person, in that house in those circumstances (if the administration can be believed) to have been a mistake. I couldn't care less which party can and will make political hay out of this. I'd say both, but it is to be expected becasue that is also an American tradition "Bush lied and thousands died" etc ad nauseum. All politics and all beside the point.

Poetsheart · Senior Member

Well, as I said, if we had managed to bring Bin Ladin out alive, and gone to all the expense, and political charade to try him, it would have been far better for the GOP. More's the pity.

It was an execution. I have no problem with that.

soccerguy315 · Guru

Woodwork wrote:
Soccerguy,

Actually, President Obama has kept the military commissions and said he would use them if he felt it was more appropriate than a civil trial. I don't know if he would have felt a military trial would have been appropriate for Bin Laden or not and I do not know exactly what kind of political pressures would have eventually won the day on that decision. When you ask me if I think BL might be innocent, I assume you are being facetious so I will leave that as is. As to most of your other questions, these are questions the administration needed to answer (trial, location, death penalty etc) not a guy on a internet forum. I suppose this would be part of the political and judicial system and this is why we pick leaders.

A number of you say you just wanted him dead, so it may be that my opinion is not reflective of most --but, traditionally you would take a man like this and put him on trial (as the Nuremburg trials after WW2 and as Saddam was in Iraq...whereas his sons were killed in an actual gun battle: see the difference?) and I believe as a matter of civil or military justice you would put him on trial whether known to be guilty or not. A trial does not just serve the purpose of conviction, it is also a ritual wherein the victims get some satisfaction from having had their grievances made known in the face of the guilty, while the guilty is incarcerated and in custody for their crime. It is also about general and civil closure. I am suprised to see so many here excitedly leaping over justice to get straight to the killing. There is no tradition of this --consider Saddam and Nuremberg.

Woodwork - all the questions that you want answered about the trial were answered by the administration. They were answered by sending in the best trained killers that the United States has on the mission. If they wanted him alive, they could've sent a bigger group of soldiers and surrounded the compound. That is not what they did. They went to do what they do best: kill.

I am not being facetious asking if you think he is innocent. Why do you think he needs a trial if there is no chance he is innocent? Why do you feel that taxpayer money would be best used to put on a charade trial where everyone already knows what the outcome will be?

I also believe that your views of tradition are off. You point to two examples. I would say that "traditionally" the winning side pillages the villages, executes or enslaves the men, and takes the women and children as their property. I believe there are many more examples of this than of putting the loser of the war on trial. Your examples are the outliers.

BigG · Guru

Actually just this planet....for now.

Cartera · Guru

I think it was an assassination. I have in a prior post explained why I don't see it as an execution. AG Holder describes it as a killing of an enemy commander in the field so I assume that is how the administration feels. Of course, that means there is actually a war and that one of the "fields" is Pakistan. I guess the "field" for a war on terror is the universe.

Woodwork · Senior Member

Samurai,

Saddam's execution was undignified and unlike anything that would have occured with Bin Laden...as will also be the case with KSM, amongst others. In truth, after being captured by US forces, Saddam was imprisoned then turnedover for trail by the Iraqi's, not the USA. He was then taken by a cadre of Iraqi's...a virtual mob that had set up a gallows wherein they taunted and hung him, all the while being filmed on a camera phone by one of the mobsters in the crowd. Therein lies the difference.

Still, the US forces took Saddam alive and the Iraqi's wanting justice, got it and, other than a large segment of Sunnis, celebrated his public trial and death as a just act. I doubt the US would have turned Bin Laden over to the Pakistanis, Afghanis or Saudis for trial and execution so I do not see a real parallel. Clearly, the order should have been given to take Bin Laden to an American base and from there decided whether to take him to a black-site, Guantanamo, or a State-side prison. Thereafter to be tried for what he did to America. The proof of this is that the administration originally claimed that this was the order given --capture if possible, kill if necessary-- before their story started to unravel before our eyes. Why do you think this was the original claim? The answer is obvious.

As I said, if he was killed in a raid that is one thing; if the intention was simply to kill him there all along, I believe this is problematic, and I believe the US press should be digging into why, how and who was giving the real and certain orders. How could the administration claim on the first day that the order was to capture if possible, only to turn around 2 days later to confess that the order was to --with some hedging-- to kill?

