Was Osama bin Laden Killed Because He Posed a Threat or Because He Had It Coming?

No
Easy Day, the new book about the May 2011 raid that killed
Osama bin Laden,
contradicts the official account of his death in ways that
highlight the Obama administration’s ambiguous approach to
terrorists, who are either criminals, enemies, or both, depending
on circumstances and political convenience. The book’s pseudonymous
author, Mark Owen—a Navy SEAL whom military officials have
identified as Matt Bissonnette, 36, of Wrangell, Alaska—reports
that Bin Laden was shot in the head as he peeked out of his bedroom
doorway at the SEAL team ascending the stairs to the top floor of
his house in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The New York Times,
which obtained a copy of the book yesterday,
describes what Bissonnette says happened next:

[Bissonnette] said he was directly behind the “point man,” or
lead commando, as the SEALs followed Bin Laden into the room, where
they found him on the floor at the foot of his bed with “blood and
brains spilled out of the side of his skull,” and two women wailing
over his body, which was “still twitching and convulsing.”

The author said he and another member then trained their weapons
on Bin Laden’s chest and fired several rounds, until he was
motionless. The SEALs later found two unloaded weapons—an AK-47
rifle and a Makarov pistol—near the bedroom door.

In the administration’s version of events, the lead commando’s
shot in the stairwell missed, and the SEALs confronted Bin Laden in
the bedroom, killing him with one shot to the chest and another
above the left eye.

The new book’s account, if true, raises the question of whether
Bin Laden posed a clear threat in his death throes.

Military officials have said that the SEALs made split-second
decisions, fearing that Bin Laden, though unarmed, could have
exploded a suicide vest or other booby trap. Critics, however, say
that while the military has described the raid as a “kill or
capture” mission, there was virtually no chance the SEALS would
bring Bin Laden back alive.

As I pointed
out after the raid, these details matter under the laws of war,
which the Obama administration says apply to members and supporters
of Al Qaeda, because soldiers are not supposed to shoot an enemy
combatant who is trying to surrender or kill him after he has been
captured (or, per Bissonnette’s account, incapacitated). Shooting
him is justified only if he poses a threat to his captors. At the
same time, since President Obama (like his predecessor) views the
whole world as the battlefield in the war on terrorism, he could
have avoided such questions (while raising others about collateral
damage) simply by dropping a bomb on Bin Laden’s house. That is the
sort of solution
Obama has favored for other people identified as terrorists
(including U.S. citizens), on the theory that they represent an
imminent threat to American lives and that capturing them is
impractical.

Yet the administration’s rhetoric suggests Bin Laden was killed
not because it was the only way to eliminate the threat he posed
(whether to the SEALs or to Americans generally) but because he had
it coming. National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor

refers to the raid as “the night that justice was brought to
Osama bin Laden,” which suggests a summary execution rather than an
act of self-defense. When it comes to suspected terrorists who are
blown up by missiles fired from unmanned aircraft, the
administration
argues that it is not depriving them of life without due
process because it follows certain procedures, confined to the
executive branch, before approving these extrajudicial killings.
The Bin Laden raid, because it was more up close and personal,
clarified what that means in practice: I got yer due process right
here. BLAM BLAM.

2012-08-30 10:43:05

Source: http://reason.com/blog/2012/08/30/was-osama-bin-laden-killed-because-he-po