Again, I'd like to have seen us interrogate him, put him on trial, and lock him up in solitary for the rest of a long, miserable life in the dark, forgotten.
That's idealism speaking, though. The reality is, the odds of that happening were very small. The man himself said he would never be taken alive. He was a terrorist, the head of a terrorist group specializing in suicide bombings. Between shooting him quickly when he didn't immediately surrender, and waiting to see if he'd shoot some of our soldiers first, or blow himself up, shooting him is the safest outcome.
As skilled as these SEALs were, I cannot imagine any possible scenario in which we took bin Laden alive if he didn't immediately surrender. The only difference hesitation would have made was some wounded or killed SEALs, with bin Laden still dead. That's not an acceptable alternative.
Again, I believe if he had legitimately surrendered, we would have accepted that surrender. It just didn't happen though. It's very easy to look back with even a partial picture of the inside of that room, and say what should and shouldn't have happened, but until Osama bin Laden was lying dead on the floor, and all other threats were neutralized, the entire situation was filled with unknown variables. Maybe we could've gotten lucky, maybe it could have been a nightmare that served as a propaganda piece for our enemies and an embarrassment for the US around the world, with soldiers dead that are thankfully alive today.
On the other hand, trying to take bin Laden alive could have gotten American soldiers killed right there in the compound, complicated the extraction, and perhaps come at the cost of some of the other intelligence we were able to recover on the site. To be clear, I'd have loved to take Osama bin Laden alive and lock him up for the rest of his life. But this wasn't a police operation to serve a warrant, this was a military operation to eliminate the command and control of a hostile terrorist organization.
I believe they had a contingency plan just in case Osama bin Laden surrendered, but he didn't surrender so it's a moot point. In a battlefield, you don't always get the most beneficial outcome, politically and idealistically. On a battlefield, you just want all your soldiers to complete the objectives and get home safe. That's what matters. I trust the snap judgement of the highly trained soldiers in that situation, a situation with a great many unknown variables, faced with an enemy who specializes in suicide bombing and claims they'll never be taken alive.
When those soldiers entered that room, and did not find Osama bin Laden face down on the ground with his hands up screaming "I surrender", he was still an enemy, still hostile, and they did what had to be done to protect themselves.
Innocent? We could argue about those civilians being trained to fight invading soldiers to the death of the last man, woman, and child (essentially becoming soldiers themselves in the war), but that's far off topic, and really beside the point.
Dropping atomic bombs ended a war that would have killed as many as 10 times that many soldiers had it continued to a conventional conclusion. Throughout this, there would have been plenty of additional civilian casualties as well, possibly quite a few more than 100,000. Harry Truman had to weigh two very terrible outcomes, and chose the one that saved the most lives.
Your arguments are getting increasingly ridiculous. When countered by reason, you change to another argument, and then another. Just come out and say what you want to say. You think killing anybody is bad, even in war. Just leave it at that and we can all just nod and smile.
Well, that might still prop up his ego, and make himself feel important, even if it was humiliating and painful. Nope, better to let him simply be forgotten, let him wonder in the silent dark if anybody still cares about him. Let him spend his remaining days screaming with nobody to hear him.
Also, you know, I'm against rape... even for bad people.
Ignoring your horrible spelling and grammar for a second, I never said Osama bin Laden wanted to be assassinated. I'm sure he would have been quite happy hiding the rest of his life, watching himself on TV, and issuing threats to various countries and people.
However, he had made it clear he did not want to be taken alive, which was the point I was making. Dr Max was offering a false argument, implying Osama bin Laden would have preferred to be arrested than the swift death he received on a battlefield.
I was not in any top secret meetings where the mission was planned and discussed, nor was I in the room when orders were given to the soldiers who carried out the mission. For what it's worth, the understanding I've gotten is that there was a contingency plan to capture him and extract him alive, however nobody really expected that plan would be needed. After all, he was a terrorist who claimed he'd never be taken alive, and had sent many others out into the world to blow themselves up. Still, somewhere, someone, figured out what to do if he surrendered, and the conclusion, I can't imagine, was to summarily execute him. Somebody in the government would at least want to ask him where his #2 is hiding. Even if he lies, or refuses to say anything about anybody, there's some analysis to be made. Getting Osama bin Laden, was after all, a triumph of intelligence analysis.
