President Obama's speech last night described the killing of Osama bin Laden as an “achievement” that “should be welcomed by all people who believe in peace and human dignity.” He referred directly to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and said “justice has been done.” He used the word “justice” 5 times in the speech.
But the military attack on bin Laden’s house was certainly not peaceful. And the whole point of American justice is to use the legal system to make whole someone who has been injured. It is impossible to achieve justice when people have been killed — and certainly not by using extra-judicial military means.
The killing of bin Laden was primarily “retaliation,” “vengeance,” or “punishment.” It may make us safer from terrorist attack (or perhaps just let us feel safer) and it is probably a hindrance to al Quida's propaganda efforts. But it is not American justice and it cannot undo the damage that was done on 9/11.
This point was echoed by Gordon Felt, president of the Families of Flight 93, who was quoted in the New York Times:
It cannot ease our pain, or bring back our loved ones. It does bring a measure of comfort that the mastermind of the September 11th tragedy and the face of global terror can no longer spread his evil.
Nonviolent Action is More Effective
It is also not clear that using the military in this way makes us any safer. Bin Laden is gone, but the desire to harm us remains, perhaps to re-emerge in an even more deadly attack later.
In the past three decades, military action has generally been very ineffective. The Vietnam War, the first and second Iraq wars, and the Afghanistan war have all destroyed a great deal of civilian infrastructure, killed many civilians, and forced many more into exile, practically making civilized society impossible. And yet these wars achieved almost none of their purported goals.
In contrast, in the past three decades, nonviolent action has been very effective in overthrowing repressive regimes around the world. The recent revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt are perfect examples of how civilians can mobilize society to undercut dictators. Nonviolent action also toppled the apartheid regime in South Africa, deposed the dictatorships of Slobodan Milosevich in Yugoslavia, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, and Augusto Pinochet in Chile, and brought down the former Soviet Union and its communist satellite states (including Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Lithuania). Overthrowing those regimes incurred relatively few casualties and wrought relatively little destruction. The nonviolent overthrow of these vicious regimes has mostly left these countries stronger, more civilized, and much more free and democratic.
The Bush administration led our country to respond to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 by attacking Afghanistan and then Iraq (which had nothing to do with 9/11). Brutal war and torture were justified to make us feel safe. The Obama administration is mostly going down the same path. But if we believe in American justice and ideals of peace and dignity, then we really should be developing nonviolent means to challenge repression.