By international law, capturing Bin Laden is just as sticky as killing him.

"As a matter of international law, one country is not free to enter another country apparently without the authorisation of that country, and intervene, whether to kidnap or kill a national of a third state," Mr Sands said.

He acknowledged that under what is known as the doctrine of necessity, where there is an "overriding threat to national security", such an act might not give rise to responsibility or liability.

But he said the difficulty with that argument was that it comes against a background of a rise in extrajudicial killings, including through the use of drones, and that this was not a "lawful direction to be taking".

The logical conclusion of any idea that Bin Laden could be killed as an enemy combatant was "that anyone associated with al-Qaeda in any country in the world can be taken out, can be executed," Mr Sands said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13318372

For those who wanted strict legal standards, Bin Laden was off limits.

Legally maybe we have no right to protect ourselves from Al Qaeda.

Bin Laden was was like a Band Aid - best just to rip it off because when you do he'll be quicker to forget then if you peel away slowly at it.

But now comes the hard part...Pakistan. Looks like we aren't going to be pussyfooting around the issue either.

Just to everybody else. And that refuses to investigate the crimes of its predecessor.

...interests claiming ownership and exerting control (all too often with the aid of US military forces) of OTHER PEOPLE'S property and resources.

The world is in the shape it is in today, primarily because the basically ordinary people of affluent nations don't believe in paying fair market value to "dirty fucking savages" for something they are not using: Oil, diamonds, tantallum & other uncommon/rare minerals, even their land itself.

That's an interesting leap in logic.

He was an active soldier in the war that he himself declared against the United States. In war one does not have to give enemy soldiers the opportunity to surrender. For example, bin Laden did not give the occupants of the World Trade Center that opportunity (in contravention to the law of war bin Laden drew no distinction between military and civilian targets). Under the law of war enemy soldiers may surrender if they choose. But they had better be quick, clear, and explicit that they are surrendering. Bin Laden could have surrendered to us at any time over the past decade, but he chose not to. When he heard the U.S. helicopters overhead he could have rushed out of the compound with his hands in the air and thereby protected his wife and children, but he chose not to. Nor did he raise his hands when our soldiers encountered him. It was his choice, and there is no doubt that it was lawful for us to kill him.

Other al Qaeda leaders such as the Egyptian Ayman al Zawahiri and the traitor Anwar al-Aulaki may profit from bin Laden's example and decide to surrender and stand trial or they may decide to continue to wage war against the United States. It is their choice.'

http://www.ohioverticals.com/blogs/akron_law_cafe/2011/... /

But we've made such a mockery of PAK sovereignty that I think the OBL discussion was assumed to start off this beyond this.

all over the world. We are promoting militancy and violence as the approach to human problems even as the planet is hurtling toward destruction from our pollution of the earth and our failure to value our fellow humans above immediate profits and power.

Some who desperately needs killing, gets killed. And nobody saw nothing.




The idea, though, is that it is done very rarely, and in secrecy. Preferably by transferring suspicion to somebody else.

There is no dispute about this.

My point is if they don't accept he could be killed, why do they accept he could be captured by us?

law doesn't allow this, but anyone who says that is simply wrong.

an unambiguous attempt to surrender.

This is certainly true for the commander of an organization who has declared war on us (though the above statement is not limited to commanders).

do not accept the idea that he was a military combatant. They see it as a law enforcement issue, therefore requiring a trial.

Under the law enforcement model, would it have been legal to go in without Pakistani permission whether to kill or capture?

Bin Laden was the commander of a terrorist organization that has declared war on the US and actively planning terrorist attacks against the US. We had every legal right to violate the sovereignty of Pakistan in self defense.

Furthermore, Bin Laden himself has declared war on the United States. He is a self-declared combatant (in addition to that being inherently true given his position as the leader of a terrorist organization that has declared war on the US). The question of whether someone is a military combatant could not possibly be more clear than this case.

Now, if one were to deny that he is a combatant (i.e. the tapes were all made-up/doctored), pretend he is an innocent civilian, that he had nothing to do with 9/11, that he wasn't planning attacks against the US or leading an organization that was doing such, the legal situation would be different from their perspective. But that just means their perspective is factually wrong -- not that the legal situation is actually different than the one I outlined above.

Standing which allowed us to capture him without Pakistani approval right?

If they accept that Bin Laden was a threat to our country, they could accept that we had the right to enter Pakistan in self defense, but then incorrectly state that we had an obligation to capture him alive if he wasn't armed. But I guess it would depend on why they incorrectly thought that we had an obligation to capture him alive if he wasn't armed.

If they thought this because they just aren't familiar with the laws of war, I guess they could still agree that we had the right to enter Pakistan in self defense.

However, some probably don't even believe that Bin Laden was a threat to the nation or a declared combatant, and that therefore the laws of war don't apply (which would mean that even a capture under that situation could not be considered self defense).

I'm sorry, that's off topic, but I just had to say it.

...to enter Pakistan for whatever reason. There are at least two cables that I have found where this was mentioned.

with a military raid deep within said nation for a known mastermind behind the deaths of American citizens. Why didn't we just tell Pakistan to hand him over when we knew his location? Legally we should be able to protect ourselves from our enemies, even if we know a country is a political 'friend' that harbors (maybe knowingly) a political 'foe' to the point of taking a chance on a fourth war. Good debate imo.

They weren't even sure he was there so what could they have accused Pakistan of if nothing turned up?

had the intel been wrong, yet they knew he was there and they acted to send in the military to destroy their target. I think this would have ended up very, very ugly if it would not have been OBL. Maybe our forth war. But it was him, Pakistan is not denying that fact.

We wouldn't have had enough to pin on them.

are still playing out. Some would say a foolish move, others the right one. Time will tell and for the record, I believe the Pakistani govt (or some of the people in high places) must have known he was there. I believe at least part of Pakistan's govt is complicit in hiding him...now what? What happens next?

If they had just sent in drones, then we would have no evidence. We could have helped them save face by not efficiently snatching all that data too. But we did get everything and now we are asking for explanations.