I think it's safe to say, regardless, that on a battlefield, it's understood as a matter of course that soldiers should defend themselves from any threat to their own lives. It's also understood that in war you shoot at your enemies, and keep shooting them until they throw up the white flag. There was no indication that I've heard that Osama bin Laden made any attempt to surrender. Whether or not he was armed, whether or not he was wearing a suicide vest, whether or not he made any threatening move when those soldiers came into the room, is entirely irrelevant. He was an enemy on the field of battle, and his life was forfeit unless he explicitly tried to surrender. Running and trying to hide behind your wife is not the same thing as surrendering. It may be cowardly, it may even be non-hostile, but he was still an enemy on the field of battle, and shooting him is okay until he explicitly surrenders.
My point though, is not about legalities, or who should take responsibility for any orders. Frankly, I think everyone's taken responsibility, rather proudly. My point is that you trust the snap decision a solider has to make on a battlefield to come home safe. You want your realistic account of what happened, that's it. Soldiers came in, Osama bin Laden didn't have his hands up, so they neutralized the threat before he could do any of them harm. Doesn't matter what their strategic orders are, in that split second they had to decide what to do when faced with an enemy. I'm going to do them the honor of not second-guessing that tactical decision. Since all of them came home safe, with valuable intelligence gathered at the site, I'd say they did the right thing all around.
The procedural delay would have been a big deal to the soldiers in that compound, if their delay resulted in a notorious terrorist who had sent many on suicide bombings activating a suicide bomb of his own. Going into that room, they had to make a split second decision with a great many situational unknowns. Osama bin Laden was not immediately surrendering, as he most certainly could have, and thus any threat he might have posed to those soldiers was swiftly eliminated. A show trial (and that's all it would be, since everyone knows the outcome already) isn't more valuable than the lives of those soldiers.
This wasn't a lynch mob, this was a military operation conducted by honorable soldiers well versed in the rules of war and military justice. Is there anybody who isn't a complete loon actually saying otherwise? Bottom line, on a battlefield, you are well within your rights to shoot the enemy if they enemy hasn't surrendered. You don't stand around waiting to see if they'll surrender if the enemy is before you. Rules of engagement to the contrary just gets good soldiers killed. The enemy is your enemy whether they're currently shooting at you or not.
I agree with you on your third point, but for decidedly non-pragmatic reasons. Philosophically, Osama bin Laden living out the rest of his days in a jail cell would be so much better than him being dead. But pragmatically, to capture him alive would be an extreme risk to our soldiers in that compound, and a lightning rod for future violence. Yes, he's a martyr now, but there's no shortage of those anyway.
Again, bottom line, he was a military target, not somebody we were serving a warrant to. Our soldiers did what they had to to come home safe in a very dangerous situation. The operation was a massive success, and a charismatic voice for terror has been silenced. This is such a huge win for everyone but an increasingly irrelevant group of murderers. Why is this in any way controversial?
Let's drop you from a helicopter in a terrorist compound, and see if you meekly ask the leader there if he'll kindly surrender and go back with you to a trial, or if you'd rather have a gun and shoot anybody who doesn't beg to be arrested the instant your boots hit the ground.
This was a military operation, not a police operation. There were time concerns, there were threat concerns, and the list of situational unknowns is a mile long. Rather than quoting bumper stickers, try to imagine yourself in the position those SEALs were in, or imagine being the one to order those SEALs into harm's way. Are you really going to throw your life or their lives away taking unnecessary risks for some philosophical argument about separation of powers?
None of that matters, of course, because guess what? The founding fathers made the President the Commander in Chief of the US military. That's how they doled out the powers. And guess what? The military's job is to kill people, and protect the lives of Americans (themselves included). If such a concept is uncomfortable to you, perhaps you should surrender your citizenship and go live someplace that doesn't have a military, and doesn't care about protecting its citizens.
If the president ordered the FBI to kill somebody on American soil, then you could argue about separation of powers. But arguing about a military operation, especially one as risky as this one? Seriously?
In theory I agree about a fair trial too. The best outcome possible, in my opinion, was have this guy rot in solitary for the rest of his life in a Federal prison, in the dark, never hearing a single human voice ever again. I wish just such a fate on every terrorist arrested by the police.
This was not a police action, however. These were military soldiers going into an unknown situation, and I have no doubt in my mind they did what they had to to be safe, and come home alive and well afterwards. Osama bin Laden could have been wearing a suicide vest, his finger on the detonator behind his back. He could have rigged the whole compound to explode. He could have had a weapon in his hand, obscured by the woman rushing the SEALs. There are so many different scenarios, each more dangerous than the last, and while I'm against the death penalty, including summary executions, I recognize that in the battlefield, a soldier has to do what a soldier has to do to come home safe. Osama bin Laden was a terrorist, and the difference of a split second might mean death for you, and your whole team. By all means, if he's not spread-eagled, his hands up in the air, and his face on the ground screaming "I surrender" in perfect American English, don't risk it and pull the trigger. These are highly trained operators, and I would never question the split-second decisions they make in that situation.
