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

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

I doubt he could have, or should have, been tried. The Nuremberg trials also received a lot of criticism for essentially being show trials, a feature which was even more pronounced in the Japanese trials, especially regarding Tojo and Hirohito. That same dynamic would have played out and the trial would have no legitimacy. Even then, what would you try him for? He committed no crimes, every step was perfectly legal in the eyes of the then Afghan government. Any trial would impose a rule ex post facto, a major miscarriage of justice in itself.

The body was dumped quickly because Islamic burial practices demand quick disposal; it was done at sea to prevent the creation of a shrine. "What don't they want us to see" is an odd question since the administration probably decided to suppress photographs to avoid backlash in the Islamic world or war crimes questions. (Remember those controversies?)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Tricky. I take your point about the difficulty of setting up a trial.

The photos will emerge, I think; The pressure is irresistible.