From what I understand they where very skilled in a gun fight Bonnie could even handle a sawn down Browning Automatic Rifle not shabby for a very small woman.Also Clyde took his weapons very seriously and knew how to use them for example the BAR he liked that weapon because its rounds could easily penetrate car doors and the like most of his peers used the Thompson which lacked such fire power.They escaped being completely surrounded on more than one occasion.The same applies for Dillinger though I understand he was shot in the back of the head.Like you said some people have to just be put down.Not to mention that they killed several police officers in cold blood the Barrows at least.So I agree with you some people are just to dangerous to take alive.

Bin Laden got what he got it was fair I'll say that for sure like how the Israelis hunted down the guys involved in Munich 72 sometimes you just have to serve you nations justice hard Bin Laden was too much a risk to take alive I am glad that Bin Laden got double tapped to be honest.Honestly some people just dont deserve quarter.I say ask the SEAL that tapped him if he thinks it was legal I'll go with his answer.

@Wolf he was the mater mind and commander in chief of the ones that did attack us in a war which AQ clearly has long sense declared against all of us(unless you agree with AQs agenda)by that fact he is a legitimate target er I should say was.Hate to say but if you think by not agreeing that AQ is the enemy that you are not a possible target of AQ then you are sadly mistaken but whatever man yeah you missed something big time hope that you find it..... the truth that is.

I posted this thread to invite discussion on just that. The legality of the assassination.
All that has been discussed on this forum and indeed all over the net for that matter is the MORAL views on the assassination of OBL.
I'm not really interested in the moral aspects of the assassination.
Why? Because we all know, unless you are a terroist yourself or have ties with al Qaeda, then you would agree that that was the 'right' thing to do, if you value other's lives and the safety of those lives.
Now, the legality side of things is another matter alltogether.
I find this side of the coin very interesting, and as has been pointed out in the article and by some of the members here, they find it rather interesting as well.
The questions posed by the article givge this another twist, if you will alltogether.
Not the usual diatribe about "oh yea ofc he should have been shot because he was evil" or "yep, totally vindicated was the decision to kill him because we had a MORAL responsibility to do that".
Fair enough, but, i like to think about topic matters from all sides not just one side.
I find that rather boring really.

Very good points raised there :up:
We are fed only so much info that they (and when i say they i mean the government in question) want us to know.
There are ofc many many reasons for this. Some justified, others, well....

Is it?
I shall ignore for now your mixing of issues there and go straight to.....
So your arguement for this facility that was created is that it is exactly the same as all the other detention facilities:rotfl2:
No, you have not even touched on the topic.
Ah, thats better. Which POWs is that?
Errrrrr....then it wouldn't be that particular facility would it and your government would have to come up with all the justifications for the new facility which have already been shown to be false for the existing one.
And what has that to do with the price of cheese?
I have no problem at all with facilities that do that, but we are talking about the facility in Cuba.
Not in the slightest, every issue is a different issue and each has its own set of facts to weigh. Only a simpleton would claim that all drone attacks are justified/unjustified.
Yet you are completely unable to defend Gitmo. your only defences to date have been to specificly portray it as something that it isn't.
Either you don't know what you are defending or you are deliberately misrepresenting it.

@Ducimus
Don't you find it interesting?
There really are so many diffent views and angles to consider.
August threw in one which has issues over jurisdiction and criminals exploiting those issues(though I think he was only on about the police shooting the criminals) Randomizer threw in one about criminal justice and extraterritorialism. Darkfish touched on the rule of law. Jaguar did a kidnap and complications of allegations of a show trial. Growler missed the point.:03: Kraskart made a simple fundamental error as the thing he doesn't care about is what affects the thing he cares about. Molon points out the problems of definition. Tater mixes every definition going. And Steelhead hits on a similary relevant period which ended up going very wrong and having such long running fallout that even Spielberg couldn't rewrite the history.

So...whats the problem.
its complicated issue that's why they have Gitmo and that's why they send SEALS to kill UBL.
If they didn't it still would be complicated issue if not more so.
If you want to argue about it theologically than maybe you are right but it doesn't change the reality we live and things that need to be done.
What is the purpose of your arguments to find out all possible ways that people justify themselves?

what is the problem. I have no problem with it , Ducimus seems to think there is a problem with discussing it.
Would it? or would it be less complicated or equally complicated?

Since the thoughts and reasons are the basis of reality we live and the things that need to be done they are intrumental to all that changes or doesn't change.
You are missing out all the key steps.
If you don't find out as many justifications as you can you cannot make a reasoned arguement on the justifications...that is one area you often trip yourself up on when you do the Israeli version of USAUSAUSA:rock:without even thinking.

