Moonbat alert: Chomksy condemns Bin Laden kill.

[Virus]

Welcome to war. In war you kill the enemy.

Why are radical leftists and Truthers going ape about America killing an enemy in war?

It's not really about international law, the Geneva Conventions, the Hague or any of that stuff. It's about hate. They hate America and anything that can be used for hate, gets used.

In short; Radical leftist Truthers are outraged because they're radical leftist Truthers.

 

[Joey McGee]

Exactly, I challenge anyone with a problem to give us an account of what they would have done in this situation in a way that doesn't make them look really naive and confused.

 

[JihadJane]

I'd go in there, raise merry hell and then immediately release lots of untrue versions of what happened

 

[theprestige]

I'd go in there, raise merry hell and then immediately release lots of untrue versions of what happened

Bin Laden's hideout isn't really that similar to an Internet forum.

 

[Virus]

Bin Laden's hideout isn't really that similar to an Internet forum.

Snap!

 

[Virus]

I'd go in there, raise merry hell and then immediately release lots of untrue versions of what happened

Do you even acknowledge that Bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization attacked America, which started a war against his terror network?

 

[jiggeryqua]

He was a military target and the chances of a jihadist rigging a suicide bomb in his house in case of a raid seems extraordinarily high. If he had put his hands up and surrendered they would not have shot him, at least that's what Panetta said, so it's time to go home and stop complaining. Actually there really wasn't a better way to go about it, what were they supposed to do, surround them and ask him to come out nicely? The practicalities of the situation are so obvious yes you need to give your head a shake if this bothers you.

So, there was a high probability of the target blowing up the place you've sent some high-value personnel to? In that case, yes, the better way is to surround him (at a safe distance) and ask him to come out nicely. If he does blow himself up then he doesn't also blow up your expensive kit and well-trained soldiers, but he's still dead (there's a saving on the cost of bullets there too).

 

[Joey McGee]

So, there was a high probability of the target blowing up the place you've sent some high-value personnel to? In that case, yes, the better way is to surround him (at a safe distance) and ask him to come out nicely. If he does blow himself up then he doesn't also blow up your expensive kit and well-trained soldiers, but he's still dead (there's a saving on the cost of bullets there too).

And what if he decides not to come out? You're going to set up a standoff in the middle of Pakistan? Do you see any logistical problems with this scenario at all? Maybe bin Laden has a cellphone in there to call his jihadist buddies to come attack the idiots waiting outside? Really, please consider all of the issues and actually give us a concrete plan of how you would have conducted the operation. I think you proved my point...

 

[HoverBoarder]

Would the world be better without the (US) world police? At a guess:

No limits to Soviet expansion - say goodbye to Western Europe having been free after 1945.
Soviet Union would have nuked China during their late 60's border disputes.
China would have conquered Taiwan.
North Korea and friends would have conquered South Korea.
India and Pakistan would have had an all out (nuke) war.
Little dictators would kill far more of their people without fear of world condemnation.
Vast amounts more little wars and regional empire building.
Far less trade, freedom and standard of living for the vast amount of the world.

For any reasonably free country that behaves reasonably well, having the US active in the world is a godsend.

Well we can't expect any thanks for this, and we can't afford the financial costs of doing it for much longer.

It seems like the only ones who are marginally interested in averting the disasters we have prevented is the EU, but they are too dysfunctional to do anything about it anyways.

The best we can hope for in the future is that China will realize that some level of democracy is good for business.

 

[HoverBoarder]

If a citizen in Pakistan murders another citizen for dissing Allah will they not be tried?

By tried, do you mean paraded around as a hero, showered with rose petals by lawyers, and given a fake show trial?

Same as your Western radical in the USA who murders abortion doctors.

Agreed, they are both religious fundamentalist radicals. However this is a case of scale. Look at the percent of religious people who support terrorists in America like abortion clinic killers, and those in the Muslim world that support suicide bombing as a valid form of resistance. Abortion clinic killers are generally shunned in the Western World, while Osama was seen as a “Sheik” by a large number of people.

Every year, thousands of gays, women, and those accused of blasphemy are killed in the Muslim world many under the legal auspices of legalized ‘Sharia Law,’ yet it has been ruled that you can’t even mention the word “Sharia” at the UN Human rights council. Whatever way you spin it, that is wrong, and the fact is that these people are ignored by many on the Left.

I have always been a strong Democrat and a supporter of Leftist politics for my whole life, but it is simply wrong to spend so much time working for the rights of gay people in this country and pay so little attention and even attack those who work to protect the lives of innocent women, gays, and those accused of blasphemy who are brutally murdered by signatory members of the UN Charter of Human Rights.

 

[HoverBoarder]

I'd go in there, raise merry hell and then immediately release lots of untrue versions of what happened

Bin Laden's hideout isn't really that similar to an Internet forum.

