The Revenge Killing of Osama bin Laden, by: Noam Chomsky

http://www.truth-out.org/revenge-killing-osama-bin-laden/1306865820

The Revenge Killing of Osama bin Laden

Tuesday 31 May 2011
by: Noam Chomsky, Truthout


The May 1 U.S. attack on Osama bin Laden’s compound violated multiple elementary norms of international law, beginning with the invasion of Pakistani territory.

There appears to have been no attempt to apprehend the unarmed victim, as presumably could have been done by the 79 commandos facing almost no opposition.

President Obama announced that “justice has been done.” Many did not agree – even close allies. British barrister Geoffrey Robertson, who generally supported the operation, nevertheless described Obama’s claim as an “absurdity” that should have been obvious to a former professor of constitutional law.

Pakistani and international law require inquiry “whenever violent death occurs from government or police action,” Robertson points out. Obama undercut that possibility with a “hasty ‘burial at sea’ without a post mortem, as the law requires.”


..more..

...no matter how many times Americans (or DUers) deny it.

Tesha

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Besides, talk about squandering the best intelligence asset possible.

At least this time it was someone who richly deserved it. Let's stop pretending we're a country that's above some thug justice and thug injustice. This was the former.

not at all. And the argument that we shouldn't protest thug justice because we accept thug justice is circular.

:banghead:

The witless summabitch still doesn't realize he's useful up until the point that he applies the same rules to everyone. That pinko. Shit like this makes me sick.

PB

• Avoid using the term "victim" when referring to Osama bin Laden. :eyes:

Instead of just lining them up against a wall and shooting them on the battlefield. Or why the Israeli Supreme Court overturned John Demjanjuk's guilty verdict on appeal. Both of those episodes have to do with a certain perception of why laws exist in the first place, or why mankind even bothers with formalities like the Fourth Geneva Convention.

I'll end there, don't want to keep you from the History Channel.

PB

The point is whether you believe we lined up a bunch of folks at the compound and shot them, or if there was a gunbattle?

Well. I strongly suspect a gunbattle. The Navy also counted on one, I think, probably why they brought guns too.

So, no "execution."

...What's on the History Channel? :D

He was taken out quickly and early in the operation.

Women and children were spared. The men were shot on sight.

Oh, wait...too late.

Waffen SS guys got a bullet in the head in a field somewhere, many times while carrying a white flag.

Rough justice on the battlefield wasn't unheard of.

We don't have due process for the nice people that we like who never hurt any one. We have due process so the worst, most repugnant criminals human society produces can still get something like justice from the state and not just Mafia-style retribution.

Of course monsters can be victimized. Not victimizing them and providing even them with due process used to be one of the things that set America apart from other countries.

So "victim" is precisely the word Chomsky wants in this context. The error is not his.

Riddle me this ... Why does Chomsky fail to mention the other men killed in the raid?

Why is only Osama a "victim"?

In fact, one of his points is that the assassination of Osama makes it more likely that there will be other victims.

:thumbsup:

Do you really need a post mortem for someone whose head was blown off? I mean, I could probably tell you the cause of death with my limited training as a fake coroner.

... in case the enormous ziploc bag he was in wasn't properly sealed... HA

...it would be OK to refer to Osama bin Laden as a "victim" of anything? Really?

If you talk about a crime, you generally have a perpetrator and a victim. Are you really so accustomed to "Blue Skies Initiative" PR-speak that you apply those rules to your own speech?

It's a deliberate usage, and highlights the idiocy. Or perhaps he's simply losing his mind.

...If you think it's "just a word," I have a bridge to sell you. :)

That certainly seems to be the standard many apply.

PB

http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&source=hp&q=chomsky%20national%20treasure%20site%3Ademocraticunderground.com&aq=&aqi=&aql=f&oq=+chomsky+national+treasure+site:democraticunderground.com&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=af48742de8854925&biw=1024&bih=542&pf=p&pdl=300

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Noam Chomsky is a national treasure. porkrind, Mar-12-05 09:58 PM, #52. I almost never agree with Chomsky, adwon, Mar-12-05 06:25 PM, #48. Bless Chomsky. ...
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The armchair brigade is not going to rest until they turn him into a martyr. What's in it for them?

