Bin Laden Meets The New American Lynch Mob

[azul]

email from The Pen:

"It turns out after all these years all they had to do to find Bin
Laden was check the roster of the Islamabad Jihadists basketball team
where he was the starting center. Of course, nobody for a thousand
miles would breathe a word of it, that is just how much they hate
America in that part of the world. In any case, all these Middle East
occupations and wars have always been and remain destructive and
counterproductive even to our own interests. So we start with the
action page.

End The Wars In Afghanistan And Iraq:
http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum1078.php

If nothing else, the demise of Osama bin Laden again raises the
question of what exactly we think we are doing occupying so many
countries in the Middle East. Surely not to fight terrorism. Instead,
terrorism is driven precisely by these same kinds of operations.
There is nothing at the end of this road but utter ruin for our own
country, unless we somehow find the political courage to change
course. So we speak out again, and will continue to do so.

The only thing good the right wing has had to say about the Bin Laden
operation is that this action by Obama was just a continuation of the
policies of George Bush. In one respect that is completely false. It
was the policy of Bush NOT to pursue Bin Laden, but rather to use him
as an excuse and justification for all the wars they had on their
pre-existing agenda. The last thing the right wing wanted to do was
to actually catch Bin Laden.

But in a larger sense, and sadly, they are correct in that Obama has
done absolutely nothing to change anything of substance whatsoever
about American foreign policy. The wars and occupations continue and
have even been enlarged, run by exactly the same people who started
them in the first place, with all Bush holdovers otherwise still in
actual charge. And nothing about that will change until so-called
liberals and so-called progressives stop giving Obama a pass when he
just acts like a smarter version of George Bush.

By way of a disclaimer, our position is that we do not support the
death penalty, and in particular we do not support the institution of
war as the mutually preferred cultural institution for settling
differences among nations. So we can only be appalled by the raucous
celebration of what now appears to be the summary execution of a man
already in custody.

It is perfectly obvious that there was never any intention of
bringing Bin Laden back alive under any circumstances. If we have
learned nothing else from recent history, it should have been
anticipated that all we were told night one about the Bin Laden raid
were just made up lies and fairy tales. What was portrayed initially
as a "fire fight" might have consisted of one person firing back. And
once that person was taken down, what proceeded after that can only
be described as a precision "execution" operation of every adult male
present.

None of this should surprise anyone. We have had people in custody
now for upwards of 10 years already who will NEVER have an actual
trial. So why would anyone think we would bring Bin Laden back for a
trial? The clear order was to kill him on the spot regardless. Is
there really any doubt of that? Bin Laden was an important long term
CIA asset who turned on his handlers. A talking Bin Laden in custody
was the last thing they could afford.

The word used most often night one in the corporate media about the
Bin Laden killing was "justice". "Justice had been done," they said.
There may be some primitive, ultimate "justice" in it. But the most
appropriate choice of word, if our language has not been completely
corrupted already, would be "revenge". Justice would be to put the
man on trial before the world. But there is no law, even of war, that
would permit the summary killing of a man already subdued and in
custody, regardless of his crimes. Isn't that what the bad guys do?

"We don't need a trial!" Where have you heard those words shouted
before, outside of the scene of lynch mob in a movie? The lynch mob
is a grand old American tradition, and unfortunately not one to be
proud of. The fact that historically those lynched were most likely
innocent, whereas Bin Laden proudly professed to his own guilt,
changes nothing about the process. What value is a justice system if
it could not convict someone like Bin Laden?

And anyone celebrating the manner in which Bin Laden was killed may
in fact be celebrating the demise of that justice system MORE than
the demise of Bin Laden himself. Meet the New American Lynch Mob.

And here is the Facebook link for the End The Wars In Afghanistan
action page further above.

Action Page:
http://apps.facebook.com/fb_voices/action.php?qnum=pnum1078

And this is the Twitter reply for this same action

@cxs #p1078

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed
to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible.

If you would like to get alerts like these, you can do so at
http://www.peaceteam.net/in.htm "

[truedelphi]

1. Bin Laden needed to be brought to trial, not for his sake but for ours.

Now it is clearly established that anyone who is defined as a terrorist by the approval-hungry rabble known as politicians, and the complicit corporate media, can be taken out.

A while back, circa summer 2001, on the CIA's own Official Web page, the CIA was mentioning that one huge problem that they forsaw for the agency was that they didn't know how to go about getting Americans, even and perhaps especially Americans in uniform, to turn on their fellow citizens.

Now it is in cement - if consensus is that someone is guilty of some perverse action, even an action they deny, Navy Seals will take them out. Today the Seals, tomorrow your home town police.

[azul]

2. Right. "We don't need a trial!"

Sometimes trials are flawed though too. Was justice served when Sadam Hussein was lynched?

[Riftaxe]

3. Of course it was, it's in the transcrip....

never mind...Laws be darned, nothing like a good assassination to get peoples jingoistic asses in tizzy, although it can be assured that the "apprehension" would have served better in an election year.

on edit: so now we have a nation taking credit for the actions of a bunch of 20 year old special forces folks who were forced to take part in a murder squad...Long may justice reign. I am sure psychological counseling will be denied, after all it was for the greater good (where we heard that line before?)