An old friend of mine, a Native American from South Dakota, as usual, told me many times “The problem with you Whites is that you have to understand and to go deeply into everything. Isn’t an essential thing to comprehend and motivate all the things, expecially the ones that come from human mind.”
I don’t think it may be really important to settle if the question is “revenge or justice”. For many anti-Americans-radical- progressive- comunists, here in Italy, the killing of OBL has been nothing less than a brutal homicide, perpetrated by the USA Imperialistic Government. For many others, included (probably) you and me, it has been an act of legitimate justice.
I appreciated the quotation of the Colonel Jessup from the 1992 movie “A few good men”… Since i first watched that movie, his speech was the thing that really impressed me, for its harsh analysis of the crude facts of life of those men…(the same that went over the wall into the Bin Laden’s compound two days ago). It doesn’t matter how the things may go, i’ll always be on their side.
Hi Iron Yeoman,
please forgive this poor illiterate Italian… What do you mean with Wot’e said? Thanx in advance for your availability and your time… 
At the end of the day OBL had to be killed and not arrested.
Dead he is a martyr no matter how it came about, cowering or fighting. The news and rumour mills will be used to fuel propoganda for supporters, followers, etc.
Alive he would still be a martyr but could also have any westerner open to kidnapping and execution unless he is released.
Wot 'e said is a gutter colloquialism for agreeing with what somebody else has said, as in I agree with what he said.
Hope that helps.
Exactly.
He’ll fade from memory and real, as distinct from symbolic, political signficance a lot quicker at the bottom of the ocean than he would have if kept in a prison for the rest of his worthless life.
Maybe there are some surprises as a result of his death.
Islamic world quiet as bin Laden age closes
(AP) – 3 hours ago (5 May 2011)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — In life, Osama bin Laden was burned into the Muslim consciousness in countless ways: the lion of holy warriors, the untouchable nemesis of the West, the evil zealot who soiled their faith with blood and intolerance.
In death, however, the voices across the Islamic world are now relatively muted in sharp counterpoint to the rage and shame — or hero-worship — that he long inspired. .
For some, the account of bin Laden’s death during a U.S. raid early Monday on his Pakistan compound is still too much to accept. One post on a militant website asks: “Has the sheik really died?”
But a more complex explanation for the relative quiet on the Muslim streets lies, in fact, on those same streets.
The pro-democracy uprisings across the Arab world suggest to many that al-Qaida’s clenched-fist ideology has little place for a new generation seeking Western-style political reforms and freedoms — even though al-Qaida offshoots still hold ground in places such as Yemen and Pakistan.
“Bin Laden died in Egypt before he was killed in Pakistan,” said Abdulkhaleq Abdullah, a professor of political science at Emirates University. “The young people who successfully challenged the status quo with peaceful means proved change the bin Laden way — the violent way, the jihad way — did not come.”
Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri — who took office after his father Rafik Hariri was killed in a 2005 truck bombing in Beirut — said bin Laden’s death serves as something of a moment of silence for those killed by al-Qaida or groups that borrowed their violence creed.
“Any Arab or Muslim who believes that terrorism is destructive and harmful to Arabism and Islam, cannot but receive the news of the fate of Osama bin Laden with feelings of sympathy toward the family of thousands of victims who died in different areas of the world because of him or by his orders,” said a statement by Saad Hariri.
Even in Iraq, there have been few public outpourings of happiness or grief in a country that has suffered years of relentless bombings and attacks by al-Qaida-linked groups targeting American forces or supporters of the U.S.-backed government.
A Baghdad-based political analyst, Hadi Jalo, said it appears to reflect a shift in Sunni insurgent groups that once called for a medieval-style Islamic caliphate in Iraq. They now are increasingly plotting ways to influence Iraq’s political world with U.S. troops scheduled to leave by the end of the year.
“Iraq today is different from Iraq in 2004, 2005 and 2006,” Jalo said. “If the death news came at that period, we would see mourning ceremonies in different areas where al-Qaida insurgents were active.”
In neighboring Iran — which backed the Shiite militant foes of Iraq’s al-Qaida militants — bin Laden’s death brought little public reaction, but was used by the Islamic rulers to jab at Washington. A commentary Wednesday by Iran’s semiofficial Fars News Agency mocked the epic costs of the near decade-long hunt for America’s most-wanted figure and its wars in the region.
“American lives are being lost. Innocent civilians are being killed. Several of the conflicts appear to be primed to go on for a long time,” said the agency, which is closely aligned with Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard.
The lack of major public outpourings or declarations from al-Qaida also add another layer of guesswork about its future. Most assume that bin Laden’s top aide, Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahri, is the apparent al-Qaida heir. There have been only isolated calls for quick revenge against the United States from protesters or on jihadist websites.
Just hours after bin Laden’s death was announced, however, CIA director Leon Panetta warned that “terrorists almost certainly will attempt to avenge” the killing of the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks.
“Bin Laden is dead,” Panetta wrote in a memo to CIA staff. “Al-Qaida is not.”
In Pakistan’s southern city of Karachi on Wednesday, about 1,000 mourners joined prayers for bin Laden arranged by a militant-linked charity. But there have been few other protests in the country that bin Laden may have used as his fugitive base for years.
In bin Laden’s pre-9/11 stronghold, Afghanistan, many people still refused to believe that he was dead despite Washington’s assertions of positive DNA tests. On Wednesday, President Obama said the U.S. will not release the photo of bin Laden’s body that was taken after he was killed.
“I don’t think he’s dead,” said Salam Jan Rishtania, a 26-year-old student in Kandahar. “I don’t trust the Americans because they are playing games over here. This may be part of their game.”
Still, there were some acts of homage in other parts of the Muslim world.
About 25 people in the Gaza Strip held pictures and posters of bin Laden on Tuesday. On the podcast channel of the pan-Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera, some messages praised bin Laden among many others denouncing him.
“You are the sheik of the mujahedeen (holy warriors). God may grant you heaven,” said one post. Another read: “You are in heaven, Sheik Osama.”
Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of Hamas-controlled Gaza, portrayed bin Laden as the victim of a state-sponsored “terrorist act.”
“We disagree with the vision of holy warrior Osama bin Laden, but we condemn this terrorist act,” Haniyeh told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “What the U.S. did is not a heroic action, but a targeted killing. … To pursue and kill him in Pakistan, which is Muslim land, means for us a further intervention in the land of Islam.”
But in Somalia, where a hard-line Islamist group holds sway over large parts of the country, demonstrators marched defiantly through government-held parts of the capital, Mogadishu, and burned a flag they said represented al-Qaida.
“Terror, terror go away,” they chanted. “Little kids want to play.”
Associated Press writers Barbara Surk in Dubai; Mirwais Khan in Kandahar, Afghanistan; Chris Brummitt in Islamabad; Elizabeth Kennedy in Beirut; Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City; Abdi Guled in Mogadishu, and Maamoun Youssef in Cairo contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
I would like to ask to Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of Hamas- controlled Gaza, which meaning he ascribes to the “terrorist act” concept. If the killing of OBL is considered by him the over-mentioned “terrorist act”, what about the Twin Towers attack, the two hundreds people killed in 2002 Bali massacre and many others killed elsewhere, by this “holy warrior”? What is the definition he gives to those “acts”? Perhaps he’s probably trying to state that lifes have different weight? May the Osama Bin Laden’s life be more important than a life of a poor worker, whose body is still mixed with the Towers debris?
And what about the raving “… a further intervention in the land of Islam”? Which kind of meaning he’s trying to ascribe to the “Muslim land”? A place where should exists a sort of acquired immunity, against any kind of crime?
I think it’s gonna be difficult, if not impossible, to reach something important, in order to heal the great disagreements with the Muslim World, if we have to deal with this kind of Political Leaders…
Rising Sun*, thanx for your interesting post…
Far too many people in the commentariat seem to have forgotten that Osama was a self-declared warrior engaged in a self-declared war against America and every other nation and everybody else who didn’t share his view of the supremacy of Islam and its Allah-given authority to wage war on Osama’s, Allah’s and Islam’s enemies.
This seems a fair ‘plain English’ summary of the law dealing with the bin man as a combatant, unlike the demands from many that he should have been captured and brought to trial like some civilian criminal.
Was killing Osama bin Laden legal?
5-5-2011
By Gabor Rona
International Legal Advisor
He was an evil mass-murderer. Does it matter how it went down? Absolutely.
It matters to one of the fundamental humanitarian principles of the laws of armed conflict: if they are “hors de combat,” or “outside the fight,” then targeting even military objectives is a war crime.
So first, was bin Laden a military objective? Assuming one accepts the idea that the United States is at war with al Qaeda, yes. In war, persons who directly participate in hostilities or who perform a continuous combat function in an armed group are targetable, and bin Laden certainly was the latter, if not the former.
But what about “hors de combat?” Here’s what Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions says:
“A person is ‘hors de combat’ if:
(a) he is in the power of an adverse Party;
(b) he clearly expresses an intention to surrender; or
(c) he has been rendered unconscious or is otherwise incapacitated by wounds or sickness, and therefore is incapable of defending himself;
provided that in any of these cases he abstains from any hostile act and does not attempt to escape.”
