>> ^NetRunner:
It's easy, put your hands in the air and say "I surrender." At that point, killing him really would've been a war crime. There's no evidence that indicates he did anything of the sort.


Burden of proof? Evidence? Well, it's hard to have any evidence when the government rushes off under the cover of night and runs top secret exercises with zero transparency except for what they tell me they did. But, let's look at the facts. OBL was unarmed, he was shot, the government reported an untruth that a gun battle was waged, they also reported an untruth about him using his wife as a shield, they claimed they ran a DNA test and identified OBL, then cleaned him and dumped his body in the ocean all within 24 hours.

And you say the burden on proof is on the "we the people" of this country to prove or disprove the secret assassinations of our military and CIA? Rolling my eyes right now.

And, lol at "it's easy to raise your hands and say I surrender". What an apologist answer. Fucking murderous cretins. Yes, it's easy for you or me to raise our hands and say "I surrender" if the cops are outside our door with a bullhorn. Doubt anything remotely similar to that happened. lol

>> ^NetRunner:

But that's why I think you should explain your fixation with OBL's death. There are much better examples to use to advance the cause of civil liberties.


Gladly. 1. It's Osama Bin Laden. He's the bogeyman for our loss of liberties over the past decade and the reason we've marched headlong into wars. 2. The other "examples" weren't met with such momentous applause as the death of OBL - and the cheers were mostly from progressives I've always hoped were pro-human rights (namely the right to due process here). But instead what I see are a bunch of apologists who are pro-partisanship even at the cost of human rights.


>> ^Psychologic:

They didn't instantly teleport into his room... I doubt he was sleeping too well with helicopters hovering over his residence and gunshots being fired.
And as far as due process... while I agree with that notion in general, I'm wondering what the point would be in this case. Whether or not he actually perpetuated the 911 plans, he was more than willing to accept credit for it.
Bin Laden had at least several minutes to prepare from the time the heli arrived to the time his room was breached. I wouldn't discount the possibility of him having a bomb under his robe in the hopes they would try to arrest him.
Honestly, I have far more of a problem with predator drones nuking buildings than I do with this particular operation.


Yes, Osama heard the helicopters being valeted, got up, brushed his teeth, flossed, took a nice jaunt around the park, walked his dog, shat, and jerked it moments before strapping on his Explosinator 3000 under his robe.

Several minutes to prepare? You're obviously speculating. The reports of eye witnesses said the helis came fast as if they were out of nowhere.

As far as due process, what're you saying? That the premise for a trial is flimsy? And therefore assassination is a better recourse? Has everyone on here lost their fucking minds? Seriously, I think we're all getting hung up on this being OBL. Yes, he was a fucking scumbag that probably deserved worse than what he got, but goddammit he deserves a fair trial if we're to have a society of laws, no?

Isn't that what all you statists keep clamoring on and on about? That we should have laws? Well, where's your consistency here? A man, a very terrible scum of a human being, was robbed of his right to a fair trial. The "who" in this scenario is incidental. Rights aren't conditional based on someone's popularity. For fuck's sake.

And, yes, the drone planes are terrible. I despise those too, and we should constantly be outraged at that every second of every day and not stop voting out the lying bastards that continue bombing innocent people. Starting with Obama and any other Republican or Democrat that steps up in 2012 who isn't immediately in favor of ending these warlust aggressions against other people in sovereign lands.

>> ^blankfist:

So, the real story is he was unarmed and asleep when they stormed in and shot him. I'm curious when and how was he supposed to surrender and get his day in court?

They didn't instantly teleport into his room... I doubt he was sleeping too well with helicopters hovering over his residence and gunshots being fired.

And as far as due process... while I agree with that notion in general, I'm wondering what the point would be in this case. Whether or not he actually perpetuated the 911 plans, he was more than willing to accept credit for it.

Bin Laden had at least several minutes to prepare from the time the heli arrived to the time his room was breached. I wouldn't discount the possibility of him having a bomb under his robe in the hopes they would try to arrest him.

Honestly, I have far more of a problem with predator drones nuking buildings than I do with this particular operation.

>> ^mxxcon:

i don't know...making fun of a situation where 300 innocent civilians got killed.. bad tact


But, is he Christian?!?

This is an interesting 'crossroads' period of time right now. The military achieved a 'moon landing' objective, and now everyone looks around and notices the billions it took and the things we didn't spend that money on (not to mention the domestic spying).

If nothing happens on U.S. soil to roil things up before the next election I can easily imagine 2nd-term Obama stumbling across his Constitution Law Prof. notes and going '... ooh yeah, thats right... I should probably work on quietly cleaning up this domestic spying thing.'

If something does happen,... we'll probably have predator drones patrolling the school yards of America.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Great, now can we please shut down the Department of Homeland Security, restore our civil rights and get our troops out of Afghanistan? (not holding my breath)

I want to think you aren't a dick, but to do so we need to get real here for a minute. Are you including the FICA tax in your numbers? Do you agree with the social security raiders? Is the real problem where the actual thresholds are? Because if your problem is with raising taxes on people in the 90k area, I'm on board with you. The question becomes, why is there no support to raise taxes on people that earn over a million a year? Why is there no support to raise estate taxes? Indeed, how does taking away the basic human right to organize and negotiate even have anything to do with a budget crisis, particularly when that group is already prepared to make the necessary fiscal concessions?

