The Summary Execution of Osama bin Laden

Few will contest that the world is better off without bin Laden. Patrick Loobuyck will not miss him, but he does wonder whether it is allowed: Shooting a terrorist, without trial, in order to get rid of him.

Osama bin Laden is dead. The face of terror has been competently killed by a bullet through the head after a team of American special forces had entered his residence in Pakistani Abbottabad. Cries of joy ascended from various places in the world, especially from the United States. Understandable. The event is considered and celebrated as an important achievement in the fight against (Muslim) terrorism. This is not over yet, but bin Laden’s death is a sign that justice will prevail, the former American President Bush says. And many will agree with Obama: Justice has been done.

The only dissident sounds came from Pakistan. The special military action would indeed have happened without knowledge or consent from the Pakistani authorities. Some therefore interpret the unexpected military operation by Americans on Pakistani territory as a degradation of Pakistan’s national sovereignty. Others seize the incident to point a finger at the ambiguous and too little performing Pakistani government policy. Why did bin Laden, without any knowledge, have to be killed by Americans when the Pakistani Military Academy of Kakul is situated so close to Abbottabad? Obama counters this question by indicating that bin Laden had also declared war on Pakistan and killed Pakistani civilians. Obama thanks Pakistan for the aid it delivered in the fight against terrorism, and he hastens to say that Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari agrees with him that this is a “good and historical day for both nations.”

The statement that justice has been done can also be nuanced from the perspective of human rights. A summary execution is concerned here, in which several other people also have died. Bin Laden and some of his guards have, in other words, received the death penalty without any form of trial. The circumstances prevented the law from doing its job. Criminals of all kinds have the right to a fair trial and this right also implies, according to many, that the sentenced are not deprived of their right to life. The death penalty is contrary to the European human rights approach, and summary execution even more so. This is the reason why we bring people suspected of genocide or crimes against humanity and war criminals to the International Criminal Court in the Hague instead of just hanging or publicly burning them.

Thou shall not kill.

On the question of whether you can just kill people to reach a higher goal, a lot of ink has been spent in the history of moral philosophy and law. For those who support the Jewish-Christian moral obligation, it is clear: Thou shall not kill is the sixth of the ten commandments. Active killing is always morally bad: Therefore no euthanasia and no abortion, and certainly no (summary) execution either. Also, supporters of the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) will condemn the murder of bin Laden. According to Kant, we are only allowed to act “according to a rule which you simultaneously want to turn into a general law.” The Kantian moral obligation is, in other words, based on the categorical imperative that we can only act according to universal rules. There are therefore deontological rules that are absolute, even though the violation of that rule would be known to have good effects. So no white lies, because we cannot possibly want lying to become a universal law; no Robin Hoods for the poor, because we cannot possibly want stealing to become a universal law. Because killing also cannot function as a general law, this rule needs to be maintained absolutely, whatever the consequences may be.

Nonsense on stilts.

Those who will look back approvingly of the scene in Abbottabad are those who think in the tradition of consequentialism. Acts are herein not evaluated based on absolute valid duties, but based on their consequences. The father of an influential school within the sphere of consequentialism is Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). In his “Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation”, he argues that moral legislative rules are not invariable and given in nature. If we are searching for rules, we must not be led by absolute duties, but by the question what of contributes to the largest happiness of the largest number of people. The danger of every consequential morality, however, is that individual fundamental laws are put between brackets to reach a “higher” goal of happiness. Not accidentally does Bentham call rights nonsense on stilts. The consequentialist is therefore often confronted with the so-called sheriff problem. When there is a lot of unrest in a town, the sheriff is allowed to arrest and publicly kill a random citizen to thus restore the peace and safety of everyone. Every teacher ever uses this tactic: Randomly expelling someone from the auditorium in order to get everyone’s attention again.

The question is whether this mechanism may be applicable in more fundamental matters as well, especially when life and death are concerned. A wide consensus exists among lawyers and moral philosophers that every strand of consequentialist thinking needs to be restricted deontologically. That we let our affairs be guided significantly by the expected consequences of our actions is reasonable and often efficient. However, it cannot form a general guide for moral, political and legal acting. This acting must indeed always be brought in accordance with a number of constitutional laws that need to be respected, whatever the consequences. Even if the death of Osama bin Laden and some of his employees contributes to the happiness of many, even if it is unmistakably an important symbol act in the legitimate fight against terrorism, justice has (forcefully?) failed.