A Commentary by Doug Draper
“Ding, dong the witch is dead.”
– from The Wizard of Oz
“It is not natural to celebrate the death of someone, but somehow it seems natural tonight.”
– Andrea Mitchell, a senior NBC television correspondent following U.S. President Barack Obama’s dramatic announcement this May 1 that Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had been gunned down by a specially trained squad of American Navy SEALS.
Aside from our remembrances of those ‘Munchkins’ in the Oz movie, getting all joyous over a house falling down fatally on a wicked witch, most of us in this somewhat civilized world we live in have been brought up to view the death of someone as an occasion for sadness, and not one for dancing in the streets.
As a columnist who has so often been cast by supporters and critics of my views alike as a one of those die-hard liberal softies – a latter-day tree huggers and peacenik – that was one of the first thoughts that flashed through my mind as I sat in front a television two Sundays ago and watched crowds of people gathering outside the White House and at ‘Ground Zero’ in New York City, cheering over the news that bin Laden had been killed. Should we be celebrating this thing?
Well, I have got to be honest folks. It was a question that lasted a nano-second before my mind flashed back to the terrorists attacks, masterminded by this psychotic monster, on September 9, 2001.
In all due respect to some of my friends on both this of the border, who have suggested that maybe they should have tried to take this scumbag alive and put him on trial instead rather than summarily blow him away or, as a few said, “assassinate” or “execute” him without a trial. There are some people commit such heinous crimes against humanity, they deserve nothing less than a bullet in the face.
I wasn’t around at the time, but I have sometimes wondered what I would have done if I had a gun and could have got close enough to Adolf Hitler around about 1940 or 41 to blow his brains out. I’d like to think I’d have done something that would have done the Clint Eastwood character from his ‘Dirty Harry’ and Unforgiven’ movies proud. If that bothers your senses, just think of how many millions of lives may have been saved, not to mention all of the oppression and misery suffered for decades to come with the walling off of eastern Europe, the Cold War and so on, if someone had blown that monster away earlier in the game?
Getting back to Osama bin Laden and some of those, including a few celebrities out there like Rosie O’Donnell and Michael Moore (a documentary filmmaker I happen to have a lot of respect for) who feel this wacko deserved to be taken alive and put on trial, I would like to ask this? Compared to a shot through the head and another through the chest, that probably killed him instantly, how much of a trial did the people in the hijacked planes and those who came to work in the twin towers of the World Trade Centre get on that September 9 morning, and what was there crime? Getting on a plane for a business trip or a vacation, or going to work in the morning? 
And many of them didn’t die instantly. Imagine being more than 70 floors up on one of those towers and having maybe a half hour, at the most to call your family and say goodbye, before deciding whether you should be burned to death or leap to your death?
I’m a little biased here. I’ve have friends and associates who have been personally touched by these crimes, including one friend who would have been a victim there had he not chosen to work instead for another computer company located elsewhere in Manhattan. Had he not made that decision, he would have been up there on one of the highest floors with other members of the company that vanished in the cinders that day.
There was the first cousin of Paul Patti, psychologist working on a research project with my wife Mary, who wasn’t so fortunate. Cira Marie Patti worked on one of the upper, fateful floors of those towers, was on the phone with her mother before the floors collapsed, and never got a chance to see her 41st birthday.
Cira’s body was never found,” recounted Paul in a recent email to me, “but they found and returned her wallet intact which is incredible. My aunt and uncle remain deeply affected in the manner of her death and have a shrine in their home dedicated to their daughter. My take on bin Ladin’s death is what has been said by many; ‘Justice has been served”.
In fairness to Michael Moore, he produced one of the best documentaries on the so-called ‘war on terror’ that followed the 9/11 attacks – a film called ‘Fahrenheit 9/11 – that stands tall factually to this day, however much it was vilified by the Bush/Cheney/Fox News bunch this last decade. During a recent interview Moore did on CNN, the same one where he called bin Laden’s killing an “execution” and questioned whether its celebration in the streets of America is akin to “los(ing) something of our soul in this country,” he made it clear he thinks the world is better off without bin Laden too. And on that we can agree. We’ll have to disagree on the means by which he was dispatched, I guess.