And how can everyone here and in the media be comfortable with all this obvious tomfoolery?

pima · Guru

In all of this I have to say media wise this administration dropped the ball and I would not be shocked if Carney is gone in a few short months. How many corrections or clarifications did they give? Sorry, but I tuned into the news just to hear/see what they said prior in briefings were corrected. This is not good. Conspiracy theories started to run second one, and the constant changing only fuels it more.

They are not amateurs regarding the press and they should have had all the facts down pat before they stepped out in the briefing room. However, because of the S.F issue a few weeks ago, I think zooser is correct the media has no interest in pushing the limit.

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

So soon we forget.

When Saddam Hussein was executed in 2006, there was outcry that it was undignified. Photos were released. The manner in which he left this world was grisly, with taunts and jeers as he was led to the gallows.

There was widespread and loud dissent over the ability to even try Saddam Hussein for these crimes, much less his execution.

A no-win situation.

Perhaps this makes me a terrible person, but I am not a single bit sorry that we took him out this way, knowing the potential end games that could have happened.

He probably deserved a slower death, one where he had to contemplate his crimes and what was to come. One where he was stuck in a skyscraper, slowing choking to death in the heat or fire, knowing that there was no escape, unless he jumped out of a window to his death. Or burning to death in a jet fuel fire. Or being trapped in thousands of tons of concrete as the building collapsed on top of him. Or as dozens of floors collapsed into dust and shrapnel and rebar while the world watched. That was a grisly death for 3000 folks.

Instead he was taken out by a bullet. Really, too good a death for a man that, by all accounts has cost our country $3 trillion dollars.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_exclusive/20110506/pl_yblog_exclusive/the-cost-of-bin-laden-3-trillion-over-15-years

Yep, not sorry. I do think justice was served.

-- Edited by SamuraiLandshark on Friday 6th of May 2011 08:17:38 AM

zoosermom · Senior Member

And where is the media on all of this? Why no questions at all about capture and being brought to justice?

The media has absolutely no interest in asking any questions pertaining to the Obama administration for which they don't already have a group narrative prepared.

Woodwork · Senior Member

Photos and public information on the deaths:

Woodwork · Senior Member

An actual gun battle leading to the death of Saddam's two sadistic sons:

Woodwork · Senior Member

Recent precedent, if one is needed.

Saddam:

Razorsharp · Guru

"They killed him not because there was a fire fight or something going on. They went there with the intention to kill him. That's an execution or an assassination, whatever you want to call it," Michael Moore told CNN.

Finally, a true liberal's perspective!

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/05/05/moore_bin_laden_suffered_execution_should_have_put_him_on_trial.html "> http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/05/05/moore_bin_laden_suffered_execution_should_have_put_him_on_trial.html

Woodwork · Senior Member

Soccerguy,

Actually, President Obama has kept the military commissions and said he would use them if he felt it was more appropriate than a civil trial. I don't know if he would have felt a military trial would have been appropriate for Bin Laden or not and I do not know exactly what kind of political pressures would have eventually won the day on that decision. When you ask me if I think BL might be innocent, I assume you are being facetious so I will leave that as is. As to most of your other questions, these are questions the administration needed to answer (trial, location, death penalty etc) not a guy on a internet forum. I suppose this would be part of the political and judicial system and this is why we pick leaders.

A number of you say you just wanted him dead, so it may be that my opinion is not reflective of most --but, traditionally you would take a man like this and put him on trial (as the Nuremburg trials after WW2 and as Saddam was in Iraq...whereas his sons were killed in an actual gun battle: see the difference?) and I believe as a matter of civil or military justice you would put him on trial whether known to be guilty or not. A trial does not just serve the purpose of conviction, it is also a ritual wherein the victims get some satisfaction from having had their grievances made known in the face of the guilty, while the guilty is incarcerated and in custody for their crime. It is also about general and civil closure. I am suprised to see so many here excitedly leaping over justice to get straight to the killing. There is no tradition of this --consider Saddam and Nuremberg.

If Bin Laden was killed in battle than he was killed justifiably and rightfully --as Saddam's sons were. But it seems now there was never any intention of taking him into custody. According to all accounts, he was shot on sight, unarmed and not firing a weapon. In fact, it seems that in the entire operation, in the main domicile, only one gun was fired and that one fired only one shot.

It doesn't look right...at least not to me. Something has been askew about this ever since it was announced, with a constantly evolving "narrative" that indisputably, from the top down, misled and obfuscated what actually happened that night in Abbotabad. This was a big deal. How do you flub the political side of this so badly back home? One address or press conference after another stating and back-tracking on the events, orders and facts.

