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Osama bin Laden Killed by American Special Forces

Osama bin Laden has been killed in a mansion within a multi-building complex in Pakistan near Islamabad by American Navy Seals.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_bin_laden

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/

Comprehensive coverage is at:

http://news.discovery.com/history/osama-bin-laden-killed-110502.html

Tags: Jubinsky, Laden., Osama, bin

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Meddlesome on May 4, 2011 at 7:55am

And i suspect if it had been an open trial, the cia & bin laden would have been found guilty.....

Permalink Reply by Aiden on May 3, 2011 at 8:50pm

does that give us the right to kill him when he posed no immediate threat to those sent to get him?

Yes. Yes, it does. And shooting him, unarmed or otherwise, wasn't overboard. In fact, I don't think it would been overboard to keep him alive so we could televise feeding him to wild pigs during halftime of the next Super Bowl.

Permalink Reply by The Secular One on May 4, 2011 at 7:50am

It makes me sad when rational people decide that torture and crime against humanity are okay when they are in response to crimes against humanity.

Permalink Reply by Marc Draco on May 4, 2011 at 7:53am

Pot = Kettle...

He should have been put on trial - even Sadam got that.

Permalink Reply by Meddlesome on May 4, 2011 at 7:52am

His leadership has posed an immediate and ongoing threat to millions for years....

Permalink Reply by The Secular One on May 4, 2011 at 7:48am

Do you think those willing to kill themselves to "save" him won't be willing to kill themselves to seek "justice" for him?

Permalink Reply by The Secular One on May 4, 2011 at 10:17am

The fact that he is dead I think is for the better. But I'm uncomfortable with a policy of assassination instead of trial. He wasn't a official of a nation, he was a criminal. I know a lot of people think he can't be treated like a criminal and must instead be treated like an enemy, but I'm not one of those people.

It was a complicated issue, and with the information available, I'm not clear on it at this point. If he did have a human shield and was resisting a SEAL team, then shooting him was probably the only real option. The question is, how did it play out.

The question is, did we really ever consider taking him prisoner?

Permalink Reply by Gecko, Seth...brother of Richie! on May 4, 2011 at 10:51am

Im hoping that the "capture" option was briefly discussed because that would have been the rational thing to do. And I hope it took the President about 2 mins of conversation to throw it out. This would mean the President had already weighed that option prior to locating Bin Laden..which any intelligent leader should do.

Your use of the word "assasination" may be helpiing to fuel that "moral" quandry you seem to be having about killing and ENEMY COMBATANT.

Permalink Reply by Joseph P on May 4, 2011 at 11:14am

Yeah, it doesn't matter whether he was a foreign official or not. He had declared war on us, whether he had the official backing of a nation or not. That means shooting him in the head is a perfectly acceptable option.

One of the things I've heard fundy, right-wing radio criticizing Obama about was that he waited 14 hours after receiving intelligence that bin Laden was there. I'm sure Obama spent a good chunk of that 14 hours figuring out the best possible way to handle the situation, sorting through the likely results of either choice. I think the best choice, politically, is not having him covered by the American and international media during his trial. The fallout from the assassination will almost certainly be far less than the results of bin Laden's preaching from the witness stand.

Permalink Reply by Aiden on May 3, 2011 at 8:44pm

Indeed! Fuck that guy and the camel he rode in on.

Permalink Reply by Aiden on May 4, 2011 at 6:02pm

Permalink Reply by John Jubinsky on May 4, 2011 at 7:01am

I think killing him unnecessarily was a strategic mistake. He will now be viewed as a martyr by radical Islam and, in this, serve to incite the movement. If he had been taken alive we could have water-boarded him until his spirit broke and then released a video of him recanting. This would have significantly deflated radical Islam.

Also, the fact that he had been living for some time right under the noses of Pakistan authorities suggests that some of them were covering up for him (i.e., were radical Islam sympathizers). Pakistan has nuclear weapons. Having killed him, especially in an operation not involving Pakistan's permission, rather than making him recant might incite the sympathizers to smuggle nuclear weapons to radical Islam.