Burden of proof of Laden's responsability for 911.

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Sure, but I just dont think arguments for his innocence are realistic given the years and the weight of evidence.

I think you can look up interviews with his own family who admit he's a radical and that they don't share his views. One of his grown sons, a former jihadi, says his father believes in killing civilians and that the son disagrees with that. His family must know him better than us. I don't think there is anyone out there who knows him who says that this was all a misunderstanding.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing about his innocence (heck, I never read nor heard about this, but it wouldn't be surprising if it was though), this isn't really about wether Bin Laden was innocent or not, this is actually about a systematic method that is needed to come up with an honest conclusion, the lack of trial is something that made me think of this.

I pressume that some people could argue that political motivations or utilitarianism are a priority over the honesty or the care of high level of the process, I won't get into that, but I can understand this thinking.

We are at war with Al Qaeda. The Congress gave the President the authority to attack them as he saw fit and anyone who harbors them as well. Technically we could could legally (under US law), attack Pakistan tomorrow under the same authorization. I don't think killing the leader of a group we are engaged in military action against is a problem. Three presidents have tried now so certainly some serious legal objection would have emerged by now.

And the truth is, all Bin Laden had to do was make the smallest movement and they could kill him in self defense. Other Qaeda leaders have worn suicide vests in their last moments (Zarqawi in Iraq). In Zarqawi's case we watched him go into a building we had watched for weeks and then dropped a bomb on him.

Is that how "legal" is defined these days? That provided one country decides it's Ok, it's therefore legal?

That's why I said under US law. It certainly is true that the Congress passes laws and military authorizations for the US.

Every war is illegal from someone's point of view.

Bzzzt. Nil point.

Well, cry more. It means less than nothing to me.

Oh, I already knew that.

They didn't put David Koresh or the columbine kids on trial nor did they try.

The Columbine kids and David Koresh killed themselves or had his henchmen kill him in Koresh's case.

A better example might be the killing of Admiral Yamamoto in WWII. We intentionally launched a fighter mission to get the mastermind of the Pearl Harbor attacks and successfully killed him. The Japanese said he was an admiral, he acted like it, and we thought so too. I doubt there was much investigation to prove that he was in fact a Japanese Admiral.