Posted: May 22, 2011 | Author: GoRight | Filed under: Al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Counterterror Policy, George W. Bush, Noam Chomsky, Obama Administration, Osama, Osama bin Laden, Osama bin Laden Assassination, War on Terror | Tags: Al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Counterterror Policy, George W. Bush, Noam Chomsky, Obama Administration, Osama, Osama bin Laden, Osama bin Laden Assassination, War on Terror |
On May 1, 2011, Osama bin Laden was killed in his virtually unprotected compound by a raiding mission of 79 Navy Seals, who entered Pakistan by helicopter. After many lurid stories were provided by the government and withdrawn, official reports made it increasingly clear that the operation was a planned assassination, multiply violating elementary norms of international law, beginning with the invasion itself.
There appears to have been no attempt to apprehend the unarmed victim, as presumably could have been done by 79 commandos facing no opposition – except, they report, from his wife, also unarmed, who they shot in self-defense when she “lunged” at them (according to the White House).
via PressTV – Osama bin Laden’s Death: There is much more to say. (Cached)
These are harsh words coming from an individual who is a widely recognized and cited Academic. The entire article is a very good read. I recommend it. He draws a number of comparisons between the Bush and Obama Administrations and how the Nazi’s were handled during the Nuremberg Trials.
He also makes the following comparison between the Obama and the Bush Administrations regarding foreign policy related to terrorists:
As the Atlantic inquiry observes, “The decision to kill bin Laden outright was the clearest illustration to date of a little-noticed aspect of the Obama administration’s counterterror policy. The Bush administration captured thousands of suspected militants and sent them to detention camps in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay. The Obama administration, by contrast, has focused on eliminating individual terrorists rather than attempting to take them alive.” That is one significant difference between Bush and Obama. The authors quote former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who “told German TV that the U.S. raid was ‘quite clearly a violation of international law’ and that bin Laden should have been detained and put on trial,” contrasting Schmidt with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who “defended the decision to kill bin Laden although he didn’t pose an immediate threat to the Navy SEALs, telling a House panel on Tuesday that the assault had been ‘lawful, legitimate and appropriate in every way’.”
Posted: May 11, 2011 | Author: GoRight | Filed under: Al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Geneva Conventions, George W. Bush, Obama Administration, Osama, Osama bin Laden, Osama bin Laden Assassination, War on Terror | Tags: Al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Gearge W. Bush, Geneva Conventions, Obama Administration, Osama, Osama bin Laden, Osama bin Laden Execution, War on Terror |
Yes, says a source who is no friend of George W. Bush:
Osama bin Laden wasn’t killed by a Navy SEAL team — he was straight up executed.
– Michael Moore in an exclusive interview with The Wrap, May 4, 2011
Given all of the conflicting narratives surrounding what actually happened during the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound it is not surprising that this claim is surfacing. I am surprised by the source, though. But maybe not. This is Michael Moore’s type of issue. You loved his Columbine. He wow’ed you with Fahrenheit 9/11. So why not this?
But before you go all kook nuttery on me, there is actually something to this. There are a lot of legal scholars debating whether this killing was actually legal, or not. Of course the Obama Administration claims they were completely legally justified, but other more independent voices are not so certain. Obviously the Obama Administration was concerned about the whole legality issue which is why they were initially claiming that Osama bin Laden was an active participant in a firefight with the Navy SEALS who ultimately killed him. They painted a picture of a fight straight out of a Hollywood script to insure that the official record could not be questioned.
But then another account came out in which only one person in the house was actually armed and they were killed on the first floor. Osama was killed on the third floor and he was apparantly unarmed at the time. This, of course, is now raising serious questions about whether the killing was justified. And of course the White House has now ceased releasing any details regarding how the incident actually went down. This is all very suspicious. As was the haste with which Osama was sent to sleep with the fishes.
Taking Obama at his word that Osama was actually dispatched from this world we need to have the details of the raid released so that the legality of the operation can be properly assessed. At a time when the Obama Administration is actively investigating the Bush era personnel who conducted the enhanced interrogations that pointed our intelligence community down the path of tracking Osama bin Laden down we need to also be mindful of excesses on the part of this administration. After all, there are active investigations into whether the enhanced interrogation of a handful of terrorists violated the Geneva Conventions, so too should there be an investigation into whether Obama has likewise violated the Geneva Conventions by summarily executing Osama bin Laden. Like it or not, if waterboarding is a violation of those conventions then an unlawful execution would certainly be a war crime.
