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

[Mark Kohut]

Seems there WAS a lot of after-the-fact lawyer justification.......

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/30/books/review-charlie-savages-power-wars-dissects-obamas-evolution-on-national-security.html?hpw&rref=politics&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=1

On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 5:56 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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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