Can you make one or you are collector?

Israeli version of USAUSA?
I simply don't agree with you....
Should i go for this popular European front of anti everything USA.
Actually i haven't heard even once reasonable argument from you about nothing.
Just superficial populist anti this anti that.
So far USA is a country that is actually doing something about issues while EU gets lost in burocracy.

Yes, often you will jump in to defend something and claim things are that which they are not before withdrawing to your default nonsense of its just anti-israeli/jewish/semitism.

:har::har::har::har::har::har:
If it was populist it would be much simpler more widely held views that are easy for flag waving sheep to swallow.


A perfect example of not thinking. gitmo is such a screw up in one field as it tried to avoid the beaurocracy. Terrorists are walking free from courts because people tried to ignore the legalities.
It comes back nicely to your "complicated" piece, the short cuts to avoid the complications of the issues have had a tendancy to make the issues for more complicated in the long run.
There is little point "actually doing something " if all you are doing is ignoring the issue and pushing it into a bigger pile of problems down the line.

OH my......you are worst than i thought.

Face it.
ITs a matter of geography....in your case.

So far terrorist had been walking free in Europe in part because of enormous bureaucracy.
EU is more concern about politics than about doing somthing or solving problems.
Bul----.
So far i haven't seen anything that can back this claim.

Did he shoot any Americans? I say almost certainly not. But did Stalin actually kill anybody? Did Hitler personally kill someone? Probably not.
That's not really an argument. They are held responsible however.
Consider this; if the operation somehow was completely screwed up; they had their intelligence wrong and they killed four innocent Pakistani's in that house, than who would be responsible? The president of course. Did he fire a weapon? No of course not, but he gave the green light for the operation so he is responsible.

With this part I entirely agree.

I think he was a legitimate military target.
However I think that the US missed a historic chance to define the rules of modern warfare against non-nation states.
Like the Nürnberg trials were an important step in defining the laws of war and making crimes against humanity a new aspect in international law, a trial against OBL could have been also a new step.
Of course you would give a criminal a platform to present himself, but he already did this over all the years. I think they still had the snafu trial against Milosevic in mind in the decision to waste him rather than capturing him alive.

To me the closest parallel was the punitive expedition launched into Mexico in 1916 under General Pershing to capture or kill the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. With the critical difference being the expedition never caught up with Pancho Villa. Mexico wasn't terribly happy with having an American army marching deep into it's territory, but was in such a state of internal anarchy and turmoil that there wasn't much she could do about it.

In his early years he might have. He was involved in quite a bit of nasty stuff as an enforcer for the Bolsheviks, including a bank robbery where several were killed.

True, but I see a shift in US policy in the case of OBL.

First, the operation was legal under US law as a validly authorized military operation. Let's break it down:

1. Under the Constitution, the President is the commander-in-chief and can order troops into action anywhere at any time;

2. Again pursuant to his oath of office, the president has a duty to protect the US from all enemies, foreign and domestic, which OBL obviously was;

3. Despite its shaky constitutional grounds, the action is also valid under the War Powers Act. Congress was informed and apparently does not object.

So the action is valid under US law as a validly authorized military operation. Notice the imporatant distinction here, the US is not trying to justify this as a police action, but as a military operation.

What is really interesting about this operation is not whether it is valid or not but what it says about the relationship between the US and Pakistan. If OBL had been discovered in say, Germany, the US would have notified the German government and the German police who would have taken him into custody and extradited him to the US.

Here, the US decided to invade Pakistan with ground troops, a clear act of war and a violation of Pakistan sovereignty. It is clear that the US does not trust Pakistan and based on the rhetoric coming out of Washington, that the Obama administration is ready to go to war with Pakistan over this issue.

Pakistan is in a real bind over this. The most wanted man in the US had been living in a house in a suburb of the capital for 6 years. It raises many, many questions: who knew? who helped him? why did they help him? What kind of support was Pakistan providing to OBL/AQ? How long had they been in contact? Did the contacts begin before 9/11? Did anyone in the Pakistan govt know about the 9/11 attcks before they occured, but did not warn the US?

wars have been started over a lot less.

It is you who constantly makes the silly accusations, you are not as bad as Dimitrius was but you are getting there.
Good point, problems with american policies are geographicly related to the people who make them in america.

No, some terrorists have walked free because some muppet decided to take a shortcut with evidence because they thought it was too complicated and ended up trashing the case.

That is because your simplistic view stops you from even looking.
Guantanamo would be a perfect example.

Godwinning imminent: How many Jews did Hitler personally kill? Or, if you prefer, how many people did Pol Pot personally kill? Stalin? Mao?