Consider the following scenario. A group of IRA terrorists carry out a bombing raid in London. People are killed and wounded. The group escapes, first to Ireland, then to the United States, where they disappear into the sympathetic hinterland of a country where IRA leaders have in the past been welcomed at the White House. Britain cannot extradite them, because of the gross imbalance of the relevant treaty. So far, this is not far from the truth.
But now imagine that the British government, seeing the murderers escape justice, sends an aircraft carrier (always supposing we’ve still got any) to the Nova Scotia coast. From there, unannounced, two helicopters fly in under the radar to the Boston suburb where the terrorists are holed up. They carry out a daring raid, killing the (unarmed) leaders and making their escape. Westminster celebrates; Washington is furious.
What’s the difference between this and the recent events in Pakistan? Answer: American exceptionalism. America is allowed to do it, but the rest of us are not. By what right? Who says?…
I have to disagree with both the ABC and the more highly respectable N.T. Wright. Justice was done and regardless of how or what was done, the Islamic world’s actions would be consistent with their ideology. Like so many, they unfortunately blame the US for the evil actions of terrorists. How did the proper trial help the US in Iraq? We arrested him and gave him a trial. We still face terror and hideos killings there. We killed OBL and avoided the insanity of his arrest, imprisonment and trial. The fictious accounts offered by Bp Wright are irrelevant here. We have the reality and it is what it is. Justice was done. The ABC judges the actions based on numerable inconsistent accounts. Shouldn’t he hold judgment until the truth is known?
I take it +Wright is a conscientious objector. ++RW, in my view, was more balanced and said it better, even though he takes no pleasure in this sort of thing; for that matter, neither do I:
“I don’t know the full details anymore than anyone else does but I do believe that in such circumstance when we are faced with someone who was manifestly a ‘war criminal’ as you might say in terms of the atrocities inflicted, it is important that justice is seen to be observed”.
Call me whatever you want, but I doubt I’d give any “war criminal” the chance to pull a weapon out from under a bed and arm himself prior to my pulling my own trigger.
Just after America went into Afghanistan I was deer stalking on a friend’s estate in western Scotland. All the people in the party were English, naturally. At dinner one night all the guys started teasing me about the US’s invasion of Afghanistan, calling it adventurism and so forth. I pointed out that is rather RICH for any British people to say anything about America doing stuff like that since THEY did it first, and FAR more often in history, and that the only reason they weren’t doing it still is because they were no longer powerful enough to get away with it. Tom Wright, bless his little heart, thinks too much, and he for some reason identifies his thoughts with reality. Considering the history of the British Empire, one might think that the good bishop would have the sense to keep himself from looking like a hypocrite, unless, that is, he wants to also condemn just about each and every thing his own nation ever did. As I told my friends, “What’s the use of being the richest and most powerful nation in the world if you can’t do what you think is best?”
Especially when by doing so, you do it for the benefit of the rest of the world; in this case, the clearly justified execution of the mastermind behind mass murder on a grand scale. Would we have been no less justified if we had engineered the execution of Adolf Hitler? Hardly!
[blockquote]But it legitimizes a form of vigilantism, of taking the law into one’s own hands, which provides ‘justice’ only of the crudest sort.[/blockquote]Would the good bishop also condemn Bonhoeffer for plotting to assassinate Hitler?
It’s may be worth engaging with what he says. (FWLIW I imagine Bishop Tom is at least, if not more, critical of the actions of the British Government criticized above).
An alternative view would be to argue that OBL was an enemy combatant. Respecting national sovereignty has a very significant ethical value but it is not an absolute. There may be occasions in which it is overridden – the actions taken in Kosovo being a recent example – in order to protect the innocent. Enemy combatants may be killed, if the conflict is just, and there is no reasonable alternative.
Try as he might Dr. Wright did not come close to creating a hypothetical scenario wherein their is an equivalence between the US and Pakistan. In order for that to be the case there would have to be active aid being provided to these hypothetical IRA terrorists by the CIA and a safe house provided, not in Boston but in the shadow of either the Pentagon or West Point. I think that strains credulity a bit.
All of which said he does make a point which I think we need to be careful about. And that is that we can not preach respect for the rule of law to the world if we blithely ignore it ourselves. “Justice” is a rather nebulous term. Like beauty it is very much an “in the eye of the beholder” object. No doubt Bin Laden went to his watery grave believing he had acted justly.
In so far as I can tell I believe we acted lawfully, though I concede the violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty. While regrettable it was necessitated by the very real danger that OBL would be warned and allowed to escape by those harboring him if we had given any warning. If in some bizarre twist of reality we ever did arrive at a point of relative equivalence between the US and Pakistan then Britain would be justified in sending its commandos in to handle the situation. Though I hasten to add that as Mr. Wright himself alluded to, Britain is dismantling its navy with great speed and has no aircraft carriers.
Bishop Tom says:
[blockquote]Perhaps the myth was necessary in the days of the Wild West, of isolated frontier towns and roaming gangs. But it legitimizes a form of vigilantism, of taking the law into one’s own hands, which provides ‘justice’ only of the crudest sort. In the present case, the ‘hero’ fired a lot of stray bullets in Iraq and Afghanistan before he got it right. What’s more, such actions invite retaliation. They only ‘work’ because the hero can shoot better than the villain; but the villain’s friends may decide on vengeance. Proper justice is designed precisely to outflank such escalation.
Of course, ‘proper justice’ is hard to come by internationally. America regularly casts the UN (and the International Criminal Court) as the hapless sheriff, and so continues to play the world’s undercover policeman. The UK has gone along for the ride. What will we do when new superpowers arise and try the same trick on us? And what has any of this to do with something most Americans also believe, that the God of ultimate justice and truth was fully and finally revealed in the crucified Jesus of Nazareth, who taught people to love their enemies, and warned that those who take the sword will perish by the sword?[/blockquote]
I have to agree with Bishop Wright that there are problems with justifying this sort of action in terms of both international law, and the sovereign rights of nations; if everyone did this then where would we be?
