Justice, American Style: Was Bin Laden's Killing Legal?

DER SPIEGEL ^ | May 3, 2011 | Thomas Darnstädt

[TheOldLady]

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[CA Conservative]

Once you get past that first question, things start to get very interesting. We may not like to admit this, but there's a very fine line -- or maybe no line at all -- between a Navy SEAL operation in Pakistan and an FBI/ATF raid on a Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas.

You are making a false equivalence between the leader of a group that was responsible for the greatest foreign attack on the US in history and the leader of a group that happened to have religious and constitutional views that the Clinton administration apparently disapproved of. How do you make that leap of logic?

OBL declared war on the US long ago, and backed it up with repeated attacks on our people and our assets - Khobar Towers, the Cole, 9-11, etc. David Koresh never declared war on the US, and while I think he had a little cult going on down there, I never believed the FBI/ATF were justified in going in. So I think your analogy is very flawed.

Just to be clear, the assault on Waco was law enforcement run amok - the assult on OBL was the legitimate exercise of force in the course of waging war.

[CA Conservative]

Why exactly are you defending Obama? The federal government breaks laws, acts immorally, and breaks the customs of common decency against Americans on a daily basis. So easy to manipulate you people.

In this case, I would defend Obama in the same manner that I would have defended GWB for the same actions - as I would have defended Reagan for similar actions - as I would have even defended Clinton had he had the balls to take out OBL when he had the chance. Stop pretending that this is some criminal case that has to handled according to the Constitution and the rule of law. This is a war, and is conducted by much different rules. My opinion of that does not change just becuase I don't like the person in office at the time. It is called moral and ethical consistency, and you might try it some time.

[hal ogen]

Is writing a bad article legal?

[Verginius Rufus]

Killing Bin Laden deprived dozens, maybe hundreds, of ACLU lawyers their taxpayer-paid fees for defending OBL in an American criminal proceeding. Osama would probably have died of old age before the case actually came to trial.

If Nicholson Baker and the other lefties had gotten their wish and GWB had been assassinated, characters like this German legal expert probably would have found arguments to defend it as justified.

[danamco]

Smart Alec, so let try this, do they???

Nice way of tap-dancing around for not answering!!!

[af_vet_rr]

Once you get past that first question, things start to get very interesting. We may not like to admit this, but there's a very fine line -- or maybe no line at all -- between a Navy SEAL operation in Pakistan and an FBI/ATF raid on a Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas.

I see where you are going with it, but the would-be messiahs outside of Waco, and it is outside of Waco - Waco should not be slandered with an association with that bunch, and one of the masterminds of a plot that killed thousands of Americans in a self-declared are completely different matters.

The Branch Davidian freaks could have been handled in a much more common sense manner that would have resulted in anything but the drama that occurred.

Osama on the other hand, was beyond the reach of law enforcement, and it was a war and a military matter, even if our government refuses to declare formal wars anymore.

Osama's death was akin to the US Army Air Corps killing Isoroku Yamamoto in 1943.

[littleharbour]

Bin Laden deserved to be killed, but the whole incident highlights the hypocrisy of Obama, the Democrats, the MSM and the entire left. Had this happened under GWB’s watch, the same bunch which refuses to criticize Obama would have threatened to drag W in front of the International War Crimes Tribunal. Obama is getting a free pass because the Republicans support the action and the left will not criticize The One under any circumstances.

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[af_vet_rr]

I won't deny that they are hypocritical, and unfortunately we have some hypocrites on our side. That's the way politics are when the parties switch office. It's one thing if you change your mind because of certain factors, but it's another if you change your mind simply because it's a different party in power. It's like all of the Democrats who voted for Bush to invade Iraq and then years later pretending they were against it and wanting us out. They were supporting it to win points in elections. Hell, I was for the invasion of Iraq originally just because I thought Saddam and his sons were evil personified, but I've come to accept the fact that we shouldn't have done so and that regime change for the sake regime change is bad, and Libya is reinforcing that viewpoint for me. That's completely different from Democrats who supported Bush in 2003 simply because a lot of potential voters supported it. It's completely understandable for me to change my mind given my reasoning, but they are changing their minds because of public opinion and not any rational thinking.

