A long time.

I notice that they are calling it a "Kill Mission" now. Well - I guess that clears that up.

If they captured Bin Laden alive where would the trial be? The Hague? Washington? Nato headquarters? The UN? Some kangaroo court? Taking him alive and giving him a trial would have ranked as one of the dumbest moves of all time. It would give his supporters a chance to hold protests and rallies and plan attacks demanding his release. No doubt we would be looking at hostage situations. Obviously Obama and his staff thought this through. It would have dominated the news for as long as the trial went on. Given the state of affairs in many middle east nations right now and what happened recently because someone burned a Quran, just shooting the bastard was the best thing to do.

In exceptional circumstances 'Marquis of Queensbury' rules (rightly or wrongly) are abandoned in the pursuit of the greater good......

Taking out Bin Laden IMHO was such an exceptional circumstance.....

So he "resisted" by either (depending which media reports you take on board)

Wearing clothes (suspicion of suicide vest otherwise)

and / or

After sticking his head out of a doorway and being shot at he "resisted" by failing to stay there being shot at, and going back into his room, where he was shot dead. (For "resisting"). Apparently it was dark, so it was OK to shoot him, who knows what he was up to. One wonders if the crack Seal outfit forget to bring their night vision gear then


I think the optics of this are poor, the US should have just said that the decision was made to kill him if the opportunity came up. Dispense with the pretence that there was ever any intention to take him alive.

Obviously killing him plays well with the majority of the domestic audience, but if you are trying to demonstate to a wider muslim audience that the west are not in fact the infidel butchers that the extremists have painted them, then this might not have been the best plan as it does rather seem to provide evidence that we are not all that interested in due process and justice when push comes to shove after all.

As a pragmatist I feel that a trial and subsequent sentencing would have created more problems than this "kill mission", but they should really just call it what it was and dispense with any pretence that he ever had a chance to surrender alive. The more information that comes out, the less true that appears to be.

I doubt very much that such an audience really cares. If the intent is to persuade others that following his preachings is a bad idea, I suspect, that whatever they did would fail to have the desired effect.

As I said above, he lived by the sword, it would appear he died by the sword. His supporters should be "proud" of what he did and should not be criticizing the infidel for treating him the way he treated them. The armchair commentators, who really cares what they think, unless they are prepared to put themselves in a position where they do something, they should not criticize. If they believe a more acceptable resolution could have been achieved, they should have worked to achieve it.

If I am totally honest, I don't believe any of the reports as to what did or did not happen. Very few would have been involved in the planning and the operation, they will likely not tell. Everything else is likely to be conjecture and should be taken with a pinch of salt, particularly what the politicians say

saw this on Facebook...

Not many are going to be unhappy that he was killed, or even say that he didn't deserve it. He did deserve it, but that's not the same as being happy that our governments behave in this way.

Ultimately this is just another sign that the west is less democratic now than it was before 9/11. Extra-judicial killings, detention without trial etc; these are not things that so-called western liberal democracies should be engaged in. The state is increasingly getting more and more such powers over us, the power to commit crimes or remove our freedom in the name of "security". This trend is not a good thing.

If you actually like democracy, you should not be happy about the methods used to assassinate bin laden, even if the outcome matches your political outlook.

The only legal way they could've got Bin Laden to trial was to send the Pakistani police around to arrest him. They probably would've missed him, lost him or forgot to look under the bed.

Then they would of had to extradite him. How many months would Pakistani law have taken to do that?

Then a very lengthy court trial where ever. He is not a head of state or a dictator of a country so would it be the Hague?

We would've sat through months of an expensive phoney trial where he had no chance of ever proving his innocenece and then what? He sit's in a rediculously expensive security facility for the rest of his life with groups constantly protesting for his release and events carried out in his name.

Easier to just exterminate him.

They gave Goring a trial and he ordered the killing of far more people than bin Laden. And the bombing of Guernica wasn't a war act if you were going argue that one.

Democracy is great until they realise it's not effective in certain situations. Then what?

Probably easier to stick a bullet in peter sutcliffes head too. Why stop there, it's probably easier to kill loads of people - what about bradley manning?

The state shouldn't be murdering people because it's easier or cheaper than the democratic alternative.

This where we all come a bit of a cropper. Define and operationalize democracy.

Tricky. Although I reckon that it is necessary for a democracy to be governed by a set of laws that applies equally to all regardless of who they are.

Pretty effective if you ask me. The people of the United States elected a president who eliminated a man saving them hundred's of thousands of dollars in legal fees and protection costs.

The majority of people seem delighted to me.

The electorate has spoken and all that.

The problem is, when a nation states that purports to some sort of shinning-city-on-the-hill in regards to democratic values, seems to pick and choose at their convenience when those set of laws should and should not apply, even when they've written them down in a document.