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[G-Flex]

At any rate, if Pakistan was either incapable or unwilling to attack Osama bin Laden, the US was justified (as per international law) in taking on a mission against him. This was almost certainly the case here.

[ChairmanPoo]

Edit: actually, nevermind. This has degenerated to the point that everyone is repeating the same arguments.

[Burnt Pies]

Guys! Guys! They're Americans! International Law is for less powerfulawesome countries!

[KaelGotDwarves]

@G-Flex: I was pointing out the sovereignty issue to Leafsnail who said

It can't even be argued that it goes against International Law.

I'm pretty sure it can be argued to violate Pakistan's sovereignity at the very least.

It can't. Foreign relations may be strained, but Pakistan remains one of our largest military (if not the biggest) allies outside of NATO. Drones were used as to not inflame Pakistani public opinion with troops on the ground, as they already hate America it seems.

If either of you can point me to this magical "deal", I'd love to see it.  The whole reason for the reliance on drone-strikes was that Pakistan pointedly would not allow conventional American forces to make combat missions into Pakistan.  If anything about the fact that Osama bin Laden was involved changes things, that'd be news to me, since you'd think that justification would have been used some time before now.

I just looked up more information, we fund an astounding 25% of their military. $18+ billion US dollars in aid since 9/11. Pakistan is catagorised as a Major non-NATO ally (MNNA). This means they are in a strategic military alliance with the United States government, and while we are under no obligation to protect them, it seems there are certain "benefits". I wouldn't claim to know all of these because no one but the Pentagon does. While the government itself is on board with the US, the ISI, or their version of the CIA/FBI, is said to be tied to Islamic militants and not trusted by their own people.

Here's the list of current countries:
 Australia (1989)
 Egypt (1989)
 Israel (1989)
 Japan (1989)
 South Korea (1989)
 Jordan (1996)
 New Zealand (1997)
 Argentina (1998)
 Bahrain (2002)
 Philippines (2003)
 Thailand (2003)
 Kuwait (2004)
 Morocco (2004)
 Pakistan (2004)

Besides NATO, it's worth nothing that all of those nations either have a significant American military involved there or own US military hardware.

Here's another fascinating read about relations right before the Bin Laden operation:
http://scgadget.info/uncategorized/us-and-pakistan-allies-with-mutual-disgust-the-christian-science-monitor.html

TL;DR - In January, two Pakistani men tailed and threatened an American government worker in Lahore and he shot the two of them dead. They appear to have been ISI operatives.

[Bouchart]

Now I'm hearing that bin Laden wasn't dumped in the ocean but dumped off somewhere in the Hindu Kush.

[KaelGotDwarves]

Haven't heard that anywhere. And I'm going to just ignore other LOLAMERICA posts from here on out.

[Bouchart]

Just heard it on WABC radio as an unconfirmed rumor.  It looks like that the only thing we know conclusively is that bin Laden is dead.  Everything else is in flux.

[Aqizzar]

There's rumors and there's rumors.  You have an unsubstantiated anonymous call to a radio station versus the entire military apparatus, including the presence and operation of the USS Carl Vinson.  That's not "flux".

[Nikov]

Yes, but the military-industrial complex is an extension of the evil corporatist overlords. You can't trust them.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Insane conspiracies aside, you really cannot trust anything said by corporations, for the simple reason that they are by definition entities interested in profit, and not the truth. When the truth is convienient for profit, a corporation will express the truth every time. When a fabrication is convienient for profit, a corporation will create a fabrication every time.

[Nikov]

And everyone knows everyone who works for a corporation is a mindless drone with no moral compass and slavish devotion to the aquisition of money.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

That's not it. Corporations are entities composed of individuals who, while ususally possessing a moral compass on the personal level, cannot translate that into the overall effect of the entity on the world due to the objective of pure profit. The minority of those who do not possess a moral compass do not help matters, as ruthlessness tends to result in greater profits, and so these individuals rise to the top while their more moral peers remain low in a corporate hierarchy.

A corner cut here, a bribe there, and before anyone knows what's happened the corporation in question is allowing atrocities to stay in the green. Malice doesn't really enter into it, but greed certainly does.

[Bohandas]

The US government killed a man in another state's territory.  This was a sanctioned military operation.  This is international territory (i.e. the actors are states).  Pakistan's civil code doesn't seem applicable.

It can be seen as a vulneration of Pakistan's sovereignity.

Sovereignty, of any country or entity, is an illusion. It exists only in our collective minds. To the extent that it does exist, the question of whether it was violated  or not has a different, but equally valid, value for each individual person considering it. However, your opinion in the matter is irrelevant, and so is mine. Although all opinions are valid in terms of truth, only those whose holders can back them with overwhelmingly powerful might or diplomatic rhetoric (which is, ultimately, melrly a conduit to might), can have any relevance on influence on the course of the current act of the farce which has been playing out on the world's stage since time immemorial.

[Aqizzar]

...Dude, the whole reason sovereignty is the question, is that the "holders" you're talking about, are the American and Pakistani governments.  A violation of sovereignty is a real question about a real issue, not illusory, because those are the entities it matters to.

A corner cut here, a bribe there, and before anyone knows what's happened the corporation in question is allowing atrocities to stay in the green. Malice doesn't really enter into it, but greed certainly does.

What in God's name does any of this have to do with confusing about the circumstances of bin Laden's death?  I ask because that's where this began, so unless you want to start a rumor that Blackwater and Wackenhut were secretly behind all these shenanigans and are actually holding bin Laden in secret (which would be a halfway believable rumor), I don't see the point in this.

[MaximumZero]

It was actually all Halliburton.