I think we need to have an independent investigator look into whether Obama is guilty of a war crime here. Given the current stance of this administration vis a vis the enhanced interrogations they should be self-consistent and seek an investigation into their own activities surrounding this raid. The American people are owed the truth.
Now I have a lot more investigating to do on this subject. I have not reached a final conclusion as of yet since there are too many facts out there which are not yet in evidence. But the reading I have been doing thus far is not encouraging. See for yourself, though. I am attaching pointers to all of the material I have researched thus far for your continued consideration.
News Roundup:
General Material About the raid:
Regarding the differing accounts of the raid:
Regarding the kill order:
Regarding the legality of the killing:
Posted: May 10, 2011 | Author: GoRight | Filed under: Al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Democrats, Geneva Conventions, George W. Bush, Guantanamo Bay, Habeas Corpus, Obama Administration, Osama, Osama bin Laden, War on Terror | Tags: Al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Democrats, Geneva Conventions, George W. Bush, Guantanamo Bay, Habeus Corpus, Obama Administration, Osama |
I have been following the news after the death of Osama bin Laden and there is a growing narrative questioning the legality of the Obama Administration’s actions in that incident. As part of my initial investigation into this topic I came across the following article by Owen Fiss in the Boston Review.
It is a well written article which deals mainly with the policies of the Obama Administration and how they are merely extensions of the Geroge W. Bush policies that were in place before he was elected. The author makes a very good case for how Obama doesn’t deserve any sympathy for where he finds himself with respect to the handling of Al Qaeda prisoners.
Here is a short list of quotes taken directly from the piece that I found particularly enlightening:
- “Obama proposed legislation to revise the evidentiary rules governing military commissions. The result was the Military Commissions Act of 2009, under which Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and [four other] Guantánamo prisoners will now be tried. In proposing this measure, Obama built upon similar initiatives by Bush, who had issued in November 2001 an executive order establishing military commissions for the trial of Guantánamo prisoners.”
- “The 2009 Act thus constitutes a further institutionalization of an irregular alternative that the government might use—for reasons we will never wholly know—to prosecute suspected terrorists whom the president determines are not protected by the Third Geneva Convention (Bush referred to them as unlawful enemy combatants; Obama calls them unprivileged enemy belligerents).”
- “In the past, military commissions have been used on the battlefield to try belligerents caught red-handed and accused of war crimes. In such circumstances they have been allowed as tribunals of necessity. The 2009 Act and Bush’s earlier measures transformed them into tribunals of convenience, for the statutory changes allowed military commissions to be used for trials at Guantánamo—far removed from any battlefield—for persons held years for on end, in some cases almost a decade.”
- “Given his National Archives speech and his sponsorship of the Military Commissions Act of 2009, Obama is in no position to complain of the threat that the use of military commissions in these circumstances poses to due process.”
- “In his National Archives speech, Obama not only defended the use of military commissions, but also endorsed Bush’s policy of imprisoning suspected terrorists without providing them with a trial of any type.”
- “Obama denies that habeas is available for the prisoners of Bagram, just as Bush denied it was available for the Guantánamo prisoners.“
- “Given his support for military commissions and indefinite detention without trial, Obama’s determination to close Guantánamo has become a gesture of doubtful significance.”
- “The June 2008 Supreme Court decision in Boumediene v. Bush relieved Obama from having to take any position on the availability of habeas corpus for Guantánamo prisoners, for in that case, the Court upheld the constitutional right of Guantánamo detainees to the writ. … In response to habeas petitions from prisoners held at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, Obama’s lawyers have argued in Al Maqaleh v. Gates that the Boumediene decision should be confined to Guantánamo and Guantánamo alone, and that the prison at Bagram—a facility maintained by the United States and one to which terrorism suspects from the four corners of the earth have been brought—lies beyond the reach of the Constitution. In taking this position, Obama has further deprived the act of closing Guantánamo of meaning.”
