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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Trad climber
San Francisco, Ca
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Do you guys seriously contend that landing a military force in a foriegn country and assasinating someone is legal under international law?
Folks are confusing what they think was "right" with what is lawful. It might be right to steal bread for your hungry family, but it's still stealing.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Cross posted:
Healyje: So, if some other country determined that Rumsfeld was a war criminal and their justice system ruled it was 'legal' to apprehend him by staging a raid on his home in Maryland we'd be ok with that?
Seems a bit of a shame to confuse national pride, executive perogative, and strategic security concerns with what's 'legal'. It's a little sad to see them bothering with the charade of ruling this action 'legal' under expanded executive powers the Bush administration pushed through. The more 'imperial' of those powers were given cover by bankrupt thinkers like Yoo and an activist judicial majority inherited from the Nixon whitehouse who came up defending executive power and explicitly appointed to support it.
Succumbing to, and rolling with, the lure of these abusive expansions to executive power will go down as one of Obama's chief failings as a president and simply points out the inherent risks associated when the balance of power is inappropriately tipped to one branch over the others. The founders did not intend for us to have an imperial executive.
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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US helicopters and agents flew into a soverign country without permission and killed our #1 Enemy Combatant. That is an illegal act under international law.
You haven't proven this to be true. You don't have access to back channel agreements.
Back channel agreements are just one of the reasons I rarely believe half of what any government says.
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blahblah
Gym climber
Boulder
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If the raid was illegal, what’s the crime other than entry into Pakistan without a proper visa?
I don't know Pakistani law (and I've yet to see a post from anyone who claims to know anything about Pakistani law).
But just to think about it conceptually, if the shoe were on the other foot and Pakistan sent a hit squad into Colorado, the hit squad members and those aiding and abetting them would have committed the crime of murder in the first degree under Colorado law:
//Murder in the First Degree (18-3-102)
A person commits the crime of murder in the first degree if:
(a) After deliberation and with the intent to cause the death of a person other than himself, he causes the death of that person or of another person . . .//
As I've noted above, this wouldn't change if Obama and/or Gov. Hickenlooper gave a tacit OK to the Pakistani hit squad.
I admit it's tricky to apply normal criminal law concepts to acts undertaken by governments.
But don't a lot of posters on here want Dubya brought up on all sorts of crimes?
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Is there really a governor Hickenlooper?
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Swimming in LEB tears.
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Fatty said US helicopters and agents flew into a soverign country without permission and killed our #1 Enemy Combatant. That is an illegal act under international law. Don't worry, my friends in Mossad do it all the time.
Don't you all know by now that nothing gets done in Washington without Fatty's say so? If Fatty said it was illegal then it was illegal.
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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DMT.. naw.. I have known all along that our government pulls shady things. And I never thought Obama was some righteous man, contrary to what the right keeps trying to say that I must believe.
Shady is one thing. What the Bush Admin did with all of its lies is a completely different thing.
Prove that Obama didn't ask our troops to try and capture him, and you up the ante a bit. Prove even further that we had no back channel agreement with Pakistan and that takes it another step.
Bush is still a thousand steps ahead of obama in the ugliness of politics contest.
Obama has yet to start a war based on lies.
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blahblah
Gym climber
Boulder
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MH: Absolutely!
Hick is something of a Colorado celebrity, made a fortune in brew pubs and re-gentrifying the former warehouse district of Denver into "Lodo," then became mayor of Denver, then gov. of Colorado.
He's a bit liberal for my tastes and apparently has been involved in some (arguably) shady business deals (at least according his detractors), but most people think Hick is a stand-up guy.
For the record, I do not believe he would authorize Pakistani hit squads to operate in Colorado, but if he did, he'd probably have a damn good reason.
You can read his entry on Wikipedia if you're curious (I pasted from it but deleted it as it went on and on).
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lostinshanghai
Social climber
someplace
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U.S. troops were just 800 yards from Osama Bin Laden's Abbottabad compound during a training exercise in Pakistan three years ago, it has emerged.
The embarrassing proof that some of America's best military men were so close to the world's most wanted terrorist was found buried in diplomatic cables released by whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks.
Mention of Abbottabad is sparse in the cables - but when it is, the significance is chilling, particularly as other information indicates the U.S. may have been on the path that would lead them to Bin Laden as early as 2008.