...to pseudo-hero status.

a few years ago, too-- or did that position just suddenly seem more rational after a Democrat attained the presidency?

Oh my.

elevates bin Laden. Bad news for law schools everywhere. :)

:)

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We acted far outside all of the rules of international
law. Our incursion into Pakistan was an act of war and
our treatment of OBL was nothing less than an intentional
assassination of a foreign national on foreign soil.

This is the exact same sort of action we used to excoriate
the KGB and the GDR's STASI for; now we do it and are damned
proud of it.

Tesha

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What's that got to do with executing someone that everyone agrees was a very, very bad person? This way we don't have to bother with all that "evidence" and "testimony" and run the risk that following so-called "due process" that we might fail to convict him. Besides, a lot of people might get really, really upset about holding a trial. This way was a lot more efficient. And there's nothing more important than that!

You don't see our European allies bothering with all those niggling little details, do you? I mean, if they had someone like Ratko Mladic dead to rights, they'd surely just blow his hea--uh, okay, bad example. But we're still exceptional!

Great, I've been looking for details about the bin Laden execution, and it sounds like you were there: Now, it has been confirmed that bin Laden, unlike Mladic, was unarmed at the time his arresters cornered him and blew him away. It's also been confirmed that the raid, in the ostensibly friendly territory of our great and good allies the Pakistanis, had to be carried out as a kill mission. Now I realize that 79 heavily-armed commandos with air support have certain handicaps that a dozen policemen in jeeps don't have to face. Did any of our boys speak Arabic? Did they order bin Laden to surrender? Or was this a shoot first, dump the body later kind of thing?

Or am I, the financier of this execution, not allowed to know these little details? I'll gladly pay with my life for any righteous retribution that might follow, but I'd feel better if I at least had some of the facts surrounding this great and patriotic endeavor in justice.

shouldn't they politely ask him to turn himself in? Euros :)

it also assures that the facts about other bad guys, such as accomplices, get onto the public record. The bam-bam you're dead approach essentially destroys evidence and makes it impossible to compile (or correct) the record.

I do wish that more people realized that.

(This isn't criticism of your post, which makes good points)

It doesn't only protect the defendant, it protects the public by trying to provide conflict intervention and resolution.

The courts aren't really for people or about mitigating wrongs and to prevent violence. Their purpose and effect is to protect property rights - that's one of the things that Howard Zinn tried to teach us in classes 30 years ago, that I'm still just beginning to grasp.

lol

Unless, of course, you make the eye of the needle this big. You could fit a fully-loaded 757 through that one.

"I don't like it, but I guess things happen that way."

Osama, when you play with fire you get burned.
.... when you lay down with dogs you wake up with fleas
.... if you can't do the time, don't do the crime
.... Don't kill babies, don't attack women, and if any of you feel sorry for this bastard check out the vid of the couple holding hands jumping from the burning tower.

Great job US Navy Seals.

Does this maxim apply to US troops?

Of course.

Actually pretty goddamn insulting. Regardless, those things happened. He instigated it and I am glad we shot him in the face with an American rifle.

iPad posting weirdness

Welcome to New America, have a guardedly optimistic day:)

to do something about it.

:sarcasm:

To Chomsky, international law exists to protect, enable, and assist those who harbor terrorists. Any country can harbor and enable as many terrorists as they would like, since (to him) it would be illegal to do something about it.

As usual, if you take precisely the opposite of what Chomsky says, it makes perfect sense.

The closest that they come is that some element within the government or more likely the ISI knew where he was and may have been assisting him.

The Pakistan government, as a whole or as a policy, was not harboring OBL. They were embarrassed by this discovery and operation. Chomsky's point is not that Pakistan is perfect, but that the US violated international law when they violated Pakistan's sovereignty and with the targeted assassination.

That doesn't mean it isn't true.

"The closest that they come is that some element within the government or more likely the ISI knew where he was and may have been assisting him."

In other words, if the US did ANYTHING to let Pakistan know (let alone ask for permission) before the operation was carried out, Bin Laden would have been tipped off by the very people you mention. This means that the only option for getting Bin Laden under Chomsky's conception of international law was to do absolutely nothing, ever. The same goes for any other terrorist in any other country that the civilian leader "doesn't know about" but whose actual government/military officials would never allow to be captured or hindered in any way.