The first reports had it that bin Laden was armed and put up resistance by using a woman as a human shield. Subsequent reports said wrong, not armed, no human shield.
Does that render him “hors de combat?” No. It does not amount to either (a) or (b) or (c), above.
Some law of war theorists claim that a person who poses no evident threat is also “hors de combat.” (To keep my students interested, I call it the naked soldier hypothetical). But unless and until that idea finds its way into the Geneva Conventions or into the practice of a substantial portion of the world’s militaries acting out of a sense of legal obligation, it will not be the law.
What about the fact that he was an evil terrorist with the blood of thousands on his hands? If he was “hors de combat” that would be a matter for judge and jury to sort out, not Navy Seals. And that’s exactly as it should be because killing in war is not for the purpose of implementing justice. It’s for the purpose of neutralizing the enemy. I won’t argue with President Obama’s conclusion that “justice was done,” but I do think that term is more appropriate for what comes from a (legitimate) court of law than the end of a gun.
But what if you reject the “war against al Qaeda” paradigm? In that event, human rights law, rather than the laws of war would be your guide. And human rights law prohibits arbitrary deprivation of the right to life. While the legality of lethal force is a closer question outside of armed conflict than in it, the totality of circumstances make it difficult to claim that the killing was arbitrary, even if bin Laden was not actively resisting or fleeing.
All in all, probably a legal kill assuming the official version is true.
Update: The Obama Administration articulated the right standard and analysis to this case when White House Spokesman Jay Carney said, ”The team had the authority to kill Osama bin Laden unless he offered to surrender; in which case the team was required to accept his surrender if the team could do so safely.” Carney also stated that ”(t)he operation was planned so that the team was prepared and had the means to take bin Laden into custody.”
My bold http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/
The author isn’t exactly a lightweight in the area, despite working for a human rights organisation which one might expect to lean to a softer interpretation adverse to America’s action in ridding the world of the bin man.
Gabor Rona
International Legal Director
Joined Human Rights First in 2005
As the International Legal Director of Human Rights First, Gabor Rona advises Human Rights First programs on questions of international law and coordinates international human rights litigation. He also represents Human Rights First with governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, the media and the public on matters of international human rights and international humanitarian law (the law of armed conflict).
Before coming to Human Rights First, Gabor was a Legal Advisor in the Legal Division of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva. At the ICRC he focused on the application of international humanitarian and human rights law in the context of counter-terrorism policies and practices. He represented the ICRC in intergovernmental, nongovernmental, academic and public forums and his articles on the topic have appeared in the Financial Times, the Fletcher Forum on World Affairs and the Chicago Journal of International Law, among other publications. In addition, he represented the ICRC in connection with the establishment of international and other criminal tribunals, including the International Criminal Court. He has also taught International Humanitarian Law and International Criminal Law in several academic settings, including the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France and the University Centre for International Humanitarian Law in Geneva, Switzerland.
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/about-us/staff/gabor-rona/
A similar view from an Australian academic, who is in the minority of the idealistic chattering classes who dominate the press here on this issue but his opinion reflects the opinion of the majority of average people who use common sense instead of abstract legal and philosophical ideals to form their views.
The New Yorker raised how risky it was to suddenly allow political killings: “It is, to put it mildly, an easy power to abuse. bin Laden didn’t get a trial and didn’t deserve one. But the number of people for whom that is true is small. At least it should be.”
But Donald Rothwell, professor of international law at the ANU College of Law, regards bin Laden as a combatant to the US and says therefore his death was a lawful killing, not an assassination. He acknowledges others may differ on calling bin Laden a combatant.
“As a combatant he is therefore a lawful target and can be killed because he enjoys no immunity as a combatant,” explained Rothwell. “He has combatant status as he is the head of al-Qaeda, an organisation involved in armed conflict with the US, not only because of the events of 9/11 but because it continues to be at conflict with the United States.”
Rothwell also is not a lightweight in the area.
Donald Rothwell is Professor of International Law at the ANU College of Law and has a wide range of interests in international law ranging from the law of the sea, to the use of force, Antarctica and the Polar Regions, and military operations law. He was formerly a legal officer in the Royal Australian Navy Reserves and also teaches Military Operations Law to Australian Defence Force Lawyers in the postgraduate Military Law program offered by the ANU. He is currently Deputy Director of the Australian Centre for Military Law and Justice at the ANU College of Law.
http://law.anu.edu.au/UnitUploads/LAWS8268-1773-fulloutline.pdf
See also http://law.anu.edu.au/scripts/staffdetails.asp?StaffID=393
If America and its friends are really such terrible people that their actions in and support for killing the bin man render them inhumane in the idealistic eyes of the chattering classes, where does that put the moral scale of the chattering classes for their deafening silence about (a) sundry jihadists beheading innocents to secure the release of the bin man’s combatants around the planet and (b) events such as Madrid, Bali and London bombings?
