Death of an evil man

I held off from commenting on Osama Bin Laden's murder that took place on Monday.  Knowing what was first reported in the early hours of Monday was never the full story proved to be right as the White House's report changed.

On Monday it was reported that after a fire fight, and with Bin Laden resisting, he was shot dead.  The event took place over 45 minutes and the whole thing was watched live by the President and his staff at the White House.  Photos of Obama and his team watching the events were released:

The story changed to there was no fire fight, Bin Laden wasn't armed, and the video of the attack went down for 20 minutes after a solder turned off the camera.  This has turned the mission, in the eyes of many, into the actions of a death squad.

All of this is a mistake of course.  If the White House simply stuck with a specific story from the beginning, perhaps even with the truth, than they will probably ride through any criticism that has come their way, criticism that has now intensified.  

What does his death mean?  It is too early to tell.  As we understand it, he has been more of a figurehead leader rather than an operational leader.  Al Qaeda's attacks themselves have waned, probably through a mixture of the fighting in Afghanistan, the targeting of the Taliban, and the heightening of internal national security in western countries.  Look below of the lists of atrocities done in the the name of Al Qaeda, and there's not much for the past six years.  Will there be reprisals?  Probably.  The one thing I can be assured of is that our security services have foiled many plots, a few that we get to hear about, and I'm many, many that we won't.  

In the meantime discussion has intensified over how Americans reacted to the news of Obama's death.  On Monday, videos of cheering crowds were shown on news networks across the world.  I neither condemn nor  condone the victory that US citizens felt.  Many thousands have lost loved ones in the 9/11 atrocity which started the war on terror, so I understand the levels of feeling that the news of Laden's death must have had.  Let's not also forget it's not just Americans who have suffered at the hands of Al Qaeda, but us here in Britain when 56 people died on 7 July 2005, the Bali bombings in October 2002 when over 200 people died, the train bombs in Madrid in March 2004 killing over 190 people, and countless others around the world.  

I have no qualms about calling Bin Laden an evil man.  He was head of an organisation that took religious text to the extremes, and such extremists I cannot abide, from whatever faith they are.  However, should he have died as he did?  The Americans at the end of World War Two insisted that the captured Nazis stood trial, despite Churchill and Stalin both complaining that the Nazis never showed compassion themselves.

But it is this very ability to rise above your enemies cruelty to show fairness, compassion and clemency, to stand by the things that democracies believe in, the very fabric of what makes nations such as the UK, the US, Spain and other such countries who we are.  The Americans understood this in 1945.  They should have understood this in 2011.