The fact of the matter is, Osama bin Laden chose to be a terrorist, chose not to turn himself in to the nearest US Embassy to be arrested and taken to trial, and chose not to surrender when we finally caught up to him. His death was entirely of his choosing, he just didn't get to pick the time and date.
Okay, let's put you in the position of planning this operation. Are you really going to be the guy who says "take him alive at any cost" when he might be armed, might have a suicide bomb strapped to his chest, might be holding a detonator to blow up the whole compound, or any other number of very likely scenarios? This guy is a terrorist, after all, who said that he'd never be taken alive, and so on with the usual terrorist rhetoric.
I'm sorry, but a US Navy SEAL's life is worth more than a mass murderer. Enough people have died because of bin Laden. Take no chances. If he doesn't immediately have his hands up and be face down on the floor spread-eagled and screaming "I surrender" when you burst into that room, yeah, you shoot him. You make that very clear to the men you send into harm's way to get him, and at the end of the day you trust their judgement on the battlefield when they kick down that door and have to make a split-second decision. We who are Monday morning quarterbacking are lucky that we didn't have to make that decision, but I think 99% of people would neutralize the threat when they see he's not prone with his hands up, and the other 1% probably doesn't live long enough to feel smug and superior about it.
I am not for the death penalty, but in a military operation, you do what you have to do to come home safe. If Osama bin Laden wanted a fair trial, he could have turned himself in to the nearest US Embassy on 9/12. Let's stop with the silly idealist nonsense and recognize we're living in the real world, with real consequences to our men and women on the battlefield. I'll say it again, an American soldier's life is worth more than bin Laden's, and any operation to get bin Laden had to have recognized that basic truth.
I used Amtrak for several years, but CSX was always causing delays. If I can drive faster and more reliably than I can take a train, I might as well drive. It's a real pity too, since trains are more comfortable and I can get a bite to eat without having to stop.
I don't remember now, but it was probably cheaper too, especially since gas is going up and up. But ultimately, if I was going to get stuck on a train for another 10 hour delay, I was going to snap.
China is anything but communist, these days. This is entirely free markets, and good thing because their lives are improved by the free market. These workers aren't forced to do anything.
A slave works because they have no choice, and they are rather miserable about it. Their job may or may not suck, but they can't quit. They are motivated by fear alone.
These people know their jobs kind of suck, but they're very happy to have them. What's more, they are keenly aware that if they work hard now, their children and their children's children will be much better off. They are highly motivated by economic forces.
In other words, working this job, voluntarily, gives them a way to advance their lives, rather than them being forced to stay in one condition forever.
Starvation will kill you just as dead, I agree. But does that make every employee everywhere a slave? After all, if you don't work in your cushy western job, you'll starve too.
These people are living significantly better than many other Chinese, and they know it. The fact you're unwilling to work for their wage and live in their condition just goes to show you how spoiled you are, and exactly why a company like Foxconn doesn't exist in the west. If American workers were willing to lower their quality of life for a job, we'd have 0% unemployment, and nobody could afford any iPads. Instead, we're used to a much higher standard of living, so we give all our crappy manufacturing jobs overseas and they're happy for it.
If the so-called harassment and dehumanizing policies are as big a deal as you make them out to be, then Foxconn would have trouble attracting employees. That's clearly not the case. Clearly you would be unwilling to sign an agreement not to kill yourself. So be it, don't work for Foxconn. Foxconn employees apparently don't mind. Considering just how many workers they have there, and how few have ever killed themselves, I don't think it's that big a deal.
This is only a news story because they build popular electronics there, so people want to make a big deal out of it. Is it a little strange? Yeah. But if my employer wanted me to sign a piece of paper promising to not do myself harm, I wouldn't mind one bit. I have no intention to off myself, and it would seem the vast, vast majority of Foxconn employees feel the same way. Most people everywhere feel that way. A pledge to that effect isn't doing anybody harm except those who wish themselves harm. I think Foxconn has every reason to not want their employees to kill themselves, as would any company. I think if somebody did refuse to sign, that would be an indication they are mentally disturbed. That's probably a reasonable thing to screen for in your employees anyway, as they might do more than just harm themselves. I'm not so naive as to expect Foxconn is doing this merely as a public service for their employees, and are instead looking out for their bottom line, but nonetheless, they have every right to do so. This protects themselves from unstable individuals, or those who are looking to become employees for a week just so they can kill themselves so their families can sue. Foxconn wants dedicated, emotionally stable workers.