Exceptionalism may work for the US, but what works for the rest of our nations who are not superpowers? The reality is that international law is there to reduce the possibility of international conflict by sanctioning those who do not observe the rules – when Libya massacres its own people; when Iraq invades Kuwait; or when Indonesia invades East Timor. There are a clear set of laws to which everyone, including the offenders can refer; and even those who from self-interest are opposed to intervention to deal with the offenders, will perhaps because of those laws, agree to abstain rather than vote against the action necessary to redress the breach of international law which has occured.
Nevertheless, there are occassions when things have broken down to such a degree in the international instruments, or there is an overriding imperitive, such as an international criminal and terrorist who has positioned himself somewhere where he believes he is immune, where action such as the US has undertaken may be justified. Such cases are the exception, where the international danger is so great that action, whatever the inadequacies of the international system is justified. Such actions may be in cases where for example a belligerent state is developing nuclear weapons and long range rockets, is harboring terrorists or terrorist training camps, or is acting illegally or in breach of international law to cut off water or resources flowing to neighboring countries. In such cases other factors come into play: the right to act to prevent genocide; the right to self defence, including the right to enter sovereign states who willfully or through weakness are incapable of stopping those activities on their land.
I believe that the US action against Osama bin Laden fell into this category. Yes, there was a breach of a country’s sovereignty; no that country was not asked or told beforehand because it had previously leaked information about anti-terrorist operations to the terrorists; and yes, there will be fallout in some radicalisation of friends of Islamists and outrage among Pakistanis. But a judgment has been made by the US that the danger of a free Osama bin Laden outweighs all these factors as the continuing mastermind and head of a global terrorist grouping who have murdered and destroyed on an unprecedented scale. Pakistan was unwilling or unable to deal with the problem it had in its midst, and so the US did it for Pakistan, and for the rest of us.
All this is pertinent today in the UK, on the eve of the release of the inquest report into the deaths of 52 people in the Al Qu’ada London bombings of 7/7 2005.
Both Bishop Tom and Dr Williams need to have regard to the conflicts of rights and duties in this case which led to US action, and that the legal advice to both the US and UK governments has been that this action was legal, notwithstanding that the prosecution of one right under international law, was at the expense of others’ rights under international law: the right to self defense of many many countries as opposed to the right to sovereignty of one state.
We must be grateful that the hero rode into town.
Re # 2
Senior Priest
Britain’s empire did not fall because they were weak. It fell because, like all great empires (including ours) they got overextended and forgot that no one nation can do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, wherever it wants, all the time without eventual consequences. Dr. Wright is wrong in his opinion on the legality of our actions. He seems to believe that a dangerous criminal need only jump to a sympathetic jurisdiction to avoid arrest or prosecution. But his naive grasp of the law does not extend to history or his judgments about American exceptionalism.
This country has some serious problems, starting with its ego. Bin Laden was without doubt a monster. But he was in part a monster of our creation (a point we overlook at our peril). America is today where Britain was a century ago, and before that Germany, France, Spain, Russia in more recent times… the list goes on. And we are behaving in alarmingly similar ways.
Think about it. Here we are a nation that emerged from World War II as THE superpower. And now six decades later we are bankrupt, fighting at least three wars, cutting taxes (mostly for the very wealthy) and printing paper money like it is going out of style.
As an historian I can tell you I have seen this movie before, and I know how its gong to end.
Two additional thoughts:
1. Christians have often considered protecting the innocent to be one of the responsibilities of the state and thus one of the reasons for which force might be used (though of course all reasonable alternatives will also demand to be considered). As always in human affairs, this is capable of being undermined by self deceit but IMO it is worth seriously considering whether such an account may rightly be given of recent events.
2. Pacifism has IMO an honorable place in the Christian community. If Bishop Tom is a pacifist then of course he will disagree with the death of even enemy combatants. If he is a pacifist, I surely respect his views, even as I disagree with them.
Security Council Resolution 1368 (2001), 12 September 2001
The Security Council,
Reaffirming the principles and purposes of the Charter of the United Nations,
Determined to combat by all means threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts,
Recognizing the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence in accordance with the Charter,
1. Unequivocally condemns in the strongest terms the horrifying terrorist attacks which took place on 11 September 2001 in New York, Washington (D.C.) and Pennsylvania and regards such acts, like any act of international terrorism, as a threat to international peace and security;
2. Expresses its deepest sympathy and condolences to the victims and their families and to the People and Government of the United States of America;
3. Calls on all States to work together urgently [i]to bring to justice the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of these terrorist attacks and stresses that those responsible for aiding, supporting or harbouring the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of these acts will be held accountable;[/i]
4. Calls also on the international community to redouble their efforts to prevent and suppress terrorist acts including by increased cooperation and full implementation of the relevant international anti-terrorist conventions and Security Council resolutions, in particular resolution 1269 of 19 October 1999;
5. Expresses its readiness to take all necessary steps to respond to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, and to combat all forms of terrorism, in accordance with its responsibilities under the Charter of the United Nations;
6. Decides to remain seized of the matter.
(City University London
http://www.staff.city.ac.uk/p.willet…OR/SC-1368.HTM )
{emphasis added}
Hmmm, UN approved American exceptionalism?
