U.S. Team's Mission Was to Kill, Not Capture Bin Laden - U.S. Security Official

Source: Reuters


U.S. team's mission was to kill bin Laden, not capture

WASHINGTON | Mon May 2, 2011 8:24am EDT
(Reuters) - The U.S. special forces team that hunted down Osama bin Laden was under orders to kill the al Qaeda mastermind, not capture him, a U.S. national security official told Reuters.

"This was a kill operation," the official said, making clear there was no desire to try to capture bin Laden alive in Pakistan.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/us-binladen-kill-idUSTRE7413H220110502

Besides, their was no evidence to convict, right?

:sarcasm:

What do you do with him? To hold him would be worse than if he were dead. Guantanamo Bay? No way. Here in the US? No way. The Saudis said they didn't want his body.

Killing him was better than anything else they could have done with him.

agree on this. The celebrating makes me a little uncomfortable, but what do you do with him once caught? Plus, if we detain him we've got hostage takings all over the world in an attempt to exchange him. The last thing we need is hijackings, kidnapped world leaders, etc, in an effort to make a deal.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/us-binladen-kill-idUSTRE7413H220110502

Nothing wrong with Twitter if used properly.

WASHINGTON | Mon May 2, 2011 8:24am EDT http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/us-binladen-kill-idUSTRE7413H220110502

and the headline and link was there.

Twitter stuff usually precedes it and I post it and then go looking for the article. OCCASSIONALLY the article doesn't show up within the hour edit limit.

I've grown very skeptical of the firm of Isikoff, Hosenball and Anon, LLC.

As a practical matter, if the Seals got within headshot range, they also had UBL within stun grenade range. Entirely possible, of course, that everyone was just spraying machine gun rounds all over the place, and one of the shots got Osama between the ears.

Don't like the body being dumped at sea without a fully documented independent autopsy - if only to dispel the inevitable rumors and theories generated.

And they may never.

Do you think this makes an inquest into Bush-Cheney's actions leading up to 9/11 more or less likely. Or, unchanged?

Seems to me that a take no prisoners approach would mitigate in favor of opening up that book regarding culpability, especially since the 9/11 Commission expressly avoided dealing with those issues.

We're not doing it. Neither is anyoone we can lean on, like Spain. So, by whom?

Remember, Obama called Bush to give him the news before announcing Osama's death to the rest of the U.S. Also asked him and Bubba to go to Haiti. We're treating him like a President Emeritus,not a war criminal. Guess why.

That's like saying we can never convict anyone unless s/he makes a full confession.

Obama said he gave the order, and, after a firefight, Osama was dead. If Obama had ordered the troops to bring Osama in alive, if at all reasonably possible, I think Obama would have said so.

too much trouble to deal with a trial and all that. May be wrong but, I bet they said, screw it - kiill the bastard and it'd done.

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As long as Bin Laden was sitting in a U.S. prison, American citizens would have remained a target for every two-bit wanna-be jihadist trying to make a name for himself by "freeing" him.


"Free Bin Laden or we'll blow up this schoolbus full of children."
"Free Bin Laden or we'll set off a car bomb in Times Square."
"Free Bin Laden or we'll start kidnapping any American who leaves your country on vacation."

Or worse. They'll try to make America look foolish for imprisoning him by proving that they don't need him in order to be effective. That could get really ugly.

It's better to simply remove him from the playing field and be done with it.

Anyone?

Now can we admit that thousands of Americans and untold millions of Afghans and Iraqis have died for no reason, since all we had to do was trail a single courier to the spot?

Who can we sue to get back the trillions spent on this now admittedly useless double war?

Burial at sea? REALLY?

Weakest psy-ops EVER!

Whoever believes this type of unsubstanbtiated report is a bit gullible.

The last thing the U.S. would want would be a trial where bin-Laden would have a chance to reveal how deeply involved he had been with CIA back in the 80s.

There was no alternate option here.

'quaint and obsolete'.

"In 1975 and 1976, the Church Committee published fourteen reports on the formation of U.S. intelligence agencies, their operations, and the alleged abuses of law and of power that they had committed, together with recommendations for reform, some of which were put in place.

Among the matters investigated were attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, including Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, the Diem brothers of Vietnam, Gen. René Schneider of Chile and President John F. Kennedy's plan to use the Mafia to kill Fidel Castro of Cuba.

Under recommendations and pressure by this committee, President Gerald Ford issued Executive Order 11905 (ultimately replaced in 1981 by President Reagan's Executive Order 12333) to ban U.S. sanctioned assassinations of foreign leaders."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee

the argument would be that bin Laden isn't a "foreign leader." I wondered about this myself. I'm not in love with the celebrating, but I also think that bin Laden knew what he was getting into when he started down this road.

Osama executed extra-judicially. But the fans of extra-judicial assassinations really need to stfu about how OBL was 'resisting arrest' and therefore deserved his summary execution. OBL was doing no such thing if the team sent in was sent in with orders to kill him and not to arrest him.

Even without the Executive Order 11905, though, murder is still against the law.