Bin Laden Dead!

I watched the "Military Channel" special Monday night. Showed detail, step by step of the raid and how it was carried out. Great program, and Kudos to Obama on making the decision.

What I love is the Al-Qaida priest holding rallies and saying stuff like "The Americans are cowards, they didn't have the courage to convict OBL. He was never convicted in any court of law". HAHA, i love how people try to all of a sudden act like they respect our law when they have no other answer. You don;t respect America, you don;t get to quote our laws and regulations, and you should be except from them anyway... But Trust me Cleric, he was guilty, USA convicted him long ago.

-Toddy
 
They do that ALL the time Toddy. They flout our laws and military regulations to their advantage. Americans GET KILLED because of this.

In this cleric's case, he's obviously trying to drive a wedge further into the American people, some of whom think these terrorists, ie war criminals, should be treated like the common criminal or someone pulled over for drunk driving. Some even want our soldiers to read them their Miranda rights and hold their trials in U.S. court.

Weak people who have no sense of history and no concept of how to fight a war get our best and brightest U.S. citizens killed.

If I was an enemy of America, I would exploit this weakness too...all day, every day. Sadly, it's a weakness we could eliminate if we just had some backbone and cared a little more about our own boys and girls instead of the rights of terrorists.

If we are not prepared to fight a war ruthlessly and to win, we shouldn't be in there at all.

Scott
 
Well Said Scott.

And i'll add,

Only 50% chance of OBL being at the compound there, Not notifying Pakistan Government of our intentions, Jeopardizing diplomatic relations, and having the mentality "Only If OBL is laying on the ground, naked, arms spread, screaming 'I surrender', then perhaps we can consider taking him alive"

Let's Do it, the President Said.

Those actions by President Obama, and the personnel involved on ground and behind the scenes to move forward with this mission, knowing what was stated above. Well that shows me that we do still have backbone and ruthlessness. And I am proud of the decision that was made. ( I didn't vote for Obama FYI, but I am proud of him all the same for this )

Not to end on a bad note, but I agree it could be on a grander scale, and should be shown a lot more often.

-Toddy
 
Duke Frost said:
If we are not prepared to fight a war ruthlessly and to win, we shouldn't be in there at all.

Scott
Click to expand...

Great quote.
 
Duke Frost said:
They do that ALL the time Toddy. They flout our laws and military regulations to their advantage. Americans GET KILLED because of this.

In this cleric's case, he's obviously trying to drive a wedge further into the American people, some of whom think these terrorists, ie war criminals, should be treated like the common criminal or someone pulled over for drunk driving. Some even want our soldiers to read them their Miranda rights and hold their trials in U.S. court.

Weak people who have no sense of history and no concept of how to fight a war get our best and brightest U.S. citizens killed.

If I was an enemy of America, I would exploit this weakness too...all day, every day. Sadly, it's a weakness we could eliminate if we just had some backbone and cared a little more about our own boys and girls instead of the rights of terrorists.

If we are not prepared to fight a war ruthlessly and to win, we shouldn't be in there at all.

Scott
Click to expand...

More than a few military people have stated over & over that politicians make fighting wars to win impossible. While we can fight a war to avoid as much collateral damage as possible, avoiding targets altogether because they embed themselves with civilian population would make any war against terrorists, insurgents, or guerrillas impossible.
 
I think the intention is to succeed with the minimum necessary collateral damage. It is a noble goal and one that absolutely helps to differentiate us from those that we are fighting. That said, having read numerous works by soldiers, (Sole Survivor by Marcus Lutrell was deeply moving on this point) there is pretty clearly a strrong dislike amongst many in the military for the rules of engagement. As an American, it makes me immensly proud that our nation attempts so strongly to carry out its ideals even in the most dire of situations. Having never been a soldier, I have no personal experience with the consequences of that design.

Which is right? Soldiers swear to honor and protect the constitutuion and laws of the United States, to put their lives at risk and to sacrifice them if necessary for what America and its goverment deem to be in the best interest of the nation and its citizens. From my perspective, that includes waging war as humanely as possible, but as I have never been a soldier and could never be (under current recruitment policy), it is not a choice whose consequences I must face first hand. As an idealist, I wish that it were possible to say that our guiding principles of human equality and the right to life and freedom should be our ultimate guides. As a critical thinker, I remain unconvinced.
 
The way I see it, you forfeit your right to life when you murder innocent people. Those people had a right to life too.
 
OrcFighterFTW said:
The way I see it, you forfeit your right to life when you murder innocent people. Those people had a right to life too.
Click to expand...
¿You're forfeiting the life of every soldier who hurt/killed a civilian during the last fifty years of Fourth and "Fifth" Generation Warfare? Seems a bit much.
 
He said murder innocents, not kill. There is a huge difference there. Innocents and non combatants (who are not always so innocent) get killed in war. It's a fact. You cannot eliminate collateral damage in war. The best you can do is make sure the collateral damage is minimized where possible and that the damage is theirs and not ours.

Scott
 
¿Now we're splitting rhetorical hairs between "murdering" and "killing"? When someon pulls the trigger on a gun while it's pointing at another person, ¿how do we draw the distinction between "murder" and "kill"? A soldier shoots someone, later it is found they were a civilian - ¿was it murder or collateral damage? The soldier intended to end a life and did so efficiently and without reservation, but in one case it's a "necessary evil", in the other it's just "evil". ¿Do you think that civilian's family will see it as merely "collateral damage"?

Move into "modern warfare" where soldiers are pitted against insurgents, militia, or terrorists - ¿is the soldier killing and the militia murdering because the former is standardized by a government and the later isn't? Does that mean the Libyan Rebels are murdering the Libyan army? Or maybe the soldier is trying to only kill enemy soldiers and that's why it's not murder. ¿Then the 200,000 people killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were murdered?

The only difference between "murder" and "kill" has to do with an observer's assesment of the actor's motivation. There is no difference in the act.
 
It's certainly not rhetorical. At the very least, it's philosophical. It's both the English language and the law. Murder is a legal term first and foremost. Kill is simply the ending of a life. Murder is certainly killing, but all killing is not murder. The two must be differentiated to even have this discussion. To simply lump them together would discount entire legal and philosophical systems. If they were the same, we would not have terms like "justifiable homicide" and "self defense" and "manslaughter". They would all be treated the same. How the distinction is drawn is obviously a complicated and contested matter, as everyone's definition surely differs, even to the point of some people making no distinction, as in "Meat is Murder." To me, meat is tasty.

The problem with sending the sons and daughters of America to fight in foreign lands is that people in the U.S., far removed from the battlefield, would paint them as murderers when they are killing for their country, to protect their own lives and the lives of their comrades.
 
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