Did Osama Bin Laden deserve a trial?

Originally posted by bftroop
Every human has the right to face their accuser and defend themselves as they are accused. No matter the magnitude of the crime. This is the American way. The constitutional way.

The Constitution is not operative on the battlefield. "It has seemed reasonably clear that the Constitution does not follow advancing troops into conquered territory. Persons in such territory have been held entirely beyond the reach of constitutional limitations and subject to the laws of war as interpreted and applied by Congress and the President" (p. 343).

Guilt without proof, is justice without law.

Which is why the Department of Justice doesn't go around killing people. But the CIA and the Department of Defense do, and they do have laws authorizing them to do that.

Our Country is built on a just and fair foundation according to our constitutional and moral convictions as keepers of liberty.

One can make a moral argument, or a practical argument, but the legal argument is settled. Under international law, states may act in self defense and target combatants, provided the means of attack are proportional and minimize collateral damage. Under municipal law, the President "is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons" (PL 107-40). Article II and the National Security Act give him the tools to apply that force.

Originally posted by fixer1967

Originally posted by brindle
I think when they eventually catch him,give him a trial to prove he did it .

They aleady did catch him and shoot him dead.
You statement sounds like you did not know this.

No, Bin Laden has not been captured yet.If he was captured they would have brought him back to the united states .There is not a single shred of evidence that he was captured.By comparison,There would be 10 million times the evidence that there is thriving bigfoot population in most parts of the united states.

reply to post by Versa


I like this statement and agree with it. While he had admittedly and publicly declared war against the USA, we the people deserved to know more about him and his participation in the events of 9/11. It is truly the people who are deprived of a trial more than if he is found guilty, as he would probably have admitted guilt, but yes, we should have kept him alive to stand trial. However, he did seek martyrdom, and got what he wanted.

The public is apathetic. The govt. can set up any fairy tale show they like. It´s an historical process, a cycle that is still rising. I´ve watched this process for 40 years now.

Basically, this process has been the result of a convergence of political and financial interests, that is DC and Wall Street. Politically it´s about herding together the flock, so to speak. Since Americans are such an incredibly diverse lot of races and cultures they lack any common internal national identity. Thus, this endless overhang of external enemies to scare the flock and make it huddle together under the protection of the good shepherd - the government. Financially endless wars against those external threats are of course extremely profitable and become over time an economic necessity. Both jobs and the Dow Jones Industrial Average have increasingly depended on them. After the fall of the communist enemy in the nineties there was a serious threat of peace and thus disruption of the aforementioned process. The rest is history.

A trial, a chance to defend yourself should be a universal human right, regardless of the severity of the accusations.

Originally posted by Imogene72
reply to post by WarminIndy

 

I am sorry, but you are incorrect. The trial is not a citizen's right, it's a human's right.
And a very basic one. I assure you.

Edit to correct myself: the Fair trial.

edit on 16-9-2011 by Imogene72 because: (no reason given)

What you said was that it was his Constitutional right by invoking the Constitution. The preamble to the Constitution begins with "We the People of the United States of America..." American Constitutional law only covers American citizens. Imagine going to England and saying "I want my rights that are guaranteed to your citizens".

reply to post by ka119


With the propaganda that has been behind Bin Laden after 9/11, I guess in the US government eyes he was not human enough to stand trial.

But in my opinion it was not Bin Laden at all he is been death since 2004. With that say I guess you can not bring into trial a death body that was not there to begin with.

I remember back in the days in ATS when it was many threads making fun of Bin Laden been Frozen in some room under ground in the White House waiting for Bush (then president) to defrost him to claim glory of his death I guess It was Obama the one that defrost him for glory, but sadly it didn't improve his ratings at all.

Originally posted by ka119

Originally posted by seachange

Originally posted by ka119
I stumbled upon THIS article today on MSN and it made me wonder.. Did Osama Bin Laden deserve a trial?

You don't believe in the founding ideas of America. And frankly you'd have to be a totalitarian thug. The fact that Barack the MURDERER Obama was not arrested immediately is a sign that most Americans have sick and twisted moral values.

Uhm.. I missed the part where you said what Barack THE MURDERER Obama did to deserve that title.