Some people need to grasp the difference between something on the scale of 9/11, which is on the Pearl Harbor level, as a carefully planned and executed act of war against America, and its friends, and some crazy who massacres a family next door for no good reason and who as part of our processes for social cohesion should be dealt with according to the law that, ulike the bin man, both the victims and offender lived under and to which they were all subject, unlike some **** in Afghanistan and later Pakistan thinking he was safe from the just wrath of the nation he attacked as an act of war.
They’re done by his mob, so they’re okay.
We all suffer from that when we’re backing our own team.
But none of the nations targeted by the likes of the bin man ever engaged in anything as monstrous as 9/11 as an unprovoked attack on anyone and, more confusingly, without making any demands or revealing any purpose.
9/11 was just a particular brand of Islamic rage directed at America, and at America as a representative of all that the likes of the bin man abhor because they cannot abide a place where their medieval views of a male dominated religious society are not observed. Which is all the more reason to wipe them out before they wipe us out because, once we free ourselves of modern politically correct speech, that is what it comes down to.
Agree 1.000% or, like Iron Yeoman and Tankgeezer taught me, wot 'e said!!!
The sad and infinitely depressing thing is that the last thing I, and most people in the West and probably most people in the Islamic world, want is a war for religious (particularly as I’m irregligious, which makes me a target for countless religious police from various faiths :D) reasons which in the end won’t make anybody any better off or happier. Exactly the opposite result is guaranteed.
But the bin man managed to polarise a lot of people on both sides, but mostly at the margins where the morons, who control a lot of votes or support in all nations, on both sides reside.
What disturbs me most about all of this is that where once I took little or no notice of hijabs etc, apart from having contempt for the strutting Muslim men wearing shorts, T shirts and sandals while their women followed them in the full gear in searingly hot weather, is that now I and almost all of the people I know now tend to have contempt for, or at the very least are not sympathetic to, all displays of Islam as it is demonstrated publicly here.
Which is sad because some Muslims here are trying, and trying very commendably in the face of the sort of my attitude I have just outlined, to open prayer rooms and mosques to the rest of us and to show that Islam is not a threat.
Which would all be fine, except for all the jihadis blowing themselves and others up etc all around the plant.
It would be nice if we could build a sieve which separates the dangerous Muslims from the rest with whom we could live peacefully.
But I think it’s their job to design and use that sieve because if they can’t sort out the dangers in their own community I fail to see how those of us outside that community are able to do it, or why we should be responsible for the consequences of failing to weed out their violent elements.
I think a local news columnist sums it up here:
Bin Laden merited no mercy
By Donn Esmonde
Updated: May 8, 2011, 7:27 AM
To put it bluntly, so what? The news that bin Laden was unarmed — and not, as originally reported, locked and loaded — when he met his maker may give some people pause. Should not the terrorist mastermind have gotten a chance to surrender?
Uh, no. Bin Laden reportedly had an AK-47 and smaller guns in his death room. There were concerns he might have worn a “suicide vest.” It helps to justify bin Laden’s killing, for those who need justification. Frankly, I do not care if bin Laden was cowering under the bed when the Navy SEAL put a bullet in his head. I think bin Laden waived his right to due process a long time ago.
This is not, to me, something to get a national guilty conscience over. Let’s not lose sight of who bin Laden was, and what he did. The passage of nearly 10 years should not cloud the reality of the mass murder that he masterminded on 9/11.
As far as I am concerned, any mandate of “innocent until proven guilty” for bin Laden went out the windows of the crumbling World Trade Center towers. On that day, he stamped his death certificate.
I was on the streets of lower Manhattan in the days after the Twin Towers fell. I can assure you, no one I spoke with — cop, firefighter, first responder, resident, loved one of victim — entertained any thoughts of a trial-by-jury for bin Laden.
The unanimous sentiment: Catch him and kill him.
Bin Laden was the last person on the planet who could complain about not getting a day in court or a show of mercy. As for the morality of shooting an unarmed man, U. S. Attorney General Eric Holder said that — as head of al-Qaida — bin Laden was “an enemy commander” and a justifiable target under International Law.