While the US action may give some pause, the nature of the conflict that we (the world) and the US are engaged in has changed. Call it unconventional warfare, asymmetrical conflict, whatever…the enemy we does not abide by conventional rules of warfare…the Geneva Convention does not apply. Al-Qaeda does not recognize any rules we follow, they wear no recognized uniform of any nation. The battlefield is no longer a defined patch of ground with front lines, it’s wherever the enemy decides to strike; Trafalgar Square, Times Square, or Ground Zero. As such we (the US and the world) need to pursue the enemy wherever they may be found. I really do not care that Pakistan is upset…this is a country that gives tacit approval of executing muslims who convert to Christianity. The one man who started this war that we currently engaged in is dead. Do we really need to be reminded that Europe’s refusal to recognize the evil that was Hitler resulted in the deaths of over 50 million people?
1. Personally speaking, I would have zero problem with British commandos taking out IRA murderers in Boston. It is to our government’s shame that we ever harbored them.
2. This article seems more of an opportunity for +Wright to vent his spleen (again) against the United States than to offer any kind of Christian or scholarly insight.
3. Wright, tellingly, does not address the question of whether this action meets the biblical criteria for the use of the sword–he simply emotes and opines.
4. His “masked man” analogy is a particularly poor illustration. The UN is not the world “sherrif” despite its pretensions. And even if it were, the UN recognized in 2001 that a nation attacked by terrorists has the right of self defense and the right to exercise its own power in bringing the attackers to justice as defined by the attacked nation’s own standards.
5. When other nations take action againsts terrorists–Israelis at Entebbe for example–most Americans are quite happy and supportive and wish that all nations would be so vigilant. Americans are not “exceptionalists” in that regard.
Overall a very very poor showing for such a smart man.
Although I respect Rev. Wright’s religious tomes, this missive of his
indicates he has a shallow, rather cartoonish, view of
America.
Further to my #8 there is an interesting article on the legal issues just published in the WSJ here which is on pretty much the same lines as my comment.
There is an Australian view here and in the UK there was an interesting discussion this morning here.
Again FWLIW I think the ABC’s comments are appropriately much more cautious. He states his lack of knowledge and is only clear on his desire that “justice be seen to be done” to one he describes as a “war criminal”.
There is another interesting discussion involving the CIA’s former assistant general counsel, John Radsan and the UK’s former attorney general, Lord Goldsmith here
Full agreement with #13, among others.
Given Bishop Tom’s imagined scenario of British Commandos swooping on IRA terrorists in Boston, it might be worth mentioning that the British Government did actually find itself embroiled in a slightly similar controversy over the killing of 3 unarmed IRA terrorists in Gibraltar in 1988. The IRA terrorist cell was killed by SAS service personnel who argued that they reasonably thought the IRA cell were about the explode a car bomb. The action found wide support in the UK Parliament and an inquest in Gibraltar found that the killings were “lawful”. However the European Court of Human Rights ruled in 1995, in a close decision, that the action had breached Article 2 (right to life) of the European Convention on Human Rights. The British Government has never prosecuted anyone involved in the killings.
#13,1: Absolutely on target, and that this is so, it makes Wright’s rhetorical question rebound upon its source – a common enough reaction to those who ask rhetorical questions carelessly. Wright’s argument is merely simple minded, the response ofd someone who has bitten off more than he can chew. Larry
NT Wright – wrong on justification; wrong on American exceptionalism. Not surprising…
There is no difference whatsoever. Way to go, Mr. Wright. Make them squirm!
#9 Ad Orientem, I agree with your assessment.
Our country is in deep trouble if it can’t consider that we’re not always right, we don’t always operate out of a sense of true justice, and that Americans aren’t specially entitled to a certain standard of living.
You nailed it, Teatime!
We killed his tail, did it in another country, fed him to the guppies, and all the while making other countries jealous. Nothing to see here. Please move on now while we bust another 50 plot lines devised to lead this great nation to a premature demise. Peace out, terrorists!
Very good points made in particular by Ad Orientem at #9, DW Stroud at #11 and Matt Kennedy at #13.
There are a lot of assumptions being made in the press. Many newspaper reports assume it was an “assassination”. I suspect it was, but the fact is we don’t know. We don’t know much at all. Many of the details given at different times are contradictory, and even where they are not, they do not always make sense (to give one example, I find it very difficult to believe that the Pakistani military were not informed of this operation beforehand. How else to explain their failure to react when strange helicopters flew into their airspace, and then men began shooting, in a military town, and yet virtually no reaction?! One suspects that the Pakistanis, under continual pressure, finally decided to “shop” OBL to the Americans, on condition that they maintain the fiction that Islamabad knew nothing about the kill operation. But I digress…)
Even if it was an assassination, I don’t have a problem with it: If Osama Bin Laden had been taken alive, I think supporters of Al Qaida would have taken many hostages (i.e. thousands) in an attempt to get him released. It wouldn’t have worked, but the human toll in the meantime would have been very high. Better to go in, mallet him, grab the computers and other intel, then go after the rest of them.
#12 LeightonC is also correct – this is a different kind of warfare. The US was as respectful and civilized as possible under the circumstances. But this was a mass murderer, not the kid who robbed the local convenience store. Moreover, Pakistan has lost credibility in that they have allowed their nation to become one huge safehouse and training camp for terrorists and one that persecutes Christians with impunity. They should receive no more money or arms from the US…nor should any other such rabid muslim sharia regime.
MichaelA is spot on with this:
” If Osama Bin Laden had been taken alive, I think supporters of Al Qaida would have taken many hostages (i.e. thousands) in an attempt to get him released. It wouldn’t have worked, but the human toll in the meantime would have been very high. Better to go in, mallet him, grab the computers and other intel, then go after the rest of them.”
And shame on Williams and Wright for their silliness. If GB were under the guns, they’d be whining to the Yanks again just like in the 40s.
In 2001 I told my wife what exactly would happen to those that did what they did to the World Trade Center. We would attack them in the night, with no mercy. That has happened. We would break any”rules” getting at the jist of the matter, and make no bones about the matter. We have done just that. A piece of crap “leader” of Islamists has just been shown that response and we now seem to be crumbling under some kind of pressure. He’s dead and now we are finding out what more they wanted to do to us. They are on the run. No need to be scared anymore. We are now after the chickens that have run the roost.
