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Obama: bin Laden must not be a martyr
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-06-19 11:24 WASHINGTON -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Wednesday he would bring Osama bin Laden to justice in a way that wouldn't allow the terrorist mastermind to become a martyr, but he may be killed if the US government finds him.
"First of all, I think there is an executive order out on Osama bin Laden's head," the Illinois senator said at a news conference. "And if I'm president, and we have the opportunity to capture him, we may not be able to capture him alive." Obama's campaign said he was referring to a classified Memorandum of Notification that President Clinton approved in 1998 -- revealed in the 9/11 Commission report -- that would allow the CIA to kill bin Laden if capture weren't feasible. Obama said he wouldn't discuss what approach he would take to bring bin Laden to justice if he were apprehended. But he said the Nuremberg trials for the prosecution of Nazi leaders are an inspiration because the victors acted to advance universal principles and set a tone for the creation of an international order. "What would be important would be for us to do it in a way that allows the entire world to understand the murderous acts that he's engaged in and not to make him into a martyr, and to assure that the United States government is abiding by basic conventions that would strengthen our hand in the broader battle against terrorism," Obama said. Obama was questioned about bin Laden after he met with a new team of national security advisers. The meeting came after rival John McCain's campaign said Obama had a pre-9/11 mind-set for promoting criminal trials for terrorists. "I refuse to be lectured on national security by people who are responsible for the most disastrous set of foreign policy decisions in the recent history of the United States," Obama said in opening remarks that in part referred to the Iraq war. |
