Barack Obama succeeded in eliminating Osama bin Laden from the world stage. You'd think that liberals would be wildly celebrating. I'm amazed -- really, really amazed -- that some have managed to find something to feel bad about. The first thing they felt bad about was being happy. I don't know how many articles I've seen -- and conversations I've had -- about whether happiness is appropriate. But what a strange question. There's so much to be happy about, all above board. A just mission ended successfully. (Dayenu!) And Barack Obama led the way, vanquishing stereotypes about him, his ethnicity, and his political party. And we shouldn't be happy?
Ah, but we're celebrating a death -- naughty, naughty. But are we, exactly? What happened on Sunday can be described in many ways. The very same event was the elimination of OBL, and a big bloodbath and the success of a 10 year mission, and a dazzling demonstration of military intelligence and prowess and a ton of molecules moving around like so and etc. We are happy about things under a description. You can be happy about the elimination of OBL without being happy about the bloodbath, even though they're the same event. That's the nature of happiness -- it attaches to features of events, not to the events themselves. I'm happy about what I ought to be happy about -- the elimination of bin Laden, the success of a 10 year mission, the display of intelligence and prowess.
Next thing we're supposed to wring our hands about: he was killed, not captured. The White House says there was an attempt to capture, but he resisted. But he had no gun. So.... so what? Imagine being one of the men who went into that compound. You've got bin Laden cornered, and he's not going quietly. You don't know who might still be in hiding or what bin Laden might do next. You invaded Pakistan under cover of darkness and you've got to get back out. Do you really have to increase the risk by going to great lengths to avoid bin Laden's death? No, surely not. That's more than we can fairly expect.
And then there's the argument that eliminating bin Laden was no great accomplishment, because he was a figurehead anyway, or because other bad actors will take his place in the terrorism business. Even if that were so, do people saying this really put so little store in the simple justice of punishing people for past crimes? Do they want to see mass murderers go free? Would it have been OK for Hitler to retire to a mansion in the country, after the Holocaust?
But wait, but wait. If it's OK to celebrate, maybe we could feel bad because some people are celebrating in the wrong way -- you know, waving flags and shouting "USA! USA!" So ... good job, but we mustn't be proud of our country over it. Or we may be proud of our country, but we mustn't run out into the street and wave flags? We can be glad, but we mustn't be triumphal. Or something!
I confess -- I'm baffled. And happy.
21 comments:
I personally have found the celebrations, though not egregious, somewhat troubling. The response of so many Americans to Bin Laden's death seems indistinguishable from that of raucous sports fans--and I can't help but wonder if this betrays a facile attitude toward war, and foreign policy generally. Many liberals have happily pointed out that the slaying of Bin Laden has been achieved only just now, many years after Bush's foolish "Mission Accomplished" speech. But I think that there is a great deal of similarity between Bush's attitude in that speech and that of many Americans in reaction to Bin Laden's death. (WE WIN!!)
"Next thing we're supposed to wring our hands about: he was killed, not captured. The White House says there was an attempt to capture, but he resisted. But he had no gun. So.... so what? Imagine being one of the men who went into that compound. You've got bin Laden cornered, and he's not going quietly. You don't know who might still be in hiding or what bin Laden might do next. You invaded Pakistan under cover of darkness and you've got to get back out. Do you really have to increase the risk by going to great lengths to avoid bin Laden's death? No, surely not. That's more than we can fairly expect."
- I don't think it was wrong to kill OBL, but it's not clear to me how it would be "great lengths" to smack him in the head with a rifle butt and then carry him out. It's always easy to be an armchair general though, I guess.
Even if it was great lengths, if you subscribe to some broad moral principle that it's always wrong to kill unarmed individuals in war, this might tell against the killing of OBL. The problem, in my view, is that such a moral principle is too broad. That's a controversial view though.
In Walzer's "Just and Unjust Wars" there's a discussion of the Uboat campaign in WW2. Walzer seems to hold that if there's no immediate risk to the uboat crew, the uboat crew are under a duty to help the non-combatants who are in the water once their merchant ship has been torpedoed. Not really analogous to OBL in my view (OBL's status as a combatant is clear, whereas merchant seamen's status is murky), but your claim that "imagine you where one of the soldiers" seems to apply there too (imagine you're one of the uboat crew, wouldn't you rather just get out of the area instead of spending time saving men in the water).
Difficult but interesting issues (I think Walzer is wrong in the uboat case).
I have to admit I've been singularly low affect on this whole event.