Once again (in case this wasn't obvious the first time I said it), Chomsky seems to think that the purpose (and effect) of international law is to

1) allow nations to harbor terrorists with impunity, and
2) forbid other nations from dealing with 1)

If there exists a more self-refuting legal analysis than that of Chomsky in this case, I am unclear as to what it is.

And, I wonder how far your version of international law, which by the way is not law at all, goes. Who can violate other nations' sovereignty? When? Going after whom? Who qualifies as a 'terrorist' worthy of pursuit into other countries without that country's permission or knowledge.

International law does not prohibit self defense. If we were dealing with a country like France, that would not tip off the target if we informed them first, we would have done so. Here, we are dealing with a country housing a terrorist currently planning attacks against the US, whose government or ISI would IMMEDIATELY tip off the terrorist had we informed them in advance.

Therefore, according to you, our options were to inform them first (allowing Bin Laden to be tipped off, get away, and continue to plan attacks), or do nothing, and let him continue to plan attacks. That is an entirely bogus conception of international law -- a conception that the US has not and would never agree to in any treaty or international agreement.

I was clarifying Chomsky's position for you.

What I said made no sense is your claim that all other nations, including the one where the terrorist resides could do nothing.

You avoided all of my questions:

And, I wonder how far your version of international law, which by the way is not law at all, goes. Who can violate other nations' sovereignty? When? Going after whom? Who qualifies as a 'terrorist' worthy of pursuit into other countries without that country's permission or knowledge?

He also doesn't say things just to "be popular", unlike a number of other public figures.

...True enough "justice has been done" is bullshit, but don't forget that this line came from the same "former constitutional scholar" that also thinks that the public molestation of amputees, women and small children by government employees in airports is not a violation of one of the basic elements of that constitution, but rather a throw-away one-liner in a State of the Union speech...

he's confusing justice with legality. Killing bin Laden may not have been legal. I don't know, I've seen mixed reports. But it was justice. Absolutely. And I'm glad it was done.

but it's not the only kind, and there is an argument to be had whether it's even a very good kind of justice in the sense of the greatest good.

I approach this, frankly, as an admitted hypocrite because I'm making an exception for OBL. You're right there's an argument to be had about it, and I appreciate people appealing to our better selves and principles. Just like how I am, in principle, opposed to the death penalty and appreciate people arguing against the death penalty for even the most heinous criminals when the best I can do in some cases is bite my tongue about it because a more base element in me wants their death for what they've done.

I envy people with ever-consistent principles. Perhaps I'll be one someday.

Sometimes it looks like there's a subset of people who don't get any kind of relief or pleasure or other emotional gain from retribution. And without that visceral payoff, it's not hard to focus on the intellectual piece of things. Maybe it's partly just hard wiring.

somehow, fortunately, those three Rs did not form my world view.

He was a non-US citizen actively engaged in committing acts of terrorism against the US, from a foreign land whose government either could not, or would not, apprehend him.

I will not shed any crocodile tears for that asshole.

Not feeling sorry for bin laden

Were we supposed to ask Pakistan for a search warrant?

who were fond of saying to me "we brought you into this world, we can take you out of it" when my behavior wasn't to their liking. If I had been wittier then, or perhaps willing to suffer a black eye, bloody nose, and a few loose teeth, I might have replied "then why did you raise me to be this way?" Maybe I did, because those other things certainly happened too, I just don't recall what I said at the time to deserve it. These days I think of violent or disobedient kids as victims of their parents upbringing. They might be truly vile actors, but they are victims nonetheless. We created OBL, we raised him, we fed him, we trained him, we armed him, we turned him loose on our enemies. And then he turned on us. How could we have predicted that he would turn on his benefactors? After all we had done for him! If OBL is the monster we say he is, then we are Victor Frankenstein, that monster's creator. OBL is gone, we are still here, creating.

That said, I'm not weeping over OBL's metaphoric death; he deserved it even, in a sense, but I can't take any of our relationship with him, his life or his death, as a high point of cultural achievement for the U.S. One (Chomsky, me, others?) wonders what disastrous relationship we are currently brooding over?

multiple times. Revenge? Does Chomsky think this individual would have just stopped because he had accomplished his life goals? Bin Laden chose his path.