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

[Mark Kohut]

I sent this because....important. And, I'm not going to argue about
the 'kill mission"...(there was just a little wiggle room as stated)

But, I think the article makes this point (compared to Yoo and Bush's
team)....Obama asked IN ADVANCE for the parameters, for
what was legal.....I think he meant that.....

Therefore it wasn't self-justied after the fact rationalization. Maybe.

On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 5:45 PM, Thomas Eckhardt
<thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
> 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