[lbo-talk] Fidel: El asesinato de Bin Laden/The assassination of Bin Laden

[Dissenting Wren]

"Crime against humanity" is a term with legal standing,  Here's the part of the 
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court most pertinent to this 
discussion: "On the other hand, an individual may be guilty of crimes against 
humanity even if he perpetrates one or two of the offences mentioned above, or 
engages in one such offense against only a few civilians, provided those 
offenses are part of a consistent pattern of misbehavior by a number of persons 
linked to that offender (for example, because they engage in armed action on the 
same side or because they are parties to a common plan or for any similar 
reason.) Consequently when one or more individuals are not accused of planning 
or carrying out a policy of inhumanity, but simply of perpetrating specific 
atrocities or vicious acts, in order to determine whether the necessary 
threshold is met one should use the following test: one ought to look at these 
atrocities or acts in their context and verify whether they may be regarded as 
part of an overall policy or a consistent pattern of an inhumanity, or whether 
they instead constitute isolated or sporadic acts of cruelty and wickedness." 

 Is there substantial evidence that Osama bin Laden's activities cross this 
threshold?  You fucking well bet they do, dating back to the days when the US 
was helping bankroll him.  The fact that their have been far worse crimes 
against humanity - a fact that no one here disputes - is beside the point.

Here's the real problem, though.  Do you really think that Osama bin Laden was 
"one somewhat twisted individual, driven to a frenzy by the unending war on his 
people"?  Do I really need to remind you of who Osama bin Laden was: the son of 
a Yemeni capitalist who grew obscenely wealthy being thrown lucrative 
construction contracts by the Saudi royal family, a son who was himself 
practically adopted by this repulsive gang of dissolute rentiers, who then went 
on to murder untold numbers under the aegis of the US/Saudi/Pakistani holy war 
against the pro-Soviet regime in Afghanistan, whose five-year-run of truly 
successful murder (1996-2001) took place under the watchful eye of the 
jackbooted fascists who run Pakistani military intelligence, the same lot of 
thugs who keep Pakistan a feudal state, and whose last years were spent waking 
every morning to the sound of those jackboots clicking against the concrete at 
the elite military academy less than half a mile away?  "Driven to a frenzy by 
the unending war on his people" my grandfather's shriveled testicles!  Osama bin 
Laden was a piece of shit from first to last, sometimes on our side, sometimes 
not.  I pity any fish with the poor sense to sink their teeth into his rotting 
corpse.  Save your Byronic romanticism for someone else.

----- Original Message ----
From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
To: "lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org" <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
Sent: Thu, May 5, 2011 8:07:24 PM
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Fidel: El asesinato de Bin Laden/The assassination of 
Bin Laden

This post is pretty repellentt. In the first place, "crime against humanity is a 
stupid phrase, reeking with pompous moralism. Where do you draw the line between 
run of the mill military savagery and a crime "against humanity." Any answer to 
this question makes you a serious dummox. It's unanswerable. “Mass murder” is 
still vague, but at least it’s arguable in some rational way.

Let’s just consider the second half of the 20^th -c. The bombing of North Korea 
can stand as our test for the very worst! (If you don’t know just how 
unimaginably savage that bombing was, go back to school.) Then consider what 
might appear a minor affair: the subversion of Iranian democracy along with 
first the passive approval then vigorous support of the theft of the land of a 
whole nation (Palestine). Those two acts (and done might add the maintenance of 
the tyrannical Saudi Arabian regime) have led to uncounted and uncountable 
deaths and human misery, a record still continuing. Then we have the overthrow 
of Arbaenz, which led rather directly to the near genocidal reign of Rios Montt. 
Are you counting? Some years ago a poster to Pen-L estimated a minimum of 20 
million deaths from IMF austerity programs. That is probably a considerable 
underestimation. The Vietnam War probably killed between 1 and 2 million as a 
beginning buat the toll is probably over 3 million and counting. That is 
ignoring the rtwisted bodies and permanent destruction of much land. (“Not since 
the Romans salted the earth” was one description, a mild one, of that war.) The 
massacres in Cambodia would neer have occurred but for the U.S. invasion of 
Indo-China.Then of couerse the years of bombing and sanctions on Iraq. The 
deliberate instigation of civil war in Afghanistan. And the murder of Lumumba: 
like the overthrow of Mossedgh, was only the bginning of decades of horror for 
that and neighboring nations. The vigorous support offered by the U.S. to the 
apartheid regime of South Africa.

I am only hitting the high points; the death trail left by the U.S. is unending. 
That even without counting the horrors committed by its allies.

And one somewhat twisted individual, driven to a frenzy by the unending war on 
his people, succees in destroying two or three buildings and killing a few 
thousand.

And you dare to speak of “crimesd against humanity.” Phghfw the stench rises to 
the hefavens.

Carrol

-On 5/5/2011 4:07 PM, Dissenting Wren wrote: Do any of us really disagree here?

The evidence that bin Laden is guilty of crimes against humanity is strong. The 
legality of sending in a team of SEALs to capture him in Pakistan is 
questionable. On the one hand, the normal course of action would be extradition. 
On the other hand, there is good evidence that Pakistan was giving him safe 
harbor.

Clearly, though, killing him once he was in custody was an act of murder, plain 
and simple. The strong evidence against him means he should have been tried, 
probably by the ICCJ. Since it looks like the team went in with an order to kill 
him, that means that Barack Obama and any number of other high U.S. officials 
are likely guilty of serious crimes both domestic and international.

But there should be no surprise that there's little impetus to mourn his death, 
by those on the left or those not. The man was a piece of human waste and the 
world is better off without him. I don't mourn the lynching of Mussolini either, 
even though the fascist should have been tried rather than murdered.

----- Original Message ---- From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> To: 
lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Sent: Thu, May 5, 2011 3:37:54 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] 
Fidel: El asesinato de Bin Laden/The assassination of Bin Laden

On May 5, 2011, at 4:32 PM, CallMe Ishmael wrote:

Did those guys orchestrate an attack on the U.S.?

Did Osama? KSM is routinely referred to as the "mastermind" of 9/11, not OBL, 
who as far as I understand it was more the funder and figurehead.

Look, the guy was of a totally different order from a leader the U.S. had shot 
for promoting land reform or something.

Doug
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