And where is the media on all of this? Why no questions at all about capture and being brought to justice?

zoosermom · Senior Member

Pity the only thing they can do at this point, is to minimize Obama's role in this American victory, and to claim instead, that it is actually Bush who deserves the credit....

By any fair measure, Bush does deserve credit.

Who is minimizing Obama's role? I would really like to know because in everything I've seen on the right, from blog to online community to newspaper to whatever, the consensus has been pride in President Obama and total willingness to give him the credit due him.

Now, there has been a lot of criticism of how things were communicated afterward, particularly by the press secretary, but that's not quite the same thing.

Woodwork · Senior Member

Well, Poet, at least you didn't think it was a political decision. smile

Poetsheart · Senior Member

I guaran-doggon-tee you that most Americans would not have wanted Bin Ladin captured and placed on trial. We wanted him dead and absolutely unable to plan another terrist attack against us, either here or abroad. I for one am happy the SOB is dead. Osama Bin Ladin alive would have posed all sorts of problems. But of course, Bin Ladin problems are just what the GOP would have prescribed for Obama, just in time for the 2012 elections.

They would love to have been able to blast The President for allowing Bin Ladin to live. They would love to have had the opportunity to lambast him for bringing Osama before a civil court (just as they critized the Justice Department's plans for KLM ), and they'd have loved to jeeringly gloat that a military tribunal of Bin Ladin was an admission by the Obama Administration that they (conservatives) had been right that civil trials were not appropriate for the likes of terrorists. And if we hadn't killed Bin Ladin in that house when we had a clear opportunity, and he had somehow managed to escape when the Pakistani military had inserted itself at some point in the mission, the outrage (and the insuing political pay off for the GOP) would have been immediate and deafending. At the very least, it would have reinforced their rhetoric that Obama was "soft on terrorists/terrorism", and "lacked the balls to do what was neccessary to protect this country", and at worse, they would have said "Obama actually wanted Bin Ladin to escape capture" (because he is, after all, a Muslim Terrorist Sleeper for Al Qaeda). They would love to have been able to express outrage that untold millions of hard working Americans' tax dollars (especially in light of the current economy), would now go to feeding, housing, guarding, and providing medical care for the worse piece of human garbage the world has known since WWII . They would have loved to point out that Bin Ladin, now in US custody, would only motivate his followers to kidnap Americans abroad and attempt to use them as bargaining chips for the release of their hero and spiritual leader. They would have criticized the President for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and most Americans would have agreed with them. Pity the only thing they can do at this point, is to minimize Obama's role in this American victory, and to claim instead, that it is actually Bush who deserves the credit....

-- Edited by Poetsheart on Thursday 5th of May 2011 10:55:48 PM

-- Edited by Poetsheart on Thursday 5th of May 2011 10:59:36 PM

soccerguy315 · Guru

woodwork, where would OBL get a fair trial in the US?

or would Obama give him a military commission (which Obama previously did not support)?

Why do you feel that OBL should've been tried before he was killed? Do you think he might be innocent? After he is guilty, should he get the death penalty? Some states don't do the death penalty, maybe OBL should get life in prison? Where he can preach and radicalize American citizens? Should he get the Bradley Manning treatment, so the ACLU can sue the government to demand better conditions for a person who murdered thousands of innocent American civilians?

Why do you think Americans want to put OBL on trial? I would bet that most Americans just want him dead, and they are more than happy with this outcome.

Why do you think the rest of the "Free World" would want OBL on trial? The "free world" has been supportive of the U.S. actions.

We are at war. In war, you do not put the other guy on trial. You kill him before he kills you. The SEALs were successful in their task.

-- Edited by soccerguy315 on Thursday 5th of May 2011 08:23:27 PM

Woodwork · Senior Member

SamuraiLandshark wrote:
Ruling the world is indeed, complicated.
Perhaps taking OBL's life was simply revenge for what evil he unleashed on us. Revenge may be irrational, but it has a long standing and glorious history throughout the ages.
In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya whose life goal was to avenge his father's death:
"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

Well, of course.

Inigo had spent his whole life doing nothing but studying sword fighting in the revenge business. As he said, "I have no gift for strategy."

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

Ruling the world is indeed, complicated.

Perhaps taking OBL's life was simply revenge for what evil he unleashed on us. Revenge may be irrational, but it has a long standing and glorious history throughout the ages.

