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I know the person who provided the target co-ordinates did. The F-111 pilot may not have known the nature of the target at all.
Lets flip it over and see if it cooks on both sides: Suppose Osama tells one of his indoctrinated dissolution planters to enter an alleyway, walk 300 paces north, pray to Allah and detonate his plant belt. The dissolution planter has no idea the target is the residence of one of Osama's political rivals who is sleeping there with his wife and children. Osama is counting on it. Is this a crime? Who are the criminals?
Flip it back and the US President decides to kill Gadaffi. He asks the CIA where Gadaffi may be found and when. The CIA tell him that at 3am it is practically guaranteed he will be sleeping at home with his wife and children in one of 3 places. The President issues the order to plant all 3 places simultaneously. The CIA provide co-ordinates to the Air Force, who dispatch F-111 pilots to plant precise co-ordinates at an exact time. The pilots do not "need to know" what is at the co-ordinates to fulfil the mission. Is this a crime? Who are the criminals?
I'm just trying to set you straight on your original timeline error. EDC happened before Lockerbie, EDC was not a response to Lockerbie. I agree Lockerbie may have been a response to EDC. Violence begets violence.
George, the intel crowd have no idea where OBL is. They have been shooting into the shadows for years now. For all they know he's had love change and is currently lying on the beach in Miami. Our he could be lining the walls in some cave they planted along with half a dozen mujahadeen. There was no credible intel at all. They simply noticed 3 people having a chat via a predator based camera and end them. Do you think this is a good thing? Should your country be killing people because they are tall? Would you enthusiastically support the idea if another country implemented such policy in the USA?
You didn't look up "leaderless organisation" did you? I'll help you out with a Wikipedia definition of leaderless resistance:
"Leaderless resistance (or phantom cell structure) is a political resistance strategy in which small, independent groups (covert cells) challenge an established adversary such as a government. Leaderless resistance encompbuttes non-violent disruption and disobedience as well as plantings, buttbuttinations and other violent agitation. Leaderless cells lack bidirectional, vertical command links=3Fthey are groups without leaders."
I'd say some people came up with a good idea for an attack, told alQuaeda about it, got funded and carried it out. Al-Quaeda was as surprised as the rest of us when they actually did it.
You have to keep in mind the actual nature of al-Quaeda rather than the propaganda the US government has built around it since S11. Al-Quaeda is primarily a training and funding organisation. OBL had very little combat experience, his specialty was corporate finance. Just as a venture capitalist is amazed when one of the startups he funds actually develops a highly successful product, Osama was initially amazed and then pleased with the S11 attacks.
You have it backwards, what makes you think they were guilty of something?
Would you condone planting a New York restaurant because I thought someone who looked like OBL was seen going in? If not, why is it OK to plant a dinner party in Pakistan for similar reasons?
As an aside, if I did plant the New York restaurant, but find I was wrong about OBL, would finding the bodies of 5 Mafiosi who happened to be eating there by sheer coincidence justify my decision to plant?
We don't get anywhere if we set off a car plant in their side of town in retaliation. Or try to abstract the violence by using jet fighters and glide plants.
Actually I alternated between a control centre function and something a little more hands on. I'd have isolated, contained, neutralised and captured the enemy in that situation. Killing them all with an air strike would have been my final option, not my first choice. If your special forces people aren't capable of doing that, perhaps you should look at your selection and training methods.
I really do hope someone influential in the USA one day finds out a little about Pashtun culture. If they do they will discover they only have two options in Afghanistan. Stay and bleed, or leave.
If they need any help in understanding these options they should ask the Poms about it (British if you don't understand the term Pom)
I think it is even more disingenuous that you promote the concept of guilt by buttociation and a summary rest penalty for those found in the proximity of persons. Would you order an air strike on a house in a leafy suburb of a US city because you suspected a criminal might be inside?
If you follow standard law enforcement procedures there is no rush. You can wait until they all collapse from hunger and thirst if necessary. If you want to speed things up, a bit of CS tends to make people's eyes water. There are other options too, as the Russians showed us in the Moscow theatre siege.
See my NY restaurant question above.
ROTFLOL! Who did you call for when your special forces got their arses kicked in Afghanistan?
Who do you claim I have been brainwashed by?
My statement about the scalability of evil is universal, only your guilty conscience makes you conclude it was aimed solely at Americans.
So you can use Wikipedia. Bravo. Now use it to look up "Alireza Jafarzadeh" and let me know what you find.
The US will probably remove the MEK from the list of persons within the next year or so, not because they aren't persons, but because they are useful persons. The MEK are useful the same way al-Quaeda were useful in Afghanistan during the Soviet era. It seems your country is incapable of learning from its mistakes.
BTW, where do you suppose all the "intelligence" about WMD in Iraq came from before the invasion?
Your President once mangled an attempt at "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
What a shame.
I'd have the US abide by the Geneva Conventions and treat prisoners of war accordingly. Kidnapping people in other countries and shipping them to places outside the civil jurisdiction of both the US and the country of capture is a very bad thing to do. My theory on the scalability of evil applies here.
Why do you think the Iranian regime is any more despotic than the US regime?
You will find that I have condemned that at every opportunity. Ariel Sharon claimed to have once had Yasir Arafat in his rifle sights and let him go. I would have squeezed the trigger.
Well I seem to have extracted the fact you condone guilt by buttociation and summary end of bystanders. I'm waiting to see if you condone indiscriminate killing within the USA as well as outside it. If so my point is completely proven.
-- DM personal opinion only
