Something to consider about taking out bin ladden

[tweakmm]

About 7 years ago, I was eating dinner w/ my brother(who was in college then) and my parents. This was after the Gulf war, and I had just seen a special on the war on discovery channel, and I, being 8, asked a question like, "why cant we just assasinate sadam hussien?" My brother, who had friends who's parents worked for the government, said someting along the lines of, "well, I asked that same question and my friends parents told me that the US is wary of taking somebody like that out, because we might have alot of pissed off iraqi's who wouldn't hessitate to bring a nuke to the US and just screw us over. With all the people talking about taking out bin ladden or the palistinians, you have to wonder why we haven't already. Maybe the CIA or NSA knows something will happen if we do.
I dont want to come accross as a consipracy theorist, I'm not even sure if i accept what I am posting, its just a musing of mine.
What does everyone think?

 

[StageLeft]

Hasn't happened because its illegal.

 

[n0cmonkey]

I think if we just kill him he will become a martyr making the already fanatical followers even more rabid..

 

[tweakmm]

<< Hasn't happened because its illegal. >>


yeah, but do you think that if the CIA had the means, do you think that they would?

 

[tweakmm]

<< I think if we just kill him he will become a martyr making the already fanatical followers even more rabid.. >>


thats what im saying

 

[Servnya]

We have to take action at this point. The days of being the "Gentle Giant" are over. There comes a point in time when enough is enough and you have to stick up for yourself.

 

[palad]

Skoorb --

I may be idealistic, but not that idealistic. The goverment has not let such a small matter as legality stand in its way before. I think, rather, the reason they don't is more practical. After all, Hussein and bin laden are the enemy we know. If they were killed, who would rise to fill their place? Someone even more homicidal, but with the addition of having a definite paranoiac grudge against the US for what they did to his predecessor? The enemy we know is better than the enemy we don't.

 

[Rakkis]

in the hypothetical case that it happened, the US would never admit to sanctioning such an act.
don't spread the following like lemmings and take is as fact, but it is MY PERSONAL OPINION/SENTIMENT, that there exist international laws against this.

 

[mryellow2]

Assassinating Bin Laden (or any other figure) was illegal under International Law up until yesterday. But because of his atrocious acts of terrorism he is no longer protected(that is assuming he is the perpetrator). At least that is my understanding from some reading I did last night. Of course I could be wrong. I can't remember which site it was taken from but if I can dig it up later tonight I'll add a link to it.

 

[HombrePequeno]

I heard that the CIA has already tried to kill Hussein 5 times.

 

[Androck99]

Good point mryellow2, once acts of war are taken and the international rules of warfare, the perpetrators are nolonger protected by the law.

 

[Servnya]

I could care less what the law states or what the policy is. ANYONE who does this kind of thing will have their ass chewed up and spat out, regardless of the means. Bottom line.

 

[damocles]

There is no 'correct' way to go about this.

Somehow the US has to get out the message that they will not tolerate the actions that have occured and yet do so in such a manner as to not appear like a 'global thug'

If Bin laden is found to be guilty then what the heck can you do?

- Assassinate him: He becomes a Matryr. The only potential good aspect of this being that it may be a catalyst to the overthrow of the Taleban (remember there are many Pro-US Afghan citizens)

- Detain him: Terrorists are liable to retaliate. I could envisage terrorists trying to hijack planes etc to get hostages to trade for him

- Carpet bomb Afghanistan: This will just stir up anti-US feelings all over the world and doesn't necessarily punish the guilty. It would be more likely to be done to placate US citizens


I look forward to seeing how the US deals with this mess. Personally i think the best method would be to capture the perpertrator and conduct a massive array of strategic strikes against the group that committed the attrocities. This would showthat the US (and its allies) are able to hunt down those who do such things

 

[Tates]

<< Hasn't happened because its illegal. >>



Internally (U.S.) it is illegal by executive order. This can be changed, and probably will. There is a move to pass an emergency order in congress to bypass the executive order put in place during the Clinton administration.

Besides, if there are nukes in the wrong hands, now's the time to correct that. International sentiment will add to the desire to irradicate the threat. Let's hope.....

 

[tweakmm]

<< I heard that the CIA has already tried to kill Hussein 5 times. >>


well apparently, the CIA was had given money to 3 differnent anti-hussen groups at 3 different times. And just as they were about to over take the government, the CIA stopped giving money, and the revolution fell through.
I'm not sure about the '3' groups, it could have been more(not by much) or less. I know it was more than one though.
I saw this on the discover channel BTW.

 

[Modge]

well that may be an option from here on out but a big reason is that he is very hard to physically locate. I read that he changes his position a few times every week and that he has multiple places chosen ahead of time one of which he chooses only hours before departing.

 

[arod]

I heard that we wont just take out bin laden but many points of his network....

 

[Muse]

"What does everyone think? "

I think that whatever you or your relatives or friends of relatives or their parents thought in 1993 is now obsolete. The Israeli's aren't worried that if they assassinate someone they will be nuked. They assassinate terrorists regularly, anywhere they can manage to do so if those people are bent on terrorism in Israel. It's a matter of survival. I think we have entered that realm of reality.

 

[FrontlineWarrior]

getting bin laden is not enough. we have to destroy his entire underground military, as well as his political supporters like the taliban and saddam hussein.

and then we get the cheering palestinians

 

[cnwk64]

Everyone is point finger to bin ladden.
What happen he is not the one who order the attacks.
or if there is someone else in the upper level than him.
Take him out will not solve the problem.
Someone else will just pick up where he left and continue.

As far as bring a Nuke to US. I really don't think that is too much of problem.
I remember there is a movie "Peace Maker" that is made of this story.
Nuke in certain countries is cheap enough for people like bin ladden.
and there are plenty of opportunities to bring it to US. (hire some illegal immigrate cross the boarder??) What if this happen?

Is US going to Nuke all anti-US countries?

 

[Muse]

<< Skoorb --

I may be idealistic, but not that idealistic. The goverment has not let such a small matter as legality stand in its way before. I think, rather, the reason they don't is more practical. After all, Hussein and bin laden are the enemy we know. If they were killed, who would rise to fill their place? Someone even more homicidal, but with the addition of having a definite paranoiac grudge against the US for what they did to his predecessor? The enemy we know is better than the enemy we don't. >>

Oh, come on. Even more homicidal. We've just seen pretty much the epitome. We should not take out these guys because we're afraid they will be replaced by worse people. That's absurd. When we practically wiped out Khadafy some years back he got the message and his terrorism stopped. We have to take the same tactics now, except this time we finish the job. What's more, when we do get rid of Saddam we don't just mop up and leave. We keep a strong presence in the mideast so the weeds don't come back.

 

[mryellow2]

Anyway here are a couple links to some documents on the web

Here is the main link (Table of Contents if you will)

Table of Contents

A link to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Human Rights

Now there are different provisions for those involved in international warfare but I don't have the time to hunt them down. I only grazed the surface last night in a news report that cited some portion of the international law that stated that we could not assassinate anyone unless they poised a significant "future threat" or something of that kind. I'm pretty sure, if you are so inclined, that you can find the part that I'm generally referring to within that website.

I say go after that SOB, trample anyone that tries to get in the way and put him on public trial before the entire world. I can not say what a fitting end would be for him. I can only say that I hope we do not stoop to his level. When, not if, he is found guilty (if not for yesterday's heinous acts, then the previous bombing of the WTC) execute him.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Executive order against assasination was put in place when there were concerns about Castro.

It may be recinded when the mastermind of this act is located.

Or, some of our allies / friends may solve the problem for us once we have the evidence to satisfy the political leaders.