Osama: Would it have been better to capture him alive?

Yet another Osama thread I know . I'm thinking about the pros and cons of capturing him alive .I believe the US forces had the capability of capturing him alive if it was made a high priority

Pros :
1) Can torture/waterboard whatever to get valuable info about the remaining al-queda / taliban organization , hideouts (Normally I am against torture). What his previous hideouts were , people who gave him material aid from his escape of those afghan caves to his final hideout .

2) Less conspiracy theories about his death .

3) Trial under the law leading to his eventual death sentence .


Cons
1) More publicity/visibility for him throughout his trial

2) Might cause alqueda /sympathizers to take people hostage to demand his release even if it wont be accepted

3) Might make him more of a martyr in people's minds being sentenced to death by an US court than just dying to a hail of bullets .


I think the main pro of getting information from him , might or might not work . Has the potential to get wrong info as well. Torturing such a high profile detainee might also trigger a severe backlash .

And of course there is the possibility that he might make the whole trial into a circus giving publicity to his deranged views , thus inspiring even more people to follow his footsteps .

What do you think?

 

No the really neat trick would be to put him on trial, not execute him, but turn him. Kind of what the Chinese Communist Party managed with the last emperor of China.

That would really mess with the heads of Salafists everywhere.

 

I think the US has made so many mistakes in their effort to fight terrorism and the questioning of OSB would bring attention on these as well as other issues that it is more confortable just to have the guy killed.

 

rethorical question...
and I would very well hope he wouldn't have been sentenced to death, otherwise what the heck are we talking about?

 

That would have been quite impossible. Pu Yi was a puppet and not a hardened fundamentalist.
I think Osama should have been caught alive if possible and put on trial. It would have been just a formality and there's no way he wouldn't have been sentenced to death, but it would have been of great propaganda value for america and western principles of justice in general, although a lot of right-wingers would probably go ballistic about bin Laden getting a trial.
Also dumping the body into the ocean was a bad call. In the eyes of the public there's no proof the guy is really dead and the whole thing wasn't just a propaganda stunt by "the Obama regime".
A week long media circus with several pictures of the body would have been appropriate.

 

The entire OP is purely hypothetical anyway. The man is dead.

So no way of actually knowing before it's tried, and no way of trying...

 

Even I would not imagine such a thing. But I doubt Osama had such a personality cult that it would have had an effect. +1 points for suggesting though.


I think extradition from Pakistan, plus a public, international trial would be the most appropriate, including a public hanging until dead. That way he wouldn't be a PoW or whatever so we could see group photos of Obama and W. fixing the noose around Osama's neck.

Not knocking what happened, as none of the above is very likely without orbital mind rays.

 

No chance bin Laden would have allowed himself to be taken alive anyway.

 

Yeah, I agree. I feel like the conversation is moot. No way in hell he'd ever allow himself to stand trial, and an even smaller chance the guy would ever "talk".

 

Considering we shot an unarmed man, yes we should have taken him alive.

 

It can be argued either way. And there's really no way to know what the exact outcome would have been. This way, as least it's over.

 

To paraphrase somebody on reddit, they should have captured him alive and made him go through TSA checkpoints at airports for the rest of his life, over and over and over

 

That is an awesome idea . Imagine an Osama preaching peace and love .Impractical though unless some sort of drugs/doping brainwah method is used .

I doubt extradition from Pakistan would work . Even if the U.S. gave info about his whereabouts to Pakistan I think they would have just leaked it and allow him to escape or even if he was captured by Pakistan government ,while awaiting extradition some rogue elements would have facilitated his escape .

Best would be kidnapping him during the raid

People thought same of Saddam . But he got captured . Osama outside his image is just a old invalid . He used his wife as a shield during the raid . The seals could have shot his wife and just overpowered him . Or even used tranquilizers or a shot on the leg or something .

 

The more I think of it, the more public relations problems I see if we had captured him alive. A trial would have been a disaster in terms of public relations. Could we even prove he was guilty?

 

I hope you are kidding. If you can't prove it, if you aren't sure, why the heck did you execute him?

(I think I remember a video where he claims the deed btw)

 

The thing is, this is Osama Bin Laden, we KNOW he's guilty, even if we can't prove it. He's even admitted his guilt.

I know this is dangerous lines of thinking, because it could start being commonplace to execute criminals who we "Know are guilty" with no proof, but come on! Is ANYONE arguing Osama is innocent?

I approve of Obama's decision to have him assassinated. He is a sort of "Enemy Leader" so he's not subject to a trial, and he's not a leader of a formally recognized government, so assassination is acceptable (Though I have no moral qualms with assassinating ANY dictator.)

 

I think Obama team was also concerned about other PR problems . Assume he is captured and in jail . We would have daily reports of what food he is getting , etc .Conservative talk shows/Republicans could have a field day about why Osama is being the food he is getting . About US dollars being used for giving (insert random food) to Osama . And when he gets a trial . Some republicans would have cried themselves hoarse if they were president how they would have shot him without a trial and how soft Obama is etc .

Right now Osama is dead and Obama could just say mission accomplished and garner the credit .

 

Saddam and bin Laden are different beasts. Saddam was a skiving tinpot dictator obsessed with covering his own back end, bin Laden was a devout jihadist who believes that much awaits him in the afterlife.

 

Cruel and unusual punishment is unconstitutional

I'm not sure if you could prove him guilty for 9/11 without revealing a lot of intelligence assets. Surely his confessions would be thrown out of court.

But there's always the Kenya / Tanzania embassy bombings, which was what he was officially wanted for, I think.