There are tapes of exactly what happened and I hope he posed some threat to justify the shooting. However, I believe there was a kill order, so it was out of the hands of those brave seal team members.
Hard to tell as this White House has been telling lies starting with the President's announcement and compounding daily. I'm sure they will gin up some self defense story, but it is simply not clear. To date, most of the statements say that he was not armed, did not appear to have a bomb or trigger, but there was a gun in the room. Don't know if that is enough.
The theory that we are at war and are supposed to kill enemies is simply not how we have carried ourselves historically. We capture people who surrender or who are unarmed; we don't kill them unless we are at risk.
This is a big line we crossed here and no telling where it will stop.
This is not a proper view for a solidly conservative citizen, but we are a country of laws, not men, and I believe this violated our laws (if not a threat.)
If you want a war run by lawyers, hand ‘em a weapon and send ‘em on over.
Horsecrap!!
Our country is LOST if people feel this way. Sometimes men need to be men and do what is needed.
Thanks God for the people who did this to protect our nation and killed this bastard.
Bin Laden needed a bullet in the head and that's what he got.
Anyone wanting a trial for him is completely NUTS.
Looks like you need a history lesson. Do you have any idea how many unarmed civilians we killed in Germany and Japan in WW2? Many hundreds of thousands.
Would it have made you feel better if an "unarmed" Bin Laden were killed in a drone attack rather than with a bullet to the head in CQB? Or do both scenarios make you uncomfortable?
Think about it this way from the perspective of the operatives. They were taking part in a military operation in a very hostile environment. They had already taken fire. They are dealing with an enemy who has a propensity to wear suicide belts and philosophically, would rather die than surrender. The only way they knew he would be unarmed during the operation is if they either had complete control over the situation or they have a time machine. With this enemy, even if you have your boot on the guy's neck with another handcuffing him, you still don't know if he is a danger to you and your team (re bomb belts).
These aren't police serving a warrant. This was a military operation against hostile forces.
“we don’t kill them unless we are at risk”
If there was no risk, then we did not need to go get OBL in the first place and we were not at war with OBL.
But we were at war with OBL and once we had him in our sites we ended any risk he could directly pose to us. End of story. He was given more warning than the victims on 9/11.