Re: What Do We Really Know About Osama bin Laden’s Death?

[Thomas Eckhardt]

If we suppose what we have heard about bin Laden's death at the hands of 
Navy SEALs in 2011 is true...

 From the NYT (and not from Michael Gordon or Judith Miller):

'Weeks before President Obama ordered the raid on Osama bin Laden’s 
compound in May 2011, four administration lawyers developed rationales 
intended to overcome any legal obstacles — and made it all but 
inevitable that Navy SEALs would kill the fugitive Qaeda leader, not 
capture him.

(...)

'By the end, one official said, the lawyers concluded that there was 
“clear and ample authority for the use of lethal force under U.S. and 
international law.”'


It was a kill mission. This has always been my and, I suspect, most 
people's impression. Nice to have corroboration. And thank you for 
providing the link.

According to the administration lawyers it was perfectly legal.


Somehow this reminds me of John Yoo:

"On December 1, 2005, Yoo appeared in a debate in Chicago with Doug 
Cassel, a law professor from the University of Notre Dame. During the 
debate, Cassel asked Yoo,

'If the President deems that he's got to torture somebody, including by 
crushing the testicles of the person's child, there is no law that can 
stop him?', to which Yoo replied 'No treaty.' Cassel followed up with 
'Also no law by Congress—that is what you wrote in the August 2002 
memo', to which Yoo replied 'I think it depends on why the President 
thinks he needs to do that.'"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yoo

When the President does it, it's not illegal.


I did not shed a tear for Osama bin Laden whereas I find Yoo's remark 
outrageous, as I am sure most of you do. In both cases, however, I 
perceive this as being essentially about the rule of law and due process 
as opposed to the imperial presidency aka, give or take a little, fascism.

Who knows, perhaps at some point the President will not only kill 
foreign terrorists but also kill US citizens he deems terrorists instead 
of putting them on trial or trying to have them extradited.

Oh wait, he already did that...


Of course, you don't have to worry about legal niceties if you have 
Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney Generals like Yoo or administration 
lawyers like the ones mentioned by the NYT: Their job is to make the law 
conform to what the Government in any given moment does.

This is not the way these things are supposed to work in a democracy.


P.S. Our Chancellor joined in the chorus and thought it fit to greet the 
demise of bin Laden in words eerily reminiscent of the Joker's "I am 
glad that you are dead." from Tim Burton's first Batman movie (even if 
she bungled the exact wording and thereby lost some of the evil villain 
effect):

'"I am glad that it was successful, the killing of bin Laden," she said.'

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/celebrating-death-merkel-comments-on-bin-laden-killing-draw-criticism-a-760580.html
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l