Dead or Alive

I suppose it was inevitable that there would be cries of illegality after the surprise commando raid by American Navy SEALS which took the life of Osama bin Laden at his hideout compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Now, ABC News reports that the sons of the late terrorist are accusing the United States government of blatantly violating international law by assassinating their father, an unarmed man, and dumping his body at sea, without so much as affording him the presumption of innocence and a fair trial.

They point out that both Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein were arrested and tried in courts of law, and demand an inquiry into to why their dad was summarily executed without arrest or trial under the circumstances.

That’s quite true, they were arrested and tried, but neither of those two criminals declared holy war on the United States or promised to continue killing innocent Americans wherever they could be found.

U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, pronounced the killing of the terrorist legal. I won’t argue with that from my American point of view. The Pakistani government, on the other hand, would most likely brand the entire mission an unlawful violation of international law. After all, we did violate the territory of a sovereign nation without permission. So maybe the bin Laden boys have a point.

If four state of the art Pakistani military helicopters touched down suddenly in Crawford, Texas, loaded with Taliban warriors on a similar commando mission, would that be considered legal from an Al Qaeda perspective?

Whether gunning down the unarmed bin Laden was the best thing to do, rather than arresting him and taking him into custody, is debatable in my mind, but both options were acceptable for many reasons.

By all accounts, bin Laden was unarmed, dazed, confused, and probably willing to surrender without resistance. He could have been arrested and restrained. There was room in the helicopter for him. If there was room for his dead body there was room for him. He might have been worth far more to us alive than dead.

Killing the beast was way too good for Osama bin Laden, I think. I would much rather have him rotting in an American prison – a fate worse than death -- eating American prison food, and listening to American prison sounds while his fellow American prisoners ridicule and vilify him constantly for the rest of his miserable life.

But, I have to admit, gunning him down like a rabid dog, dragging him off to a Navy ship, and dumping his body who knows where in the ocean, is probably the best way to prevent this monster from becoming a martyr.