"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."
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.
"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."
Sorry, but I could not disagree more. There is a line, and it's not "fine" at all. In fact, it's enormous - it's called a border - as in Waco happened inside the territorial border of the US, and bin Laden direct action engagement did not. US service members are not allowed to engage in military operations (with some HIGHLY limited) exceptions, under the terms of Posse Comitatus. No such restrictions apply outside our borders.
US military service personnel are not law enforcement agents. They don't, for good reason, have to abide by the same rules of engagement as a LEO. Not to oversimplify it too much, but they can engage an enemy with lethal force so long as that enemy is not injured or in a place that is internationally recognized as a safe-harbor zone - like a hospital or place of worship (generally), or in the process of surrendering. That doesn't (necessarily) mean that the enemy has to be armed. In fact, it's not against the rules of warfare to engage enemies in retreat.
There are, in the rules of international warfare, rules that prohibit such actions outside the theater of combat. But, IMO, those rules are more than a bit anachronistic as they relate to this current threat. Where isn't the battlefield in this war? And, I clearly think that the quasi-tribal areas of northern Pakistan are well-within those battlefield borders.
Having said that, I think your point is meritorious when discussing US service members engaging US citizens outside the confines of the country, and targeting those citizens for "assassination". That, as a US legal matter, becomes much more complicated. I think reasonable people can disagree about its legality.
I'm fairly sure OBL wasn't an American citizen entitled to BOR protections and also that Davey Koresh and his homies never admitted to blowing up 3K innocents on a single day. Maybe we could use that as a line. If that's not good enough, we could also use domestic vs. overseas operations as a distinguishing factor.
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.
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?