Variously:
1. I think this is a good thing for the United States. It's hard to imagine that any other country would not have engaged in siilar action where possible.
2. I think it's good and proper for people to pay close attention to the relevant legal and moral issues: was this essentially an assasination? If so was it an acceptable one? Should be apply utilitarian or deontological principles when considering such a case. If our excitement over retribution shuts down our ability to consider these issues then that's not a good thing in my view.
3. The reaction to OBLs takedown highlights, for me at least, the distance between our general joy at having meeted out justice to one man, and our radical indifference to the thousands of innocents that WE have killed via collatoral damage in our various wars. This is NOT a concern over the death or issues of justice relative to OBL. This is simply the acknowledgement that the United States has engaged in all manner of morally questionable activity the bulk of which is either utterly ignored or even justified and celebrated by non-trival portions of our electorate. We have tortured, killed many thousands of innoncent, vastly more innocents, incidentally, than were killed on 911. All part of "doing business" as the world superpower I suppose. One can of course do both of these things at the same time: celebrate the death of OBL and decry our other activiites. But as a culture...we don't. Not even close.
4. The general confusion of both the left and the right on this issue is amusing. The right wing needs try to reduce any enthusiasm for Obama that might come out of this, and of course some are trotting out the fact that "torture was vital in securing this intellitgence." The left is confused because they know this is a good thing for "our side" but the pacifist left if reflexively alergic to state sponsored death. General schizophrenia ensues.
Andy, I think you're making some unwarranted assumptions about what the merry-makers were thinking. I don't think they had to be thinking "touchdown for USA" or anything so superficial. I can't see any reason to think they weren't thinking just what I was. It was horrible for OBL to remain free, the search had gone on for 10 years, it seemed unlikely he would ever have been found, but he was found, and the mission was carried out without US deaths, and without civilian deaths. And (some may have been thinking) all that was achieved by Obama, who was heretofore maligned as a wimpy, indecisive, possibly-Muslim, non-American. All those thoughts made me feel and do various things, though I didn't run out in the street waving flags and saying "USA! USA!" but isn't that just an age-class-education thing? I don't think everyone has to conduct themselves like a middle aged philosophy professor--it's bad enough that I have to conduct myself that way!
Peter--All that's really interesting, but I think the Navy Seals on this mission were in enormous danger, whether OBL had a gun or not. He didn't surrender quickly, so lost his chance to be captured, not killed. I can't agonize over that, when in fact it would have been a worse outcome if he HAD been captured. The trial would have been a magnet for terrorists. If the dead body had to be disposed of at sea to avoid further problems, imagine how much of a problem it would have been to take the live body back to...wherever.
Faust, I find the low affect so puzzling...but in my own household we are split on the affect issue, so I suppose I should try harder to understand. You're #4 is amusing indeed. I'm the ideal celebrant, I think. Pro-Obama, and without the allergy to state-sponsored assassination. Technically, that's not what it was, and that's good enough for me. USA! USA! (Just kidding. The McCain/Palin crowd ruined that chant for all time.)
There's a reason to be glad he's gone that's not triumphalist or vindictive. He was a living breathing symbol of a horrible pleasure in mass murder for the sake of mass murder. He was Death. He didn't kill thousands of people in order to make something good happen; he killed them to make them dead. The more dead people, the happier he was. It's good that he's off the earth.
Jean,
"All that's really interesting, but I think the Navy Seals on this mission were in enormous danger, whether OBL had a gun or not. He didn't surrender quickly, so lost his chance to be captured, not killed. I can't agonize over that, when in fact it would have been a worse outcome if he HAD been captured. The trial would have been a magnet for terrorists. If the dead body had to be disposed of at sea to avoid further problems, imagine how much of a problem it would have been to take the live body back to...wherever."
- I don't know enough about the details of the operation to have a firm view on whether the US troops were in sufficient danger to make taking him alive too difficult. There seem only to be fairly vague reports in the British press. This piece for example:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13257330
Which doesn't make it sound that OBL was a danger to the team, or that the team couldn't have at least tried to knock him out and carry him away. If a danger then arises due to OBL or other terrorists such that he might escape, shoot him then. Though again, I stress it's all too easy to be an armchair general.
On the "things would've been worse had OBL been brought to trial" point, I'm not sure those sorts of consequentialist considerations are the kind of things that can tell against a commitment to the rule of law, unless you think that there'd be an utter moral catastrophe at the trial. What moral catastrophe do you think would've been likely? That Bin Laden could get on the stand, denounce the USA and the West doesn't seem to be a strong enough reason to me.
