A pair of Burlington peace activists angered many Vermonters, including some Blurt readers, when they called a news conference in May to denounce the killing of Osama bin Laden as a “murder” carried out by the United States. American commanders acted unlawfully by apparently making no attempt to take the unarmed bin Laden alive, charged local attorney Sandy Baird and filmmaker Robin Lloyd.
Three months later, an inside account of the raid confirms that bin Laden was given no chance to surrender before being shot in the chest and the head at close range.
“The Al Qaeda chief, who was wearing a tan shalwar kameez and a prayer cap on his head, froze; he was unarmed,” writes American journalist Nicholas Schmidle in the current edition of the New Yorker. “‘There was never any question of detaining or capturing him — it wasn’t a split-second decision. No one wanted detainees,’ the special-operations officer told me.”
This article appears in Aug 3-9, 2011.
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Bravo to Sandy and Robin for their actions and willingness to speak up. If the U.S. wants to call itself “civilized” and the “greatest nation on earth,” it cannot be barbaric. And it certainly can’t celebrate its barbarism. It’s time to live up to the rhetoric and truly be a nation of laws and justice. And it should start by stopping the assassinations and the wars. Now.I just read that 20 members of the Navy’s SEAL Team Six — the team that killed Bin Laden — were killed in Afghanistan by the Taliban as “revenge.” This madness will not stop until the truly “civilized” stop fueling and escalating the madness. Enough already. Stop the killing — theirs and ours.
“…has stitched together from several military sources — all anonymous — a dramatic narrative of the Navy Seals’ May 2 operation.”Well, my anonymous sources say that bin Laden open fire on the Seals. My other anonymous source says that no one is going to care either way until someone goes on the record, that anonymous sources don’t “confirm” anything, and that stating otherwise is remarkably poor journalism.OK, that second one was just me.
How can you go from a report based on anonymous, unconfirmed sources to the headline that “Bin Laden Raid Narrative Confirms VT Peace Activists’ Suspicions”? Since when do anonymous, unconfirmed sources “confirm” anything?Also, whether bin Laden was unarmed or not, this was not illegal under international law.
“This madness will not stop until the truly “civilized” stop fueling and escalating the madness.”That’s a pretty bold — if vague — statement. What do you mean by “fueling and escalating”? And whatever you mean buy it, how do you know your conclusion — that the madness will then stop — is true? I.e., what’s your proof that if we stop “fueling” and “escalating,” everyone will convert to peacefulness and stop attacking the US and the West?Frankly, I think that your conclusion is quite obviously UNtrue. I believe that even if we minimized our relations with the rest of the world (as impossible and undesirable and frankly stupid as that would actually be), the jihadists will still try to kill us. Because we are infidels. That’s why bin Laden launched his unprovoked attacked in the first place. We didn’t “fuel” and “escalate” him into crashing three airliners into buildings.Is your implicit point that we should just have let bin Laden go, in the name of avoiding “fueling” and “escalating” things? That suggestion is just beyond the pale. We don’t let domestic or international crimninals go, just to avoid further unpleasantness. No, I choose justice and retribution for the guy who massacred 3,000 US civilians, and all who chose to assist or copy him.
No, I did not suggest that we simply “let bin Laden go.” Instead, I’m suggesting that if we are going to be a civilized nation of justice and laws, we should lead by example. In the case of bin Laden, capturing him, arresting him and bringing him to trial for his role in 3000ish murders would have done just that. Yesterday, I met with a father of a Vermont soldier who was killed in Afghanistan. Out of respect for his loss, I tread lightly on the subject of the war itself. Until, that is, he made it clear where he and his family stood: His son should have never been in Afghanistan in the first place. “Now that we’ve supposedly gotten bin Laden,” he said, “we’re done there, right?” And then he laughed, a laugh that was just as much about holding back the tears as to mock the mess of it all. Like I said before, enough already.
“anonymous sources don’t “confirm” anything”So what “confirmed” sources are there that link bin Laden to 9/11? Can’t have it both ways, buster.
@ Reserved:”So what “confirmed” sources are there that link bin Laden to 9/11? Can’t have it both ways, buster.”Um . . . the fact the he admitted it? On video? Or don’t you follow the news, buster? Jeezus.@ Colby:You can’t say we should have captured bin Laden and brought him to justice (a proposition fraught with too many problems to deal with here) and at the same time agree with your anonymous father-of-a-Vermont soldier that we never should have been there in the first place. Hint: capturing bin Laden requires US soldiers to be in a foreign country.