I wish Bin Laden was tried

[RandySF]

Unlike most DUers, I support the death penalty for the most heinous offenders in society, but this post is not specifically about capital punishment. I wanted Bin Laden to be captured alive. I wanted to take him into custody. I wanted him read his right, taken back to the US and tried where the whole world would see the evidence of his crimes. I wanted to see what kind of excuses his defense attorney would present so we could all laugh at them. Finally, I wanted him convicted, after which friends and family members of his many victims call say to his face the unbearable pain and suffering he caused and see if he had anything resembling a conscience. Finally, I wanted to him executed after all due process was given him, all to show the world we are not like him or his followers. He's fish food now, so we won't get that chance. It was Obama's call, but it would have been nice to see it happen.

[timesup]

1. 25% maybe

The chance that OBL would have survived in ANY jail or prison long enough to stand all the trials, I put at about 25% and 100 million bucks wasted, you still want that?

[Mz Pip]

2. And I wish 9/11 never happened

We rarely get the perfect script we want. I wish a lot of things had happened differently in the past 10 years.

Osama is dead and I'm just fine with that. If it didn't go down precisely how I would have liked it, there's not much I ccould have done about it.

[Cali_Democrat]

3. If Bin Laden was tried, the case would be thrown out due to lack of evidence

The only evidence that exists connecting Bin Laden to 9/11 is a grainy video released by the CIA which was supposedly found in a hut in the middle of nowhere. Even if the tape is real, Bin Laden already knew the US was going to try and kill him, so he goes ahead and takes credit for 9/11 anyways. It would enhance his stature in the Muslim world. Entirely plausible.

Also, if the tape is to be believed, aren't we relying on the word of a terrorist mastermind? Credible? Not really.

The US said he was guilty before the tape was released. The US claimed to have evidence before the tape was released, but we have yet to see it.

Why do you think Bin Laden was shot even though he was unarmed? Why go through the hassle of a trial when you can just put a bullet in his brain?

[Solomon]

25. They wouldn't try him for 9-11. The FBI Most Wanted Poster

doesn't even mention 9-11. They would try him on all the things the poster does say. And get the same result.

But that's fantasy. Where the hell does the op think he could be tried? LOL Didn't they whoop and holler and wail and moan about trying the Gitmos in court? No "not in my state".

And what a circus. Threats going on all the while. A rallying point all across the radical Muslim world. They would get to commiserate every damn day while the trial lasted about how wrong America is to have this kangeroo court. A chance to just boil over.

[karnac]

4. I don't

Justices would have been better served with a trial of course.

The problem would have been our own demons. The anger and hatred would have taken over the streets. Could you even imagine the ugliness of the mobs and crowds? Somebody would have gotten hurt.

As for our our muslim comunity, they would have suffered most. particularly when his when his defence team acted.

And the world would have seen it.

[DinahMoeHum]

5. I wanted him taken alive myself, but that was not in the cards.

Failing that, I wanted his head on a spike, but that was not to be either.

But then, you can't have everything in this life.

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

What's done is done. Let's move on and move forward to ending the war in Afghanistan.

[TheCowsCameHome]

6. He was. It was a brief trial.

It lasted about long enough to have him meet the US military, up close and personal.

Next case, please.

[Old and In the Way]

Dead men tell no tales.

I can only imagine the fireworks a real open trial with all the attendant documentary evidence and discovery process could have produced. Nope....that was never going to happen.

[EVDebs]

7. The 'burial at sea' was actually a 'flush' at sea. nt

[DainBramaged]

8. And I wish I shit $100 dollar bills

[aquart]

9. No. It would not have been nice.

First of all, there is no venue in the United States where he could be "fairly" tried. Everyone in the entire world would know it was a sham with a foregone conclusion of execution. On what level do you think that would have been good for anybody?

As long as he was alive, it was a clarion call to macho idiots to kill Americans in his name.

Your fairytale fantasy posits a world in which everyone is exactly like you. And all would be well if we did everything in white gloves and pillbox hats. No.

He was a convicted man. Out of his own mouth. Out of the world's opinion. There was no possibility of an innocent verdict or a non-death penalty verdict NONE.

Dead is as right as anything can be in this.

And you know what? The talk that he wasn't armed? I LIKE THAT. It sounds fair to me. I only hope he had enough time to feel sick with fear. Because I will never forgive him for the jumpers. For the people sitting with their morning coffee who suddenly had to decide between death and death. And jumped. I'm sorry we didn't pull out his fingernails and his still beating heart. I'm sorry we didn't fry up his testicles and make him eat them. That's what I'm sorry about.

