Osama Bin Laden dead

[vimothy]

The US doesn't need to prove anything. Again, in war, there is no due process. Since there is a war (i.e. the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan), and since OBL was a member of a party in that conflict (i.e. AQ), the US could legally kill him.

 

[continuum]

but the armed conflict he was taking part in was started illegally by the US and UK.

 

[vimothy]

That's wrong. (What is your source for the illegality of the war in Afghanistan?) But even if it were correct, US soldiers could still legally kill OBL.

There are two sides to the strike, and both the jus ad bellum and the jus in bello are relevant to the legality of the operation. But only the JIB is relevant to the legality of killing bin Laden. The two areas of law protect different interests: the JAB protects a state’s sovereignty; the JIB protects (among other things) combatants and civilians in armed conflict. As I said the post, as long as IHL applies and the U.S. forces complied with the rules of IHL, the killing was not illegal. And it was not illegal even if the use of armed force against Pakistan violated the JAB.

Consider a hypothetical situation. Assume that Obama invades Mexico tomorrow and seizes its oil. During the invasion an American soldier shoots and kills a Mexican soldier guarding one of Mexico’s oil wells. That killing is not murder, nor is it a war crime, because IHL applies to the conflict (IHL is automatically triggered whenever one state attacks another state) and IHL does not prohibit one combatant from killing another. And that killing is not murder and not a war crime even though the U.S. attack clearly violated the jus ad bellum. That does not mean that the JAB violation is irrelevant; Mexico is entitled to protest the violation of its sovereignty, and Obama (and other U.S. political and military leaders) may be guilty of the crime of aggression under customary international law. But the illegality of the invasion does not affect the right of combatants in the resulting armed conflict to kill in ways permitted by IHL.

Does that help?

http://opiniojuris.org/2011/05/04/quick-thoughts-on-ubls-killing-and-a-response-to-lewis/

 

[continuum]

That's wrong. (What is your source for the illegality of the war in Afghanistan?) But even if it were correct, US soldiers could still legally kill OBL.

You're right I was thinking of the war in Iraq.

 

[IdleRich]

"Nothing serious has been provided since. There is much talk of bin Laden’s “confession,” but that is rather like my confession that I won the Boston Marathon. He boasted of what he regarded as a great achievement."

The difference being that claiming to win the Boston Marathon isn't gonna make you a target (except possibly of the real winner). It may not exactly be a moral argument but it's fair to say that claiming to be responsible for something like Sept 11th is going to make life pretty difficult for you in the future and isn't something to be done lightly. If he wasn't involved then it was ultimately a pretty stupid thing to do.

 

[baboon2004]

If he wasn't involved then it was ultimately a pretty stupid thing to do.

Suicidal.

 

[Mr. Tea]

If OBL wasn't behind 9/11, there is no reason whatsoever for him to claim 'credit'. Think about it on his own terms: if he'd just been sitting there in Afghanistan minding his own business, perhaps planning some new terror attack (but nothing on the scale of 9/11) and then suddenly his face is all over every news channel in the world, linking him to the biggest and most audacious terror plot in history, what would he do? Exactly what Bush/the CIA/ZOG (or whoever) want him to do, and claim responsibility? Wouldn't you, if you were bin Laden, rather say "Nothing to do with me, your own government did this to you!"? Imagine if he'd said that. Bush would have had to deploy the National Guard and/or regular army to put down a spontaneous armed uprising, would be my guess!

The only way around this, for 'hard' Truthers (i.e. those claiming some arm of the US Govt actually carried out 9/11) is to assume OBL himself is part of the conspiracy. Which just illustrates one aspect of the unfalsifiablility of conspiracy theories: they go arbitrarily 'high up', there is no-one who cannot be said to be 'in on it'.

Regarding the recent actions in Pakistan, it does seem pretty clear that those guys went in with the express intention of killing OBL although I'd have thought Obama would want the propaganda coup of parading him on TV as a live prisoner. I suppose they must have had a good (I mean, militarily/politically justified) reason for wanting him dead ASAP.

Will there be a Wikileaks revelation about the OBL mission, do you think? Or are would-be leakers too scared after what's happened to that poor bastard Manning?

 

[baboon2004]

Regarding the recent actions in Pakistan, it does seem pretty clear that those guys went in with the express intention of killing OBL although I'd have thought Obama would want the propaganda coup of parading him on TV as a live prisoner. I suppose they must have had a good (I mean, militarily/politically justified) reason for wanting him dead ASAP.

i thinkt hey just wanted to end it, without ANY possibility that something would go 'wrong'. i mean, thinking about it, after 10 years of searching for this elusive, become quasi-mythical entity (OBL), there must be some serious aura around him in the US military imagination. Why take the risk of not killing him when you have the chance?

