to wonder with what authority USA killed Osama Bin Laden.

[Mamaz0n]

Since when has murder been justice?

Don't get me wrong, i think it is a good thing that he has died. I think that to imprison him would have caused massive uprising in violence and kidnaps etc.

But it bothers me that America has just decided that this man is guilty and therefore acted to murder him.

It is my (probably naive) understanding that you can't be extradited to a state that has the death penalty, so how exactly can Obama's order to kill Bin Laden be at all legal?

I have even just heard that the Pakistani government were not even aware that the USA were taking this action.

I am sorry but it sits very uncomfortably with me.

gypsymummy, I have to admit I struggle to care about the burial rites of a man that would have happily chopped off your head and posted the video on you tube.

they took the corpse from pakistan..they must have captured millions of images for documentation..there is a time lapse ..can you imagine the glee..think Abu ghreib...
I just think dumping him in the sea will only further enhance the bitterness and animosity his followers feel for the rest of the world.,,and inflame many who are neither here nor there..

nancy75 i am not particularly bothered myself but i am just stating facts which are significant both to the state of the free world versus the sad world and to the period of lfe hereafter ..

deemented - Martin Luther King may be right that hate cannot drive out hate, but the implication that violence can never settle anything is demonstrably wrong. Allied violence settled the Nazi threat in WW2, and thank god for that.

wotnochocs - "Act First, think later (if at all) is the American Mantra"
I have to say, this kind of comment is something I find absolutely infuriating. Do you really think that this act was rushed into? You may disagree with it, but telling yourself a story that the stoopid Americans are just trigger happy is just obviously wrong. Honestly, have a little imagination: there will have been reams of analysis done by everyone from CIA to NSA to DIA to DHS to SecDef etc etc on the options available and the implications of each of them. They will have included "unthinkable" options such as 'leave him alone' and impractical options such as 'seek extradition' as well as the most obvious three options "kill on sight", "exfiltrate alive, interrogate, put on trial at Gitmo", and "do an Eichmann", plus any other option that you can think of. Each will have been extensively wargamed (ie the scenarios played through). Everything from legality to media reaction to impact on individual countries will have been considered. There will have been the most rigorous and thorough-going critique of every aspect of the decision. Because it's a big fucking deal and the American government is full of very smart people and is an enormous bureaucratic machine and will have been flat out on trying to make the best possible decision.

For all the people asking, "where does the authority to kill in this way stem from?" It stems from a series of executive orders issued by the president specifying that certain people, including OBL, are "enemy combatants" and that US forces are authorised to kill them. That order is constitutional. Whether you consider it moral or practical is a perfectly legitimate question, but it is legal within the terms of the US legal system. The criminal justice system is not the only means by which a state can legally have the power to kill.

Lots of people are posting about the potential negative ramifications of:

• killing him
• burying him at sea
• shot, rather than taken alive

etc But you have to analyse the options. It is not immediately obvious that:

• keeping him alive
• burying him some other way
• taking him alive

etc, would have been better. A live OBL would have been a major focal point, as would any marked land-based burial spot. When al Zarqawi was killed in Iraq, he was buried in an unmarked grave for the same reason. The chances would have been pretty high that he was wearing a suicide belt. For that reason alone, shooting him in the head would have been the safest way to quickly disable him (and I'll be there was serious concern about whether he had a dead man's switch, too)

Why are people rejoicing about this? There are plenty more fundamentalists to take his place. It's not like fundamentalism and the jihad has suddenly disappeared just because Osama died

So what were they supposed to do form a hugging circle?

He deserved to die.
The silly bint on CNN made me laugh though saying "its the end of the war on terror" no you daft woman it is the start of a new chapter, so you think all his nutty followers are going to pack up their flip flops and go home? Hell no.
Also thought it was funny they said he did not get a Muslin burial, who gives a toss, he is going straight to hell, no paradise no virgins.

Have to say though it was crass of the Americans to be out flag waving, made them look as bad as the nutters that burn the flags and shoot guns in the air wailing like animals when they kill a U.S/ English serviceman.

Burial at sea isnt really in line with islamic beliefs, which isnt something that bothers me hugely in this case but it does irritate me when it is said to have been done to be 'inline with islamic beliefs' just be honest and say, he was buried at sea as we couldnt find a country that wanted to bury him/we couldnt give a shit so threw him in the sea or whatever the reason was.

