Was it legal for U.S.A. forces to take and dispose of Bin Laden's body?

I don’t care for opinion too much here, the focus of my query is on Legality.

Wasn’t it the question of islamic ritual? It seems the US was trying hard not to hurt muslim’s feelings. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t?

If our ritual was to shotgun the face, arms, and legs before burying a corpse next to pizza hut pizza with anchovies and we got angry with our combatants because they didn’t do this, would other countries want to respect our wishes-if they respected our wishes would it be unlawful? I can’t reason this out well because of the unreasonable religious element.

No Im clear on my question @jlelandg. We are out in the world trying to promote democracy and our higher level of law therefore should we not continue to lead by example? Or does international law now not apply if when are being sympathetic to a religious culture?

@jlelandg , I knew I would get this answer even though I was hoping for answers with true legal knowledge.

Yes @jlelandg it may be so that our enemies are brutal, lawless murderers. I assume that is justification for us to become the same?, Disregard our Laws if we feel extreme?

So now, which qualities that set us apart?

My only issue really is with a body being removed and disposed of without the consent of loved ones, that to me is barbaric and illegal. It makes me ashamed, like Its not enough to kill your enemy you gotta mutilate his corpse and piss on his grave, barbaric.

I am not well versed in the rules of war as far as this is concerned. Are there any rules of war as far as this is concerned? It seems that ethically you should dispose of a body as called for in the wishes of that person/culture. I understand what you’re saying and if it was me I would want to keep the body and have people study that brain to know more about what makes megalomaniacs.

How do we know we didn’t ask anyone? His wife was captured so there is a possibility we asked about this. Being this was a high-level military operation, surely the idea was discussed before meted out.

There’s many things in war and combat that it seems like the US does to try not to upset other peoples and cultures I read a book from a journalist riding with a team in Baghdad that rebuilt neighborhoods. It seems like in many cases we’re trying our best to be responsible-yet there are still people who think the US is this war machine solely intent on doing evil to everyone. That team/book I just mentioned was hardly a news story, but the bozo’s who desecrated bodies of combatants from 2 weeks ago go major press headlines.

I would still say there can be wrong found no matter what, but our reasoning for what we did is acceptable.

:) I appreciate your attempt at an answer @jlelandg
and applaud you for reading.

Our Superior Law and morality is supposed to be the foundation of our righteousness and our excuse for starting conflicts. IMO we just dropped the Ace.

I get it, he got killed in combat.. God will be his Judge n all.

Kill the man by all means but should we play with the dead.
Only cannibals, murderers and wild beasts have the genetic code to think its right to take a human kill and dispose of it as they see fit.

It wasn’t legal but who can you blame here ?

@Hibernate, Indeed there is blame, the president himself has taken responsibility.
(Well I assume responsibility goes with the ruler & leading plaudit)

3rd Geneva Convention says this
“The detaining authorities shall ensure that prisoners of war who have died in captivity are honourably buried, if possible according to the rites of the religion to which they belonged, and that their graves are respected, suitably maintained and marked so as to be found at any time”

strictly no, it was not legal. But if he was buried and had shrine there would be some people mourning his death which would spark further problems and resentment.

I believe the US did the correct thing here.

The question was not really aimed at emotions or blood lust, more a discussion on legality.

which was not the question i apologise seaturtle

thanks @jasper1890 , I appreciate your answer but I am looking for a little bit more than opinion.

Seriously Guys/gals I will re-iterate the main point of my question…. LEGALITY. Opinions and dispositions are of course welcome but I beg you address the main question first.

Pakistan knew of the operation. They were OKAY with it.

@Cruiser , nice google search but he did not “die in captivity”

@johnpowell , thanks but your comment is moot to the point.

@SeaTurtle :: So if Pakistan knew and actually participated in the operation on their soil shouldn’t they decide what happened to the body? It isn’t like we broke in and stole it. Even Saudi Arabia (his place of birth) refused the body when offered it.

Mr. bin Laden was killed in a joint raid overnight Sunday in Pakistan’s northwestern district of Abbottabad, some 40 miles from Islamabad, according to a senior Pakistani official.

The town also is home to a Pakistani military academy. Two American helicopters took part in the operation, the official said. One Pakistani helicopter involved in the raid crashed after it was hit by firing from militants. Source

And Hitler was cremated and tossed in a river.

