The Right Decisions

Death of Osama bin Laden: Phone call pointed U.S. to compound — and to ‘the pacer’

For those interested in the investigative methodology behind this raid, it involved excellent deductive reasoning and precise timing. Would not have minded being involved myself.

People who (naively) think the Seals should have arrested bin-Laden need to understand this was not a police action but a military action. Mainly these are showoffs like Michael Moore more interested in attracting attention to themselves than comprehending what to most civilians is an unimaginable series of events.

The Seals are trained to shoot first and ask questions later. Deep within another country, they had to plan for every contingency and be able to make a quick exit. They already had lost one of their two helicopters, so the risk was extremely high.

Personally, I wish he'd been put on trial too, but playing the Monday morning quarterback is a fool's choice. Any male (or female or child) who appeared to pose any threat whatsoever inside that compound was going to be shot once the President gave the order to raid it last Friday morning.

So, if you were the President of the United States, you could have issued a different order. Like -- "go in gingerly, read everyone their rights, and carefully avoid the use of force. If you are overwhelmed by resistance fighters, or if the Pakistani military shows up, I'm afraid you will be on your own. I need to maintain plausible deniability. Good luck."

It's happened in recent American history, many times.

This President took a different course. He knew what he was ordering and the risks involved. Since it occurred, rather than gloat or exploit what is arguably the most courageous political decision made by any leader in a half century, he has remained dignified and respectful of all concerned -- from the way the women and children were safeguarded during the raid, to the way bin-Laden's body was buried at sea, to the way he honored the first responders and victims' families at Ground Zero, to the way he has allowed so much classified information to be declassified and shared with the world.

For one, I'll stand with my President. A terrorist who conducted mass murder for decades is dead. He died the way thousands of innocents died -- suddenly and violently. He brought all of this on himself.

I don't know the world is a safer place as a result because the forces that propel young people in various places around the world into becoming terrorists have nothing to do with the likes of bin-Laden.

Poverty, ignorance, corruption, religious hypocrisy, exploitation and the runaway trade in instruments of violence all contribute.

But most of all, above all else, it is the hypocrisy of human beings of all ages and ethnicity who choose to use their "religions" to justify all manner of nonsense that is key here.

I despise the way people wrap themselves in the protective arms of their "God" whenever they do something they know is wrong. Cheaters, liars, betrayers --on the lower end of the scale -- and killers are all the same. Their crimes -- large or small -- cannot be forgiven except by the people they've hurt, in point of fact.

They know that inside, which is what rots their soul slowly, and that is at it should be. Some try to "wash" away their sins, often literally with water ceremonies (!) and allow wise elders to tell them that by praying they will be forgiven by "God."

Preposterous nonsense. Their only hope is to make amends with those they have harmed. That is the only way. But most criminals are cowards, and here I am clearly referring to emotional criminals as well as physical criminals. They avoid contact with their victims, again via elaborate rationalizations, which only prolongs the pain on all sides.

What they fear is telling the truth.

In the end, that is who Osama bin-Laden was, albeit on a far grander and more evil scale than the everyday emotional criminals who victimize on a one-to-one basis. Bin-Laden was nothing more than a religious hypocrite, hiding behind his warped version of Islam in order to continue rationalizing his massacre of innocents. He could never face the horror of his crimes.


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