Teatime and Finch, this is about life and death, not a standard of living or oil. What nonsense.
Confessor,
Ladin is experiencing death. Don’t go Michael Moore on us. 3000 experienced death on that day because he desired 3000 to die… If not more. I don’t care to hear your heart-ache on this matter.
You know, I hear of a GREAT backlash, if we release a photo of a mass muderer, named bin Laden. We killed him. What more backlash could there be? Release the photo, never mind the backlash. Three years from now, when the photo is leaked, there is another backlash. Do it now, get it over with, and deal with it. He murdered, he died for being a murderer….he was an Islamist….and Islamists will do what they do!
Confessor,
Shooting OBL isn’t about our standard of living and oil but everything else is. Military coups and dictators in Africa have done worse than Saddam Hussein and for much longer but have we ever gone in there full-guns to liberate the African people? Why don’t you look up how many people Idi Amin’s regime alone killed? We looked the other way with Rwanda and Congo, too.
Human rights abuses abound in Asia, especially against Christians, but do we anything forceful about that? Heck, we haven’t even protected the Christians in Iraq adequately and a large percentage of fled.
The bottom line is this — we only get involved when it benefits us and supports our lifestyle. We don’t have a problem with sweat shops and child labor in other countries because it provides us with cheap goods. We especially tiptoe around China because to inflame them would be to hasten the end of our financial house of cards.
I’m not writing this to beat up our country. It’s a frightening reality that we really do have to think about and address, rather than pounding our chests in celebration over the end of bin Laden. Goodness gracious, we put weapons in bin Laden’s own hands when he was part of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan and we happened to approve of his enemy back then. How many times will we back the baddies just because they seem to serve our interests at that moment?
Now we must learn and not fund the Libyan rebels.
Confessor at #28,
[blockquote] “If GB were under the guns, they’d be whining to the Yanks again just like in the 40s.” [/blockquote]
Great Britain didn’t “whine to the yanks” in the 1940s, Confessor. Great Britain fought (as did my own country Australia and the rest of the Commonwealth). It was good that the USA eventually joined us, by which time we had been fighting for over two years. Let’s leave the unjustified comments out!
If either (or both) Presidents Bush or Clinton knew the whereabouts of OBL, and didn’t kill him, but Obama did, then there is good reason to conclude that President Obama did it for pretty much purely political reasons – – that is, he wants to get re-elected, and he ordered OBL killed to facilitate that. So. . . IF that is the case, we cannot even call this a ‘revenge’ killing, much less a killing to conclude ‘justice.’ We just sent a special ops hit team across a sovereign national border, without prior permission, to kill a man in the dead of night. That is pretty much it, in my judgment. And then we danced in the streets.
“As I live,” says the LORD, “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” “. . . . .I say unto you, love your enemies.”
I am not particularly proud of my country in this situation.
One ground on which to argue with Bishop Tom’s logic is that one cannot equate bin Laden as some former terrorist hiding in retirement after a successful attack but rather as the active leader of world-wide terrorism network.
The second is that America’s institutions of government and society are not in the state of flux and chaos as Pakistan’s are. If they were it is quite likely that the unilateral actions he ponders would be necessary.
In many ways it’s an “angels and heads of pins” sort of argument. Which is evil, or the greater evil, or… Might does not make right, but do ends [i]never[/i] justify means? As was exampled before, did Bonhoeffer sin in that he worked towards the death of Hitler and his entourage with him? How many innocent deaths followed that mistimed bomb?
#33 Thank you for those comments. Aside from this action that I think was right on. What are we doing as a country in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya? Our local schools are cutting staff, our roads are terrible, our economy is terrible, and we are throwing billions toward these areas in these other countries that are killing our soldiers on a daily basis…over 900 killed in Afghanistan so far this year. And can anyone explain the process and goal is Libya? Billions of dollars again for what?
This support of killing OBL is not a commendation of our countries actions carte blanche. We have serious problems. Thank God for the many who took time yesterday to pray for our country.
Osama bin Laden’s rotting corpse is at the bottom of the sea, feeding the crabs, and rightly so. We can argue pro and con about the way in which he met his demise from now until doomsday, but the fact of the matter is that we did the world a favor and saved hundreds of thousands of lives by getting rid of him. I feel no remorse in his passing from the world scene. Justice has been done, and that should be the end of it. Unfortunately, though, some just won’t let the matter go, will they?
I’m afraid that Wright’s analogies are muddled — which is typicaly whenever he talks about America, since I assume he’s emotional rather than objective.
First, we’re at war with the people who planned 911. The entire world has known this. We were *crystal clear* that we would take them out whenever and wherever we found them and we stated that publicly from beginning to end. That being the case, were Great Britain to do the same thing — announce that they were at war with their enemy, proceed to commit billions to that war along with thousands of military lives — and *then* it were to be discovered that the US had harbored the leader of those whom Great Britain was at war with in a compound down the street from West Point — I’d *expect* them to take the leader of the enemy with which they were at war out.
And then I’d expect for relations between the two countries to be rather strikingly place on ice for a number of decades.
Wright can’t be expected to be rational or objective about the US — he’s just too angry at us and despises us too much for that.
I well remember the idiotic statements he made at my parish the day after hostages of ours were captured by the terrorists over in Iraq. He prattled on about how one couldn’t attack an enemy that had not attacked one’s country and how immoral that was — and so I asked him, then, if he believed it to be immoral for Great Britain to go to war with Germany, when all poor little old Germany had done is invade Poland, which after all was not England. He sputtered and fussed for a while and then finally got out that maybe it *was* the wrong thing to do — the statement of a desperate man who had been pontificating on immoral America but was hoist on the complete lack of logic on his own petard.