[hulka38]

18. The American justice system wasn't strong enough to try this man. n/t

[gratuitous]

10. Had we adhered to our written Constitution

It would have been an incredible testimonial to the greatness of America, our faith in our principles and ideals, and an irrefutable demonstration of the power and durability of our system, which we like to think is the standard for the world.

Instead, we showed that our faith is in violence, our belief is in death and destruction, and that we don't trust our system to achieve even a verisimilitude of justice. So we send a band of armed men to break in and kill our enemy, and settle for calling that justice. It isn't, but we call it that anyway, because we don't really believe in America, and despite sworn oaths, we do not preserve, protect and defend our Constitution.

[dennis4868]

11. taken back to the US?

You think Obama would have been able to do that....the freakin congress wont even allow him to bring some nickle and dime terrorist back to the US for trial.....the guy needed to be killed on the spot....

[spanone]

12. we live in a political world

[seabeyond]

13. i am glad he didnt go to trial and i am anti death penalty. nt

[TwilightGardener]

14. Killing a man who perpetuated warfare on American civilians will never make us

"like him or his followers". It makes us a nation who defends itself against attack. "Due process" could have happened had he turned himself in anytime during the last 10 years, instead of continuing to lead AQ and plot more attacks while we lost troops and killed Afghan civilians.

[LiberalAndProud]

15. I am reminded now of the way Sadam Hussein met "justice".

Perhaps that would have been more satisfying in the case of OBL for some. Kangaroo court is always much better than summary execution.

[Skink]

16. at trial UBl could have given us a rare look into the BFEE.

[titaniumsalute]

17. Those two sky scrapers falling to the ground was evidence enough for me

Fuck him.

[MichiganVote]

19. Nah, he just would have made himself out to be a martyr. Something he made others.

Seriously Sociopathic.

[fujiyama]

20. I just don't see how he would have been captured alive

Whether bin Laden himself had a weapon on him the night of the raid isn't relevant, because I'm sure his bodyguards did - and I'm sure one of them would have killed himself, bin Laden, and whomever was trying to capture him.

The objections to the raid are simply nonsensical. He wasn't in Berlin, London, Prague, or some other country with a functioning rule of law. He was in Pakistan - that too a town in Pakistan filled with its military elite, many of whom are active proponents and sponsors of bin Laden's ideology.

And then there would have been questions about jurisdiction. Bin Laden committed crimes not just against Americans - but citizens the world over. Would other countries have wanted to try him? Some would have demanded that he be tried at the Hague, which the US was not going to allow to happen anyways. And bin Laden would definitely not have faced a trial in NYC or DC considering the outcry over KSM. He would have ended up at Guantanimo. How long would he have been held? What kind of trial would he have faced? How much in security would have been spent? And considering the criticism military trials have faced, would the world have even accepted it as fair and just? Would the time and effort proved to have been worth it?

Ideally, he would have been caught in a country with independent courts and a functioning judiciary. He would have been apprehended, indicted, and faced a trial, and then had a sentence handed down. But we don't live in that world.

[Hardrada]

21. Trial and Error Trial and Terror

I hate it when main actors in history are removed before they can tell what they know and reveal their motivations. They let a number of the top Nazis write their memoirs before they hanged him. If Nuremberg was good enough for von Ribbentrop something like it could have served for OBL. I also wonder if he knew something about the Pakistani leadership they would rather not have revealed so they tacitly agreed to quit shielding OBL. So it worked out well, they thought, for all concerned except, of course, for OBL.

[fujiyama]

22. I'm not disagreeing that it would have been ideal

but I think the enemies behaved in many different ways making a trial impractical, if not impossible in this case.

First of all, Nazi officials were brought to trial after the war. Their country was in shambles and they were on the run. Their ideology was tied mostly with nationalism, a sense of which, by that point was destroyed along with their military and economy. Those leaders went through trials, believing they still had a chance, however slight, of being found not guilty in a court of law.

Al Qaeda isn't destroyed and likely won't be (regardless of which "number 1" or "number 2" is killed). At least, we know the common tenants of its ideology sure won't. Islamist fanaticism existed before bin Laden and will continue to exist after. Osama was going to die regardless. I'm certain he knew he could be "martyred" anytime. He was the most wanted person in the world, for over the last decade.

I'm not sure exactly what went down and I agree that it would have been ideal for him to have been captured and tried, but ultimately I don't see how that would have justified the the risks involved for the SEALS on that mission.

[Hardrada]

24. My second point was that I don't think the top Pakistanis

wanted him to come out alive either (probably not the Bushies either) since OBL knew too much. A theory likely to be pursued by a succeeding generation of historians (if there will be any such literate people left after all the corporatist dumbing-down).

[roamer65]

23. We don't try former and rogue CIA agents.

[JVS]

26. We tried Noriega, but that didn't seem to go so well.

Maybe that's why we stopped.