The Revenge Killing of Osama bin Laden
by:
Noam Chomsky, Truthout | Op-Ed
Lighting strikes in the distance beyond the compound where Osama bin Laden was reportedly killed in Abottabad, Pakistan, May 4, 2011. (Photo: Warrick Page / The New York Times)
The May 1 U.S. attack on Osama bin Laden’s compound violated multiple elementary norms of international law, beginning with the invasion of Pakistani territory.
There appears to have been no attempt to apprehend the unarmed victim, as presumably could have been done by the 79 commandos facing almost no opposition.
President Obama announced that “justice has been done.” Many did not agree – even close allies. British barrister Geoffrey Robertson, who generally supported the operation, nevertheless described Obama’s claim as an “absurdity” that should have been obvious to a former professor of constitutional law.
Pakistani and international law require inquiry “whenever violent death occurs from government or police action,” Robertson points out. Obama undercut that possibility with a “hasty ‘burial at sea’ without a post mortem, as the law requires.”
“It was not always thus,” Robertson usefully reminds us, ``When the time came to consider the fate of men much more steeped in wickedness than Osama bin Laden – namely the Nazi leadership – the British government wanted them hanged within six hours of capture.
“President Truman demurred, citing the conclusion of Justice Robert Jackson (chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg trial) that summary execution ‘would not sit easily on the American conscience or be remembered by our children with pride ... the only course is to determine the innocence or guilt of the accused after a hearing as dispassionate as the times will permit and upon a record that will leave our reasons and motives clear.”’
Another perspective on the attack comes in a report in The Atlantic by veteran Middle East and military correspondent Yochi Dreazen and colleagues. Citing a “senior U.S. official,” they conclude that the bin Laden killing was a planned assassination.
“For many at the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency who had spent nearly a decade hunting bin Laden, killing the militant was a necessary and justified act of vengeance,” they write. Furthermore, “capturing bin Laden alive would have also presented the administration with an array of nettlesome legal and political challenges.”
They quote former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who commented that “the U.S. raid was ‘quite clearly a violation of international law’ and that bin Laden should have been detained and put on trial.”
They contrast Schmidt with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who “defended the decision to kill bin Laden although he didn’t pose an immediate threat to the Navy SEALs,” and testified to Congress that the assault had been “lawful, legitimate and appropriate in every way.”
They observe further that the assassination is “the clearest illustration to date” of a crucial distinction between the Bush and Obama counterterror policies. Bush captured suspects and sent them to Guantanamo and other camps, with consequences now well known. Obama’s policy is to kill suspects (along with “collateral damage”).
The roots of the revenge killing are deep. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the American desire for vengeance displaced concern for law or security.
In his book, “The Far Enemy,” Fawaz Gerges, a leading academic specialist on the jihadi movement, found that “the dominant response by jihadis to Sept. 11 is an explicit rejection of al-Qaida and total opposition to the internationalization of jihad ... Al-Qaida united all social forces (in the Muslim world) against its global jihad.”
The influential Lebanese cleric Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah sharply condemned al-Qaida’s 9/11 atrocities on principled grounds. “We must not punish individuals who have no relationship with the American administration or even those who have an indirect role,” he said.
Fadlallah was the target of a CIA-organized assassination operation in 1985, a huge truck bomb placed outside a mosque. He escaped, but 80 others were killed, mostly women and girls, as they left the mosque – one of those innumerable crimes that don’t enter the annals of terror.
Subsequent U.S. actions, particularly the invasion of Iraq, gave new life to al-Qaida.
What are the likely consequences of the killing of bin Laden? For the Arab world, it will probably mean little. He had long been a fading presence, and in the past few months was eclipsed by the Arab Spring.
A fairly general perception in the Arab world is captured by the headline in a Lebanese newspaper: “The execution of bin Laden: A settling of accounts between killers.”
The most immediate and significant consequences are likely to be seen in Pakistan. There is much discussion of Washington’s anger that Pakistan didn’t turn over bin Laden. Less is said about the fury in Pakistan that the U.S. invaded their territory to carry out a political assassination.
Pakistan is the most dangerous country on Earth, with the fastest-growing nuclear arsenal. The revenge killing on Pakistani soil only stoked the anti-American fervor that had long been building. In his new book, “Pakistan: A Hard Country,” Anatol Lieven writes that “if the U.S. ever put Pakistani soldiers in a position where they felt that honor and patriotism required them to fight America, many would be very glad to do so.”