I then got up and left the room.
He’s an idiot regarding anything to do with that kind of thing and it just can’t be helped — one can’t be expected to be rational when one is so angry and emotional about country one hates as much as he hates ours.
Love his theology, though. Great work. Just buffoonishly and childishly irrational about pretty much anything to do with secular politics.
Reports are that the ‘goldmine’ found at the ObL fort details plans for further terrorism including an attack in the US to coincide with the anniversary of 9/11 this year. While there may be reprisals for his death, they are unlikely to be any worse than the mayhem he was planning to unleash, and at least now with the intelligence gained, security forces have the opportunity to disrupt, as well as having the chance to capture others such as Al Zawahiri.
It looks as if the action taken is defensible from what I have seen in US law, and although there are competing principles of sovereignty versus the right to protect life and of self defense in international law, it looks like the US Administration has a good case that its action was lawful in international law as well, although such actions should be the exception rather than the rule. Even if he was unarmed, it looks as if killing ObL was also probably lawful in international law, if he was doing anything other than peacefully making it clear and being obviously recognisable as engaged in the act of surrender.
A discussion yesterday revealed that whatever the position in international law, and the ability of the UK to mount such an operation, UK law and our rules of engagement would not have allowed the UK to mount the operation the US did. It is frustrating to some of our military and intelligence services, but there we are.
Bishop Wright has spent a great deal of time in the US over the last decade, including taking sabaticals there to write books; I doubt if the US is a country he hates, although like many commenters he has concerns about the action taken, both in the particular international laws which it breaches, even as there are others which appear to permit such breaches. He also like the Archbishop of Canterbury makes a stab at looking at the response Christians might have to this, although I would have preferred it if they had referenced some of the excellent work previously done by them on the theological principles which should underly such a Christian response such as just war theory. Expressions of ‘feelings’ are no substitute for this hard work.
I’m afraid that Wright’s analogies are muddled—which is typicaly whenever he talks about America, since I assume he’s emotional rather than objective.
First, we’re at war with the people who planned 911. The entire world has known this. We were *crystal clear* that we would take them out whenever and wherever we found them and we stated that publicly from beginning to end. That being the case, were Great Britain to do the same thing—announce that they were at war with their enemy, proceed to commit billions to that war along with thousands of military lives—and *then* it were to be discovered that the US had harbored the leader of those whom Great Britain was at war with in a compound down the street from West Point—I’d *expect* them to take the leader of the enemy with which they were at war out.
And then I’d expect for relations between the two countries to be rather strikingly place on ice for a number of decades.
Wright can’t be expected to be rational or objective about the US—he’s just too angry at us and despises us too much for that.
I well remember the idiotic statements he made at my parish the day after hostages of ours were captured by the terrorists over in Iraq. He prattled on about how one couldn’t attack an enemy that had not attacked one’s country and how immoral that was—and so I asked him, then, if he believed it to be immoral for Great Britain to go to war with Germany, when all poor little old Germany had done is invade Poland, which after all was not England. He sputtered and fussed for a while and then finally got out that maybe it *was* the wrong thing to do—the statement of a desperate man who had been pontificating on immoral America but was hoist on the complete lack of logic on his own petard.
I then got up and left the room.
He’s an idiot regarding anything to do with that kind of thing and it just can’t be helped—one can’t be expected to be rational when one is so angry and emotional about country one hates as much as he hates ours.
Love his theology, though. Great work. Just buffoonishly and childishly irrational about pretty much anything to do with secular politics.
I agree completely with Fr. Matt Kennedy’s comment. I have no problem with American exceptionalism, nor the British Empire for that matter. Both are/were forces for good in the world.
Senior Priest, what I want to know is, were you successful on the hill?
RE: “I doubt if the US is a country he hates, . . . ”
I don’t know if you’ve ever heard him speak directly, Pageantmaster, about political stuff, but he’s clearly in the grip of extreme emotion when he talks about America and politics. He has all of the rational acuity and consistency of one of the revisionists emoting up at a General Convention microphone about how we should have same-sex marriages.
Seriously — he has zero rational ability when he discusses these things. He can’t articulate consistent principles or do much more than emote and be inflamed — and attempt to *be* inflaming too.
Most of our congregation pretty much tuned him out once he hived off onto political stuff — which was almost immediately. He clearly couldn’t stop himself. We’d all wanted to hear about, you know . . . the things he’s an expert in — resurrection, Christ, and even some of the whole conflict regarding sanctification/justification.
But instead he did the equivalent of my deciding to give a speech to a group of highly educated Englishmen about English law.
#40
#39 A discussion yesterday revealed that whatever the position in international law, and the ability of the UK to mount such an operation, UK law and our rules of engagement would not have allowed the UK to mount the operation the US did. It is frustrating to some of our military and intelligence services, but there we are.
Bishop Wright has spent a great deal of time in the US over the last decade, including taking sabaticals there to write books; I doubt if the US is a country he hates, although like many commenters he has concerns about the action taken, both in the particular international laws which it breaches, even as there are others which appear to permit such breaches. He also like the Archbishop of Canterbury makes a stab at looking at the response Christians might have to this, although I would have preferred it if they had referenced some of the excellent work previously done by them on the theological principles which should underly such a Christian response such as just war theory. Expressions of ‘feelings’ are no substitute for this hard work.
#43 Hi Sarah
I am sorry to hear that about Bishop Tom’s talk to you. That must be the labour-supporting socialist radical in him coming out shortly after the bearded wierdy left-wing loony archbishop did. I guess they must be human.
Must agree with Shay.
