The beauty of Law of War in the killing of Osama Bin Laden: searching for the appropriate space between vindication and vengeance. [1]
Why did I enjoy the presentations on the Beauty? [2] I could have heard different answers to the question from different people who enjoyed it together with me. It was interesting in that each presenter suggested a unique view on the Beauty that someone else could not have relished before. For example, the last presenter talked about the Beauty in terms of perception, which brought us to the gray area between physical body and metal mind. It always arouses warmth sleeping deep in our heart to see someone helping the disadvantaged for his pleasure. The young female presenter who had lived in India seemed to have broken the wall between volunteerism and personal life. I would have attempted to major chemistry in undergraduate if I had had a teacher like the bubble presenter in high school. Needless to say, it was fun. We were able to laugh even when the heath-care presenter talked about Alzheimer which comes as a deep sorrow to families of a person with the disease. The cup cake presenter did not need any longer courage to keep her narrative ordinary even when bringing up the failure of marriage. She has been “practicing” cup cake as she became increasingly aware of how to love herself. The comedian showed that laugh comes from a state of mind of a person rather than a situation in which he is.
If any, what would be common thread shared by all presentations? I would say the Beauty they presented comes from the image of God. [3] As each presenter “cultivates” [4] their own skills--teaching chemistry, studying perception of beauty, pondering a sense of humor, creating a cup cake of beauty, making senior care more accessible, helping the trafficked to be a self-propelled actor in market—she takes one more step toward the image of God.
Not every diligent person can be said to “cultivate” his area. A step toward the image of God requires something more than that, which can be hardly captured by one descriptive word, mainly because I don’t know yet what it is. While momentum will accrue with diligence and passion, it is, in fact, often directed against the image of God. A man with a six pack and a pin up girl must have disciplined themselves to be in good shape physically—momentum. To describe them, I would use the word “sexy” or “pretty” rather than “beauty.” It is not because they are not beautiful. After all, the question of momentum and direction is left with each individual.
The series of presentation motivated me to think about the Beauty of what I am interested in, which is, among others, law of war, i.e., rules regarding armed conflict. After spending a couple of stroll seeking to discover the Beauty which I believe exists in law of war, I drew a conclusion that the law of war reflects the image of God by searching for the appropriate space between vindication and vengeance.
Ideally speaking, realization of the image of God would have warranted an absolute state of peace or at least pacific dispute resolution in secular world. However, Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, erroneously believing that they already had or would have wisdom to discern good and evil. As the false wisdom permeates into every breath we take, it puts us in a box where my justice is inevitably doomed to conflict with yours, both of which cannot be reconciled with mutual understanding. Consequently, we are faced with a choice of lesser evils: resort to use of force while still seeking for image of God during armed conflict. Put differently, the way of using or threatening force, if we can’t avoid as a matter of fact, must be restricted only to a limited extent of pursuit of justice which is necessarily accompanied by vindication, leaving no room for intent to revenge.
Let us take an example of the killing of Osama Bin Laden (“OBL”) for the event serves well to illustrate how law of war searches for the appropriate space between vindication and vengeance. It is a timely and legitimate example in that its facts are well publicized and the Obama administration claims it to have been carried out in full compliance with law of war.
The first question you might raise is whether it is consistent with law of war to resort to (military) force against OBL. The 9/11 attack was already completed and almost a decade has passed. Suppose a heinous crime took place in 2001 in the U.S. Law enforcement would use police power to arrest the perpetrator, as opposed to using military power to take his life.
In principle, use of force is prohibited by law of war with few exceptions, one of which is self-defense. Like an act of violence is justified by self-defense in domestic law, a country is justified in taking military measure if an armed attack occurs against the country.
Without law of war which permits use of force under very exceptional circumstances, such as self-defense, every country would make arguments, knowingly or self-deceptively, based on “false wisdom,” namely I have the knowledge of good and evil and, thus, our use of force is just war. Law of war is designed to head off such “false wisdom.”
In the present case of the killing of OBL, he has an unquestioned leadership position and a clear continuing operational role within al Qaeda. It undertakes to continue to attack the U.S. Thus, use of force by the U.S. against al-Qaeda and its leader, OBL, is justified by self-defense doctrine.
Instead of bombing the compound from afar, the President chose to send SEAL team, whereby the U.S. operation could target the only legitimate military objective—OBL—and avoid excessive incidental injury to civilians. Put it in legal terms, the operation followed the principles of distinction and proportionality.
Under the principles, attack must be limited to military objective, excluding civilians. Furthermore, attack must be proportionate to the harm or threat which gave rise to the attack. The choice of lesser evils, though permitting use of force, still seeks for the image of God during armed conflict by protecting civilians against military operation and prohibiting unnecessary injury.
Someone may justly raise a question: would it be better to capture OBL? Is it illegal to order the SEAL team to kill him, not capture? According to the Obama administration’s statement, if OBL offered to surrender the team was required to accept his surrender if the team could do so safely. Indeed, the law of war requires acceptance of a genuine offer of surrender. However, OBL was said to refuse to express any intent to surrender.
The law of war with regard to surrender clearly shows that it seeks for vindication, not vengeance. The choice of lesser evils, while empowering the U.S. to use lethal force, does not go so far as to allow the killing of enemy merely because of his status of enemy. If the enemy genuinely abandons the intent to attack for whatever reason, the image of God is too compassionate to kill him for the moment.
Vengeance is retrospective in that it looks back on past activity to be punished, possibly by killing, whether or not an enemy surrenders afterwards. Vindication, however, is prospective in that its main goal is to affirm a position to be legitimate and leave a legacy for future activities—pursuit of justice. Since the pursuit of justice does not necessarily come from the killing of enemy, law of war prohibits such killing when the enemy surrenders.
Without law of war regarding surrender, a party involved in armed conflict would, knowingly or self-deceptively, claim to have the knowledge of good and evil, and argue that his killing of an enemy who raises white flag is a God’s answer to his prayer. The false wisdom will leave us trapped in a vicious circle of violence.
The Obama administration unequivocally emphasizes that the operation was conducted in accordance with laws of war. Obviously, the organized terrorist enemy has neither conventional forces nor commitment to ensuring its attacks against the U.S. comply with law of war. Though that behavior makes the application of law of war significantly difficult, this administration committed itself to ensure that lethal operations are in full compliance with all applicable laws. The efforts, I believe, are truly American exceptionalism, which makes the U.S. different from those it fight and which is the source of its strength.
[1] Kevin Eckstrom, How Should Religious People Respond To Bin Laden's Death?, THE HUFFINGTON POST, May 2, 2011, available at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/02/is-it-ok-to-cheer-osama-b_n_856620.html?ref=fb&src=sp.
[3] Genesis 1:27 (“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”)
[4] Genesis 2:15 (“Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.”)
- I intentionally neglected to cite the sources I get the idea or phrase from. No Plagiarism charge.
- The short-writing is not to address the issue of whether the killing of OBL was legal. Instead, I made an attempt to see law of war in light of the Word, using the event of the killing of OBL as an example.
