Oh, there was at least one person who read Chomsky and had something nice to say.
Well, if you define “principle” as reflexively hating America then yeah, him and his “fans”.
Unrealistic, but admirable imho.
No comment.
What the fuck are you babbling about? More like the debate took a retarded turn when you said regular policemen could not only take Bin Laden down, but could take him down without killing him no matter what the situation was.
Magic.
Surrender.
Grenades.
man what
The problem with Chomsky is that he has always been fixated on the US and its misdeeds, to the point of using every single vaguely oppositional or even simply not allied with Americans force as something he describes in a positive light in comparison, whether it’s Pol Pot or Bin Laden. This is also a feature, as I’ve learned over time and a lot of banging my head on that wall. You just have to grit your teeth and watch for the wordplay, and sometimes there are some worthy insights along the way.
In this case, he overreaches in his approach to a fictional international law (known in practical terms as "not doing anything) and then uses that conceit to rationalize away any agency on bin Laden’s part. That’s ridiculous. But he’s not wrong about the proportionality of crimes depending heavily on which team you started on. In fact, I would wager most people who are remotely empathetic towards Iraqis or what have you understand that, but it takes an odd sort of courage to say that in juxtaposition with this assassination.
I don’t agree with many of his conclusions and find his approach to international relations surreal in its grasp of the mechanics, but it’s good that he says his piece.
Don’t forget, Chomsky also thought the Khmer Rouge had some pretty good ideas.
I think being critical of government policy and actions, and hating America, are two very different things.
Love those grenades.
That aside, I was speculating on why the best trained soldiers in the world could not take an unarmed man alive…
You know, any conscript troop can kill, those seals are supposed to be a tad better…
I guess you have like the rest confused army briefs with actual journalism.
So, Janster, what you’re suggesting then is that if we would have taken Bin Laden alive that Al Queda would have stood down and been all good with it? What real difference does it make whether he’s alive or dead (besides your hippy “why can’t we all just get along” philosophy)?
Chomsky kind of does hate America… or at least, pretty much every aspect of America, in that he hates the political, social, and economic systems combined.
I mean, I can’t really think of any aspect of America which Chomsky really likes.
Of course, I think he’d probably hate any other society he was put into as well.
You could have used him alive to expose him for whatever he is, avoided giving him mythical proportions and maybe in the end, just put him in front of a judge.
The bigger issue is, we got enemies, but should they all be dead?
Just sayin…dude.
They didn’t know if he, let’s say, had a gun under a turban, or maybe a bomb, or was running towards one or both. They had orders only to capture if there was complete capitulation - i.e. he’s on the ground with his hands behind his head. And concrete, written/saved intelligence is a lot more comprehensive and less prone to error than human intelligence. If you’re going to blame someone for Osama being killed, don’t blame the seals.
Not sure about “all,” but the ones that drive airplanes into our buildings, yeah. They should all be dead.
What real difference does it make whether he’s alive or dead (besides your hippy “why can’t we all just get along” philosophy)?
It’s relevant to our concept of due process in criminal proceedings, and to the idea of just conduct in war – things that are supposed to separate us from entities like Al Qaeda or the fundamentalist tyrannies they would presumably like to erect.
Anyone who thinks taking Bin Laden alive would appease Al Qaeda, or who thinks appeasing Al Qaeda is in any sense desirable, is kinda dumb. It’s more about us than about them. To lump such questions, snidely, into a grab-bag of “hippy philosophy” is an insult to the centuries of jurisprudence and serious consideration that have brought us to our current attitudes about criminal law, the Geneva conventions, and so forth.
*stipulated I have no idea what went down in that raid, I’m willing to give our boys the benefit of doubt re: logistical/practical realities, fog of war, rules of engagement, yada yada
I’m pretty sure all the guys that actually did drive airplanes into buildings were already dead, as a virtue of having driven airplanes into buildings.
Yeah, and Charles Manson didn’t technically murder anyone, right? Why should he go to jail, am I right?!
He’s pretty sure.
Well that sure clears things up!
While he’s incorrect about it being a violation of international law, given the current state of leaks “they walked in and shot him immediately” is a perfectly plausible scenario. He’s correct that the Taliban offered to extradite him and we ignored the offer without providing any explanation way. He’s correct that no real public presentation by a government has been made to establish guilt. He’s correct that calling it Operation Geronimo is extremely fucked up. He’s correct that US citizens can’t comprehend what it’s like to a have a foreign power land troops and carry out killings on your soil.
Because it’s fucking Chomsky, though, and he has even less rhetorical skills than Michael Moore, he can’t talk about any of this without pissing virtually everyone off. Note JeffL reading it as “Osama isn’t guilty” - which he doesn’t actually say, and the entire article is about the international norms and laws for establishing guilt.
Edit: Goddamn it.
12345
Legally speaking, I am pretty sure that you are mistaken.
No, confessions can be made for many reasons. People can be coerced into making them, they can be bribed into making them, they can make confessions out of a desire to look important. Considering the fact that the US hasn’t been above using torture on suspected terrorists, would you accept confessions gained after torture as evidence in a court?
Unless there is some sort of supporting evidence to verify the confession it is nothing but words. People lie all the time if they think it will help them or hurt others. A legal system that doesn’t support this principle is open to manipulation and fundamentally insecure.
When you have a hammer everything looks like a nail. Looking to the broader picture, the problem is that the US-led anti-terrorism effort has been framed as a war and prosecuted by regular military as well as conflated with different and motivationally separate occupations.
Prosecuting it as a war rather than as a criminal action is the root cause of these controversies. Firstly it creates the legal murkiness of ‘unlawful enemy combatants’ and secondly it legitimises the other guys. If they say they are fighting a war against you then by declaring war back you are according a measure of validity to their struggle.
Previously terrorists have been (successfully) dealt with through local and international criminal systems. Even Nazi war criminals, responsible for crimes that are orders of magnitude greater than the sum total of all non-state terror in the last century have been dealt with in this way. I find it hard to square the ideas that the US is somehow fighting for the rule of law when there are such blatant and unapologetic abuses of it. The guys on the other side being wrong doesn’t make you by default right.
I’m not going to shed any tears for Bin Laden, I’m personally convinced that he was a dangerous individual who was responsible for a lot of death and suffering. I also acknowledge that capturing him alive would have been enormously difficult if not impossible. Previously when state-actors have done things like this there has been huge outrage and international controversy; the British assassinated three terrorists in a Crown Dependency, the Israelis snatched Adolf Eichmann from Argentina (and tried him!) as two examples of this. Compared to those incidents, carrying out an overtly state-sanctioned assassination on foreign sovereign soil is a whole 'nother step up. I do not accept that assassinations are a legitimate tool in the justice system of any government and particularly one that has consistently characterised its struggle as a clash of good versus evil. Bin Laden being shot may have been expedient but it isn’t a victory and it’s another step on the road to a particularly ugly place.