*Practical Standpoint* He Could Never Be Taken Alive...

[Libertas1776]

Let's face it, the scumbag would have and in all likelihood did put up a fight and got killed in the process. But even if by some miracle they did capture him alive, can you fathom that kind of liability?

Where would he be brought? To trial? Just to languish in some hole? Where would he have been brought, to a Federal Courthouse in NYC? To the Hague? (let's face it, the avg American joe wouldn't have stood for that) And even if he had been, imagine the security necessary. The constant fear of some kind of reprisal. The questions of Due Process for a mass murderer. The list goes on.

Arguably his trial would be swift and the verdict would be obvious, but what about the sentence? Execution in some Federal Pen in the heartland? Imagine the martyrdom image for their side, their big cheese slain in the land of the infidel yada yada. And if hr received a life sentence, then you would have their side clamoring for their big cheese's liberation from the land of the infidel and non stop acts of terror in that land, whether here or in Europe.


Let's face it, the best, albeit the messiest...but still the best and really the least of all evil options was taken. He was killed. His remains dumped into the abyss of the sea. Good riddance...and my deepest apologies to the life aquatic.

[pokerfan]

1. Did they even try?

I heard Judge Reinhold was available...


Police! You're all under arrest!

[kwolf68]

4. Billy....

You do that again...Ill shoot you myself.

[Libertas1776]

5. +1

[fishwax]

30. lol

:thumbsup:

[bklyncowgirl]

2. This was as well done as it could have been

A clean surgical strike resulting in minimal civilian casualties. If they'd decided to bomb the compound it would have been a bloodbath. Putting him on trial and incarcerating him for life or executing him would have been worse. No doubt he'll be hailed as a martyr going down with gun in hand in some places but that cannot be helped.

[TwilightGardener]

3. I agree. And as far as I'm concerned, gruesome violent death is

something OBL/AQ reveled in, celebrated--I don't have a problem with us "speaking their language" on this occasion. I think it's a fitting end.

[Libertas1776]

6. +1

[socialist_n_TN]

7. I call it karma..........

Metaphorically, he lived by the sword and he died by the sword.

[Bragi]

8. A trial, oh no, not a trial!

God forbid a trial should be held, with lawyers and rights and evidence and all that.

If that happened, the world would be shown that the U.S is a nation governed by law, not an imperial fiefdom where the top guy secretly orders assassinations at will of anyone he doesn't like, with no legal constraints whatsoever.

Wouldn't that be awful.

[Libertas1776]

12. "Anyone he doesn't like"?

Yes, just another innocent helpless target of the blood thirsty imperial war machine...not a mass murderer or anything. :sarcasm: :eyes:

[robinlynne]

16. I would not want to spend our tax dollars on that shit right now. I prefer food and

healthcare.

[Bragi]

19. Ah. The "Food, Not Justice" vote.

So if the economy picks up, do you think America could afford justice again?

[robinlynne]

33. justice? really? justice?

[loudsue]

9. I don't for a minute believe that the gov't dumped this body in the sea.

There's not an ice cube's chance in hell that they would have destroyed that kind of evidence.

[Desertrose]

10. Yeah seriously...dumped his body in the sea?

That is the lamest thing I've heard in awhile.


:hi:Sue

[loudsue]

22. Hi pretty lady!! Where've you been??

:hug: :hi:

[gratuitous]

11. As long as it was all neat and tidy and stuff

Can you imagine the inconvenience of following our laws and treaties? Some loudmouth yammerers and some pants-wetting goo goos wouldn't have stood for that! Much cleaner and better to just off him; trials and due process and stuff are reserved for decent people, and we've spent a decade persuading the world that some people just don't deserve all that (and concepts like "evidence" and "justice" mean what we say they mean). This week it was bin Laden, but it probably won't be you next week. And if someone else does a little extra-judicial murder, then they're just a bunch of terrorists who don't value or respect human life, and we need to kill them as well to teach them that.

[robinlynne]

17. Please tell me you are kidding. you consider this a murder?

[coalition_unwilling]

25. Due Process of Law is so 20th Century. You might start by

checking out this story from Reuters:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/us-binladen-kill-idUSTRE7413H220110502

[librechik]

13. "when he refused to surrender, he was shot"

wait a minute, wasn't that an opportunity to grab him? It just makes no rational sense that they didn't want to capture him and interrogate him. In fact, I can visualize a sceanrio where this actually happened a few days ago, they took him out to an aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean, interrogated him, executed him then buried him at sea--but only announced i yesterday.

But that's just my imagination. And none of us will ever REALLY know waht happened there--only what we are told.

[Bragi]

20. They wanted him dead, not alive /nt

[librechik]

21. why?

[Bragi]

23. To avoid a trial

My surmise would be this:

They wanted to avoid a trial because a) he would have either had to be accorded rights as an accused war criminal, or denied these rights, in which case the trial would be seen as a fraud, and b) they would have had to charge him with several offenses where they had real proof of his involvement, none of which were 9/11, for which there is no proof of his involvement.

[librechik]

26. it just doesn't make sense to me froma military viewpoint

the military wants to interrogate UBL. Once they have him in custody he can always be killed, one way or the other, if that's the mission. I just don't see them passing up that opportunity if they had it.
And from some reports it seems they did.

[fishwax]

31. how is someone refusing to surrender an opportunity to grab him?

[Left coast liberal]

14. Very good point. I was intially pretty unsettled that we didn't capture...

...him and try him. But your post makes sense. It would have been a circus, a mad ugly hideous circus, if he wasn't killed.

Even though, it was hard to hear my 12 year old daughter say this AM, "How are we supposed to react to someone being shot in the head. Even a really bad guy."

Celebration isn't really the right word. But I am glad he is gone.

Crazy world!

[Poboy]

18. And on top of that, the government would have to prove its case!

[robinlynne]

15. exactly.

[Gunny1]

24. +1 best possible result is what happened.

*Surgical strike
*No American causalities
*OBL eternally silenced
*No public spectacle of a trial
*No wasteful incarceration
*Proof of death attained
*Body lost for all of time with no shrine available to his followers

I'm trying not to think about the dubious means we used to get the intelligence but the operation itself was as good as it could have been.

[Libertas1776]

27. +1

[dana_b]

28. sidetrack: he used his wife as a shield

http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/0511/firing_on_osama_448de02d-06b6-41d2-a611-0305538f59c5.html

he probably would have killed himself rather than be taken alive.

[Libertas1776]

29. +2

[JVS]

32. He would have talked about his relationship with Zbigniew Brzezinski.