I interested to see those pictures of his body...I hear the left side of his face is missing.... haha thats what you get you terrorist bastard
[Troll]
Personally I'd have preferred it if they'd taken him in alive.
Despite the severe complications that would have caused. And I am well aware of just how nasty those complications would have been.
Extrajudicial killing is called "murder" or "first degree homicide". No matter who ordered it.
There was no justification whatever for Bin Laden's killing without due process.
I'm opposed to the death penalty, but others disagree. If he'd been executed after due process or even killed "while trying to escape", I'd be a lot happier about it.
This is the price we pay for civilisation.
Yes, Bin Laden was a "war criminal" but so are Bush, Obama, Bliar, Brown and Cameron. To name those only from the US and UK.
Should we just shoot them out of hand? If it is good enough for "terrorists", it is good enough for those giving the orders in our countries. There is either a rule of law or there is not. It applies to everyone or nobody. This was a blatant violation of the rule of law and is no cause for celebration even if the world is a very much better place without the likes of Bin Laden in it.
It would equally be a better place without those who gave and carried out those blatantly unlawful orders. See the "Nuremberg Defence".
[/Troll]
Though this is what I actually believe. I'm well aware this is dropping a lit match in petrol (gasoline) but i feel very strongly that arbitrary exercise of power is a lot more dangerous than anything Al Quaeda could do.
It sets a bad precedent for the US to go into an ally's country, execute a military attack, kill their citizens, all without telling them about it. However, I believe this is a special circumstance given that OBL was responsible for the deaths of at least 3,000 people on US soil and many others in other places. I hope that the US strongly emphasizes the unusual nature of this action, and that it should not be taken as something we expect to do again, maybe ever.
As for killing him, I worry if the mission was designed only to kill him and not to at least try to capture him. To me that would just be an assassination, and in this case not even a necessary one since we had the manpower to take him alive. Though honestly, how hard would it have been for OBL to hold a live grenade and take out a few soldiers after "giving himself up"? He wasn't going to get a lot of benefit of the doubt. I know they won't reveal the identity of the commandos involved, but I'd like to be able to read some written statements by them about what happened, whether they told him to surrender and what made them fire at him. Hopefully something like that will come out eventually.
The (hundreds of?) Predator drone attacks and a lot of other military strikes (dropping bombs, etc.) don't give anyone a chance to give themselves up, but capturing them with a drone isn't possible either. The advantage this strike had was that we didn't kill the 20 women and children who were in the compound, most of whom I would guess would have been killed along with any number of neighbors even if we had used smart bombs. And a lot of people would think it was totally justified to plant a smart bomb and kill all those people if we knew the strike would kill OBL. Also, if it had turned out the house just belonged to a paranoid retired Pakistani businessman, theoretically we might not have killed anyone, which isn't an option with a smart bomb.
Ted
It seems like I'm not the only one who feels the way I do. Some folks don't feel the need to troll about it.
You just have a very much better way of saying it. Just can't forget the bit of me brought up by a judge.
Don
It is amazing what the Americans can do when the playstation network is down :)
Although i agree that OBL deserves it, but at the end it will just create more hatred toward US.
"WHATS THIS??? OBAMA BIN LADEN IS DEAD? Oh good! Quick, call a press conference and tell everyone that I orchestrated most of the plans to locate and kill him. I need a media diversion to keep people from talking about what a grossly incompetent president that I've been, with new abysmal failures being added to my shameful record by the minute."
I'd say.. it's the difference between carpet bombing a mountainside to get him versus going in and shooting him while storming a complex ..The fact that it seems different is just how we see things .. pulling a switch .. or pulling a trigger .
same result different action .
The question was asked...... to save l000 people would you divert a train using a switch that moved the train onto a track that would kill 50 women and children by doing so ...?
OR
you could save the same l000 people and divert the train ...but to do so, you had to push a person off of a ledge and he'd fall on the tracks in front of the train and that would divert the train saving the l000 people .
the point here is that personally killing a guy by pushing him off a building is mentally tougher for people than hitting a button .although the outcome is 50 times worse ... most people would hit the button