You seem to be perfectly fine with low wages and crappy dormitories, so ultimately you just have a problem with people not being allowed to kill themselves on business property and have their families get a big payday. This isn't so much different than the stipulations in life insurance policies where the family gets nothing if the policy-holder commits suicide. This contract may very well save lives.
These sort of work conditions and wage levels seemed to have worked pretty well in the United States, and every other industrialized nation. There's no shortcuts here.
The fact is, there are more people than there are jobs. You can't magically create new jobs with huge salaries and pensions and whatever else out of thin air. There's only so much demand for iPads and other electronics in the world. If demand was higher, Foxconn or other companies would have to hire more people, which would drive down unemployment, which would force Foxconn and other companies to raise their wages and conditions to attract enough workers for the task.
Forcing these companies to do better will only mean these companies go out of business, when somebody sets up shop next door and offers cheaper labor to the companies that need cheap labor. As much as you might wish that we can somehow raise these third-world workers to the standard of living we enjoy in the United States or wherever else they buy iPads, but as soon as that happens, Apple will start making the iPad in the United States to cut logistics costs, and the iPad will cost more than anybody is willing to pay to own one. That means no jobs for anybody.
Economics is not some magical wishing well. It works, perhaps slower than we might like, to raise standard of living for everybody everywhere. It does so in very predictable, repeatable ways, and the structures are really not as hard to understand as some slashdot commentators seem to think.
Ultimately a job is better than no job, and efforts to curtail the efficiency of capitalism with "regulation" only results in the reduction of the number of people who have jobs, because there's a fixed amount of money set aside for the labor required, by very simple market forces. An iPad is worth precisely how much it costs. Inflating the price artificially will reduce the demand for the product, which reduces the number of jobs it creates to meet the demand. It's all very simple math, and while this math may not appeal to an idealist, it has the advantage of living in reality.
And if they weren't, those same people would have no jobs at all, and be starving to death. Their conditions might not be up to western standards of living, but they are comparable to every industrializing nation throughout history, and the end result of industrialization is always current western standards of living.
Why is it people expect everywhere in the world to be at the exact same level of social and economic progress, just because they wish it so? It simply doesn't work that way. People scrape together a bare living however they can, which improves their overall economy, which gives their children and grandchildren and great grandchildren the possibility to not only exist, but to live better too.
Yes, it's a shame Chinese workers are so desperate for a job that they'll work for pennies and live in the sorts of conditions we find uncomfortable. The solution to that, however, cannot possibly be to not give them ANY jobs.
I'd rather have an iPad than work for pennies. I think we're winning. They're also winning because they get to eat. Money changing hands is always win-win.
People freak out about the trade deficit, but it's not like we're paying more for Chinese-manufactured goods than the goods are worth. Capitalism means you pay exactly how much an item is worth, no more no less. Yes, we're sending a lot of our money overseas, but money is only as good as what it allows you to buy. All this cash in my wallet might as well just be toilet paper, except for the fact I can use it to get stuff.
Stuff is quality of life. Stuff > money. And by the way, the Chinese are buying stuff too from other places, and some of those places are buying stuff from us. As long as money keeps flowing, and stuff keeps flowing, everybody wins.
In large international corporations did not employ people in places like China, things would be far worse off for people like the Chinese. A job is better than no job.
If you want to improve conditions in China, you have to give the Chinese money. Clearly working at Foxconn, for the wages and conditions offered, is considered pretty good, or Foxconn wouldn't have any employees. They may be forced into it by circumstance (not wanting to starve to death), but nobody held a gun to their head.
The reason workers choose to work at Foxconn is precisely because it is better to work for them than to not have a job at all, or even work for another company. As much as we might talk about China being communist, this situation is entirely about capitalism. The worker's labor is worth precisely how much he or she is being paid, and the work conditions they must suffer through, otherwise Foxconn would have to better the wage and conditions to attract workers. Now, perhaps China as a whole isn't the greatest place to be, that a company like Foxconn is seen as an improvement, but that's a larger issue that ultimately will only be fixed by using China for cheap labor more and more until their employment levels and living conditions rise to western standards. As miserable as the work may be at times for these workers, it sure beats starving to death, or people would choose to starve.
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Again, I'd like to have seen us interrogate him, put him on trial, and lock him up in solitary for the rest of a long, miserable life in the dark, forgotten.
That's idealism speaking, though. The reality is, the odds of that happening were very small. The man himself said he would never be taken alive. He was a terrorist, the head of a terrorist group specializing in suicide bombings. Between shooting him quickly when he didn't immediately surrender, and waiting to see if he'd shoot some of our soldiers first, or blow himself up, shooting him is the safest outcome.