In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya whose life goal was to avenge his father's death:

"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

Woodwork · Senior Member

SamuraiLandshark wrote:
Let's play it out to the final end for Osama in an alternative scenario. We capture him, try him and then what? Incarcerate him? Execute him?
Take it a step further. Who incarcerates him or puts an end to his life? You think it's tough to execute a child rapist in California? Try executing OBL - which country would want to touch this. What a nightmare. Saudi Arabia? The US? I simply don't see it.
Our federal government has just opted to put an end to these detention camps. Where would we put a man like OBL? A Supermax facility? Leavenworth? Drug cartels have been known to run out of maximum security prisons. Just because you lock them up doesn't mean they necessarily stop doing their crimes.

LGM,

To this I recall the infamous words of Prince Humperdinck in his reply to Count Rugen's protestations when Rugen complained "-It won't be easy, Sire" and the Prince replied "-Try ruling the world sometime."Rim shot.

No doubt, it is a lot of thinking, working and head-scratching being the Leader of the Free World. It's a tough job, maybe the toughest, but that is what the job requires. I don't think shooting Bin Laden was the resolution this situation called out for...but that is just my feeling of the way that America and the rest of the Free World would have wanted it: capture and a trial for the wickedest terrorist of our life time. If in a fire fight he was killed, then he was...but that does not sound like what occured here. I believe if Hitler would not have taken his own life he would have been put on trial, if possible, not shot in the bunker. At least not by American forces.

As for the difficulty of taking prisoners in a tight situation, well, they did take prisoners...just not that one.

-- Edited by Woodwork on Thursday 5th of May 2011 02:05:43 PM

BigG · Guru

Dead in place is better than captured. Dead means "mission accomplished" whether the SEALS got out or not.

The team on the ground did not know how long it would be before hostile assets arrived in force.

You don't want to be dragging a prisoner and halfway to the remaining helicopter when the bad guys' calvary arrives.

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

Let's play it out to the final end for Osama in an alternative scenario. We capture him, try him and then what? Incarcerate him? Execute him?

Take it a step further. Who incarcerates him or puts an end to his life? You think it's tough to execute a child rapist in California? Try executing OBL - which country would want to touch this. What a nightmare. Saudi Arabia? The US? I simply don't see it.

Our federal government has just opted to put an end to these detention camps. Where would we put a man like OBL? A Supermax facility? Leavenworth? Drug cartels have been known to run out of maximum security prisons. Just because you lock them up doesn't mean they necessarily stop doing their crimes.

The other issue is, let's say OBL was incarcerated. Do you think Al Qaeda is going to simply stop what they are doing? No way. They will continue, however fragmented their operation is and will be. Now, their figurative leader is behind bars. So the next time they do something heinous (and there will be a next time), now they have something to negotiate. Al Qaeda kidnaps our military men or women, or a journalist or peace workers...now they say, "If you don't release OBL, we will..."

He is a martyr, now. That is problematic and there will be more terrorism. This is a fact.

If he was a prisoner, there would also be the potential for more terrorism, plus the added difficulty of how to deal with him.

It's a no-win situation.

The only solution as I see it was to kill him on the spot. It may not be pretty and there may be questions that follow this order, but in my opinion it's the smartest move that Obama and his team have made since taking office.

Cartera · Guru

Biden switched it up - he went with full blown crazy with a touch of attitude and a splash of "who me?" He will be praised for this departure.

Woodwork · Senior Member

That will be awkward --both wearing the same outfit.

Cartera · Guru

He'll be wearing attitude with a touch of denial and a splash of crazy.

Woodwork · Senior Member

Call it a date. What will Rumsfeld be wearing, I wonder?

Cartera · Guru

Talk about reaching out. Biden will be accompanied by Rumsfeld when he visits the Pentagon this afternoon.

Cartera · Guru

Woodwork - those are not easy issues to discuss. A local pundit wrote an article in the paper bringing up the same issues. He questioned calling it "justice" - instead seeing it as an execution with no due process. He was immediately called a traitor in comments. The anger was quick and vicious. I joined in expressing discomfort with some of the new facts emerging about the killing and I received the same treatment. There, too, I was told that we had no business second guessing any of it. My response was that we have a duty to second guess. I don't think it is a secret that there was a kill order on Bin Laden. I doubt there was any thought of bringing him in alive - barring him coming out to meet them with a white flag.

