Anyone who conspires in the commission of any felony is guilty of murder when the eventual commission of the felony results in the death of any person. This is the essence of the "felony murder" statute that has been adopted in most of the states. It is punishable by life in prison.
Under the present circumstances, with over 5,300 dead or missing (and presumed dead) as a result of these felonies, I believe we should make an exception. This should be punishable by death. The sentence should be carried out immediately without benefit of trial. Any aid provided to Osama bin Laden after he declared "holy jihad" against America was an act of war, by the nations that knowingly provided aid and comfort to him and to his murderous thugs.
I would like to remind any military, intelligence, diplomatic and political personnel reading this thread that we fire-bombed dozens of German and Japanese cities during World War II. Then we used nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We killed at least one million civilians -- men, women and children.
We did this to destroy their means of making war -- the factories, railroad yards and oil refineries. And we did it to destroy their will to fight. After we killed enough Japanese women and children, their soldiers lost the will to fight and they accepted surrender terms. Unlike Germany, we did not have to invade their homeland. The samurai spirit can be compared to the philosophy of these mujahedeen.
At the beginning, the Japanese warriors were eager to die. Even toward the end, they were eager to die -- recall the kamikazes, and how very few of their soldiers surrendered on the tiny islands we invaded. But when they received word of two atomic bombs being used on their cities, they lost the will to resist.
We must learn these lessons well. The mujahedeen is just as eager to die as the Japanese soldier, sailor or airman was in 1941. We must extract a price that they are not willing to pay.
The mujahadeeen might be very willing to die, but the experience in Desert Storm with wholesale surrender of Iraqi soldiers plus the present streaming into Iran of Afghanis after being exhorted to stay and fight by the Taliban shows that the typical "jo6pac_of _goat's _milk" in the Middle East might have some reservations about tripping off to Paradise with the jihadists.