It’s a bit of a train-wreck by N.T. Wright. As other comments have pointed out, the issue isn’t primarily one of justice for deeds in the past, but dealing with the head of a diffuse organization actively seeking to harm one’s country. Not retribution for the past but self-defense in the present is the issue. So he sets up an analogy to make his argument at the start that is simply wrong-footed. America wasn’t chasing people who did something on their soil, they were killing someone who was the puppet master and never left a relatively safe territory in organizing terror.
And so he needs to answer that question. Given we are in a new situation where people organize themselves outside the framework of the nation-state to fight their war and then locate themselves in nations where they either receive clandestine support or the state lacks the capacity to deal with them, how does respect for national sovereignty work there? What if Osama was thought to be organising a WMD attack on, say southern Nigeria, and not one of the dreaded Western countries (like the U.S. and the U.K.) that are The Source Of All Evil? Should we still focus on due process at all costs? I wouldn’t be surprised if more Muslims and Arabs have been killed by Al Qaeda than happened in 9/11 and that that would have continued. Does that change the moral equation for Wright?
This essay doesn’t seem any more Christian to me than the Westerns Wright critiques. It is simply an English preference for waiting in queues and focusing on the Right Way Things Are Done over the American tendency to see a just cause as authorizing a wide range of means to accomplish it. Neither of those are a priori wrong, but neither are they a priori biblical. One can find the Bible backing either view in different contexts, and a lot of Christian ethical thinking has gone into addressing what to do when an authority raised up by God does not discharge their responsibility or when there is a conflict between two authorities (such as Pakistan and the U.S.) each with their own sphere of authority and responsibility. A bit more self-awareness of his own cultural blind-spots would suit Wright if he’s going to riff on America’s perceived problems in this regard.
Posted also at SFIF:
The hostility to this mission parallels European hostility to the war in Iraq, and for the same reason. The disagreement is rooted in fundamentally different understandings of the nature of military power. There is a strong tendency in Europe to see military power as an extension of Law Enforcement. In this thinking, the managed violence of military power must be submitted to the control of some legitimate supra-national authority. It must be controlled in the same way police powers are controlled. Hence the interminable references to international law, and the UN, and ICC.
The US on the other hand sees military power as an extension of a sovereign state. It denies the existence of any legal authority that can prevent the US from deploying forces in its own interest. This is why the Iraq War was anathema in Europe. It was a direct repudiation of military power as law enforcement. To the Europeans, it was a ‘rogue cop’ going off and doing what he wanted. It was war for the sake of American interest and not war for the sake of international justice. The operation in Pakistan is yet one more example of the Americans ignoring the ideal of law enforcement, and operating on the principle of national interest. As in Iraq, so in Pakistan. Europeans consider this principle so important, they are willing to absorb the costs of obeying it.
Of course, the cynic might say that Europe takes this view because it doesn’t possess significant military capability, but still wants control over how it is employed. There is truth in this. The Europeans want that Behemoth US military available. They just want it on a European leash. How much is principle and how much is self-interest I will leave to the reader to decide.
carl
I repeat what I said on the other posting. OSB could not be taken alive. Had we done so, there would have been a trial, and this would have been a publicity spectacle of a enormous magnitude and remification, long drawn out,with unpredictable results outside the courtroom. And the question would become, who has the authority to try this man? The waters of both west and middle east would have boiled with violence and babble. Inside, we would have had to hang him or put him in prison for life. What would have been the result of either?
His killing has nothing to do with American exceptionalism or any other intellectual construct at play among the chattering class. It is called cutting the gordian knot, (pace to all those who tremble at cliches). A decisive action,quick, final. The rest of the US cheered while The Precious stand around, as they always do, wringing their hands, vacillating, qualifying, rethinking, splitting hairs, deconstructing, parsing, backing and filling. When the tooth is beyond repair, you pull it az quickly and painlessly as you can. The disease only spreads when one tries to treat the untreatable. He had to be killed. Larry
Amen, Larry. Well said.
I believe terrorists should be hunted down and killed, without mercy, wherever they are found. I have no moral problem reconciling that with my beliefs as a Christian (I generally am against capital punishment, but not in this categories). Terrorists are pure evil and must be exterminated whenever and wherever they are found. I also have no problem with British agents hunting down and killing IRA terrorists on American soil, if America had not killed them first and instead was harboring them. I would actively help the British to do so if they asked for my help.
I’ve always felt that way since the day many years ago I saw a photo in Time magazine of a young woman lying dead in the lobby of the Rome airport, murdered by Palestinian terrorists along with many others.
I’m with you Jim. Terrorists should not be give the protection of the law, civil, military, nor international. They should be declared “outlaw,” meaning they have forfeited any legal protection and are subject to summary execution. They don’t deserve the consideration accorded enemy soldiers or civilian lawbreakers. They are a class apart. I would also treat pirates the same way. No trials. No quarter.
#46 carl
Posted also at SFIF:
Well that is certainly what carl believes, but there is no reason to think that this is the premise the US under its Administration operates under.
There are grounds for the action the US has undertaken in international law, including the right to self defence and the right to prevent massacre of civilians and no doubt the Administration and in particular President Obama as a lawyer, considered the legal position carefully before authorising the Pakistan operation.
The fact that carl does not believe that international law exists or should constrain the US, is not a reason to assume that the US Administration agrees with him or operates under “Carl’s Rules”.
PM
Bishop, why do you speak against actions on Sunday but not NATO for actions on Saturday? Oddly silent when our drone found it’s mark on last year – but when we’re probably in the strongest position of “Jus in Bello,” you speak without actually engaging a moral argument at all, merely name calling.
#50–Evan: I had actually included pirates in my post 49 but then edited it out. The law where I am once was that pirates were simply hanged when found. That should still be the law in my opinion, especially with all the major piracy problems the world now faces, not just off the coast of Africa but also in Southeast Asian waters and in the Caribbean. The fact is there is no “law” on the high seas other than that which can be summarily enforced by the world’s naval forces, and peaceful persons are totally at risk unless it is understood that military retribution and punishment for any act of piracy will be swift, sure and fatal.
