Obama and Osama

*** Osama bin Laden....
Most of the world heaved a sigh of relief when the world's most wanted man was gunned down. Apparently unarmed.
But here at the Daily Reckoning, we were neither relieved nor revenged. We were uneasy. It did not particularly concern us that another world improver was dead; what bothered us was that there were so many left alive. Many of them -- terrorists and terrorist-fighters -- may now be throbbing to commit even larger acts of improvement.
*** Our old friend Doug Casey has more thoughts on Osama bin Laden's killing.
"The whole thing stinks, from top to bottom. You'd think that if they knew where he was, they would have gone out of their way to take him alive -- at almost any cost. Think of the information he would have had! But instead they seemed to go out of their way to kill him, which impresses me as incredibly stupid and counterproductive... Unless they don't want him talking.

"After all, Osama said several times that he had nothing to do with the events of 9/11. But Bush used him, and 9/11, as the casus belli for Afghanistan. It would have been interesting to know who Osama thought was actually behind 9/11.

"Then, after killing him, they dump his body in the Arabian Sea, using the excuse that he had to be interred within 24 hours as a Muslim, and it wasn't possible to bury him because they didn't want to create a shrine. As if they go out of their way to bury every Muslim they kill within 24 hours... I suspect that, in fact, they leave most bodies as a treat for the dogs and the crows. We'll now never know whose body that was. Or exactly how he was killed.

"So now, in any event, all the physical evidence has been disposed of. It's unclear to me if they also executed everyone else in the house -- excuse me, "compound," as any house government agents attack automatically becomes a compound -- where they took him. I suspect everyone was executed. Witnesses are never convenient.
"I have a question: Quis custodiet ipsos custodies -- Who watches the watchers? I thought it was ironic that Putin of Russia -- who's undoubtedly put out quite a few orders for hits in his day -- evidenced outrage at the way the U.S. government is trying to kill Gaddafi, now that it seems expedient. I have it here -- Putin said: "Who permitted this, was there any trial? Who took on the right to execute this man, no matter who he is?"

"And he's right. I find it shocking that the U.S. government just takes it upon itself to kill people now, without even a show trial like Saddam got. Of course the government has always had professional killers in its employ -- but it at least had the decency to deny their existence. Now it brags about them, and parades them. It's always had secret prisons too -- but now it's quite overt about Gitmo and renditions and torture.

"Don't get me wrong. I believe Osama is dead -- whenever he died. And I'm glad he's dead. I don't like the things he believed in, especially his especially puritanical version of Islam. But this is not the way these things should be handled. At least not by a supposedly free country."
Regards,
Bill Bonner,
for The Daily Reckoning