This is an update correction to my previous blog, noting the photo posted of a just shot dead Osama was indeed a fake. See: http://articles.cnn.com/2011-05-03/world/bin.laden.fake.photo_1_bin-photograph-photo-release?_s=PM:WORLD.
The giveaway is the beard which was already greying but is shown black in the photo. A photo expert has concluded the lower part is indeed from bin Laden, probably ca. 1998, while the upper part spliced onto it is of some poor schlub who's forehead, eyes just happened to be available. (Well, this does answer the question of how this photo got out. I guess certain quarters were so eager to have "proof", like my fundie bro, the had to either confect it or accept it from others as valid. Alas, I fell into the same trap and ought to have known better. My bad!)
On that note, let's return to the issue of bin Laden's demise. Was it "justice"? Of course not! It was plain, old-fashioned, string 'em up and don't look back revenge! As one Financial Times letter writer put it ('Killing of bin Laden Was Not Justice', May 4, p. 4):
"Justice would have been done if bin Laden had been arrested and brought back for trial to the U.S. It would be a simple matter to have him tried in the U.S., as although a few states have abolished the death penalty, most retain it and the Federal Government retains it for murder and treason. Since the man confessed on video he was responsible for 9/11 he could have been tried and convicted in a court of law then executed. That is justice and the rule of law: the very things the U.S. and the UK et al are fond of telling us that separate us from the terrorists. But what the U.S. chose to do was to gun down bin Laden in a foreign country without the knowledge or consent of that country".
In this I totally agree that I would have preferred dragging bin Laden ALIVE to face trial for his crimes, not conveniently offing him (like Ruby did to Oswald, though he was likely the very patsy he said he was) because it was expeditious and solved multiple political problems at once (not least of which would have been the turmoil on the Muslim Street and the inevitable legal kerfuffle over any impending trial: where to hold it, who to preside, done in civil courts or military commissions...or whatever. In this regard the letter writer makes light of a lot of the complexities and difficulties that would ensue.
What's this all about then? Well, either we are nation of laws or we are a nation of outlaws, little different from terrorists, only picking and choosing the domains we opt to display our adherence to law. If a nation of laws, then they must apply to everyone, even our own selves in prosecuting our worst enemies. They can't be conveniently dismissed because the process is inconvenient or too politically unwieldy. If we don't act by our own laws, then we also can't expect others to act by our laws. If we barge into nations to assassinate....whoever...we can't be amazed or astounded if others try to do the same to us. The basic ethical principle here is one I learned a generation ago from the Jesuits: THE Ends NEVER justifies the MEANS!
Sure, the putative ends of getting OBL the hell out of the way, and out of sight is an objective any sane American might wish for. But the means of doing so cannot be a moral or ethical copout, like killing the guy in cold blood to avoid the mess of a trial. By doing so, we admit and contend we hold contempt for our own laws as being an inconvenience. We then become, in our fell minds, judge, jury and executioner. I'd also argue the exact same way had Hitler been taken alive in 1945. Despite all his vile acts he deserved to face human JUSTICE, not short circuiting revenge. Blood lust in the case of either OBL or Hitler is understandable, of course, but that doesn't render cold -blooded assassination an ethical solution. Sure, it's an efficient solution, but efficient is not the same as ethical - which latter is often messy and distasteful.
Getting away from this, we had the chance to show the world how our model system operates even confronted by the most vile piece of refuse on the planet. But we took the easy way out, and took him out. The final reports were that he was unarmed, and the PR story now is that he effectively needed to be "naked, standing with hands up and surrendering" to be taken alive. Though I call bollocks on that too, saying the Seals still would have shot him dead in the head. The same way as Ruby had his orders to kill Oswald to make sure no trial ever occurred in that instance!
But there are worse aspects than the cold-blooded killing of this poppet, and these were brought to light by another Financial Times columnist, David Pilling. On ruminating over bin Laden's death and what's been exposed, Piller references:
"...just how much it's cost to run him to ground. US televsion networks have put the figure, including wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, at above $2 trillion
He goes on to point out that "this is the essence of the 'Imperial Overstretch' Paul Kennedy (a Yale historian) describes in his The Rise and Fall of Great Powers. He quotes Kennedy in that book, writing of the Habsburg monarchs:
"They steadily overextended themselves in the course of repeated conflicts and became military top heavy for their weakening economic base"
Piller effectively ends his piece by observing that while the U.S. in its frenzied single-minded obsession "has been chasing bin Laden all over the Middle East running up unsustainable deficits", the Chinese quietly pursued their rise to juggernaut status. Last year, as Piller notes, China became the world's 2nd largest economy and replaced the U.S. as the biggest manufacturer. And so: "Washington got its man, but it must have lost its way"
Meanwhile, the U.S., in its persistent terror war obsession, threatens to do the dead bin Laden's bidding by bleeding itself into bankruptcy and oblivion while China may become the next superpower by 2020, if not sooner. For me, THAT is an even worse travesty than assassinating OBL to avoid the publicity of a trial!
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