Last edited by eg (2011-05-04 10:21:40)

Max - I agree with much of what you say throughout. The immediate problem is: how can the public be sure of anything that it is being fed in relation to recent events; especially when the accounts keep changing? If he was found living in a walled compound in a military Pakistani town, it does rather highlight the idiocy of all those who have washed away all those lives and resources in bombing the mountains of Afghanistan, in the vain belief that this was the way to 'fight terorism'. What now? There seem to be barely veiled threats towards Pakistan and the most recent announcements suggest that troops are staying in Afghanistan. Maybe there is an ulterior motive now - China; pipelines; oil, maybe? Moreover, any attack on Pakistan by the USA would cause difficulty with the US/UK 'special relationship' because Pakistan is a member of the Commonwealth, which still means something.

My points are not apodictical at all (and note the spelling). ObL was not arrestable by the USA in Pakistan (certainly not without Pakistan's agreement) and, even if he were, it would have been an arrest made as agents for Pakistan and the USA would then have needed to apply for extradition. He was entitled to an extradition hearing; not least to identify him and to assess the case for extradition and trial in the USA: at the hearing there would have been a statement of the alleged crimes: none has ever been proved against him and there are many possible defences to the charges, including, by the way, a plea of insanity. If you need to bone up on that, read Robert Travers' 'Anatomy of a Murder' This is really fairly basic stuff and it is frightening to realize that even bright people are blinded by all the hoo-ha about who he 'was' and what he 'did'; especially as it was all kicked off with rhetoric as lowly as that of Redneck Bush. The Nazis were given due process of law and so was Milosovic (that went on for years as these things sometimes do, it is a part of civilization). Many people here just say: "great that he was whacked" - "it saved a lot of time and trouble": that's shocking and lends weight to the cries of some that western democracy is falling into the abyss. Remember what Gandhi said when asked what he thought of western civilization?

He said "It would be a good idea."

In our current time, it seems as though he had a point. What's been done has been done as an act of aggression and, probably, an act of war. It certainly would be seen as such if a platoon of Pakistani commandoes flew into the USA and whacked George W Bush because they might claim, with some force, that, in invading Iraq as he did, he (and Bliar) are guilty of crimes against humanity on a much larger scale than ObL. This is obvious; not least because these guys lied to the world about Saddam's possession of 'weapons of mass destruction' (even if one accepts that America may properly possess these things but Saddam may not). Americans, you need to wake up to the fact that you cannot go on behaving as international might-is-right thugs (God Bless America) forever or you will alienate more and more people.

I am not siding with ObL or suggesting that he was a saint but I am insisting that he was dealt with illegally and not much intellectual rigour is needed to appreciate that. When you say "what rights did ObL have and how did he get them?" it sounds to me as though you are asserting that ObL had no rights, that he was beneath the law or that the USA in relation to him is above the law. It is one or the other. One thing is for certain: that no one lacks the right to due process of law and here there was absolutely none.

If you want to say "f**k it, who cares?", as a number of you do - that's one approach and, for so long as you have the weapons to force that on an unwilling world that's the way that it's got to be - but please don't try to say that it was lawful.

Once the Grundnorms of the law start being whittled away by making exceptions from the application of due process of law in relation to individuals who are politically undesirable or suspected (maybe greatly suspected) of terrible crimes, greet the Police State and I hope that you will like living there.

Meanwhile, I suggest that you read your own Constitution. True, it took you a couple of hundred years, punctuated mid-term by a Civil War, to give effect to "All men are created equal" but start paying more than just lip service to the stated freedoms and rights in the mere name of which you commit butchery around the world forcing your version of 'democracy' on people who have no use for it and would often be better off without it. And please don't come back with some tosh about the British Empire - we were born after it was all but over and we are not responsible for it. But our generation is responsible for what is happening now.

The international courts in the world only act when cases are brought to them and no one has the guts to bring everything to them that should be brought.

Last edited by NJS (2011-05-05 06:47:56)

Last edited by NJS (2011-05-05 07:12:53)