Was it worth it?

[JBeukema]

Well, was satiating your bloodlust worth the lives that might be lost in the next attack we might have stopped if we'd extracted the intel from OL after hew was captured?

 

[High_Gravity]

What next attack? Osama wasn't even in charge of any combat ops for Al Qaeda anymore, the new guys like Anwar Al-Awlaki are the ones doing that.

 

[geauxtohell]

Well, was satiating your bloodlust worth the lives that might be lost in the next attack we might have stopped if we'd extracted the intel from OL after hew was captured?

Take it up with the shooters. They made the decision. Short of a My Lai type of incident, I don't like to second guess the guy on the ground.

 

[LilOlLady]

Well, was satiating your bloodlust worth the lives that might be lost in the next attack we might have stopped if we'd extracted the intel from OL after hew was captured?

Just WTH do you want to extract? You mean water board him? Can you really rely on infomation you get from torture?
Just because you got a prisoner do not mean you got information.

 

[uscitizen]

Sounds so simple, just capture OBL and extract information from him...


Just buy a powerball ticket and become a multi millionaire.

 

[JBeukema]

Sounds so simple, just capture OBL and extract information from him...


Just buy a powerball ticket and become a multi millionaire.

So, rather than trying, it's better to execute an unarmed man?

How are these men any different than those who behead captive soldiers?

 

[The Gadfly]

Sounds so simple, just capture OBL and extract information from him...


Just buy a powerball ticket and become a multi millionaire.

So, rather than trying, it's better to execute an unarmed man?

How are these men any different than those who behead captive soldiers?

You'd compare that instant kill to slowly sawing someones head off with a dull knife? I don't think so. Try again, pot stirrer!

 

[JBeukema]

Sounds so simple, just capture OBL and extract information from him...


Just buy a powerball ticket and become a multi millionaire.

So, rather than trying, it's better to execute an unarmed man?

How are these men any different than those who behead captive soldiers?

You'd compare that instant kill to slowly sawing someones head off with a dull knife? I don't think so. Try again, pot stirrer!

So execution-style = heroic?

 

[waltky]

Yea, it was worth it...

Bin Laden had AK-47, Makarov pistol nearby
May 5, 2011 -- U.S. officials, giving new details on the raid in which Osama bin Laden was killed, say he had an AK-47 and a Makarov pistol nearby when Navy SEALs found him.

The details came as President Barack Obama decided not to release graphic photographs of bin Laden's corpse, and planned to lay a wreath at New York's Ground Zero national memorial to the victims and rescuers in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. When the SEAL commandos made their way up the stairs of bin Laden's fortified compound in Pakistan, bin Laden's son Khalid lunged toward them and they killed him, administration officials said. When they reached the top floor, they entered a room and saw bin Laden with an AK-47 assault rifle and a Makarov semiautomatic pistol within arm's reach, the officials told The New York Times. They shot and killed him and wounded a woman who was with him, the officials said. The account does not say whether bin Laden reached for either weapon.

The new details indicated the 40-minute raid, though chaotic and bloody, was extremely one-sided, with more than 20 SEALs quickly dispatching the handful of men protecting bin Laden, the Times said. The only shots fired by those in the compound came at the beginning of the operation, when bin Laden courier Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti opened fire from behind the door of the guesthouse next to the house where bin Laden was hiding, the officials said. After the SEAL members shot and killed Kuwaiti and a woman in the guesthouse, the Americans were never fired upon again, the officials told the Times.

Administration officials said the account of events changed during the past few days because it's taken time to get thorough after-action reports from the SEAL team, officially known as U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group. "When we needed to clarify some of the information that we had as more information came in, we've provided that," White House spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday. When asked if this was the final clarification, Carney said he wouldn't "draw any lines like that -- it would be foolish to." He said the White House had "been as forthcoming with facts as we can be." The administration Tuesday corrected parts of its initial account of the raid, including assertions bin Laden had used his wife as a "human shield."

Regarding the photos of bin Laden's body, Obama told the CBS News program "60 Minutes" Wednesday, "It is very important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence, as a propaganda tool," a transcript released by the network stated. "That's not who we are," Obama said. "You know, we don't trot out this stuff as trophies." He also said, "We don't need to spike the football." "Certainly there's no doubt among al-Qaida members that he is dead," Obama said. "And so we don't think that a photograph in and of itself is going to make any difference. There are going to be some folks who deny it. The fact of the matter is, you will not see bin Laden walking on this earth again."

