They said "surrender", he said "no", they shot him (*)? That pretty much seems to be within the rules of engagement, though I can't tell for sure since they're classified.

(*) "First, UBL was targetable based on his status alone, not just his conduct at the moment, so long as he had not surrendered (just as a bomb may be dropped on the quarters of enemy soldiers (and their commanders) while they sleep, unarmed). There is no obligation in combat, under IHL, to say to an otherwise lawful target “surrender or we’ll shoot.”" - Leon Panetta (http://www.lawfareblog.com/2011/05/on-the-...title-50-issue/)

An enemy combatant can legally be shot in the back while he tries to escape, can't he?



(http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/470?OpenDocument)



It's too bad he hadn't.

Sure it does; liberals are anti-war pussies, conservatives are wargasming hawks. This one time, I side with the hawks. No Trial of the Century, no cozy Supermax...hell, not even a burial site for them to make a martyr's shrine out of, he sleeps with Luca Brasi.

With all due respect, you side with the sheep. The evidence linking bin Laden to the 911 attacks is dubious and/or secret. His organization lacked the expertise and logistics to carry out 911. He has been mythologized by the media into a Jihadi superstar, and this whole extravaganza was like a giant "APPLAUSE" sign lit up by the people who brought you Obama. Can you say "Pavlov"? Don't worry, the effects will wear off by the end of the week.

He did confess, and the threads all led to Al-Qaeda. Next thing you know, people will be accusing Queen Elizabeth of being a drug pusher.

He denied it for three years, until he realized that claiming credit for it was the equivalent of winning American Idol in the world of Islamic Radicalism.

I can't find the article now, but I think it was the LA Times which quoted an unnamed official as saying something along the lines of "He had a rifle next to him, and the SEALs were like, OK, not going to bother with trying to take him prisoner." Your choice whether to believe that or not.

The NY Times' most recent poll put Obama's popularity as having gone from 46% approval to 57% approval. Most of that is going to be temporary, but good for him?

Osama was just a sideshow, he was used by the CIA and Islamic extremists and subsequently discarded by both.

The real threat to world security is Pakistan, which is rapidly approaching the tipping point. Now I wonder who'll gain control of their nukes...

What about all the other acts of terrorism that al-Qaeda has committed? Or do you not believe the evidence that Bin Laden was a key player in al-Qaeda either?



A confession, following three years of denial, does not qualify as evidence?

Joint Special Operations Command (T-H-L-K-D)

Let's put it this way, gents. Bin Laden was without a doubt an unpleasant fellow. But for Obama to step into the spotlight and proclaim that the terror problem is now solved because we killed him is comparable to George W. Bush landing on that aircraft carrier in his flight jacket and saying "Mission Accomplished." The real perpetrators of 911 are still at large.

However, I love the way that TV news commentators can't cover this story without getting "Obama" and "Osama" mixed up.

You mean it would be comparable, if it had happened?

The US alliance with Pakistan is a relic of the Cold War. Pakistan supported and funded the Taliban until the US told them to switch sides. We should be trying to ensure a controlled transfer of power to separatist states instead of trying to keep it together. The next Pakistani generation won't have any experience with the independence movement, and a state bonded together by religion alone won't strong enough to keep all those ethnicities together.

Obama:
Bush:

At first I was just going to lambast you as a simple ignoramus, not unlike a recent football player. But then we see you citing "larouchepub.com" futher on, so that pretty explains what is wrong with you.

If you actually follow the link, you will note that LaRouche, being interviewed live as the events of September 11, 2001 unfolded, already possessed detailed knowledge of who bin Laden was, and had been writing about him and his activities for years. Most people heard of him for the first time in the weeks that followed.


There is actually much more substantial hard evidence implicating members of the Saudi government, in particular Prince Bandar bin Sultan, than there is to implicate bin Laden. Don't hold your breath waiting for an investigation of Bandar -- it already took place in the US Senate, and was promptly classified and hushed up under "National Security." And let's take a moment to recall that the same FBI that insists that bin Laden was the great mastermind, is the FBI that apparently disregarded advance warnings of an attack, including the use of airliners as a weapon.

At this point, we should all have learned that what Obama says is no reliable indication of what he intends to do. The main question to ask about the killing of bin Laden is why this particular moment was chosen to do it (and why he was not captured when it would have been a simple matter to do so.) To my mind, this was a PR stunt to divert public attention from the ongoing economic collapse, and somehow make a re-election bid by Obama seem credible.

So, Larouchetard, who did 9/11? Please be more creative than "the Jews".

You really need to read the 9/11 Commission report to see what kind of Kings of Komedy operation 9/11 was. It was done on a shoestring. It was carried out by amateurs. At some point we have flight school people asking around about these weird students who only want to learn how to fly jets but not land them. All this in retrospect, but it all happened. Not that much money was involved. The effects were spectacular because a skyscraper represents a HUGE amount of potential energy, just waiting to be tipped over. As does a moving jet aircraft, if you redirect it a bit. And to do that, all you need do is break through a very thin cockpit door (at that time), and the pilots are not armed. All you need is 4 muscle-men and one guy who can turn an airplane.