In 1970, the SMERSH facility, by then controlled by the KGB, was scheduled to be handed over to the East German government. Fearing that a known Hitler burial site might become a Neo-Nazi shrine, KGB director Yuri Andropov authorised an operation to destroy the remains that had been buried in Magdeberg on 21 February 1946.[61] A Soviet KGB team was given detailed burial charts. On 4 April 1970 they secretly exhumed five wooden boxes containing the remains of “10 or 11 bodies…in an advanced state of decay”. The remains were thoroughly burned and crushed, after which the ashes were thrown into the Biederitz river, a tributary of the nearby Elbe Source

It was not part of a WAR.

Bin Laden was not a member of an armed force of a sovereign state, he a outlaw leader of the Al Qaeda.

And I do not understand where you are trying to direct the incident to a law.

@johnpowell , very good answer. You intelligently knocked me off track with some 70 yr old history that intrigued me.
Yes lets blame it on Pakistan, how immoral of them.
“Fact is” USA allegedly got the job done, Lets not be coy, Pakistan will do what they are told at the moment, that still does not address,WHY>? we would take a dead body away and Was it morally right/correct?

(the shrine argument is lame to me, a Martyr lives on with or without a grave to its followers)
Where exactly do the bones of Jesus (or any Prophet) lay?
That does does not matter to most people, be it haters or martyrs and the CIA knows that fine well. so why the dumping at sea charade?
human psychology being manipulated with the aide of historical reference is my bet.

@SeaTurtle the minute the Navy Seals burst into the room he was captured and my take is we afforded OBL a legal Naval burial at sea according to Islamic traditions.

@Cruiser, he was not killed at sea. He was killed miles inland, carted to a boat, sailed out then dumped. ‘allegedly’ :D
Come on guys… your not answering the question of Legality.

Every good Man should respect the dead, and not to treat a body like a trophy long lest you regress to an animal.
Roman empire done all that , why are we going round in circles????

Maybe this level of legalese is over the head of fluther. Who’s jurisdiction was it to call the shots do you think?

point me in a direction to a forum were I may be a mere @jlelandg
I mean, where can I go to listen to Elders discuss? and get an a defined answer on the legality of what happened to a corpse that was not on the FBI most wanted list due to lack of evidence

Article 16 of the First Geneva Convention mandates that parties to the conflict should record the identity of the dead and wounded, and transmit this information to the opposing party. (source) One could argue that we had to verify his identity in order to report it and that is why we took the body (we did do DNA test to verify the identity). We told the opposing party that we had killed him, we told Pakistan that we had the body (as it was on their soil), they did not want it as far as I know and we offered the body back to Saudi Arabia (his place of birth) and they refused it. Therefore, it became our responsibility to dispose of the body at that point since we had possession of it. So legally speaking, yes we acted within the laws according to the Geneva Convention.

Also, bin Laden was part of the FBI’s most wanted list. His poster just didn’t mention 9/11 on it, but he was wanted for other crimes.

The whole operation was illegal, but ethically right. We can’t trust the Pakistani authorities. The country is partly run by criminals especially the secret service. What the US did was right. Sometimes it’s justified to bend the rules. Justice has been served. A mass-murderer is no longer with us.

But the public gatherings and cheering in US cities was still a bit weird.

@Seaofclouds , Awesome. This is the kind of answer I was looking for from all members in order to create discussion.
I believe that your argument would stand very well in the American courts @Sea . You know I do not agree but you are the first direct and best answer so far dude :)

@mattbrowne , I’m guessing you are smart dude but all im getting is oxymoron.

@matt… the taking of the deceased body and disposal after the ‘job’ was done? Is it OK to take a body and dispose as you see fit?

At a certain point idealism has to give way to pragmatism.

It was probably illegal to send SEALs into Pakistan and start a gunfight. It was still the right thing to do.

As for disposing of the corpse, again, we didn’t torture him, we didn’t desecrate the body, we didn’t dance around the corpse like savages like the Iraqis did with Saddam. We even condescended to perform Islamic rituals over the body. And burying him at sea serves an important pragmatic purpose (so his followers don’t have a shrine).