Obama plans Thursday to take part in a wreath-laying ceremony at the site of the forthcoming Sept. 11 memorial and museum. He is also to meet with relatives of the victims of the terrorist attacks, but he does not plan to make a speech, the White House said. He is to travel Friday to Fort Campbell, Ky., to speak to troops returning from Afghanistan. The fort is home to the 101st Airborne Division, known as the Screaming Eagles, and the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, known as the Night Stalkers. U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday bin Laden's killing "was justified as an act of national self-defense," citing bin Laden's role as the architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Read more: Bin Laden had AK-47, Makarov pistol nearby - UPI.com

 

[editec]

Well, was satiating your bloodlust worth the lives that might be lost in the next attack we might have stopped if we'd extracted the intel from OL after hew was captured?

The man needed to die.

Did the fact that he was alive prevent terror attacks?

No it did not.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Sounds so simple, just capture OBL and extract information from him...


Just buy a powerball ticket and become a multi millionaire.

So, rather than trying, it's better to execute an unarmed man?

How are these men any different than those who behead captive soldiers?

Provide evidence that Bin Laden was unarmed when he was killed. Provide evidence that Seal Team 6 did not offer to let him surrender.

 

[old navy]

This was a military operation. The operators had been shot at while clearing the rooms. They encountered U.S. enemy number one. No matter if he was armed, offered surrender, or lit a peace pipe, my weapon would not have been set on safe but clicked on the murder setting. Apparently, the DEVGRU personnel had their's set the same. It was a good op.

 

[California Girl]

Well, was satiating your bloodlust worth the lives that might be lost in the next attack we might have stopped if we'd extracted the intel from OL after hew was captured?

Wasn't 'bloodlust', it was justice. He attacked us, we attacked him... don't like it? Un-fucking-lucky.

And.... again.... there was no need to take him alive. He would have no significant intel value... he'd been too far out of the loop for too long. Nothing to gain from taking him alive. Much better to send him to Allah. He won't mind. They like being martyrs.

 

[FuelRod]

So up until Sunday night Al Qaeda was playing nice nice?
What a fucking maroon.

 

[FuelRod]

By the way shit for brains, much intel was gathered. So in this case ObL didn't have to be "tortured."
I'll take these kind of search, destroy and gather missions all day long in the war on terror.

 

[JBeukema]

Well, was satiating your bloodlust worth the lives that might be lost in the next attack we might have stopped if we'd extracted the intel from OL after hew was captured?

Wasn't 'bloodlust', it was justice. He attacked us, we attacked him...

So a crip killing a blood is 'justice'?

And I thought America looked down on vigilantism. When was OBL eer found guilty of attacking the U.S.?

 

[editec]

Well, was satiating your bloodlust worth the lives that might be lost in the next attack we might have stopped if we'd extracted the intel from OL after hew was captured?

It needed to be done.

The argument that we'd have gotten valuable information from him certainly has merit.

But the argument can also be made that Osama in prison and on trial would have inflamed passions (and terrorist responses trying to get him released) too.

This is not a debate with a black and white obvious right answer.

I think (just as you think otherwise) that a dead and buried Osama was the best outcome we could hope for.

Reasonable people can certainly reasonable disagree on this question because clearly both positions have merit and we cannot KNOW what would have happened if he hadn't been killed.

 

[JBeukema]

But the argument can also be made that Osama in prison and on trial would have inflamed passions

And killing him doesn't?

What if he'd been tried in the UAE or elsewhere and found guilty by a jury with muslim jurors?

This is not a debate with a black and white obvious right answer.

Yes, it is. Either executions are okay or it's not.

People want torture, executions, and everything else to be wrong when anyone else does it and okay when we do it. Then they want to claim America has some moral highground.

Because they're jingoists incapable of intellectual honesty.

Either killing an unarmed man is a cowardly act or it is not. Wither these men committed a cowardly act or AQ and others are just as heroic as Seal Team Six.

 

[whitehall]

Evidence seems to indicate that Bin Ladin was unarmed but so-what? Why not admit that the mission was to kill Osama? Why does the Obama administration have to play games about it? It's interesting that they had a muslem funeral detail aboard ship all ready to say a few words from the koran, wrap the body and toss it into the sea.

 

[Toome]

Knowing that the world's most wanted terrorist who was responsible for the deaths of thousands of people, not just the 9/11 attacks, spent the last seconds of his life in pure terror as he stared at professional warriors for the first time in his miserable life knowing that they were going to shoot him without hesitation, mercy or doubt.......fuck yeah! it was worth it!

By the way, the assault was one-sided. SEALS train to make it happen that way. The US military trains for optimum mission execution. It doesn't train for mediocrity.