You’re absolutely right, Jim. “Catch and release” may be a great thing in angling, but it’s no way to fight piracy.
I do just want to add – whatever is inappropriate or to be disagreed with in his remarks – I’ve heard Bishop Tom speak several times in both UK and US – and, more than perhaps any other English bishop, he does know and love the United States. Perhaps he’s got this wrong (as I think) but this isn’t the whole of his relationship with our great country.
It’s been said that “you can run, but you can’t hide forever, and we will find you. What happens when we do find you is up to [i]you,[/i] but we [i]will[/i] find you.” We found Osama bin Laden, and he got what he deserved.
“…I would have preferred it if they had referenced some of the excellent work previously done by them on the theological principles which should underly such a Christian response such as just war theory”.
You and me both. It’s rather hard to tell who he’s trashing more, the USA or his own country. We’re the usual dirtbag imperialists, and his fellow Britons are simply the dumb sheep we’ve led astray. I can understand his possible “conscientious objector” status, as an American or not, but were I British I’d probably dislike what he said even more. Yuck…
The US has gone after Bin Laden and the terrorists not as much for vengeance’s sake as for preventing further attacks…by making them too costly to the perpetrators.
The UK and US are not an innocent entities even in colonial times, it did much evil for the sake of economics – the opium trade is the most glaring example of the UK’s sins. The US exploited, robbed and killed native americans, imported slave labor, now it exports and promotes alcohol, tobacco, arms, contraceptives, abortion, homos-x and p-rnography.
#49 Jim the Puritan says:
I understand this attitude, but frankly it frightens me. The crucial part that’s missing is where and how you determine, to a sufficiently stringent level of confidence, that your targets ARE in fact terrorists. Otherwise you have created a mechanism whereby you point to any person you want to get rid of, yell, “Look! A terrorist!” and shoot them. Human nature is such that once such a power exists, it WILL be abused.
Now, in the case of Osama bin Laden, it’s not an issue — there is zero doubt that he was a terrorist. That’s why I feel no qualms about the mission that took him out. But I would hope that we would continue to be very, very cautious about who we employ this kind of strike against, and that we only do it when we have the same extraordinary level of confidence that our target is that guilty.
Some of the rhetoric here is very painful for me to read. I understand the anger and hurt and confusion. I disagree with Bishop Tom’s comments myself. But let’s also not forget that the UK has been a staunch ally of the USA and shared, in her small way, in bearing the heat of the day in this fight against terrorism and been willing to put her young men and women in harms way to fight for freedom. Unlike many European nations the Brits have not shirked their responsibility. So when Brits say silly things (and they do!) also remember somewhere in the back of your mind that young Americans and young Brits are still serving together in a conflict largely fought in places that we will never see, and living and dying, so that we might be safe.
Well said, driver8. L
#59–Fortunately, in the case of OBL, it looks like we captured a lot of information that identifies exactly who the specific terrorists are. I hope the military and the CIA are right now putting together assassination teams, and we will hunt down and kill each of these individuals.
Maybe my view is colored by the fact my friend’s daughter was working at Windows on the World restaurant on 9/11.
I understand the anger. But there’s a slippery slope that leads from “Assassinating an enemy of civilization” to “Assassinating an enemy of the nation” to “Assassinating an enemy of the government” to “Assassinating an enemy of a highly-placed government official,” and I am seriously afraid that the more we resort to assassination — as opposed to arrest, public trial with rules of evidence, and sentencing if found guilty — the farther down that slope we’ll slide.
Bin Laden was an exceptional target, and an exceptional response was appropriate. But I’d be a lot more comfortable if that response remained the exception, rather than the rule.
I agree with Pageantmaster at #51.
This killing seems to me to be quite justifiable in terms of international law. Its no different to a sniper waiting for a declared enemy to walk along a particular street and then hitting him, with no opportunity for surrender.
I don’t see any comparison with European attitudes to the Iraq operation in 2003 (as proposed by one poster). There were a number of different “European” views back then and many of them were based on concern that the US did not know how to conduct the sort of operation it was getting into. At first that seemed to be borne out by events. Fortunately, the US found leaders like David Petraeus and others who DID understand the relevant sort of warfare and by 2005 the US was running a very competent operation indeed.
Ross at #63,
I agree with the principles you espouse. However, in this particular case, Bin Laden had made it publicly clear that he was the active leader of an organisation which intended to conduct more terrorist acts – and they were “terrorist” rather than “criminal” – using unacceptable actions for the purpose of bringing down states and cultures. He knew that he was on the list to be attacked, whether by drone or bombing or otherwise. He accepted that because he fully intended to do the same to his opponents by whatever means available.
I do agree with other posters that this was and is War, by any reasonable definition. If Bin Laden had turned up at a US embassy to turn himself in, yes, you have to take him prisoner. If he had been captured in an operation it would have been wrong to kill him in cold blood. But as I understand it, this team raided the compound knowing that there were enemy terrorist operators there (and expecting that one of them might well be Bin Laden) and intending to shoot any that they saw. Why is that outside normal rules of warfare?
As far as I can see, Australian special forces could have legally carried out the same operation. I note some people say the Brits couldn’t have, but given my characterisation above, I really wonder about that. I recall that the Special Air Service Regiment at Princes Gate back in the 1980s went in to the Iranian Embassy and shot each terrorist as soon as they were identified. Even the hard Left in those days couldn’t come up with a clear reason why that was illegal. I would expect the Brits could have done the same thing here.
#65 MichaelA: I don’t know who you’re disagreeing with, but it isn’t me. I’m quite comfortable with the decision to kill OBL and the means by which it was carried out. What I’m not comfortable with is the idea that this exceptional response to an exceptional criminal should be extended to everyone who can be alleged to fall into the loosely-defined category of “terrorist.”
