Bin Laden confirmed dead.....

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Just a quick skim...

in Wiki on the Tonkin Gulf Resolution(1964) and the War Powers Act (1973) is enough to show Congress at its worst; first unanimously approving Johnson's escalation of the conflict in Vietnam based on not much more than a rumor and then in '73 trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube by limiting the President's independent use of force-this one was passed by a 2/3 majority overriding Nixon's veto.
Apparently there is profound constiutional questions regarding both acts let alone the way they have been executed (118 times in the case of reports to Congress under the War Powers Act). :sigh:

Obama may be operating in Libya within the 60 day window for action taken without express consent of Congress (+18 days for withdrawl) I can't remember when he first sent anyone in there but that time frame must be coming up.
 
He is gone, thats all that matters. We will still have issues but life goes on. Its far from over but score one for us.
 
spiderrey said:
He is gone, thats all that matters.
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I have to disagree. How we conduct ourselves as a nation, compared not to other nations but measured against our own ideals, reveals the content of our character, and IMHO that is what matters.

bin Laden was a criminal suspect indicted by a Grand Jury (for the 1998 embassy bombings, not for 9/11). The due process of our law (which all of our politicians bloviate about constantly) requires the suspect to be brought to trial. Instead, depending upon which accounts of the raid you believe, the suspect was located and summarily executed. That violates the 5th, 6th, and 8th amendment.

There is a famous quote that came out of the Vietnam war that seems to apply: "'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.'" Well in this current "War on Terror" it seems that our politicians feel it is necessary to destroy what makes America special in order to save it.
 
I would agree with you 99.9 percent of the time here. This guy killed thousands, or was responsable at the very least. Those thousands of innocent civilians never had a chance. He was lucky and got off easy.I stand by my opinion here. I wont debate it or try and convince a single person that thier view is wrong.This is my opinion and it wont change. , Glad he is gone.
 
I don't think that someone like Bin Laden needs to be treated like a common criminal. Congress could have issued a letter of marque and reprisal and the military (or anyone else for that matter) could have hunted him down and killed him. I don't think there is anything wrong what was done other than the technicalities of it. A foreign national who declares war on the US is little different than a nation that does only they don't have the same protections under the Geneva Convention. There are some grey areas here that require some caution but treating non-uniformed enemy combatants and "terrorist" as POWs or criminals is not required under the Constitution nor is it a good idea.
 
While in the specific case of OBL...

I'm basically in sympathy with your position on this, I have a strong pull towards what Dan is saying on a broader level. For instance did Congress, in fact, issue letters of marque and reprisal? The term 'terrorist' is simply too facile to be the basis for these sorts of actions (although I am ambivalent on the OBL incident). By the standards you propose I suppose Gaddafi could be treated in quite the same way . Or any of the leaders of Hamas or of any of the other so named terrorist groups. But this is really flirting with reducing international relations to a kind of high faluting gangsterdom and this is where my sympathies swing strongly in Dan's direction. Someone along the way needs to arrest this tendency to do the expeditious thing insted of the clearly legal thing. There is, in the Bin laden case, especially in light of Obama's 'catharctic' moment at 'Ground Zero,' a little too much of Hector's body being drug around. But that's just my feelings.
 
What I want to know is...

Do we only apply these standards to others, or also to ourselves? Many (hundreds of?) thousands of civilians have been killed by US and NATO forces in Iraq, for just one example. The president at the time, George Bush, is responsible for these deaths in the same way that many hold Osama Bin Laden responsible for the deaths on 9/11/01. So I guess my question is, if we can callously execute OBL, are we going to accept a similar fate for GWB?

Something tells me no.

On a side note, although I voted for Obama, I'm seriously disappointed in the 9/11 grandstanding.
 
No, we wouldn't accept that because GWB is our guy. I'm sure Al Qaeda isn't too happy that we hunted down OBL and killed him any more than the average American would be if Al Qaeda hunted down GWB. However, as Commander in Chief the President is a target for our enemies and that is one of the reasons he has lots of security. In war people get killed and the loser is a war criminal while the winner is a hero. Right or wrong that is the way it is. It's also why war should be avoided in most cases.

Also, we don't apply the standards to ourselves because most Americans believe that out actions are morally correct and a response to a threat while they view the enemy as a unprovoked threat. In some cases that is correct and other times not so much.
 
Chris St-Louis said:
Greg.....REALLY? GW and OBL even in the same catagory?

If GW really wanted to, he could have made the whole middle east a wasteland. OBL used every means he could to kill as many as he could. OBL with the arsenal GW had woudl have killed you and me. How do you even comapre the two? How do you get there?


Its Not even in the same ballpark.
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This illustrates my point perfectly. I think this is essentially the opinion of the vast majority of Americans.
 
On the subject of disappointment with Obama

I didn't vote for him (please don't think I voted for McCain:eek:mg:) and I didn't think he would be a good president. However, I had no idea that we would essentially end up with the third term of GWB. On almost every major issue of the day this guy is GWB on steroids. Wall street hacks at Treasury, exact same guy at Defense, exact same fool at the Fed, bigger bailouts, bigger stimulus, even more wreckless deficit spending (and that took talent) and expanded war (including a brand new one). The "right" likes to compare this guy to Carter. Looks a lot more like GWB to me.
 
