Some Questions and Thoughts on the Killing of Osama Bin Laden

[Omega]

The death of Gadhafi brought to mind some questions of when Osama Bin Laden was killed. Here they are. Please keep in mind that these questions' main purpose is more to stimulate thoughtful responses. I do not necessarily hold some of the views the questions may suggest I do.

1.) What unbiased proof do we have that Osama Bin Laden facilitated the execution of and masterminded 9/11?


2.)Why, if, as it was stated, he was in fact unarmed, did we a) Kill him on the spot; b) Not take him alive and give him the "inalienable human right" to a fair trail? Did killing him simply taint the US's advocacy of "due process" as hypocritical?

    In WWII, the US bothered to proceed with the Nuremberg trials, which, arguably, dealt with "terrorists," mass murderers and advocates of mass genocide whose crimes against humanity cause Osama's alleged crimes (namely, 9/11) to appear almost small by comparison. Why not subject Osama to a fair trial as Nazi leaders were?

3.) If Osama was actually responsible for masterminding the attacks of 9/11 which ultimately led to the deaths of 3000+ civilians and his fate was death (or potential trial), then why would not George W. Bush, who is either directly or indirectly responsible for even more civilian deaths in the Middle East and elsewhere, be deserving of a trial for crimes against humanity?

4.) Why would the alleged world's most dangerous and wanted terrorist live in such risk in Abbottabad, and, also, without enough paranoia to warrant being perpetually armed?

[73109]

1) I'm pretty sure he admitted to it, didn't he?

2) He should not have been killed on the spot. America and due process makes me laugh.

3) George Bush should be tried for crimes against humanity.

4) Don't really care.

[ClairvoyantCat]

Part of me is glad that we avoided the fiasco of dragging Osama Bin Laden through a good ole' fashion American legal process, but there are definitely some questions to be raised.  As far as unbiased proof of Osama's facilitation of the 9/11 attacks themselves, there is not any real evidence that I am aware of.  Yes, he admitted to it, but there are still doubts as to whether that was really the truth.  Under his profile on the FBI website 9/11 was never even listed due to lack of full proof.  However, as I am told, we at least had other bombings/stuff that we could connect to him more solidly.    The guy was guilty enough, AFAIC. 

As far as "due process" and "inalienably human right," if the idea is that everyone deserves a fair trial and a process of law, I think it's already been tainted for a long time.  We've locked up/killed plenty of people with as much or less due process as Osama. 

As for Bush, he was a fucking war criminal, but unfortunately he was also president of 'Murikah so there's not a high chance of seeing him face any such trial. 

[TempusVox]

1) He admitted to it. A tape exists where he speaks about the attack and praising allah for it, as well as mentioning to a cleric or something that he sent Atta and his merry band of fucktard martyrs to the U.S. to carry out the big plan.

2) I have heard that while it was later determined that he was unarmed at the moment of ingress, the cowardly piece of rotten monkey shit used his sister or his wife (probably the same person) as a shield. SEAL team members are not the local pow-pow. They are trained to kill people, not arrest them. I'm pretty sure that the finely tuned and trained quick twitch muscles on the SEAL team members trigger finger, before he double tapped his punk ass, took but only a fraction of a millisecond to ascertain if they should fire the synapse to pull the trigger or not. He wasn't going to wait to pat the bastard down. Or they may have been given orders so as not to allow the dickwad more of an audience of crazed followers to wail in the street and throw shoes at people and scream "Death to America" for his arrest and jailing until he went through a trial.

3) Then why don't we dig up and drag the rotted corpse of President Harry S. Truman to the Hague and prop it up at the ICC for his role in dropping the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima . While were at it, let's rewrite the history books and give that fucker Lincoln his due because a whole bunch of good ol' Southern Belles were raped, and civilians killed during Shermans march to the sea. If were going to go after Bush 2, then we also need to try George Herbert Walker Bush, William J. Clinton, Barack Hussein Obama, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Anthony Blair, and Gordon Brown; because every one of them were involved either directly or indirectly for those "same crimes" of which you speak.

4) Ummmmm...He was crazier than a shit house rat? He and his legion thought him the conduit to allah. He probably thought he couldn't be killed or ever found.

[El Barto]

Well,  let's see.

1:  Osama wasn't the mastermind of jack-shit.  He certainly bore responsibility for the attacks, and I'm sure he was pretty heavily in the loop.   To say that he masterminded the whole thing is like saying Roosevelt beat the Japanese at the Battle of Midway.

2:  Two things.  A.  Once you've gotten used to playing by your own rules,  it becomes easier to manipulate them to facilitate convenience.  Capturing OBL would have been a real sticky situation and quite the pain in the ass.  More importantly,  a trial would have taken many years, and would have put what evidence we have on display to the rest of the world.  Going back to point 1,  that would be somewhat embarrassing and largely counter-productive to American interests.  If they're no longer interested in defending human rights, and I think most of us agree that they aren't,  then this was the right call. 

B.  I tend to give a great deal of leeway towards people in tactical engagements.  I suspect it was one helluva dynamic situation in that guy's bedroom.  Maybe it was a cold-blooded execution.  Maybe some farm boy from Iowa felt the guy was doing something threatening.  As long as they were justified in apprehending him,  I'm not too bent out of shape if it turned messy.  (once again with my Koresh/Weaver rule)

3.  Yeah,  I think Bush perpetrated war crimes.  I'm not entirely sure whether trying him for them would be good precedent.   Considering how polarized this nation has become with idiot democrats and idiot republicans running amok,  it would just be another perpetual clusterfuck screwing up the system.  I would have liked to see Obama's DoJ drop the hammer on Chimpy,  but I understand why he didn't (especially after a couple of years of his rule).

