The Death of Justice?

]The Death of Justice?   

   Ossama Bin Laden.

The death of Ossama Bin laden on the 2nd of may 2011 did not fill me with the pleasure that I thought it would.   Rather it worried me.   Is it truly right that governments should think they can execute people without the due process of law?

 Bin laden was shot,  he was unarmed and could have been captured, but they chose to shoot him.   The part that worries me most is that it would seem that the vast majority of Americans highly approve of this.  Obama’s ratings have soured, even the republicans gave him a standing ovation.

America is or was seen as the champion of human rights, the law, due process, all the values we hold dear in the western world. Throughout their history they have promoted justice.   It would seem 9/11 has changed all that.  It is in fact a bloody tragedy. America has for generations championed the Geneva Convention, it expected the protection it gave, would be extended to its own soldiers in captivity.   If it was not, they branded those who failed to abide by it as heathens, barbarians.   Yet George Bush chose to tear it up.

 I happened to catch a snippet of a program on Fox news the other night where politicians were discussing Bin Laden’s death,  I was horrified at their gloating and their approval of the torture used over the years to discover Bin Laden’s where abouts.   They praised Bush for allowing this and the phrase “The means justifies the end” was used repeatedly. 

 In world war two even the Nazi generals were given its protection at the Nuremberg trials,  given legal representation and afforded every human right that they were entitled to.   Even Hitler had he lived would have been treated the same.

What are the consequences of this new justice at the end of a gun?   Well every third bit country will now see assassination of its neighbour’s leaders fair game.   It is now open season on every tin pot dictator, every leader of every regime we may disagree with. The question is “Who decides”? and “Who polices the police”?   For instance is Mugabee of Zambia not a prime candidate?   Has he not ruined a fine country and killed many millions of his own subjects?   What has been most tragically lost here is the moral high ground, it will take generations to retrieve it, if ever.

 America is using its undeniable power to create a world that it approves of, and who can stop them?   Perhaps they will not stop until there is a McDonalds on every street corner of every country in the world.   So it seems to me, Bin Laden’s execution without trial has returned America to the days of a good old lynching and its fine history of Justice has been flushed down the pan.   This would seem to me to mean the terrorists have scored a major victory and the world is a far more dangerous place.   So much for Bush’s war on ”Turr” to make the world a safer place.

Consider the alternatives; (a) Bin Laden was never captured, ok so he would have spent the rest of his pathetic life in hiding, never knowing when he might be captured. Or (b)  He was captured and given a public trial for war crimes and presumably executed.   Both these scenarios would leave America and the west in a position of moral authority and show the rest of the world that we are not prepared to prostitute our principles whatever the provocation from twisted and sick individuals.   But I for one do not wish to see a world policed by Uncle Sam simply because he has the biggest gun.

 Dr Fogg ©2011