Suddenly the likes of towering intellectuals such as Michael Moore, Rosie O'Donnell, and even Osama bin Laden's own millionaire son are arguing that, rather than being the object of a targeted killing, bin Laden should have (somehow) been captured and "brought to justice" through a jury trial in the Hague or here in the United States. Interesting.
These great minds have drawn comparisons with the Nuremberg Trials after the Second World War, which helped to educate the world about the Holocaust, Nazi Germany, and the machinery of genocide.
The analogy is comical. Osama bin Laden was never the president, prime minister, nor Fuhrer of a modern nation-state. He led Al Qaeda, a terrorist movement, through a network of cells, couriers, and social media outlets. He commanded no army or navy, murdered Muslims and non-Muslims alike, and in the end aimed not to capture lands or repel invaders but to incite hatred, violence, and spread a twisted, cultish form of Messianism.
Had it even been possible, bin Laden deserved a jury trial about as much as Charles Manson deserved a talk show.
I have opposed, and always will oppose, state-sponsored capital punishment (a discussion on this topic at another time). But the extrajudicial killing of a mass-murderer who was in the very thick of plotting yet more mass murders is not only justified, it is morally obligatory.
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