archduke
Wait a minute. Aren't you the guy that has been arguing for years that War on Terror should be treated as a criminal investigation? As a serious question, how do you reconcile that argument with the above stated position.
Yes. A criminal investigation rather than a war. And to the extent that OBL was apprehended by investigatory procedures rather than an invasion I think its been more successful than the invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq in combating terror. So for that matter are Drone attacks versus less discriminating bombing or shelling or ground force interventions.
The only question about OBLs apprehension and execution (assassination) was that he wasn't given the due process of a trial . I think circumstances and the lack of any real doubt about his guilt and the nature of his crimes make the expedient choice of assassination (Execution) palatable.
The difference between treating the use of terror by organizations like Al Qaeda as a criminal matter rather than a war has all kinds of implications.(Generalizations follow, and I'm conscious how generalizing is generally fraught with the problem, of exceptions.) In a war, you use force in a less discriminating fashion than when you apprehend criminals. In a war, those around the enemy are assumed to be aiding, or allied or friendly. With criminals we generally accept that those around may be innocent and sometimes completely guileless. In a war we tend to vilify the other side at large. With a criminal investigation we target the guilty very specifically. (This point is particular important when the issue of guilt by association is consdiered in a situation where the criminals are attempting to hijack an entire religion.)
In a war we use blunt instruments to quell an enemy. With criminals we tend to surgically remove them from society that they are poisoning.
Al Qaeda was never big enough, nor definable geographically, demographically or in any fashion to qualify for the blunt broad instruments of war. It always seemed to be little more than a criminal organization akin to the Cosa Nostra... (Its size and threat we're exagerated, but thats part of justifying War isn't it?)
But executing Osama in a raid in a foreign, and perhaps unfreindly country rather than securing him for a trial with a forgone conclusion? I will go with the expedient choice since it seemed to limit the damage to the enforcers and those around Osama. And sent a strong message to those who sympathize with OBLs methods and message that a trial might have also done, but which was sure to be complicated. (Pakistan is probably happier with an execution than with having to witness an ongoing trial that they might have had to challenge in order to assert their terrirtorial rights, for instance. ) In the end Archduke, OBL wasn't getting out of this alive..and he was guilty by public admission. How he came to an end matters no more than those who are being killed by CIA drones in North Pakistan. We generally aren't complaining that they aren't being arrested...
In brief, you can't enforce laws the same way in a country where laws are generally respected as you do where the rule of law is uncertain. For justice to be served in the latter, sometimes the nicities afforded by a general respect for law are set aside.
Now, had Pakistan apprehended OBL, I think it would have served their interests to try him in Pakistan. There a lesson in the observance of law would have been important. There seems to be some doubt whether or not Pakistan officially or their intelligence service unofficially really wanted him apprehended... Again, for them, the conclusion is uncomfortable but perhaps also a well learned lesson?