Should we just execute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and avoid the trial altogether?

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the 9-11 attacks, is getting a trial. Technically it's a military trial, but it's still somewhat of a trial nonetheless.

After seeing an overwhelming number of people suggesting that putting OBL on trial would be a mistake, that killing him was the right thing to do, should we do the same with KSM? After all, by putting him on trial, won't we be giving him a worldwide spotlight? If we imprison him for the rest of his life in a federal prison, aren't we creating a target for attacks? Why not simply take him into a dark basement, put a bullet in his head, and dump his body into the ocean?

I'm really curious. Should we follow our judicial system (albeit a somewhat tenuous system), or should we simply execute?

Many reports are coming out now that there wasn't much resistance at all during the SEAL team's assault, that OBL and most of the occupants (if not all) were unarmed. Seems to me that if there had been an order to capture OBL and return him for trial, that more than likely could have been accomplished.

Just for the record, I'm not shedding any tears over his death. However, I do believe that we have a system of laws in this country for a reason. After the Lockerbie bombing, the British didn't send their SAS into Libya to kill the suspected terrorists. Even the most heinous serial killers get their day in court.

They were walking into hell not knowing if people could blow themselves and the whole house up or what could happen at any second. If Osama even remotely appeared to be reaching for something or started to run they absolutely HAD to fire or in their mind anything might happen.

The fact that so many unarmed people were not injured is amazing to me and they shot a woman running at them in the leg, meaning they had to quickly decide to lower the shot away from the body to the legs. One also grabbed several small children to get them out of harms way on the third floor. They were making decisions to fire or not fire in fractions of a second.

If you're going after a dangerous fugitive, a known murderer, and that person goes for something--whether it turns out to be a weapon or not--they are going to get shot.

That is how they are trained. These people are putting their lives on the line and if your life is on the line you have every right under the law to protect yourself if you are not sure what the other person is going to do next. Personally I bet you anything Osama didn't want to be taken alive. He probably did whatever he could do to make sure they shot him. A person worth millions who has that kind of religious nuttery to kill in the name of his god most certainly would be the type to want to die in action and not be taken alive. He wouldn't want those who followed him all this time to think he wouldn't resist. If they thought their great leader was afraid to resist it might kill the movement all together. They would lose respect for him. This had to be in the back of his mind.

I get the argument the OP was trying to make, but it's apples and oranges.

KSM has been in the system, we're stuck with using the system to resolve his situation.

just committed on OBL are so much more efficient and sanitary.

Not sure I needed the :sarcasm: but just in case.

Instead, he surrounded himself with weapons and armed people, and vowed to become a martyr, and when the troops came knocking, he didn't lie down and wait to be arrested.

ignoring numerous reports in credible sources that the SEALs were sent on an explicit 'kill' mission. There's a phrase for that: stretching ingenuity beyond its natural limits in order to defend the indefensible.

Notwithstanding that, please do note the principle you articulate: if you don't surrender, you get summary execution without a trial. That's not a U.S. I want any truck with. Come to think of it, I don't believe you and I have much further to discuss.

Those are different things.

You know what happens when you tell a cop that you don't have a gun when there's one stashed in your glove box? You go to jail.

You know what happens when the cop already knows you probably have one in the glove box, plan on using it to kill as many cops as possible, and you make *any* sudden movement? You die.

You're ignoring numerous credible reports that weapons were found in the room he retreated to, and died in.

"if you don't surrender, you get summary execution without a trial. "

That's kind of how war works.

Geez.

throw in a little drawing and quartering in the public square. Maybe with a little bear-baiting thrown in for comic relief.

:sarcasm:

Thanks for asking the question. It needed and needs to be asked over and over again.

of having him assassinated we are now obligated to give him some kind of trial before we execute him.

Just another Bush/Cheney fuck up.

Police shoot and kill un-armed people all the time if they appear to be going for a weapon even if there was no weapon there. Thats how they are trained because their lives are very much on the line just as in the case with the SEALS and Osama.

custody, and following it is possible.

Easy.

If you are smart enough to be shitting this straw man argument, well, then.....you know the rest.

I have no problem with the Seals shooting OBL. He is gone. good. OBL was the top of the pyramid.. it is smart to take him down. KSM was someone they could get information from to get to OBL. Sorry... I'm just not gonna theorize on this one. The m'fer (OBL) should have been taken out years ago. There have been a few truly evil, intelligent and skillful people in the history of the World that have had the resources and figured out how to manipulate, propagandize and control large numbers of people. OBL was one of them. They are in a class of their own. They truly don't deserve a trial and I doubt the f'ed up Charles Manson like psychos of the world will be an asset for intel.