Reportedly, the raiders were prepared to take Bin Laden alive. In fact we know they were, because they had plastic cuffs and everything. But, apparently,
Attorney General Eric Holder was not prepared for such an outcome :
“That’s a hypothetical. I’m not sure it’s particularly relevant,” Holder said in response to a question from Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.)....
“I think it’s fair to ask, since you opposed a military trial for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, whether you would have opposed a military trial for Osama bin Laden,” Lungren said.
Again declining to answer, Holder said that his position on military tribunals has often been mischaracterized. He noted that, on the same day in November 2009 that he announced a civilian trial for Mohammed, he announced that five other detainees would get military trials.
“I think our military commissions, especially since they’ve been modified, are constitutional and can give fair trials,” he said.
Holder also pushed back against another line of questioning from Lungren, about whether information provided by detainees who underwent “enhanced interrogation techniques” like waterboarding contributed to finding bin Laden. Holder said there was “a mosaic of sources” of intelligence, and he did not go into details.
And in March of last year,
he avoided the same question :
(...)"The reality is that we will be reading Miranda rights to the corpse of Osama Bin Laden - he will never appear in an American courtroom."(...)
Holder repeated - slowly - to the Texas congressman that "the possibility simply does not exist" that Bin Laden will ever be arraigned in any court....
"The possibility of capturing him alive is infinitesimal - he will be killed by us or he will be killed by his own people," Holder said.
So, was Osama bin Laden killed because he resisted? Or because taking him alive would have hopelessly confused the Attorney General?
I'll let you decide. However, it's interesting to note that when the Obama administration changed course and announced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would be tried by a military commission instead of a civilian court, Eric Holder insisted that his original decision was correct and stormed off the podium.
Onward and upward,
airforce