All that said, I don't think there was anything wrong with killing OBL. Assassinations are morally OK sometimes, and this was one of those times. But the "this was an assassination" argument isn't the one being put forward by Obama.
Ophelia, Yes, I think that's a very good reason to celebrate, and that's really not vindictive!
Peter, Ah yes, after he resisted, why didn't they hit him on the head just hard enough to knock him out, but not hard enough to kill him? Or taser him and tie him up? Apparently that would have been more than is normally required--according to the legal expert quoted in the NYT this morning. But philosophically, yes, I see the question...
As to why the better outcome is his being dead, not his being on trial-- Presumably a trial would have attracted acts of terrorism. Why should even one more person be put at risk because of this man? Why should he enjoy the limelight? I think this is for the best, though I'm not using that as the argument why it was OK for the navy seals to kill him.
Jean,
I don't think the concern is of only philosophical interest and not practical concern. It may be of only philosophical interest if it required some science fiction example, or something else that was impractical. But knocking someone out isn't like that. If he's hit in the head too hard and dies, then nobody sensible will shed a tear. But it could then be plausibly claimed that reasonable efforts were made to take OBL alive. Shooting someone twice, once in the chest and once in the head doesn't really fit there.
Re: a trial. I don't think that the threat of (what would likely be a quite small ie. not on 9/11 scale) terrorist attack can offset the general presumption we have for bringing people to trial. Prominent and dangerous terrorists (eg. the leadership of the Baader Meinhof gang) have been brought in front of courts before. Nor can the fact that OBL would've been able to enjoy the limelight and rant about perceived injustices. Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin etc were able to enjoy the limelight to some extent. It was still right for them to be brought in front of a court and that there might.
The more I think about this, the more I think the best justification for OBL's killing was that it was an assassination.
I suspect that the intention all along was to kill bin Laden and then claim he resisted, whether or not he did. The Obama team likely did not want to run the risk of his capture and trial becoming an incitement and rallying point for terrorists. "Let's kill him and get rid of the body right away" was probably the thinking.
My point about practical vs. philosophical concern was that it seems what they did was legal under both US and international law and under police and military codes of conduct. No legally enshrined "right to a trial" was violated. So what remains is an ethical (or philosophical question). In principle, should things have been done this way? It would be interesting to think it through from lots of perspectives.
Aeolus, I don't see that intention or goal as a problem unless the truth is, they would have killed him even if he had held his hands up and said "I surrender." In other words, I think it's OK if they were hoping he would resist, and glad that they did, because they preferred killing to capturing.
Jean, do you celebrate the execution of people in your state? Lets assume for the sake of argument, all those who are executed in Texas (and Texas executes more people than anyone else) are guilty of their crimes, and that there are no real moral qualms about the death penalty (to make it closer to killing Bin Laden, and to simplify the issue).
It seems that if there is nothing wrong with the death penalty, and that they are bad people, we should celebrate each and every execution with a party, or at the very least a congratulatory, We got him/her!
I don't deny that Bin Laden was a bad man, that killing him was good, etc. But I think celebrating it is in poor taste.
But really that's it. Its poor taste. So I'm not making a moral judgment about the celebrators. I'm making an aesthetic judgment.
When I heard the news, I was agape, wowed, awed, and happy. Then I saw people outside the White House singing "Na Na Na Na, Hey Hey Hey, Goodbye!"
Then I felt a little disgusted.
Yes, I celebrate executions...
Actually,no, I don't. But it's completely different. What people are celebrating is the finding of bin Laden, after 10 years of searching, and his de-fanging. He was de-fanged by death, but the crucial thing is that he was de-fanged. That's what I think people are happy about, though the difference is subtle. Why shouldn't people be thrilled to see a just search end well, and a bad man get de-fanged?
By contrast: when someone is executed in Texas, there's no searching and finding involved (we knew where the person was!), and there's no de-fanging, because they're already behind bars and harmless. If you celebrate an execution, all there is to celebrate is the person's death, and it's a miserable death too. So that really is creepy. You really have no basis for thinking it's bin Laden's misery and death per se that people are celebrating.
I know that sounds like hair-splitting, but it's true. We are happy about things under a description. I think you're choosing the wrong description--one that makes people seem much more barbaric than they really are.
