Was Bin Laden's Killing a Reason to Celebrate? by Dr. Ray Perkins

Was Bin Laden’s Killing a Reason to Celebrate?

by Dr. Raymond Perkins

May 6, 2011

There are a number of points to consider here which strongly suggest that it was not. 

I’ll get to those in a minute, but let’s look at the main arguments in favor. There seem to be two: 

1. The killing of bin Laden, the monstrous mass murderer of 9/11, is justice done on behalf of those  thousands of victims and their relatives who now feel better for the closure it brings.

I don’t doubt there’s some truth here. Many do feel better. And that is a good thing. But  it’s hard to see that this feeling is anything more than a satisfying feeling of revenge which, though sweet, may be illusory, both because it may not last and because it may not be true justice. Bin Laden’s death can not undue the suffering and loss that his actions unleashed, and as some have already said, can’t bring any meaningful closure to the losses felt so intensely by so many.

2. A vicious mass murderer is dead and will not be able to murder again, thus making the world safer.

It’s true that bin Laden won’t be around to do any evil.  But he is now, in the eyes of many, a martyr, and that may not be conducive to a safer world. Surely history has taught us that revenge and violence breed more revenge and violence. And a nuclear device detonated in Manhattan on behalf of bin Laden, although unthinkable for rational folk, might be a determined goal for some practitioners of revenge.

This unpleasant possibility—not new, but perhaps with probability recently raised—is, as I see it, still the most pressing problem of our time. I’m talking, of course, about the threat of weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons—a threat to all of us, and even to the continued existence of our species.  

The way out of this nuclear predicament, if there is one, is surely going to require a kinder gentler world where human rights are respected and protected and where conflict, especially conflict between nations, can be resolved without resort to war. Such a world would be one in which nuclear weapons would be abolished, and general disarmament as required in Art VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (1970) and outlined in the McCloy-Zorin Agreement of 1961. But of course, as Albert Einstein and Bertrand  Russell made clear in their 1955 Manifesto, disarmament will not be enough. Small wars can expand, and forbidden weapons can be rebuilt as  potential losers scramble to avoid defeat. War itself must be abolished both in the sense of being illegal and in the sense of being unthinkable and unnecessary as a means of conflict resolution between human groups and nations.

This is an awesome challenge which will require that the majors powers, and especially the US, lead in the direction of some sort of world governance, i.e. a coherent supranational network of democratic institutions to make, adjudicate and enforce international law.

In recent years the seriousness of our situation has been seen and movement initiated by numerous world statesman, including some former US coldwarriors such as Secretaries of State/ Defense Henry Kissinger, Robert McNamara, Paul Nitze, Colin Powell, and George Shultz. They have not been talking explicitly about world governance, but they have been talking about the need for, and the feasibility of, global nuclear disarmament. President Obama has endorsed the concept and publically advocated it. This is very encouraging stuff even if the promise has lain nearly lifeless since the ratification of the NNPT (1970).

 

And this brings us back to bin Laden’s recent killing. All the facts are not yet in. But it smacks of yet more international vigilantism. It was, like the ferocious assaults on Afghanistan and Iraq , a prima facie illegal use of force with little regard for due process and international law. (Is not Pakistan a sovereign nation? Are not suspected criminals entitled to trial?). By what authority—other than our own unilateral sense of national interest—was bin Laden deemed guilty of crimes and shot dead? Even if no US laws had been broken, and they almost certainly were, can such unilateral use of national force be taken as a model for all nations? I think not. Indeed, it’s a formula for precisely the sort of national behavior that makes the abolition of war near impossible and makes a travesty of our hopes for averting what Einstein once called the “unparalleled catastrophe.” And that’s nothing to celebrate.