Osama Bin Laden dead

[Mr. Tea]

the main thing they're saying is that it's a justification for Gitmo which Obama opposed

...but has so far failed to do anything about closing.

 

[Corpsey]

The right are pissed off that it was Obama's regime that found him - the main thing they're saying is that it's a justification for Gitmo which Obama opposed.

Yeah saw this in 'The Sun' today (here's a piece on it in the Guardian). They were emphasising the whole 'cowardly rat hides behind his wife' angle... Apparently that might have all just been made up though.

 

[droid]

Carney added a crucial detail. "Bin Laden was then shot and killed. He was not armed," Carney disclosed. Asked how he had resisted if he had no gun, Carney declined to specify but said resistance does not require a gun.

Have the Americans finally embraced the teachings of Gandhi?

 

[you]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/03/osama-bin-laden-soviet-union-baddie

Adam Curtis' response - dope.

 

[akumad1]

Have the Americans finally embraced the teachings of Gandhi?

this is a superb account of just what was going on...

balls

not sure why his henchmen were willing to approach the kids to pay them off instead of just handing their balls back....but who knows what goes on the minds of these sick madmen

 

[Mr. Tea]

this is a superb account of just what was going on...

balls

not sure why his henchmen were willing to approach the kids to pay them off instead of just handing their balls back....but who knows what goes on the minds of these sick madmen

I saw that too. I like to think that if ObL had been taken alive and put on trial, his defence brief would have used this to argue that he's not a bad sort really...

 

[gumdrops]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/03/bin-laden-death-us-patriot-reflex

But to suggest that "justice has been done", as President Obama did on Sunday night, seems perverse. This was not justice, it was an extra-judicial execution. If you shoot a man twice in the head you do not find him guilty. You find him dead. This was revenge. And it was served very cold indeed.

 

[IdleRich]

That's true of course but Obama can't say that can he, he has to claim that objective justice was delivered. Ironically, I reckon that if Bush had still been in power his statement which would have probably been much more ill-considered, personal and have alluded more to revenge than justice, would have also been nearer to the truth.

 

[Leo]

OBL wasn't armed with a gun, but there was always a possibility he'd be wired with explosives, or the room booby-trapped. he was found with 500 euros and two phone numbers sewn into his sleeping garment, so it's not entirely far-fetched that he might also be constantly prepared in other ways as well. this team 6 aren't the sort of commandos who were going to take that chance.

that being said, this was clearly a kill mission.

 

[IdleRich]

"he was found with 500 euros and two phone numbers sewn into his sleeping garment"

You would have that thought the evil super villain mastermind who has confounded the West for so long would have been capable of remembering two phone numbers.

 

[lanugo]

Top Government Insider: Bin Laden Died In 2001, 9/11 A False Flag

Top US government insider Dr. Steve R. Pieczenik, a man who held numerous different influential positions under three different Presidents and still works with the Defense Department, shockingly told The Alex Jones Show yesterday that Osama Bin Laden died in 2001 and that he was prepared to testify in front of a grand jury how a top general told him directly that 9/11 was a false flag inside job.

Pieczenik cannot be dismissed as a “conspiracy theorist”. He served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under three different administrations, Nixon, Ford and Carter, while also working under Reagan and Bush senior, and still works as a consultant for the Department of Defense. A former US Navy Captain, Pieczenik achieved two prestigious Harry C. Solomon Awards at the Harvard Medical School as he simultaneously completed a PhD at MIT.

“This whole scenario where you see a bunch of people sitting there looking at a screen and they look as if they’re intense, that’s nonsense,” referring to the images released by the White House which claim to show Biden, Obama and Hillary Clinton watching the operation to kill Bin Laden live on a television screen.

 

[IdleRich]

“This whole scenario where you see a bunch of people sitting there looking at a screen and they look as if they’re intense, that’s nonsense,” referring to the images released by the White House which claim to show Biden, Obama and Hillary Clinton watching the operation to kill Bin Laden live on a television screen.

Seems that they're no longer claiming to have watched it live so he's right on that part at least.

 

[crackerjack]

Top Government Insider: Bin Laden Died In 2001, 9/11 A False Flag

shockingly told The Alex Jones Show....

Pieczenik cannot be dismissed as a “conspiracy theorist”.

That's the definition of an oxymoron right there.

 

[...]

I reckon the ISI delivered him up to the CIA -- either that, or someone in the compound betrayed him for US $$$s. The official version doesn't make much sense, even in its new, revised form.

 

[Sectionfive]

Chomsky

http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2652/noam_chomsky_my_reaction_to_os/

 

[vimothy]

In a war, no one gets a trial. There is no due process--that's what makes it war. Chomsky and Younge are more than wrong, they are incoherent.

For many years, soldiers have also been permitted to kill people because of who they are, rather than what they are doing—such people are “status-based targets.” During the Second World War, an American infantryman could shoot an S.S. officer who was eating lunch in a French café without violating the Law of War, so long as he did not actively surrender. The officer’s uniform made it obvious that he was the enemy

No doubt Chomsky would have called this a violation of elementary norms of international law. Which begs the question: where did these norms come from, exactly, if not state practice?

 

[vimothy]

Anyone interested in the actual legality of the operation could do worse than read this: http://opiniojuris.org/2011/05/05/should-john-brennan-or-eric-holder-simply-have-quoted-harold-koh/

And lemme quote Koh, the chief international and foreign relations legal counsel to the US, as Ken Anderson suggests:

Some have argued that the use of lethal force against specific individuals fails to provide adequate process and thus constitutes unlawful extrajudicial killing. But a state that is engaged in an armed conflict or in legitimate self-defence is not required to provide targets with legal process before the state may use lethal force ….

The principles of distinction and proportionality that the US applies are … implemented rigorously throughout the planning and execution of lethal operations to ensure that such operations are conducted in accordance with all applicable law ….

Some have argued that our targeting practices violate domestic law, in particular, the longstanding domestic ban on assassinations. But under domestic law, the use of lawful weapons systems — consistent with the applicable laws of war — for precision targeting of specific high-level belligerent leaders when acting in self-defence or during an armed conflict is not unlawful, and hence does not constitute ‘assassination’.

The debate around the issue in the press is a certainly bizarre and not particularly well informed, but the Obama admin has kind of done this to itself. I think that it would have been better if they'd just owned up to what everyone intuitively understands: they went there to kill him, and kill him they did.

Suppose that faced with that initial, and entirely predictable, question — did the SEALs attempt to capture Bin Laden? — Brennan had instead brooked no opposition and snapped back with visible irritation — of course they were not attempting to capture him, they were there to attack and kill him, to attack him with lethal force. This was an armed lethal attack upon a a criminal adversary of the United States in an armed conflict, without cavil or apology. They were sent to attack and kill him as someone who was targetable with lethal force and no warning at any time. Which, as explanations go, and (at least as it appears at this particular moment) does have the virtue of being true, as well as legally sound.

 

[continuum]

isn't the problem though still that there is no credible evidence connecting him to the 9/11 attack?

 

[vimothy]

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).

 

[continuum]

you have evidence he did it?