Aside from legalities, his death last Sunday in a U.S. commando raid fulfilled revenge fantasies sparked by 9/11. To have bin Laden expire at the hands of Navy SEALs, instead of from natural causes or in an impersonal airstrike, was the Hollywood ending most folks had given up hope for. The bullet that slammed into his skull was no less than a message from America, however long it took to deliver.
Make no mistake, bin Laden got the ending he deserved. As he heard the attack helicopters land, and the SEALs blast through the walls of the compound and pound up the stairs, bin Laden at least had a chance to understand what was happening, and why. Which is more consideration than he gave to nearly 3,000 innocent victims on 9/11.
If this was indeed a “kill or capture” mission, I suspect that whoever gave the order was winking while uttering the word “capture.” There was no logic in taking bin Laden alive. Being confined for months, then given the circus of a trial, would merely inflate his stature as a symbol of resistance among true believers and the persuadable. How would that help us?
I understand that the rule of law is what separates America from uncivilized countries. But this is a man who — in addition to the civilian slaughter of 9/11 — masterminded the 1998 killing of 224 people in truck bombings outside of U. S. embassies in Africa, and the deaths of 17 U. S. sailors in the USS Cole attack. The usual rules do not apply, because bin Laden burned the rule book.
Did Hitler deserve his day in court? Was Pol Pot denied a fair hearing? Should Idi Amin have been shown mercy? I think not.
When it comes to mass murderers, there are no shades of gray. Bin Laden declared holy war on the United States 15 years ago. Since then, he has claimed lives, changed lives and — from airport security, to anxiety levels, to American military ventures — changed our way of life.
Sunday night, American got its payback. In bin Laden’s case, it was fair play.
Sounds spot on to me.
I don’t have a problem with killing OBL and recognize the incredible effort, spanning several years, and the professionalism of operation.
I did, however, have some uneasy feelings about the crowds of young people cheering his death. I wonder how many of them ever considered actually serving in the military?
Same here.
I think that although it’s a legitimate sentiment to welcome his death, it’s a bit unseemly to do it as a public demonstration.
Then again, a lot of people in the Muslim world engaged in much more unseemly, and in my view utterly repugnant, public demonstrations to celebrate the destruction of the twin towers, so they’re not in any position to criticise the public reaction of some Americans to Obama’s death.
I heartily agree. Islamic fundamentalists do have a habit of burning down/attacking embassies of offending nations whenever they do something disagreeable. Who remembers the ridiculous furore that swept Sudan when a British teacher let her class call their teddy ‘Mohammed’ (peace be upon him). And lets us not forget the incredible backlash over that Danish cartoon. I think the Americans are qute deserving of their street celebrations over the death of OBL.
We’re singing from the same hymn book, except nowadays I’d question that it’s only Islamic fundamentalists who are a problem.
The behaviour of sundry Muslims here, notably second and third generation Lebanese who generally aren’t fundamentalist Muslims (unless you regard social security fraud, car rebirthing, drug dealing, protection rackets, steriod fuelled violence, etc etc as Islamic fundamentalism), in celebrating the destruction of the twin towers at the time suggests that the problem of the mentality which supports such things isn’t limited to fundamentalists.
Conversely, there are many Muslims who are appalled by the behaviour of bin Laden and the local supporters, but they don’t seem to have much influence on the more strident elements in their community.
There’s a comedian in the UK of Iranian extraction called Omid Djallili. He makes the point that the media are fairly guilty of only showing the nutters on TV because it makes better viewing as a result the more moderate side rarely get a look in and the perception is created that most muslims are nutters. It’s a bit like interviewing the KKK or BNP everytime something happens in the west. Interestingly enough the Muslim council of Great Britain were fairly welcoming of Bin Laden’s demise, they blame him and his ilk for tarring them with the same brush and as a result becoming more of a target for loonies like the English Defence League (EDL).
A fair point. Here’s the latest example from the Antipodes, with a self-styled Islamic leader who appears to be rather fond of mascara and other make up not normally worn by men (or not worn by normal men) of any religion and who appears to have a following of himself.
http://aca.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8246800
However, the people celebrating 9/11 here to whom I was referring in my last post never got into the public domain on television or anything else. They were involved in small local demonstrations, such as in state secondary schools with significant Muslim enrolments. I base my comments on the experiences of people I know, such as the teacher in a state secondary school who challenged the Lebanese thugs celebrating 9/11 and found herself on the wrong end of a discrimination complaint by these morons, which was taken seriously by her principal and the ****wits running our state education bureaucracy.
Some good articles here from Time Magazine I read while in the hospital waiting room:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2069249,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,932476277001_2069645,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,2068895,00.html