As skilled as these SEALs were, I cannot imagine any possible scenario in which we took bin Laden alive if he didn't immediately surrender. The only difference hesitation would have made was some wounded or killed SEALs, with bin Laden still dead. That's not an acceptable alternative.
Again, I believe if he had legitimately surrendered, we would have accepted that surrender. It just didn't happen though. It's very easy to look back with even a partial picture of the inside of that room, and say what should and shouldn't have happened, but until Osama bin Laden was lying dead on the floor, and all other threats were neutralized, the entire situation was filled with unknown variables. Maybe we could've gotten lucky, maybe it could have been a nightmare that served as a propaganda piece for our enemies and an embarrassment for the US around the world, with soldiers dead that are thankfully alive today.
On the other hand, trying to take bin Laden alive could have gotten American soldiers killed right there in the compound, complicated the extraction, and perhaps come at the cost of some of the other intelligence we were able to recover on the site. To be clear, I'd have loved to take Osama bin Laden alive and lock him up for the rest of his life. But this wasn't a police operation to serve a warrant, this was a military operation to eliminate the command and control of a hostile terrorist organization.
I believe they had a contingency plan just in case Osama bin Laden surrendered, but he didn't surrender so it's a moot point. In a battlefield, you don't always get the most beneficial outcome, politically and idealistically. On a battlefield, you just want all your soldiers to complete the objectives and get home safe. That's what matters. I trust the snap judgement of the highly trained soldiers in that situation, a situation with a great many unknown variables, faced with an enemy who specializes in suicide bombing and claims they'll never be taken alive.
When those soldiers entered that room, and did not find Osama bin Laden face down on the ground with his hands up screaming "I surrender", he was still an enemy, still hostile, and they did what had to be done to protect themselves.
Exactly. When we blow up a SAM site with a stealth plane, are people going to complain about that too because they didn't get a missile off?
Innocent? We could argue about those civilians being trained to fight invading soldiers to the death of the last man, woman, and child (essentially becoming soldiers themselves in the war), but that's far off topic, and really beside the point.
Dropping atomic bombs ended a war that would have killed as many as 10 times that many soldiers had it continued to a conventional conclusion. Throughout this, there would have been plenty of additional civilian casualties as well, possibly quite a few more than 100,000. Harry Truman had to weigh two very terrible outcomes, and chose the one that saved the most lives.
Your arguments are getting increasingly ridiculous. When countered by reason, you change to another argument, and then another. Just come out and say what you want to say. You think killing anybody is bad, even in war. Just leave it at that and we can all just nod and smile.
Well, that might still prop up his ego, and make himself feel important, even if it was humiliating and painful. Nope, better to let him simply be forgotten, let him wonder in the silent dark if anybody still cares about him. Let him spend his remaining days screaming with nobody to hear him.
Also, you know, I'm against rape... even for bad people.
Ignoring your horrible spelling and grammar for a second, I never said Osama bin Laden wanted to be assassinated. I'm sure he would have been quite happy hiding the rest of his life, watching himself on TV, and issuing threats to various countries and people.
However, he had made it clear he did not want to be taken alive, which was the point I was making. Dr Max was offering a false argument, implying Osama bin Laden would have preferred to be arrested than the swift death he received on a battlefield.
I was not in any top secret meetings where the mission was planned and discussed, nor was I in the room when orders were given to the soldiers who carried out the mission. For what it's worth, the understanding I've gotten is that there was a contingency plan to capture him and extract him alive, however nobody really expected that plan would be needed. After all, he was a terrorist who claimed he'd never be taken alive, and had sent many others out into the world to blow themselves up. Still, somewhere, someone, figured out what to do if he surrendered, and the conclusion, I can't imagine, was to summarily execute him. Somebody in the government would at least want to ask him where his #2 is hiding. Even if he lies, or refuses to say anything about anybody, there's some analysis to be made. Getting Osama bin Laden, was after all, a triumph of intelligence analysis.
I think it's safe to say, regardless, that on a battlefield, it's understood as a matter of course that soldiers should defend themselves from any threat to their own lives. It's also understood that in war you shoot at your enemies, and keep shooting them until they throw up the white flag. There was no indication that I've heard that Osama bin Laden made any attempt to surrender. Whether or not he was armed, whether or not he was wearing a suicide vest, whether or not he made any threatening move when those soldiers came into the room, is entirely irrelevant. He was an enemy on the field of battle, and his life was forfeit unless he explicitly tried to surrender. Running and trying to hide behind your wife is not the same thing as surrendering. It may be cowardly, it may even be non-hostile, but he was still an enemy on the field of battle, and shooting him is okay until he explicitly surrenders.
