The Staggers

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Was Osama Bin Laden killed in cold blood?

Why the irregularities surrounding the al-Qaeda leader's death matter.

By Yo Zushi Published 30 August 2012 17:29

Decline and fall: the demolition of the compound where Osama Bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Credit: AFP/Getty Images

There he goes again: the Telegraph's torture apologist Con Coughlin, fresh from blaming the "foolhardy" Rachel Corrie for being crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer, has now pitched up to explain why irregularities surrounding Osama Bin Laden's death don't matter. In the new book No Easy Day, Mark Owen, a member of the Navy Seal team that killed the al-Qaeda leader, contradicts the official White House statement that Bin Laden may have been reaching for a gun when he was shot. "He hadn’t even prepared a defence. He had no intention of fighting," Owen writes.

Coughlin downplays the implications of this:

There will, of course, be those among the prosperous global human rights fraternity who will argue that Bin Laden was, in effect, killed unlawfully, and that all those, from the Navy Seals involved in the operation up to President Barack Obama himself, in his capacity as America's commander-in-chief, should face prosecution for their involvement in what amounts to an extrajudicial killing.

Well, if that's their attitude, bring it on! Given Bin Laden's well-documented involvement in acts of terrorism, they are going to have a tough time trying to find anyone to take their claim seriously.

So Coughlin's response to the suggestion that the US could have engaged in an illegal, extrajudicial killing that day in Pakistan and someone should be held accountable is that . . . er, human rights activists are "prosperous" (?), Bin Laden was a VERY BAD MAN and no one likes him anyway?

He goes on: "Bin Laden made no secret of the fact that he was waging war against the west, and as a man who personally sanctioned the mass murder of thousands of innocent people around the world, the Seal team were well within their rights not to put their own lives at risk so that Bin Laden could be taken alive."

Which begs the question: in what way would the heavily armed Seal team have been risking their lives, faced with an unarmed man in a sleeveless T-shirt? And who needs international legal protocols when we can just ask Coughlin whether the soldiers were "well within their rights" or not?

Coughlin shrugs off the suggestion that Bin Laden's death could warrant some sympathy with the hoary old saying "He who lives by the gun, dies by the gun." A few years ago, the writer Jason Burke pointed out that "every use of force is another small victory for Bin Laden": according to Burke, Bill Clinton's bombings of Sudan and Afghanistan in 1998 and Bush's later assault on Afghanistan only strengthened al-Qaeda and helped fuel Islamist anger. Burke later wrote in the Guardian that Bin Laden's death was "undoubtedly important" but I think his earlier point still stands: after all, it's not all peace and love in the Middle East.

Al-Qaeda might not be as active today as it was once perceived to have been but there are other groups looking for an excuse to see in the west an unaccountable, conquering villain. That's one reason why international law matters: if it's a war the west is fighting, it must abide by the internationally agreed rules of warfare. Drones, assassinations and the long resistance of the US to acknowledging Guantanamo Bay detainees as prisoners of war suggest a dangerous flexibility of thinking in this respect. Coughlin's exhortations to brush aside such concerns only fuels the attitude that some countries should be able to kill "in cold blood" whenever they choose to, regardless of the consequences. Daft.

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14 comments

Sat, 2012-09-01 12:11 — Stuart Eels (not verified)

Terry 7 Thank you for being sane, reading most of the article and comments, I thought that I was dreaming. The bloke was a fanatic who danced with joy as thousands were butchered in his name. I did a little dance when I heard the Yanks had done for him.

Hikarv 22, what they should have done was publish the pictures for us all to have had a good laugh!

Mr Danger go away to your dark corner.

Fri, 2012-08-31 11:26 — AAMVN (not verified)

It was I'm sure inevitable that OBL would be killed if apprehended. The US hasn't got the courage to put him on trial - lest they be seen as having made him what he was in one way or another.

I've been struck more and more lately by how craven and cowardly has been the US conduct of it's war on terror. They refused to risk the lives of their soldiers but killed thousands of civilians in a heartbeart and without remorse. They hired some of the worst regimes on the planet to do their dirty work. And still it goes on under Obama.

It wasn't 'brave' to kill OBL - it would have been brave to apprehend him and put him on trial.

