[MP-Ryan]

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Osama+raid+Classified+details+revealed+SEAL+team/5192777/story.html

The raid on Osama bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan was a mission to kill him, and there was "never any question" he would be captured alive, one of those directly involved has claimed.

The most detailed account so far of the assassination of the world's most wanted man describes the May 1 operation in Abbottabad as a "covert mission into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden".

Published in The New Yorker magazine, it presents the strongest challenge yet to the Obama administration's insistence that the al-Qaida chief, codenamed "Crankshaft", could have been captured had he "conspicuously surrendered".

An unnamed U.S. special operations officer, said to be "deeply familiar with the bin Laden raid", told the magazine that the 23 Navy Seals were clear that this was not the case.

"There was never any question of detaining or capturing him," the officer said. "It wasn't a split-second decision. No one wanted detainees."

The plan, according to the article's author, Nicholas Schmidle, was for the Seals to "overpower bin Laden's guards, shoot and kill him at close range, and then take the corpse back to Afghanistan".

In May, John Brennan, Mr Obama's counter-terrorism chief, said the commandos would not have killed their target if they were confident he was not carrying an "improvised explosive device on his body" or "some type of hidden weapon".

Schmidle reports the first Seal to find bin Laden believed one or both of the wives guarding him were wearing suicide vests. He shot one in the calf before rugby tackling them to save two colleagues. Neither turned out to have explosives.

A second Seal then shot bin Laden in the chest and again in the head with his M4 rifle, and said over his radio: "For God and country - Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo" - the codeword for a hit on bin Laden.

When he later met them in private, Mr Obama "never asked who fired the kill shot, and the Seals never volunteered to tell him", according to Schmidle.

Hope someone is about to lose their clearance and job after this got published.

[FireSpawn]

Someone's going for a trip to Guantanamo's torture reeducation rooms.

[Beskargam]

Sigh. He is just as dead and this wont change that. Probably better and cleaner that he is to. yay political mess

[JCDNWarrior]

The problem with telling lies, is that you have to keep changing your story.

[Herra Tohtori]

"There was never any question of detaining or capturing him," the officer said. "It wasn't a split-second decision. No one wanted detainees."

Prove it.

[Scotty]

HerraTohtori gains +5 cool points.

On-topic: He's dead.  He has been dead for several months.  I really must ask why it's so incredible that it was ordered (if it was ordered) instead of happening accidentally?  The outcome is the same.

Note: No slight to you, Ryan, I just find this topic of discussion ultimately meaningless.

[Mongoose]

No matter what John Brennan said, this was kind of a given from the beginning.

[bobbtmann]

No matter what John Brennan said, this was kind of a given from the beginning.

I concur. Who wears explosive vests when they're sitting around at home?

[Dark Hunter]

On-topic: He's dead.  He has been dead for several months.  I really must ask why it's so incredible that it was ordered (if it was ordered) instead of happening accidentally?  The outcome is the same.

I agree.

Does anybody give a damn if the mission was a kill operation rather than a capture operation? We wanted him dead, he's dead, the world is better for it.

[bobbtmann]

It's illegal? The US sent thugs abroad to go murder someone.

[Scotty]

He was an enemy combatant, admitted himself as such, and actively engaged in acts of terrorism around the world.  He was a valid target for assassination, much like a high ranking officer in a combat theater, where in this case the theater was the whole world.  The people who carried out the act were highly trained special forces that followed their orders.  The only parst of your statement not blatantly in error are "US" and "abroad."

[Mars]

Hell, he was a high ranking officer in a combat theater. . . although the second part is sketchier.

[Dark Hunter]

He was an enemy combatant, admitted himself as such, and actively engaged in acts of terrorism around the world.  He was a valid target for assassination, much like a high ranking officer in a combat theater, where in this case the theater was the whole world.  The people who carried out the act were highly trained special forces that followed their orders.  The only parst of your statement not blatantly in error are "US" and "abroad."

Exactly.