- “In February 2011 the district court, over the objection of Obama’s lawyers, permitted the prisoners to amend their habeas petition and thus proceed to an evidentiary hearing on their claim.”
- “Obama, rather than dismantling Bush’s counterterrorism apparatus, has in crucial respects perpetuated it. He has sought to deny habeas corpus to Bagram prisoners, endorsed the policy of imprisonment without trial, and, as vividly indicated by the turnaround with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, continued the use of military commissions. … With Obama’s sanction, Bush’s counterterrorism policies have become durable features of our legal order. They have shaped our understanding of what is acceptable, and may well serve as precedents for a less reluctant president.“
This last part is particularly poignant. For all of the bluster from the Democrats during the Bush Administration regarding Guantanamo Bay and the rights of the Al Qaeda terrorists what we now see is not only the perpetuation of the Bush Policies but in some cases their emulation and expansion.
Read the original in its entirety:
Posted: June 19, 2005 | Author: GoRight | Filed under: War on Terror |
At the end of WWII many of the Nazi’s being tried in the Nuremberg Trials employed what became known as the Nuremberg Defense. Generally speaking, the Nuremberg Defense consists primarily of the accused seeking to absolve themselves of all responsibility for their crimes by claiming that “they were following orders from a superior authority.”
It is generally recognized that this is not a valid defense as long as the accused knew the order to be unlawful, or a person of ordinary sense and understanding would have known it to be unlawful (see Rule 916. Defenses in the MANUAL FOR COURTS-MARTIAL UNITED STATES, page 111). In fact, this view has been held for so long that the members of the United States military know that they have a specific duty to not follow unlawful orders. This standard is right and proper, however it has the effect of saying that if the accused knows that a particular order is unlawful and they still choose to obey that order that they are as guilty of the crime as are their commanding officers. Hence, in a court of law they can and should be tried for their crimes.
Most people (but apparantly few Democrats) understand that the torture and murder of millions in the Nazi Death Camps was unlawful, that the murder of millions in the Soviet gulags was unlawful, and that the murder of millions by Pol Pot in Cambodia was unlawful. So when someone like Senator Durbin seeks to create a moral equivalence between our actions at Gitmo and the actions of the Nazis, the Soviets, and Pol Pot he is, in effect, saying that the men and women of the U.S. Military at Gitmo are committing war crimes against humanity.
The legal precedent described above does not leave much room for being selective in one’s remarks. Even if the Democrats and Senator Durbin truly believe that the administration’s policies at Gitmo are the moral equivalent of mass murder and genocide, then legally speaking the men and women stationed at Gitmo must also be guilty of the crimes that they presumably recognize that they are committing. If they can be held legally responsible for their actions then I do not believe that Senator Durbin can simply claim that he is only directing his allegations at the administration. He is making accusations which would, legally speaking, apply to anyone and everyone who is involved in those crimes.
Any other position on the part of Senator Durbin and the Democrats who seek to give him cover would, in effect, be minimizing the pain and suffering caused by the likes of the Nazis, the Soviets, and Pol Pot by effectively saying that those who had suffered should have no legal redress against those who actually carried out the abuses. In other words, this would be like saying to the Jews who survived the concentration camps that they could only hold Hitler himself responsible for their suffering and could not seek charges against those who actually inflicted that suffering such as “Ivan the Terrible,” a particularly sadistic Nazi guard who ran the gas chambers at the Treblinka death camp in occupied Poland.
I, for one, believe in the rightousness of the average American Soldier. I believe that they stand for freedom and justice for all, and I believe that if they were ordered to do something that they truly felt amounted to the moral equivalent of mass murder and genocide that they would stand up and refuse to carry out that order.
Posted: March 2, 2005 | Author: GoRight | Filed under: War on Terror |
Jonathan Freedland over at The Guardian wrote an opinion piece titled The war’s silver lining in which he starts to come to the realization that the efforts of the United States, Great Britain, and the rest of the Coalition in Iraq just might have been right all along.
There seems to be a ground swell of such articles over the past month from the traditionally skeptical left-wing news sources. The recent events all over the middle east are clearly pointing in the direction of increased democracy for the region which should be good news for everyone.
