in his never ending quest to make himself an irrelevant joke, RP stepped up to the plate to denounce the killing of Osama bin Laden. this will, I'm sure, endear him to the Michael Moore/troofer wing of his supporters, but should send any sane people who were thinking about voting for him screaming to the exits. Adios, Ron.

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/05/12/paul-killing-obl-absolutely-was-not-necessary/

oops, sorry Mannlicher, didn't see you beat me to it.

I'll give him a point from a purely intellectual standpoint that yes killing OBL doesn't really change much, and probably a good portion of US treasury was devoted to doing so.


but hey Ron, sometimes you just have to do what feels good whether it's really constructive or not.

killing that SOB scratched an itch that'd been bothering me for awhile

so i'm appreciative of the efforts that went in to taking OBL outa the game.


add another 3 thousand to 500 thousand that share his beliefs, well then you might be making a difference.


bottom line for me if Barney Frank was talking about "you can't spend more than you take in all the time" I'd give him props for that, but he'd still be a raging POS gun grabber in my book

Probably didn't make us a damned bit safer to kill OBL, but it sure brightened my day, they don't often do that with tax dollars.

Yeah, what a total nutjob. He's actually proposing that the US government should have operated according to law. Insane!

I knew you'd be one of the true believers who would stick with the old loon through thick and thin.

Just so everybody understands your position....you're saying you believe it was illegal to take out bin Laden and we shouldn't have done it? Is that what you're saying?

I'm actually glad RP came out and said this.

He can now officially be placed in the Loon catagory and we can get on with finding a suitable candidate for 2012.

Well, hawkeye, in that case, we shouldn't have captured him alive either. Going into pakistan was illegal. Better to let the man die of old age.

Dan

Just curious, but what law do you think has been broken with the killing of Bin Laden?

Just a premeditated way of bowing out of the big contest next year IMO

You guys are hilarious.

Not according to US law.

Geez Hawk,

You are batschit crazy if you don't think we had the right to go in and smoke that bearded azzhat.

It's called a War sonny, you kill them wherever you find them.

How about the laws against killing folks without either 1) justification (high risk felony suspect resisting arrest, self-defense, etc.) or 2) a judicial order.

Laffin.

Go to The Hague and file a complaint about how the sorriest asswipe on the planet got what he asked for.

I'm sure they will put you up in a nice, comfy insane asylum.

This wasn't a battlefield. He wasn't suspected of being a soldier in any war (the word war has only been used analogously, such as the war on poverty, the war on drugs, etc.). He was being sought under suspicion of being connected with crimes committed against Americans on 9/11/2001. Even in war, however, unarmed and non-resisting enemies are given a chance to surrender if possible to do so safely. That's the law too. But he was not being sought as a soldier. He was suspected of involvement in a mass murder. He was almost certainly guilty, of course, but that's never been a justification for a hit order before.

To clarify: I don't oppose our government whacking evil people because I like evil people, and wish them well. I oppose our government whacking evil people because of the harm it does to the rule of law, thus placing ourselves and our posterity at greater risk of tyranny.

Some evil ones need to be whacked, and whacked hard. I don't see the problem, as a matter of fact, we need to start whacking some azz south of the border!!!

Whacking is different from engaging in combat. I'm all in favor of any military action necessary to defend our borders. Whacking, in this context, refers to our president straightforwardly targeting for extrajudicial execution specific individuals because they are suspected of criminal conduct. It might be emotionally satisfying to hear that this is going on, but in the larger picture it sets a very dangerous precedent.

He's a top rate keyboard commando...you won't see a better armchair quarterback making calls from the safety of his computer.

Sorry, but the "suspicion of being connected with" ended a long time ago. The man openly admitted many, many times that he was responsible. He also said that the collapse of the towers was FAR more than he had hoped for. Was his own confession not good enough for ya' Hawk?
A bullet in the front, back, or side of the head was WAY to good for this guy.

I don't think that's fair. I question the orders, not the conduct of our soldiers. Had their order been to "acquire Bin Laden by whatever means necessary, alive if possible, dead if need be," I wouldn't care to examine the conduct of the soldiers, as I would be happy to give our boys the benefit of the doubt as to their operations on the ground.

no problem Steve, it is too good a story to miss. There are some out there that might not yet realize what a fruit cake ron paul is.

edited to add..................... WOW, TRH is on a freaking ROLL with this one.

So, you think the SEAL that pulled the trigger is guilty also then?

All that information would be highly relevant in a murder case against him, but none of it would warrant a presidential order for extrajudicial execution. That power doesn't reside with our president, or anyone else within our system of government, because the Founders understood the dangers such a power would engender.

Just to take that and run a tad - maybe that's what their orders were .. None of us have seen their orders and most likely never will - therefore this is all moot..

Depends on the circumstances, of course. No agent of the US Government is permitted to participate in extrajudicial executions.

Indeed.

Nope, only the irrational, and unfounded, misreading of the law that you and the kook-crew espouse.

I'm in good company, then.

It wasn't. Dealing with pirates/terrorists is long established practice, and fortunately you haven't a friggin' clue about actual legal precedent or foundation.

When it comes to domestic issues, I agree with RP most of the time.

However, some of his opinions on foreign policy leave alot to be desired.

Fixed it for ya...

And everybody in the Chain of Command between Obama and the SEAL in question who knowingly facilitated the assination would also be guilty on the grounds of them being accessories to the crime?

If indeed a crime was committed, of course. We don't have that information, however.

Pete;

TRH is so far off base on his understanding of law and rights, and said same when applied to terrorists/pirates, that it's laughable.

He imagines that the U.S. Constitution requires that the U.S. gov't deal with ALL persons, EVERYWHERE, at ALL times, in the same manner that it has to with U.S. citizens.

I think you need to ring 911 straight away.....

Sorry, but Osama needed killing. His public pronouncements could have been played in a courtroom and that would have closed the case. Guilty of premeditated mass murder. Period.
If Ron Paul lacks the good sense to STFU, or understand that not STFU when needed is bad for one's political ambitions, then he obviously doesn't have a good read on what America wants, much less what it might need.

Hawkeye....you wouldn't know the rule of law if it chased you down in a pickup truck.

..........Agreed! The libs have gotton ahold of him.

He equates, that all US laws should be carried into the international arena as well.

Just another reason Ron Paul would never cut it as the Man.

with no more info than we have available to us, we don't really know how he died.

i just hope it wasn't quick and painless

I remember the days when a country was at war, it meant killing the enemy, not arresting them and reading their Meranda rights. Wacking OBL is probably the only positive thing that we will get out of this administration.
I think many are somewhat confused by the blatant hypocracy this administration has shown, by going after waterboarders, and others who have hurt the feelings of our enemies while doing their jobs for America. Just because some have become a custom to the PC/pussification and apologetic BS of our govt, doesnt mean when something happens that doesnt jive with the way they normally do things, that its wrong. But IMO, this was done without obamas knowledge. He just took credit for it after the fact to take advantage of the ratings boost.
Does anyone really think an anti-American, socialist, community organizer has the balls to do this without it turning into an un-organized cluster f#@! of compassion, bowing, hand kissing, and buying permission from the UN?

We all enjoy the liberties this country provides, but sometimes certain things need to be done to protect and preserve that. This is one of those things that has no room for political correctness. OBL is gone and good riddance.

You can't get any more on target than that.

As much as I dislike Obama, the chances of him not knowing about this Op are nil...

US troops invading a sovereign nation, armed to the teeth and ready to fight if necessary...Make that nation a nominal but crucial ally in the region and a nuclear power as well, and there is no chance this didn't have Presidential approval.

Well,one would hope that the pres would have something to do with it, but its just not his style. I read somewhere that Panetta didnt need approval to carry this out. It just makes no sense to me that this was an Obama lead evolution. IMO.

Bullschit. Hawk, you really ought to get your law school tuition refunded to you. what you label, in your usual overblown style, as an extrajudicial execution, was simply a continuation of a war that has existed for a decade with Al Quida.

Bin Laden was an enemy commander, responsible for and surely planning even more thousands of deaths of innocent US citizens. He enjoyed no more immunity to "execution" if you want to use the word, than Yamamoto did. To suggets otherwise is just lunacy, not law.

In fact, even if he had been a US citizen, he could still have been legally whacked.....note for benefit of "American Taliban" members.


All the President needs is evidence linking al-Awlaki to an imminent, military threat involving al Qaeda and its associated forces, and evidence putting him in a command and control position, and he is toast....whatever color his passport is.


A warrior fighting on the battlefield against U.S. forces in a conflict has no privilege against being killed because he is a U.S. citizen�that�s a well-settled norm of the laws of war, upheld by the Supreme Court in Ex parte Quirin (1942).

And BTW, statements like you support the troops but not their orders are indistinguishable from the treasonous Democrats who whined that they really really supported the troops fighting in Iraq, it was just that they opposed their illegal war against women and children based on a lie and, anyway, already lost.

This incident will serve a good purpose, illuminating just how far out of the American mainstream Paul and his disciples dwell.

In fact it's you, Steve, who constantly illustrates ignorance in this subject.

The rule of law, as I've consistently explained throughout my membership here, simply means that the state, through its agents, can legitimately take no action that is not authorized by a law, i.e., cannot operate outside of law. When it claims to be able to do so, we call that despotism, which is simply the counterpoint to the rule of law, i.e., the rule of men.

I hope that clears it up for you, Steve. One doesn't need to be an anointed member of the legal profession to understand and expound on this topic (It seems that this might even be a handicap in this regard, taking you as a typical example of a member of that profession). In fact, I'm sure the Founding Fathers hoped the ordinary educated citizen would be able to do so. It's a part of basic Americanism, after all. If you and your ilk are any indication, however, I guess they'd have been sorely disappointed.

You are such a clueless goofball!

Hawk:

You finished taking the last part of the bar exam, yet?

So, the Founding Fathers, whom themselves launched campaigns against Indian tribes and pirates, didn't fully understand the Constitution they they themselves had drafted?

Their actions and legal precedent trump your position, and handily so.

Whoever teaches Con Law at UF and let you slide through ought to have their tenure yanked and their ass-kicked.

State of war, plus pirate/terrorist enemy, plus one of said same encountered equals termination appropriate. Been that way since the Greeks, through the Romans, and the English, and the Founding Fathers, and carries through to today.

I briefly dabbled with the idea, but lacked sufficient motivation (and it takes a good deal of that) to see it through. I had no real interest in the actual practice of law. Might enjoy teaching it, but I get to do that here anyway.

Hawk:

I may be the only guy here who wants you to finish the bar and get yourself licensed.

Really, I do. I look forward to hearing about the legal arguments you put in front of an actual, real live judge. And, of course, what the judge says back to you.

Get off your azz.

- Tom

Teaching it without ever having done it. Well, you're in good company. Some of your law professors did it that way.

At this point, credit for the two exams I passed has expired, so I'd have to start the whole series over again. Not going to happen. Quite happy doing what I'm doing. Of course, if you'd like to fund my efforts, I would do it just for the challenge of it.

Now there is a a quote that shows how ignorant you really are TRD....I would put Steve up against you in a debate anyday...you would be annihilated! Heck I would pay to see it!

I wouldn't presume to teach the profession or practice of law (For that I gladly defer to those who've "done it," like Steve, et al). Only theory, for which the holding of a doctorate in a subject is pretty universally considered a qualification.

Excuses, excuses, excuses.............

Daddy must have pulled the checkbook...

You want me to compensate you for your laziness.

Right.

I suppose you'll be happier arguing the law to a group of high school students. They don't say cruel things back to you, like a judge sometimes does.

- Tom

How long have you been practicing, Tom?

11 years. All of them in front of judges.

Zing...

not a problem, that will buff right out.

You believe that a high risk felony suspect resisting arrest can be killed? Seriously??

George

Well, until today I was on the fence about Ron Paul but this just knocked me off the fence onto the NO side. He has just cost himself any chance of getting elected and although at times I had wondered if he was "out to lunch", I am now fairly certain he is an idiot.

Oh well, it thins the herd a little for me.

I'm a big RP supporter and tend to agree with TRH but on this one, I pretty much feel like Legit.



Might even go grab some beer and salute the death of the MF.

The requirement is to operated according to the laws of war. Against terrorists that means we can do anything we need to do to defeat them.

Okay, I gotta ask. Have you ever heard of Frank Hamer? Bonnie Parker? Clyde Barrow?

Now, old Frank may have called for them to surrender (as the SEALS may have done with OBL, who knows) but they sure as hell rendered all three harmless without little debate about it all.

I must have missed that law that dictates that we can't kill enemy combatants, that have attacked the U.S. and sworn repeatedly that they will continue to attack the U.S.

Dont you know-To hell with the law if you are really pizzed off. that's how the democrats feel about us gun owners for the most part.

you don't kill unarmed enemy you have captured. that's what the mexicans did to col. fannin's men and the ss did to US troops captured in the Battle of the Bulge. We have always previously been better than that. Even a top general in the intelligence business said we could have gotten much more info. from him. we could have had military court and hung him. we could have watched him puke his guts out and shown his followers what a POS he was. If obama would have pusshed for civil trial he would be the laughing stock of the world and we wouldnt have to worry about the POS who is more disasterous to this country than OBL. can you not imagine the strokes and heart attacks that the babble of babylon would have suffered on seeing OBL 'kickin an swinging'.

I ain't seen no dead pictures that I believe. We may be getting info from him. miles

eyeball,

OBL was an enemy combatant killed in a raid. Yamamoto was unarmed when we smoked his ass too. He was a passenger in a plane, although he certainly was no more innocent of the attack on Pearl than Bin Laden was of 9/11.

Both were enemy combatants that can be dealt with as circumstances and opportunity dictates. To my knowledge, neither tried to surrender.

Bin Laden could have turned himself in and avoided his fate, he chose not to.

He made choices that had consequences. Pretty [bleep]' simple.

JM

nicely put JM


though I've still a bit of the redazz over how you treat Bob (grin)

That's about the size of it.

I find myself on the other side of the argument here with RP in this case. Most of the time we are on the same page.

IMO, instead of sending a thousands of soldiers overseas to die just so we can build a damn school or bridge and turn it over to a government that will denounce us the minute we leave, we should have been sending in small teams of efficient killers like Seals or Delta, or the most efficient killer of all - the drones to take out targets at will in these piss ant countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan (yea, I know - nuclear power) - and extend that to Syria, Libya, Yemen, Jordan, etc. We don't think twice about occupying a country but we are going to exercise caution when executing a small military procedure to take out an enemy of America on sovereign soil? I don't get that. (for that matter we should be doing this on the border in Mexico as well. Drones would f' up a drug lords day, you know?)

I have no problem taking out established enemies of America with sanctioned assassination, so I'm not sure where RP is coming from on this one. From a cost stand point its a lot cheaper than a war, and in this case will probably do more to end our occupation in Afghanistan than any other single action we could take stateside.

However I will say this in defense of Ron Paul. The whole crazy uncle label is nothing more than an attack on his intellectual honesty. While you may not agree with Ron Paul, you can't say he isn't speaking the plain, simple unvarnished truth as he sees it and he has conducted himself this way for as long as I've followed him. More importantly, he isn't just saying this for political gain. He is an astute enough man to realize that he is going against the grain with his comments, but he is following a well founded belief, and its a belief that envelopes his view of constitutional law, liberty and the Federal Governments role in supporting both.

How many of the politicians you support can look themselves in the mirror and say that?

I also think its important to note - that "list" of crazy uncle topics that Ron Paul continually speaks about seems to shorten every year as they are no longer crazy but now mainstream issues that are coming to fruition. Steve Forbes just gave a speech saying he believes America will be forced to go back to the gold standard within 5 years. I'm guessing over 50% of Americans now have a much better understanding of the role of the federal reserve and the how its strayed away from its intent than they did 4 years ago and that is because of Ron Paul.

And lets not think that the Tea Party - so now in tune and aligned the with the Fox News strategy of controlling the message got its roots with Ron Paul and his liberty campaign's symbolic Tea Party revolt in Boston Harbor -would be a strong without his views and presidential run. This same Fox News which is now embracing the Tea Party is the same Fox News that refused to invited RP to the presidential debate in 2008.

Sorry for the rant - I don't always agree with RP, especially on free trade but I don't believe for a second the guy is crazy and I question why so many are intent on discrediting one of the few honest and consistent politicians this nation has had in recent memory.

when one's intellectual consistency continually leads to absurd results, maybe it's time to question the underlying theories.

RP has been consistently wrong on international and security issues. This latest just kind of shows, for anybody who wasn't convinced, that this is not a serious man but a crackpot.

I'm not sure how he has been consistently wrong on foreign policy.

Is there a stated case where pre-emptive war with countries who haven't attacked us and then occupying them is good for America?

I do know that the basis for economic strength between countries is free trade which he promotes - that is unless I was lied to in my economics class.

I never participate in the Paul discussions but this is too far over the top.

To get the full flavor of Paul's delusion on this topic you have to also consider that he said we should have turned the intel over to the Paki's and have let them apprehend OBL.

Bet that woulda worked out real well.....

Paul is a bit handicapped here with his message working against a successful operation that killed Bin Laden.

Had the operation failed, multiple burned navy seal bodies were being dragged thru the street while China recovered our stealth chopper technology and Bin Laden released a video mocking America's incompetence, then an argument against a rogue operation without the cooperation of the hosting country would have had held more merit with the general public.

again, I don't agree with him - I'm 100% behind sanctioned assassinations of established American enemies with an attitude of seeking forgiveness afterward than permission beforehand but RP is basing his argument on a belief of constitutional law and I guess in this case international law for which we subscribe to.

He is also a huge believer in blowback and how our big stick policies continue to create generations of enemies against us who wouldn't otherwise worry about our country, much less be able to pick it out on a globe.

RP didn't really want in this race anyway so he decided the best way to make an exit....was to KRAP IN HIS MESS KIT!!

cool, then you can hang with DD and TRH. Rock the Casbah, dudes.

If, God forbid, he were president, Saddam would be putting the last coat of paint on his new nukes, Seoul would be the new capital of North Korea, the Taliban would still be running Afghanistan and ginning out passports for terrorists of all nations. While Bristoe and TRH set up their shore batteries at Gulf Shores, or something.

That whole pre-emptive part kinda muddies the water. We'll never be able to know what would have happened had we sat back and gave our enemies a free pass.

I'm not a fan of nation building or being foolish enough to think that we'll ever re-shape a culture - and yes, I believe that the muslim culture (it is not just a religion) views us as the cause of their 3rd world status. The day has long passed where what we do will change their opinion of us.
They have a convenient scape-goat for their self-imposed misery. Nothing we can do in this stage of the game will change that.

In light of that, I'm all for the pre-emptive strikes, let's just shed the nation building part. Ain't gonna work.

setting aside the random references to other posters here, I'd have to say .umm..so?

I'm under the belief we were attacked by Al Qaeda.

Not Saddam or the Iraqi, the Taliban or North Korea.

I mean I could go into a long diatribe justifying my beliefs but it wouldn't be anything that hasn't been said before nor would it influence the pro big stick policy people here anyways.

But to summarize, I happen to believe the Axis of evil is a great way to generate votes, fear and money - but does little to provide me as an American citizen security.

Our threat to America regarding Al Qaeda was on display last week in none of the countries listed above as Pakistan is the supply chain and apparently safe harbor for the terrorist willing to kill Americans. And we've made a commitment to give them 7.5 billion in aid over the next 5 years.

Forgive me if my faith in the intelligence of our foreign policy is shaken.


25 men were responsible for the death of Osama in a country where we had no military presence, not 400K troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Big stick policy seems to be an expensive proposition all the while failing to meet our objectives.

without trying to sound too cynical, I don't believe there is any profit for the war machine in getting in and getting out. The Iraqi government fell in a matter of days. So did Afghanistan.

we are led to believe that regime change isn't enough because taking out the regime leaves a vacuum for all the evil people in the world to descend and take over, making the threat worse for us than it was before.

Fear is a great profit generator.