Imagine this scenario: The US shows sufficient evidence that bin Laden was responsible for WTC and Pentagon plane crashes. Afganistan, not wanting a full war, captures bin Laden and extradites him to the US, safe and sound. Bin Laden is put on trial for all three WTC attacks, the embassys and the other crimes he’s committed.
Is there anyone in the US fit to be on a jury who is not unbiased towards him? Don’t get me wrong, if I saw him tortured live on CNN in Afganistan, I’d probably turn on the VCR’s record function (thus I wouldn’t be the person to be on his jury.)
However, it’s critical that, if we get the bastard in the US, we do everything by the book, because if we don’t, the terrorists have accomplished their goal.
So, are there 12 people in the US who are unbiased to his reputation, and his religion, to give him a fair trial? And would he get a competent defense?
A good question. Perhaps he can be tried in the Hague as an international war criminal.
Here’s another question: what attorney would have the balls to defend the guy? I would imagine the court might almost have to appoint and order a public defender to take the case.
Better yet…let’s just kill the fuck and nuke the country that is harboring him and be done with this nonsense.
Yes, he could get a fair trial. But it will almost certainly never come to that. The likelyhood is that OBL cannot be captured.
But, since he is an enemy soldier, our rules of engagement would allow us to simply shoot him.
But anyway, suppose we catch him. It might be neccesary to try him in the Hague. The big disadvantage of this is that he won’t face the death penalty then…
Nope, much cleaner and simpler to just have the arresting soldiers execute him on the spot. After all, it’s not likely that he’d come quietly. He’d almost certainly resist arrest with deadly force, and our troops would respond with deadly force. Simpler that way.
His victims and their families deserve not only vengeance, but justice.
So, even if we have to round up some monks who haven’t had contact with the outside world in 30 years, we have to make sure that bin Laden does get a fair trial, should he be captured.
I agree with you. I think we’ll have great difficulty linking to him to the attacks in the first place, so the Taleban handing him over seems unlikley (note it’s Taleban, not Afghanistan. The Taleban are NOT Afghanistan’s official government de jure - but are indeed so de facto).
A scenario that comes to mind is a US- or NATO-lead attack on Afghanistan, probably across the Russian border. Anyone thinks this might be likely?
Well, I guess you’d have to find people that haven’t seen or read anything about this case. Thank God for CBS’s Big Brother…
I don’t think there’s really any need to worry about it. Whether he’s truly guilty or not, if Bin Laden ever was captured and made it to the US, I’d give 1000 to 1 odds of him ever surviving through jury selection.
What, did he rob a bank? Sheesh. All this talk about trials and criminal justice makes me think of elves and dwarves and hobbits. That reminds me, I too have some really good fantasy literature to finish reading. Thanks! Maybe he’ll turn himself in if we’re really nice. Our laws don’t apply to him, since he’s not in this country. We can only treat him as an enemy, not a criminal. He committed an act of war, not a felony.
If this country doesn’t have the balls to try him in our own system, then we don’t deserve to see justice.
It’s time to step up to the plate and start shouldering the responsibilities that we have have neglected the last so many years. Pushing off the tough stuff to an even bigger bureaucracy is going to stifle our will to act.
There is no real question left as to his guilt on terroroist acts. The guy is on video at the camps and makes speeches calling for our death. Justice doesn’t require that we pretend the guy is Mother Theresa when we start the trial.
It’s time to bring back public execution.
I’m thinking that Giants Stadium, filled with relatives of the all the victims and nationally televised is a good way to finish him off.
Well, while there may or may not be anyone out there unbiased about bin Laden, I would think that everyone is interested in justice. If there is evidence that some one other than bin Laden is complicit in, or even responsible for, these acts, I would rather see justice done than revenge heaped upon a scapegoat.
I’d like to think that I would make a fairly impartial, if not “unbiased”, juror. I would weigh carefully the evidence, at least in part because I want to ensure that the architect of this atrocity is the one punished.
Obviously if you capture Bin Laden and bring him to the United States you must do all you can to give him a fair trial, otherwise you set a scary precedent for any American that is arrested by the US for terrorism. In other words, we could risk our rights to due process if Bin Laden is taken to a kangaroo court.
However, I’m thinking the easy way around this is for Bush to get a Declaration of War from Congress against Bin Laden specifically, which would justify us just going in and killing him. The only risk of course is that Bin Laden turns himself in and therefore must be treated as a POW, with all the rights due him because of international war conventions.
There might be a way though to issue orders to all US military personnel to “terminate” Bin Laden with “extreme prejudice”- in other words, declare him a target so dangerous that he must be shot and killed on sight. Maybe someone with military experience can help us on that one!
I read on the news that Afghanistan is “bracing” for a U.S. attack.
Can the Taliban be destroyed?
How easy is it for Bin LAden to hide out?
Going underground cannot be that easy, especially if you are That well known.
Too bad theres not those traffic cameras over there.
Because if we shread the Constitution so we can appease the masses, then he has won. Terrorist acts are designed to make us** self-destruct** our own goverment by causing such passionate fear/hatred we stop giving fair trials.
Also, think about this: In 50 - 100 years, how will it look if we execute him without a trial? He’ll be not only a modern martyr, but a generation detached from our own, will more likely be sympathetic because it will be the precedent he sets more than the actual acts he did that would be remembered.
I agree with the others that said he’ll never be captured alive, and if he is, he won’t live to trial. There are probably about 1,000,000 wanna be Jack Rubys that’d take him out if he didn’t kill himself.
I’d imagine that if he and large numbers of his cohorts are brought to the US and tried fairly and sentenced to death, or life in prison, the potential to see them as martyrs decreases. Others cannot accuse the US of acting in a reprehensible manner (OK, some still will, but they’d be obviously full of shit).
With $300 million or so, I’m sure he can mount some sort of defense, should he choose to. Also, I’m sure that even if the jury was entirely anti-zionist Muslims, they’d be willing to convict.
Of course, finding twelve people who don’t have an opinion on the matter won’t be easy, but I suppose that finding twelve people undecided as to whether it was indeed Osama bin Laden would be possible. Of course, anything would be stretching the definition of his peers. Also, there’s the risk of some lone idiot getting in the way.
I like that burning him alive bit. Appropriate thing to do to a heretic.
Seriously, he’s not getting a trial. This is a moot point. He probably doesn’t even realize it yet, but he’s already dead. The only thing to be determined is the time and place of his well-deserved demise.