Dispiriting

[poliphilo]

Actually, I find it a bit dispiriting when the President comes on TV and says "I just had this guy killed" and there's dancing in the streets and the President's chances of re-election rocket.

Was it really out of the question to arrest Bin Laden? Did he have a gun in his hand when he was shot?

And why was the body dumped so quickly? What was there about it they didn't want us to see? I've read the wounds were in the back of the head, but I don't suppose we'll ever know for sure.

 

Wouldn't it have been better to have put him on trial? Who does it serve that Bin Laden never gets to tell his story?

 

Geoffrey Robertson in the Independent (I'd link but LJ won't let me this morning) reminds us of an important fact about the Nuremberg trials. Apparently the Brits wanted to string up the nazi leaders within six hours of capture and it was President Truman who insisted on due process of law, because lynching the bastards "would not sit easily on the American conscience or be remembered by our children with pride."

 

I don't really buy all that greatest generation guff, but it's sobering to remember there was once a time when a US President believed his public would appreciate him acting like a civilised man and not some fucking cowboy. 

Comments

[wolfshift.livejournal.com]

You cannot. POSSIBLY. Be. Serious.

You REALLY think he's a "bogey man" and not a violent, cruel terrorist??!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

If there had been a trial we would have been able to settle the question.

9/11 was an terrible crime, but we don't actually know the extent of Bin Laden's culpability. Did he order it? Did he go along with it? Did he learn about it after the event? Did he ever actually claim or commend it?