This is a round-up of things to discuss about the death of Osama bin Laden:
Morals of the Strike
1. What objective could be more worthy than to kill the enemy who had been the mastermind of 9-11, struck at the Cole, the African embassies and had many other records of having waged an unconventional war against the United States for many years? We have a right to rejoice in this kill and the fall of an old enemy.
2. It is always best to be temperate in rjoicing over a kill and to acknowledge that it will not bring the innocent back from the dead and that there were others killed with him who were not as culpable as he. That does not mean they were not valid targets. The others were simply less worth clebrating in an emotional sense.
3. The disposal of the body with few international witnesses or none at sea after taking the target in a walled compound in a lightning raid is very bad policy.Sometimes very bad policy is worthy if one did the best one could. The question is can the US prove to reasonable people and not the lunatic majority in the Beltway that they did in fact kill OBL. Nonody in history could have believed it a sane way to kill a secretive and mysterious man and deal with his death but can they prove they really did kill him and are not lying?
Geopolitics:
1 Found in a palace in Pakistan in a garrison city means we have real problems with Pakistan and probably with the British Commonwealth.
2. We acted against basic interantional law and I think everyon would say it is justifiable if we can prove we did what we say we did. However, our behaviorafterwards has thrown it all into doubt for millions.
3.This is an evolving story. We will not know for a while what the strategic implications will be.
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