I absolutly feel his death is the least dangerous outcome.To have kept him alive would have caused further violence. Even more than I think there will be now that he is dead.

The whole thing leaves me cold.

He was an evil man with a lot of power over some very violent extremists. His life was violent and i guess in many ways his death is befitting that lifestyle.

But they are showing the place of his death on the news, it is like something to be glorified.

Slhilly - thank you for that explanation. But surely the US only have such legislation over Americans or those in America?

I don't know, im not sure im explaining it well but it just seems iffy.

I dislike the idea that a government can just decide you are unwanted and have you killed.

nancy, if he resisted arrest he should have forcibly been arrested. People resist arrest all the time and we don't shoot them dead.

Like I said earlier, the death penalty really should be the only outcome for someone like him but only after trial. Trying criminals rather than blowing their face off at point blank range is apparently why we are a civilised society.

How many people should die forcibly arresting a mass murderer?

It is not WHO they shot that I have the issue with, It is the fact that they did so with no trial.

Through his choice, ie engaging in gun fire, he forfeited the right to a 'trial'.

nancy, if he resisted arrest he should have forcibly been arrested. People resist arrest all the time and we don't shoot them dead.

Lol are you for real?? This isn't some joe bloggs pissed on a street corner resisting arrest - this is an animal with no regard for human life, whose past history shown him to have weapons to kill by the boat load!

‎'I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy.Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.'

Martin Luther King, Jr.

I do not rejoice in his death, but I do view it as a necessary action.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was first and foremost a man of God. He was a Christian, a Baptist preacher who felt he was put on Earth to spread The Word and to save souls. He lived his faith. One was not without the other. He was one with his faith, he lived it out, he fought as he did because he felt everyone was equal under Christ.

So I find it really rich, all the atheists who use his words to proclaim they would be too good to be glad Bin Laden is dead, safe and warm in their homes, far away from the bullets and rockets and bombs that have killed tens of thousands who've been murdered under the group Bin Laden founded, Al-Queda.

I've got a feeling The Reverend MLK, Jr. would find issue with that, for some reason.

And he'd have been on bended knee praying for conversion, not preaching he was too good to be the sinner he felt he was.

'I dislike the idea that a government can just decide you are unwanted and have you killed.'

So then you disagree with NATO action in Libya? Because that's just one or more governments saying the leader is unwanted and must be killed?

Expat is right, 100%.

I think I shall just line up with expat and Yank.

Very easy to talk about law and worry about the human rights of mass murderers when it is the 'bullies' and the superpowers who are keeping you and yours safe from them.

Very easy to be a pacifist when you have other people doing your dirty work for you - even easier to then slag them off when you feel so very safe.

Thank you Morloth . I already posted it in another thread but :

I am American and I am a good person. No saint or anything, but you get the idea. My husband is a good person. My son is a good person, an innocent child. And bin Laden would have killed us all in an instant and loved doing it.

There were eight children total on the 9/11 planes. Just little children. And the hijackers saw them, knew they were there, and did what they did anyway. F%ck them, and f#ck what bin Laden "deserved."

He wasn't surrounded by an arsenal of weapons when they ambushed him, you know? Do you think that half of the terrorists in Guantanamo came quietly without resisting? The troops doing the ambush knew the quantity they were dealing with, they would have been sufficiently armed to execute an arrest.

Morloth, I don't feel 'safe'. My dad does about six business trips to the U.S per year and I feel twitchy every time he goes. I won't use the tube if I have my DS with me.

Anyway. Lots of people missing the point here and assuming that if you don't feel comfortable with what's happened then you hold sympathies with OBL or are overly concerned with his human rights. It's not that though. It's that people are wondering about how we can distinguish ourselves as a civilised society, dismiss a lot of the middle east as barbaric and how this fits in with that.

Quite right marmalade. What does this say about our so-called civilised society?

I am not sorry the man is dead, but neither am I jubilant because I am concerned about the manner of his death and what that actually means to our way of life. There is more than one principle which seem to have been disregarded here. I know that in this case it seems ridiculous to raise the idea of 'innocent until proven guilty' but that is one of our guiding lights. Supposedly.

For anyone who thinks he was just an old unarmed man, how do you explain the military helicopter in tatters in the compound grounds? Pelt it with tatties did they?

I agree with OP. It doesn't sit easy with me either. Nor does the rejoicing in the streets. I certainly won't be mourning his passing but I just think there is something inherently wrong with celebrating the death of another person.