I'm coming around to the idea that Obama favored special operations to get a physical confirmation of OBL while the military was pushing a missile strike is backwards. I bet Obama just wanted them to blow up the compound and not risk anything else, because Obama loves his drones flying around Pakistan, just like Clinton preferred missiles in Afghanistan rather than troops who could have done more. I cannot see the CIA wanting a predator strike or a bombing run by the Air Force and giving up all of that potential information that was available in the compound.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Let me get this straight, Zeb.

You are equating the premeditated, calculated murders of three thousand innocent people and the destruction of billions of dollars of infrastructure orchestrated by a psychotic mass murder with a surgical operation that gave that psychotic mass murderer "a brief opportunity to surrender," which he declined, before carefully blowing his head off, minimizing collateral damage as much is was possible?

Is that your position? That both those actions are the same thing and we are as bad as Usama?

Seriously, Zeb?

[PapaBear3625]

Here’s the bottom line: immediately after 9/11, Congress authorized the US military to go after the people responsible. OBL was responsible. Taking him out was as defensible as taking out any other enemy military leader. Hell, in war we’ve bombed entire enemy populations.

[nickcarraway]

So, if there’s a murder, you can go murder the first person you think might have done?

[cynwoody]

Who is the smallest guy in the Situation Room?

"I will make it legal."

Quite so. And, should the UN High Bitch for Human Rights beg to differ at some point in the future, it will be the duty of his successor to sick the Seals on those who would arrest him and to murder any LEOs who resist his repatriation. (Never thought I'd be defending this POTUS, LOL!)

[cynwoody]

We may not like to admit this, but there's a very fine line -- or maybe no line at all -- between a Navy SEAL operation in Pakistan and an FBI/ATF raid on a Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas.

There is a bold, bright line: US citizenship.

Face it, wogs don't have rights. Obama was the preeminent wog. His rights have been erased. What's not to like?

[danamco]

I just asked you a simple ethical question as, do TWO wrongs make ONE right, that was all!!!

BTW, did I call you “names,” please???

[danamco]

Sorry, yes I did, LOL!!!

[Cronos]

Was killing O illegal? Nope. He declared war on us, we were in a state of war with this guy. Ergo, he was an open target

Was it illegal to attack on another country's territory? Strictly speaking we did not attack a Pakistani national and as per the Pakis, Osami did not live there, hence as per their logic, no one was killed. Ergo, it was perfectly legal.

[MamaTexan]

It would seem that there are only three (or four) possibilities: U.S. law, Pakistani law, or "international law" (whatever that might mean).

As far as our government is concerned, our international actions should be ruled by the Law of Nations.

§ 73. The acts of individuals are not to be imputed to the nation.
However, as it is impossible for the best regulated state, or for the most vigilant and absolute sovereign, to model at his pleasure all the actions of his subjects, and to confine them on every occasion to the most exact obedience, it would be unjust to impute to the nation or the sovereign every fault committed by the citizens. We ought not, then, to say, in general, that we have received an injury from a nation because we have received it from one of its members.

§ 74. unless it approves or ratifies them.
But, if a nation or its chief approves and ratifies the act of the individual, it then becomes a public concern; and the injured party is to consider the nation as the real author of the injury, of which the citizen was perhaps only the instrument.

§ 75. Conduct to be observed by the offended party.
If the offended state has in her power the individual who has done the injury, she may without scruple bring him to justice and punish him. If he has escaped and returned to his own country, she ought to apply to his sovereign to have justice done in the case.
Law of Nations, Chapter VI., Emmerich de Vattel

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All in all, it's a very complicated question -- and one that shouldn't be glossed over, in my opinion.

Agreed....but you will find a great many people who will flambe` anyone who mentions the ends may not always justify the means.

[bert]

Of course none of this applies. The acts of OBL and his followers are extrapolated to all of Islam and they are de facto guilty with no evidence at all /s