My point though, is not about legalities, or who should take responsibility for any orders. Frankly, I think everyone's taken responsibility, rather proudly. My point is that you trust the snap decision a solider has to make on a battlefield to come home safe. You want your realistic account of what happened, that's it. Soldiers came in, Osama bin Laden didn't have his hands up, so they neutralized the threat before he could do any of them harm. Doesn't matter what their strategic orders are, in that split second they had to decide what to do when faced with an enemy. I'm going to do them the honor of not second-guessing that tactical decision. Since all of them came home safe, with valuable intelligence gathered at the site, I'd say they did the right thing all around.
The procedural delay would have been a big deal to the soldiers in that compound, if their delay resulted in a notorious terrorist who had sent many on suicide bombings activating a suicide bomb of his own. Going into that room, they had to make a split second decision with a great many situational unknowns. Osama bin Laden was not immediately surrendering, as he most certainly could have, and thus any threat he might have posed to those soldiers was swiftly eliminated. A show trial (and that's all it would be, since everyone knows the outcome already) isn't more valuable than the lives of those soldiers.
This wasn't a lynch mob, this was a military operation conducted by honorable soldiers well versed in the rules of war and military justice. Is there anybody who isn't a complete loon actually saying otherwise? Bottom line, on a battlefield, you are well within your rights to shoot the enemy if they enemy hasn't surrendered. You don't stand around waiting to see if they'll surrender if the enemy is before you. Rules of engagement to the contrary just gets good soldiers killed. The enemy is your enemy whether they're currently shooting at you or not.
I agree with you on your third point, but for decidedly non-pragmatic reasons. Philosophically, Osama bin Laden living out the rest of his days in a jail cell would be so much better than him being dead. But pragmatically, to capture him alive would be an extreme risk to our soldiers in that compound, and a lightning rod for future violence. Yes, he's a martyr now, but there's no shortage of those anyway.
Again, bottom line, he was a military target, not somebody we were serving a warrant to. Our soldiers did what they had to to come home safe in a very dangerous situation. The operation was a massive success, and a charismatic voice for terror has been silenced. This is such a huge win for everyone but an increasingly irrelevant group of murderers. Why is this in any way controversial?
Osama bin Laden didn't want to be taken alive, or he would have turned himself in years ago.
Let's drop you from a helicopter in a terrorist compound, and see if you meekly ask the leader there if he'll kindly surrender and go back with you to a trial, or if you'd rather have a gun and shoot anybody who doesn't beg to be arrested the instant your boots hit the ground.
This was a military operation, not a police operation. There were time concerns, there were threat concerns, and the list of situational unknowns is a mile long. Rather than quoting bumper stickers, try to imagine yourself in the position those SEALs were in, or imagine being the one to order those SEALs into harm's way. Are you really going to throw your life or their lives away taking unnecessary risks for some philosophical argument about separation of powers?
None of that matters, of course, because guess what? The founding fathers made the President the Commander in Chief of the US military. That's how they doled out the powers. And guess what? The military's job is to kill people, and protect the lives of Americans (themselves included). If such a concept is uncomfortable to you, perhaps you should surrender your citizenship and go live someplace that doesn't have a military, and doesn't care about protecting its citizens.
If the president ordered the FBI to kill somebody on American soil, then you could argue about separation of powers. But arguing about a military operation, especially one as risky as this one? Seriously?
In theory I agree about a fair trial too. The best outcome possible, in my opinion, was have this guy rot in solitary for the rest of his life in a Federal prison, in the dark, never hearing a single human voice ever again. I wish just such a fate on every terrorist arrested by the police.
This was not a police action, however. These were military soldiers going into an unknown situation, and I have no doubt in my mind they did what they had to to be safe, and come home alive and well afterwards. Osama bin Laden could have been wearing a suicide vest, his finger on the detonator behind his back. He could have rigged the whole compound to explode. He could have had a weapon in his hand, obscured by the woman rushing the SEALs. There are so many different scenarios, each more dangerous than the last, and while I'm against the death penalty, including summary executions, I recognize that in the battlefield, a soldier has to do what a soldier has to do to come home safe. Osama bin Laden was a terrorist, and the difference of a split second might mean death for you, and your whole team. By all means, if he's not spread-eagled, his hands up in the air, and his face on the ground screaming "I surrender" in perfect American English, don't risk it and pull the trigger. These are highly trained operators, and I would never question the split-second decisions they make in that situation.