And if Pakistan collapsed, an “absolutely inevitable result would be the flow of large numbers of highly trained ex-soldiers, including explosive experts and engineers, to extremist groups.”
The primary threat is leakage of fissile materials to jihadi hands, a horrendous eventuality.
The Pakistani military has already been pushed to the edge by U.S. attacks on Pakistani sovereignty. One factor is the drone attacks in Pakistan that Obama escalated immediately after the killing of bin Laden, rubbing salt in the wounds.
But there is much more, including the demand that the Pakistani military cooperate in the U.S. war against the Afghan Taliban. The overwhelming majority of Pakistanis see the Taliban as fighting a just war of resistance against an invading army, according to Lieven.
The killing of bin Laden could have been the spark that set off a conflagration, with dire consequences, particularly if the invading force had been compelled to fight its way out, as was anticipated.
Perhaps the assassination was perceived as an “act of vengeance,” as Robertson concludes. Whatever the motive, it could hardly have been security.
© 2011 Noam Chomsky
Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate.
Truthout has licensed this content. It may not be reproduced by any other source and is not covered by our Creative Commons license.
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Ross Napoleon
Wed, 2011-06-01 19:56
Chomsky should get off his holier-than-thou philosophical high horse -- which he has pretty much beaten to death.
This is the type of ultra liberal hand wringing that gives the rest of us progressives a bad name in the eyes of most reasonable people.
Go ahead, Mr. Chomsky, feel terrible, feel guilty, have a many sleepless nights, contemplate the end of civilized society -- all because of Obama's decision to get rid of scum like bin Laden. I, for one, will sleep much, much better and my moral compass is not the least bit damaged.
Irwin Weisberg
Wed, 2011-06-01 13:37
Dr. Chomsky and most everybody else ignores the obvious. This was not a revenge killing. It was what the MAFIA calls "salta in boca," the bullet in the mouth for snitches or those about to become one, and warning to those who would make the same error.
Osama was a loyal Company asset, responsible for successfully distracting America from realizing it was still being screwed by the ongoing theft of 240 billion in gold, held by Cantor-Fitzgerald and being investigated by the Office of Naval Intelligence and FBI, all the targets of 9/11. He was also the red herring and ostensible reason for over a trillion dollars the US has subsequently been fleeced out of, in two wars, and worthless homeland security activities. He should have gotten a commission for all that. But he was living like trailer trash and had to live with being the excuse for more of his own Muslims' deaths than anybody since Khomeini and Saddam went nose to nose.
I think he was getting ready to go public and blow them all off the map and they took care of business. No way both they and Pakistan didn't know where he was. But they did a nice cover story. Too bad it cost us a chopper.
Art Glick
Wed, 2011-06-01 12:27
You can't equate OBL with any kind of "suspect". He's been recorded freely admitting his involvement in 9/11. He confessed.
I think the assassination of OBL was one of the shrewdest moves of the Obama administration.
No trial for OBL to air his ridiculous dogma.
No body or grave around which his fellow madmen can rally.
Not even any pictures to inflame the great unwashed in the Arab world (I'll bet the Bush administration would have jumped at the chance to spread those pictures around, despite the effect of that on the Arab street).
And it was all done in accordance with Islamic law! It's genius, really. It couldn't have been handled in a better way.
If you had asked me how OBL and his madness could best be erased from history, I'd have been hard pressed to come up with a better approach.
Shouldn't we act in a more civilized manner? Shouldn't we show a level of compassion, even though this miscreant showed nothing close to any kind of compassion?
Even the Dalai Lama realizes that none of us could maintain the commitment to the ideal of compassion as well as Christ or Buddha, and perhaps the best rationale for the average person that strives to fill their life with compassion is the knowledge that the killing of OBL saves countless innocent lives. Those saved from his evil deserve a larger measure of our compassion!
Lastly, for those that wonder why it took so long to get OBL, I think it's likely that the Bush administration didn't really want to capture him! Free and in hiding, he provided a perfect stalking horse for ol' W's crony's plans to rifle our treasury and curtail our rights and freedoms.
Kathleen Buerer
Wed, 2011-06-01 12:26
Great comments, food for thought. I struggle to be pround of my country when my government makes such questionable decisions. Are we who we claim to be? www.meetingswithmiracle.com
Gordon Clack
Wed, 2011-06-01 11:59
If and when someone(?) launches an attack into US territory and executes George W, Cheney and Rumsfeld, can we assume that it will be accepted as "lawful, legitimate and appropriate"? Will President Obama consider that "justice has been done"?
