Monday, May 2, 2011

What is so disturbing about the killing of Bin Laden

Naomi Klein on Facebook posted a link to this useful and disturbing article at thenation.com. Jeremy Scahill reports that Osama bin Laden was killed by sailors from the Joint Special Operations Command. To me, here is the most important part of Scahill's report:
Both President Bush and President Obama have reserved the right for US forces to operate lethally and unilaterally in any country across the globe in pursuit of alleged high value terrorists. The Obama administration's expansion of US Special Operations activities globally has been authorized under a classified order dating back to the Bush administration. Originally signed in early 2004 by then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, it is known as the “AQN ExOrd," or Al Qaeda Network Execute Order. The AQN ExOrd was intended to cut through bureaucratic and legal processes, allowing US special forces to move into denied areas or countries beyond the official battle zones of Iraq and Afghanistan. Gen. David Petraeus, who is poised to become director of the CIA, expanded and updated that order in late 2009. "JSOC has been more empowered more under this administration than any other in recent history," a Special Ops source told The Nation. "No question."
If elements in the US executive branch, intelligence services, and military think that they have the right to take out bad guys without any kind of international due process, aren't they operating under the same ethical model that the terrorists are?

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