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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to wonder with what authority USA killed Osama Bin Laden.

342 replies

Mamaz0n · 02/05/2011 09:43

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.

OP posts:
Snuppeline · 02/05/2011 13:14

I am uneasy when I see the jubilant scenes too as, firstly, the death does not mark the end of the war against terror (it will most likely intensify it at least for a while), secondly, as if we are the Good Ones then we should be above such distasteful displays. However, I have not been affected by terrorist activities so I guess I don't have the right to be too moral about it.

By the way, its stated in some media that he used a woman as a human shield. Not sure if that's entierly true but if it is it is certainly a mark of the sort of man he was. Yes it is good to write was! I can't really see what other choice they had in light of the fight he put up too.

Nancy66 · 02/05/2011 13:18

Absolutely no way the Pakistani government didn't know where he was either - how on earth could he be in that giant, guarded compound without their knowledge?

masterblaster · 02/05/2011 13:20

Anyone who thinks that the soldiers trying to take him out should have tried to take him alive has clearly never been in the forces (I have, by the way). You do not fuck around in these circumstances.

On the other hand, it is a shame they couldn't, because then we could have conducted a show trial and beheaded him on the internet, as his followers were so happy to do to others.

TheBride · 02/05/2011 13:25

Absolutely no way the Pakistani government didn't know where he was either - how on earth could he be in that giant, guarded compound without their knowledge?

Yeah, they are lying bastards, but Pakistan is barely a country, so unsurprising that it's government is barely a government.

mummyplum · 02/05/2011 13:34

HAHA I love the comment on the article that amberleaf posted - "Do you want to see his Long Death Certificate?"

LoopyLiz88 · 02/05/2011 13:38

I'm extremely happy that bin laden is dead. I won't be celebrating in the treat but I understand why some people are and won't be thinking bad about them.

HHLimbo · 02/05/2011 13:52

Sounds like a lovely newspaper story for the (warmongering) americans. Is there an election coming up?

Nancy66 · 02/05/2011 14:04

al qaeda murdered 3,000 innocents on September 11th.....why are the Americans the 'warmongers' ?

amberleaf · 02/05/2011 14:16

Nancy how many innocents in iraq/afghan have the Americans murdered?

polarbabe · 02/05/2011 14:16

Nancy66, there is no point arguing with Al Qaeda apologists. They conveniently forget the atrocities Al-Qaeda have commited because it is always 'right on' to beat America with whatever stick is available. What next? Mourning Osama bin Laden? Would not surprise me.

amberleaf · 02/05/2011 14:17

[Sprinkles some mmore salt next to HHLimbos pile]

lubeybooby · 02/05/2011 14:18

Nancy66 because the usa (and us) have killed ten times that in the wars since

sharbie · 02/05/2011 14:32

very wrong i agree with op

Nancy66 · 02/05/2011 14:34

The attack on the world trade centre, plus our 7/7 bombings were the work of terrorist organisations DELIBERATELY setting out to kill and maim citizens.

I know that thousands of innocent civilians have died - and i didn't support the war in Iraq - but their deaths were the tragic consequences of what happens in military conflict.

I don't think it's a fair comparison.

amberleaf · 02/05/2011 14:38

I don't think it's a fair comparison. no ? well maybe you dont but its a fair reason for the US to be called war mongerers

Nancy66 · 02/05/2011 14:43

No, it really isn't.
Defending your country does not make you a warmonger.

Morloth · 02/05/2011 14:47

It doesn't make me uncomfortable because I don't live in a fantasy world.

Might makes right. Doesn't matter how things should be, this is the way the world is.

Always has been, always will be.

At the moment the US is still a superpower, there is nothing anyone can really do, if they disagree with them. Perhaps China could apply real pressure but I seriously doubt they give a fuck.

It never ceases to amaze me how out of touch with reality so many people are. The comfort and safety and rule of law we think is the 'normal' state of being is an aberration of history and bought by doing our murdering elsewhere where we can't see.

Original poster
Mamaz0n · 02/05/2011 15:52

I am not an Al Qaeda apologist at all.
I have stated that in the grand scheme of things it is probably better and far easier that he died rather than been taken alive.

What sits uncomfortably with me is that the US government decided that he was bad and they have ordered his murder. I think that is wrong.

They are saying on the news that his role behind the 9/11 bombings caused the start of the Iraqi war...funny that, im sure they were all saying it was about WMD's?

As for him refusing to be taken, he is an elderly man with significant health issues, I can't imagine he would have been too difficult an opponant for a couple of Navy Seals.

The whole thing just stinks to high heaven to me. none of it adds up.

OP posts:
NoWayNoHow · 02/05/2011 15:54

AFIAK, they didn't go there to kill him, they went there to capture him. If that didn't happen, then it was most likely because Bin Laden refused to surrender/gunfire broke out.

Nancy66 · 02/05/2011 15:57

he's not an elderly man - he's 54 and fit and healthy enough to have lived in underground caves for years.

Original poster
Mamaz0n · 02/05/2011 15:58

there were 4 of them. hardly a small army.

I also despise the way Obama kept saying that "no civilians were harmed" well UBL wasn't military or diplomat or what have you so surely he was a civilian? Also they say that a woman who was used as a sheild was also shot.

stinkier than a 30ft high pile of horse shit.

OP posts:
Original poster
Mamaz0n · 02/05/2011 15:59

There is no evidence to say that he lived in caves at all.

My dad is 50 and dying. Age and health have little to do with each other.

OP posts:
HRHShoesytwoesy · 02/05/2011 16:03

Mamaz0n sorry but wouldn't it be better to worry about the innocent people that died because of him, rather than worrying about whether he could have lived?
he was not a nice man and was not ederley. he was an evil person

carminaburana · 02/05/2011 16:04

Mamaz0n - put your disgust in an email to Barack Obama -

I'd love to hear his reply.

Original poster
Mamaz0n · 02/05/2011 16:05

Shoesy - my issue is not about the killing of UBM. His death is, in all honesty the easiest outcome for all.

It is about the US deciding someone is guilty and then murdering them.

whether that be UBL, or Joe Bloggs from the street.

OP posts:
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