[LINK] bin Laden is dead

[Kim Holburn]

I find it amazing that so many people just accept that a government can accuse someone of something and send a squad illegally to another country and kill them and it's all right with you.  I'll bet it wouldn't be if say China sent a squad to take out someone living in Australia.  I realise it must be so satisfying to many of you that Osama is dead.  I can't say I'm not entirely unhappy about it, but the way this was done was not legal and sets a very bad precedent.  


First they came for the terrorists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a terrorist.

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.



On 2011/May/03, at 12:53 PM, Scott Howard wrote:

> On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 7:22 PM, kim holburn <kim at holburn.net> wrote:
> 
>>> On Tue, 2011-05-03 at 09:26, Kim Holburn wrote:
>>> 
>>>> A person they executed.
>>> 
>>> Do you have some knowledge/evidence to support this statement?
>> 
>> They claim he's dead.  They sent a bunch of very heavily armed people in to
>> kill him.  They were in Pakistan, they weren't at war with Pakistan.  You
>> tell me, sounds like an execution squad to me.
>> 
> 
> What would you have them do? Dress up in girl scout uniforms and knock on
> his door pretending to sell cookies?

Is this an argument that it wasn't an execution?

> Kim, I'm going to presume you've never been to Abbottabad.  I've only been
> there enough to drive through, but I have spent some time in nearby towns.
> These are towns where it's not uncommon to see people standing in the
> streets with rifles hung over their shoulders.  In not-to-far-away Peshawar
> I could have easily counted 20 or more armed people standing in the street
> at any one time.
> 
> Even if this had just been an ordinary house you would have expected people
> inside to be armed.  In a compound with 8 foot high walls with barbed wire
> on top, there is absolutely no doubt that there would have been numerous
> armed people inside.
> 
> The US government has stated that "If he had waved a white flag of
> surrender, he would have been taken alive". Now of course you can choose to
> believe that or not, but it's largely irrelevant - there's no way that he
> would have ever surrendered.

You mean that there's no way he would have been allowed to surrender.  A group of heavily armed men come storming into his house at 1 AM in the morning after firing rockets into his house, they don't speak his language and he has no idea who they are ... how could he surrender?  Even if he did surrender, we'll never know.  Yeah it was an extrajudicial execution.

> Last night in Melbourne someone was shot dead by police.  Ar you going to
> consider the Police an "execution squad" too, or were they just reacting to
> the situation of someone coming at them with a knife?

They were legally attested police, on duty and operating in their jurisdiction in a country and part of a country that generally operates under the rule of law.  They will answer one way or another to that rule of law.  How is this anything like what the US just did?

> It appears they have known he was in Abbottabad since 2008.
>> 
> 
> It's also a well known fact that Elvis works in my local 7-11.  Or so I've
> been told...
> 
> 
> You have some evidence to support that?  Or just the word of the
>> executioners?  They attacked the house with a rocket or some large gun at
>> 1AM then went in and shot the survivors.  They shot some woman who
>> apparently wasn't his wife.  The whole human shield thing is just an excuse
>> for when you kill anybody else at the scene.  She got in the way, blam -
>> human shield.
>> 
> 
> Do _you_ have some evidence to support _that_ ?  Or just the word of people
> that weren't there?

History is written by the victors.

> 
>  Scott.

-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
T: +61 2 61402408  M: +61 404072753
mailto:kim at holburn.net  aim://kimholburn
skype://kholburn - PGP Public Key on request