Snap!

That is the funniest post on the thread!

 

[epepke]

Agreed, they are both religious fundamentalist radicals. However this is a case of scale. Look at the percent of religious people who support terrorists in America like abortion clinic killers, and those in the Muslim world that support suicide bombing as a valid form of resistance. Abortion clinic killers are generally shunned in the Western World, while Osama was seen as a “Sheik” by a large number of people.

There has been 1 (one) killing of a physician who performed abortions in the US since 9/12.

 

[HoverBoarder]

There has been 1 (one) killing of a physician who performed abortions in the US since 9/12.

There have been a lot of abortion clinic killings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence, and a fairly well established group that promotes the killings with target posters, address, attempted murders, MURDERS...

The point is that most people in the Western world do not support that type of terrorism, while the support for suicide bombings as a legitimate form of resistance is much higher.

 

[portlandatheist]

Bin Laden's hideout isn't really that similar to an Internet forum.

Nice!

 

[HoverBoarder]

OK, here is the summary I have collected from the entire thread about the arguments for and against the killing of Osama Bin Laden:

I hope people don't mind the very long post. It just takes a while to read all of the pages, and I just thought it would be good to have a collection of some of the main arguments I found. I apologize if I missed any Posts, and please also note that many of these posts may be out of context because a lot of them were in response to other posts.

Chomksy is a known supporter of the Iranian-backed Shiite terrorist group; Hezbollah.

Chomksy is upset of course, that we "invaded Pakistani territory" and "carried out a political assassination".

He claims George Bush is more evil than Bin Laden, and comparable to Nazi war criminals.

Chomsky opposes political assassination, and says that invading a country for oil and killing hundreds of thousands of people is worse than flying planes into buildings and killing 3000 people. Doesn't seem so "moonbat" to me.

Well, it seems to me that Chomskys position is that whatever government a country has, it's not ok to storm in and kill hundreds of thousands of their civilians, devastate their infrastructure and take their natural resources - and that from a utilitarian point of view, since this affects more people, it's a worse act than the WTC attacks. I can't see how that's crazy, unless you're saying that people's lives are less important if they live in a fascist islamic state.

Chomsky basically claims that since Bush is responsible for a war that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, he is worse than Bin Laden who launched an attack that resulted in the death of roughly three thousand.

It's not insane. One act of aggression lead to the deaths of 3000, one lead to the deaths of ~200,000. It's not insane to believe that the aggressor responsible for the ~200,000 has committed worse crimes.

There's a big difference between not wishing he was still alive, and having misgivings about the way he died. A lot of the misgivings are to do with the way that the impression was given in the early reports that bin Laden was killed during a gunfight, and was using his wife as a shield, only for the apparent truth to emerge later. If the US had no doubts about their actions in assassinating him, why not be up front about it? It also seems quite legitimate to be concerned about the action of shooting an unarmed man; the argument about the SEAL team being concerned for their own safety seems spurious since they put themselves in that position. The last report I saw said that there was only one gunman shooting at the SEALs, who was apparently dealt with early on, yet they killed a total of six people, which does nothing to dispel the stereotype of trigger-happy American forces.

It may well be that the outcome was the best possible; that doesn't mean that we should just accept it without question. It also raises wider issues; if it is legitimate for a nation to send a hit squad into another country, then the circumstances in which that is allowable need to be very clearly defined. For example, is it acceptable for the Taliban to send a squad to kill the operators of the remotely piloted drones in their homes back in the US? If not, why not?

So we're dead certain this guy was responsible for a heap of murders. So it's OK just to shoot him in almost cold blood. I heard a commentator who looked about 12 say that on TV the other night.

We were dead certain Shipman was responsible for a heap of murders. It would have been OK to shoot him in cold blood then?

Yes, different circumstances. But that's one helluva slippery slope you have there.

Targeted kills of key terrorist leaders and logistics personnel have been going on since the war started. That's how you take out a terrorist organization.
In a war, you're supposed to kill the enemy.

But it's all about the different circumstances... if Bin Laden hadn't been (expected to be) armed, if we didn't expect bodyguards, if he wasn't in a foreign country, if he wasn't near foreign military assets who might interfere with the op, if the location of the perp had been within domestic US law enforcements jurisdiction, etc... then maybe capture would have been the default option.

It's like asking; why shoot did they default to shooting Germans on Omaha beach rather than trying to arrest them... ?

Almost in cold blood? There was no firefight? Where is your evidence he surrendered, had his hands up and was waiting to be taken into custody? Or do you have another definition of "almost in cold blood".

This whole thread seems to assume that OBL was actually assassinated, and his death was not the result of his resistance and concern of the SEALs for their safety.

Good for Noam Chomsky for standing up for what is human, not barbarian.

