A reader writes:
It is important to be honest that we went there to kill bin Laden. It is irrelevant if he was reaching for a gun or personally resisting. The command was to kill; the command was followed. I am comfortable with that, and much more comfortable acknowledging it than pretending it was anything other than a mission to kill bin Laden.
Dropping guided bombs would have killed OBL (or not!) without proof of death. The strategic decision to send troops to kill him doesn’t change the moral calculus from a guided bomb. The only reason to capture him as far as I am concerned (being comfortable with the kill order) would be to gain intelligence, but that is of marginal benefit in this case. Any attempt to take OBL alive given the mission would be fraught with peril. Can you imagine the reaction if the SEALs handcuffed OBL, put him on the helicopter, and then were shot down or crashed before making it back to base? Why would you take the risk of allowing OBL to escape? You have the ability to kill him, you kill him – that has been the policy of 3 consecutive Administrations.
So the reach-for-the-gun thing, in my mind, really misses the picture. We went there to kill him. We killed him. Get comfortable with it or not.
Joe Keohane crafts an alternate history of a failed SEAL mission and the political firestorm that would have resulted. A reader poses another scenario:
Can you imagine what we'd be discussing at this very moment if bin Ladin were alive and a prisoner of the U.S military? Can you imagine how the country would start to tear itself apart over questions variously ranging from the conditions bin Ladin should be held in, where he should be held, where he should be tried, what sort of a court should try him, what rights and legel representation he should be entitled to, etc? Do you think for a second that a prisoner bin Ladin wouldn't provide endless fodder for political demagoguery from cynics seeking advantage by appealing to our basest instincts for revenge? Do we really want the world to witness the political opportunists in our government demanding a public, televised execution (or worse)?
And then there's this: what do we do when American citizens around the world start disappearing, kidnapped by radicals who demand bin Ladin's release in exchange for the lives of their kidnapping victims? How many more grainy video tapes of innocent Americans being decapitated by Islamic radicals are we willing to put up with?
What actually transpired that night was a mere technicality. Osama bin Ladin had to die in that raid. It was the only possible outcome.
Another:
Are you ever going to address the question of whether the president broke any laws in ordering US troops to enter Pakistan and kill Osama bin Laden? If he did break laws, does that make him a criminal? Why does KSM deserve due process rights, but not bin Laden?
The Dish 