We’ve had a few days now to reflect on the killing of Osama bin Laden. I’ve seen debates about whether it matters, whether celebrating is appropriate, what a Christian response might look like, etc. I state here with some frequency that I am a pacifist, but I should be clear that being committed to a cause does not mean one can’t understand other positions, or even doubt in one’s own.
I am staunchly anti-war. But in the case of terrorism, while I think the long-term answer does involve all those puffy peacenik things like dialog and better foreign policy, I think the short-term answer involves treating Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations as organized crime groups, not war adversaries, and policing the problem. And with international terrorism as with domestic policing, while I would propose less prisons, more restorative justice programs, beefier social programs and prevention, etc., I, the self-proclaimed pacifist, am also loath to take guns out of the hands of the police.
I think the British model should be looked at. I think police in the U.S. are often far too quick to use their weapons. But as a practical proposal, even I can see that immediately and completely disarming all police would be like throwing so many sheep to the wolves. Violence has to be addressed organically: in general, the police are not the problem, and until we can figure out how to reduce violent crime, I supose we’re stuck with depending on a police force which we sanction to commit acts of defensive violence in our names.
I have advocated negotiations with Al Qaeda. It’s hard to say where such negotiations might have led. At any rate, it seems unlikely at this stage that such a position would ever have become policy. It is therefore difficult for me to imagine what other course of action the U.S. might have taken here. Even if we had not gone to war in Afghanistan, I think U.S. authorities had to pursue bin Laden in some way. I don’t know exactly what happened in that compound in Pakistan, or whether they could have captured him alive. I don’t believe in the death penalty. I don’t think the many inconveniences of holding a man like bin Laden prisoner and giving him a trial justify summary execution. They say he resisted without arms, and I don’t know what that means. So, perhaps as more details come out, there will be more arguments about whether he should have been killed. But it did seem a fairly likely outcome, and as it is, the U.S. does employ the death penalty, so it may all be a matter of timing in the end.
I’ve already made the point here that I think these events are sad, however inevitable they may be. I have also noted that it is doubtful whether they make us safer. But however inevitable the killing of bin Laden may appear to have been, I draw parallels to domestic policing because they remind me of an important contradiction in society’s ethical approach to issues of violence, vengeance, and justice.
In the fall of 2001, I was taking a group of Seattle University students to visit a group of “lifers” at the Washington State Reformatory, a maximum security prison in Monroe, WA. After September 11th, we discussed the impact the terrorist attacks had had on all of us. The inmates – most of them serving life sentences for murder – had a similar mix of responses to that of the students. Several weeks later, we discussed the planned invasion of Afghanistan. Again, opinions were mixed, but one inmate’s response will always stay with me.
He was a young man – in his late 20s – with a gang background, serving life for a gang-related killing. We all knew him mainly by a gang nickname – I’ll call him Ghost. I’ve worked with a lot of prison inmates and I’m familiar with the lines they feed visitors and the myriad forms of manipulation that rule prison life. I’m not naive: Ghost struck me as one of the most sincerely repentant and reformed members of our group. He had done “hard time” and was old by gang standards, so younger inmates looked up to him, and he did his best to share his wisdom with them and help them to put their gang-banging days behind them. He was smart, and wise, and his contributions to our group discussions were always greatly appreciated by our students.
When the topic of Afghanistan came up, several inmates said that the U.S. absolutely had to attack. “They” had hit us, gone after our “family,” and we had to hit them back hard and fast to send a message that nobody would get away with hurting us. A few others were more skeptical, and opposed the war. Ghost had been quiet, thinking hard. Then he took the floor. He said that when he committed the murder that landed him in prison, he hadn’t thought twice about it. He knew, with complete certitude, that it was the right and necessary thing to do. A member of another gang, from another city, had come into his neighborhood and killed one of his brother gang members. When something like that happened, he had no doubt that the only appropriate response was to hit back hard and fast – to take the killer out. He went to the rival gang’s territory, found the killer, and shot him. “I was seventeen when I did that. And now I will never leave this prison. I know now that what I did was wrong. I know that violence just brings more violence. And I will have to live with what I did for the rest of my life. But society says that what I did cannot be forgiven, that I can never leave here. Now I’m watching TV and I see the president and politicians talking about this war and these terrorist attacks.” Ghost paused to consider what he was about to say, looking around the room at the students and his fellow inmates. “I’m a very intelligent man. I read a lot. I’ve thought about this, and if there was a better word for it, I would have found it. I see what our country is doing, and all it is is a higher level of gang-banging.”
What do we think about gangsters who kill? Why do we think they do it? What do we think happens in gangland when members of one aggrieved group kill the leader of a rival group? How do we think we’re different?
One definition of the state is that it is that institution in society that is granted a monopoly on legitimized violence. Is that what it boils down to? Is the gang killing a crime only because it’s carried out by a gang? Is vengeance acceptable, is killing a form of justice, only because it is carried out by men in uniform? Was Ghost wrong when he killed? Was he right in his appraisal of the Afghanistan invasion? He is in his late 30s now. He is sitting in a prison cell in Washington State, watching the news, listening to elected officials describe the raid in Abottabad, listening to them describe this “good day for America” in terms of justice and peace and even joy, watching the crowds dancing in the streets of Washington, D.C. and New York. Streets that Ghost will never walk. Fellow Americans he will never meet.
It is difficult for many to imagine that the U.S. had alternatives to killing Osama bin Laden. But it seems to me that anyone who would celebrate his death, who would justify this killing, who would speak today of justice should be prepared to explain that position to Ghost.
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