The genius of 9/11 was in getting suicide operatives to apply force at three successive levels (pilot, plane, tower support structure) to gain access to larger and larger amounts of energy, in a chain. I don't think anybody, including al-Qaeda, thought the buildings would actually collapse. But hot steel won't stand those loads, and one section brings down the next, and away you go. As we know now.

Totally brilliant and nothing anybody saw coming, because nobody ever envisioned suicide jet-hijackers. Even Tom Clancey, a very bright guy who came closest to forseeing 9/11 in Executive Orders (1996) did it with a kamikazi Japanese airline pilot. The last flash of insight about not needing a skilled pilot if you take over the plane IN FLIGHT hadn't been arrived at.

Did bin Laden think of it? No, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the brains. Bin Laden provided the resources of of al-Qaeda, such as they were. And because the idea was so damned original and so damned fanatical-- it took 20 men (19 in the event) who were willing to fly, or watch while they were flown, into a *&%$ng BUILDING at 500 knots-- it was enough. As with Lee Harvey Oswald and his surplus rifle almost as old as he was, audacity, originality, and sheer craziness counts for a lot. Sometimes more than all the planning and money in the world can buy from sane operatives and professionals.

Er, I just saw this mentioned above.

I think you're probably right, but the lesson the USA ought to have learned from the kamikaze attacks at the end of the Second World War is the obvious one. It's almost impossible to defend yourself against attackers who know and accept that they will die in the attack, as Muslim extremists are encouraged to do.

"But for Obama to step into the spotlight and proclaim that " - your words. You were claiming he said something (or proclaimed it). Now you're saying something different.

Best comment in thread.

As I mentioned way back at the dawn of this thread, the timing is all the more curious because Obama had just shut down the planned trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in order to avoid a public examination of involvement by the Saudi government.
And as with Lee Harvey Oswald, it would have been fascinating and very, very informative to hear what he would have to say about it. The fact that both were murdered before they could stand trial speaks volumes. There is certainly no more convenient way to close a case.

Yes, and it refutes none of what I said. Yes, people had tried to crash small private planes into things. Nothing like a commercial jet. Yes, occasionally some nutcase would suggest that hijackers might crash a jet into something, and those in the know said "Not realistic-- hijackers are not going to be able to fly a commerical airliner, and the pilot on the job is certainly not going to cooperate in any way with a suicide dive no matter what they do."

IOW, you'll never recruit hijackers from people who are already commercial airline pilots, and nutjob hijackers cannot be run through all the stuff it takes to become a commercial airline pilot. That's why Clancey has his suicide commercial jet attack done by ONE lone and crazy airline pilot, as an act of personal vendetta (and after killing the copilot, with no passengers on board). People who ever thought about it figured a committed hijacker type would never make it all the way to being a legitimate airline pilot, and nobody considered that anything less would do the job. You're either a pilot or you're not, no in between.

The idea that there was an "in between"-- that's the That you might be able to teach just 4 or 8 hijackers JUST enough about piloting a commercial jet to fly the plane (badly) after take-off (some tiny fraction of what you need to know to be a commercial jet pilot), and that they might actually go to school to learn JUST THAT MUCH, ala carte, never occurred to anybody. That's the stroke of both genius and madness. Who would have thought you could go pay a fee and be taught ONLY to fly a commercial jet plane badly, but not land or take off? I would not even have thought that possible (it would be like teaching somebody to remove an appendix without bothering to go to any medical school). Only the sorts of people who ran such private aviation schools would have known that. And these guys are pilots-- it does not occur to THEM that they're teaching people who are only interested in crashing and dying. Why the hell should it? It's so foreign to their every thought and instinct that they never seriously consider it, either. Probably they think their students are just dilettants like people who pay to fly mockup space shuttles.

And there you go.

No. Congress attached a rider to the defense bill that removed any funding to allow KSM to be tried in NYC, and the president signed it as part of the bill, while objecting to it. See congress if you want to complain, not Obama. Don't forget your "give the president a line-item veto" sticker.

KSM is scheduled for a military trial otherwise. Always a bad precident, given the many miscarriages of US military justice in the past. I believe they get credit for the two biggest mass hangings (native americans and blacks) and largest serial-electrocution series (Germans), as well as hanging of a woman while suppressing evidence of her innocence, etc. Somebody once said that military justice is to justice what military music is to music.

I can hardly think of a dumber one. Why not take care of Oswald at his little boarding housing on the day of the assassination, or in the neighborhood nearby, instead of in front of a gazillion cops in the cop station two days later? There's a dumb plan. And what about the rest? A crazy strip club owner? Ruby had the chance to do Oswald the previous day, and has his weapon, but doesn't act. Why not? Yet the next day when Oswald is due to be transferred, Ruby is up the street sending a wire-money transfer to a stripper and would have missed it, if it had been on-time. Screwup. Oswald delayed, asking for a clothing change. Suicide, perhaps? And what about Ruby's masterful double-tap to Oswald's chest and skull? No? Just the old single-shot to the kidney-abdominal-vessels? Do they still teach that one specially to assassins planning to kill people on national TV? It does look cool, as you see on my avatar. But such precission in the clutch!

