*What Did bin Laden 'Deserve'?*
by Butler Shaffer
Gabriela: And you believe everything the authorities tell you?
Franz Kafka: Well, I have no reason to doubt.
Gabriela: They're authorities! That's reason enough.
~ From the movie Kafka
My recent article on the U.S. government's assassination of Osama bin
Laden elicited many favorable responses, along with a negative one that
advised me that this man "got what he deserved." The reader went on to
ask "how dare you imply that we owed him the 'right' to be captured and
brought to justice." How effortlessly we make our judgments when our
minds are in the default mode, and we need only parrot the words of
those in authority!
The media has long been an echo chamber for the avoidance of independent
thought and judgment. It is easy to repeat the party line that the
state's enemy du jour "got what he deserved" when one refuses to ask the
question "what does any of us 'deserve'?" What do I "deserve?" Do you
know what you "deserve," and for what actions? From what set of facts do
we draw when we make such judgments about the conduct of others? I am
neither a fan nor a defender of bin Laden, but those who are so anxious
to invoke "closure" as an excuse for evading inquiries into the nature
of governmental policies, might ask themselves why they are so willing
to embrace his murder.
An answer to the question "what did bin Laden deserve?" depends upon
one's perspective. Even leaving aside the obvious responses that his Al
Qaeda sympathizers would make, even patriotic Americans might have
differing opinions, depending upon the time period of one's assessment.
When the Reagan administration found bin Laden and Al Qaeda useful
agents to help rid Afghanistan of Soviet military forces, American
politicians took turns posing with these "freedom fighters" for
self-serving photo-ops. Their combined efforts drove the Soviets from
that country, and helped bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union
and the end of the Cold War. For his part in all of this, did bin Laden
"deserve" having a statue built to him in Washington, D.C., or a
boulevard named for him?
But when his usefulness to American interests terminated -- or even
became hostile -- he was quickly relegated to the character of
"villain." This is a tactic long predating Machiavelli, having been
useful, in recent years, to transform Saddam Hussein from Donald
Rumsfeld's smiling photo-op "friend" to a linch-pin in the axis of evil;
to Muammar Gaddafi's mercurial foe/friend/foe role of convenience in
American foreign policy. That most Americans insist on remaining so
dupable -- if not outright stupid -- as the state plays out its games of
"endless enemies" at their expense, is remarkable.
What did bin Laden "deserve" in all of this? What do any of us "deserve"
in our dealings with one another? Is there any principle to which we can
turn to help us answer such questions? Do we "deserve" to be coerced,
robbed, or killed whenever someone with superior strength is able to do
these things to us? Is this the highest social standard to which we can
repair? Have the playground bully and the brutalizing parent become the
"founding fathers" of our "New World Order?"
If the defenders of state assassinations believe they have found a
defensible tactic for resolving disputes -- or just promoting their own
preferences -- should it become more widely available for all of us to
employ? If two neighbors have a long-standing dispute as to the
ownership of rose bushes along their property boundaries, should they
resort to murder to settle the matter? Do we not understand that the
problem of urban street-gangs is but politics on a different scale; that
Obama's drive-by shooting in a house in Abbottabad differs from such a
killing in south-central Los Angeles more in terms of geography than
substance? If the political establishment is willing to embrace such
methods as a way of eliminating political enemies in foreign countries,
should the same practices be acknowledged as appropriate within America?
Might we want to rethink the "lone-nut-with-a-gun" explanations most of
us eagerly swallowed to explain the deaths of the Kennedy brothers,
Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, et. al. as well as the failed attempts on
the lives of Ronald Reagan and George Wallace?
For decades, I have tried to discover whether there is some principle
upon which all people can agree to define the propriety of our actions;
a proposition that rises above arbitrary subjective preferences.
Politically-defined laws will not suffice, since the state -- being
defined by its use of violence -- exists to promote and enforce
conflicts among people. Neither have I found so-called "natural law"
principles much help, as their content seems to vary from one advocate
to another.
The one standard to which I am able to find a virtual consensus is this:
no one wants to be victimized. No one accepts that their life or other
property interest should be subject to trespass by another. Sadly, most
of us have internalized our regular victimization by the state,
sanctioning such predations provided (a) we believe everyone else to be
so bound -- the vicious doctrine of "equality," and (b) if we are to be
singled out for maltreatment, that we be accorded "due process of law."
