I've been seeing a lot of very thoughtful people talking about the death of bin Laden from a human rights point of view. And every point they've made is legit.
But.......
This wasn't random joe gunned down in his house before we had proof of who he was or if he even had any involvement. Osama bin Laden openly and plainly declared war on us. He proudly took responsibility for deaths on our soil. What would the result of arrest and trial have done for us and him? He still would have been executed. But in the process he'd get a chance to spew more hate and gain more followers and his body would then become a shrine.
Until we can live in a warless, stateless world (and yes I am enough of a sucker idealist that I believe that can happen) then we have only a few options for justice and protection. In the imperfect world we have now, I am a champion of good intelligence work and surgical strikes against proven (that's the key word, proven)enemies who have committed violent acts against us over full scale war, where innocent civilians die by the thousands so that a few assholes can die with them.
We never should have gone into Afghanistan, and the death of OBL proves that. He wasn't killed in a traditional battle, but in a small action by a small team. he wasn't killed in Afghanistan. (Though I do wonder if the drone strikes in Pakistan were part of the reason we got the intel about OBL to begin with. Were the drone strikes some form of International Uncle where we keep killing until they say enough?)
Don't worry, I still don't like Obama. But this is one of the only actions that I may actually agree with. We should now be able to pull out of Afghanistan since all pretense for war there is literally lost in the ocean (if you believe the reports) but I know that won't happen.
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