Operation
Geronimo. In a bold coup de main special forces command (perhaps part of the Delta Force ) U.S. stormed the refuge of bin Laden in Pakistan on Sunday, killing the high leader of Al-Qaeda and an unspecified number of people and threw their bodies into the sea. All in forty minutes. If it is the Delta Force already tried it in December 2001, two months of 11-S, and only made the outbreak of the bloody battle of Tora Bora, the beginning of the war in Afghanistan.
The mission was a success in Rambo style, familiar in the world and further evidence the spectacular nature of our society. I still wonder if the White House were attending the live assault. In any case, a beaming Obama could call Bush to tell him that now was the mission accomplished.
The fact has caused a wave of intense patriotism in the U.S. and reactions found in Europe where some clap their hands and others criticize the illegality and immorality of the action. As expected. The military effectiveness of the assault is beyond doubt. Their political motivation is more difficult. But criticism can not be an outright condemnation, without qualification, that tries to exploit the crude anti-Americanism part of the review.
memory A little hurt. On June 20, 1944, in the course of Operation Valkyrie , Colonel Count von Stauffenberg placed a bomb on a couple of feet of Hitler in his Wolf's Lair in East Prussia. The bomb exploded, Hitler was unhurt. If anyone would have surely died had any objection. Failure paid with the lives of over two hundred people.
On April 24, 1980 the operation was aborted Eagle Claw (one of their names) for which a squadron of eight helicopters gringos bail to 52 U.S. citizens that the Iranian revolutionary authorities had no right whatsoever hostages at the embassy U.S. in Tehran. The result was a disaster, destroying several planes and helicopters, killed a bunch of soldiers, the Iranian hostages spread across the country to prevent another bailout, the U.S. prestige plummeted and the Reagan beat Carter elections following the consequences are in sight.
above comes to mind that the rescue operations in enemy territory or capture of a known murderer (because I assume there is no doubt that Bin Laden, like Hitler or Franco, was a murderer willing to do a hundred times what have done to him) are very risky and can have high costs in human lives or property and a high degree of risk. In fact we now know that the command of Operation Geronimo only had a 60 percent certainty of being right.
If there was possibility to catch bin Laden to the effect that had a fair trial must do so. But you can not forget that there is a war against terrorism and war tend to look like enemies. It does not take very exquisite to describe Guantanamo terrorism. And in that war situation, the speed with which the Americans have gotten rid of Osama bin Laden suspect that what they feared might testify in a public trial about his alleged activities in collaboration with the Americans in Afghanistan.
law States must act according to certain principles, or risk losing its legitimacy and, when you go against them, we must criticize, denounce and demand accountability. We have always known that the worst enemy of freedom is the state whose raison d'etre is to protect it. But criticism can not lead us to deny the differences between the rule of law and the law of crime and ignore the superiority of the former, despite its errors and crimes, on the second and, among other things, lies in the fact that this criticism can be made freely.
(The picture is a picture of David Armano under Creative Commons license ).
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