Yabby

>> Bin Laden made it clear that he would not be taken alive, so those
capturing him would have endangered their own lives, if he was not
submissive, with his hands up. <<

How the hell do you know?

As information trickles out, we know he was NOT armed, yet was still shot.

Looks like assassination, sounds like assassination, probably quacks like it as well.

*How the hell do you know?*

Cleary I am am better informed then you are.
Read his many claims over the years, as I have.

Yabby,
I have noticed that you are one who never lets facts get in the way of opinion. Most of what we "know" is based on what the Americans themselves have admitted. They have admitted he was unarmed. They have admitted he did not offer any resistance. They have admitted that he was just standing in the room in his pyjamas. They have admitted that they had no real reason to believe he was wired for demolition. They have admitted that the order was to kill him. Brennan (National Security Adviser) said it was an "act of national self defence". Quite apart from the fact that the circumstances do not come remotely within the provisions of Art 51 of the UN Charter (the self defence provisions) Brennan's statement is a tacit admission that the seals had no reason to act in "self-defence" when they shot the man they say was OBL.
Of course disposing of the body (itself in violation of Pakistan's law) makes independent verification of any of their claims manifestly impossible. I suspect that was the object from the beginning.

No matter how one views Jo Coghlan's thought provoking essay, the fact remains, any town in Aust; your House, your street could be the target of a surreptitious Seal invasion !

Make no mistake: The US has disingenuously contravened International & Territorial Law; UNSC Charter, and a Country's Sovereignty Laws.

Aside from Obama's zeitgeist revelations on 60 Minutes, the Abbottabad mission was an unadulterated disaster. It took years of planning mockup's, surveillance drones, illegal phone taps, and all the Military & CIA super sleuths paraphernalia to uncover and demystify Bin Laden - a decrepit,impoverished, bearded old man ?

On the FBI's ten most wanted list, Bin Laden in 1979 was recruited to fight against the Soviet Invasion. Armed, and financed, the Mujaheddin, carried out a relentless War - the forerunner of Al-qaeda.
The other nine, are racketeers, mobsters, extortionist, etc who make up 20 % of the population. A reward of $ 25 M will be claimed by the 79 member assassination squad, and personally decorated by Obama, as deserving heroes.

Operation " Neptune Spear " - code name " Geronimo ", was an Intelligence fiasco, as was the supposedly covet operation, involving at least four MH-60 Blackhawk gunships, 3 CH47 Chinooks, and a variety of surveillance / jamming a/c, together with an assortment of Carrier Fighters & Bombers hovering over the area ?
One Blackhawk crashed, and Senator Kerry traveled to Pakistan to soothe tempers, ruffled feathers, and arrange retrieval of the downed a/c, which had sophisticated " sleuth " characteristics, that evade radar detection. Another $ 500,000 no less.

The egregious ongoing saga, with admissions / denials make Alice-in-Wonderland, tame in comparison. Whatever, the final outcome, it behooves the Public, to wash it down, with a hearty dose of Magnesium sulphate ( MgS04 ) Colloquially known as Epsoms.

Relief. You earned it.

Yabby

Are you even on the same planet?

Osama bin Laden was shot down unarmed in his home. What his claims have been over the years have nothing to do with this fact.

A trial would've established and demystified the man from his image.

Please read the posts from James O'Neill and Dalma above; they are not letting emotion dictate their response to the Seals invasion, which you appear to be relishing.

There's really no point asking whether it is legal to kill the chief of the enemy forces in the context of a war (while the armed recruits of that enemy forces are, on the other hand, fair game).

The issue is- to what right do we actually extend our law internationally to this man?

As he belongs to a Wahabi nation (of informal geographical status) that follows a completely different legal system that definitely does not believe in Western courts (that includes the UN) and is specifically recruiting to throw back a Western "imperialist occupation" we are arguably even less justified (most of all in the eyes of himself and his supporters) to subject him to one of OUR trials, than we are to kill each other in the context of a war.