The fact of the matter is, Osama bin Laden chose to be a terrorist, chose not to turn himself in to the nearest US Embassy to be arrested and taken to trial, and chose not to surrender when we finally caught up to him. His death was entirely of his choosing, he just didn't get to pick the time and date.
Okay, let's put you in the position of planning this operation. Are you really going to be the guy who says "take him alive at any cost" when he might be armed, might have a suicide bomb strapped to his chest, might be holding a detonator to blow up the whole compound, or any other number of very likely scenarios? This guy is a terrorist, after all, who said that he'd never be taken alive, and so on with the usual terrorist rhetoric.
I'm sorry, but a US Navy SEAL's life is worth more than a mass murderer. Enough people have died because of bin Laden. Take no chances. If he doesn't immediately have his hands up and be face down on the floor spread-eagled and screaming "I surrender" when you burst into that room, yeah, you shoot him. You make that very clear to the men you send into harm's way to get him, and at the end of the day you trust their judgement on the battlefield when they kick down that door and have to make a split-second decision. We who are Monday morning quarterbacking are lucky that we didn't have to make that decision, but I think 99% of people would neutralize the threat when they see he's not prone with his hands up, and the other 1% probably doesn't live long enough to feel smug and superior about it.
I am not for the death penalty, but in a military operation, you do what you have to do to come home safe. If Osama bin Laden wanted a fair trial, he could have turned himself in to the nearest US Embassy on 9/12. Let's stop with the silly idealist nonsense and recognize we're living in the real world, with real consequences to our men and women on the battlefield. I'll say it again, an American soldier's life is worth more than bin Laden's, and any operation to get bin Laden had to have recognized that basic truth.
I used Amtrak for several years, but CSX was always causing delays. If I can drive faster and more reliably than I can take a train, I might as well drive. It's a real pity too, since trains are more comfortable and I can get a bite to eat without having to stop.
I don't remember now, but it was probably cheaper too, especially since gas is going up and up. But ultimately, if I was going to get stuck on a train for another 10 hour delay, I was going to snap.
First thing I thought of, except those were motion-sensing. Anyway, stick a poison needle on the front of it.
Martial arts has a long history around the world as being the tool of the masses to protect themselves when governments don't allow them to be armed.
China is anything but communist, these days. This is entirely free markets, and good thing because their lives are improved by the free market. These workers aren't forced to do anything.
A slave works because they have no choice, and they are rather miserable about it. Their job may or may not suck, but they can't quit. They are motivated by fear alone.
These people know their jobs kind of suck, but they're very happy to have them. What's more, they are keenly aware that if they work hard now, their children and their children's children will be much better off. They are highly motivated by economic forces.
In other words, working this job, voluntarily, gives them a way to advance their lives, rather than them being forced to stay in one condition forever.
Starvation will kill you just as dead, I agree. But does that make every employee everywhere a slave? After all, if you don't work in your cushy western job, you'll starve too.
These people are living significantly better than many other Chinese, and they know it. The fact you're unwilling to work for their wage and live in their condition just goes to show you how spoiled you are, and exactly why a company like Foxconn doesn't exist in the west. If American workers were willing to lower their quality of life for a job, we'd have 0% unemployment, and nobody could afford any iPads. Instead, we're used to a much higher standard of living, so we give all our crappy manufacturing jobs overseas and they're happy for it.
If the so-called harassment and dehumanizing policies are as big a deal as you make them out to be, then Foxconn would have trouble attracting employees. That's clearly not the case. Clearly you would be unwilling to sign an agreement not to kill yourself. So be it, don't work for Foxconn. Foxconn employees apparently don't mind. Considering just how many workers they have there, and how few have ever killed themselves, I don't think it's that big a deal.
This is only a news story because they build popular electronics there, so people want to make a big deal out of it. Is it a little strange? Yeah. But if my employer wanted me to sign a piece of paper promising to not do myself harm, I wouldn't mind one bit. I have no intention to off myself, and it would seem the vast, vast majority of Foxconn employees feel the same way. Most people everywhere feel that way. A pledge to that effect isn't doing anybody harm except those who wish themselves harm. I think Foxconn has every reason to not want their employees to kill themselves, as would any company. I think if somebody did refuse to sign, that would be an indication they are mentally disturbed. That's probably a reasonable thing to screen for in your employees anyway, as they might do more than just harm themselves. I'm not so naive as to expect Foxconn is doing this merely as a public service for their employees, and are instead looking out for their bottom line, but nonetheless, they have every right to do so. This protects themselves from unstable individuals, or those who are looking to become employees for a week just so they can kill themselves so their families can sue. Foxconn wants dedicated, emotionally stable workers.
