Jim.
Posted on 05/04/2011 10:27:53 AM PDT by LibWhacker
The Navy SEALs knew their mission was to kill the al Qaeda leader, not take him alive
In the weeks before President Obama ordered Navy SEALs into Pakistan in pursuit of Osama bin Laden, administration officials weighed using American warplanes to obliterate the terror mastermind's fortified compound from the sky or sending commandos on a high-risk mission to assault the structure from the ground.
But there's one option the administration appears to have never seriously considered: taking bin Laden alive.
In an important new detail about Sunday's raid, the White House disclosed on Tuesday that bin Laden was unarmed when the SEALs shot him in the head and chest, killing him instantly. The administration said that bin Laden resisted capture, but hasn't suggested in any of its public comments that the SEALs were in any immediate danger when they opened fire on him during their assault on his compound in an affluent Islamabad suburb of Abbottabad.
The SEALs' decision to fatally shoot bin Laden -- even though he didn't have a weapon - wasn't an accident. The administration had made clear to the military's clandestine Joint Special Operations Command that it wanted bin Laden dead, according to a senior U.S. official with knowledge of the discussions. A high-ranking military officer briefed on the assault said the SEALs knew their mission was not to take him alive.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Ya think????
Captain Obvious, is that you?
Of course they had to kill bin Laden. If they had taken him alive the courts would have released him because they didn’t have a search warrant.
Strange. He was a treasure trove of info. They must have been scared of turning him into a celebrity prisoner.
If it were me, he’d been in prison but officially, he would be fish food.
Jim.
“The administration had made clear...that it wanted bin Laden dead, according to a senior U.S. official with knowledge of the discussions.”
Why do they feel the need to keep talking about this?
Unless it was conducted under the Bush Administration of course.
Those orders came from LEON PENETTA...CIA Director...
No kidding! And it took three ‘journalists’ to figure this out.
We just save hundreds of millions in just one shot, and the shot was heard around the world.
This is the second article I've seen today providing evidence that Obama has deliberately shifted US strategy away from capturing terrorists, focusing on assasination instead.
Seems to me this is a strategic error whose consequences will be felt in the years to come. By assisinating rather than capturing, we are losing the opportunity to pump terrorists for information. Without that information, how will we be able to capture the new terrorists who take the place of the ones we kill?
As Yoo points out in today's WSJ, the killing of Obama would not have been possible had we not pumped KSM for information.
If it is really true that the Seals could have taken OBL alive, but did not because of orders from the administration, then we probably missed an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to saves hundreds, if not thousands of lives.
The very thought that we could have waterboarded the bastard, but didn't, just plain makes me angry.
Woops! I got Obama and Osama mixed up in my post above! Sorry about that.
[Strange. He was a treasure trove of info. They must have been scared of turning him into a celebrity prisoner.]
If it were me, I’d have faked his death with a quick burial at sea of some morgue leftover while I waterboarded him.
Is this a war-crime under international/Haguelike standards? Wasnt Osama deprived of his human rights by being killed like this? Or is a war crime reserved for terrible stuff like waterboarding? If Obama was charged with a war-crime would he lose his peace-prize?
I thought Obama was going to reason with our enemies... that sure went out the door fast.
If every single claim made in this article by Yochi Dreazen, Aamer Madhani & Marc Ambinder (whoever THEY are) were 100% true, I would be left with only one question for them: So what?
Well of course!
If it had been done while Bush was president it would have been illegal.
It’s impossible to keep secrets these days. Some Bradley Manning wannabe would spill the beans, and all would be chaos. Better to just kill him and be done with it.
That’s okay. I mean, who HASN’T made that mistake at one time or another?
;-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.