I'd like to discuss my opinions on some of the questions people keep bringing up in casting doubt on moral legitimacy of our killing of Osama bin Laden. Since I am not conflicted, I'd like to state some of my rationale.
Again these just are my opinions and why I think most Americans support what our President did.
1. Osama won because of everything that happened since 9/11: Patriot Act, Iraq War, Afghanistan War, Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, torture, drones, GWB reelection, etc
It is true that a lot of bad choices were made by the United States government practically in direct response to 9/11. Overreaction is to put it mildly. That does not absolve Osama from murdering 3000 innocent Americans in cold blood, or from murdering many others across the world. He admitted his guilt and directed his followers to murder without pause. He declared war on America and as such was the true definition of an Enemy combatant. If there was anything truely just and good about what America did in response to 9/11, declaring war on Al Qaeda was it. Taking Osama out was a battlefield move, an extra-judicial move of course, as all battlefield moves are. It doesn't excuse all of our actions since 9/11 but it is a valid move on it's own. A just move. If all our reactions to 9/11 were as good and just as killing the prime perpetrator of the attacks, we would be in a much better shape as a nation.
2. Killing Osama was extra-judicial - he should've been captured alive, brought to US and tried in our court system.
Osama declared war on US in an extreme fashion, leaving nothing to doubt as to his intentions and guilt. While he was not a State leader, in charge of a State military waging war against US, he was nonetheless a leader of a large international organization dedicated to killing civilians through terrorist means. As such he made the entire world his battlefield, as his actions across the world demonstrated. When you actively engage enemies on the battlefield in the course of the war, especially enemy leaders, the regular course of action has nothing to do with our Justice system, which applies to US civilian crimes. When we fight wars, the goal is to defeat the enemy, generally by killing the enemy - not bringing the enemy into our courts.
3. Osama was unarmed, and US military could've taken him alive based on all the reports. He was killed unnecessarily, whether it was because we didn't want him to talk, or for whatever other reason.
Yes, apparently Osama was unarmed but we only accorded his being unarmed the same deference Osama accorded all the people in the twin towers. I can't speculate on whether President Obama sent the Seals in with the kill order, but it's not that important to me because as the enemy leader engaged in a brutal war against US, Osama was a legitimate target regardless of being armed, sleeping, or making love to his wife. If he was a legitimate target for targeted bombing, like his leutenants, he was a legitimate target for a soldier's bullet.
Me personally, I would've preferred him being captured alive, tried in NYC, and given a swift death penalty for his actions. But either action was valid in the situation we were in.
3. Killing Osama was an assassination and thus devalues our committment to not engaging in such acts. Killing Osama puts our political leaders in jeopardy of the same.
Osama was not a political leader, or a leader of any state. While technically Osama probably was assassinated in the definition of the word, it would be a mistake to elevate Osama to the level of a political leader and our Presidents since Clinton made such a distinction for the terrorist leaders. A ruthless global mass murderer should not be a moral equivalent to a legitimate national leader, and our self-imposed prohibitions on killing other political leaders.
4. US created Osama.
And Soviet Union created the conditions for Osama's eventual rise through the occupation of Afghanistan. As super powers we supported a lot of shady characters in pursuit of geopolitical goals. A lot of it was immoral. Does it mean we are responsible for Osama's subsequent actions? US Government is not God and could not have known the results of whatever direct or indirect support we've give Osama. Does it absolve Osama? No and thus has no relationship on the eventual punishment we meted out. However I would hope that Osama and others like him that US Government had a hand in "creating" would be a long time lesson on using shady foreign agents as pawns in our geopolitical games. Eventually some of those things come to bite us in the ass.
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I would also like to bring in as evidence the Law of Armed Conflict, or the Rules of War from http://usmilitary.about.com/...
The LOAC arises from a desire among civilized nations to prevent unnecessary suffering and destruction while not impeding the effective waging of war. A part of public international law, LOAC regulates the conduct of armed hostilities. It also aims to protect civilians, prisoners of war, the wounded, sick, and shipwrecked. LOAC applies to international armed conflicts and in the conduct of military operations and related activities in armed conflict, however such conflicts are characterized...