The WikiLeaks documents reveal, a meeting was held in Washington three years ago between then-U.S. deputy secretary of state, John Negroponte, and Pakistan's foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1383074/Osama-Bin-Laden-dead-US-trained-Pakistani-troops-hunt-Al-Qaeda-near-compound.html#ixzz1LQMbNp9b
Let the games begin.
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Well prove it DMT. The bush admin has already been caught in lies. If you know something, then state it.
The thing that bothers me the most is the nature of some of the things people believe about liberals. Such as..
If you are against a war, then you must be against all use of force. That is nonsense. We use force to apprehend suspected criminals. Some times those suspects die. I have no problem with that. It is a power and we have courts to try and keep that power in check.
What I didn't like about this case with Bin Laden is that I have no idea if an arrest warrant was ever issued for him. If one was, then hopefully that shows that there was enough evidence gathered to convince a judge that he might be guilty. And yes.. I understand that some judges are easy to convince and others are stricter, but at least there is this check of power.
If we went to arrest Bin Laden, then I have no problem with him ending up dead if he resisted. If we strictly went to assassinate him, then I would have a problem. Though as karl points out, probably less of a problem then the current way we fight terrorism, with indiscriminate bombs and such.
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Gene
climber
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I can't say Obama lied in his speech, however applying philosophy
it appears to commit falacies. What is the evidence for his decision?
Is it Klimmers?
Priceless!
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Shortly after OBL's trip to Davy Jone's locker, the commander of the Kearsarge declared a swim call.
Makes sense as the ship was stopped and they'd already thrown in perfectly good shark repellent.
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Gene
climber
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Back channel agreements? Ya think?
US choppers flew, what 130 miles?, into Paki territory and back, apparently at will. In daylight. Pakistan is a nuclear power that has essentially been at war with India since partition. The Paki nuke facilities are within a 45 minute drive – not flight – of where OBL was found. Convince me that someone in authority in Pakistan didn’t (1) know about the raid and (2) cause the radar screens to be ‘dimmed’ at the appropriate time.
Upon arrival at the target, located in a ‘garrison town’ according to the media, one of the choppers crashed. A helicopter going down tends to result in a few 911, or Pakistani equivalent, calls to the local cops. The assault team was on site for 40 minutes. Guns blazing. And nobody on the ground noticed?
The raid was not the first time the US violated Pakistani ‘sovereignty.’ The US has been tossing Predators w/ Hellfire missiles into their country for years. (http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/drones); Tepid protests are occasionally put out for local consumption.
Pakistan is complicit in allowing US forces into their country and in this raid. If indeed Pakistan was caught unaware of the raid, it doesn’t reflect well on the competence of its military or intelligence service. To which we have given billions. That would be the crime.
g
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Gene raises an interesting question. Where were the helicopters flown from? Abbottabad is a long way inland (~1,000 km), so probably not off the deck of a carrier. From Afghanistan? A base somewhere in Pakistan? Likewise, what did the various levels in the Pakistani government know about what was happening? Did they scramble jets as a face-saving gesture? If the jets were in the air at the same time as the helicopters, and anywhere close, why didn't they shoot?
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WBraun
climber
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130 miles into Pakistan were the so called Bin laden was hiding.
What a fricken joke.
Now we know for real the real Bin Laden was never there.
America got/is owned .......
Suckers!
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Obama is an international criminal, just like Bush and Cheney. Or, are they not????
You know what jeff.. You are a tiresome human being. You are exactly how evil wins. You wear people down so they just give up.
I give up. Bring back Dick Cheney.. your hero who you say is a nice guy.
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d-know
Trad climber
electric lady land
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just got
back from
starbukcs.
had the new
special
beverage.
osama bin
latte.
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Hawkeye
climber
State of Mine
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DMT, done deal.
edit:
PBS NIGHTLINE had a pretty good show on last night with regards to the Taliban. they interviewed them in Pakistan. one of them said that if pakistan wanted to, that all teh Talibs could be rounded up within 24 hours and that winters are good in pakistan and then they head over the mountains in the summer to wage war.
so yes, by our sheltered western standards with osama bin LATTE's available on the corner, these Talibs seem like a bad bunch. now put yourself in their shoes. many have nothing. no future, barely enough food, they have nothgin but their religion that they have latched onto. war is thier only way to achieve some meaningful thing in their life, that and their religious beliefs.
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dirtbag
climber
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Omar has probably been causing us more problems the last year or so.
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