Bin Laden is dead

[One Brow]

Actually yes, or rather it depends on the context. If it is a school takeover as Beslan was, ...

In that situation, I can certainly see the prudence of making sure, and although I find it dsiturbing, I also find it difficult to fault.

However, this was a raid on a terrorist's residence, which I'm sure you'll agree is a different context.

 

[One Brow]

See, the thing you keep missing here is, we make no apologies about it- we flat out did not value Bin Laden's life. If most American's didn't, you can bet the SEALs who were there didn't either.

So, you have no problems with the government killing off undesireable people. OK.

 

[TheDude]

Sometimes IEDs explode when you don't want them to (if they are sensitive to work as IEDs). Blowing himself up by accident is something I would think he avoided.

You are arguing to just argue then. Does he sound like a reasonable man to you? He could have EASILY had the entire place wired to blow up. Even Obama said in his 60 Minutes interview that the Seals had no idea what they were walking into in the form of booby traps (Doors ready to explode when opened, etc etc etc)

 

[TheDude]

It sure is a good thing that the good old US of A doesn't put up with BS from terrorists or tyrannical leaders. Otherwise the idiot on the other end of this "value of life debate" would be called GermanJazzer.

 

[YB85]

However, this was a raid on a terrorist's residence, which I'm sure you'll agree is a different context.

Albeit a terrorist who started the most notorious terror organization in the world and one who vowed to never be taken alive. The residence was hardly a nice house in the suburbs, either. Given the circumstances, I don't question even one bit that they were justified in the killing. The only question of legality remains whether or not going into Pakistan was justified, but given the target, I'm not going to lose much sleep over that one, either.

 

[TheDude]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to YB85 again.

 

[Scat]

The only question of legality remains whether or not going into Pakistan was justified, but given the target, I'm not going to lose much sleep over that one, either.

Hell, one little incursion into Pakistan should be totally overlooked based on all the billions in foreign aid we give the bitches. If you want to hear the Pakistanis cry take away their aid.

 

[SaltyDawg]

Dutch's original post:

Um, no. that was NOT his original post on it. Here it is:

shooting Muslims that dont are an Immanent threat is the same.

also i do some combat training. and mostly when you pull your gun or riffle it's advisable to use it as a blunt object before shooting in cqb enviroment. now maybe what happened in obl compound wouldnt have allowed for that then again maybe it would.

the Israeli special forces do value human lives. so if someone is not an imminent threat they wont kill. its also the way you train. they do learn to disable any and all attackers.
dont know about the seals if they value human lives.

the thing with soldiers is most people think they are in the business of killing. but soldiers actually are in the business of saving lifes. i hope and think the SEALs are too.
but you might never know what happened if they where ordered to kill or one seal got out of control. or one seal jsut took a calculated shot in the chaos to kill obl. it would be really nice if evidence is rpesented to some sort of international tribunal.

I pointed out that Bin Laden could blow himself up while not appearing to be an imminent threat. He then responded to my post, quoting me even, and posted:

he could also have a deadman switch and by killing him you take everyone out.

sometimes a "suicide bomber takedown" helps in these kind of situations its a take down which ends wit the terroist on the floor flat and the hero lying on top of him. sacrificng his life for the rest sort of like jumping on a grenade. but on a much grander scale.

the siraelis have extensive knowledge of this cus sometimes you take the guy out dead man switch boom
sometimes you dont take him out presses the button boom


the suiicde bomber is a last resort. if he has no death man switch it can be done without loss of lie

if he has a deathmans swicth it is done with minimal loss of life.

Clearly, he is talking about bringing Bin laden out alive. And even though he has several posts talking about the value of life and so on after that, you still seemed to miss it. So he cleared it up for you. After you started claiming he wasn't talking about that, he posted this, telling you exactly what his point is:

my original point is we should value all human life. and the way obls death or (possible execution) was celbrated , Obeezy going on tv screaming "justice is done"(while people disagree wether it is justice or not). showed a severe lack of respect for loss of human life. he was the enemy of the united states you should be sort of happy you're enemy is no more. but still loss of life is always a tragedy. you cant just celebrate a man's death no matter who that man is. if we go down the path of celebrating certain peoples deaths it leads to a slippery role. by celebrating america(or atleast part of it) showed me they are no different than the guys who where celebrating the tragedy at 10 years ago. (after saying this i might be put on some sort of tsa blacklist. might get some nasty treatment on some airports)

dont tell me the this is war part. war isn't personal. the "war on terror" was personal. from my point of view. and quite honestly cant really blame you. even though i am not an American i remember that exact same day what i was doing when where and what i was thinking. so (think) I can imagine at least how much 911 hurts to the americans. i wont mourn for obl. i wont celebrate. i jsut wonder what went on.

we must not turn into animals. we must have compassion for human life.

just a qoute to leave you guys with : "Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."

Bold = suicide bomber (i.e. OBL) DIES in the original scenario presented. Only the last 2 lines imply it could be done with MINIMAL loss of life, again no assertion that the bomber lives, and that is can be done without loss of life. No matter how you slice it the Seal jumping on the guy is doing it to save the other Seals primarily. If they keep the guy alive, that is good too, but not the purpose of it.

You really need to go re-read before misquoting.

I bolded a different part of it. You really need to re-read before misquoting.

Our little sub discussion was talking about alternatives to shooting Bin laden in the head. Dutch was saying if they valued life the way the Israelies do, they could have used another method that may have saved Bin laden's life.

You seem bent on trying to make me look stupid rather than your own argument. Sorry to break it to you (actually, dutch broke it to you in the post I quoted, but...) but you are the one not following along here.

 

[Scat]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...-in-the-blanks/2011/05/02/AFgybxcF_story.html

Who shot Osama?

He’s out there somewhere, an instant icon in the annals of American conflict, the ultimate big-game hunter. But an enigma, too, his identity cloaked for now, and maybe forever.

He is the unknown shooter. The nameless, faceless triggerman who put a bullet in the head of the world’s most notorious terrorist.

Yet there are clues, and the beginnings of a portrait can be pieced together from scraps gleaned from U.S. officials. A trio of former Navy SEALs — Eric Greitens, Richard Marcinko and Stew Smith — helped us fill in the blanks, drawing from their experiences to develop a kind of composite sketch of an elusive historic figure in real time.

He’s likely between the ages of 26 and 33, says Marcinko, founder of the elite “SEALs Team 6” — now known as DEVGRU — that many believe led the assault on bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. He’ll be old enough to have had time to hurdle the extra training tests required to join the elite counter-terrorism unit, yet young enough to withstand the body-punishing rigors of the job. The shooter’s a man, it’s safe to say, because there are no women in the SEALs. And there’s a good chance he’s white, though the SEALs have stepped up efforts to increase the number of minorities in their ranks, Marcinko and Smith say. A “positive thinker” who “gets in trouble when he’s not challenged,” Marcinko suspects, a man who “flunked vacation and flunked relaxing.”

He was probably a high school or college athlete, Smith says, a physical specimen who combines strength, speed and agility. “They call themselves ‘tactical athletes,’ ” says Smith, who works with many prospective SEALs in his Heroes of Tomorrow training program in Severna Park. “It’s getting very scientific.”

Marcinko puts it in more conventional terms: “He’ll be ripped,” says the author of the best-selling autobiography “ Rogue Warrior .” “He’s got a lot of upper-body strength. Long arms. Thin waist. Flat tummy.”

On this point, Greitens departs a bit. “You can’t make a lot of physical assumptions,” says the author of “The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL.” There are SEALs who are 5 feet 4 and SEALs who are 6 feet 5, Greitens says. In his training group, he adds, there were college football studs who couldn’t hack it; those who survived were most often men in good shape, but they also had a willingness to subsume their concerns in favor of the mission.

The shooter’s probably not the crew-cut, neatly shaven ideal we’ve come to expect from American fighting forces. “He’s bearded, rough-looking, like a street urchin,” Marcinko supposes. “You don’t want to stick out.” Marcinko calls it “modified grooming standards.”

His hands will be calloused, Smith says, or just plain “gnarled,” as Marcinko puts it. And “he’s got frag in him somewhere,” Marcinko says, using the battlefield shorthand for “fragments” of bullets or explosive devices. This will not have been the shooter’s first adventure. Marcinko estimates that he might have made a dozen or more deployments, tours when he was likely to have run afoul of grenades, improvised explosive devices or bullets.

Chances are he’s keeping score. Smith, who served in the SEALs from 1991 to 1999, got together recently with five Navy SEALs, some of whom he’d served with and others whom he’d trained. “They were responsible for 250 dead terrorists,” Smith says. “They know their number.”

But there are terrorists, and then there are TERRORISTS. Bin Laden falls into the latter category. It’s hard to imagine someone not wanting to take credit for such a significant kill. Yet revealing SEALs’ identities would make them targets for al-Qaeda sympathizers and would also make it difficult or impossible for them to participate in future secret operations.

The identities of other key players in the war against terrorism remain anonymous. No one has identified the troops who slapped cuffs on Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein or named the pilots who dropped the bombs that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, head of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Times have certainly changed. Another era’s military history-makers were frequently publicly identified — Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, wasn’t a mystery. But this is a different kind of war — a kind of perpetual, amorphous conflict — one much less likely to see a formal declaration of peace. Also it’s likely the shooter’s superiors would forbid him and his colleagues to reveal his identity.

“This is playing in the Super Bowl and getting the Oscar all in one breath. He wants credit,” Marcinko supposes of the shooter who felled bin Laden. “But only among his peers.” Many SEALs consider themselves “humble warriors,” Greitens says.

But among his colleagues, the shooter’s identity will be well-known. And right now, he’s probably in for some locker-room-style ribbing.

“They’re gonna hard-*** him,” Marcinko says. “It’ll be, ‘If I’d have been there, it’d have been done in 20 minutes instead of 40 minutes.’ ” Smith can envision the shooter’s pals razzing him about the precise location of the shot. But, in the culture of the SEALs, it’s not as if he won’t push back. He’ll come back at them, Marcinko says, with something like: “Talk is cheap. I did it. I left my mark in the sand.”

There are sure to be awards and honorifics, all done in private. But the shooter is likely looking for some moments of peace, a way to completely remove himself from the pressure cooker. “These guys can one day be killing on the other side of the world and then mowing the grass 24 hours later,” Smith says.

But given the chance, he’ll almost certainly want to get right back into the action, to feel the rev of adrenaline again. “He keeps going,” Marcinko predicts. “He wants to prove that it wasn’t a fluke.” He’ll be thinking: “Let me prove I really did know what I’m doing.”

When the next helicopter is fueled and ready to whirl away, Greitens says, the Unknown Shooter will “be the first one running for the helo.”

 

[franklin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqoMgUkefXw&feature=player_embedded

Who is Dunlap and who wants to be Jackie?

 

[LogGrad98]

I find it all very interesting to see where people stand in terms of international law and personal ethics when it comes to dealing with situations like this. For every hypothetical given it seems the masses are on the side of "kill them all, let God/Allah/The Flying Spaghetti Monster/Vishnu/The Universe sort them out" regardless of any violated international laws.

I guess my belief that we should follow the laws we have agreed to puts me in the minority.

I thank God OBL is gone. I also thank God that by all accounts we did it within the bounds of the law.

It is also interesting, even a little disturbing, how up in arms people get about international law in terms of torturing terrorists to get intel to stop future attacks and how absolutely fine people would be in completely ignoring international law to shoot one in the head to stop future attacks. So torture=bad, murder=good in terms of stopping terrorist attacks.

 

[Scat]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqoMgUkefXw&feature=player_embedded

Who is Dunlap and who wants to be Jackie?

"Obama should only be in charge of things that suck like health care and Joe Biden!" LOL

 

[One Brow]

You are arguing to just argue then. Does he sound like a reasonable man to you? He could have EASILY had the entire place wired to blow up. Even Obama said in his 60 Minutes interview that the Seals had no idea what they were walking into in the form of booby traps (Doors ready to explode when opened, etc etc etc)

I agree there could have been booby traps, but that's not really relevant to executing Osama after he surrendered. The way you and others keep bringing in these tangents makes it clear how weak you think your core position really is. At least SaltyDawg is honest: he just wanted Osama dead, period.

 

[YB85]

I agree there could have been booby traps, but that's not really relevant to executing Osama after he surrendered. The way you and others keep bringing in these tangents makes it clear how weak you think your core position really is. At least SaltyDawg is honest: he just wanted Osama dead, period.

OBL surrendered? When did that happen? It was my understanding that he was simply "unarmed". Or are you just bringing in a tangent because your core position is really weak?

 

[One Brow]

OBL surrendered? When did that happen? It was my understanding that he was simply "unarmed". Or are you just bringing in a tangent because your core position is really weak?

You're right, I should have included "hypothetically", since I have been discussing the possibility that Osama was illegally executed. I'll try to be more careful.

However, since my core posiiton *is* that, had Osama surrendered, then he should have been brought in alive, it's not a tangent to talk about what should have happened if he surrendered. Nice try reversing the position. A for effort, F for execution (unless you're a Navy SEAL, since they apparently gets As for executions).

 

[YB85]

You're right, I should have included "hypothetically", since I have been discussing the possibility that Osama was illegally executed. I'll try to be more careful.

However, since my core posiiton *is* that, had Osama surrendered, then he should have been brought in alive, it's not a tangent to talk about what should have happened if he surrendered. Nice try reversing the position. A for effort, F for execution (unless you're a Navy SEAL, since they apparently gets As for executions).

You know what? I agree with you in that if OBL surrendered, then they capture him and take him somewhere to extract all information from him that they can. But I also think that if he did not immediately indicate that he was surrendering, a bullet to the head was his just reward. As for the SEALs "executing" him, they're not cops or even SWAT. They're elite soldiers trained to kill. When they send the SEALs in, they're not going in to simply arrest someone. Is it that hard to understand? You call it "execution". I call it "eliminating the enemy". Tomato, tomahto.

 

[SaltyDawg]

I find it all very interesting to see where people stand in terms of international law and personal ethics when it comes to dealing with situations like this. For every hypothetical given it seems the masses are on the side of "kill them all, let God/Allah/The Flying Spaghetti Monster/Vishnu/The Universe sort them out" regardless of any violated international laws.

I guess my belief that we should follow the laws we have agreed to puts me in the minority.

I thank God OBL is gone. I also thank God that by all accounts we did it within the bounds of the law.

It is also interesting, even a little disturbing, how up in arms people get about international law in terms of torturing terrorists to get intel to stop future attacks and how absolutely fine people would be in completely ignoring international law to shoot one in the head to stop future attacks. So torture=bad, murder=good in terms of stopping terrorist attacks.

You honestly can't understand why someone would be against a policy that allows torture pretty much anytime, but still be all for Bin Laden getting killed?

 

[Gameface]

I find it all very interesting to see where people stand in terms of international law and personal ethics when it comes to dealing with situations like this. For every hypothetical given it seems the masses are on the side of "kill them all, let God/Allah/The Flying Spaghetti Monster/Vishnu/The Universe sort them out" regardless of any violated international laws.

I guess my belief that we should follow the laws we have agreed to puts me in the minority.

I thank God OBL is gone. I also thank God that by all accounts we did it within the bounds of the law.

It is also interesting, even a little disturbing, how up in arms people get about international law in terms of torturing terrorists to get intel to stop future attacks and how absolutely fine people would be in completely ignoring international law to shoot one in the head to stop future attacks. So torture=bad, murder=good in terms of stopping terrorist attacks.

I agree with you completely. Integrity, it's a bitch sometimes.

 

[SaltyDawg]

I agree with you completely. Integrity, it's a bitch sometimes.

Killing Bin Laden is not even remotely close to the same thing (or nearly as bad) as torturing everyone we interrogate.

Much like your poker games being illegal doesn't mean you have no integrity when you speak out against a murderer/rapist/burglar/car thief/drug dealer/etc.

 

[Scat]

killing bin laden is not even remotely close to the same thing (or nearly as bad) as torturing everyone we interrogate.

Much like your poker games being illegal doesn't mean you have no integrity when you speak out against a murderer/rapist/burglar/car thief/drug dealer/etc.

ziiiiing!!