I also share Moore’s view that bin Laden was a convenient boogey man for the former Bush administration, that hardly ever seemed as intent as Obama has been in his two years in the White House to track down and kill him off. Having bin Laden around as a spook made it easer to justify continued wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that has been great for the military-industrial complex but has been a severe drain on resources for peaceful, domestic programs like health care, education and green energy – programs it was never apparent that the likes of Cheney gave a flying fig about.
I also agree with the thesis Moore advanced in his film, Fahrenheit 9/11, that the invasion of Afghanistan had more to do with oil resources than it did with hunting down and killing one of the most notorious terrorist leaders in the world or even cutting that country off as one of the globe’s major exporters of opium, which it still is today.
The great American essayist Gore Vidal (thankfully, still with us), said it best in a collection of essays published in 2002 called ‘Dreaming War – Blood For Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta’. In that book he wrote; “What it (meaning the invasion of Afghanistan) was really about – and you won’t get this anywhere at the moment – is that this is an imperial grab for energy resources. Until now, the Persian Gulf has been our main source for imported oil. We went there, to Afghanistan, not to get Osama and wreak our vengeance. We went to Afghanistan partly because the Taliban – whom we had installed at the time of the Russian occupation – were getting too flaky and because Unocal, the California Corporation, had made a deal with the Taliban for a pipeline to get the Caspian-area oil, which is the richest oil reserve on earth.”
“They wanted to get that oil by pipeline through Afghanistan to Pakistan to Karachi, and from there to ship it off to China, which would be enormously profitable,” continues Vidal in what should have been a better read book. “Whichever big company could cash in would make a fortune. And you’ll see that all these companies go back to Bush or Cheney or to Rumsfeld or someone else on the gas-and-oil junta, which, along with the Pentagon, governs the United States.”
So much for being in Afghanistan and losing more than 150 Canadian soldiers’ lives there alone, to fight for democracy or women’s rights. I never bought that stuff. Did you? If that is the concern then we should have invaded Syria, Iran and a number of other countries in the Middle East and Africa a long time ago. And no wonder we don’t see the likes of Vidal, along with a number of others like Noam Chomsky, Ralph Nader and yes, Michael Moore, on mainstream cable programs in the U.S. or Canada very much. The corporate owners of these networks sure don’t want us to here much of what they have to say. Safer to stick to John McCain, Donald Trump and Sarah Palin.
At any rate, this aging peacenik is pleased bin Laden is gone and I would not be displeased if the same special forces that bumped him off went after a few serial murderers in Libya and Syria next.
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I am not one of those that wants to dance on his grave, but support his killing as opposed to capturing and trying him. Having him held for trial would just create enormous dangers wherever he was and would give him a huge propaganda platform. In a perfect world he could have been brought to trial, but we all know what an imperfect world we live in. Besides, it was dangerous enough for the Navy Seals. Thank God they made it out alive.
As far as publicy releasing the death photos to convince the skeptics….that would be unnecessary and a waste of time. True skeptics would never believe it anyways. They would say the photo was touched up or it was bin Laden’s double. The photo can be shown to a select cross section of people, which I believe it has. That should be sufficient. The best evidence is truly the DNA and they could release this information. We do not need to see gory, gruesom, inciteful death photos spashed all over the world.
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I fear you have misinterpreted the point of contention raised by Michael Moore and other defenders of justice – the level of atrocity, while it should never be forgotten, is inconsequential in the debate of international law. A person of bin Laden’s capability undeniably deserves the sentence he received, however, the world powers decided in 1945 that all people – regardless of colour, creed or crime – are by right subject to a set of universal human rights, in this case the right to trial. “Terrorist, monster, murderer,” whichever of these appropriate monikers we choose to apply, it us far beyond our place to remove these established rights from any human.
While people rejoice the death of an enemy, the United States government demonstrates once again that they play by a different set of rules than the rest of the world. It has been proven that, although a major contributor to the development of post-WWII international law and its application at the Nuremberg Trials, the United States continuously displays its contempt for institutions of international law. We need not look further than Chile, where the term “9-11” inspires a far different memory.
My challengers may say that bin Laden was playing by a different set of rules on 9-11, but I think that we can all agree that an “eye-for-eye” judicial philosophy is archaic, backwards, and will serve only to perpetuate the violence we have become seemingly accustomed to. Simply because others use this understanding to justify their actions, does not make it any more logical. We need to start recognizing the preciousness of our legal institutions, otherwise we are in great danger of further relapsing into the medieval mentalities that already plague our society . Violence met with violence will only foster more violence.