I’m sorry, but this example of post-British Empire distain for a former colony leaves me with but one real question: “What if, and in the interest of not violating several countries sovereignty, the United States hadn’t twice waged violent and lethal war in order to prevent Great Britain’s near sure and certain destruction at the hands of a very evil enemy?” But then again, +Wright and ++Williams might argue that WWI and WWII were “real situations which actually demanded the just use of violent and lethal force, lest overwhelming cold blooded death and destruction continue to befall the helpless citizenry of Great Britain.”
In my opinion, such arrogance, especially as it issues forth from an often ungrateful people who could easily have descended into oblivion “twice,” knows no bounds. Let’s face it, this penchant for snarky commentaries directed towards a former colony actually dates back to Revolutionary War times. Fair to say, the Brits were looking down their noses at America way back then . . . as they basically continue to do today. Not much has changed in that regard. Do they really think that the open global threats to “destroy the USA and Israel” and to “let Americans die” are not to be taken seriously, even in light of the events of 9-11? Spare me!
Lest we forget, +Wright and ++Williams, by the example of their extremely privileged and well placed lives in Great Britain, have become inheritors and bearers of a Royal mantle handed down by King George III. Subsequently, both men appear to welcome any and all opportunities to decry how uncouth and self-serving the United States can be. (Sound familiar?) Indeed, they seem to relish it. Imagine that, and all coming from within a nation which is identified world-wide for its past excessive and tyrannical colonialism.
More simply put, their bias in such writings should be rather obvious to all and, as such, should be taken into consideration when reading anything reflecting their world view.
Ross,
I agree.
Albeit wrote:
[blockquote] “What if, and in the interest of not violating several countries sovereignty, the United States hadn’t twice waged violent and lethal war in order to prevent Great Britain’s near sure and certain destruction at the hands of a very evil enemy?†[/blockquote]
Probably nothing at all, since that is not what happened. Firstly, US intervention in WWI did not “prevent Great Britain’s …destruction” since that was never on the agenda. However, it did prevent the domination of Europe by a nation (Germany) which already contained the seeds of future totalitarianism. In other words, US intervention in the Great War was a blow in support of democracy and pluralism. It did not prevent the destruction of Great Britain, nor even the destruction of France. Nor did it prevent a holocaust or anything similar (German treatment of Jews in WWI was usually exceptionally good, one of the things that made the Jews so vulnerable to German blandishments in WWII). It did however prevent the domination of Europe by a nation that lacked many of the democratic features of the western powers.
Secondly, US intervention in WWII didn’t “prevent Great Britain’s …destruction” either. The attempt to invade Great Britain was abandoned when Germany attacked the Soviet Union (in case you are not aware, this occurred well before the US entered the war). Germany’s continued operations against Great Britain (in particular the U-boat campaign and the attempts to sever Britain’s link to its Middle East and Indian dominions) were designed to bring Great Britain to terms, i.e. to accept Germany’s domination of Europe, not destroy Britain. Hitler would have been more than happy to make peace with Britain.
Britain, her empire, and her European allies, fought alone for over two years to prevent totalitarian powers taking over Europe. After that two years, they were joined by the USA, and it was most welcome. But the USA was not there to save Britain – it was there to demonstrate that it deserved a place alongside other western democracies who were prepared to fight for what they believed in.
[blockquote] “In my opinion, such arrogance, especially as it issues forth from an often ungrateful people who could easily have descended into oblivion “twice,†knows no bounds” [/blockquote]
Ahhhh, now let me get this right: Bishop Wright publishes an article, but you treat this as issuing from the British PEOPLE????
One man = the people. What an interesting methodology.
+Wright is not even the leader of his church, let alone the leader of his country, but you equate the whole British people with him! Hmmm, I wonder what individual I can choose to represent the entire American people … Britney Spears, perhaps?
Or, since you have an interest in history (in a way), perhaps Fritz Kuhn?
[blockquote] “Fair to say, the Brits were looking down their noses at America way back then . . . as they basically continue to do today.”
[/blockquote]
Actually they weren’t. The American colonists had a lot of sympathy in Britain, even among the generals who opposed them. But I forgot – following your method outlined above, you will find a few people who “looked down” on Americans and proudly announce that this was and is the attitude of the whole British people!
[blockquote] “Do they really think that the open global threats to “destroy the USA and Israel†and to “let Americans die†are not to be taken seriously, even in light of the events of 9-11?” [/blockquote]
Of course, Albeit. The entire British people don’t take those threats seriously. Every one of them. You know this because you have told yourself so.
[blockquote] “Lest we forget, +Wright and ++Williams, by the example of their extremely privileged and well placed lives in Great Britain, have become inheritors and bearers of a Royal mantle handed down by King George III.” [/blockquote]
You were almost doing well here, but what on earth does “extremely privileged … lives” have to do with it? Neither Wright nor Williams live any better than most politicians in their country, my country or your country. And what is the point of this anyway – do you believe that +Wright’s opinions are wrong or not? If so, then surely those opinions are wrong regardless of whether he is poor or wealthy? Sorry to inject some logic into the debate.
[blockquote] Subsequently, both men appear to welcome any and all opportunities to decry how uncouth and self-serving the United States can be. [/blockquote]
I wouldn’t worry too much about +Wright’s blathering. You should be more concerned as to whether posts like yours may do his job for him.
[blockquote] “Imagine that, and all coming from within a nation which is identified world-wide for its past excessive and tyrannical colonialism.” [/blockquote]
Yes, Osama Bin Laden did identify the British people that way – I am not sure why you are supporting his argument? Your statement could have been drawn straight from an islamic militant’s pamphlet.
But those with some comprehension of history do not identify Great Britain that way.
I don’t.