I'm currently being paid about 10% of what I could be making. I'm working in the basic science of retinal function on work that could lead to all sorts of advances that benefit you, or your children, or for that matter humanity in general. I could be making ten times as much as a machine vision expert building predator drones to kill people whom most often I have no beef with. That's what you get with your "only spend it on 'defense', and let me keep the rest" attitude about taxation. FWIW, that's where I'm coming from, and that's why it pisses me off when millionaires don't want to give up an extra Ferrari in order to better educate the (by no fault of their own) underprivileged youth. Then out of the other side of their mouth they won't shave the $78 billion from the defense budget the DoD doesn't even want.

Nobody is trying to legislate morality here. You can write off the money you already give back for a reason. We just need to pay for all the infrastructure your business needed to succeed somehow. You're paying less in taxes than at almost any time since WWII. Cut us a little slack. We're barely making ends meet.

>> ^ridesallyridenc:

Why would you want to punish the people that actually succeed? How would it help to take away an individual's incentive to get ahead by taking more than half of their earnings when they do?
In 2006, the top 20% of earners in the country brought in 66% of the revenue and paid 85% of federal income taxes. The bottom 40%, on the other hand /consumed/ 3.6% in tax credits and incentives. Cumulatively, the bottom 60% of earners in this country paid only 0.8% of the federal income tax.
So, if you're making over $91k / year (which, face it, isn't rich), you're considered "elite" and should be punished for your success?

>> ^quantumushroom:

Missing: high-altitude surveillance blimps, Predator drones, electrified fencing, razor wire, land mines.
And a new sound-proof asylum for liberals.


Throw the conservatives of equal annoyance in there with em.

Missing: high-altitude surveillance blimps, Predator drones, electrified fencing, razor wire, land mines.

And a new sound-proof asylum for liberals.

Ahh! I knew there was a catch, there is a remaining 'non-combat' force of about 56,000. These will still be trained to carry out attacks, working alongside private contractor personnel (which are having their presense doubled!).

So it's essentially business as usual, we just won't hear about it.

Edit: Ohh btw, the contractors will be carrying out Predator drone strikes. Certainly no problems predicted there.

Predator drones do it better.

>> ^Skeeve:

The reporter's lack of discretion destroyed the career of the man leading troops in a war zone - next time he might kill more than a career.


You still make a poor argument for two reasons:

1- No battle plans or secret locations were revealed.
All that was printed was what McChrystal and his men really thought about the new administration.

Explain how that jeopardizes the lives of troops.

2- McChrystal was in charge/responsible for the cover up of Pat Tillman.

Your points are moot because, as I said, troops are ammunition.

They are going to be destroyed just like bullets, tanks or any other weapon. That's what they signed up for.

So stop crying about how "this might get our troops killed."

Like their lives are more important than the Pashtun civilians they murder with predator drones from an air-conditioned warehouse in Nevada.

You know that delightful red spray that shoots out of someones body when a projectile traveling at high speeds hits them? Or the wonderful mixture of shrapnel, shit, and intestines when someone blows up? What about the arterial splatter that is caused by severing the Carotid artery?

Well these guys don't get to witness that first hand, they see it through a CRT or LCD there's no direct threat to their lives; unlike an infantryman. Who's to say that the target is legit? The boss, well how about that Milgram_experiment? How do you know you made a righteous kill? Because someone told them so? I'm sure that will put a whole new spin on the Nuremberg Defense. The fact of the matter is this, it's fucking complicated. Made more complicated by the fact that they are pulling the trigger from the comfort of they're god damned arm chair.

It's a lot like lethal injection. Lethal injection makes it easier for a killer to kill. Make no mistake about it, if you take part in killing someone, even if it is lawful you are still a killer.

But, it is noted that even drone pilots get PTSD, and for good reason. They get to go home like nothing fucking happened. In my mind that makes it worse.

http://trueslant.com/jefftietz/2009/04/16/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-drone-pilot/
http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/08/09/pilots-of-predator-drones-suffering-ptsd/

Footage of what a predator drone sees, caution I didn't watch it all but someone probably died. It's liveleak.com after all.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7bb_1210698031

>> ^grinter:
it's got to get boring flying those things after awhile. Maybe the could wash windows with them or something. Ooooh, how about skywriting?


you could use em to smuggle drugs and take out predator drones.
just a thought.

Colby grew up and became a Predator drone. Now he's over in Afghanistan, killing all those nasty heathen Muslims -- FOR JESUS!

That sounds like a different story/video. This is about a reporter who was taken hostage at what was supposed to be an interview.

In reply to this comment by EndAll:
Saw this on reddit.. the title there summed up my feelings about it pretty accurately: The fucking weird and creepy world of Predator drone pilots who drive to work, kill people thousands of miles away and then go home and play with the kids.

Yes QM - and this DEMOCRATIC president (you know, your Kenyan ruler) kicked ass when it came to resolving the situation.

Well, as some lefties here are pointing out, it's not over. Bigmouth pirates are still auditioning for the role of 'Trash Talking Extra' ina Spike Lee joint.

Send a B-1 and a few dozen Predator drones over there and it will be over.

Bow down to your black overlord!

Why bow to Clown Prince Dumbo when he's just going to turn around and bow to a Saudi monarch?