Killing another human being on purpose without just cause is murder. Barack Obama has killed people on purpose without just cause. Therefore, Barack Obama is a murderer. In specific, he ordered Osama bin Ladin to be killed without a trial. Killing someone without a trial, or without at least a self-defense excuse, is an unjust cause. If you kill someone based on rumors, you are absolutely insane, dangerous, and therefore belongs belong in prison. Barack Obama killed someone based on rumors. Therefore, he is absolutely insane, dangerous, and belongs in prison. Why? For the simple reason that if there is a rumor floating around that you and I killed a bunch of people, then you or I may be next!

How does Obama THE MURDERER get away with killing people based on rumors? This is amazing to me! He is known to kill at least two people on purpose without a trial so far. If thats how many we know about, how many more don't we know about?

My own impression of Osama bin Ladin is that he had a dispute with his family, and based on that, he moved to Afghanistan and worked with the CIA to peddle drugs. Basically, he was a CIA drug dealer. Last I checked, most drug dealers are not the religious type. Of course you may say... oh that is just rumor. Well its just as well grounded or more so than his purported links to terrorist attacks. And last I checked there was absolutely zero linking him to the 9/11 attacks in specific, which would explain why he denied doing it on camera in the wake of 9/11.

So again, killing people on purpose without just cause is murder. Barack Obama kills people on purpose without just cause, therefore Barack THE MURDERER Obama is a murderer.

reply to post by nenothtu


" But a trial under WHOSE laws?"

People were murdered in New York.. New York is in the US, last I checked.. duh.

Nazis didn't like trials either.. so whats the difference between Nazis summarily killing innocent people without a trial, and bushbama doing it?.. with drones (buzz bomb?), assassin teams (Gestapo), special forces (SS). GOP & DNC party leaders / Nazi party leaders.. kill strangers the same way, only the propaganda has changed.

Change the terms & reasons.. history repeats, political "party leaders" persuade sheeple into supporting fascism... 1930s Germans refused to believe they were 1930s Germans, too..

Ofcourse he does not diserve a trial. He had little or no involvment in the 9/11 false flag attack. Plus he was dead back in late 2001 from Marfan syndrome.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
reply to post by WarminIndy

 

But Osama bin Laden was not a citizen,therefore not entitled to rights as a citizen.

That is the part that really bugs me about that side of this whole argument. Why is he not entitled to rights that we hold to be "self-evident" and "inalienable?" I understand that we don't technically have to extend those rights, but since our nation is founded upon those principles, and the wars are fought to bring these inalienable human rights to all people, then how can we say he is not entitled to them?

If he is not entitled to our inalienable rights, then our nation has no moral basis to ever condemn the human rights violations of other leaders, and we have no basis to ever "liberate" anyone ever again.

Either all people are entitled to them or not. We can't fight it both ways. We can't condemn and kill Saddam, and then say human rights are only for US Citizens?

Again, the preamble begins with "We the People of the United States of America..". What you quote is is from the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are two different documents, but the Constitution is the body of law, whereas the Declaration is merely that..a declaration to be independent.

If you invoke the Constitution at trials, you are only given the right to a fair and speedy trial with a jury of your peers and the right not to incriminate yourself. But that is guaranteed for American citizens, hence, We the People of the United States of America.

The Constitution is the prevailing body of law for the United States. I do not think that England wants our Constitution. I do not think Pakistan wants our Constitution.

What the original poster said was that according to the Constitution, Osama bin Laden had rights by it. No, it is our body of law.

The first line of the Declaration of Independence is this...

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

I would assume that 9/11 proved a course of human events, the United States is no longer bound to the laws of Osama bin Laden. He was not living in the nation he was born in and neither was he a citizen of the nation he was found in.

But you should differentiate between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

The next part of the Declaration is this...

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

If we go by your logic, according to the document you quoted from, then we have a right to go to those nations to abolish those governments.

Of course he deserved a trial, but apparently, he was shooting or had a gun pointed at the Seals. We should be proud that the Seals shot him, before he took out another American. I rather him be shot dead, than take out one more life.

I'm pretty sure when you're on America's most wanted list, you have a "shoot to kill" order on your head. Some of you guys should be thankful that he's dead. A lot of you act like you would have the balls to go into enemy territory like that, and be more worried about not killing anybody, than protecting yourself with gunfire. I would love to see any of you pull off a mission any better......

Well if you believe all the truthers then BIN LADEN did nothing wrong so why should he have a trail or even be killed?

I myself believe that everyone must have a trial - Michael Ross, Bundy, Nilson, Lopez etc all had trials. What they did is far worse than what Bin Laden has done (except for 9/11, but if we are to believe the truthers then he had no part in 9/11 and a different set of people should be on trial) but a trial is a must, and a FAIR one at that.

