I’m not quite sure why this is such a big deal. Anyone who thinks that Bin Laden didn’t deserve to be shot like a rabid dog hasn’t been paying attention. Now we could argue about whether or not “invading” a foreign country to take out a terrorist is cricket. It never stopped Israel’s Mossad and our Predator attacks kinda made the point to Pakistan a while ago. I reckon Bin Laden’s continued existence represented an imminent threat to U.S. citizens. But it seems that certain members of the U.S. government were raised on Westerns . . .
where the good guy never shoots first. Embarrassingly enough, Rhode Island’s Jim Langevin felt obliged to point out that World Enemy Number one had guns nearby when a SEAL’s bullet entered his T Zone and shut off his lights forevermore. This from nationaljournal.com:
When special operations forces closed in on Osama bin Laden at his compound in Pakistan, they found him in a room with two guns, one of which was an AK-47 assault rifle, two lawmakers and a U.S. government official told National Journal on Wednesday.
The administration has confirmed that bin Laden was not armed when he was shot and killed on Sunday. But being in a room with weapons could bolster the administration’s claim that it was necessary to kill the terrorist leader.
“He was not armed. The administration has confirmed that. But there were weapons in the room,” said Rep.Jim Langevin, D-R.I., who serves on both the House Armed Services and House Intelligence committees.
Holy National of Cowards Batman! The administration needs to bolster the case for killing Bin Laden? Still, the self-wrong-footers have helped tease out details of that fateful day.
The government official confirmed that the weapons were an AK-47 and a pistol. The official said bin Laden was spotted coming out of the room where the guns were located and then ran back into that room . . .
The first objective at the compound involved hostile fire from one of the facilitators living there. So it immediately became a hostile environment,” the official said. “Then you also had threatening moves and actions inside the larger home to include action on all three floors.”
“You had people lunging toward the [military team],” the official added. “You had guns present in the house. Given al-Qaida’s history, you’re concerned about suicide vests [and] bombs. The compound itself could have been rigged to explode.”
Good point. Clean kill. Ish. Close enough, really. But I am amazed that there is anyone who believes that Bin Laden should have been given a chance to surrender.
For the record, I love America. I love our judicial system. But great evil that directly threatens our country and its citizens must be eradicated from this Earth whenever possible, as quickly and completely as possible. God bless America for having the motive, means, opportunity and balls to do it.
Well, this is how our polity and media operate. After any event, no matter how seemingly unambiguous, the second-guessers and naysayers leap out of the woodwork and set to work biting at its ankles and deconstructing it. TTAG does it just like everyone else.
In a recent item (since withdrawn) one of your correspondents denounced the White House press secretary for presenting an insufficiently bloodthirsty demeanor in describing the assault. Or something. It wasn’t clear. Apparently your correspondent was reading another human being’s mind, which science holds to be impossible.
I am watching Fox News at this moment, where a right-wing talking head is excoriating the President for not taking bin Laden alive.
And so it goes. This is simply how our system works. Yes, the signal-to-noise ratio is formidable. What can we do about it? First, we can tune it out as best we can, and more importantly, we can do our best not to contribute to it.
clearly people need to see the film of the people on the roof of the WTC and clinging to the sides of the building again. especially the part where they finally couldn’t endure beint slow roasted alive any longer and jumped to thier deaths. maybe pictures of the firefighters on the ground killed by their falling bodies too. mayor was almost killed by falling body. firefighter chaplin mycha judge was killed by a falling victm.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/21/us/politics/21giuliani.html
bin laden deserved a lot worse than he got.
People need to be exposed yet again to the ultimate snuff film so that they are unable to use reason and higher cognitive skills and thus are forced to respond emotionally and “go with the flow” of pre-determined thought and behavioral responses?
I disagree.
If you want to combine those two long comments (one made when I rescheduled the post), shoot me an email and I’ll repost and delete.
No, anybody who doesn’t think that is either
A) A pacifist or hippie who opposes all violence, whether is defensive or offensive.
or
B) Someone who understands that assassinations are an abomination and a sign of the demise of the rule of law – and that the power to kill unarmed alleged bad guys is a stepping stone to a totalitarian police state.
Bad kill. It was just another hit. It is appropriate that our criminal government killed their competition. Had we a lawful government he would have been arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced in a court of law. Then we would have the moral high ground and honor.
Yet you are so very eager to support the devil that is murdering our country and our judicial system.
“Eradicated”? Eradication is a favorite tactic of jingoistic fascists so it is quite appropriate for you to say that.
“God bless America for having the motive, means, opportunity and balls to do it.”
Do you really think that God will bless a group of people for having an extremely well armed group of professional murderers going around the world killing people in offensive actions? I most surely hope not.
“Professional murderers”-are you out of your freaking mind!
