Ho ho ho... too funny.
I was speaking of before.. I didn't know if you were arguing for a trial of OBL as opposed to his murder.

Which people should be on trial for (potentially) murder?

Oh, before, he should have been arrested and put in trial because he was suspected of murder... as a matter of fact that is my point.

km

A reply to Hitchens' reply to Chomsky:

George Scialabba: Hitchens Distorts Noam Chomsky

No, that's what you inferred. Again, the legal justification he cites in the interview has nothing to do with surrender or not, so I'm not sure why you keep putting those words into his mouth:

"The attorney general reiterated that the operation was legal, saying that international law allows the targeting of enemy commanders."

"It was an act of national self-defense." (from the video)



I gather Holder's assessment is based more on the ongoing threat bin Laden posed to the US as the enemy commander not just on the immediate situational threat bin Laden and his beard(??!) may have posed during the actual raid.

That's right - because that's what he implied.


No that's wrong - the only legal justification for killing someone in these circumstance is self defence meaning that the soldiers believed they had to kill him to stay alive themselves. Holder's reference to bin Laden's willingness to "surrender" suggests a misunderstanding of the law in that regard.

km

Not directed at anyone in particular… but to us all…

Joshua Holland:
Was the Killing of Osama bin Laden Legal?
May 13, 2011

"What’s clear is that people on both sides of the debate have had an emotional reaction to bin Laden’s death. They’re embracing as fact whatever claims support their reactions, and selecting only those sources of law that lend credence to their previously held assumptions."

That makes no sense.
So of all the missions ever executed.. you can definitively say this one went according to plan because he is dead.

Come on.. you can do better than that....

Well, it looks like we could go 'round and 'round with the "surrender as justification" theme that you seem to get from what Holder said and I clearly disagree. But this seems to be the crux of your point:



You're trying to apply tests regarding an individual's right to self defense against personal attack to a State engaged in hostilities against an enemy, and those tests just don't scale appropriately ...

A State has a right to self defense and the right to kill an enemy engaged in hostilities against it. Were that not true warfare itself would be illegal, which, for better or worse, is clearly not the case ...

During such hostilities, a General, for example, doesn't have to be physically brandishing a weapon before he can become a legitimate target for his enemies -- that he plans and directs others who do the actual fighting legally makes him as much a combatant as they are. Likewise, bin Laden in his capacity as leader of al Qaeda -- an organization actively engaged in hostilities against the United States and actively planning further action against it -- didn't need to be actually holding a gun or threatening to detonate a bomb before becoming a legal, legitimate target for US forces ...

Holder's point I think is that short of bin Laden actually offering to surrender, killing him was a legal act of State self defense in the context of ongoing hostilities between al Qaeda and the United States ...

My interpretation is that the mission's real objective was to kill Bin Laden and that they succeeded.

Do you think this mission failed? Do you think this mission was to capture and bring him in alive?

SEALs suspect of what ? Defending themselves ?

No it's NOT wrong if they thought he was going to try to escape, grab a weapon, or hit some kind of doomsday button and become a instant martyr.

YOU're making too many assumptions, including that they're guilty instead of being innocent. You can pull that cr@p in the UK, but it doesn't fly over here, Union Jack !