Quote:
Originally Posted by Platapus
Be careful about that. Remember our justification for Gitmo is based on our interpretation that AQ was NOT a military organization and therefore NOT covered by the version of the Geneva Convention the US uses.
According to our story, UBL did not declare war and was not a leader of an army. And we are sticking to that story. 
If he was, then he and his minions would be afforded Geneva Convention protections and that is something that was inconvenient for us. |
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.