Bullets to the Brain

As the details of the raid on the bin Laden compound come more into focus, it appears that it would have been possible to take Osama bin Laden alive, possibly without compromising the safety of the Navy SEALs who conducted the operation. Both Glen Greenwald and Michael Moore question the President's decision to kill, rather than capture, Osama bin Laden. I'm sure others have expressed similar views.

Here's Greenwald on "The Osama bin Laden Exception," which is, roughly:

yes, I believe in all these principles of due process and restraining unfettered Executive killing and the like, but in this one case, I don't care if those are violated.

... Greenwald goes on to say,

I strongly disagree with that view, I understand and respect it, particularly given the honesty with which it's expressed. My principal objection to it -- aside from the fact that I think those principles shouldn't be violated because they're inherently right (which is what makes them principles) -- is that there's no principled way to confine it to bin Laden.

(Greenwald's case is bolstered, as he points out today with his I-told-you-so post, by the U.S. drone attack which attempted, apparently unsuccessfully, to kill Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical American-born cleric believed to be hiding in Yemen.)

Here's part of a brief post, titled "Why We Put Those Like Bin Laden on Trial" by Moore:

We put those who do evil things on trial not so much for them (though we do do it for them because, unlike their view of us, we see them as human), but we do it for ourselves. We do it because we are civilized, we are a free people, we believe that everyone has a right to their day in court, even the worst persons. We believe in the rule of law even if they don't. That makes us strong, stronger than them, and we will defeat their evil through our open and just society.

Leaving aside the al-Awlaki case, which I see as a separate issue that wants airing, there is something essential in the killing of Osama bin Laden that makes it different from the disposition of other terrorists. Both Greenwald & Moore ignore the "what if." The "what-if" is "what if we had captured bin Laden? Then what?"

There is little doubt that the capture, imprisonment, trial and likely execution of bin Laden, all of which would have played out over the course of years, or possibly a decade, would have increased the threat of terrorism against Americans here and elsewhere. Al Qaeda operatives reportedly have already threatened to avenge bin Laden's death. Were he held prisoner in the U.S. or elsewhere, there would certainly have been attempts to retaliate or even to rescue him. Although his killing has put the U.S and its allies on heightened alert, his capture would have kept us in that mode for years. Bin Laden was more than the titular leader of a terrorist cell. For his adherents, he was the prime symbol of their cause.

Osama bin Laden, alive, posed a clear and present threat to national security. As Commander in Chief of the armed services, the President of the United States is primarily reponsible for ensuring the security of the nation. Given that charter, it seems easy to argue that in the interest of national security, killing -- rather than capturing bin Laden -- was essential to national security.

While I respect the views of Greenwald, Moore and others who disagree with me, I don't think the President erred in his apparent determination to kill Osama bin Laden. I oppose assassination and the death penalty. But I am also a realist. The life of one avowed terrorist is not worth more than the life of one of the thousands of innocents he has already killed, and it is not worth more than the lives of those who almost surely would die in the years of retaliatory acts of terror which would surely have followed his capture. President Obama ordered the killing of Osama bin Laden to protect the nation from future acts of terror.