As for what Oswald would have to say, we heard enough to know, did we not? Lies. He denies owning a rifle. He refuses to answer questions about the fake ID in his pocket with his photo, that has the name he uses to order the rifle. He admits owning his pistol, ordered with the same name (wups) and address as the rifle. Shown a photo of himself with rifle, says it's a fake. But his wife says she took the photo (wups) and he does own a rifle. Photo and neg are matched to her camera and the place they had lived the previous March. Others have seen the rifle. A copy of the photo sent by Oswald to a friend and signed and dated (!) that April later turns up. The wife of Oswald friend has seen Oswald's rifle. Oswald's palmprint is on the rifle....

Perhaps in real life, secret agents are not as awesomely competent as they are in the movies. Admittedly there is a controversy about Ruby and whether he was acting on his own (judging by the Wikipedia article.) However, as of yet, there seems to be little doubt that Osama was executed by official, credentialed agents of the U.S.A.

Yep. A fact which in itself illustrates that simple and perhaps unpleasant fact that the 5 "great powers" on the UN security council operate outside any sort of international law. They do as they please and the worst they suffer is embarassment and world criticism or sanction. Which sanction for the economic powerhouse that is presently the US (still) can never be much. The US won't see the beginning of THAT light, until the Chinese start taking away our national credit card in about 10 years, and then you'll hear the sort of stuff that comes from entitled and addicted and violent children. But there will be no self-examination, since the US has never had to employ much, for the last century.

All of which raises to new heights of hypocrisy the US's hair-splitting about how to try "legal" vs. "illegal" enemy "combatants." What the hell does "legal" have to do with anything? Its only meaning, if it has one, could be expressed far more simply and honestly. "Illegal" in this case, is just a jive word for "The US doesn't like it" (US:DONTLIKEIT, to use a wikimetaphor). Like marijuana. The "single mad religious belief" that the average US citizen believes in, is that everybody in the civilized world (including the US) is governed by righteous internal and international laws, and (therefore, ipso facto, Q.E.D.) "bad guys" are also "outlaws," and therefore (if they employ force) terrorists. Whereas if the US employs force, we are never terrorists. Even if we blow up pharmaceutical factories and radio stations, or even invade whole countries and kill tens of thousands of civilians on totally bogus information and cretinous paranoia, we're just engaging in military action that has collateral damage, and not even an apology is needed.

We believe this including when this has no way to be true, except by redefining "laws" to mean "merely what the US doesn't like." We sought revenge against bin Laden in an anarchistic world, and took it. Fine by me, since he started it (or rather, he escalated it unreasonably). But at some point, the US is going to have to come to terms with the idea that anarchy for us means anarchy for others, also. If the US wants rules for war, it had better be prepared to abide by such rules, itself.

But Oswald did not shoot JFK. This video shows you who really did it!

According to the Wikipedia article, when Obama claimed credit for 9-11 in 2004, he said he was giving the U.S. a taste of its own medicine.

Heh, you said Obama.

That's much the same as what Timothy McVeigh said. And if the US had done right in Waco, they would have avoided the Oklahoma City bombing. The truth is that the US doesn't really give a damn about things like Oklahoma City. They care about exercise of authority, and there's no limit to amount of damage they'll take, or blood and treasure they'll expend, to keep it. After all, the people who exercise the "authority" (a very funny word) are not the ones paying in either blood OR treasure.

That's the old game. It's very mammalian. Old beachmasters or harem bulls or whatever collect power, while younger bucks (the underclass and the young men) bleed and fight and and compete for a small chance to be old bulls. Women pick up (and feed on) the survivors, whoever they are, and losers are losers. Thus comes funding for the next generation.

And you know what? The above may sound cynical, but as bad as I am, I'm not cynical ENOUGH. Even I had a romantic vision of bin Laden living in a cave in the border hills, in a sparan warrior's existence. No. He was holed up in a nice comfortable compound with TVs and young wives (a running start on the 72 virgins he now enjoys, I suppose). Younger men were out doing his dying FOR him.

I. Am. Shocked.

Shocked, I tell you.

Hmmm, except that the USA actually did figure out ways to defend itself against kamikaze attacks in WWII.

And that's just on a micro level. On the macro level you try to minimize the damage and sooner or later the enemy starts running out of kamikaze volunteers (which also happened in WWII, even sort of with the Germans since being a German fighter pilot wasn't that far off from being a kamikaze by late '43 or so - chance of survival were slim, much lower than fighting on the Eastern Front)

American politics in a nutshell. (I'd prefer to have Moe in the White House, at this point.)