If bin Laden was some sort of legitimate military leader who didn’t target civilians, a “worthy enemy,” whose followers surrendered and posed no threat to us, I could see affording his dead body more respect and giving it to his family. But that’s not the reality of the situation at all.

[Meta:]

@SeaTurtle, I’m confused by your approach here. You reiterate time and again the desire to discuss the LEGALITY and MORALITY of the issue. Yet, when presented with useful, verifiable information, you refuse to discuss actual points of the LEGALITY and MORALITY.

At this point, one thing that has become clear to me is that you think it both illegal and immoral that the U.S. Government unilaterally entered a sovereign nation, killed a man with no true home or country, and then buried him at sea, apparently even taking care to follow Islamic tradition.

You’re entitled to your opinion. But why not take a step back and stop beating down everyone else who’s attempting to answer your question on its face?

@SeaTurtle what is so hard to understand about the US Navy who shot, killed and took the body back to their base of operation.

After confirming it was OBL they had, time for burial at sea!...a ship….in the ocean?

I was really feeling it @Qingu until I got to the ‘need bones for Martyrs’ part. Martys dont need a grave, if anything no grave gives them more credit in these countries and CIA knows that. so why? why not show the trophy to our nation?, or why not do the job and leave? WHY take the Dead body of a mothers child out of a country without any moral/legal reason. ? Ok I really do understand why, but I dont! I think what we aint practicing what we preaching

SeaTurtle – Hahaha? I fail to see the humor here.

Great answer @Qingu.

@SeaTurtle We offered his body to his country of birth, THEY DIDN’T WANT IT! If it was one of our soldiers, we would have wanted it. Big difference!

@SeaTurtle. Of course I would not be happy about it but if my dead family member was the most wanted terrorist in the wold, I would not be surprised that the enemy found a way around giving me his body back so I couldn’t have the largest martyr funeral parade the world has ever seen. Smart move what they did here.

Guess legality isn’t for barbarians

@Cruiser , EMPATHY , is what separates us from the monkeys!
And thats the truth

@SeaTurtle your empathy in this instance would contribute to more Amerians getting killed.

@SeaTurtle, in many cultures but especially in Islamic culture, the gravesites of people killed in battle serve as vital social organizers. Remember when the Sunnis bombed the Shi’ite shrine in Iraq and basically started a year-long sectarian civil war? That’s because that shrine was revered and was a gathering place for ritual.

Any burial site for bin Laden would have drawn his followers to it. And his followers are essentially members of a death cult that targets civilians around the globe. Yes, Osama bin Laden was a human being, born to a mother, and all that, but the fact of the matter is that even in death he can still create a massive security risk. If it means more effectively snuffing out his cult, I don’t really see who is harmed by dumping his corpse in the ocean.

Firstly, Bin Laden couldn’t be arrested and taken in for trial because he/his men were shooting at out men. The orders were to take him alive or shoot him, so they had to shoot him, or be shot themselves.

Secondly, I personally don’t give a shit if taking his body and dumping it is against Islamic law. He didn’t deserve any Islamic rights after what he’d done. He should have been doused in pig’s blood before he was tossed over the side of the boat. (And we had no reason to not take custody of his body since his own country didn’t want to claim him.)

Law and the Geneva Convention seem to have no relevance here. However, the body was (apparently) “buried” honorably, as a burial at sea is not merely a “dumping overboard”.

It wasn’t “legal” for Bin Laden to be operating as an outlaw, outside of any government’s purview.

It certainly wasn’t legal for him to have an armed camp inside Pakistan, who has been embarrassed by his presence.

None of his operations against the USS Cole, American embassies in Africa or the WTC was legal, and only one of them (the attack against USS Cole) could even be remotely connected to “enemy combatants”, in that he killed US Navy personnel.

Finally, since the US government is being closed-mouthed about many of the operational details, we don’t really know where the death occurred. He may have been wounded in the shoot-out and carried via the exit helicopter to awaiting medical treatment. (It’s possible, though probably unlikely.) In that case, his death could very well have occurred at sea.

Until you obtain evidence of a contravention of law or legal proceedings, your speculation is no better than anyone else’s. I tend to presume in favor of US military proceedings (at least since the Indian Wars).

