a question of "justice"

On a recent Sunday morning my husband woke me up with the dramatic news: Bin Laden is dead. He was shot by US forces who made a specific raid inside the territory of another sovereign nation without that nation's knowledge or consent, in his own home, in the presence of his family.

In the immediate aftermath of the news breaking, everyone seemed to have an opinion. One phrase stuck out to me in the cacophony of voices, a phrase used by the US President in his announcement, and repeated ad nauseum by callers on Radio 2. Bin Laden has been "brought to justice."

From the first time I heard it, this phrase jarred with me. Justice? What justice is involved in entering a man's home without permission and killing him. Surely justice involves a judge, a trial, a jury, some type of law.

The violent triumphalism of many in the US following the announcement further gives the lie to the term "justice." So many in the States have been baying for Bin Laden's blood for the last 9.5 years because he was the leader of the organization that caused such catastrophic death and destruction on US soil in 2001. Does that make him directly responsible for those attacks? Where is the evidence? Where is the weighing of the facts? Where the proof of his personal involvement in 9/11?

Frankly, the manner of this killing and the popular response to it feels more like a lynch mob than a court room. Bin Laden most certainly thumbed his nose at the US often, and if he didn't plan 9/11, it seems likely that he rejoiced in the damage done on that day. He was, at least for a time, a real threat to US security, but the US method of 'hunt and kill' feels more like a school yard bully than an act of justice.

I would have had no issue with Bin Laden being brought to justice and held to account, by international law, for the lives that have been lost by his hand or due to his direct influence. What I do object to is the cold-blooded, targeting and killing of a man in his home. The fact that this was carried out without the knowledge or consent of the government of Pakistan makes it so much the worse. The US government and/or military apparently thinks itself above such things as respecting other nations' sovereignty or 'breaking and entering' homes not on its own soil as long as it can some how justify to itself that it was in protection of 'our citizens' and 'our allies.'

What chilling message does this send about US ideas of 'justice'? If we do not respect the rights of an accused terrorist in his own home, who will next find themselves in the US firing line, and is the only international law the US actually recognizes simply called "our own best interest"?