This isn’t just word games or a lawyer’s quibble, Johnson described a specific situation. He described a murder. Osama bin Laden wasn’t in the act of surrendering. What occurred in 2011 was not illegal. The rule of law was not abandoned. In a military raid they had every right to shoot him.
Nobody is arguing that you cannot prefer a trial. Nobody is making an accusation from Corbyn’s doing so. It is the rest of what was said that is being compared and the rest is different from what everybody else has said.
If people really wanted to pick at Johnson’s words on this subject they would be better going after his piece of 2011. In this he says more interesting things:
This was an assassination, a liquidation, an extra-judicial killing and a termination with extreme prejudice. Whichever way you look at it, President Obama has carried out one of the most effective whack jobs ever seen, and if he doesn’t get re-elected I will be amazed.
…
In so far as President Obama has a duty to protect America and Americans, he almost certainly has the necessary legal cover, provided by Congress, to remove bin Laden from the scene by any means at his disposal, and that is what he has triumphantly done. As an argument, it is not without its difficulties. If America is to go around indulging in extra-judicial liquidation of anyone who poses a threat to American interests, then we are entitled to wonder where it will end. We may be worried that the enemies of America may be spurred to symmetrical retaliation and that we will be caught up in a cycle of killing and counter-killing.
But it is at least plausible, and emotionally convincing, to say Osama bin Laden was a clear and present danger to America; he had it coming, and the president had him killed. All I ask is that we stop pussy-footing around about “hostile acts” and accept that this was an execution.
So why don’t we all just cut the cackle and admit the groaningly obvious. It is perfectly clear why the US will not release the video footage they were all watching in the White House, and that caused Hillary to press her knuckles to her mouth. There was no firefight.
It’s a confused piece and, in parts, dead wrong.
There was a firefight:
…As he started toward the stairs, which were directly in line with the door, AK-47 rounds tore through the glass above the door, narrowly missing him. I rolled away as the bullets cracked just inches over my head.
Owen, Mark; Kevin Maurer (2012-09-04). No Easy Day: The Only First-hand Account of the Navy Seal Mission that Killed Osama bin Laden (p. 220). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
The SEALs didn’t have live helmet-cams or the like. The video feed being watched was from the drone circling overhead. According to Mark Bowden in The Finish: The Killing of Osama bin Laden it was the helicopter crash visible via the drone which was responsible for Clinton’s expression.
If as Boris says Bin Laden was posing a threat then this isn’t an ‘execution’ but a military strike on a military target and under the principle of self-defence. They can simply kill him.
That’s the general threat. There is also the idea of immediate threat which is relevant if this was not a to be considered a military action. The U.S. discussed what a reasonable course of action a suicide-bombing advocate who loves death would have to take to not be considered an immediate threat. It sounded fair to me and Bin Laden didn’t take that course of action. Therefore, the ‘pussyfooting around’ is no such thing.
Either way, Johnson did not say what Corbyn said. As confused as his second piece is he never chose to describe the killing of Bin Laden, or even his missing out on his day in court, as a tragedy comparable with the attacks of September 11th 2001. This forms the basis for a sensible guess as to why, other than hypocrisy, they were treated differently.
The Body
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s protestations were so pathetic that I was tempted to leave them where they lay. However, I think her effort serves to highlight a trait that runs through many discussions of this type. One which I describe as ‘sophistication-via-masochism’. The making a fetish, which by definition is illogical and unreasonable, of blaming the West.