International Law prohibits all forms of extrajudicial executions. Yet people seem to be fine with taking out Bin Laden (wanted dead or alive). If it was against the law, then why is it right? Bin Laden wasn't the head of state of a country, just like the unlawful combatants captured on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan didn't wear the soldier's uniform of some country. See where this is going? How can you be in favor of killing Bin Laden and be against Gitmo?
it alllll depends on who is in office at the time. People have selective memory, especially when its about someone they admire. Lots of people love FDR and say he's one of the best Presidents ever... remind me of how many Presidents in the history of the United States have had internment camps set up under their watch to hold American citizens? Not too many.
Well considering that every person killed in the wars post 9/11 were a result of OBL, wouldn't that make everyone killed part of the same whole?
Not too many that we know about, you mean. But you can't trust the government, right? Any of us could be whisked away by Obama's jack-booted thugs tonight and never seen again. Could happen to you at any moment, even while you are posti
I am against Gitmo AND the killing of Osama. He should have been captured and put on trial for the world to see. There's nothing he could say that he hadn't already said and published. He represented a lot of very difficult but important ideas to Western society. It would have been nice to have some of those ideas on the table so we could explore and move forward. Instead, we got our revenge, the kids in the street can chant "USA! USA!" for a night, extremist Islam gets another high-profile martyr, and nothing changes.
And this is what happens when moral relativism runs amok. You clearly see so much gray you can't see where white ends and black begins. He was a mass murderer. Sorry, but those "difficult but important ideas" he tried to promote are crushed under the weight of his illegitimate methods.
That doesn't make sense. They may be "crushed under the weight of his illegitimate methods" in terms of regard for him and consequences for him, but that in no way means that we can't learn from him. And by learn from him, I don't mean from his wisdom. I mean, learn from what caused him, why he was (at least temporarily) successful and how we can better prevent the same types of things in the future. That doesn't require a trial, but a "he was a mass murderer and now he's dead and no more thought required" attitude (not that that is necessarily your attitude, but it seems to be the attitude of many) doesn't help anyone, least of all us.
Thank you for trying to explain my position, but you clearly didn't understand it. Perhaps you'd be better off just explaining your own.
All of that was my position. None of it was yours. Don't try to steal my position now that you've seen how superior it is, thanks.
I think Gitmo was a necessary evil, but for lack of anything else that makes sense. Alberto Gonzalez was vilified by people for providing the legal opinions on why Gitmo was legit and for why it was OK to put a bounty on the head of Bin Laden. Now that Obama's killed Osama, Alberto's legal reasoning is given validity by those same people who vilified him. The whole "war on terror" thing isn't at all covered by International Law, which is the Law's problem. When faced with having to prosecute the war, both Bush and Obama chose similar reasoning to justify the actions that were needed. The alternative would be to try and arrest suicide bombers after the fact, and put them on trial. As a White House counsel, Gonzales signed a controversial memorandum in January 2002 to the president which argued that the limitations on the questioning of prisoners under the Geneva Conventions were "obsolete" when it deals with terrorism.[153][154] The memo also states this new paradigm of non-nation states who fight in violation of the laws of war places a premium on getting information and “this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions requiring that captured enemy be afforded such things as commissary privileges, script (i.e. advances of monthly pay, athletic uniforms, and scientific instruments).” [155]
The SEALS were trying to apprehend arguably the most wanted man since Adolph Hitler. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for putting a bullet in his head during a secret raid in the middle of the night. The armchair SEALS who bemoan that he wasn't captured could always join the Navy themselves, to show the current SEALS how they should have operated during that mission.
It's my personal belief (although I have nothing with which to back it up) that this was a kill mission. JSOC did its job, and did it beautifully. The raid was an amazing accomplishment.