The idea that the military and/or the police -- the enforcement arms of
the state -- could undertake arbitrary and deadly force against any
person, finds support among most conservatives. This is why the market
for flags and "support the troops" decals blossoms whenever the emperor
finds a new "enemy" to attack. It is also why so many conservatives --
and even a number of so-called "liberals" -- can get their diapers so
knotted over the suggestion that Osama bin Laden should have been
brought to trial rather than murdered. It is the same mindset that
allows police officers to gun down "suspects" without, themselves, being
held to account in a court of law.
Suppose a man is "suspected" of having committed a heinous crime (e.g.,
sexually assaulting and then murdering a small child)? Suppose this man
is found and arrested by the police, who then take him into a back alley
and kill him? Did he "get what he deserved?" Would you raise any
objection to this -- unless, of course, you were the suspect -- or would
you regard demands for a public trial to be only a "loophole" that might
allow him to "escape" his punishment? Is a jury determination of
"innocence" to be regarded as a "legal technicality?" Is "suspicion" or
"accusation" the equivalent of "guilt?" Should "criminal procedure"
classes in law school be required to address such matters as "how to
organize a lynch mob?" Should a Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon square off
with an ACLU activist to debate the question "is justice delayed,
justice denied?"
Given the grisly history of lynching in this country -- in which the
race of the victim was often all that mattered -- President Obama who,
regardless of where he was born, has more melanin in his system than
most Americans, ought to have resisted the self-righteous impulse that
has led some people to respond to fear by pulling sheets over their heads!
Don't you understand that if the bin Ladens of the world can be "brought
to justice" by government hit-men who, like their Mafia counterparts,
then dump the bodies into the ocean, so can you? Insistence upon
state-defined "due process of law" is no guarantee that the innocent
shall not be punished, but it's an improvement over assassinations,
torture, trips to hidden prisons around the world, and the denial of
habeas corpus. Jury trials often result in wrongful convictions, but I'd
rather take my chances with twelve men and women with no sinister
agendas of their own, than with decisions made behind closed doors by
the politically unscrupulous. Bin Laden "deserved" a public trial for
the same reasons you and I would.
With each passing month, it becomes increasingly evident that the United
States of America -- as a formal system -- is about finished. The
Constitution has become virtually meaningless as a means of conducting
the business of the state. The "separation of powers" of the various
branches of government -- which we used to pretend would limit the
ambitions of each -- has given way to notions of "empire," with the
president playing the role of "emperor," able to start wars on his own
motion (and without congressional approval); to torture or imprison
without trial, or order the assassination of any persona non grata of
his designation; to give away hundreds of billions of dollars to his
corporate friends; ad nauseum. Over many decades, the powers granted to
government in the Constitution -- which, far from being limited, speak
of "general welfare," "necessary and proper," and "reasonable" -- have
been given very expansive definitions by the courts. By contrast, the
rights reserved to individuals have been accorded very restrictive
meanings. In the treatment of bin Laden -- as well as the continuing
incarcerations at Guantanamo -- we see further confirmation that what we
once thought of as an inalienable right to a public trial is another
illusion sacrificed to the empty rhetoric of "national security."
Though the "United States of America" is in a terminal condition,
"America" -- as a social system -- may yet survive. America preceded the
nation-state and, if we can revisit the basic assumptions that underlay
the "founding fathers" efforts, we may discover why conditions in which
peace, liberty, and respect for life must take precedence over edicts
offered by rulers who smirk and strut as they demand obedience to their
every whim.
In the course of such inquiries, we may discover why bin Laden -- along
with every one of us -- deserved to not be dealt with in such an
arbitrary, coercive manner. Institutionalized violence is the essence of
every political system, and is in the process of destroying Western
Civilization. But as secession and nullification enjoy an increasing
interest among thoughtful people, members of the establishment power
structure may find themselves regarded as the new "Red Coats." Like
their predecessors -- and in the words of Lysander Spooner -- they may
then be urged "to go home and content themselves with the exercise of
only such rights and powers as nature has given to them in common with
the rest of mankind."
May 14, 2011
Butler Shaffer teaches at the Southwestern University School of Law. He
is the author of the newly-released In Restraint of Trade: The Business
Campaign Against Competition, 1918--1938 and of Calculated Chaos:
Institutional Threats to Peace and Human Survival. His latest book is
Boundaries of Order.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer236.html
--
Freedom is always illegal!
When we ask for freedom, we have already failed. It is only when we
declare freedom for ourselves and refuse to accept any less, that we
have any possibility of being free.
"Why should we bother with 'realities' when we have the psychological
refuge of unthinking patriotism?"
Gary Leupp - Professor of History, Tufts University
--
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