There's an old saying: "What's good for the goose......"
Stephen Zimmett
Wed, 2011-06-01 08:28
In response to Carlos Furlong:ok now tell me why bin laden was never offically charged by the gov. with any crime pertaining to 911!!
Read this website:http://911review.com/articles/usamah/khilafah.html
next explain why our piece of crap gov fought soooooo hard not to have an offical investigation of 911,stacked the deck against any real investigation(the people in charge of the investigation,later called it a sham)
Well Guess what it was a SHAM. Bombs were planted in the 911 towers before any planes hit these buildings.please tell me why our gov.didn't push for an investigation on why the towers were the first steel framed building to ever collaspe from fire,AS I SAID BOMBS WERE PLANTED IN THESE BUILDINGS.
tell me why our gov tokk control of the site after 911&hustelled all the steelout to china to be melted down before any exsperts could check out what caused the first collaspe of steel framed buildings by fire ever!!!!!!! come on enough of this non-SENSE
Because our wonderful government did not want any one to know what really happened.
We are all screwed by these events and perhaps some day we will learn the real truth, but probably not in our life times
Art Glick
Wed, 2011-06-01 12:29
People ("truthers") who look for wild connections and conspiracies revolving around 9/11 do a great injustice to the real criminal conspiracy that took place.
To suggest that the Bush administration leveled the WTC Towers with some sort of missile or controlled detonation, or to suggest that the crater in Shanksville was contrived, permits those that are complicit to discredit any suggestions of ulterior motives.
As undeniable as the videos of the airplanes crashing through the towers is the fact that the unholy alliance of privateers and religionists in Washington during the Bush adminstration exploited the 9/11 attacks to encroach upon our privacy, erode our civil rights and to prosecute an illegal war solely for the purpose of enriching themselves with wealth and power.
It is no less criminal that the cabal previously controlling our government allowed, perhaps even indirectly encouraged, a small radical group of fanatical Islamists to attack us so that they could use it as an excuse to wrest more control for their group. The only difference might be that Hitler set the Reichstag fire himself in early 1933, and the Bush administration managed to rile a handful of crazy Arabs to do their bidding for them.
Paul Kruger
Wed, 2011-06-01 08:01
Hind Sight opinions are always fun when you are not the one who must make the decisions. I am not in favor of killing but Bin Laden did not share my belief and killed thousands.
If someone felt "satisfaction" then for those persons perhaps this was "revenge" for those persons. Sitting on the outside as are both myself and the Author, neither of us is in a position to judge Obama's motive with respect to revenge vs. solving a major problem for the US. Any attribution of the emotion of "revenge" is a personal opinion, not a factual statement.
After 10 years of hunting what were the real options? Trust Pakistan to help? I think not and agree with the President that trying to do that would have allowed him to escape, restarting another 10 year man hunt.
Take him alive? Aside from not knowing him to be unarmed, which I find to be unlikely, a live Bin Laden would lead to very complicated problems and probably terrorist attempts to free him not to mention the fact that the GOP would demand he be denied a trial and never brought to US shores just as they rejected trials of lesser terrorists.
Do I suspect ( without any evidence ) that the undocumented intention was to kill him outright? Yes. It is really the only sane solution to a myriad of problems. Is it "moral"?
I am not the one who must answer for that decision but from the stand point of the situation I believe that the death of one extreme terrorist who had directly or indirectly cost hundreds of thousands of lives is not something I will lose sleep over and I have no doubt Obama will rest well himself.
Robert Klahn
Ohio
Wed, 2011-06-01 06:06
There were 24 Navy Seals in the attack. There were 79 in the total operation, but most were backups in case the Pakistani Army became involved. They had already lost one of their helicopters, in a crash that was likely to draw investigation.
IOW, they were short on time, and did not know what they were facing. I do not doubt the administration would rather take OBL alive for interrogation. However, above all, he could not be allowed to escape again.
If I were in their place, I would shoot if there was any doubt at all.
mysterioso mysterioso
Wed, 2011-06-01 08:55
@ Robert. The Seals orders were to shoot to kill. Does that sound like the admin. would rather take him alive? He was not trying to escape, he was not fighting them. He was shot in the chest, then when he was down, shot again in the head. Where's the doubt? Again, according to the FBI, they have no evidence he had anything to do with 9/11.