"By contrast: when someone is executed in Texas, there's no searching and finding involved (we knew where the person was!), and there's no de-fanging, because they're already behind bars and harmless. If you celebrate an execution, all there is to celebrate is the person's death, and it's a miserable death too."
I agree with this, there are lots of dianalogies here. The best metaphor for what happened is that we assassinated the general of a guerilla army.
Jean.
You write: “My point about practical vs. philosophical concern was that it seems what they [the Navy SEALs] did was legal under both US and international law and under police and military codes of conduct.” I know you’re thinking of the killing rather than the capturing of OBL here. And what you say may well be true when a shoot-out is already a fact. But what about this. In an earlier comment you’re asking us to imagine being one of the SEALS: “You invaded Pakistan under cover of darkness and you've got to get back out.” Sending a troop of soldiers into a foreign country that you’re not at war with under the cover of night to assassinate someone doesn’t necessarily sound like a just operation to me. If it is in fact, then perhaps there’s something wrong with international law...
Also: “It was horrible for OBL to remain free, the search had gone on for 10 years, it seemed unlikely he would ever have been found, but he was found, and the mission was carried out without US deaths, and without civilian deaths.” Well, that depends on what you mean by “the mission”, I guess. If, in fact, no civilians were killed last Sunday, that’s good, but in the 10 years spent looking for OBL in the War on Terror hundreds of Americans and thousands of civilians have been killed…
Ps. That Osama bin Laden is no longer a threat to anyone is unquestionably a good thing. Although I would have preferred his being captured and put on trial before an international court of law.
How about this. Geroge W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, together with Tony Blair, are by some Americans and Europeans (Noam Chomsky and George Monbiot) and perhaps more people elsewhere, as international (war) criminals and as perpetrators of crimes against humanity. Some of them cannot go to certain countries from fear of being arrested. These charges doesn't seem all wrong given the many wars they have waged, all the deaths -- including lots of women and children -- they are responsible for, and the unlawful arresting and torturing of alleged terrorists they have sanctioned at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo bay and such places.
So: What if Afghani soldiers on these grounds flew into the US at night, in much the same way as the SEALS did in Pakistan, in order to capture these criminals. Let's also say that Bush resisted and that the soldiers therefore shot him on the spot. What should we say about that? I'm not american myself, so I'm curious how an american would react. In Norway we have had one incident that, on the face of it, was quite similar to what happened in Pakistan last Sunday. In 1973 undercover Mossad-agents shot and killed a man on the streets of a small Norwegian town. The victim was thought (erroneous) to be a member of Black Septemer, who was responsible for the Munich-massacre in -72. This incident is by most Norwegians thought of as the worst example of TERRORISM in our country.
Again: I'm not mourning Osama bin Laden. That he is no longer able to do his "job" is all positive. However, I am not baffled that some Americans are not proud of the War against Terror, and these kinds operations.
I think it's a much bigger deal to invade another country's airspace to kill democratically elected leaders, regardless of what they've done. The democratic support they enjoy adds another element to the picture that's missing in the situation at hand. There are democratic ways of getting rid of bad elected leaders, and no democratic ways of getting rid of someone like OBL.
Now, if there were a true OBL-equivalent hiding half a mile from a US military academy, and the US couldn't be trusted to deal with him, would I object to the invasion of US airspace? No. I don't think this is about some crazy sort of "American exceptionalism" where the US (only) gets to do whatever it wants around the world.
I agree that there is a difference between elected leaders and common criminals. But as the case is, the Bush-administration is no longer in office...and Swiss lawyers has, under both Swiss and international law, pressed charges against Donald Rumsfeld and (if I'm not misremembering) asked the US to see that he goes to court. Can the US be trusted to deal with him? So far they have certainly declined to extradite him. (Recently Bush himself cancelled a trip to Switzerland for much the same reasons.) But I'm not going to press on this issue, because these questions probably are more legal and political than philosophical, and I guess I may not know the cases well enough to see how far the comparison can take us either -- and in any case: this wasn't what your initial post was about. (I'm actually not sure what my own view of the comparison is either.)
Finally. My point wasn't to suggest that this reflects a sort of "American exeptionalism" where the US (only) gets to do whatever it wants around the world, but rather to express a fear that such interventions -- as I understand it, the Pakistan government wasn't informed at all -- might push us in direction of a world in which more and more counties would want to do whatever they choose anywhere.
The child is father of the man -- Osama bin Laden, Sweden, 1971:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/06/osama-bin-laden-at-14
How interesting. I wonder if he was "beatific" like that in personal manner, as well as in appearance.
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