Are we being sued for Pakistan or something? I don't get the need to explain or rationalize the raid, when its pretty fucking clear what the reasoning was. Further, having a pat legal rationalization won't actually make a lick of difference to anyone in the international sphere.
Maybe we are just trying rationalize this to ourselves?
In the international justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet vastly unequally important groups: The lawyers who provide post-hoc justifications and the people who actually command the people with guns.
I beg your pardon. The lawyers in this case were providing their specious rationalizations before the fact, not post hoc.
1) AFAIK, soldiers take "not following an illegal order" fairly seriously since they are always around assholes who can issue orders. Also "shit flows downhill"
Before the act but after the decision.
If neither the law nor the facts are on your side, bomb the table.
1: The planning was before the raid happened. Presumably the legal argument would be useful if, e.g., an American soldier or twenty were captured by the Pakistani army and Pakistan needed to come up with some kind of explanation for why they could be released. No one on either side would want to go public with the real reason for the release (a trade for nukes or something).
There was also a possibility that legal claims could be brought in U.S. or other courts some day, most likely by the families of dead people other than Bin Laden.
Planning for stuff that never happens is what corporate lawyers do.
Planning for stuff that never happens with what PennDot does also.
Couldn't they just have called up/met with the Pakistani government that evening, asked for permission, and the second they got it* launch the attack before anyone involved has even left the room or hung up the phone.
It wouldn't be any less of a kind of showy facade, obviously, but I'd think it would have been an easier one to sell after the fact if they needed to.
*Maybe some badgering required, but I'm guessing if the President made it clear that this isn't a "take some time to think it over" question there wouldn't have been much trouble.
"Well too bad we also have a backup plan"? But also Pakistan was cooperative, they didn't have a reason to think they wouldn't be this time, and "look we know where he is and we'll tell people what you did if you don't let us do it" are all obvious reasons too.
9, 10 He calls and asks for permission but only just after the raid is finished. When it's pointed out that it already happened Obama says, "Oops, my bad. How the hell did that happen? Hey, we're good, right?" Only Barry O could pull that off.
I think 9 and 11 are over reliant on the unitary actor model of international relations.
If you want to get the approval of someone who definitely has the authority of the Pakistani government, and also prevent them from tipping off the target, you'd have to get the President of Pakistan into a room and hold him there for several hours. I'm sure the legal department would be willing to write a memo on that topic.
The planning was before the raid happened.
That's the least we expect.
12: "Wait, doesn't Pakistan use Daylight Savings Time?"
14: Now I'm picturing that photo of everyone watching the live feed, and in the back of the room is whoever was the Pakistani Pres at the time, trying to sidle out the room, but somebody big's standing in front of the door.
Among evils, the Obama administration still is lesser.
That's going to be on the marquee at his presidential library.
also Pakistan was cooperative, they didn't have a reason to think they wouldn't be this time,
REASONS TO THINK THEY MIGHT NOT BE COOPERATIVE THIS TIME
1) Last time they tried something like this was INFINITE REACH in 1998, and they told the Pakistanis in advance and OBL was inexplicably able to move off target before the missiles landed
2) the occasional drone strike in FATA can be ignored, except by the locals, but this was actually about flying helicopters full of troops into a major Pakistani town, which is trickier to ignore, especially for the Pakistan army
3) he was hiding down the road from the Pakistan Military Academy; one of many reasons to suspect that the Pakistan army/ISI might have been helping him (subsequent discoveries have strengthened this hypothesis)
They should have called it "Limited Grasp."
20: Pervez Musharraf just said that OBL was a hero within Pakistan, which would make it a little hard for the government to simply turn him over.
Also this piece suggests there was an agreement in place to let the US do its thing unilaterally and then everyone would do the little dance of recriminations we saw right after the raid.
22.1: that too. Don't confuse "the Pakistanis are our allies" with "we have managed to browbeat and threaten the Pakistanis into giving us a minimal level of cooperation while not actually funding and supporting our enemies too obviously".
Also, pretty much every part of the Pakistani state is deeply divided between opportunist pro- and anti-westerners. It would probably blow apart spectacularly were the factions not conjoined by their overriding hatred of India. From the POV of a crudely self-interested westerner, it's Schroedinger's Regional Power, simultaneously friendly and hostile until you open the box.
It would probably blow apart spectacularly were the factions not conjoined by their overriding hatred of India.
Even that might be not be enough.
It would probably blow apart spectacularly were the factions not conjoined by their overriding hatred of India.
Actually, Anatol Lieven ("Pakistan: A Hard Country") reckons not, and makes a convincing case that the country is both much more survivable and much less reformable than people think.
The country, once disencumbered of Bangladesh, which should never have been forcibly attached to it (Jinnah's greatest mistake to insist on it?) has been and probably will be incredibly resilient. The pro-western tendency in the government and armed forces, meh. I wouldn't bet the farm on it.