Osama bin Laden: Dead

[Svartalf]

We have the United States invading a foreign country without notice or permission to assassinate someone, and instead of taking the unarmed person into custody, he was summarily executed.

That's normal practice, isn't it?

Normal practice would have been to evacuate the area and classify the thing for 50 years and let people learn the truth then. Letting Pakistan know a black op they hadn't agreed on was conducted on their territory was, at best, a diplomatic mistake.

[Coito ergo sum]

I really don't care about the definition of "resistance". I doubt Bin Laden had been sitting in a chair twiddling his thumbs while the SEALs were helicoptering in and taking down other people in his compound before arriving at his room. So I don't care about the details of whether he was holding a gun or not. If the guy/s who finally shot saw reason to fire, then I won't question it.

What if they had him captured, and just executed him?

[Svartalf]

They probably tried, but he likely was on the verge of raising too large a racket for them to handle, or trying to get a weapon...
Do you imagine what the PR would have been if Obama had made a Guantanamo Address to celebrate ibn ladin being put there?
I'm pretty sure the team had orders to take him alive if at all possible.

[Coito ergo sum]

What makes you pretty sure about that?

[Svartalf]

The fact the guy was more useful alive in gitmo than dead.
Dead, he's a martyr, and his slaying an insult that demands to be avenged.
Plus, as I said, the killing was great PR, but having him in gitmo and staging a trial would have been even greater.

[Coito ergo sum]

The fact the guy was more useful alive in gitmo than dead.
Dead, he's a martyr, and his slaying an insult that demands to be avenged.
Plus, as I said, the killing was great PR, but having him in gitmo and staging a trial would have been even greater.

Killing him avoids the long, drawn-out show trial, that Osama would have used as a platform and a recruiting tool. I find the idea that the Obama administration would have preferred to have alive to be unpersuasive. If he was alive, he couldn't be held in Gitmo without criticism that Obama was now using the very prison that he lambasted and originally wanted to shut down. If he brought him the US, he's be excoriated for not leaving him in Gitmo. If he sought to try him in a military court, he'd be a hypocrite since he and his administration wanted these folks tried in Federal court in NYC. And, if he brought him to NYC to be tried in federal criminal court, he'd be excoriated as soft on terrorism.

The only way to get the glory and minimize the criticism is to kill him and dump him in the ocean.

[Ian]

I really don't care about the definition of "resistance". I doubt Bin Laden had been sitting in a chair twiddling his thumbs while the SEALs were helicoptering in and taking down other people in his compound before arriving at his room. So I don't care about the details of whether he was holding a gun or not. If the guy/s who finally shot saw reason to fire, then I won't question it.

What if they had him captured, and just executed him?

In Bin Laden's case, that's fine as long as their mission orders allowed it. I don't care if he was summarily shot or summarily drawn and quartered.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

His wife got in the way .. and was shot in the leg. Then he was shot in the head. Twice.


My impression (not just from this example) is that it doesn't matter how much 'planning' goes into setting this kind of thing into motion on the one side, the responses of the other side will always render 'planning' obsolete at the point of contact.

"No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy."

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I really don't care about the definition of "resistance". I doubt Bin Laden had been sitting in a chair twiddling his thumbs while the SEALs were helicoptering in and taking down other people in his compound before arriving at his room. So I don't care about the details of whether he was holding a gun or not. If the guy/s who finally shot saw reason to fire, then I won't question it.

What if they had him captured, and just executed him?

In Bin Laden's case, that's fine as long as their mission orders allowed it. I don't care if he was summarily shot or summarily drawn and quartered.

The military has gotten soft since *I* was active.

[Pappa]

Interesting take on the Obama administration's stance on assassination:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn ... ssinations

[Hermit]

I really don't care about the definition of "resistance". I doubt Bin Laden had been sitting in a chair twiddling his thumbs while the SEALs were helicoptering in and taking down other people in his compound before arriving at his room. So I don't care about the details of whether he was holding a gun or not. If the guy/s who finally shot saw reason to fire, then I won't question it.

What if they had him captured, and just executed him?

Isn't that what happened?

[Svartalf]

I really don't care about the definition of "resistance". I doubt Bin Laden had been sitting in a chair twiddling his thumbs while the SEALs were helicoptering in and taking down other people in his compound before arriving at his room. So I don't care about the details of whether he was holding a gun or not. If the guy/s who finally shot saw reason to fire, then I won't question it.

What if they had him captured, and just executed him?

In Bin Laden's case, that's fine as long as their mission orders allowed it. I don't care if he was summarily shot or summarily drawn and quartered.

The military has gotten soft since *I* was active.

go get keelhauled for your constitutional you brown water mariner

[Gawdzilla Sama]

My water is red, not brown.

[Ian]

I really don't care about the definition of "resistance". I doubt Bin Laden had been sitting in a chair twiddling his thumbs while the SEALs were helicoptering in and taking down other people in his compound before arriving at his room. So I don't care about the details of whether he was holding a gun or not. If the guy/s who finally shot saw reason to fire, then I won't question it.

What if they had him captured, and just executed him?

Isn't that what happened?

Few people outside of the DEVGRU (aka SEAL Team Six) team who were there know the specifics. Nobody here knows, that's for sure.

[Svartalf]

and the skay ain't blue, it's cyan