[Klaustrophobia]

On-topic: He's dead.  He has been dead for several months.  I really must ask why it's so incredible that it was ordered (if it was ordered) instead of happening accidentally?  The outcome is the same.

I agree.

Does anybody give a damn if the mission was a kill operation rather than a capture operation? We wanted him dead, he's dead, the world is better for it.

let no good opportunity for a media circus go to waste. 

[bobbtmann]

That's the funny thing about something as amorphous and unwinnable as "The War On Terror". It's always wartime everywhere, so everyone is a potential target no matter where they are or what they're doing.

Murder is murder, no matter how much we think they deserve it.

And what exactly does the term "enemy combatant" entail? Have you considered the origin and the results of that term?

[Scotty]

Are you seriously going to try to tell me to my face that Pakistan doesn't fund terrorist groups?  Or that Bin Laden wasn't a member of a terrorist group that committed dozens if not hundreds of terrorist acts all across the world?

Enemy combatant: "Party to the conflict" (as described in the 1949 Geneva Conventions Article 3).  Don't even try to tell me Bin Laden wasn't party to the conflict.

[NGTM-1R]

Murder is murder, no matter how much we think they deserve it.

If you are questioning the right of the state to protect itself and its citizens via the use of lethal force, I'm afraid you're **** out of luck since you won't find a country in the world that won't back that premise somehow.

If you are questioning the context, the man openly admitted that he was making war on the United States, and he openly admitted responsibility for a number of deaths that actually rank him ahead of a number of formally declared wars the United States has been involved in.

[bobbtmann]

Are you seriously going to try to tell me to my face that Pakistan doesn't fund terrorist groups?  Or that Bin Laden wasn't a member of a terrorist group that committed dozens if not hundreds of terrorist acts all across the world?

Enemy combatant: "Party to the conflict" (as described in the 1949 Geneva Conventions Article 3).  Don't even try to tell me Bin Laden wasn't party to the conflict.

That's a bit of a curve ball. What next, will you quote me as having said that terrorism is good? You drop non sequiturs in there, and this discussion becomes a never ending affair.

What I was seriously trying to tell you is that the kill mission was wrong. He should have been taken prisoner and tried at a tribunal or in a court or something. Doesn't matter if the end result is the same.

[newman]

I'm going to play devil's advocate here and say that in this case, and for purely pragmatic reasons, a kill mission was a much cleaner and faster way to deal with him. Yes, in theory, you're right - everyone should get a day in court.
In practical terms? You can put a bullet in his head. Terrorist groups will get riled up, then the dust will settle and it'll be anthrax-sniffing-business as usual for them.
Or you can go by the book and take him prisoner. Have a show trial that will drag on for months, during which time the media would be doing a great job at helping to heat the situation up and up as the various terrorist cells activate and start sending messages of their own. In the end it would have likely resulted in more random civilian killings. Of course, I can't prove it, but I think it's a reasonable hypothesis.
By the book is by the book, of course. It's not always wise, however. In this case, you have a man who wouldn't have been rehabilitated anyway. Instead he'd become a reason for someone to abduct a plane to demand his release.

And honestly? Steal a million bucks, run over someone drunk, sure you get your day in court. Kill so many random civilians? Bullet to the head, good riddance.

[Scotty]

Are you seriously going to try to tell me to my face that Pakistan doesn't fund terrorist groups?  Or that Bin Laden wasn't a member of a terrorist group that committed dozens if not hundreds of terrorist acts all across the world?

Enemy combatant: "Party to the conflict" (as described in the 1949 Geneva Conventions Article 3).  Don't even try to tell me Bin Laden wasn't party to the conflict.

That's a bit of a curve ball. What next, will you quote me as having said that terrorism is good? You drop non sequiturs in there, and this discussion becomes a never ending affair.

I was establishing that Bin Laden was operating in a legitimate and well defined theater of war, even considering the nebulous nature of the War on Terror.  As such, it's not a murder, it's a military action.