Killing Because We Can, Doesn't Make it Right

I was not planning to comment on the recent assassination of Osama bin Laden, too much has been said already, and too little is known about what his death will mean for the future. I had successfully resisted the temptation until I read an editorial that ran in the Washington Post entitled, Targeting Muammar Gaddafi.

The editorial attempted to justify the reported killing of three of Gaddafi's grandchildren by linking the policy goal of regime change in Libya with the killing of bin Laden. The Post states, “For the record, we think targeting Gaddafi and his sons...is as legitimate as striking al-Qaida.''

Here is the moral leap I was not willing to take with the Washington Post - the strikes against Gaddafi are similar to the drone attacks we employ in Pakistan. We follow a target, usually through high altitude surveillance to a safe house, we watch the safe house to determine who is in it, or might be in it, and then someone detached from the situation determines that trying to kill the target we think is there is worth killing the innocent people we know are there.

Have we become a people who value the death of a powerless madman over the lives of innocent children?

I know what's coming, please don't be so callous and ignorant inhuman to make the “human shield” argument - as someone who has done these types of missions, I can tell you, we have long learned how to defeat these measures. Lobbing bombs into homes where children are likely to live is lazy, murderous, and vile.

The one detail from the bin Laden raid that I pray is true is that one of the SEAL assaulters picked up two children during the firelight and carried them to safety. That single act is courageous heroic, compassionate, honorable, just - even, I dare say, American. Killing Gaddafi's family by remote control is cowardice and wrong and there was a time when we knew the difference. I had hoped The Washington Post knew the difference.