LOAC comes from both customary international law and treaties. Customary international law, based on practice that nations have come to accept as legally required, establishes the traditional rules that govern the conduct of military operations in armed conflict. Article VI of the US Constitution states that treaty obligations of the United States are the “supreme law of the land,” and the US Supreme Court has held that international law, to include custom, are part of US law. This means that treaties and agreements the United States enters into enjoy equal status as laws passed by Congress and signed by the President. Therefore, all persons subject to US law must observe the United States’ LOAC obligations. In particular, military personnel must consider LOAC to plan and execute operations and must obey LOAC in combat. Those who violate LOAC may be held criminally liable for war crimes and court-martialed under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).
"Three important LOAC principles govern armed conflict—military necessity, distinction, and proportionality."
Military Necessity. Military necessity requires combat forces to engage in only those acts necessary to accomplish a legitimate military objective. Attacks shall be limited strictly to military objectives. In applying military necessity to targeting, the rule generally means the United States Military may target those facilities, equipment, and forces which, if destroyed, would lead as quickly as possible to the enemy’s partial or complete submission.
Killing Osama Bin Laden complies with the principle of Military Necessity. President Obama went beyond what he had to do, as he could've sent a guided missile into the compound, but instead sent a military team that was able to further limit the action to purely military objectives. One cannot easily argue that killing Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, would not deal a significant blow to the enemy.
Distinction. Distinction means discriminating between lawful combatant targets and noncombatant targets such as civilians, civilian property, POWs, and wounded personnel who are out of combat. The central idea of distinction is to only engage valid military targets.
Killing Osama bin Laden complied with this principle fully.
Proportionality. Proportionality prohibits the use of any kind or degree of force that exceeds that needed to accomplish the military objective. Proportionality compares the military advantage gained to the harm inflicted while gaining this advantage.
Sending a team of Seals into such a potentially risky situation if anything was an action that was less than what was warranted in the presence of the ultimate enemy target. Of course it was also an action that could yield the highest benefit with precision, identification and intelligence gathering as huge positives. But again, the principle of Proportionality was observed.
Previously I said that we could legitimately bomb and kill Osama from the Air in the same way we did for many of his leutenants through the years. US Congress specifically authorized military actions against all members of Al Qaeda and the LOAC also speaks about Military Targets that the authorization of war on Al Qaeda would permit:
The LOAC governs the conduct of aerial warfare. The principle of military necessity limits aerial attacks to lawful military targets. Military targets are those that by their own nature, location, purpose, or use make an effective contribution to an enemy’s military capability and whose total or partial destruction, capture, or neutralization in the circumstances existing at the time of an attack enhance legitimate military objectives.
If anything at all was legitimate after 9/11 it was the declaration of military operations against the entity that perpetrated them. What better military target, under the above definition, than Bin Laden? The killing of Bin Laden, without doubt, enhanced our legitimate military objectives. Even if you do not support our current actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, the killing of Bin Laden was a direct result of a valid American and International action against Al Qaeda.
In conclusion I would just like to say that I have the same amount of pity for Osama bin Laden as he had for the all the people Al Qaeda has murdered through the years. You do not need to cheer to feel a deep, satisfying sense of justice, but even if you do cheer, or be glad, or be satisfied, or be happy, or content, etc it is perfectly understandable because there is a difference between cheering the death of civilians and being glad that justice was brought to the murderer of said civilians.
Some people say that cheering a death of a human being is wrong. But the reality is that killing innocent civilians is radically different from killing a monster like Bin Laden, and the expression of satisfaction in reaction to either is not the same. It can't be the same. Most human beings instinctively know this because it is natural.
Our real enemy was vanquished by our brave special forces, and our President gave the right order to do so. They deserve all the praise that's been heaped on them at home and abroad. Not everything is a morally gray area. This one is fairly bright.