 

[Mr. Tea]

Yeah, good point. Maybe it would have been different if they'd captured him (much) sooner after 9/11.

 

[droid]

No.

EDIT: OBL was a member of a group taking part in an armed conflict in Afghanistan, and arguably in Pakistan as well. Therefore, it was legal to kill him under the Laws of War (IHL).

So you would see no legal problems with the US bombing London or sending special forces into Manchester to kill a target as long as their target was (allegedly) participating in a 'war' with the US?

Presumably then you would also see no legal problem with Hamas doing the same, or Yemen, or Libya, or Israel etc...?

BTW, the US is not at war with Pakistan, or Afghanistan. There was never a declaration of war.

Chomsky, is, as usual, correct.

Putting aside the question of whether OBL was a 'combatant' and was therefore eligible for execution, even if unarmed and surrendering, the question of sovereignty is paramount:

In other words, extra-territorial jurisdiction in any such matters would normally be unlawful as a state's sovereignty is absolute - no other country's armed forces can enter or carry out a military operation without the local state's authorization. Using force against the territorial integrity and independence of a foreign state is strictly prohibited under the international law and, prima facie, with the way the operation was carried out, the U.S. government clearly violated the national security of Pakistan, and set a very dangerous precedence that greatly poses a threat to the international peace and security.

However, in this case the U.S. government is right in making the "self defense" justification because the al Qaeda is engaged in a continuous act of war against the U.S. and Pakistan, more or less, has allowed its territory to be used as a base of operation for future terrorist crimes against the United States and other countries.

Read more: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/142...law-experts-lawyers-divided.htm#ixzz1LqRLfmPe

Given the examples above, its clear that this is not an accepted norm. If it was Cuba could be 'legally' bombing Florida, North Korea could 'legally' be bombing South Korea, The UK could have 'legally' bombed Dublin and Boston during the 80's... the list goes on. This is just good, old fashioned US exceptionalism.

 

[baboon2004]

Yeah, good point. Maybe it would have been different if they'd captured him (much) sooner after 9/11.

Definitely. Perhaps displaying him as a prisoner would have backfired too - I think they partly believed he was a little super-human after evading detection for so long!

 

[vimothy]

Weird how Chomsky is right and all the experts in the field of, you know, international law and the laws of war--the ones with the actual qualifications and letters after their names--are wrong. Perhaps they haven't read Chomsky's article yet and so don't realise he disagrees with them and hence the magnitude of their error.

The US has not formally declared war since WWII (wiki). Nevertheless, it has engaged in numerous "armed conflicts" that have been authorised by Congress and/or relevant international bodies. Re Afghanistan, see: AUMF; also, UNSCR 1368 and UNSCR 1378.

I don't find the targeted killing of Bin Laden problematic. It seems like a textbook case of how to do something like this right. Dropping a JDAM on some random house in Pakistan would have been problematic. By all appearances this was proportionate and demonstrated distinction, which is what you ask from a state at war (i.e. the relevant legal restrictions).

If Bin Laden had sincerely surrendered then his killing would have been illegal. But the US was not required to make some kind of an offer before they shot him. (He did have ten years to come to a decision on this front). See the comments by Navy JAG Alan G. Kaufman and targeting law scholar Ian Henderson on the Opinio Juris post I linked to earlier for a discussion about this point. Whether Bin Laden was armed is irrelevant to the legality of the operation. When you drop a bomb, it doesn't pause mid-flight to check to see if the targets are armed, or to offer quarter. It falls, people die. That's brutal, but that's war. Lesson: be careful about who you declare war on.

 

[craner]

If Pakistan is having sovereign territory violated by foreign special forces, it has brought this catastophe on by itself -- the military and ISI have always managed to maintain a fluid concept of a national border along the nominal FATA-Afghanistan division, thus maintaining a haven and corridor for the Pakistani Taliban, al-Qaeda and Haqqani fighters they have been arming and shovelling back into Afghanistan. They have been happy to play this game for nearly ten years despite severe blowback, like massive suicide bombings and assissinatons inside Pakistan, the Red Mosque battle, etc. Frankly, the US spent too long trying to protect Musharraf by not violating NWFP and FATA "sovereignty".

 

[vimothy]

It is okay to enter a country that is unable or unwilling to deal with the threat. See Pakistan’s Sovereignty and the Killing of Osama Bin Laden by Ashley Deeks, currently a fellow at Columbia Law School, but until recently, the Assistant Legal Adviser for Political and Military Affairs at the State Department.

The article droid links to also makes this clear:

According to Dworkin, it wasn't a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty. "I think there is a reasonable argument that this was not a violation of Pakistani sovereignty because there is a legitimate argument for self-defense for US action against bin Laden; Pakistan has also made it clear after the event that it does not object to US action in this case and that Pakistan has previously given at least tacit consent for US action against senior al-Qaeda members on its territory," Dworkin said.

