Act of Cowardice : Killing an unarmed man

Osama Bin Laden is a self congratulating killer of women and children of all background. The scoundrel of a man, a self-proclaimed mujahaideen and world recognized terrorist has claimed responsibility for three devastating attacks on US assets and interest through September 11, 2001, for much of the carnage in Iraq and the various terrorist blasts in London, Bali and many other locations across the globe.

That Osama Bin Laden is a criminal is hardly disputed by any well informed person who believe the myriads of propaganda videos and tapes produces by Al Qaeda over the years. But this last week, the President of the United States elevated the criminal beyond his previous folk status - ironically created by two previous American presidents. The president ordered his cold blooded murder.

True, the recent execution by a team of Navy SEALs in Abbottabad, Pakistan, is not as much an act of bravery as it is an act of cowardice. Political and emotional cowardice.

The special operation to get into the Bin Laden hideout was brave. Reaching the scoundrel took guts. But shooting to kill, an unarmed man is nothing else but execution - an act of senseless revenge, outside of all legal boundaries. It is extra judicial. It is dehumanizing. It is debasing. It does not further the narrative that Western democracies are more civilized than medieval kingdoms.

The killing of Bin Laden does nothing beyond furthering the narrative that started a while ago, was exacerbated after the 9/11 attacks, including the unprovoked invasion of Iraq and has been carried further by President Obama starting with his order of summary execution of Somali pirates. The case with this president seems to be a desire to declare his "macho ness". A need to prove himself to those who may consider him weak, and thus manage to control his actions. By reneging on his promise to close Guantanamo Bay prison, his escalation of the continued use of summary execution of "suspects" in the "War Against Terror" and his "Kill order" on Sunday, this president seems to have lost control of the final narrative. He has allowed his humanity to be hijacked! The courageous thing to do last weekend was to order that Bin Laden be captured and brought to justice in New York. 

The summary execution has excused the president from the larger conversation about what to do with the suspects in Guantanamo.  It has however exposed the nation to the moral quandary of "right to fair trial". Bin Laden was never tried. True many would love to see every suspected murderer, rapist, even robber shot. But that was not the narrative of western civilization for which America holds itself as the model. A fair trial may have ended as a charade. It might have created a propaganda trove to terrorists and ill informed muslims, yet it would have upheld the moral superiority of western civilization over the Islamic narrative. The Bin Laden murder created only a moral equivalence. The man was unarmed!