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Comment by latch | Hacker News Reader

I think there's a solid perspective here which merits anyone to look at and judge against their own beliefs.

However, it's easy to argue that there's no evidence, when you simply sidestep a damning piece of evidence that doesn't mold itself to your views. This is highly selective, and it throws the whole piece into question for me. Specifically, I'm talking about the confession, which to Chomsky, we should simply ignore because Chomsky knows he was just boasting.

Chomsky presents a lot of things as facts, which are opinions, while condemning others of doing the same thing.

It doesn't make him less wrong that others are doing it. But it certainly doesn't make him right.

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I read Chomsky's comment about Bin Laden's "boasting" as a reasonable explanation of Bin Laden's actions. He is simply saying that just because he said he has done it does not necessarily means he actually did it, since Bin Laden stood to gain from such a statement.

Furthermore, Chomsky might be representing opinions as facts, but he does not go invade countries and assassinate people based on his ideas. I think your comparison is unfair in this regard.

If someone confesses because they are forcibly coerced, the confession has no merit.

If someone confesses to something they didn't do to profit from it, well then they're an idiot and deserve the punishment.

For the record my money is on his involvement and the boasting was a legit confession.

It feels strange that bin Laden actually denied it first (or was reported to have), or how the Taliban were willing to release him to the Americans if they provided some proof first. In any event, going to war over one person should ring alarm bells of suspicion.

> If someone confesses to something they didn't do to profit from it, well then they're an idiot and deserve the punishment

I call this total crap... You'd prefer if someone confessed and be punished, instead of have the __right__ perpetrator be punished?

I do think that justice requires us to punish the guilty only, not the innocent, regardless if they themselves want to be punished or not.

the problem with that on both sides of the debate is there is independent facts that support Bin Laden;s truthful boasting but there is not independent facts supporting the alternative.

And we have to examine in this context that the Middle East political orgs such as governments have used terrorist groups to put forth their political aims and ambitions. As of yet there are no independent facts pointing to another terrorist-middle-east-government pairing for the 911 attacks although Iraq was slightly implied by several fundamental US groups.

Does it really matter who's done "it"? The whole "hunt for Osama" was not about punishment or rehabilitation of the guilty. It was a symbolic act. In the eyes of the world the ones who did it are the ones who took responsibility for doing it — al-Quaeda. Shooting the face of al-Qaueda in the face sends the unambiguous message — "If you try to terrorize us and kill innocent people, we'll not rest until we find you and kill you."

"invade countries"

I'm sorry, but we're in Iraq by invitation of the Iraqi government. They can expel us at anytime. They want us there. Implying that we're "invading" a country is factually incorrect, absurd, and just shows complete ignorance about our foreign policy.

> Specifically, I'm talking about the confession

The "confession video" would never be accepted in any serious court as a proof, simply because it can be fabricated and you wouldn't be able to prove if it was. See also:

http://www.infowars.net/articles/february2007/190207Osama_ta...

Finally, it's quite certain that had been Bin Laden caught alive, there wouldn't be enough evidence to trial him. That's the major reason why the order was obviously to "kill him."

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