Visual source: Newseum
Washington Post:
SOME ARE questioning the legality of the raid in Pakistan that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. Was it lawful for a team of Navy SEALs to launch a mission in Abbottabad without permission from Pakistani leaders? Did they comply with international strictures when they killed the al-Qaeda leader rather than capturing him and bringing him before a court of law?
In a word: yes.
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It is easy in the light of day to second-guess decisions made in the heat of war. It is particularly easy for those who refuse to acknowledge that war in the first place. Based on information released by the administration, the covert military operation that brought down the most wanted terrorist in the world appears to have been gutsy and well executed. It was also lawful.
E.J. Dionne:
This single action does not “change everything,” because nothing ever changes everything. Killing one man does not settle two messy wars. Obama’s political standing will ultimately rise or fall largely on the basis of domestic issues and economic circumstances. The president’s supporters will again experience bouts of frustration when his philosophical caution prevails over his bold streak in the less martial work of negotiating budgets and promoting the general welfare at home. His opponents will not suddenly embrace his priorities.
But because he ordered this attack, and because it was successful, no one will ever view Barack Obama in quite the same way again.
New York Times:
There are many arguments against torture. It is immoral and illegal and counterproductive. The Bush administration’s abuses — and ends justify the means arguments — did huge damage to this country’s standing and gave its enemies succor and comfort. If that isn’t enough, there is also the pragmatic argument that most experienced interrogators think that the same information, or better, can be obtained through legal and humane means.
No matter what Mr. Yoo and friends may claim, the real lesson of the Bin Laden operation is that it demonstrated what can be done with focused intelligence work and persistence.
The editors at the Chicago Sun-Times agree:
Let’s be clear, though it will do nothing to dissuade right-wing mythmakers:
America’s greatest victory in the war on terror, the tracking down and killing of Osama bin Laden, was the culmination of years of painstaking work and shoe-leather sleuthing by the CIA and military intelligence services.
The torturing of terror suspects, as best we know so far, got us little or nothing.
L.A. Times:
It might seem churlish to second-guess a military operation that removed a master terrorist from the face of the Earth. But conflicting statements from the White House about whether Osama bin Laden was armed during the raid on his compound raise the question of whether the United States ever intended to do anything other than kill him, and if not, whether we should find that troubling.
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In the end, it is what it is. U.S. forces killed Bin Laden in a bold and risky raid. We do not have enough information to say whether the commandos were right or wrong to pull the trigger, and we're not saddened that an implacable foe of the United States is dead.
Still, we'd like to think that the people in charge planned for the possibility of capture. There would have been something uplifting — something to be proud of — if Bin Laden had been brought home and publicly held to account for his many crimes.
The L.A. Times also says it's time to end the death penalty in California:
Not for the first time, this gives us cause to wonder what good the death penalty in California is doing. Gov. Jerry Brown also personally opposes death sentences, though he appears to lack the courage of his capital convictions. The solution is in plain sight and has been pursued successfully by other states, including Illinois earlier this year: Abolish capital punishment.
Gail Collins calls out Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels for his sudden flip-flop on staying away from social issues:
While Daniels is not a good example of a fiscal conservative who wants to move beyond the social wars, he is a real prototype of the peculiar strain in the political right that trusts people to make their own informed decisions without government intervention except when it comes to the most exquisitely personal choice a woman could ever face.
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In his capacity as deficit hawk, Daniels waxes eloquent on his conviction that if Americans have to pay more of their medical bills, they’ll make smart choices about whether that nagging headache really requires the expense of a CAT scan. Doubting that the individual patient can judge whether more tests or medical procedures are required, Daniels said, “demeans the dignity of people.”
However, women who are seeking an abortion have to be given not only the information they ask for, or the information the doctor thinks they need, but also faux facts that their local lawmakers want to force on them. And dignity be damned.
Dana Milbank, on the other hand, thinks Mitch Daniels seems like a grown up. Plus, he thinks Daniels is "So funny, so folksy, and so friendly to the disadvantaged." Uh huh.
Nicholas D. Kristof:
In a column a year ago, I suggested that we move the apostrophe so as to celebrate not so much Mother’s Day — honoring a single mother — but Mothers’ Day, to help save mothers’ lives around the world as well.
Eva Hausman, a retired social studies teacher in Connecticut, and five other women took up that challenge. They started a Mothers’ Day campaign, which has its own Web site at www.MothersDayMovement.org. They hope that Americans will consecrate the mother in their lives not only with presents but also by helping impoverished women and girls through a particular charity (this year it’s one that works in a Kenyan slum). They’ve found matching funds from a foundation to do that.
To me, that’s a perfect way to honor a mom.
Mark Morford:
It goes like this: Osama bin Laden successfully poisoned much of the American spirit, brought tragedy, pain and unwanted, devastating war, was leveraged as an excuse to commit all manner of despicable misprision by the Bush administration, and changed the complexion of a nation for the worse.
And now, his bloody demise a full decade later at the hand of a far more measured, intelligent, focused president could actually, in a way, bring America back to life, give it a focus and purpose like it never quite had before. The same pitiful demon that caused much of our pain could, if handled correctly, turn out to be the source of a new, more thoughtful kind of liberation. How's that for wayward poetic justice?