Bin Laden Found Dead?

[virago]

Mmm, but I thought Pakistan denied OBL was even in the country? It might help, virago, if you read some of the posts before making these comments.

The Pakistan/US relationship is interesting, but it has always been interesting. There has always been a lot of resentment in Pakistan toward the Americans for supposedly "abandoning" them after the Cold War and for cozying up to India. There are already a ton of terrorist gorups in Pakistan - most of them focused on Kashmir or allied with the Taliban. Pakinstan has been and remains a pretty messed-up country in many ways. What is completely clear, however, is that OBL and AQ are less popular in Pakistan than ever.

I'm not interested in reading 30 pages to find these supposedly true facts. However i did read some of these supposedly hard fact comments that Governments lie (USA was mentioned as well as most other nations) but this doesn't state that Pakistan sponsored and harbored OBL. These are just allegations and suggestions and nothing else.

OBL's choice of location has been considered by analysts as brilliant, who would have expected him to be a mile from a major military base. Most of the searching was around locations where the US and Pakistan thought he may be hiding.

[bod]

OBL's choice of location has been considered by analysts as brilliant, who would have expected him to be a mile from a major military base. Most of the searching was around locations where the US and Pakistan thought he may be hiding.

Interesting article:

BBC News - Bin Laden compound location suggested by 2008 study

[dansande]

Yes, best not let legal experts argue & determine legality; instead lets have the unwashed masses make complex judgments on legality. I think you're confusing morality and legality.

So are the 'unwashed masses' generally not competent to make informed judgments on whether or not a given act is legal or are they just not competent to assess the legality of this particular killing? Unfortunately, the ignorant rabble are still expected to abide by the law whether they possess the intellectual sophistication to know what it is or not.

[Dreadnought]

Was it Rumsfield who admitted telling that they will bomb Pakistan back to the dark ages if they did not join the "coalition of the willing"?

Negative - it was then Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage.

This is the part where I fail to understand. Pakistan are allies and they were not in hostile territory. It isn't as though they were in a enemy war zone. Do you seriously think that the Pakistan air force would shoot down a US plane? Would the situation had simply been better if they just stayed put and waited for local authorities? Would they have been arrested?... I don't know the answers but just throwing about some open questions.

You are assuming that Pakistani radar would identify the intruders as USN choppers. Radar picks up intruders, but they do not reveal the identity of the intruders, hence the need to scramble fighter jets. This being close so to Islamabad, may well have had the air force thinking that the IAF had launched an invasion of sorts. How are they to know if the intruders are allies or not, if they haven't been informed of the incursion?

[bryant.english]

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

[Dreadnought]

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

That's really sweet, but he wasn't just hated, or hadn't just killed. This was no retirement home. He was wanted because he was still the head of Al Qaeda and was still planning to kill, thus still a threat.

[HKITperson]

That's a great encapsulation of your moral universe, HKIT. Osama Bin Ladin = Ai Wei Wei.

What a cloth eared idiot you really are. I didn't draw the distinction.... merely stating how you perceive the situation if China or Russia or Iran decides to take out their enemies in the US.

1) "it is not illegal in any way. The president has the authority to order military action, etc., etc. It was a military action"

2) if something is clearly extrajudicial (what the spooks would call "covert"), it is ever justified? In some cases, such as this one the answer should be 'yes'

3) "Murder" is a legally-defined term. He was "killed"

[HKITperson]

So just heard that one person was armed... so how many revisions of the story are we going to get?
So someone is telling porkies.

[Freetrader]

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

That's a fake quote, by the way. It was written by a 24 year old American English teacher in Kobe, Japan. The third and forth sentences are King. Don't feel bad; lots of people have made that mistake since the quote went viral.

Anyway, King was a believer in the "just war" doctrine; also, I am not sure that Bin Laden qualifies as an "enemy" (one just happens to be on the wrong side) as much as someone who was a murderous psychopath who is responsible for the death of many tens of thousands of fellow mulsims. If King were here, I don't think he would have much good to say about Bin Laden.

Lessons in social media: The fake Martin Luther King Jr. quote - Yahoo! News

[drumbrake]

Geoffrey Robertson: Bin Laden's summary execution maketh the man, martyr and myth

[Harry Truman] insisted upon judgment at Nuremberg, which has confounded Holocaust-deniers ever since. Killing bin Laden instead of capturing him was a missed opportunity to prove this charismatic leader was a vicious criminal, who deserved to die in prison, not as a martyr to his inhuman cause.