Horacio Schwalm
Wed, 2011-06-01 04:24
Let it be said of us that we did not become that which we sought to destroy, namely a hateful killing machine using the numbers of enemy dead and the cheers of fearful crowds as measures of success.
Anonymous DV
Wed, 2011-06-01 07:40
You mean like we did in Vietnam?
Mike Smith
Wed, 2011-06-01 04:14
It would almost appear that the USA was simply tying off a loose end rather than killing off OBL. That said for appearances, I'm not convinced that OBL was even there or even alive for that matter.
Stephen Zimmett
Wed, 2011-06-01 08:32
A number of websites pointed out that OBL has been dead for many years and I believe it
Mark Dotzler
Wed, 2011-06-01 03:51
Here's The Last Word on Osama Bin Laden...a great recent news report from Japan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OATF_BXEx8M
TRANSCRIPT AND SOURCES:
http://www.corbettreport.com/the-last-word-on-osama-bin-laden/
Also, listen to what Dr. Steven R. Pieczenik said a few weeks ago. He names the PEOPLE WHO DID 9/11.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d679JVfRcOM&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynVu5HXjUKI&feature=player_embedded
Gerdur Palmadottir
Wed, 2011-06-01 00:35
@mysterioso,
It is scary to see how many people ignore the fact the OBL
is a very unikely person to be responsible for the 911 tragedy.
You are pointing to it here above and the facts are all over to be found
but people do not want to know, that is the easiest way to ongoing disasters.
I advice all of you also to seet he documentary The Feathered Cocain,
and thereafter to imagine that if OBL was in this villa in Pakistan all this time.
If he was there this fatal night, can we imagine that he had been
there in HIDING all those years, whom are we fooling.
The tape of him watching himself can be real was it taken there, when?
Why has the US government not fought the couse of all evil which is poverty,
Al Quaeda is the fosterchild of USA who has supplied free pr all those year which has united all social forses all over the world who have nothing in common but the need for a united flag to fight under, the Al Quaeda flag. The free publisity is worth trillions, not even OBL could ever have been able to finance such a long lasting pr stunt.
Stephen Zimmett
Wed, 2011-06-01 08:40
The tape of him watching himself can be real was it taken there, when? Only problem with this tape is that OBL was left handed.
Curtis Fromke
Tue, 2011-05-31 19:52
Bin Laden in the sea......anybody concerned about Godzilla?
mysterioso mysterioso
Tue, 2011-05-31 19:09
Well I'm still waiting for the proof. Not the proof that Osama was killed by some "brave navy seals". But the proof that he was behind 9/11. There has never been a government investigation of the crime. Only pronouncements and accusations. I've yet to see a shred of proof that any Islamic state or person or organization was behind the crime, when there is a mountain of evidence to the contrary.
Stephen Zimmett
Wed, 2011-06-01 08:42
Please read this website:http://911review.com/articles/usamah/khilafah.html
Perhaps then it may shed some light on this story.
Paul Kruger
Wed, 2011-06-01 08:04
Osama admitted it...!
But I assume you also want his birth certificate?
William Lucas
Tue, 2011-05-31 19:32
What about the video tapes showing his delight in exceeding the expectations?
There is no double he was the mastermind because he said so. What more proof do you want?
mysterioso mysterioso
Wed, 2011-06-01 05:19
@ William - Well do you mean the video that the CIA now admits was a fake. Or do you mean the voice tapes the CIA now admits were fake. Your choice. Many people forget that when first asked if he had anything to do with 9/11 he said no and condemned the act. It wasn't until months later that the mysterious tapes and videos began appearing.
Bob Smiley
Tue, 2011-05-31 18:16
Why not just tell the truth. The US assassinated bin Laden and by doing so prevented the truth of 911 from ever being discovered. Who was actually behind 911? Who prevented the US military from responding to the hijacked aircraft? Was that a decision made on the spot or was it planned? How did the Al Queda outwit the whole US intelligence network? We will never know now that the madman president had his way with bin Laden. I can't explain how evil that operation was. It matched in intent what Bin Laden did if not in severity. Not much difference among thieves is there?
Paul Kruger
Wed, 2011-06-01 08:10
You been talkin' to Glenn Beck again?
.
Killing OBL will not serve to hide a conspiracy if he was not responsible for 9/11 because he would know nothing about it to expose ! Use logic man !
.