You seem to be perfectly fine with low wages and crappy dormitories, so ultimately you just have a problem with people not being allowed to kill themselves on business property and have their families get a big payday. This isn't so much different than the stipulations in life insurance policies where the family gets nothing if the policy-holder commits suicide. This contract may very well save lives.
These sort of work conditions and wage levels seemed to have worked pretty well in the United States, and every other industrialized nation. There's no shortcuts here.
The fact is, there are more people than there are jobs. You can't magically create new jobs with huge salaries and pensions and whatever else out of thin air. There's only so much demand for iPads and other electronics in the world. If demand was higher, Foxconn or other companies would have to hire more people, which would drive down unemployment, which would force Foxconn and other companies to raise their wages and conditions to attract enough workers for the task.
Forcing these companies to do better will only mean these companies go out of business, when somebody sets up shop next door and offers cheaper labor to the companies that need cheap labor. As much as you might wish that we can somehow raise these third-world workers to the standard of living we enjoy in the United States or wherever else they buy iPads, but as soon as that happens, Apple will start making the iPad in the United States to cut logistics costs, and the iPad will cost more than anybody is willing to pay to own one. That means no jobs for anybody.
Economics is not some magical wishing well. It works, perhaps slower than we might like, to raise standard of living for everybody everywhere. It does so in very predictable, repeatable ways, and the structures are really not as hard to understand as some slashdot commentators seem to think.
Ultimately a job is better than no job, and efforts to curtail the efficiency of capitalism with "regulation" only results in the reduction of the number of people who have jobs, because there's a fixed amount of money set aside for the labor required, by very simple market forces. An iPad is worth precisely how much it costs. Inflating the price artificially will reduce the demand for the product, which reduces the number of jobs it creates to meet the demand. It's all very simple math, and while this math may not appeal to an idealist, it has the advantage of living in reality.
And if they weren't, those same people would have no jobs at all, and be starving to death. Their conditions might not be up to western standards of living, but they are comparable to every industrializing nation throughout history, and the end result of industrialization is always current western standards of living.
Why is it people expect everywhere in the world to be at the exact same level of social and economic progress, just because they wish it so? It simply doesn't work that way. People scrape together a bare living however they can, which improves their overall economy, which gives their children and grandchildren and great grandchildren the possibility to not only exist, but to live better too.
Yes, it's a shame Chinese workers are so desperate for a job that they'll work for pennies and live in the sorts of conditions we find uncomfortable. The solution to that, however, cannot possibly be to not give them ANY jobs.
I'd rather have an iPad than work for pennies. I think we're winning. They're also winning because they get to eat. Money changing hands is always win-win.
People freak out about the trade deficit, but it's not like we're paying more for Chinese-manufactured goods than the goods are worth. Capitalism means you pay exactly how much an item is worth, no more no less. Yes, we're sending a lot of our money overseas, but money is only as good as what it allows you to buy. All this cash in my wallet might as well just be toilet paper, except for the fact I can use it to get stuff.
Stuff is quality of life. Stuff > money. And by the way, the Chinese are buying stuff too from other places, and some of those places are buying stuff from us. As long as money keeps flowing, and stuff keeps flowing, everybody wins.
In large international corporations did not employ people in places like China, things would be far worse off for people like the Chinese. A job is better than no job.
If you want to improve conditions in China, you have to give the Chinese money. Clearly working at Foxconn, for the wages and conditions offered, is considered pretty good, or Foxconn wouldn't have any employees. They may be forced into it by circumstance (not wanting to starve to death), but nobody held a gun to their head.
Americans commit suicide too, FYI.
The reason workers choose to work at Foxconn is precisely because it is better to work for them than to not have a job at all, or even work for another company. As much as we might talk about China being communist, this situation is entirely about capitalism. The worker's labor is worth precisely how much he or she is being paid, and the work conditions they must suffer through, otherwise Foxconn would have to better the wage and conditions to attract workers. Now, perhaps China as a whole isn't the greatest place to be, that a company like Foxconn is seen as an improvement, but that's a larger issue that ultimately will only be fixed by using China for cheap labor more and more until their employment levels and living conditions rise to western standards. As miserable as the work may be at times for these workers, it sure beats starving to death, or people would choose to starve.
FTFA: "And they were made to promise that if they did, their families would only seek the legal minimum in damages."
So, there is some form of enforcement after all. The legality of this, I couldn't say.
My calculus professor was an economist.
Consider the source though. The guy writing TFA is a religion doctorate working in academia.