Is that a wind up?......I think you need wake up and to smell the coffee.......Welcome to the real world!

So let me get this straight. You think the state should be able to kill people without trial?

Where will it all end? Serial killers who murder more than ten? Kiddy fiddlers? Political opponents? What Obama did was vengeful, the state should not be in the business of revenge.

In armed conflict, yes, otherwise you would have to cart 12 good men and true to every theatre, it would be way too expensive

Maybe you are right, and people in the military are just pussies. So much so that so-called top commandos can't even take one unarmed man alive lest he looks at them funny and gives them post traumatic stress.

I thought we were talking about Navy Seals

They wouldn't have given a flying monkey's about whether he was armed or not, or what he had hidden. They would have reacted to what they were presented with and wouldn't care about what armchair commentators said at a later date.

A bit like the Iranian chap at Prince's Gate in the early 1980s with 90 odd rounds in him. Live by the sword, die by the sword and all that

I hadn't intended to comment on this thread, but even though it's likely the most controversial position in the world to attempt to defend at the moment (and therefore I won't attempt it) but FWIW, the Bin Laden killing is clearly an extrajudicial assassination and simply cannot be condoned. (However welcome the result in the immediate term).

It doesn't matter what they thought on the ground - they were ordered to assassinate bin laden. I'm not going to lose sleep over it in this case, but lets accept it for what it is - an extra-judicial killing (as Novo said above) ordered by the US government. Such things shouldn't really be allowed in a democracy.

I bet they weren't, otherwise it would just have been a bomb jobby.

I bet they were ordered to take him, but not to concern themselves too much if he resisted.

I suspect that they were not. Him being dead is quite a bit more expedient for them than having to parade him around and give him a trial. I know we won't know for sure - but this is the US government we a talking about.

Killing him by smart bomb would have been way less risky for the US Forces. If they wanted him dead full stop, this is what they would have done.

They didn't just want him dead - they wanted the PR too.

Except that they only had rather flimsy circumstantial evidence that he was there. (Which it turns out he was).

Imagine the reaction to the US smart-bombing a posh residence outside of the capital of Pakistan and it turned out to be the Foreign Ministers lovenest or summat.

They didn't have to be mutually exclusive. Now get that image out of your head.

True. I shall now cleanse my mind with penitent flagellation.

How long do you recommend?