4.  Actually,  the guy did quite well.  Nobody's ever had such a target on his head, and eeked out a decent existence in a good sized compound.  He was protected by the allies of the people after him.  His compound required a helicopter assault and world class commandos to breach.  When all of us were content to believe he was living in a cave, he was hanging in the suburbs watching GGW and taunting us on his webacm.  I doubt he ever imagined he'd get another 6 years living in the burbs.

[El Barto]

1) He admitted to it. A tape exists where he speaks about the attack and praising allah for it, as well as mentioning to a cleric or something that he sent Atta and his merry band of fucktard martyrs to the U.S. to carry out the big plan.

Well no shit.  Of course he did.  What's he going to do?  Say "it wasn't us,  but we're still the world leader in anti-American terrorism!  Send us money!"?   Like I said,  I've no doubt that he authorized it,  but this country said good riddance to the buck stop's here policy years ago.  Authorization doesn't mean a damn thing anymore.

2) I have heard that while it was later determined that he was unarmed at the moment of ingress, the cowardly piece of rotten monkey shit used his sister or his wife (probably the same person) as a shield. SEAL team members are not the local pow-pow. They are trained to kill people, not arrest them. I'm pretty sure that the finely tuned and trained quick twitch muscles on the SEAL team members trigger finger, before he double tapped his punk ass, took but only a fraction of a millisecond to ascertain if they should fire the synapse to pull the trigger or not. He wasn't going to wait to pat the bastard down. Or they may have been given orders so as not to allow the dickwad more of an audience of crazed followers to wail in the street and throw shoes at people and scream "Death to America" for his arrest and jailing until he went through a trial.

It was his wife and she ran at the people coming through the door.  Only FOX minions still say he hid behind her.  I suspect his wife acted much like most people's wives would in that situation.  Although, after reading that whole diatribe,  I think there might be an exception.

3) Then why don't we dig up and drag the rotted corpse of President Harry S. Truman to the Hague and prop it up at the ICC for his role in dropping the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima . While were at it, let's rewrite the history books and give that fucker Lincoln his due because a whole bunch of good ol' Southern Belles were raped, and civilians killed during Shermans march to the sea. If were going to go after Bush 2, then we also need to try George Herbert Walker Bush, William J. Clinton, Barack Hussein Obama, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Anthony Blair, and Gordon Brown; because every one of them were involved either directly or indirectly for those "same crimes" of which you speak.

Well,  obviously I agree with that.  However,  unlike you I'd point out some hypocritical bullshit.  Remember,  we made sure a lot of people hanged for that sort of thing,  simply based on whose side they were on. 

4) Ummmmm...He was crazier than a shit house rat? He and his legion thought him the conduit to allah. He probably thought he couldn't be killed or ever found.

Possibly.  I suspect it was more like what I suggested, though.  That guy was on bonus time starting around '96 or so, and he had to have known it.

[the Catfishman]

This thread reminds be of Noam Chomsky's response to his death:

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.

rest of the article: https://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2652/noam_chomsky_my_reaction_to_os/

And of course Chomsky is very harsh (as expected) but I agree with the general sentiment that I find it amazing that the US can break international law like this without any negative consequence for themselves while if a similar scenario would play out against the US, the perpetrator would get absolutely destroyed.

[snapple]

Because we have the bombs?

[kirksnosehair]

The thing I think Bush *could* be tried for is ordering torture.  Notice he has not left the country since leaving office.  There are plenty of rumors around (I don't know how much truth there is to any of them) that if he were to land in certain countries on a commercial airliner that he'd be immediately arrested.

As far as the US going in and whacking Osama?  I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

[El Barto]

The thing I think Bush *could* be tried for is ordering torture.  Notice he has not left the country since leaving office.  There are plenty of rumors around (I don't know how much truth there is to any of them) that if he were to land in certain countries on a commercial airliner that he'd be immediately arrested.

As far as the US going in a whacking Osama?  I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

I'm sure he's keeping legal entanglements in mind,  but don't forget that Bush never left the country before he was president either,  mostly due to indifference (the famed lack of intellectual curiosity). 

Besides,  most of the countries that he'd travel to wouldn't bust him anyway.  We still have too much clout. 

I'm also guessing he isn't getting dumptrucks full of cash for international speaking engagements like his old man.  The people who want to hear him lecture are mostly down here. 

[kirksnosehair]

The thing I think Bush *could* be tried for is ordering torture.  Notice he has not left the country since leaving office.  There are plenty of rumors around (I don't know how much truth there is to any of them) that if he were to land in certain countries on a commercial airliner that he'd be immediately arrested.

As far as the US going in a whacking Osama?  I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

I'm sure he's keeping legal entanglements in mind,  but don't forget that Bush never left the country before he was president either,  mostly due to indifference (the famed lack of intellectual curiosity). 

Besides,  most of the countries that he'd travel to wouldn't bust him anyway.  We still have too much clout. 

I'm also guessing he isn't getting dumptrucks full of cash for international speaking engagements like his old man.  The people who want to hear him lecture are mostly down here.

Yes, all good points that I generally agree with.....I was thinking of this news story when I made the comment about the threat of torture prosecution abroad.

Definitely a lot of conjecture in there, but still.