Agrees John B. Bellinger III, who was the legal adviser to the State Department under the Bush administration. Bellinger acknowledges that under the United Nations Charter, the United States would normally be prohibited from using force inside Pakistan without obtaining Pakistan's consent. But there is one caveat: that the host country is both capable and willing to deal with problems itself.

And, this was a special circumstance that gave the U.S. government a legal justification for not doing so (obtaining consent).

"The U.S. was justified in concluding that Pakistan was unwilling or unable to stop the threat posed by Osama bin Laden, and that Pakistan's consent was not necessary because of past concerns about the close ties between Pakistan intelligence services and the Taliban," Bellinger said, "and the fact that bin Laden was in a house, on a street right down the road from a Pakistani military base."

There's no way in hell the US could have risked sharing this with Islamabad and getting permission before hand.

 

[craner]

Unless they had already agreed to this "violation".

 

[droid]

It is okay to enter a country that is unable or unwilling to deal with the threat. See Pakistan’s Sovereignty and the Killing of Osama Bin Laden by Ashley Deeks, currently a fellow at Columbia Law School, but until recently, the Assistant Legal Adviser for Political and Military Affairs at the State Department.

The article droid links to also makes this clear:



There's no way in hell the US could have risked sharing this with Islamabad and getting permission before hand.

OK, so Cuba is therefore legally entitled to launch special forces operations and bombings in Florida as the US has clearly been unwilling to deal with the problems of terrorist acts committed against Cuba by actors residing in Florida?

Its clearly ludicrous, but this is the position you support.

Chomsky makes the same point:

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a “suspect” but uncontroversially the “decider” who gave the orders to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country, the bitter sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region.

Would you have supported such an act from a legal standpoint?

Weird how Chomsky is right and all the experts in the field of, you know, international law and the laws of war--the ones with the actual qualifications and letters after their names--are wrong. Perhaps they haven't read Chomsky's article yet and so don't realise he disagrees with them and hence the magnitude of their error.

Its absolute nonsense and a misguided appeal to authority to suggest that every 'expert' on international law agrees with you. In fact, the only reference you've supplied prominently features a US military lawyer.

I don't find the targeted killing of Bin Laden problematic. It seems like a textbook case of how to do something like this right.

Yes, but as previously noted, you dont see the use of state terror and WP on civilians as problematic either.

 

[droid]

If Pakistan is having sovereign territory violated by foreign special forces, it has brought this catastophe on by itself -- the military and ISI have always managed to maintain a fluid concept of a national border along the nominal FATA-Afghanistan division, thus maintaining a haven and corridor for the Pakistani Taliban, al-Qaeda and Haqqani fighters they have been arming and shovelling back into Afghanistan. They have been happy to play this game for nearly ten years despite severe blowback, like massive suicide bombings and assissinatons inside Pakistan, the Red Mosque battle, etc. Frankly, the US spent too long trying to protect Musharraf by not violating NWFP and FATA "sovereignty".

Wow... they brought it on themselves... I havent heard this argument in a while. This is what they said about the secret bombing of Laos and Cambodia isnt it?

 

[craner]

This is what they said about the secret bombing of Laos and Cambodia isnt it?

Sort of, although that was cleary a world-historic smear to justify actions of state terror, whereas in the case of Pakistan the self-destructive duplicty of its military and secret service is widely and deeply documented and has led directly to the near-destruction of the Pakistani and Afghan states without any need for US carpet-bombing or incompetence to do the job.

 

[droid]

Sort of, although that was cleary a world-historic smear to justify actions of state terror, whereas in the case of Pakistan the self-destructive duplicty of its military and secret service is widely and deeply documented and has led directly to the near-destruction of the Pakistani and Afghan states without any need for US carpet-bombing or incompetence to do the job.

Ah, I see. So its the duplicity and evil of the Pakistan military and secret service which has brought about the 'near-destruction of the Pakistani and Afghan states', and not 30 years of US and Soviet intervention, the support of militant elements and military dictators followed by a comically misguided and viciously destructive invasion by the West.

Thanks for clearing that one up.

 

[craner]

No problem -- glad to help!

After 9/11, Musharraf and his generals had a golden opportunity to help rebuild and stabilise Afghanistan and liberalise the Pakistani state, and instead they chose to intensify the Kashmir conflict to the point of nuclear war, destabilise Afghanistan because of paranoia about India, destroy Balochistan, and protect and rebuild the Afghan Taliban, al-Qaida and other jihadi allies (Haqqani, Hikmetyar, etc. etc). The CIA and the Pentagon allowed Musharaf and the ISI to do all of this, just as they prefered to work with warlords rather than civilians in Afghanistan -- but these were terrible tactical and strategic blunders, which was obvious even to the Bush Administration and the ISI by late 2007.