As the apparent spokesman for God, may I refer you to peruse the vengeful God of the old testament! Do you remember a group called the Red Army Faction/the Baader Meinhoff Gang? I remember them trying to attack a unit I was with in West Germany one night. I think they would have been the murderers given the chance. A terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist. By their very definition they are the enemy of mankind and defenseless people they prefer to attack, given opportunity, as they are cowardly by nature.
Let me tell you my take-I would have decapitated him like his hostages have been on video-given opportunity. Maybe Stalin,Hitler and the murderous Japanese of the Pacific should have been just given a STERN talking to! WTF! Am I an animal? Maybe so, but I’m not a freaking religiously pious hypocrite and I’ve served in the real fucking world. How about the injured SEAL who fell out of the chopper and was butchered by the scum in Afghanistan! You dishonor his memory. Am I a murderous animal for serving in the real world-Goddamn right, by your reckoning, I also served my State by walking alone into criminally insane inmates’ cells and restraining them as needed-because I BELIEVE IN SERVING YOUR PEOPLE. I also think we need a lot more death penalty too, because I live in the real world-most of the time, at least!
When you lower yourself to the level of your enemy, you have become your own enemy, you have become the very thing you hate.
Stalin was given a good chunk of land (and many people) by his buddy FDR. Hitler got a helping hand from a number of Americans including Averil Harriman of the Bush clan.
No, you are a barbarian.
Killing people who are not a threat to me isn’t serving me.
There are a number of problems with the death penalty. 1. It is “legal” murder – it’s an act of offense not defense. 2. There is no remedy for an error. 3. Any person or group who usurps the power of God – the power to judge and forever strike down a man as a punishment – has transgressed against the Maker and has corrupted their own mind and soul with an unholy unnatural power.
I like your moniker – seems to be quite accurate.
I agree with that part. What is terrorism? Obviously, the use of terror. But what is terror? The use of violence to coerce people into submitting to political demands. What group is the largest terrorist organization on the planet at this time? The American federal government.
You may have noticed that I’m no friend of the feds. But calling them terrorists is beyond ludicrous. Sure, every now and then they do something heinous (e.g., Waco). But it’s out of stupidity, not a desire to spread terror. Take it from the son of a Holocaust survivor: Uncle Sam is are about as far removed from a terrorist organization as you can get and actually BE an organization.
I think for it to qualify as an “assassination” the target has to be the political leader of some organization.
I couldn’t agree more that prosecution with extreme prejudice was more than called for in this instance. If ever there was an individual who merited a quick double-tap as a first response, it was OBL.
Magoo is correct that to a great degree, this is the media world in which we now live. No matter how clear cut a situation may be, there’s never a shortage of critics and second-guessers ready to crawl out of the woodwork. With 24 hours to fill, the cable news purveyors usually find a way to get them on air.
In this case, however, the Obama administration is not without some blame. It’s hard to imagine screwing up such an unambiguously positive accomplishment as taking out America’s number one enemy, but they’ve managed it.
I understand fog of war and all that, but the ‘official’ story of what happened has changed more times than my wife before a night on the town. He was armed, he wasn’t armed. He used a woman as a shield, he didn’t. She was his wife, she wasn’t. We’ll show you the photos, we won’t.
All this does is raise questions in (even reasonable) people’s minds about what happened and foster conspiracy theories. They’ve shot themselves in the foot so badly here, they deserve to be named IGOOTD.
Yeah, because if he was alive he would shoot lightening bolts from his fingers like the Emperor of the Galactic Empire.
“Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive”. Sir Walter Scott
“Revenge is a dish best served cold.” William Shakespeare
Your quote is Shakespeare. Macbeth if I recall correctly-maybe Sir Scott copied it.
“killed by death” Motorhead.
There are two very good reasons why he didn’t deserve to die like a rabid dog:
1. He wasn’t rabid.
2. He wasn’t a dog.
Civilized people do not treat human beings as something they are not. When one uses language to dehumanize people in order to justify criminal acts of offensive violence against them then one is behaving in the manner of a barbarian. When one behaves like a barbarian for a long enough time then one becomes a barbarian.
“Niebuhr was right” said Goethe, “when he saw a barbarous age coming. It is already here, we are in it, for in what does barbarism consist, if not in the failure to appreciate what is excellent?” —Eckermann, 1831.
What is an excellent way to treat alleged murderers? To try them in public, to gather and present all of the damning evidence against them, to allow them a chance to defend themselves, to allow twelve citizens the chance to acquit them if the evidence is weak or non-existent.
What is a barbaric way to treated alleged murderers? To treat them like an animal, to kill them when they are unarmed, to kill their women and their children, to give them no chance to defend themselves, to present no evidence at all.
The primary source of information regarding Osama’s guilt is our federal government. The government is anything but a credible source, especially about these sorts of things, and it is a master of misinformation.