I feel that people have conveniently confused the notions of revenge and justice, with less and less concern being paid to the latter. Whether you call it right or wrong, deserved or undeserved, please don’t call it just.
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Assuming for a moment that bin Laden was responsible for 911 (will we ever know the truth?), don’t we live in a society of rules and procedures, with one of them being “innocent until proven guilty” and another being due process?
From what I heard, bin Laden was unarmed when he was gunned down, so he could’ve been captured and put on trial. Hitler, had he been captured, would’ve stood trial too, like many of his comrades did. bin Laden, regardless of his crimes, should’ve stood trial too.
Timothy McVeigh was also responsible for a heinous act of terrorism, which resulted in the death of 168 people, with hundreds more injured. McVeigh got a trial, and justice prevailed.
So if Goring, Hess, Kaltenbrunner, Bormann and other members of the Third Reich (responsible for the deaths of 6 over million people) were entitled to a fair trial, and Timothy McVeigh was entitled to a fair trial, how is it that Osama bin Laden is not?
Of course the world is better off without him, if he did what we’re told he did (wasn’t he an ally of the United States at one time?) but it doesn’t justify what happened. Killing bin Laden wasn’t justice. It was vengeance.
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There is plenty of evidence to support the position that they could have captured or killed Bin Laden at Tora Bora. Failing to kill him there was a disservice to the 9/11 victims. I also believe the Americans delayed his capture/killing to advance their imperialist designs. Some have conflated the War in Iraq with Bin Laden, and there’s no link at all. Invading Iraq was a war crime, unsettling, but true.
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As for the extermination camps, the Nazis exterminated six million Jews, but also five million others.
I don’t believe the Americans should be excused for their Imperialist designs, but I’m still glad the SEALS killed Osama with prejudice.
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No right-thinking person could believe that Osama Bin Laden should not have been tried for murder. No right-thinking person could be anything but repulsed at the atrocities he committed. There are many in this world, some in our own prisons, who have killed even many times over, in cruel and savage ways. However, would we justify the execution—even the imprisonment—of any of them without a trial? Surely, not! We hold in our country, the belief that everyone–not just the one we feel “deserves” it–has a fundamental right to a fair and impartial trial. This is not, I wish to point out, an argument for or against a death penalty. The issue is whether we believe in our judicial system and in a democratic society that guarantees a fair trial to any accused no matter how guilty they may appear, or even be, before any such trial begins.
Execution without a trial may well be okay in the minds of those who believe society ought to waive trials when crimes are particularly heinous. Certainly, some people do and Bin Laden might well have been one of them. Certainly, such thinking is not very different from the thinking of the Bin Laden’s of this world. They seem to have no problem with killing—anyone for any reason!
Like some of those we hear speaking on the news and read of in the press of late, the Bin Ladens of this world regularly rationalize their killing as being in the name of “justice.”
Yet, by Canadian standards, killing an unarmed person without a trial, no matter how guilty of a crime they may be, is not real justice. In a democracy, everyone has a right to a fair trial. Indeed, if anyone in our country were to kill an unarmed person—even one who had been found guilty of a horrible crime and perhaps had escaped custody—then that person would, in fact, be put on trial. The killing of Bin Laden may have been justified at some point. If, as is said, he was unarmed when killed, then what took place was not justice but an execution. If we truly believe in our justice system, then surely we also believe in trial by jury, not death by gunfire without trial.
I would suggest that based on his own records and statements, Bin Laden ought to have been executed. I wish to be very clear on that point! I am even sure he would have been found guilty at trial. I submit, however, if we do believe in justice, then no execution without a trial is acceptable, surely not to a country that values our judicial system as Canadians do.
While Michael Moore may be a particularly prickly thorn in many a side, and his views may not be popular in many courts of opinion, he does remind us of what our soldiers fought and died in wars to protect—our fundamental human rights. Fair trials are an integral part of Canadian and American justice systems. Certainly, this is a view dearly held by most Canadians I know.
There can be no real justice unless there is justice for all–even the really, really, bad people! Yes, even for the really, really, bad people who would deny justice to us. Otherwise, we are little better—at least at some level—than those who kill so indiscriminately for their “just cause.” While I struggle, almost gag at the thought, Michael Moore may be reminding us of how precarious our freedoms are when we can so readily find “good reason” to deny them to anyone we feel does not deserve them—even one like Bin Laden.
