Sonnet

[avevale_intelligencer]

This is no victory. A man is dead.
One man it took almost ten years to kill.
And now a host of men will rise to fill
His shoes, and lead the grand crusade he led.
Will they be white, or brown, or black, or red,
Or green? Who knows? But come they surely will,
And we will never know their names until
By some new outrage we are bruised and bled.
To kill is nothing; he could kill, and did.
It did not change our minds, except to make
Us ever keener strangers' lives to take,
And this he saw, and gloated where he hid.
Nothing is gained; the war, unchecked, goes on;
If we had changed his mind, we would have won.

Comments

[melodyclark.livejournal.com]

We would never have changed his mind, Zan. Ever.

The man murdered thousands of people, Muslim, Christian, atheist, American, British, Pakistani, etc, etc. Would I have preferred he be arrested and brought up on charges? Absolutely. But that would have caused even greater danger for innocent people. It would have made anywhere holding him a target. It would have set the world on fire. The people who risked their lives to get him would have had their jobs become immeasurably more dangerous if they were to seize him rather than kill him. And yes, this is a victory, if a small one, which will demoralize al Qaeda. It also gives comfort to the victims of 9/11.

I'm absolutely against the death penalty, but if I have to choose between the deaths of innocent people and a monster, the monster will get the death sentence every time. It's a monster the Bush crime family (and its US and Europeans assistants) created. I didn't cry when Bundy and Gacy were executed, and this man was far worse than those two put together.

Intellectually, I know what I should feel. Emotionally, I simply don't. I'm glad he's dead. It may not make people think lofty things of me, but it is my truth.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I respect your truth.

Mine is that nobody is beyond the reach of change or the chance of redemption; though it may be impossible to achieve, and the practical, pragmatic thing to do may be to kill them, let it never become automatic, a mere reflex. The desired end of this conflict, the desired end of every conflict, must be the achievement of understanding between the opposing sides; the other kind of ending, the extermination of one side by the other, is unconscionable. And that is why, to me, a death like this is as much a defeat as a victory.

And while I would really like this action to demoralise al-Qaeda, and fill them with the sudden urge to take up cross-stitch or the euphonium instead, I think it will merely fill them with righteous zeal and renewed hatred, just as the death of a comparable figure on our side would not demoralise us, but would inspire us to fight on.

It seems to me that the idea that a defeat would demoralise the other side (but not us) depends on the notion that they are on some level aware of being in the wrong, that they have doubts which might undermine their morale. Like Sauron's orcs, running hither and thither aimlessly when the Dark Tower fell, because deep down they knew they were Bad.

I don't know about this personally, but I see no reason to doubt that the people of al-Qaeda believe in the rightness of their cause as surely as we do, and certainly they believe that force is justified in the pursuit of their goal. And by fighting back (not that we have any other option that I can see) we confirm them in that belief. And that's the belief that, if we are ever to see an end to this violence, we have to change.

[melodyclark.livejournal.com]

Zan, these people are sociopaths. Due to various factors in this country, including our mere size, we have a lot of sociopaths, a couple of recent ones who were President in the last 30 years. You cannot convince a sociopath of anything that is not in his or her best interest. They do not react to reason. They do not respond to compassion. They view compassion as a weakness. They are emotionally about three years of age. Any psychiatrist will tell you sociopathy is incurable.

The young, ignorant people they influence (just like the old, ignorant Tea Party people) follow after them because they don't think for themselves. Sociopaths have always made good use of the ignorant. Whether they promise them wealth and status, or virgins in paradise, it's the same con.

Humans are primates. If you try to talk reason to a chimpanzee, the most intelligent chimp will just throw feces at you.

Sorry, I have no lofty hopes for humankind. I embrace logical approaches to everything, but I'm not about to weep on principle for this monster. I'll save my grief for his countless innocent victims.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Then (till that "incurable" goes the way of so many others) it's their followers whose minds we must change, and since sociopaths are so often plausible, charismatic, articulate and even attractive, we have our work cut out. But not thinking for oneself is not incurable, and nor is ignorance. Change is possible. You and I both know that.

I'm not suggesting, have never suggested, that this man in himself is worth a single tear. But if the consequences of his death are as I've speculated, then more grief may be the result.

[melodyclark.livejournal.com]

We didn't kill his followers -- they killed themselves. The government went after bin Laden and his first line guards (including his son).

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

...and I've seen it argued that, once they had his location, the fact that they actually bothered to send in people with guns rather than just dropping a missile through his window indicates they were at least making some effort to take him alive if possible. Hard to evaluate that argument properly without knowing the details of the situation, but it's enough for me not to go around assuming they went straight for the kill.

I'm more concerned about what happened afterwards. Why has he been buried at sea so swiftly? Makes it kind of hard for skeptical people to check whether it really was him...

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

As I said on FB, I won't celebrate the death of any man. But neither will I mourn this one.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

"the practical, pragmatic thing to do may be to kill them, let it never become automatic, a mere reflex"

This, in my opinion, is the point. Killing may be necessary (else-LJ I referred to a "rabid dog") but it must not be allowed to get to the stage where it is the first resort. This is hard because it's easy to kill, any problem greeted with "shoot 'im", whereas negotiation is often longer and harder (in the short term).

Also as I said else-LJ I agree with your point earlier in the sonnet that doing this will, I feel, make him a martyr and far from dissuading his followers will give them more reason to escalate.

But as for changing him (or any of the other warmongers), I fear that it's a lost cause. You are no more likely to persuade him than you are to change the Pope to an atheist (indeed, I could imagine the latter more easily). But I think that there was no need, he was already slipping into obscurity and only the western media keeping him visible, much like people who are 'celebrities' only because the media treat them as such.

[melodyclark.livejournal.com]

He was behind a thwarted attack only a year ago. He'd have been arrested and tried had he not been protected by Pakistan.

Also, mass-murder doesn't have a time limit for prosecution. Prosecution would have made him into a martyr. In this way, the special forces were safer and this monster was consigned to the fish food pools of history.

[batyatoon]

That last line is so powerful.

I don't think we could have changed his mind. This is the best we could do, and I think it was right that we did it, but that's not the same thing as good.

I can accept satisfaction. Not celebration.

[meritmaat.livejournal.com]

Amen.