The secondary source is allegedly Osama himself in those video and audio tapes. I say allegedly because of the unusual source of those videos – the “British Muslim News Agency” known as “Al-Ansaar”. It appears that once again this outfit is unable to host it’s website, they keep getting kicked off whatever ISP they get. Somewhere I have an archived version, or perhaps now they are shut down for good as their purpose is served. Allegedly this agency has been around since 1995, but the original website wasn’t registered until a week or so after 09/11/2001. There is no content on the site in the “News” section which is strange for a news agency, and the only “news” they provide is the tapes of Bin Laden. There are no people listed under the “journalists” section – there is only a link to the British union of journalists which makes no mention of this group. It’s a completely fake site that has no content. Now, I am no Sherlock Holmes but it seems to me that if whoever runs that outfit must be closely connected to Osama Bin Laden in order to get those tapes, and it seems to me that they could have long ago found Bin Laden by working backwards from his P.R. company.
I personally am inclined to agree with the faction in the CIA that has long said he was dead well before 9/11. He made an excellent boogeyman and now he shall make for an excellent re-election tool for Obama if he can walk the impossibly difficult line of appearing “tough” to the conservatives and “sensitive” to the liberals.
Armed or not. Doesn’t matter.
There are those who grew up in Fantasyland, watching TV shows and movie re-runs where the good guy never shoots first and when he does shoot he shoots the gun out of the bad guy’s hand. Some people want to believe that good guy always give the bad guy a chance to surrender and would never shoot a bad guy in the back. Some people believe in the The Big Rock Candy Mountain.
The reality is that a threat is a threat until it is neutralized. Those who are there to protect and serve are trained to shoot for neutralizing the threat and to keep shooting until the threat no longer exists. Offended? Deal with it.
Bin Laden was a threat for over a decade, one who had shown many times the capacity, capability and desire to perpetrate mass murder. He was a dangerous individual and there was no reason for the team entering his compound to believe otherwise.
While it may be noble to always wear the white hat, it’s not always prudent or practical. Some would have us believe otherwise. Some would choose nobility over survival. Some would let a crocodile take off a leg before they would defend themselves.
“When special operations forces closed in on Osama bin Laden at his compound in Pakistan, they found him in a room with two guns, one of which was an AK-47 assault rifle, two lawmakers and a U.S. government official”
Were the lawmakers and the U.S. government official shot, too?
What part of dead or alive do people not get? They found him and killed him. That’s explanation enough for me. The USA did exactly what it said it would do.
Amazing that someone dedicated to protection of rights can support the government in assassinating people.
In this case, they have a very good reason to shoot: it was a definite possibility he or the compound was rigged with explosives.
But to continue, even Osama Bin Laden deserves(deserved, rather) a fair trial. That’s what rights fucking are, when you toss them out the window because it’s someone you despise (even if they truly are monsters) you’ve sold out on freedom.
Congratulations to all of you who are okay with the government assassinating terrorists, you’re on the level with the Brady Bunch: once someone is labeled a terrorist by the government, they shouldn’t have rights.
Bin Laden wasn’t an American. He did not have Constitutional rights.
So its okay to murder non-Americans? Or to stifle their freedom of speech? Can we enslave them? Rights shouldn’t end at(or be based on) lines drawn on maps, its an insult to the concept of a right.
And to be clear, I think in this instance they had a good reason to shoot and I believe the team responsible are heroes. But many of the comments seem to think assassination should be Plan A for terrorists.
Try this on for size: if we’d captured OBL, we opened ourselves for a terrorist attack to exchange hostages for his freedom. And then only Jack Bauer could have saved us. And he’s fictional. Apparently.
But the same argument could apply to any leader of any large group, not to say the argument isn’t valid.
It is a (very) valid concern, but at what point can the government decide, “it’s too dangerous to allow this person rights, so let’s ignore them.” My level of trust in our government is not very high, and I don’t think I’d ever be comfortable letting them decide.
*comments seem to suggest.
Comments, of course, cannot think.
Plan A sounds good to me.
Oh well, we agree to disagree-but I’ll be a barbarian until the day I enter Valhalla! “It was a mercy killing.” Rocky Horror Picture Show
So its okay for the government to assassinate those on terror watch lists, but not restrict their ability to purchase firearms?
It would be impossible to get a fair trial for him. Besides jurisdiction issues, where to hold the trial, evidence that that likely wouldn’t fly at trial even if we were to declassify it, you could not find an impartial jury. This was always the most likely scenario.
Even if it’s difficult, we should still try.
Han shot first!
I’m going to get an Osama Bin Laidout head to stick on my truck’s antenna just for you, Critic. I’m watching Michael Moore whining on CNN right now-why don’t Sean Penn and him just lock into a 69 love fest and have Jane Fonda direct it!
” Save me from the sheep who think they are wolves.” CUJO THE DOG OF WAR
“Kill, kill, blood makes the grass grow.” My Senior Drill Instructor at Parris Island
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