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Monday, May 2, 2011

Criticism of killing bin Laden?

Ilya Somin: "The Death of Bin Laden and the Morality of Targeted Killings:"
From an international law perspective, it’s worth noting that the operation against Bin Laden is an example of targeted killing. ... In the past, such targeted killings have drawn criticism from human rights organizations and others who claim that they violate international law. ... It’s unlikely that there will be much criticism of the operation against Bin Laden.
And the only reason is that it was Democrat Barack Obama who ordered the targeted assassination. If this exact same mission had been carried out on any day between 9-11-01 and 1-19-09, the Left's fury over a targeted killing would have been immense, with full support of the media.

Update: Victor Davis Hanson thinks so, too:
It’s also easier to conduct assassinations abroad if the Commander-in-Chief is liberal. This neutralizes criticism from the media, universities, the legal community, and Hollywood. Obama the law professor can assassinate bin Laden in Pakistan, dump his body in the ocean, and with first-person emphasis boast of our brilliant mission in a way Bush the Texan could not get away with—in the same manner that killing the son of Qaddafi, and the effort to kill Qaddafi himself, are not really forbidden targeted assassinations under Obama, and in the manner that Guantánamo, tribunals, renditions, preventive detentions, Predators, wiretaps, and intercepts that so bothered Senator Obama and others are now deemed essential. This paradox is just the way it is; the media will report a liberal president’s Predator drone attack or commando hit as done with reluctance and without other viable choices. Were a conservative leader to take the same actions, he would be portrayed as a trigger-happy war-monger reveling in the violence. Thus, the street celebrations that ensued when news of bin Laden’s death broke are seen by the media as a new unity inspired by Obama. Three years ago, they would have been seen as macabre triumphalism.
Yep.

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