Posted on 05/06/2011 3:43:57 AM PDT by tobyhill
Since the death of Osama bin Laden Sunday, administration officials have repeatedly said that the mission to kill him complied with domestic and international law.
"Let me make something very clear," Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress on Wednesday, "the operation in which Osama bin Laden was killed was lawful. He was the head of al Qaeda, an organization that conducted the attacks of Sept. 11. He admitted his involvement."
But as new details of the operation emerge, and some Pakistani leaders protest the U.S. incursion into their state, legal experts say the administration must more forcefully lay out its case.
Law professor Kenneth Anderson, who specializes in legal issues related to war and terrorism, said that differing government accounts as to whether bin Laden was armed or invited to surrender or even involved in a firefight have muddled the legal debate and left the administration open to international criticism.
"Holder was not direct in stating that of course it was legal to target Osama bin Laden, legal to target with lethal force, legal to target without warning or invitation to surrender," said Anderson, who teaches at American University Washington College of Law. "And that has always been the U.S. legal position.
"The United States actually has firm legal views on these points, which unfortunately, probably for reasons of operational secrecy, the senior leadership hasn't properly communicated," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
International law didn’t really apply on 9-11....did it? The intellectual thought-process is revealing.
Since when do we subject ourselves to some nebulous international law?
That boy needed killin’.
International Law only applies when a Republican is in the White House.
So because a renegade gang of savages attack we’re supposed to degenerate ourselves? Think it through.
The only questions from the civilized world should be: What took you so long, and who is number two at Al Qaeda, and where is he hiding?
No, it’s not — so Zero and Holder should immediately resign and turn themselves over to the World Court for trial!
A British gentleman once spoke: “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf”.
What an asinine mentality!!!
“The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.” A. Rand
They should have killed him twice just to make sure.
I hear you but this is the type of event that will expose the hypocrites.
I haven’t heard a peep from MSNBC about the “legality” of the raid or the killing of ole Binny but they were the first ones to be yelling about everything Bush did.
What the heck is it with these pieces of crap in this administration. It is as if they are all some kind of talking doll with a string you pull, and the first phrase on the tape is “...Let me make something very clear...” or some variant of that.
To me, it displays an extreme arrogance as it indicates that they are 100% correct in whatever the subject is but the audience is too dim to get their obvious point, so they have to phrase it in a way that indicates that.
It kind of reminds me of the liberal meme that anyone who disagrees with the policies put forth by Barack Obama and his administration is racist. It makes you want to scream “NO, YOU IDIOTS. IT IS BECAUSE THE SOCIALIST, MARXIST POLICIES THEY PROPOSE ARE DESTRUCTIVE TO OUR COUNTRY AND OUR SOCIETY!”
We have our own laws and Bush signed the Executive Order stating Bin Laden was a legal military target.
It is consistent with the Geneva Conventions. OBM was an illegal combatant. The Geneva Conventions clearly state you do not have to accept the surrender of an illegal combatant. You are allowed to kill them out of hand.
That’s what we did.
You want international law?
I’ll give you international law:
In order to enjoy its protection, YOU MUST FIRST OBEY IT.
The rules of war are strict: Uniforms distinct and ideftifiable AT A DISTANCE, arms carried OPENLY, obey a chain of COMMAND, respect the rights of NON-COMBATANTS.....
Otherwise you have buuutkisss for rights.
“So because a renegade gang of savages attack we’re supposed to degenerate ourselves? Think it through.”
So you’re a proponent that all of those insurgents and radical muslims are really just criminals that should be arrested?
OBL declared war on America and the West. He didn’t rob a bank.
ninotti, how is killing him “degenerating ourselves”?
He has confessed, not under duress, to the murder of thousands of American citizens. It was a punishment meted out with a lot more justice than he deserved, IMO.
He continued to draw breath, watch sunrises and eat meals long after those people on the WTC released their grips to being their plummet to earth.
Obama fought these kinds of missions from the day he entered politics so he gets no credit for the mission but for him to sign off on the mission means he signed on to his own hypocrisy statement.
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