And to just kill him, that took 10 years.

If I was wrongly suspected by the entire world for masterminding an attack that killed multiple thousand people, had the world’s greatest superpower declare me their #1 target, and had to hide out for nearly 10 years with the worry that a Predator drone or a Navy SEAL would end my time on earth, I think I’d be working very hard to protest my innocence.

That OBL never once denounced his accused involvement in the attacks tells me one of two things:

1) That he was responsible and he wanted the world to believe he was responsible.
2) That he wasn’t responsible but he wanted the prestige in the jihadi world that would come with credit for the attack.

If it was the latter, well, that’s a pretty f’ing dangerous bluff, and SEAL Team 6 called him on it.

Also, there’s this. :)

I think those cheering on 9/11 would argue that they were cheering for the strategic damage — which happened to be economic and psychological in nature since they obviously can’t win a pitched battle — that they had inflicted upon their enemy. With such a perspective in mind, they would argue that the deaths of the non-combatants were “sad consequence of war.”

I can see a point if you consider OBL and the WTC to both be “symbolic” targets in a wider struggle. That perhaps the destruction of the WTC was the primary goal as a psychological blow against America.

But I still think that the result is a dangerous and inappropriate collectivization of guilt.

Bottom line: American bombs would not be dropping on other countries on such a regular basis were it not for the ideological and financial support that the American public gives both implicitly and explicitly for such attacks. How can we honestly be outraged when our puny enemies decide it makes more sense to attack the lion from behind rather than charging right into its fangs??

Understood. And asymmetric warfare — as a tactic — makes sense when you’re a poorly-financed ideological group fighting a far superior war machine. But we’re not talking about the validity of the tactic here, we’re talking about whether regular citizens cheering OBL’s death are morally equivalent to regular citizens cheering non-combatants’ death.

But again, the “implicit support” we give is merely living in a nation because it makes sense for reasons COMPLETELY UNRELATED to our foreign policy, and paying taxes because they’ll throw us in jail if we don’t. To say that I’m complicit in support for our shitty government merely because I haven’t moved somewhere else with a shitty government is logically invalid.

Where would I move? Canada? Last I checked, they’re fighting in the Middle East. Britain? Last I checked, so are they. Australia? They’ve been part of the coalition over time. Not to mention that all three countries have domestic policies that I also highly disagree with. And also not to mention that moving to one of those countries would force me likely to choose between remaining married and living in the same country as my children, because my wife is emotionally tied to her family here. Believe me, if the choice is between the government of the country I live in bombing a foreign country and me pissing off my wife, I know which one hurts me more!

Thanks to both of you for writing such a thought provoking Point/Counterpoint. These issues you are debating raise some very good moral, ethical, and philosophical questions that go way beyond the jovial response by many Americans in response to the killing of Bin Laden.

The most basic question: to what extent are we responsible for the actions of our governments? (examples: How responsible were the German people for the Holocaust?)

That question leads me to yet another: are people who democratically elect their governments somehow more responsible for the actions of their governments?

As Americans, many of us are very inconsistent on these questions. I’ve heard argued that there really were no innocent people killed in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki because the Japanese people “fully and actively supported” their emperor (I have no idea how these people know how exactly each and every Japanese person felt about their emperor). Yet when it comes to the misdeeds and even outright atrocities of our government (past and present), many “patriotic” Americans rationalize (“Those Indians were nomadic anyway; they didn’t really want to keep their land or become part of our culture.”) and call anyone who would question these actions as “anti-American” or “unpatriotic” (“If you don’t like America, why don’t you move to Iran” or some such nonsense). And how dare anyone even make a suggestion that 9/11 may have somehow been a result of U.S. foreign policy in any way.

Note that very few Americans *cheer for* collateral damage. Many view it as a sad consequence of war, but don’t actively cheer for it. Those who cheered for the deaths at the WTC on 9/11, however, *were* cheering for the deaths of non-combatants.

I think those cheering on 9/11 would argue that they were cheering for the strategic damage — which happened to be economic and psychological in nature since they obviously can’t win a pitched battle — that they had inflicted upon their enemy. With such a perspective in mind, they would argue that the deaths of the non-combatants were “sad consequence of war.”

You can make the claim that since we’re a democracy, there’s no such thing as a non-combatant, but I believe that to be a flawed argument for all the reasons I stated above.

I’ll address the “democratic combatant” argument later, but there’s another aspect to my original argument that I must have inadvertently edited out. We’re responsible for our government’s actions not only because we vote for the actors, but also because we fund their actions. Our enemies can rationalize any large industry as “part of our war machine” in the same way one would rationalize an attack on fuel refineries. If there was ever any doubt about it, the economic turmoil of the last few years has demonstrated that complex financial services are an important part of our economy and thus, our ability to fund and wage war. Thus, it could easily be argued that employees of financial services firms give “material support” to our war efforts.

Again, I’d like to make it very clear, before some idiot says otherwise, that I don’t condone ANY of the violence. I just find it ludicrous that we assume we civilians aren’t part of the war effort. In fact, it reminds me a lot of how the British were flabbergasted when we sniped at officers and ambushed supply chains during the revolution. “That was not how ‘gentlemen’ fought, damnit!” As if there’s a “gentlemanly” way to kill masses of men!

Bottom line: American bombs would not be dropping on other countries on such a regular basis were it not for the ideological and financial support that the American public gives both implicitly and explicitly for such attacks. How can we honestly be outraged when our puny enemies decide it makes more sense to attack the lion from behind rather than charging right into its fangs??

I suppose all the northern abolitionists were responsible for slavery as well, right?

What’s your point? That the 9/11 victims weren’t innocent? Or that cheering for the death of someone who is an outspoken and avowed enemy and who has essentially taken credit for killing innocent people is morally equivalent to cheering for the deaths of innocents?

Note that very few Americans *cheer for* collateral damage. Many view it as a sad consequence of war, but don’t actively cheer for it. Those who cheered for the deaths at the WTC on 9/11, however, *were* cheering for the deaths of non-combatants.

You can make the claim that since we’re a democracy, there’s no such thing as a non-combatant, but I believe that to be a flawed argument for all the reasons I stated above.