If we are going to bring Law and Order to the world, we have to obey the laws. We have to set an example. We can't say "Hey we have this great Court of Law System that your country should follow" if we don't follow it ourselves.

It was against the law, immoral, unnecessary, and harmful to America's reputation, to kill an unarmed man and shoot an unarmed WOMAN. Bin Laden was killed, like Oswald, so he could not talk about his CIA connections in court, and be the fall guy for 9/11.

There is no evidence that Bin Laden planned 9/11...

Your abuse of the word barbarian is quite egregious. Poor Osama.

Why didn't he talk about them in the videos where he confessed to 9/11? You don't think those wacky fake video stories are true do you?

Really you want to start arguing about 9/11 no there are lots of other threads for that.

Speaking of Truthers, did anyone notice that Chomsky appears to have gone borderline Truther in that article?

.......borderline Truther???

And if Bin Laden had a weapon, or looked like he could have been wearing a bomb vest, or was trying to escape, or the special forces team were under fire or had been or had evidence that they were going to be, then killing rather than capturing him would be justified. But i'm uneasy about killing him when there were alternatives without having proven his identity. On balance, it probably is the utilitarian action, but my point in this thread is that opposing it most certainly isn't a "moonbat" position.

Or maybe just the unarmed ones. I'm pretty sure taking unarmed enemy soldiers prisoner in wartime instead of executing them has been standard practice for at least a few hundred years.

Evidence suggests bin Laden was unarmed, did not go for a weapon, and was in a house surrounded by SEALs. So effectively he was already captured. Killing a captive who poses no immediate threat is a crime under military law as well as all other law.
Which is most likely why Obama has kept details of bin Laden's death deliberately vague. Doing so makes it impossible to answer the question of legality with certainty.

You can bet that if bin Laden had held a weapon, officials would have shouted from the rooftops how the SEALs tried to take him alive, but 'unfortunately' had to kill him in self-defense.

And the problem with taking Bin Laden alive is that they don't know if he's wearing a bomb, and general protocol is to shoot a suspected suicide bomber in the head.

Except even suicide bombers generally don't wear bombs late at night, in their own home.

bin Laden was the leader of an organization that specializes in suicide bombings and booby-trapping themselves, whose members, including the venerable bin Laden, are known to wear bomb vests. bin Laden even published his longings for martyrdom. Those Seals would have looked pretty stupid if they'd gotten themselves and their team blown away by bin Laden because they didn't have the good sense to shoot the crazy bastard on sight, resulting in the total failure of the mission.

The Seals' responsibilities were to the mission, their team, and themselves. Screw the enemy.

"the question of legality" exists only in the minds of obsessive finger-pointers. Soldiers are not required to unnecessarily expose themselves to enemy fire, grenades, bombs, booby traps, etc, solely for the purpose of attempting to capture an inherently dangerous enemy.

If bin Laden wanted to surrender, he should have halted and put up his open hands immediately. He should not have retreated into the darkened room containing weapons. Retreat is not surrender. Retreat is a combat tactic.
If bin Laden had been seen with a weapon in his hand, intelligent officials would have told the truth: that bin Laden was seen to be armed and was shot immediately by a Seal, rather than foolishly risking the mission, his life, and the lives of his team members.

Capture is optional in a combat situation, particularly when dealing with enemies who are prone to explode violently. If it is clear that the enemy is not armed or booby-trapped, and is in fact surrendering, then capture might be the correct course of action, depending on the totality of the circumstances. None of which you can prove applied to bin Laden. In no circumstance is capture required at the risk of the mission and the lives of comrades.

However, as soon as you have your first documented live capture of a batty suicide bomber in a dark building, without risking the the mission or the lives of your comrades, we will sit quietly as you tell us how that is done.

Perhaps you will think more clearly if you keep your definitions straight.

We do not "assassinate" enemies who have declared war on us and attacked us repeatedly. We "kill" enemies with whom we are at war.

bin Laden is no different from any other enemy, and deserves no special word to define his completely justified demise. Would you have condemned bin Laden if he had 'assassinated' a Seal during the raid?

In response to all of these posts, I would say that:

1. Chomsky is flawed in equating the hard metric of the numbers killed in a war in Iraq and Afghanistan vs. the numbers killed by AQ. By those standards, George Washington would be a larger war criminal than OBL.

2. OBL was a valid target for killing as a leader of a terrorist organization, and the actions by Osama Bin Laden during the raid did not allow him to be captured.

3. I believe Obama was correct and legally justified in ordering this raid as well as all of the predator drone strikes, but I do worry about this tactic eventually creeping into areas that would not be legally justified. This has not happened yet, and I do not really worry about this happening in Obama's presidency as he has had a solid track record thus far. The greatest threat of this happening is if any of the main Republican candidates for President win either the 2012 or 2016 Presidential election.

