Bin Laden Dead?

"Real Real Real (Osama's Dead)"

"Osama's Dead" -- bauhaus

I remember thinking in 2001 that fighting with the Northern Alliance made it sound like we were in Star Wars

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, May 3, 2011 9:40 PM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark

^^^exactly my thoughts as well

when if not now does a death cease to be "pointless"

I was referring to the death of civilians, not the death of Osama bin Laden

if i never hear one more person say "so there was collateral damage, it's their fault for not fleeing the country/not overthrowing their government" I'll be a happy man

gonna go out on a limb here and say that you will not be a happy man

thread got real confusing until i realized you guys WEREN'T referring to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZoOiWoaFtg

special envoy Staffan de Mistura otm

wish ppl would err on the side of being big softies for whom one pointless death is an outrage instead of realistic men of the world

are you calling my wife a realistic man of the world

cheerin-OBL disaster

Let's not fallout about it.

how is sesame street going to handle explaining this sensitive issue to the kids

sockmuppets

*cue Muppet Show theme in internal jukebox*

pretty much agree with herculean party pooper glenn greenwald here:

It was striking to note in yesterday's New York Times the obituary of Moshe Landau, the Israeli judge who presided over the 1961 war crimes trial of Adolf Eichmann. It's a reminder that when even the most heinous Nazi war criminals were hunted down by the Israelis, they weren't shot in the head and then dumped into the ocean, but rather were apprehended, tried in a court of law, confronted with the evidence against them for all the world to see, and then punished in accordance with due process. The same was done to leading Nazis found by Allied powers and tried at Nuremberg. It's true that those trials took place after the war was over, but whether Al Qaeda should be treated as active warriors or mere criminals was once one of the few ostensible differences between the two parties on the question of Terrorism.

(though it does ignore the hundreds, probably thousands of nazis who were in fact hunted down post-armistice and unceremoniously whacked by both military and civilians)

I don't want to unequivocally call bullshit on that passage bc I don't really remember ppl saying or not saying that Al Qaeda should be treated as mere criminals, but I certainly never believed that Bin Laden was a mere criminal (not sure I'd give him the kinda honorific of being an 'active warrior' either). But what Greenwald waves away with a few words ("It's true that those trials took place after the war was over...") completely invalidates his argument. Yes, that's the major difference between the examples.

Has Greenwald complained yet that we violated Pakistan's sovereignty to kill Bin Laden?

i definitely think al qaeda should be treated as "mere" criminals. and i'm afraid i agree with the left-wing consensus that the notion that the united states is "at war" with al qaeda is a bullshit rationale for continuing military spending and expanded executive authority

Greenwald seems to overlook that the complexities of underlings "just following orders" are myriad. Whereas the acknowledged and admitted figurehead and leader of a global terrorist initiative who repeatedly took (videotaped!) credit for the most heinous of acts (that evidence had already implicated him in even before he explicitly conceded his complicity lacks a certain, shall we say, flexibility, moral or otherwise. I'm truly unsure what a trial would have proven or elicited that would have been beneficial to anyone. Just a lot of noise before we inevitably killed him anyway. And then we would have been compelled to give him a proper burial, thus giving the felled martyr eternal life (symbolically) as an impetus for future villainy.

eichmann had no sizeable constituency to preach to in his trial, which had an elucidatory value beyond its judicial purpose (cf arendt et al, his blunted articulation of his own actuarial sociopathy)

a bin laden trial in america/the hague would likely resemble the milosevic farrago x1000 - a rejection of the court's validity, incessant rambling self-justification, acting-out and grandstanding, likely yielding negligible insight into his criminal enterprise while churning up wahabbist sympathy and martyrdom imagery

'combat death' or veiled summary execution seems the most sensible outcome, and in a utilitarian sense the most just

to which could be adduced further rationales -- the need for certainty (botched pullout could have let him escape), the extraterritorial location, and the inevitable ecstatic and inflammatory execution if tried under american sovereignty (unconscionable to much of the civilized world and a dangerous incitement to much of the rest)

these same people don't want due process or trials for the guys in guantanamo; the level of self righteous bullshit being served up here is silly even by the standards of the day

Which same ppl? I want trials and justice for the prisoners of guantanamo. What does one thing have to do with another?

Basically neither the US or Pakistan has its hard-of-thinking fundies under control and it actually shames me, at least on the American side, that adult babies baying incoherently for justice are the world's take-away of who we are. I would also like jury trials for Guantanamo people, and a pony, please.

