News that Osama bin Laden is finally dead was received at Dartmouth on Sunday with near-universal jubilation. The feeling on campus was palpable in the library one could hear cheers at first, followed by a perfect silence as students huddled around laptops to watch President Obama's speech. Perhaps the best part of the night for me was being able to congratulate my friends who had served in the military before coming to Dartmouth. For the people who fought, were wounded and had friends die for the sake of eliminating this threat to world peace, the news was a true victory and relief.
Even the people I know who question the appropriateness of killing Bin Laden agree that the world is better off with one less evildoer. But as momentous as that night was, it was not the end of the issue. Before the last of the late-night revelers left the chapter room at Beta, journalists and officials were beginning to consider all the implications that will manifest in the coming weeks. Once our national sigh of relief is over, we will soon have to confront the many dark issues that the operation brought to light.
First is our policy on so-called "enhanced interrogation methods." According to ABC News, the name of Bin Laden's courier, who was eventually located and tracked back to his employer's compound in Abbottabad, may have been discovered as a result of waterboarding Al Qaeda operatives at Guantanamo. One of the main arguments against waterboarding has been the unreliability of the information it produces. If the reports are true, the Bin Laden case shows that waterboarding can be useful. Of course, the rebuttal would be that the technique is still morally reprehensible, took 10 years to produce a result and has probably cost more in wasted resources and missed opportunities than it has gained. But the debate has taken an interesting new twist.
Secondly, the operation brings up difficult moral questions that the nation will have to grapple with. The operation itself was conducted in an admirable way. No civilians were killed, the U.S. Navy Seals made an effort not to harm innocent family members in the compound and Bin Laden's body was handled in accordance with Muslim custom. However, questions still remain. Should the Obama administration release photos of Bin Laden's dead body to prove that he was killed? Was the United States right to employ a shoot-to-kill strategy on their target, as they appeared to have done? Is President Ford's 1976 Executive Order banning individual assassinations now invalid?
Third is the question of Pakistan. The facts suggest that either the Pakistani military knew about Bin Laden's whereabouts or that it is grossly incompetent. The compound where Bin Laden was staying seems to have been built specifically for him and is located in a military town close to Pakistan's equivalent of West Point. Members of the Obama administration acknowledge that they did not involve Pakistan in the raid because they were concerned that Pakistani officials might tip Bin Laden off about the plans. Pakistan has at times been helpful in fighting the war on terrorism, but it is clearly not trustworthy. It is hard to say what our future relationship with this nuclear power will be.
In addition, the operation has implications for our foreign policy in general. If there had been any doubt in the minds of world leaders about America's military capabilities and Obama's will to use it, Sunday proved them wrong. Also, the seemingly high probability that the U.S. Navy Seals who killed Bin Laden were told to kill and not capture him (the Obama administration denies this, but the reports say that Bin Laden was unarmed, the compound had been under surveillance for eight months and he was shot in the chest before being shot in the head) shows that the Obama administration is willing to carry out extraordinary actions like assassinations. The severity and drama of the mission might make other nations more deferent to the United States or more resistant to its power. Only time will tell.
Killing Bin Laden was a morbid but important task, the kind of necessary evil that armchair philosophers will criticize but that the men and women of our armed forces and government must make decisions about every day. There is little doubt in my mind that the alternative capturing him alive and undertaking a farce of a trial would have turned out to be much worse. But just as the mission itself operated in a certain moral gray area, the outcome will be equally hazy. The diplomatic, military and counterterrorism implications of the assassination will resonate long after the victory chants have died down.
