We Killed Osama bin Laden!!!

[agentsteel53]

It is important to look at the downstream consequences.  The state of emergency did eventually come to an end, as did the suspension of habeas corpus.  Was anyone thereafter subject to indefinite detention as a result of that suspension?

shades of the whole "enemy combatant" thing - the US really likes to do that, whether it is Maryland, Japanese internment, or Guantanamo.

under what subsection of the generally-agreed-upon laws of war is it legal to hold your own citizens without trial, regardless of whether or not, eventually, the ends justified the means?

[J N Winkler]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus_in_the_United_States#Suspension_during_the_Civil_War

What happened to the Japanese during World War II was far worse than what happened during the Civil War because they were not just interned without trial--they were subject to an area exclusion order (not very different from what the Germans and Russians were doing at the same time with internal deportations) and were required to sell up before they reported to internment camps.

With the exception of Yasser Hamdi, who had US citizenship at the time but subsequently renounced it by agreement, no US citizen has ever been held in Guantánamo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_detainees_at_Guantanamo_Bay

I agree it was wrong to hold Padilla without charge for years, first as a material witness and then as an enemy combatant.  But I'm not sure how we go about chucking out Ex parte Quirin in the present climate.

Frankly, I worry more about prosecutorial immunity and the lack of an enforceable right to exoneration than I do about martial law per se.  US citizens who become enemy combatants and get caught in the toils of this particular area of the law are still a very microscopic proportion of the overall US population.  In contradistinction, the army of people who have been falsely convicted of crimes as a result of faulty evidence or prosecutorial misconduct is large.  We also retain the right to trial by jury for historical reasons, as a check against arbitrary exercise of authority, but we have no meaningful safeguards against juries who convict speculatively.

[US71]

FWIW: I doubt the 9th President, William Henry Harrison, lied... or lied much.

But then, he was only in office a month  

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

FWIW: I doubt the 9th President, William Henry Harrison, lied... or lied much.

But then, he was only in office a month 

He lied to get to the presidency (Tippecanoe was a hollow victory over 20 indians). Then lied about the weather on the day of his inaguration (it's not cold), which led to his pneumonia.

[mightyace]

Okay, back on topic, soft of.

Now that Bin Laden has assumed room temperature, what next?

[Mr_Northside]

Now that Bin Laden has assumed room temperature, what next?

I reckon he's assumed the temperature of the sea water he's sunk in.