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.

I'm with mamazon on this. Political assassination is never a good idea, no matter how much you want revenge.

I agree with mamazon it is morally wrong, but morloth's rather bleak analysis of things makes sense to me ... what an uncivilsed society we live in

Yes, Morloth is right...that's how it is.

I expect the Pakistani government/officials (or whoever) knew he was there, even if unofficially. Perhaps he has previously been tolerated but became a liability, or maybe they plain got sick of him. They may have seen this as an opportunity to get some brownie points with the US. And of course it detracts from other issues.

"Might makes right... 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 it"

Those living by "might makes right" are called bullies and rightly so.

If US acts according to "might makes right", it cannot claim moral authority and certainly cannot ask to be seen as better than Al Qaeda and the like. US cannot lead by example and should not be talking about defending freedoms against terrorists "who hate freedom and democracy".

Rule of law is by no means an "aberration of history" but the norm for at least 3700 years, since Hammurabi. It is sad that in the year 2011 AD, there are people arguing for law of the jungle above laws of equality before law and due process.

I wouldn't consider myself a violent person, I've never hurt anyone in my life.... but I think I would have shot him in the head myself frankly if I'd had the chance. I couldn't care less if he had a fair anything.

That being said partying in the streets does not seem the right response to waste and death and war.

If a parent had video evidence of a man abusing his child.

It was clear and undeniable that he had done so.

Would it be ok for that father to go hunt down said man and kill him?

No. It may well be understandable and we may well want to sympathise with the father, but he would still be tried for murder. Especially if it took him 10 years or more to find him to kill.

Whatever the provocation, it is still wrong.

regardless of the ethics, it just stinks, its staged, trying to figure out what the timing means....

he's been a wanted/hunted man for years. i think if he'd been found at any stage accusations of 'PR stunt' would fly.

US elections in 2012 - long way off

Am really uncomfortable with the celebrations of his death. I remember being very offended by the celebrations after 9/11 as were lots of other Americans.

Would have preferred to see Bin Laden and don't like President Obama's reference to, 'justice being done...'

I don't feel that the world is a safer place now that he's dead, or that this changes anything.

I was just thinking about this in the car on the way home and i agree. No trial? No arrest? It's weird and I don't like the implications this will undoubtably have for the west.

Mamaz0n, your last posts sounds like you are an Osama Bin Laden Apologist to me. Osama bin Laden believed in jihad and the extermination of all people who did not adhere to his brand of Islam. If he had the opportunity to blow up US forces he would have not hesitated to do so, like suicide bombers before him it is considerd a noble death: kill as make 'infidels' as you can.

His ideal world was Taliban held Afghanistan, circa late 1990's. Do a bit of research and find out what life was like for those people who had to lsurvive under that regime.

He wanted you, me and everyone around us dead, unless we conformed.

How do you propose that the US should have gone about it?

Put him on the FBI most wanted list? Done
Bring forward criminal indictments? Done
Give opportunities to surrender? Done

He was hardly ever likely to turn up at Disneyworld and give himself up.

How much energy have you spent condemning those monsters who murdered innocents in

Marrakech
Madrid
New York
London
Kenya....

It is your absolute right to mourn the manner in which Osama bin Laden has been killed but I make no apologies for being absolutely digusted by people like you.

Erm, to question the supposed upholding of "liberal values" through extremely questionable acts is not necessarily to be an Osama bin Laden apologist. It's a necessary political activity within liberalism, for heaven's sake! To identify that with O b L's position is a bit ... naive.

grow up.

I have repeated many many times, The fact that he is dead is probably a good thing. To have captured him would have lead to kidnappings in order to barter for his freedom, increased voilence and lords knows what else.

BUT I do not think that the US or any other government can just decide that someone should die without a trial or what have you.

And i don't see that to murder someone should be considered "justice"

UBL was a deranged evil man who deliberatly concocted acts of terror. If he was tried in Afghanistan and given the death penalty i would have been perfectly happy with that.

But this whole thing smells fishier than a trawler full of 3 week old kippers.

Over the past decade many teams of seals and delta force have been sent in to the mountains. On several occasions those teams disappeared virtually without a trace.

Too many apologists on mn and as someone else so rightly pointed out, his ideology, and that of those who support him and all extremism hate us. Yes, us. Women with education who wear short skirts, women whose tally of lovers needs counting. Your gay friends. Your Jewish friends. Your daughters.

Glad he's dead.

Polar - I'm not sure how being glad he is dead, as OP has actually said several times = being an 'apologist'.

To suggest that mamaz0n is an al-Qaeeda apologist is frankly absurd.
I haven't read most of the comments here so apologies for repeating what might already have been said:
It is not the fact that he is dead that troubles me; but it is the way in which it happened. Isn't everyone, regardless of how heinous their crime, entitled to due process?

I predict this thread is now going to get ridiculous very quickly.

Good guys? Who is naive? There are no good guys DarthNiqabi.

So the reports say that he was given the oppportunity to surrender he did not.
In all honesty I do not know what really happen so I am just going to have to take their word for it. You have decided by OBL was executed. Therefore, you must be privy to some information I am not.

OBL is not the first criminal on the run who has been given an oppportunity to surrender, refused to do so and has been shot.

It's not about having sympathies with him. It's about not being comfortable about someone being put to death without a trial. Saddam Hussein was tried, then executed. Quite rightly, actually. I would gave liked to have seen OBM tried too. He's got away with it too easily, he'll just been seen as a martyr now.

The only place he could reasonably be tried would be at The Hague - for Crimes against Humanity - it would take years for the case to come to trial.

Judge Judy would be better.

Had massive row long discussion with dh this morning about htis too. Does not bode well for so-called civilisation; am very saddened (though there is no doubt that he was a Very Bad Man and that no outcome was going to be 'good').

Criminal law is only applicable to criminals. Usually your own citizens who have strayed from a body of laws they essentially accept.

War is different.

How many people think that at The Battle of Britain we should have read the Luftwaffe pilots their rights instead of shooting them down? We killed 1000s of them and a good thing too or we'd be posting this in German.

Someone mentioned the celebrations at the end of that war. People were overjoyed and rightly so.