Assassination

Like everyone else, I'm glad that Osama bin Laden is no longer in a position to pursue his blood-thirsty activities around the world.

Terrorism, which always makes the innocent suffer in order to further someone else's goals, nevertheless -- at times --has comprehensible objectives. For example, everyone knew what the Irish Republican Army was after. Bin Laden, on the other hand, may have had specific objectives, but it was his failure to share them clearly with the rest of humanity that made his atrocities so, well, atrocious. Was he motivated simply by personal hatred of America and Americans? By a desire to force America to end its support of Israel? By hatred of secular Muslim governments? By hatred of the modern world?

All of these, perhaps. It was hard to tell. It was difficult to comprehend what we could do -- even if inclined -- to satisfy him.

Even Iran's foreign minister reportedly sounds relieved to hear of bin Laden's death:

We hope that this development will end war, conflict, unrest and the death of innocent people, and help to establish peace and tranquility in the region.

--Washington Post.

Also, as does everyone, I admire the skill and competence of our intelligence community, and the bravery of the special forces personnel who carried out the successful attack.

Having said all that, I'm left profoundly disturbed by the entire incident. We now apparently have no compunction at assassinating our enemies. Although the President told us last night that an effort had been made to capture bin Laden alive, I suspect it wasn't much of an effort, or that there could have been much of an effort within the confines of the compound. Commentators have made it all too obvious that capturing bin Laden alive would have posed extremely difficult political and diplomatic questions. Do we bring him to the U.S. for trial? Or to Guantánamo? No one wanted him. Saudi Arabia, bin Laden's own country, wouldn't accept even bin Laden's corpse, and he had to be buried at sea.

Not only do we now assassinate our enemies, we do so inside the territory of nations with whom we are not at war, and, in this case, one that was putatively a friendly nation. Whatever Pakistan's leaders said to the President after he informed them of the attack, they clearly had not been briefed before the attack -- understandably, since we had no reason to trust security within the Pakistan government. Not only did we land helicopters and armed personnel within Pakistan, we did it far from the Afghan border -- after ten years, this was no "hot pursuit" incursion into Pakistan. In fact, we landed within a few miles of the Pakistan capital itself.

Our mission was skillfully performed; our objective was clear, specific, and reasonable; and every effort was made to eliminate, or at least minimize, collateral injuries and death. But still -- what kind of precedent have we set? How will we react if Russia discovers that one of their criminally convicted oligarchs is hiding in a mansion in Georgetown, and sends in helicopters to grab him? Smile, and congratulate the Russians on their well executed mission?

International law -- and my own mindset -- are directed toward relations between sovereign nations. Apprehending a terrorist mastermind, guilty of murdering American citizens, strikes me as a criminal matter, one to be handled by cooperation between our police and Pakistan's police. It does not fall within the accepted definition of "war." This police approach clearly was not a viable way of handling the situation. But as it is, we are working far outside the framework of international law.

Our immediate concern has to be making the best of our successful mission, and ensuring that other countries, especially Muslim nations, give us their support. But in the long run, we need to work out an international system of law that enables the world to fight terrorism without outraging affected nations by affronts to their own sovereignty. Not just because "law" is a pleasant nicety, but because it governs how nations treat each other, and can expect to be treated, now and in the future.

And we might also want to ask ourselves whether "execution by police" -- an accusation often directed against our own domestic police forces -- should become a modus operandi in the apprehension of international terrorists.