4. Osama Bin Laden became Osama Bin Shotin when he did not surrender and retreated to a dark room where weapons were located as well as a location where there would have been a high potential for explosives.

5. "Truthers" are crazy, and Chomsky egging them on is deplorable.

6. There have been no viable alternatives given from armchair analysts for how the Seal team, with their years of training, could have done this better.

 

[epepke]

There have been a lot of abortion clinic killings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence, and a fairly well established group that promotes the killings with target posters, address, attempted murders, MURDERS...

Please read that link. There has been ONE since 9/12.

The point is that most people in the Western world do not support that type of terrorism, while the support for suicide bombings as a legitimate form of resistance is much higher.

Yes, it is. There also have been more than ONE. So not only is there more support, there is more of it.

 

[HoverBoarder]

Please read that link. There has been ONE since 9/12.

Yes, it is. There also have been more than ONE. So not only is there more support, there is more of it.

Geez you guys are nit-picky. Yes, since the date you choose, 9/12, there has only been one killing at an abortion clinic, although there is still a well established group that encourages this type of behavior. However, the majority of Americans frown upon that type of terrorism.

The ironic thing is that essentially we agree on this though.

Because there is more support for terrorism in the Middle East, more of it happens. As I said in my first post, it is a matter of scale, and it is a MUCH larger problem in the ME because it is seen as acceptable behavior to such a large proportion of people.

I would also include the brutal murders of gays, women, and those accused of blasphemy to be a terrorist acts as well, and when you combine the acceptance of terrorist acts with laws that require it to be legally carried out than it is a whole different ball game from the abortion killers here.

 

[angrysoba]

Exactly, I challenge anyone with a problem to give us an account of what they would have done in this situation in a way that doesn't make them look really naive and confused.

Yes, the question is, "How could a self-proclaimed terrorist who plotted to bring down the World Trade Center be captured and then tried in a civil court when the whole world knows he would have a suicide bomb strapped to him and there is no chance of a proper, fair trial?

Soon after the 1993 attack the FBI, on April 21, 1993, made him the 436th person to be added to the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.

Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and U.S. Diplomatic Security Service Special Agents, including Bill Miller and Jeff Riner, captured Yousef in Islamabad, Pakistan. On February 7, 1995, they raided room number 16 in the Su-Casa Guest House in Islamabad and captured Yousef before he could move to Peshawar.[13] He was captured from a tip-off by Istaique Parker a man that Yousef had tried to recruit. Parker was paid $2 million for the information leading to Yousef's capture (Rewards for Justice - RFJ).[3][4] During the raid agents found Delta Air Lines and United Airlines flight schedules and bomb components in children's toys,[17] and Yousef was found to have chemical burns on his fingers.

Yousef was sent to a prison in New York City and held there until his trial. In court Yousef said, "Yes, I am a terrorist, and proud of it as long as it is against the U.S. government and against Israel, because you are more than terrorists; you are the one who invented terrorism and using it every day. You are butchers, liars and hypocrites."[7] On September 5, 1996, Yousef and two co-conspirators were convicted for their role in the Bojinka plot and were sentenced to life in prison without parole. U.S. District Court Judge Kevin Duffy referred to Yousef as "an apostle of evil" before recommending that the entire sentence be served in solitary confinement.[20]

On November 12, 1997 Yousef was found guilty of masterminding the 1993 bombing and in 1998 he was convicted of "seditious conspiracy" to bomb the World Trade Center towers.[21][22]

The judge sentenced Yousef to 240 years for the Trade Center attack, and life in prison for killing Haruki Ikegami in 1994.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramzi_Yousef#Arrest.2C_conviction_and_prison_life

 

[Joey McGee]

Bursting into a hotel room and raiding a compound with helicopters are two very different situations. You can install cameras and microphones in a hotel room, rent the room next door, etc. If bin Laden wanted to live he should have made like a starfish. He knew who was coming for him, helicopters and SEALS rappelling out the side of them and everything. Plenty of time to strap himself with a bomb and plenty of motive to do so.

He turned around and ran when they saw him at the top of the stairs, who knows what he was going to do in that room? Could have easily been to trigger a bomb, you know, waiting at the top of the stairs to see when they were coming.

How would you have conducted the operation from finding out he was there months ago?

 

[epepke]

The ironic thing is that essentially we agree on this though.

Yes, which is why I wondered about your response.

Because there is more support for terrorism in the Middle East, more of it happens. As I said in my first post, it is a matter of scale, and it is a MUCH larger problem in the ME because it is seen as acceptable behavior to such a large proportion of people.

It seems pretty acceptable outside the Middle East, too. The bombing in Indonesia, the (probably) Pakistani shootings in India, a few stabbings in the UK, the Beltway sniper in the US (remember?), the Fort Hood shootings, and quite a few other incidents.