After all this time, of course I was surprised our forces actually killed Osama bin Laden. At this point nobody saw that coming. I also didn't foresee the degree of duplicity from Pakistan. There is no way everyone in their government didn't know where he was hiding, or at least couldn't find out without asking the right people.
I can't be surprised, though, that we didn't take him alive, and not because he went down fighting. He was the most widely and extremely despised man in our country, and you knew anybody we sent was going to be trigger happy once they pointed a gun at him and looked him in the face. So, I forgive and will forget that, as did the officers in charge of this raid.
Try as I might to object about an assassination raid, I simply can't in this case. Here is a man who has killed thousands, who would have killed thousands more if he could, and who inspired others to do the same. He was murderously sick and contagious. That's far worse than any serial killer. He killed children, I'm certain, and created orphans.
Even if they found some soldier-saint who could look him in the eye and not follow it with a bullet, he would have been a one man strain on justice. Where in this country would you find a jury to be impartial about him? Even if you could get ove that barrier, he'd need his own jail, or you'd be turning justice over to inmates. He would require about a billion dollars worth of security just to get him to court and back. Not that I'm for cutter corners with justice, I'm only wondering what a trial of ObL would have been like.
The point is, our justice system wasn't made to handle a crime as big as his. I mean, he mass produced corpses, all the while inspiring others to do the same. To try to pretend to give him a fair trial would have been a mockery of justice more damaging than having a soldier shoot him and acquitting the assassin.
Unfortunately, this can be damaging to our country's justice system which has already been so damaged from the years after 9/11. Once an exception has been made to justice, even if everybody pretends it was necessary to shoot him unarmed, the temptation to create other exceptions to normal justice is stronger.
We ought to remember at those times just how far bin Laden went to make himself not just an extreme outlaw, but also someone who placed himself outside the protection of the law.
Like having a toothache removed, I look forward to the rest of my life without Osama bin Laden.
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