Dillinger, Bonnie & Clyde....and OBL.

[Honeycombe8]

So way back when, when Bonnie & Clyde were fugitives from justice, when Dillinger was a fugitive on the loose, the law caught up with them through intelligence and executed them on the spot. There was no return fire. None of the fugitives had a gun in his/her hand when he/she was shot. They were summarily executed. Bonnie & Clyde were more than executed, in fact. They were riddled with so many shots that the mortuary had trouble embalming them because the embalming fluid kept running out of their bodies.

This was done because they were perceived to be ultra dangerous, always packing heat, and the officers wanted them dead and gone, and for none of the officers to be harmed in the process.

There was no outcry of the cruelty of it all. There was no outcry that the fugitives should have been captured and tried instead of executed (after all, they had not been convicted of any of the crimes they were shot for). Even though they were popular with the public.

So what's the difference between OBL and Dillinger and Bonnie & Clyde? Why an outcry for OBL's not being captured and tried?

Just askin'. I think that one of the differences is the age we live in. Back then, I think the thinking was...well, you live by the sword, you die by the sword. There was also the thought that altho they hadn't been tried and found guilty, everyone knew, and the fugitives gladly admitted, that the fugitives were guilty of at least some of the crimes that would result in the death penalty. I think there was more of a...you asked for it, you got it attitude. I admit I have a problem with the way that Dillinger and Bonnie & Clyde were executed. But I can't fault it, really, since the law enforcement guys weren't killed in the process, and that was one of the goals. The fugitives had been hunted for some time; they knew their days were numbered. Still....was it right that Bonnie was riddled with bullets while she wasn't even holding a gun? I don't like that image.

But I have no problem with an execution order for OBL. You live by the sword, you can expect to die by the sword. He more than admitted guilt; he bragged about all the people he'd killed, and all the people he would kill in the future. He knew his days were numbered, and he was apparently okay with that. I read that his bodyguards had orders to kill him, if it looked like he was going to be captured (just like Hitler, he was not going to be captured alive). I also think it's important that not one more American die or get hurt because of him, and the best way to do that would be to shoot on sight (if that's what happened).

[Vinnie From Indy]

1. Crazy Horse

n/t

[Honeycombe8]

4. You mean Geronimo, don't you? nt

[Bicoastal]

2. So what you're saying is...

Faye Dunaway should play Bin Laden in the movie?

[Honeycombe8]

3. Unfortunately, she's had a face lift, so doesn't look old enough. nt

[Kaleva]

5. Was just about to make a post comparing OBL to '30's era gangsters in another thread

Other then temperament, he had some things in common with Baby Face Nelson.

"In contrast to John Dillinger, Nelson was the antithesis of popular, Robin Hood-like gangsters of the Depression era. A hot-tempered man, Nelson did not hesitate to kill lawmen and innocent bystanders alike. One of the high profile outlaws of that era, he and Clyde Barrow were accused of killing more than a dozen law officers between them.<51> Paradoxically, Nelson was also a devoted family man who often had his wife and children with him while running from the law. After John Dillinger's death in July 1934, Nelson became Public Enemy Number One"

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

[Honeycombe8]

9. Interesting. I will read up on that. I know a bit about Nelson, but not that much. nt

[regnaD kciN]

6. And Bonnie & Clyde went on to become folk heroes...

There was no outcry of the cruelty of it all. There was no outcry that the fugitives should have been captured and tried instead of executed (after all, they had not been convicted of any of the crimes they were shot for). Even though they were popular with the public.

...in part, because of the perceived injustice in the way they died. Do you think anyone would have bothered to make a film biography of them thirty years down the line if they had been arrested and spent the rest of their lives in the state penitentiary?

[Kaleva]

7. There were a number of movies made of Al Capone and he spent years in prison.

[Honeycombe8]

8. Au contraire. They were ALREADY folk heroes before they died.

That's what was so surprising about the public's reaction. It was like a circus around the death car, with people cutting off pieces of Bonnie's dress as a souvenir, locks of Clyde's bloody hair, and one man stopped while trying to cut off Clyde's trigger finger.

They didn't become cult-like figures until the next generation, when the movie was made. People who hadn't realized in a personal way how dangerous they were. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway...not very dangerous people; you could tell by looking at Beatty's dimples that he wasn't a bad guy, really. (He really was.)

Maybe that was part of the reason for the execution...so that they wouldn't become folk heroes behind bars?

Hard to say. But they had expressed before that they had no intention of being captured alive. Bonnie wrote that poem about how they would end up killed.

[verges]

11. Warren Beatty really was a bad guy?

I always thought he seemed okay. What about Faye? I s she really bad too?

[Honeycombe8]

12. According to Carly Simon, apparently. (just a joke)

No, of course I meant Clyde Barrow was really a bad guy, despite his good looks. I meant when the movie came out, young people were drawn to the drama and excitement of Bonnie & Clyde because the movie didn't show how people had been killed and hurt by the gang. It showed them in artsy clothes, with their movie star good looks, mainly having a good time on the run, with sex incompetence issues. It didn't show them as the ruthless killers that some of the gang were...just like today's gangstas.

But you knew that, didn't you?

[Mojeoux]

13. "It was on a Christmas morning, it was on a Christmas day, came a whole carload of groceries and

a note that did say, "It's through this world I've traveled and it's through this world I roamed, and I never seen an out-law drive a family from their home."

O Bin L was not a kindly "Robin Hood," Out-Law. He was a vicious brutal "Charlie Manson" style bully on a grand world scale.


Like Banks.

[-..__...]

10. Pablo Escobar, Jacques Mesrine...

Sometimes the easiest, less complicated solutions are bullets rather than a trial.

[no_hypocrisy]

14. The FBI also released their gruesome death photos, to warn other "outlaws".

Do a google/image search to see Bonnie, Clyde, and Dillinger. They're there.

[mmonk]

15. Some of us liked the effect Nuremberg gave the world.

It gave a legal precedent to conflicts we wouldn't have developed so well had we just lined up captured Nazi officers and shot them in the head. If you have the opportunity to take him out, fine, but if you have the opportunity to capture him, even better. He doesn't die a martyr but as a criminal.