Woodwork · Senior Member

I know there are people here that served in the military, so I don't want to speak out of turn...but, professing my ignorance, I can't help but wish they would have taken him alive. The argument made by the administration, repeatedly, was that the priority was the safety and well-being of our soldiers so they were given the green light to kill Bin Laden rather than risk their lives. Well, actually, this argument seemed to move around quite a bit --wiggled-- as to what the actual mission was: Kill, capture or all of the above. This was complicated by the evolution of the narrative over the first two days --BL had a weapon, firing-- to eventually sound as if the mission was to simply to take him down on site whatever the circumstances. I do suppose the troops would have been at greater risk trying to take him alive, but they are trained for this and we are losing soldiers every week in related places due to the initial attack of Bin Laden and his henchmen and will continue to do so. And, fwiw, my nephew is in the 'buds' program to become a seal so it is not as if I am not concerned about the safety of these forces.

So I wonder why there has been very little media chatter over the issue of taking him alive...perhaps it has just been overshadowed by the fascination with showing photos of his now dead corpse, or not...but I would have thought that there would have been a sizable debate over the value of a trial and leveraging of Bin Laden to get deeper into his organization and to demonstrate the American system of justice etc --as has been said so much during the KSM debacle. I don't want to believe that there were political considerations but I am sure there must have been some thought put into where he would be held if captured and then where he would be tried and how the different political constituencies and world press would have dealt with the imprisonment and trial. Why has this not warranted some questions by the media? Certainly, the Obama-Holder justice department got burned over the KSM affair and they must have been loath to go through that again with Bin Laden. Having Bin Laden dead would certainly alleviate a hornet's nest of problems. He's dead.

-- Edited by Woodwork on Thursday 5th of May 2011 09:57:51 AM

pima · Guru

Second that agreement.

Cartera · Guru

Agreed.

hayden · Senior Member

Broadly speaking, cartera, I agree with you. We should question and evaluate, including tough decisions. What were their orders, did they carry them out appropriately, was the advanced planning adequate, etc. Just because someone is in a wartime condition does not alleviate the responsibility to act according to training, good sense, and legal parameters.

Right now, there is no indication that any of that was violated. From what we know now, they entered at night, to capture one of the most dangerous people in the world - a man who is usually pictured carrying an AK-47 or with one on his lap - and who has a consistent history of committing and advocating the murder of innocents. I have no reason at this point to second guess their actions. Further info could come to light in the future that might change my mind. But right now, no, I do not second guess them.

In the absence of information to the contrary, they made judgment calls, and their judgment in this area is more experienced than anyone else's.

Cartera · Guru

I think the Seals did exactly as they were told and I would not have wanted any of them to risk a hair on their heads to capture Bin Laden.

That being said, I don't think we should ever say we shouldn't second guess anything - even things done by people who risk their lives. It's when we stop second guessing that things can go really wrong. It's even worse to only second guess the things we disagree with. Part of what makes what we do, as a country, different from many others is our license to second guess, question, discuss and investigate.

hayden · Senior Member

I agree, pima. Plus this occurred at midnight in Pakistan, so the SEALs went in wearing night vision goggles, or taking them on and off depending on where they were and how much light there was. No way would I second guess these guys.

pima · Guru

They reported in the news there were weapons in the bedroom, and one fear was he would be wearing a suicide vest.

We should not second guess the actions of these brave Seals. In the heat of the battle with a woman lunging at you, I think we all would agree none of us would think that is the sign of surrender, we would take it as aggression.

I have to give applause to Pakistan for announcing they have evacuated the block and will be blowing up the compound so it can never become a shrine. Granted they are not doing this for our benefit. They are doing it IMPO to make sure they don't feel our wrath in the future because they don't want to be viewed by us like Afghanistan.

The least they can do to show who's side they are on after saying we didn't have a clue he lived for 5 yrs down the block from the military academy. I don't think Pakistani's are much different than anyone else in the world. Somebody builds a compound 6 times larger than anyone else's home on the block with 10 foot+ high concrete walls and razor wire on top, and you don't ask who is living there? C'mon!

soccerguy315 · Guru

we have been launching missiles from drones at individuals since 9/11 over there. It has been called targeted killing. This is exactly the same thing. We just used military personnel on the ground instead of a drone.

Obama had other options for this. He said no to the B52/B2 strike and no to a drone. He wanted the body.

Cartera · Guru

To me, "execute" is done in accordance with a legal order of some sort - as part of a sentence. Perhaps I am putting more into the definition than merited but that is how I think of it. Because he was not tried and convicted, I wouldn't use the word "execute." Again, to me, assassinate just means to kill for political of military reasons. So that seems to fit better.