I remember a Pogo cartoon strip I saw in the early 70’s. Pogo, I believe it was, said, “We have met the enemy and he is us!” There is no freedom—no justice—for anyone, unless there is freedom and justice for all. Not a very popular idea when it comes to the Bin Ladens of this world, but no less true because it is not popular.
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Hitler was elected, so taking him out would not have prevented the Holocaust, the walling off of eastern Europe or the Cold War etc. . Hitler was simply the tip of the ice-berg and represented an entire system that needed to be changed. I think it is simplistic to think that killing one person at the top of a regime or movement, whether it is Hitler, bin Laden, Gadhafi or Bashar al-Assad will change an entire system that supports that individual. Execution simply perpetuates a culture of violence. There are many tyrants in the world, who are we to pick and choose who to shoot ? Isn’t it far more productive to enforce international law and to support the building of democratic institutions by the native peoples of said countries?
I have no sympathy for Osama bin Laden. He was a creation of the United States and was taken out by the United States. The US financially supported and trained the Taliban at a time when other more moderate groups were available for the US to back in Afghanistan. But the US chose to back bin Laden and the Taliban. After bin Laden served his purpose and got out of hand the US decided to execute him. Now questions and doubts will always remain about whether he was really behind 9/11 or not. Bin Laden’s wives, son and Taliban leaders have already confirmed his death, so that is not the issue. But in the many days that have already passed since his death documents allegedly seized at his compound could have been doctored or created from scratch, in the same way photos can be altered or created. So bringing bin Laden himself to trial would have probably benefited the survivors and families of 9/11 and answered remaining questions much more than the silence of his execution. Justice in its completeness has not been served.
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We don’t know the details of the Bin Laden “hit”, but it was a military operation, and he was in a guarded compound. Good riddance.
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As predicted the killing of bin Laden has led to more violence – 80 Pakistanis killed by two Taliban suicide bombers. If bin Laden had been taken to trial I don’t believe we would have had the same violent response. This is what I mean by a culture of violence. If the US and other countries continue to use violence to solve its problems it will just lead to further violence. It’s never ending. World leaders and our societies need to mature and find peaceful means to solve the world’s problems. But then the truth is, the current situation is not really about solving problems. To solve legitimate problems world leaders could easily gather around a table and hash out solutions – sanctions, fair sharing of resources, mentorships for various systems of fair governance… But our current chaos is not as a result of legitimate problems or disputes, but rather a result of a desire to control or take other people’s natural resources and to create a new world economy where only the already rich get richer and poor countries are cheap labour to the rest of the world. Countries which are invaded, oppressed or abused, fight back with violence without measuring the effectiveness of their methods or the consequences to follow. And counties like Libya who use violence to oust their government just bring heavy violence back upon themselves. 30,000 Libyans have been killed since the No-fly Zone was enacted. But even countries that resist oppression with peaceful means are often ignored and continue to suffer, so the responsibility is on the countries and leaders that invade, colonize, steal the resources, oppress their own people etc to not do that in the first place. Egypt is a hopeful exception. Their peaceful revolution by a well organized civil society has lead not only to regime change but Hosni Mubarak and his wife are actually in jail awaiting a legal process to hold them accountable for crimes against the Egyptian population and financial corruption, and free elections will be held soon.
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Americans prefer to deal with “compliant dictators” when they need that country’s oil etc.
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I agree with Doug Draper that Oabama gave the correct order to execute the piece of vermin. But why add your “own unproven” opinion of the decisions made by Bush. It was Clinton who did not have the courage to make the decision to “fire” when the top sniper in the US Armed Forces had Obama’s head in the crosshairs of his rifle scope. Bin Laden shpould have been executed long before Bush and Obama came along but Clinton was gutless when it came to accepting where the buck stops.
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Clinton had problems with the Republicans and getting Bin Laden in a compound with lots of children was a political risk he could not respond too. A great prophet said “those who live by the sword would die by the sword” Bin Laden got the message big time.!!!
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Clinton tried to get Bin Laden with Cruise missiles, but missed. They surveilled Tarnak Farm, but feared too much “collateral damage”, thinking the Afghan soldiers recruited to do the job might fire indiscriminately. And then came Monica Lewinsky, a stained dress, and impeachment worries. At the time, I couldn’t believe the Corporate Media was obsessing so much over that issue when significant world problems werer being almost ignored.
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