The Glade 4.0

There's no formal declaration of war, so that makes it murky. Legally, both Afghanistan and Iraq were approved as police actions under the War Powers Act. So, I'm not exactly sure how what the appropriate classification is ...

Likewise, the fact that he was apprehended/shot/whatever in Pakistan might further complicate any dictionary definition of assassination or other classification.

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Yeah, he's probably hanging upside down somewhere in Guantanamo with a hose up his nose right now.

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This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

"Probably" is overstating it. He's probably fishfood. However, if the government could pull off such a feat, I'd admire it, not condemn it.

And they wouldn't keep him in guantanamo...too public.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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I'm surprised you seem approve of secret prisons. I'd give even Osama a trial.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I believe it was a kill mission in the planning, that the team was told outright he was not to leave Pakistan alive. The cost in human lives of outright killing him and the cost in human lives of bringing him to trial was weighed. Dead he is less expensive in almost all scenarios.

The more I think about it, the more I believe the ocean burial was a well considered strategic move. Now it is the other side's turn to deal with any rumor they like. Our top guys know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we have exacted vengeance and set precedence for what we will do in the future should anyone attack and piss us off again like OBL did.

Okay, it took us a decade, but we got him, killed him in cold blood and dumped him where no one will ever find him.

You want to take us on, we'll do it to you too, but next time, well we've learned our lesson about trying to play nice.

Seal Team 6 didn't lose a guy. They aren't our only kill squad.

I think this is the message we're trying to send.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

The cost of lives? What are you talking about? I think our message was already sent. The US is full of ****.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Kill Squad? Really?

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Yeah, I was in a hurry, can't be bothered to look up where the secret prisons are these days. Guantanamo was the first thing that came to mind. That would be just like hiding in plain sight next to some country's large military academy.

_________________
This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

Wwen, Alive he would be a rallying point for more terrorist activity. More lives would be lost trying to either free him or force his release. I'm not saying they were reasonable actions.

Vindi, call it what you like. The actions of ST6 qualify as a unit who can and will precisely perform the murder of a specific individual at the orders of their commander. No matter how justified we feel we are in taking OBL's life, it was very specifically a murder, the deliberate, planned, killing of a person.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

I'd consider that a lose/lose situation. No good could have come of an Osama trial.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

If you say so... I find the scary threat of terrorism upon the release of Osama pictures amusing though. Cause you know, they wanted to blow us up before for various reasons (not because they hate our freedoms), but if we show these pics they'll be really really angry. Oh **** noes. Let's let the threat of violence guide all our actions like a bunch of **** pussies.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Micheal, I guess I'm surprised that you would so nonchalantly label these men members of a "kill squad". I know that I wouldn't tell any of the guys I know who are/were Rangers or Force Recon that they're unit is a "kill squad". I guess I've got too much respect for those guys; not to mention I'd have to say it to them, and not just type it anonymously. Anyone who'll scoop up two little girls and carry them to safety, or shoot a woman in the leg rather than just blast her doesn't belong to a kill squad - at least in my mind.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

One of my by brothers in law, who served three tours with the Rangers, is one of the strongest and most straight forward men, both mentally and physically I have ever known. His sister, my wife usually referred to him as the hired killer, even to his face. I guess a got blase' about the terminology being married to her.

His last tour with them was as a Lieutenant Colonel, second in command of the Fort Benning Ranger Batallion. He also commanded the Paratroop School at Fort Benning. I was always amazed at the incredible level of fitness of him and his men. In is early 40s he could still out run, out fight and out train the great majority of the men in his units.

He's now retired, as a Full Colonel.

If I see a serviceman wearing the Ranger Tab the respect level goes up a notch. Same with any elite forces unit. Pat Tillman was a ranger. I was told he earned that tab every step of the way, no special dispensation is given to anyone in that Batallion. One of my former coworkers, also now retired, has a son that has spent almost his entire Army Career, over 20 years, as a Ranger. His father, extremely proud of him, occasionally dismisses it with "well, it keeps him out of trouble."

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Yeah, you've mentioned him a number of times, which adds to my surprise. I guess the way I express my respect is different than the way you do. Similarly, the way someone feels about what their wife says to them is quite different than how they feel when someone else does it - not to mention how someone would feel if a person they've never met labeled them with a rather unflattering epithet. Let me know what he thinks about labeling special forces operators as members of "kill squads".

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

I'm not referring to "retaliation."

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Not at all. Killing forieng enemies with which we are engaged in combat is not "murder" at all.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

When we initiate "combat" against unarmed people in their homes, then that is murder.

By the way, it is quite evident that anyone calling it an "Execution" is not familiar at all with how rapidly things happen in any sort of close-quarters action. Decisions are made in less than a second. If OBL did anything that even remotely looked like going for a weapon, shooting him is simply engaging an enemy, not an execution. These are not police officers, and he is not a domestic criminal. He is a foriegn enemy, who has engaged the U.S. militarily.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The military chose to put the soldiers in this close-quarter environment. It didn't happen randomly. So it was a planned execution.

So militarys should wait for the other guys to pick up their guns before we shoot them?

The house was full of weapons. They were armed.

No, they weren't armed. We shouldn't be raiding houses of people who pose no threat in countries we're not at war with. Even if they were armed, they have every right to resist in self-defense.

Ah, so planning terrorist attacks (that succeeded mind you) = no threat

So the police have no right to arrest someone in their own home? I mean a SWAT team storming a building known to house a dangerous criminal is wrong?
If you dont trust the foreign country (which we obviously dont in the case of Pakistan) then this is about the only way to do it.

We weren't invited into Pakistan and didn't have a formal declaration of war, so we shouldn't have been there. We had no right to be there. I think this was an act of vengeance rather than taking out someone who was planning terrorist activities. Bin Laden isn't a "dangerous criminal" but rather a suspect. Nobody is a criminal without a fair trial. Also it's interesting how Obama is so focused on the raid when he could be going over and studying economic issues that are plaguing our country.

To the people trying to say this wasn't assassination or murder, would you be okay with the military having done so, and never announced that they performed the raid?

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

They've done this all the time since this whole "War on Terror" started. If you find the location of a terrorist target, you go in, and you kill them all. It's the only way to engage an enemy like this.

Was this murder? The definition of murder is a legal one. So it depends what Pakistan's legal system says. (They're still claiming it was a joint pakistani/US operation, so they obviously have no intention of treating it as such. A killing is not necessarily murder. Murder is not a moral valuation, but a legal one.

In any event, even if it was murder in Pakistan, that's Pakistan's problem. Military actions often get called "murder" by the targeted side. And the other side, frankly, does not give a ****. In the USA, it's not murder, because the USA has no laws about shooting people in Pakistan. That's Pakistan's problem.

As for assassination, assassination on foreign soil is not against US law either. Even if one accepts that an illegal combatant that amounts to nothing more than an international criminal gang leader can be "assassinated," assassination is, ultimately, a good thing. We've got some moralist idiots who would prefer open warfare killing thousands rather than strategically taking out a few important people on the other side, which is just as effective.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █