Osama Bin Laden: Dead

[Mr Pee]

But the senior White House staff, including Obama, were watching the whole exercise. How could they have got such basic facts wrong as the fact that ObL was unarmed and there was no human shield - those elements of the initial report were entirely fabricated?

What they were watching wasn't filmed in High-Definition, in 3D, and with Hollywood production values. I believe it was from a helmet mounted camera on one of the Navy Seals, possibly not even the one who actually took out Bin Laden. The footage would have been grainy, indistinct, dark, and blurred as the operative moved rapidly about the building.

There is no way one could accurately determine the exact sequence of events from such footage- it would have given the White House an indication as to the progress of the operation, nothing more. Just look at the short clip we've been shown of the compound during the raid, with the burning helicopter in the foreground. It's very hard to see what is being shown.

[vinteuil]

Mark Mardell seems to have a balanced view: -

The White House backtracks on Bin Laden
"The White House has had to correct its facts about the killing of Bin Laden, and for some that has diminished the glow of success that has surrounded all those involved in the operation.
Bin Laden wasn't armed when he was shot. It raises suspicions that this was indeed a deliberate shoot-to-kill operation.
Here are the inaccuracies in the first version. The woman killed was not his wife. No woman was used as a human shield. And he was not armed.
The president's press secretary Jay Carney suggested this was the result of trying to provide a great deal of information in a great deal of haste.
I can largely accept that. There is no mileage in misleading people and then correcting yourself. But the president's assistant national security advisor John Brennan had used the facts he was giving out to add a moral message - this was the sort of man Bin Laden was, cowering behind his wife, using her as a shield. Nice narrative. Not true. In fact, according to Carney this unarmed woman tried to attack the heavily armed Navy Seal. In another circumstance that might even be described as brave.

Jay Carney said that Bin Laden didn't have to have a gun to be resisting. He said there was a great deal of resistance in general and a highly volatile fire fight. The latest version says Bin Laden's wife charged at the US commando and was shot in the leg, but not killed. The two brothers, the couriers and owners of the compound, and a woman were killed on the ground floor of the main building. This version doesn't mention Bin Laden's son, who also died.
By this count only three men, at the most, were armed. I do wonder how much fight they could put up against two helicopters' worth of Navy Seals.

Does any of this matter? Well, getting the fact right is always important. You can't make a judgment without them. We all make mistakes, and journalists hate doing so because it makes people trust us less. For those involved an operation like this, time must go past in a confused and noisy instant, and they aren't taking notes. Confusion is very understandable. But you start to wonder how much the facts are being massaged now, to gloss over the less appealing parts of the operation.
And of course there is the suspicion that the US never wanted to take Bin Laden alive. Here at least many see a trial as inconvenient, awkward - a chance for terrorists to grandstand. Look at all the fuss about the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
In the confusion of a raid it's hard to see how the Seals could be sure that Bin Laden wasn't armed, didn't have his finger on the trigger of a bomb, wasn't about to pull a nasty surprise. If he had his hands in the air shouting "don't shoot" he might have lived, but anything short of that seems to have ensured his death.

I suspect there will be more worry about this in Britain and Europe than in the US. That doesn't mean we are right or wrong. It is a cultural difference. We are less comfortable about frontier justice, less forgiving about even police shooting people who turn out to be unarmed, perhaps less inculcated with the Dirty Harry message that arresting villains is for wimps, and real justice grows from the barrel of a gun. Many in America won't be in the slightest bit bothered that a mass murderer got what was coming to him swiftly, whether he was trying to kill anyone in that instant or not."

[BetweenTheStaves]

Well said, Mr Pee. The naivety of some of the posters on this forum is breathtaking - nay worrying- in it's comprehensive depth and utter disregard for reality.

[3rd Viennese School]

Well, I turned off Night Waves yesterday. I know they look at all topics from all sides but to discuss Bin Laden and use words like Figurehead, Martyr, even Churchill. He's a mass murderer and thats that.
He's dead. We should be getting on with our lives now.

3VS

[amateur51]

It's very easy, from the comfort of our computer screens, and with the benefit of hindsight and time for reflection, to throw about words like "execution" and "assasination", when in reality we haven't a clue what really happened. I think the only mistake the White House have made in this exercise is that they should have waited until all the facts were clear before releasing details of the raid, because by saying too much too quickly, they have just allowed the bonkers conspiracy theorists and predictable USA bashers more room to peddle their paranoid nonsense. As we have seen on this thread.

Imagine the situation:- you're wearing night vision goggles, which do increase visibility, but are not perfect. There is gunfire all around. The situation is confused. OBL may be armed, he may not, you have no way of knowing. He makes a movement- reaching for a weapon?- and you have a split second to make a decision.

I'm imagining what went on, as much as the next man, because only those involved in the raid really know. But one thing's for sure- in the heat of battle, a decision had to be made. And the right decision was taken.

I sincerely hope that you never have to make any decision affecting my life or those of people that I love - you could justify anything

[amateur51]

Thank god (or God for some of you) that folk like MrP spend all their time cycling the lanes of Malvern only stopping to salivate over a copy of Maxpower
rather than have any influence in the world

interesting to see that some think that suggesting that we have a legal system is "paranoid nonsense"

maybe we should just "take out" people we think are a "bit iffy" ?
Evidence ? who needs that when you are the good guys ?

It really sounds like the sequel to Team America World Police

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZdJRDpLHbw

(surely simon is back from Pakistan now and could enlighten us all ? I heard he was part of the crack team of logician elephant seals ?)

Too many direct hits to single just one out, MrGG - bravo!

[amateur51]

What they were watching wasn't filmed in High-Definition, in 3D, and with Hollywood production values. I believe it was from a helmet mounted camera on one of the Navy Seals, possibly not even the one who actually took out Bin Laden. The footage would have been grainy, indistinct, dark, and blurred as the operative moved rapidly about the building.

There is no way one could accurately determine the exact sequence of events from such footage- it would have given the White House an indication as to the progress of the operation, nothing more. Just look at the short clip we've been shown of the compound during the raid, with the burning helicopter in the foreground. It's very hard to see what is being shown.

If only someone far more experienced and far wiser and more intelligent had been around to give us her/his thoughts ...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8653788864462752804#

"The great uncertainty of all data in war is a peculiar difficulty, because all action must, to a certain extent, be planned in a mere twilight, which in addition not infrequently — like the effect of a fog or moonshine — gives to things exaggerated dimensions and unnatural appearance." Clausewitz (June 1, 1780 – November 16, 1831)

""Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana

"The plan is useless; it's the planning that's important." Dwight D Eisenhower

"There are no legitimate excuses at this stage in history, only reasons for failure"

[amateur51]

Mark Mardell seems to have a balanced view: -

The White House backtracks on Bin Laden
"The White House has had to correct its facts about the killing of Bin Laden, and for some that has diminished the glow of success that has surrounded all those involved in the operation.
Bin Laden wasn't armed when he was shot. It raises suspicions that this was indeed a deliberate shoot-to-kill operation.
Here are the inaccuracies in the first version. The woman killed was not his wife. No woman was used as a human shield. And he was not armed.
The president's press secretary Jay Carney suggested this was the result of trying to provide a great deal of information in a great deal of haste.
I can largely accept that. There is no mileage in misleading people and then correcting yourself. But the president's assistant national security advisor John Brennan had used the facts he was giving out to add a moral message - this was the sort of man Bin Laden was, cowering behind his wife, using her as a shield. Nice narrative. Not true. In fact, according to Carney this unarmed woman tried to attack the heavily armed Navy Seal. In another circumstance that might even be described as brave.

Jay Carney said that Bin Laden didn't have to have a gun to be resisting. He said there was a great deal of resistance in general and a highly volatile fire fight. The latest version says Bin Laden's wife charged at the US commando and was shot in the leg, but not killed. The two brothers, the couriers and owners of the compound, and a woman were killed on the ground floor of the main building. This version doesn't mention Bin Laden's son, who also died.
By this count only three men, at the most, were armed. I do wonder how much fight they could put up against two helicopters' worth of Navy Seals.

Does any of this matter? Well, getting the fact right is always important. You can't make a judgment without them. We all make mistakes, and journalists hate doing so because it makes people trust us less. For those involved an operation like this, time must go past in a confused and noisy instant, and they aren't taking notes. Confusion is very understandable. But you start to wonder how much the facts are being massaged now, to gloss over the less appealing parts of the operation.
And of course there is the suspicion that the US never wanted to take Bin Laden alive. Here at least many see a trial as inconvenient, awkward - a chance for terrorists to grandstand. Look at all the fuss about the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
In the confusion of a raid it's hard to see how the Seals could be sure that Bin Laden wasn't armed, didn't have his finger on the trigger of a bomb, wasn't about to pull a nasty surprise. If he had his hands in the air shouting "don't shoot" he might have lived, but anything short of that seems to have ensured his death.

I suspect there will be more worry about this in Britain and Europe than in the US. That doesn't mean we are right or wrong. It is a cultural difference. We are less comfortable about frontier justice, less forgiving about even police shooting people who turn out to be unarmed, perhaps less inculcated with the Dirty Harry message that arresting villains is for wimps, and real justice grows from the barrel of a gun. Many in America won't be in the slightest bit bothered that a mass murderer got what was coming to him swiftly, whether he was trying to kill anyone in that instant or not."

Good stuff from Mark Mardell, whom Simon always rated very highly

Many thanks for this, vinteuil!

[amateur51]

Well said, Mr Pee. The naivety of some of the posters on this forum is breathtaking - nay worrying- in it's comprehensive depth and utter disregard for reality.

Ah The Sneer returns

I'm not sure I've ever seen BTS and Simon online at the same time.

And they share a modus operandi - arrive - sneer - depart for several weeks

Curiouser and curiouser ...

[aeolium]

less forgiving about even police shooting people who turn out to be unarmed

"even"?

perhaps less inculcated with the Dirty Harry message that arresting villains is for wimps, and real justice grows from the barrel of a gun.

"perhaps"?

[Mr Pee]

Well said, Mr Pee. The naivety of some of the posters on this forum is breathtaking - nay worrying- in it's comprehensive depth and utter disregard for reality.

It is, isn't it? I have been dumbstruck by some of the idiotic ramblings from supposedly intelligent individuals.

[Donnie Essen]

See one of my posts some way back. It was reported on The World at One on Monday (?) that a spokesman for the USA security/intelligence agency said that the instructions were to kill him.

Apparently, during his election campaign, Obama said 'we will find and kill Osama bin Laden'. Apparently, he said it repeatedly, but I don't know about that.

[Mr Pee]

Apparently, during his election campaign, Obama said 'we will find and kill Osama bin Laden'. Apparently, he said it repeatedly, but I don't know about that.

Well, there we go. How nice to find a politician who sticks to his promises. Perhaps Nick Clegg should take a leaf out of his book.

[Lateralthinking1]

At least his demise ends any possibility of a future Queen of England justifiably falling out with her husband and then finding a possible marriage partner who could cause maximum embarrassment to the royal family.

[Flosshilde]

It is, isn't it? I have been dumbstruck by some of the idiotic ramblings from supposedly intelligent individuals.

Been reading your own messages, Mr Pee?