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Was Bin Laden killing legal?

Was Bin Laden coordinating the mass murder of thousands of Americans legal?
 
Who cares? But if push actually came to shove, absolutely it was legal due to the firefight ensuing. The whole sovereignty issue with Pakistan is another matter entirely.

But the fact that it is even being debated just shows what a bunch of pussies the western world has become.
 
OBAMA IS A WAR CRIMINAL!
 
International law=unicorn law. Sounds plausible in theory, but doesn't really exist.
 
This guy is an idiot.

Kress says the normal way of handling a man who is sought globally for commissioning murder would be to arrest him, put him on trial and ultimately convict him. In the context of international law, military force can be used in the arrest of a suspect, and this may entail gun fire or situations of self-defense that, in the end, leave no other possibility than to kill a highly dangerous and highly suspicious person. These developments can also lead to tragic and inevitable escalations of the justice process.
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Apply this logic to police action in the United States, where we have a Constitution which provides greater protection than pretty much anywhere else in the world. Suppose the police have a warrant to arrest a serial killer. They know he is in a house and that he is likely armed. Under the logic used in this article, the police are not allowed to enter the house, armed, to take the serial killer into custody (which is patently false), because deadly force may be needed if the serial killer resists arrest violently.

The whole argument is a load of bullshit. They went into the house and OBL picked up a gun and took a hostage as a human shield - deadly force was 100% legal and appropriate.

As to the issue of Pakistan's sovereignty, there are two options here: (1) We entered Pakistan with its government's blessing, or (2) they are harboring the #1 enemy of the United States of America (an act of war). Given the option, is there any doubt what the Pakistani government is going to say?

Edit to add: I just saw the White House is now saying OBL wasn't personally armed, but that doesn't change the argument because he had armed gunmen there protecting him.
 
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No, Go, Obama is a foreign war criminal. Get on board!
 
HeavyPetter said:
Turns out Osama was unarmed. What do you think now?

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/osama-bin-laden-unarmed-killed-white-house/story?id=13520152
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From the link you quoted:

"We were prepared to capture him if that was possible," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. But even though bin Laden was not carrying a weapon, Carney said he had "resisted" and several people in the compound were armed and firing at the American special operators.

"Resistance does not require a firearm," Carney said.
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See my post above. This doesn't change anything.
 
You have to think they could have gotten him alive if they had wanted to. They didn't even wind up killing his wife who attacked him. There were apparently no gunshots fired in the room where he was killed except by Navy Seals.

Don't get me wrong, I accept the decision and I'm not wringing my hands, but people shold recognize that the decision was make to shoot him at nearly point blank range, rather injure or capture him.
 
What was the alternative - bring him out alive and immediately have every American abroad used as potential trade bait? Who cares if it was legal? As much as I despise Obama, he did the right thing by going in strictly to blow the fucker's head off at point-blank range. The only thing that could have made it better would be if they had timed it with one of Kid Rock's USO visits so as to cart him in to play American Badass for background noise as the SEALs stormed the place.
 
bojanglefunk said:
International law=unicorn law. Sounds plausible in theory, but doesn't really exist.
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Go said:
Kind of like the Rule against Perpetuity?
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I know nothing about international law, so I am not going to get involved in this one, but as someone who deals with the Rule Against Perpetuities on almost a daily basis and spent a good part of 8 hours researching the 1954 version of the RAP in Georgia, it totally exists (and totally sucks).
 
International law is stupid. It doesn't matter if killing him was "legal."

In the end, international relations mirror basic human nature and interactions much more than federal or state law.

Is what we did to kill Osama right? That's the question. The answer is unequivocally yes.
 
Yes. It was. I wrote an extensive research paper on the legality of targeted killings despite the international and domestic prohibitions on "assassination".

There is no disagreement that a pre-emptive strike in the face of a legitimate threat is legal. The murky area is that most of this legislation was drafted solely with the idea of a centralized power structure most likely in the form of a sovereign nature.
 
We are at war with AQ. He was the enemy. We should shoot all those mother fuckers on sight before they strap more bombs on kids. Is killing that piece of shit legal? What a dumbass question.
 
DeaconCav06 said:
Yes. It was. I wrote an extensive research paper on the legality of targeted killings despite the international and domestic prohibitions on "assassination".

There is no disagreement that a pre-emptive strike in the face of a legitimate threat is legal. The murky area is that most of this legislation was drafted solely with the idea of a centralized power structure most likely in the form of a sovereign nature.
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While I agree with your conclusion, you are over simplifying the situation drastically. There is a lot of debate on the subject and writing a paper about it doesn't prove your position.
 
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