http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_bin_laden
Bin Laden DEAD!!!
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GO USA! Osama is dead and justice was done!
Wow, I didn't see that coming. That was a nice surprise even though I would have liked him to be captured alive to prevent any ridiculous conspiracy theory. I wonder how did they find him though.
While this is a morale boost, I can't see it changing any threat level, the man has long since been a figurehead of al-qaeda (which, by the way, is nothing like what governments seem to want us to think anyway).
Someone new will just take over, which has probably been the case for a long time already, to be honest.
Definitely not trying to rain on the parade, but the situation is far too convoluted and complex and brutal, by both sides, for this to be anything like the end.
Gotta love the philosophical inconsistency of the administration: Guantanamo Bay is horrible because it is denying people human and civil rights by denying them proper trials, but authorizing a strike force to kill Osama absent judge and jury is perfectly okay. Which is it?
Life's a bitch. Don't kill civilians if you don't want their governments to kill you. Proper trial should never be a block to a country's ability to hunt its enemies that don't live in its judicial jurisdiction.Quote:
Originally posted by Jyn
Gotta love the philosophical inconsistency of the administration: Guantanamo Bay is horrible because it is denying people human and civil rights by denying them proper trials, but authorizing a strike force to kill Osama absent judge and jury is perfectly okay. Which is it?
Therefore, your logic fails. The prisoners in Guantanama Bay are already in your hands and therefore you can actually trial them. Bin Laden was never in your hands or your country and capturing him alive was not really an option. What do you propose the army should have done in this case?
Eh personally I'm fine with killing them all. Osama dead = good thing. I'm just saying the government can't maintain consistency in philosophy by decrying what they say is deprivation of rights for some terrorists (imprisonment without trial and "torture") but then go ahead and order what is equivalent to the summary execution of others.
Execution is the ultimate denial of human rights and for the administration to cry foul on torture that could be used to help the country but then order an assassination in lieu of capture, it's almost laughable.
The people in Guantanamo were in our hands because they were captured rather than killed on the spot. Some of them were probably captured in the midst of or after firefights more intense than the Osama raid. No doubt the SEALS could have captured Osama had that been the order given.
My logic does not fail. You assume that every terrorist prisoner caught by the U.S. was already within U.S. jurisdiction when caught? None of them were caught overseas and brought here, or other other places?
What this scenario basically says is capture prisoners, interrogate them until they give you what you need, and then kill them before anyone knows about it. You can claim they were killed in a fight, and never have to worry about giving any other person due process. We'll never see another Guantanamo not because of human rights concerns, but because the government is concerned people will have human rights concerns, so everything gets swept under the rug.
Personally, I'm fine with the above scenario (as long as it is not applied to U.S. citizens). I actually hope Osama is still alive and being squeezed for information before being quietly dumped in the sea like he was supposed to have been. What I'm not fine with is a President who has conflicting policies on the matter yet acts like they're both right.
Okay. First things first.
High profile terrorists have no real intel value - they don't know where others are hiding and they don't know the details of upcoming attacks. It's generally a better idea to kill them if you are going after them. That being said, I think it would have been epic if he could have been caught and brought to justice in the American supreme court, but you have to realize the soldiers had probably assumed he had bombs on him/ready to detonate the house, so they took whatever precaution they needed to ensure their safety.
Your logic does fail and I never assumed that. Again, some terrorists you want to catch because you suspect they have information you need in order to capture a "bigger fish" or to prevent a terror attack, and others you really don't want to catch, you just want them dead. Once you decided you want to catch them, you imprison them and bring them to your jurisdiction. Once they are in your jurisdiction, you need to follow your own rules and if your rules dictate you to hold a fair trial, you should do that. However, if you decide you don't need them for interrogation and want to kill them on foreign land, then by all means do so. On that land the constitution or any American law does not hold water and as long as the country you are operating in approves, then that's fair game.Quote:
My logic does not fail. You assume that every terrorist prisoner caught by the U.S. was already within U.S. jurisdiction when caught? None of them were caught overseas and brought here, or other other places?
So bloody do it, then. Instead of keeping potential innocents like that for years upon years.Quote:
The prisoners in Guantanama Bay are already in your hands and therefore you can actually trial them
I agree, but obviously if you read Jyn and my posts you know that wasn't what the argument is about, it's about the "philosophical inconsistency of the government".Quote:
Originally posted by khaltek
So bloody do it, then. Instead of keeping potential innocents like that for years upon years.