I think that Bin Laden was one of those people who was so dangerous while alive, that his death, under any circumstances can be justified as self defense.

hayden · Senior Member

Assassination does not seem like the correct word to me. The word I would use is either killed in a fair fight, or executed, depending on the facts as they emerge.

Why do so many conservatives insist on constantly misrepresenting liberals' views? Are you so afraid if you state our beliefs in a reasonable way that one day you may actually sympathize with them, such that you have to protect yourselves by turning our views into some cartoonish version? Most liberals I know do not believe that the opposite of death penalty is a couple of years in prison to be rehabilitated. We're perfectly aware many criminals cannot ever be rehabilitated. I do not believe in the death penalty because as long as hardened criminals are imprisoned for life without parole, and we are all safe, I do not see the value in going the next unnecessary step of murdering them. Second, we have all seen enough cases where the wrong person has been convicted. That is a crime equal to murder in my opinion.

None of these concerns applies to Bin Laden. He is on video tape (his own) discussing how he planned and ordered the 9/11 hijackings, and he never showed the slightest remorse. In more recent tapes he urged his supporters to commit additional murders. There was significant evidence that he would continue to incite his followers to murder people around the world, and would have continued trying to do that from a cell if we'd put him in jail. As far as I am concerned, the death of Bin Laden was a response to clear and present danger from someone who presented an imminent threat to life, and we had the right to execute him to protect life.

Cartera · Guru

I'm about as anti-death penalty as they come, and I am not completely comfortable with the new accounts of how this happened. I liked the firefight version better. I don't like the version in which his 19 year old unarmed son was killed as he was coming down the stairs and that Bin Laden was killed in his pajamas - also unarmed. Holder justifies it by saying he was an enemy commander in the field, but I don't believe the "war on terror" is a real war either so that's not particularly helpful to me. I have thought about how I justify it because I am glad no one was hurt by trying to take him prisoner.

Poetsheart · Senior Member

Where are all the liberals who oppose the death penalty saying, he should have been taken alive and rehabilitated?

Probably waiting in the bushes outside your house, hoping for the day when you'll stop saying such asinine things. Most liberals wanted Bin Ladin dead as badly as every other American, and are breathing the collective a sigh of relief along with all Americans.

Razorsharp · Guru

The more I am reading, the more it looks like an assassination. Where are all the liberals who oppose the death penalty saying, he should have been taken alive and rehabilitated?

Artemis · Senior Member

pima wrote:
I also have to say hats off to both Obama and Bush.

Obama reached his hand out and asked Bush and Clinton to join him at Ground Zero.

Bush declined. JMPO, but I think he did so as a sign of respect to Obama. This is your moment and you deserve this moment.

Rightly or wrongly on your opinion regarding Obama, he is human. I believe what weighed on his mind if it failed was not the political fall out, but that he sent Americans into combat and they died due to his orders. That is a heavy burden to bear.

That's a very nice post, pima, and I wholeheartedly agree with you.

pima · Guru

I also have to say hats off to both Obama and Bush.

Obama reached his hand out and asked Bush and Clinton to join him at Ground Zero.

Bush declined. JMPO, but I think he did so as a sign of respect to Obama. This is your moment and you deserve this moment.

Rightly or wrongly on your opinion regarding Obama, he is human. I believe what weighed on his mind if it failed was not the political fall out, but that he sent Americans into combat and they died due to his orders. That is a heavy burden to bear.

pima · Guru

Panetta said it best they were either incompetent or involved regarding Bin Laden.

Honestly, how can you have the equivalent of our West Point around the corner and say we didn't have a clue he was there for @5-6 yrs?

The compound 6 times larger than the avg home with barbed wire and a 12 foot fence didn't make you ask who is in there?

zoosermom · Senior Member

Upset that it appears the highest levels of his government and military were complicit (that is his word) in hiding the terror mastermind. Disillusioned, heartsick. He is one of the best men I have every known and his honor and integrity are unimpeachable. It breaks his heart to see evidence that his values aren't shared by his government.

Razorsharp · Guru

DonnaL wrote:
Reagan would have killed every one of those barbarians? You mean, like the way he cut and ran from Lebanon after more than 200 marines were killed? Invading Grenada was more his style when it came to being tough.

You are saying we should have stayed in Lebanon? That is silly. We never should have been there in the first place.

Reagan said he would bomb the Iranians and they beliveied him. I believe he would have done so as punishment just as he did in Libya.