You would need to kill the actual conspirators which are known by name and died flying into the towers, and now in a private fort in Pakistan.
Mark Dotzler
Wed, 2011-06-01 04:41
Bob, I think we may all learn soon what happened on that day and who was actually behind the 9/11 attacks. The truth is starting to pour out.
Here's an upcoming event that may prove to be extremely important as time goes on:
The Toronto Hearings
International Hearings on the Events of September 11, 2001
http://torontohearings.org/
Many more people will be included in this event than are currently shown.
Paul Kruger
Wed, 2011-06-01 08:19
Witch Hunt
Why do I say this? This paragraph instantly exposes this fact by clearly stating BEFORE the "unbiased" hearing that it is their intention to prove the prior investigation was inadequate. This is a preconceived position arrived at and made a part of their objective.
.
.
No valid inquiry will ever state in advance that their intention is to prove something wrong. It taints the very claim of a lack of bias. The "evidence" has yet to be presented, therefore how can it single something out in advance. Won't they be seen as fools if the actual evidence "singled out" does not support their prior conclusion? Of course they have only intended to "find" evidence to support what they already believe as stated as their very purpose.
Mark Dotzler
Wed, 2011-06-01 10:17
The 9/11 Commission was a complete sham. You might recall BushCo fought tooth & nail not to have any type of investigation at all (I wonder why).......but later they were forced into it by the publicity the 9/11 widows received.
BushCo then picks Kissinger to run it, but the widows objected and later BushCo choose Philip Zelikow (part of the orginal BushCo team) to be the director of the 9/11 Commission......who decided what gets looked at and what doesn't get looked at. Interestingly before joining BushCo, Zelikow wrote a paper about how large populations REACT to catastrophic events.
Here's just one of hundreds of very important things, that were strangely overlooked:
U.S. Government lies about molten steel found at Ground Zero after 9/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPTuAcZV_2s&feature=player_embedded#at=72
NOTE: Be sure to restart this video at very beginning.....something weird about how it skips forward missing NIST's earlier comments.....not sure why it does that.
Daniel Noel
Tue, 2011-05-31 18:12
There is another essential reason to deeply regret our brave troops' failure to capture OBL alive and our fearless commander-in-chief's triumphant pronouncements. As an expert on 9/11, OBL may have shed some light on the 6th grade level epistemological enigma that has been puzzling experts on OBL, 9/11 and terrorism for a while: www.911babystep.com
Love,
Jeanne Taylor
Tue, 2011-05-31 17:47
You cannot put Obama in the same category as FDR. They are just not the same. FDR had amazing character and Obama, well, you be the judge.Obama is such a huge disappointment. He had Bin Laden MURDERED purely for political reasons. With the election next year and his popularity tanking, he needed something big to rally the people and hate always does it. However, with OBL's body buried at sea, what proof have we that Obama actually did the deed????
Stephenie Blakemore
Tue, 2011-05-31 17:43
With BinLaden a lot of secrets were buried at sea.
Old Dad
Tue, 2011-05-31 17:21
AE911truth.org
Paul La Bonte
Tue, 2011-05-31 16:50
I couldn't agree with you more Mr. Chomsky. Lest we stop at this vaudville act in our investigating of the real truths. It's time for a new and truly independent investigation of 9/11. Perhaps when the American people see how the Oligarchs of this world decide they need resources, anyone is expendable. The Bushes are neck deep in the utter destruction of America and should all be prosecuted and have their fortune stripped away, because they are all War Criminals and War profiteers.
Geoffrey Owen
Tue, 2011-05-31 16:47
It was not an American thing to do. It is a continuation of a cover-up that began on 9/11. Ten years at war. Thousands of war crimes. In the mean time 5 million Americans smoked themselves to death. 8 million more died from going to the hospital or taking a medication; oops. Crimes by Bush; no consequence. Crimes by the banks; no consequence. Osama was many things and if he was still alive, and if he was killed in Pakistan; one thing he was not was convicted. Maybe this sets the precedent for going after Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld?
