Right or Wrong
No doubt a lot of folks will hate this post, you are welcome to leave you comments below.
I heard about the bin Laden raid late Sunday night and told Jill about it in the morning. She asked what had happened and I told her what I knew at the time; That a small team of US special forces had helicoptered in to Pakistan and raided the compound, that bin Laden had been killed in the assault and had been swiftly buried at sea. She asked me if I knew who the team was and I told her that SEAL team six has current tasking but that it was likely SAD or a combination of both. Yay me for being up to date with the "war on terror"
Personally I think the Team America "F*ck Yeah!" attitude on broad display is distasteful jingoism. Dancing in the end zone does us no good whatsoever, especially as further detail about the raid is made clear: Here is the official word on what happened:
"Jay Carney in White House briefing:
On orders of the President, a small U.S. team assaulted a secure compound in an affluent suburb of Islamabad to capture or kill Osama bin Laden.
The raid was conducted with U.S. military personnel assaulting on two helicopters. The team methodically cleared the compound moving from room to room in an operation lasting nearly 40 minutes. They were engaged in a firefight throughout the operation and Osama Bin Laden was killed by the assaulting force.
In addition to the bin Laden family, two other families resided in the compound: one family on the first floor of the bin Laden building and one family in a second building. One team began the operation on the first floor of the bin Laden house and worked their way to the third floor; a second team cleared the separate building.
On the first floor of bin Laden’s building, two Al Qaeda couriers were killed along with a woman who was killed in cross-fire. Bin Laden and his family were found on the second and third floor of the building. There was concern that bin Laden would oppose the capture operation and indeed he resisted.
In the room with bin Laden, a woman - bin Laden’s wife - rushed the U.S. assaulter and was shot in the leg but not killed. Bin Laden was then shot and killed. He was not armed.
Following the firefight, the non-combatants were moved to a safe location as the damaged helicopter was detonated.
The team departed the scene via helicopter to the USS Carl Vinson in the North Arabian Sea.
Aboard the USS Carl Vinson, the burial of bin Laden was done in conformance with Islamic precepts and practices. The deceased's body was washed and then placed in a white sheet. The body was placed in a weighted bag; a military officer read prepared religious remarks, which were translated into Arabic by a native speaker. After the words were complete, the body was placed on a prepared flat board, tipped up, and the deceased body eased into the sea."
24* American special forces operatives with air support fastrope into a compound at night, (at night because we have great night-vision capability and by and large the enemy does not) storm both buildings in the compound as they have been practicing at a full scale mock up across the border in Afghanistan and engage in a 'firefight" with two guys? The report states that the firefight lasted 40 minutes which is nonsense. The operation lasted 40 minutes, and I imagine most of the was gathering intelligence and destroying the downed helicopter after the shooting stopped. The shooting part of the raid lasted maybe 3-4 minutes, I honestly doubt as long. These teams can clear buildings extremely efficiently. The report says that the two couriers and woman were killed in the crossfire in the first floor of the building bin laden was in, and that bin laden was unarmed but was killed when he "resisted"
24 highly trained and heavily armed special forces operatives verses two guys in the dark with AK-47s, the unarmed target of the raid is killed, and we are celebrating like we just won the battle of the bulge all over again? I'm not saying that we should give them a "fair fight" that is not how war works, but it's hardly grounds for chest thumping and flag waving. We did the raid the way we are supposed to; with surprise and overwhelming force. What troubles me is that one of two things happened: Either our team was sent in there to execute bin Laden, or this mission was a failure.
"So what? He was a murderous thug and got what he deserved! Why do you hate America?"
I don't hate America, that is why I don't blindly believe in my country "right or wrong" It means that I speak up when my country does wrong. There were two options, dead or alive. I think bringing back bin Laden alive would have been the hardest option. It would have meant a prolonged and thorny legal question and show trial. It may have in the end been more trouble than it's worth, but would have been the right thing to do. Killing bin Laden was a clean and tidy way to solve this problem. It would have been justified if he was actually firing at our troops, as was reported early on, or had even reached for a weapon of some kind. The report states that he was unarmed but "resisted" Until someone makes clear to me how one man resisted a team of SEALs so effectively that the only option was to shoot him to death I can only believe that the team was sent there to kill him or someone screwed up.
"Killing the enemy in armed combat is not murder"
Maybe, but there are rules we are supposed to follow. We claim those rules are what separates "us" from "them" When they kill our unarmed people we call that "cowardly" and "murder" We can't pretend that this is conventional war when it suits us and terrorism when it doesn't. We say we are at war with 'them" (an extremely nebulous term that includes whoever we deem a threat) so when we kill them it is justified, but when they kill us it's "terrorism" that can't be, at least not if we want to be the nation we say we are. We've engaged in a self-perpetuating war that we have no way of ending. The death of bin laden is not the end of this war, it's just a mile stone on a path we will be traveling for the next hundred years.
-Justus
*The reported numbers of the team on the ground vary from 12-24, or two to four fire teams