Even though I cant stand g bush, I dont see how you can even start to compare the two. I too voted for Obama and I didnt think the visit to the fire dept was in good taste. He said he didnt want to spike the ball, but he kinda did. Anyhow you look at it obl deserved to die for what he did. Sure our govt sucks at lots of different times, maybe even more then that, but not as bad as Al Qaeda .
 
I think from the perspective of absolute morality, OBL and GHWB/WJC/GWB are two sides of the same coin. All are leaders of organizations that killed lots of people for stated reasons. Whether any of the reasons are "legitimate" is open to debate. If one comes to the conclusion that the reasons are insufficent, then by definition that leader would have to be 'brought to justice'----not unlike a District Attorney examining the circumstances of a homicide and weighing whether the person who did the killing was justified in their actions.

As Matthew pointed out, the winners go on the talk show circuit and the losers dance at the end of a rope or swim with the fishes.
 
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That comment just floors me...

I don't even know how to begin to address a comment like that. But I will try.

In any war you have to do what you have to do to win. If the enemy chooses to hide behind civilians, then you really have no choice but to go through them (unless of course you actually want a long drawn out conflict that only serves to enrich the Military Industrial Complex). It was the enemy that chose to put them in harm's way. This is not even remotely close to the same thing as intentionally targeting them for tactical reasons - as is and was the case in most Al Qaeda attacks. Comparing the legal, congress approved actions of President Bush or President Obama with the actions of a Radical, who killed in the name of a religion - in a way that is direct violation of the religion - is simply incomprehensible to me.

What really pisses me off is all the extreme right-wing chatter based solely on bias driven rumor and speculation that serves no real purpose other than to show the enemy how divided we really are.

I'd love to see a case where some high profile newscaster or talk show host is charged with sedition for suggesting, during a time of war, that a criminal act was committed by our president, but was then later found out to be completely false and based only on speculation with no investigation. Make it a minimum 5 year prison sentence. Think that might get some people to be more responsible about reporting news instead of trying to create it?

Tommy
 
There is no question that the kind of stuff the media engages in these days would have had serious consequences during WW2. Of course that was a serious war and most of the wars since then have been rather unserious and therefore have been treated as such. During WW2 we bombed in entire cities back to the stone age and killed tens of thousands of civilians. If that is the way war was still fought it is unlikely we would have engaged in any of the wars since then. The world got together under the UN and tried put a pretty face on war making it a less serious matter. It should be no surprise when it gets treated less seriously.
 
Actually a brilliant question though...

even if you don't agree with it's premise it is likely a question that has crossed many minds - if not firmly implanted there by daily doses of talk radio.

Anyway, it is all a matter of perspective. To target civilians now is considered terrorism and criminal. But in WWII and the Civil war it was the direct threat to and the reckless disregard for civilians, that hastened the ends of those wars.

So, by comparison, does that make Truman and Sherman "criminals" too?

Tommy
 
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Most people I know that think GWB is a war criminal think Truman was as well. The fact is that civilians are a part of any war effort and therefore a legitimate target. Really anything that will hasten the end of the war is legitimate. War is the absence of peace and order and the very idea of "war crimes" is completely ridiculous.
 
budgetzagato said:
Do we only apply these standards to others, or also to ourselves? Many (hundreds of?) thousands of civilians have been killed by US and NATO forces in Iraq, for just one example.
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As a previous member of the military, and having served in the first gulf war, I think there is a big difference.
The way we carry out our operation in the theatre of war, is dramatically different. The loss of civilian lives to military action is avoided in every way possible by our military. The fact that collateral damage, and loss of civilian life, happens in these operations is a sad fact of war.
Consider the stated objective of Al Q, and their like, and it's obvious. Their whole mission is to target the largest number of non-combatants possible. That's what terrorism is about. When military commanders get in front of the troops and say " get every last one of the sob's that are shooting at you, so they never pull that trigger again." , they're not saying wipe out their family if you get the chance. We don't drop our bunker busters in the middle of the most populated shopping malls/ office complexes. We don't send suicide bombers into schoolyards.
To then compare the leaders of the two in any way is ridiculous, and shows a serious lack of understanding of the situation. I have no disrespect for the many on this forum that are much more intelligent than I. I am not trying to convince anyone to believe as I do. I simply hold a strong belief that it isn't that hard to tell the two apart, and it has nothing to do with intelligence, and everything to do with politics.
Unfortunately, there will be no peace in this 'war' until one side or the other is wiped out. We have not turned that part of the world into the largest glass deposit on earth, because we aren't trying to 'kill 'em all'. If the roles were reversed, and Al Q had our armament, there wouldn't be a non-sharia muslim left standing.
GWB as UBL, please....:wacko:
 
I would accept it...

with whatever the proper feeling is for something like that. He is guilty. Any other view on this is just legalistic excuse making and typical victor's apologetics. The rest of the world has very little doubt on this case, but because he was the American President and not the leader of some banana republic he gets off the hook. It really is just that simple.

The way in which the military conducted itself isn't even an issue. They did their job with probably as much honor and care as can be done under the circumstances of war, but that does not exonerate or mute GWBs responsibility. And Rumsfeld and Cheney and Wolfowitz and Powell and Tony Blair and virtually the entire Congress.
 
So no crime was committed..

Dachau and Bergen-Belsen?
The Batan Death March is OK as well? My Lai?

OBL declared war on us so he is not guilty of a crime?
 
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