When President Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden, he said "the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden," but very little else regarding the details of that death. Conflicting news reports have created some confusion over the circumstances of the death itself.
Some have suggested that the soldiers conducting the raid were told to accept his surrender, if offered. Others have said the mission was to kill, rather than capture bin Laden. It may take some time to sort out the facts, but many people have seen this as a directed killing of bin Laden, ordered by the president.
A few days earlier, Libya claimed that NATO had killed members of Gaddafi's family in operations that hardly seem related to the imposition of a no-fly zone in Lybia. WikiLeaks has released a number of cables that detail U.S. uses of cruse missiles to kill suspected terrorists in Yemen. The U.S. is expanding its uses of drone aircraft to carry out attacks on homes in civilian neighborhoods, based upon the often incorrect suspicion that a terrorist is present.
With Jon Stewart, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and UN head Ban Ki-moon endorsing the "operation," it appears to have support in many quarters. But if this was an operation to kill, rather than capture bin Laden, and if his death was not necessary, but actually ordered, then Limbaugh is correct in calling this an assassination, and it is not a credit to the United States to have carried out an assassination, even of bin Laden.
The killing may have political benefits for President Obama. But the longer term legitimation of assassination is risky, and undermines longer term goals of making society more just and more peaceful. I am disappointed other political leaders cannot say this.
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So imagine that you can bring him back. Would you?
If you said no. Then you can relax at the current state of affairs.
If you said yes, then I would not question your sanity as you may be expecting.
But I would question your judgment. Because if you could reincarnate someone why would you waste it on Osama, instead of one of his many victims from the many countries in which his organization killed people?
Or if you did bring him back, and he then killed more people... See him being dead is not so bad now is it?
Was he assassinated? Depends on how you define assassinate. Doesn't really matter either, as it is a semantic debate.
Is it bad for a country to grow too fond of such killings (whether they be labeled assassinations or not)? Certainly. For mistakes will occur, the wrong person will die, and the bodies of the innocents will pile up.
Will the US grow too fond of 'assassinating' such opponents as Bin Laden in the future?
Let us hope and work toward a global situation in which no more Bin Ladens can arise. That would be the best lesson learned from this portion of our history.
I think I'm OK with it. In fact I applaud it.
Bin Laden headed a team that killed 3000 plus Americans without a blink of the eye. He is the wrong person on which to debate the issue of assassination. The 3000 dead ...those who jumped out of 30 stories buildings or felt to their deaths in the rumble that was the twin towers or dive bombed into the ground in Pennsylvania or were sitting at their desks in the Pentagon...that hardens ones view toward the assassination of this person...high fiving is apart of this pop culture. it is what it is...
Even if one accepts that he should have been granted some form of protection from killing, the idea that bin Laden would have been prepared to surrender quietly without resistance is fantasy. Only a SEAL with a death wish would hesitate a second between seeing him refuse a order and putting a shot through his eye.
His self appointed "jihad" was a criminal enterprise and being a uniquely dangerous criminal, with a track record of murder his death during apprehension can at worst be considered execution. But even for execution to be considered an ignoble charge, one would have to ignore the circumstances of his arrest - in a risky CQB scenario on semi-hostile foreign soil.
Im still incensed that the Rodney King beating resulted in a free pass for the LAPD, but the death of Osama Bin Laden can be laid entirely at his own feet. He had the opportunity to give himself up and spare thousands of lives.
The rash of conflicting reports we are hearing from our own government officials -- he was armed, no he wasn't; he was in a million-dollar mansion, he was in an un air-conditioned run down house; he used a woman as a shield, no he didn't, etc. etc. -- merely show that our own people are not entirely comfortable with what we did, and thus there is this need to create ambiguity about what happened.
Let's stop beating around the bush (pun intended). As opposed to invading countries with armies, Obama has shown a decided predilection for directing targeted killings and assassinations of suspected terrorists on foreign soil without the cooperation or consent of the foreign country's leaders. In other times, liberals would have called this a violation of international law and an impeachable offense. Let's at least be honest enough to that under some extreme circumstances, the ends really do justify some very unsavory means, including means that under ordinary circumstances would still want to call illegal and immoral.
Walter W Lee