Roy Blankenship
Tue, 2011-05-31 16:41
To have taken Osama alive would have meant the potential for embarrassing information to come out. How quickly people forget that OBL was once our ally, just as Saddam was. We suck. We are the dirtiest country in the world, I wish there was some way of turning all this around. I can unequivocally say Rupert Murdoch's empire of disinformation is not a step in the right direction.
carlos furlong
Tue, 2011-05-31 16:02
i can't believe what i'm hearing from most of the commenters!!!you folks all sound like gov.plants,spreading their lies&bullshit!!!!ok now tell me why bin laden was never offically charged by the gov. with any crime pertaining to 911!!next explain why our piece of crap gov fought soooooo hard not to have an offical investigation of 911,stacked the deck against any real investigation(the people in charge of the investigation,later called it a sham) also all you saying 19 arabs(who failed their piper cub flying schools tests)led by a very sick man living in a cave were the ones who carried out 911,please tell me why our gov.didn't push for an investigation on why the towers were the first steel framed building to ever collaspe from fire,tell me why our gov tokk control of the site after 911&hustelled all the steelout to china to be melted down before any exsperts could check out what caused the first collaspe of steel framed buildings by fire ever!!!!!!! come on enough of this non-SENSE
Louis Buff Parry
Tue, 2011-05-31 15:57
In light of his audacity to order the killing of OBL and bomb the majnoon out of Libya, why doesn't Pres Obama reveal what it is he has learned about the world of terror that he didn't know when he campaigned to shut Gitmo down, to have a new American relation with the Islamic world, to assist democratic movements in North Africa and the Middle East--without quid pro quos? As you know brother Noam, I completely disagreed with the way you hinted at the possible innocence of OBL, and thereby unleashed all the love of the conspiracy theorists now enveloping you. But this time around, I have both feet on side with you. What say you now to the Obama-proposed Manhattan trial of KSM? Judea and Ruth Pearl's outrage about holding the trial of their son Daniel's murderer, on 9-11 co-conspiracy, murder, and some other new charges, in NY, is fully understandable. But that Obama pushed for a Manhattan KSM trial, then reverted to Gitmo is curious at best, since KSM, et al., were Obama's supposed excuse to keep Gitmo open in the first place. Is he just setting the stage for us to be entertained again with another commando raid, this time on KSM's clandestine Gitmo prison cell, only to shoot him in the eye and drop him in the Caribbean, once he is ritually washed down and swaddled in a death shroud? When the Wall Street Journal Editor and Publisher in 2001 come clean about their provable decision not to assist the tracing of Daniel Pearl's whereabouts in Pakistan, even after the proffered help and evidence of high level Pakistani officials, these WSJ complicitors should also be put on trial, but indeed in Manhattan, close to Ground Zero. The evidence that WSJ decision-makers chose not to assist a bona fide investigation into Pearl's whereabouts in Pakistan, when he was still alive, is conclusive and available.
John Barth
Tue, 2011-05-31 15:11
The authorization by the President of retaliation for a definite heinous crime is called a Letter of Reprisal permitted under the US Constitution. It was generally used to authorize foreign or private armed vessels to attack pirate vessels. The constitutional phrase "letters of mark and reprisal" refers also to Letters of Mark, authorizing the arrest in a foreign country of named persons suspected of having committed crimes in the US. So the Constitution did envision special procedures for difficult enforcement situations. But it does not authorize foreign wars, punitive expeditions against unknown persons, etc.
Matthew Lobato
Tue, 2011-05-31 14:22
Ok, who doesn't realize that it was a summary execution? And who doubts that Bin Laden was guilty of mass murder? A formal trial of Osama Bin Laden would have been a disaster in too many ways. This action was a necessary short-cut to an inevitable, just end.
mr tuttle
Tue, 2011-05-31 14:52
yep in the USA laws have become like lanes on Manhattan streets: optional. unless you're 'little people'.
Alfredo Villanueva
Tue, 2011-05-31 14:21
I am really getting tired of Chomsky's ceaseless rantings about the violations of law by the USA. I am as Liberal as any Democrat, but i felt profound satisfaction when Osama was killed. I live in downtown NYC Coldly speaking, it was good for Obama to take out the SOB, something the Republicans were not able to do. Chomsky has turned into a Mac Cain of the Left. Enough.
mr tuttle
Tue, 2011-05-31 14:49
brrrrrrrrr...as liberal as any democrat huh? wow...yeah, democrats are REALLY liberal...whatever that means. someone needs to keep the eye on the ball as to USA violations because the USA sure isn't, chomsky would seem to be that guy, i like him for the most part. i had friends die in the towers and i watched the whole thing unfold from outside my apt, about 1/2 mile from ground zero. i felt nothing but disgust and sadness at OBL's death, not because i dig the guy, but because this is what we've all degenerated into. hate vs hate.