Fri, 2012-08-31 10:48 — Terry7

Dear Yo Zushi,
Whilst I do not condone in any way extra-judicial killings, far form it, why the big problem over the death of this mass murderer?
Did he not cause the death of thousands and threaten to kill thousands more?
In what way were the US special forces supposed to treat him otherwise? Bring him back for trial and make him a living martyr to nutcases around the world who would have sought, as they often do anyway, to mimic his murderous activity?
What of the safety of those soldiers themselves, why should they put themselves in even greater danger by trying to take him alive, and that from deep inside (no surprise I have to say!) Pakistani territory, holed up as he was in a safe compound yards away from the Pakistani military's main training base, effectively their own 'Sandhurst'?
So sorry Yo Sushi, but really there is no point to this at all. I have no doubt that had it been Britain's own SAS involved then they would have dispatched him likewise. They too should not have to increase the already enormous risk to their own lives simply to satisfy the liberal hand-wringing of people safely ensconsed in the societies that a killer like bin Laden sought to destroy. And I would back them all the way too.
I re-stresss that I do not stand up for extra-judicial killings in anyway, but Pakistan was either implicated from the top, or at least some seriously influencial players within it were, and could not be trusted.
Surely there never was a clearer case of simple justice being done, of someone who had visited death, destruction, loss and grief on so many finally getting what he deserved. Given the very unique, dangerous and special circumstances, that was summary execution no doubt, and he and nobody else can have any complaints in the matter.

Fri, 2012-08-31 12:30 — Yo Zushi

I can't agree with you there. I guess they avoided making Bin Laden a "living martyr" - instead, they made him the bog-standard dead martyr. By subverting conventional forms of justice, I'm sure the US military only confirmed its arrogance in the eyes of the Middle East. And its decision to trounce Pakistani sovereignty was dubious to say the least. Bin Laden was a nasty piece of work but to meet his kind of illegal killing with what also looks like illegal killing is a strange way to go about defusing the situation.

Fri, 2012-08-31 08:13 — Joey McJoe Joe (not verified)

Torture, executions, random mass murder of groups of civilians, spying and hacking - and these are the good guys.

Oh boy.

Fri, 2012-08-31 06:45 — BlueDay (not verified)

No. He died of natural causes years some years ago.

Fri, 2012-08-31 00:17 — GeroNemo (not verified)

Not killed in cold blood........actually in hot boiling blood....ours

Thu, 2012-08-30 22:17 — John Cheese (not verified)

Hmm, drones & now Osama, what's a libby to do with the Messiah? Tough call... hey hickey, no osama lama pix were on the internet, except maybe some fake ones. Try a new theory.

Thu, 2012-08-30 20:56 — Hikaru22

In my view, not only was Osama Bin Laden shot in cold blood, but - and this I found particularly offensive - images of his mutilated corpse were then broadcast indiscriminately across the internet, no doubt by the Americans.

There was then the matter of his body being (allegedly) "bagged up" and thrown out of a helicopter into the sea. I have also heard American intelligence officers, in television interviews, attempting to besmirch and belittle his manhood. And today, there is a news report of some American SEAL or other, boasting that he sat on top of Bin Laden's corpse after he had been shot to death.

I am not a Muslim myself, but it strikes me that all of the behaviour listed above has been intended to deliver the deepest possible insult to Muslims around the world. And I find that contemptible.

Thu, 2012-08-30 20:04 — FunInABox (not verified)

"there are other groups looking for an excuse to see in the west an unaccountable, conquering villain. That's one reason why international law matters"

A common fallacy in certain quarters. It wouldn't matter what the west did, those who want to find an excuse for their actions always will. All the Pakistani & Afghani taliban need a bullet in the back of the neck.

Thu, 2012-08-30 19:52 — Mr Danger

"there are other groups looking for an excuse to see in the west an unaccountable, conquering villain"

Other groups think the US is controlled by a global cabal of zionist, or that the CIA bombed the towers, or that god personally wants them to bring East Timor back into Indonesia. I'm not quite sure which terrorist groups are active because the guantanamo detainees are going to tried under military courts instead of civilian courts, or because of email snooping.