What precedent does Bin Laden's killing set?

When that happens, Americans will suddenly become internationalists.

How many claim they are guilty, when they are in fact innocent - and there is a huge amount of evidence that they are guilty?

Cycloptichorn wrote:

How many claim they are guilty, when they are in fact innocent - and there is a huge amount of evidence that they are guilty?

I don't know that Osama Bin Laden ever claimed he was guilty of terrorism. To be sure, he boasted about masterminding the 9/11 attacks.

But to him, those attacks wouldn't have been terrorism, just freedom-fighting against American troops in Saudi Arabia

The individuals who carried out the 9/11 attacks were as terrorist to Bin Laden as the Nicaragua contras were to Ronald Reagan: not at all. Killings are a matter of fact; terror is a matter of interpretation. And the US government's interpretation of terror is no better than anybody else's.

The Seal team stormed into the compound — the raid awakened the group inside, one American intelligence official said — and a firefight broke out. One man held an unidentified woman living there as a shield while firing at the Americans. Both were killed. Two more men died as well, and two women were wounded. American authorities later determined that one of the slain men was Bin Laden’s son, Hamza, and the other two were the courier and his brother.

American officials insisted they would have taken Bin Laden into custody if he did not resist, although they considered that likelihood remote. “If we had the opportunity to take Bin Laden alive, if he didn’t present any threat, the individuals involved were able and prepared to do that,” Mr. Brennan said.

I, by the way, don't have a problem with assassinating Osama or Yamamoto or the leaders of any nation of group with which we are at war.

There was a firefight, though. After that firefight, they got Bin Laden.

One man held an unidentified woman living there as a shield while firing at the Americans. Both were killed.

It is more than a theoretical right of the nation in which the assassination is conducted to treat the act as a crime.

On the issue of shooting Bin Laden "after" or "in" a firefight, CNN just said he was unarmed, but the Navy Seal who took the shot didn't want to take any chances. This mostly affirms my hunch about Obama's usage of the word "after".

Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.

The White House has further corrected details of the intense, Sunday-night raid on Osama bin Laden's compound and subsequent killing in an attempt to clear up several misstatements from administration officials about what transpired inside the compound walls during the 40-minute covert mission.

President Obama's press secretary Jay Carney Tuesday afternoon read a Pentagon-prepared statement to reporters describing the events that took place inside the compound Sunday night.

The new account dispelled any notion that bin Laden was armed or used his wife as a human shield when a U.S. assault team entered his room, killing him with two bullets, one to the body and one to the head. The new account revises what John Brennan, Obama's counterterrorism adviser, told reporters Monday: that he believed Obama had a gun, although he said he wasn't sure bin Laden shot any rounds, and that he was using a woman as a human shield, most likely his wife.

At the time, Brennan offered caveats to his account, several times saying "it is my understanding" when pressed by reporters for more details and openly acknowledging that he did not see the events unfold himself.

At any rate, more and more details are coming out -- including specific corrections that are issuing from the White House.

Abbottabad, Pakistan (CNN) — Osama bin Laden was not armed but did put up resistance when U.S. forces entered the compound he was in and killed him, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Tuesday.
Providing some new details of the events that transpired early Monday in Pakistan, Carney said U.S. Navy SEALS went floor-to-floor clearing the three-story compound where bin Laden’s family lived along with others.
Three people were killed on the first floor, including a woman, Carney said.
U.S. forces then moved upstairs where they found bin Laden in a room with a woman believed to be his wife — both unarmed, Carney said. She rushed the U.S. forces and was shot in the leg but not killed. Bin Laden resisted and was shot and killed, Carney said

May 03, 2011 "Telegraph" -- US officials had claimed that Osama Bin Laden had been "firing behind" his wife when he was shot through the eye by a US Navy Seal, painting a powerful image of the world's most wanted man cowering behind a defenceless woman.
In the original account of the firefight, John Brennan, a US counter-terrorism official briefing the media, said "There was family at that compound, and there was a female who was, in fact, in the line of fire that reportedly was used as a shield to shield Osama from the incoming fire".

However US officials have now conceded that Bin Laden was not armed during the assault, did not fire back and that his wife was only injured in the assault, most likely in the crossfire, according to unnamed officials quoted by the US website Politico.

"A different guy's wife was killed", said the website, quoting an unnamed official who had briefed US television media, with the official adding that Bin Laden's wife was "injured not killed", having been shot in the calf.

"Two women were shot here. It sounds like their fates were mixed up," said the US official. "This is hours old and the full facts are still being ascertained as those involved are debriefed." The website also quoted another official saying "I'm not aware of him [bin Laden] having a weapon."

The discrepancy between earlier accounts and the new version of events was put down to "confusion" by the White House, who said that the "fact pattern" on the assault was only now becoming clear as more of the participants were interviewed.

The contradictions came despite the fact that other reports suggesting that President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state and other senior officials had watched the assault on a live feed provided by a camera mounted on the commando's helmets.

The identity of the dead woman has not been made public. However, officials quoted by the Reuters news agency added that she had been in a different part of the compound from bin Laden when he was killed.

Twenty-three children and nine women were in the compound at the time of the assault and were turned over to Pakistani authorities, added the US official who requested anonymity to discuss an intelligence matter.

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

It is more than a theoretical right of the nation in which the assassination is conducted to treat the act as a crime.

That's not what the US told Germany. In 2007, Germany considered a lawsuit against CIA operatives who had abducted a German citizen to Afghanistan for torture. Far from encouraging Germany's rule of law, the US applied profound amounts of arm twisting to prevent such a trial. Pakistan's capability to try the Navy Seals for their political assassination of Bin Laden may be a theoretical right of Pakistan's. It certainly isn't a practical option.

Cyclo - Every now and again we agree completely, and this is one of those times.

First of all, abducting a German "citizen" who had engaged in terrorist plots and/or attacks against the US is something different than assassinating a political dissident.

Secondly, either Germany or Pakistan could and can treat the actions of US as a crime. Obviously they would have a hard time getting jurisdiction over the persons who they believed perpetrated the crime

You seem to have a quaint notion that taking a stand on what is right will not and should not have consequences. That it does is what makes it heroic.

he U.S. officials who planned the mission that ultimately killed Osama Bin Laden assumed “from the beginning” that the raid would result in the al-Qaida leader’s death, CIA director Leon Panetta said Tuesday.

“We always assume from the beginning that the likelihood was that he was going to be killed,” Panetta said in an interview with CBS News.

In the off-chance that Bin Laden was captured, Panetta said that he believed the plan would have been to quickly transport him to an airfield in Afghanistan and then move him to a ship offshore until the White House decided how to proceed.

Panetta’s comments come on the same day White House spokesman Jay Carney admitted on the record that Bin Laden was unarmed at the time of the raid.

The statements add to the growing uncertainty around conflicting accounts from U.S. officials concerning the exact details of mission, both in its planned version and how it was ultimately executed.

White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan said Monday that the team of Navy SEALs that shot and killed Bin Laden were prepared to take him into custody if they had the opportunity and “if he didn’t present any threat.”
Brennan’s comments came hours after an unidentified U.S. official told Reuters that the mission was “a kill operation.”

Law, justice and the death of Osama Bin Laden

Posted by David Allen Green - 02 May 2011 17:15

Does it matter if the killing was against the law?