Tony Blair on R4 making me want to vom but at least I can't see the Botox this way.

that adult babies baying incoherently for justice are the world's take-away of who we are.

I don't get this at all. Who is baying?

The people who are all 'I wanna see his head on a stick' etc...

guantanamo xp

Are ppl saying that here?

I don't think anyone is talking about people on this thread.

the extraterritorial location

well yeah - as goole suggests upthread it would be a bit rich getting all habeas corpus after flouting every rule in the book to raid the dude

but in a utilitarian sense the most just is not really the precedent i'd like to see the united states set. that's the justification every killer gives.

sure you don't want the trial to serve as a pulpit to preach from but, well, yes - he would "have his say" if given half a chance. but if we're afraid of that then jeez.

ha yeah, shudder to think a defendant could confront his accusers

surely the fear was more about increasing OBL's reach/exposure and burnishing his image as an unjustly put-upon martyr. the more of a pulpit he had, the more effective he'd be in stirring up antipathy for the US. I'm not a fan of what happened, but I'm pretty clear on the reasons it happened how it did.

right

I'm not a fan of what happened, but I'm pretty clear on the reasons it happened how it did.

this could be the subtitle of the last 30 years of politics at least

Basically neither the US or Pakistan has its hard-of-thinking fundies under control

this is probably the most equivalent thing ever

Why did they have to to use the codename "Geronimo." Native Americans are not happy about this

let 'em jump off a cliff

imo bin laden was not an ordinary criminal, though note that that's a highly specific, very untranscendental concept, the same way that sovereign state is. are the likes of greenwald really saying that obama should have asked pakistan to extradite osama bin laden? that is a lot like saying he should get to live out his days without ever meeting justice. i don't think pakistan is a particularly sovereign state, nor afghanistan ten years ago, nor south yemen now (or for a long time really), and the two things come together because al-queda was acting with the approval of powerful elements within these not-quite-sovereign-states, and osama was recently under the protection of same. well, of course we don't know that and im sure a trial would have illuminated every fold and crease of the thing.

The problem with trying defendants after the War on Terrah is over is that it will never be over.

"I think resistance does not require a firearm." Man, that Jay Carney dude is golden, Cousin Ari would be proud.

I was going to bring up the Eichmann trial -- of course that took place in pre-all-voracious-baboon-media times.

The problem with trying defendants after the War on Terrah is over is that it will never be over.

yes.

it's probable that there weren't a whole lot of options when the shit went down. and the offical explanaish that Team America would have liked to take him alive is better than nothing. it at least gestures towards some kind of enlightenment.

Why did they have to to use the codename "Geronimo." Native Americans are not happy about this

On Twitter:

tinyrevolution Jonathan Schwarz

Code name for bin Laden? "Geronimo." Oh American Indians, we've killed people all over world, but we will never forget you were our first.

okay THAT is how you do bitter comedy

are there any experts on the icc or us law who could say whether either allow trials of defendants who have been kidnapped from other countries?

I don't know this Schwarz guy, but he looks ace:

Lots of Americans were mad it took ten years for the government to kill bin Laden, but I think it was worth being extra careful to make sure no one else got hurt.

ha yeah, shudder to think a defendant could confront his accusers

Pretty sure Bin Laden had been confronting his accusers for years. Explicitly. On tape. Broadcast around the world. You think he had some fresh bromides in store for his show trial? I doubt OBL would have even defended his actions. But, oh, now we'll never know!

It is understandably of our most popular assassinations ever, I'm guessing it'll be #1 when VH1 does a countdown show.

only if you join Starship and sing "We Built This City."

But what Greenwald waves away with a few words ("It's true that those trials took place after the war was over...") completely invalidates his argument. Yes, that's the major difference between the examples.

― Mordy, Wednesday, May 4, 2011 12:51 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

it's this kind of thing that makes greenwald's high standing hysterical to me.

but you know, mussolini never had his day in court and the war kinda was over (in italy) at that point.

shame on you, italy. shame on you.

nrq shd def move to the US and be a smug pundit

Yes, that's the major difference between the examples.

Terrorism is not warfare, because in warfare we wave away the butchery of civilians as fair game

Saw this in ... Poitico?

Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) has drafted legislation that would require Pakistan to prove it didn’t know bin Laden was hiding in Abbottabad to get U.S. funds.

Make a run for it, Pakistan! It's a trap!