Well, it wasn’t legal to go in there and shoot him so I guess we lost all sense of what’s legal long ago. I’m thinking it also isn’t legal to fly planes into buildings either.

It wasn’t legal to go in there, yes, but still ethically right, because Pakistan authorities couldn’t be trusted, yet if Bin Laden resisted arrest, shooting at the special forces and getting killed in response, I would argue that justice has been served too. He was a mass murderer and needed to be apprehended.

@mattbrowne Well, what’s legal and what’s justices isn’t always the same thing. What’s justice is highly subjective.

I guess I failed to complete my earlier response.

There comes a time when “legality” takes a back seat to “statecraft”. This was one of those times. We may see it again in Libya ere long.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir – Yes. It was also illegal from the Nazis’ point of view to assassinate Hitler, but still the right thing to do. If the Pakistan authorities could have been fully trusted without their secret service protecting the location of Bin Laden, letting them apprehend would have been the better approach. I fully support the US’s illegal approach in this case. Sometimes the rules have to be bent in the interest of the greater good.

@WasCy – If the only option left to protect Libyan civilians is killing Gaddafi, so be it. He had several weeks to end large-scale killings of non-combatants. He doesn’t stick to taking on the rebels.

Dumping Osama’s body in the sea was neither legal nor ethical. His body should have been returned to his family. The ‘War on Terror’ doesn’t recognise legality, it recognises the gun. Is it legal to send soldiers into an independent country to shoot an unarmed elderly man who walks with a cane to death in front of his wife and 13 year old daughter? I think not. Isn’t this the sort of thing Al Qaeda is famous for? We are starting to resemble Al Qaeda only with bigger guns. We have to be better than that.

Bin Laden was 54 years old (not elderly). He doesn’t walk with a cane. He resisted the commandos. He also is a terrorist who deliberately murdered thousands of civilians. He has continued to make terrorist threats into this year.

Returning his body to his family would have resulted in a shrine, a gathering place and memorial for his death cult followers. Hence, dump his corpse into the ocean, the better to erase his name and power from history.

I’m shocked that they even bothered to do the Islamic ritual over the body. That’s certainly much classier than I ever expected, and much better than (for example) what the Iraqis did to Saddam’s corpse.

And al Qaeda is not famous for targeted raids that kill no civilians. They are famous for the killing of 3,000 civilians in the WTC, the killing of hundreds of civilians in Madrid, for kidnapping civilians in Iraq and cutting off their heads on video, for assassinating Benizir Bhutto in Pakistan. Their entire ideology is predicated on viciously attacking civilians so as to intimidate unbelievers and help them establish a caliphate out of the 7th century.

The fact that both al-Qaeda and the US use lethal force to accomplish their goals is one of the few points of resemblance, and not a very compelling one.

@flutherother Are you saying that 50 something men with a limp can’t be as bad ass as any 50 something? I resent that!

It does seem a little uppity to take the body with them. On the other hand, I imagine that had it been left in Pakistan that someone would have made that an excuse to kill people who did whatever they thought right to do with it. And so, it seems likely to me that Pakistani lives were saved by this small (miniscule on the scale of WTC) “illegal” act.

This was a situation where decorum and protocol were left so far behind that it can’t matter much. Handling the service at sea with as much reverence as possible seems a reasonable accommodation. The only thing more gentile would have been to leave him alone. But I have to say he asked for it.

I suppose Osama would be past caring but his family had a right to the body.

I don’t think his family has the right to jack shit, and they’re lucky we didn’t cremate him like they did with the Nazis at Nuremberg.

How the hell can you people say you cannot trust the authorities there to find him when nowdays you can see a license plate from out space.

But for those who do not understand [ the political interest in this so called killing ] I shall explain. Next year comes bearing gifts and elections and since Obama needed something to make him look good [ guess what ? ] No need for guessing.

Cheers ^^

@Hibernate if Obama had done this for purely political reasons, he would not have authorized the strike now. The US electorate as a whole has too short an attention span for events of the last few weeks to be a big part one way or another of the 2012 presidential elections.

Then explain to me why they waited so long ? I’s not like they found him half an hour before committing murder. Or am I wrong ?

Not to mention that people do not forget important events [ even planed ones ]

But excuse me for using my brain.

