Was Osama bin Laden’s assassination a moral and /or legal act? This question continues to engage the world’s news agencies and pundits. As the drama plays out and information emerges, leaders of Western democracies are generally seeing his death as justified.
The innovative Huffington Post looked at the question by asking a small sampling of American primary grade teachers how they decided to handle the rights or wrongs of his killing with their young charges. It was interesting to read how they attempted to provide information and process class discussions without undue indoctrination or emotion.
President Obama in a somber and non vengeful manner announced that bin Laden’s death was the end result of a firefight. This indicated that death rather than capture was the only option. He concluded with the words “… one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. May God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.” His demeanour was in contrast to the jubilation and delight of crowds across the United States.
Yet the fact remains that an unarmed man was killed in cold blood rather than captured and tried under the rule of law. Was that the lesser of two evils? Would his capture have resulted in greater retribution and terror than his killing would undoubtedly cause? Mainstream Christian leaders, Catholic and Protestant, have been cautious in their comment. While they have condemned terror and bin Laden’s atrocities, I haven’t seen one public statement from them that the killing was morally wrong. Was it?
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in dealing with the question of crime and punishment under the heading ‘Legitimate Defence’, tends to be somewhat nuanced and open to different interpretations. But it states: “If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.” (2267)
St Paul writes “Never try to get revenge; leave that my friends to God’s anger. As scripture says: Vengeance is mine – I will pay them back, the Lord promises.” (Romans 12:19)
A moral dilemma indeed.
Lyndsay Freer