Originally posted by GovtFlu
reply to post by nenothtu

 

" But a trial under WHOSE laws?"

People were murdered in New York.. New York is in the US, last I checked.. duh.

Nazis didn't like trials either.. so whats the difference between Nazis summarily killing innocent people without a trial, and bushbama doing it?.. with drones (buzz bomb?), assassin teams (Gestapo), special forces (SS). GOP & DNC party leaders / Nazi party leaders.. kill strangers the same way, only the propaganda has changed.

Change the terms & reasons.. history repeats, political "party leaders" persuade sheeple into supporting fascism... 1930s Germans refused to believe they were 1930s Germans, too..

The Nazis were on trial and convicted at the Nuremberg Trials.

Aha, great question.

Of course he did, just like anyone else would!

But then again.. maybe this guy (f he was real in the first place) really didn't have so much to do with these so called terrorist attacks. If he did, he wouldn't have deserved all that blame put on him for what happened.

reply to post by WarminIndy


I distinguished between the 2 documents in my first post in this thread, and I was careful in my last post to mention that our country was founded upon those ideals. The Declaration was the "founding" of our independence, and subsequent new country. The Constitution is the document of laws that now defines us.

The Declaration declared those certain self-evident and inalienable rights that should be extended to all people, and the Constitution laid out those rights in law for our citizens.

I don't believe we can honestly make the case that they are only for our citizens. If someone does feel that way, then we should stop all humanitarian efforts all over the world, because only our citizens have these rights.

Originally posted by WarminIndy
If you invoke the Constitution at trials, you are only given the right to a fair and speedy trial with a jury of your peers and the right not to incriminate yourself. But that is guaranteed for American citizens, hence, We the People of the United States of America.

I believe non-citizen nationals and aliens also have those rights in trials conducted under the Constitution. The Fifth Amendment refers to a "person," not "the people." The nationality of the person is not specified.

Yes.

Everyone deserves a fair trial.

That said, I believe that Osama Bin Laden died of kidney failure in 2001 and so what ever this dog and pony show was shouldn't have been granted an OJ Simpson media barf and I'm glad it fizzled as soon as it did.

Embarrassing for humanity, the whole smoke and mirrors news media circus has just become an endless parade of cringes.

reply to post by getreadyalready


What if they are at complete odds in their beliefs with our Constitution? What if they are all about it's total and complete destruction and of whats outlined in it? This gives us a Right to extend or force it's outlines with our laws and beliefs on them?

If looked at deeper in an objective manner this becomes quite a quagmire..

Originally posted by FurvusRexCaeli

Originally posted by WarminIndy
If you invoke the Constitution at trials, you are only given the right to a fair and speedy trial with a jury of your peers and the right not to incriminate yourself. But that is guaranteed for American citizens, hence, We the People of the United States of America.

I believe non-citizen nationals and aliens also have those rights in trials conducted under the Constitution. The Fifth Amendment refers to a "person," not "the people." The nationality of the person is not specified.

I believe the precedence is in "We the People" and it is capitalized, meaning a collective body. And yes, other nationals are given the Miranda Rights and are afforded certain rights at trials. But that is only because our government has been generous in extending them. But I want to know at what point does a person expect their Constitutional rights to be enforced if they are found guilty? We hear it all the time about human rights abuses, but I would think criminals were the ones to first violate the human rights of their victims. So we have laws that protect the citizens of this nation. We don't go to Mexico to have the trials against illegals who shoot people here, we do it here. So we don't extend the Constitution beyond the borders.

Prisoners currently do not have the right to vote, and that is a Constitutional right. But they have forfeited their rights by their criminal actions. We may say they have Constitutional rights, but to a degree. Most countries have prisoner treaties, meaning that if a person commits a crime in one country and found guilty, they can ask for a treaty transfer to go back to their country to serve their sentence. This is not just with our country but others as well.

Mohammed Atta was here on a Visa, that means he was a temporary citizen. Osama bin Laden was not here, therefore not a citizen at all. Constitutional laws do not go beyond borders, therefore there was no imposition of Constitutional laws for him. We simply cannot afford him Constitutional laws. We can however impose International laws, so long as he is a citizen of a nation. He was not a citizen of Pakistan. And that is what we have to understand, terrorist who float from country to country with passports from a lot of countries, are hiding behind those nations. We can't invoke Constitutional laws beyond the borders.