They could have killed bin Laden on inauguration day of 2009 and you’d have people saying “he’s just doing this now to get re-elected four years later.”

@Hibernate, they waited so long because (1) they weren’t sure he was there, (2) they wanted to determine who actually lived in the house and what their patterns of behavior were, and (3) so the SEALs could train for the mission. They even built a replica of the compound.

But of course, it’s so much cooler to think it’s all a conspiracy. That way you can feel smarter than sheeple, too.

I wouldn’t have bothered to say that in ‘09 because then it was just for some justice [ if done right ] Oh and believe me I’m not the only one saying this but it’s not likely for an US citizen to admit another’s mistakes.

Your seal squads are supposed to be trained for any situation [ I see no need here for SPECIAL training especially when you go and MURDER someone ( even if it’s a terrorist )]

And back to the “who actually was living in the house ” bullcracp .. from satellite you can see anything in few seconds.

But enough of this. I’m tired to waste time on craps that aren’t concerning me.

Have fun people.

So killing bin Laden in ‘09 would have been for justice… doing it in early ‘11 was purely political, though. Gotcha.

I’m not sure what your point about SEALs is. Are you saying we shouldn’t have waited to verify bin Laden was actually in the compound before sending 40 commandos into a sovereign country 30 miles from the capital, 2 miles from a military academy, in the middle of night, in black helicopters, to bust down the doors in a house… because they could have just dealt with it if only innocent people were living there?

And I’m not sure what you’ve been told, but… satellites can’t see through roofs.

Actually, I credit Obama for apparently listening to his military advisers and giving the necessary time for this whole operation to come together. These things don’t happen as they do on television with a, “Make it so!” and a wave of the hand, cut to commercial and then the thing is complete.

It was a delicate operation (up until the firefight, anyway), especially considering that it happened on the territory of a nominal ally that we really don’t want to antagonize.

Credit where credit is due; this was a well-done operation. The less we know about it, the better for the future success of such operations. (If you thought Bismarck might have got it right when he said that we “wouldn’t want to see sausage or laws being made”, then you ain’t seen nothin’ when it comes to wet work like this.) Kudos and high-fives to all involved. And Osama’s family be damned.

Want to read something really good? Try this on for size. Amazing talent.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/05/03/2011-05-03_osama_bin_ladens_burial_at_sea_obama_administration_made_right_call_to_show_worl.html?r=news

“If it were up to me, Bin Laden would have died neither quickly nor painlessly. I may have even forced him to watch “Maid in Manhattan” while Rebecca Black’s “Friday” played in the background on a loop.

“But luckily for terrorists everywhere, I’m not in charge. And before we knew it, Osama was out at sea, shoved off the side of an aircraft carrier to prevent his burial site from becoming a shrine. It was a smart move on our part – although, a woodchipper would have been fine, too.

“In fact, some people object that Bin Laden’s body was disposed of with such propriety. “If you ask me, he didn’t even deserve to be washed or wrapped \[in accordance with Islamic law\]. I hope they dropped him in shark-infested waters,” Sal Gjonbalaj, a Muslim whose family is from Albania, told the Daily News. Gjonbalaj’s father was killed in the 9/11 attacks.

“That sentiment is, of course, understandable. But I, for one, take no issue with the Obama administration’s decision to give Bin Laden a religious funeral in accordance with Islamic custom.”

@bkcunningham, I agree! It was damned classy.

The thing is, we didn’t have to do jack shit with his body. If we wanted to, if Obama had decided slightly differently, we could have just launched a cruise missile (or 20, as I heard they were actually considering) straight into that compound.

Bin Laden would not have had a corpse to dispose of. He would have been vaporized. And we’d be hearing even worse conspiracy theories for it, and we wouldn’t even be having this debate about whether it was right to use force and shoot him in the head.

I’ve liked what I’ve seen of S.E. Cupp’s writing and dialogue. She’s very bright and thoughtful. Not a shoot from the hip knee-jerk, reactionary type. I like her. Maybe it’s because she uses her initials too. It was the right thing to do; all around. The killing and the disposal of the body.

@Qingu we didn’t launch missiles b/c the administration wanted to know FOR SURE that he was in there. . . if we vaporized him, we would not have known if the mission were successful and whether or not to keep looking.

Besides, the way we did it is SO much cooler ;)