The story of Osama Bin Laden has finally come to an end, but I can't really say I feel any joy in the extra-judicial killing of an unarmed man. The US authorities have been careful to say that he was killed whilst "resisting arrest" in his home, but there's no doubt this was an entirely illegal military action, performed without the knowledge or consent of Pakistan. That makes it murder under anyone's law, be in national or international, and removing his body from the country compounds the crime.
There's been unseemly cheering in the US and grumbling elsewhere, but I have no doubt that killing him was the only viable option. And there was no way of getting Pakistani permission without tipping off Al Qaeda.
Could America have arrested him and put him on trial? It would have been a nightmarish legal process. Despite being the figurehead of an undoubtedly malignant organisation responsible for the US 2001 attacks, not to mention bombing and murder elsewhere, Al Qaeda is not and has never been the structured mafia-like organisation that the American media liked to portray. There's good evidence that Bin Laden paid for training, and sanctioned and approved of the 9/11 attacks, but what would he be indicted for under US law, given that he was a foreign national, illegally arrested and brought to the US without due process? Getting around this I've no doubt lawyers could be found who'd be happy to defend him, but would it be possible to find a jury capable of acting impartially? I think the only option would have been a special tribunal, with subsequent accusations of a kangaroo court, just as with the Guantanamo internees.
So, a process and a case could be constructed but it would be tricky, and the process would certainly take at least a year, probably more. And all the time the Arab media would be focussed on the minutiae of the trial, the tension causing riots in the Middle East, subsequent deaths, and the constant threat of terrorist attacks and intimidation in the US and Europe.
So, his killing was illegal, but it was the right thing to do.
The nagging loose end is what happened to everyone else in the compound, particular the women, and the children. Images of the villa show children's cots and the yard littered with toys, the ground still saturated with livid blood. I wonder if those American crowds laughing and chanting in New York would be so gleeful if they knew their jubilation had been bought with the blood of children.
Tuesday, 3 May 2011
Saturday, 30 April 2011
We all love a wedding, but what use is the monarchy these days?
With the sparkle of royal wedding fever fading from the air, you might expect a sceptical atheist to be completely anti-monarchy. What's the difference between the church and the monarchy, after all, two institutions which demand respect and deference based solely on their weight of history and tradition, and an assertion of their moral authority? What purpose do either of them serve in our modern, democratic world?
I'm far from being an ardent royalist, but given the choice between keeping them and getting rid of them, I think we're better off keeping them. For a start, what would we replace them with? An elected president with real political powers, requiring a wholesale revolution in our constitution, or a figurehead president with the same reserved powers of a monarch? We'd most likely go for the latter, like Ireland, but who tends to become a figurehead president? Former politicians or safely faded national treasures, whose election is partly a referendum on the government of the day.
Let's face it, Britain is a long faded empire, a middling European economy up to its knees in debt. We need something to make us shine. The mystique of monarchy is a key weapon in obscuring our otherwise tricky position and helping to maintain the illusion of prestige which allows us to punch far above our weight on the global stage.
That the eyes of millions of people around the world were focussed on Britain for the wedding of two nice but otherwise unremarkable young people does wonders for our international esteem. And there's no doubt it rakes in the tourists, since working royal palaces are more attractive than empty ones, whether you manage to spot a royal corgi or not.
It even gives foreign diplomats and heads of state a certain thrill to be entertained by a monarch, even those who are annoyed by the fussiness of royal protocol. It's a subtle reminder to foreign statesmen that they are "here today and gone tomorrow", meeting a monarch who has ruled for many years, who has entertained their political predecessors, and will no doubt their successors too. Whilst presidents come and go, the stability of monarchy remains.
Even for our home grown politicos, it's good for Prime Ministers to be reminded that, unlike a US president, they are not at the top of the tree. Every week David Cameron has to report to the Queen, like the head boy visiting his headmistress, explaining what he has been up to lately, and why. PMs don't like this duty, and that's a good thing. It's like the slave in a Roman triumph, whispering into the general's ear, "remember, you are just a man".
Lastly, the royal family is about the only thing that unites our strangely disunited kingdom. It's not like we have many national symbols other than the flag and the royals. Unlike almost every other national, we don't have a national holiday, and even our national sports teams are broken up into England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
If there's one thing our monarchs do embody, it's a sense of duty, charity, tradition and continuity. In a time where we've replaced getting to know our neighbours with watching reality tv, the royals are our ultimate reality soap opera. We've had romance, divorce, spectacle, affairs, revelations, car chases and deaths. Now the fairytale tv wedding.
It may be all a media circus, but it's fun. The royal highs and the tragedies serve to unite us in a way nothing else does in modern Britain, in a way that no dry republicanism could do. With this new couple, we have our next two heads of state and their children sorted for the next century. I've no doubt that sense of history and continuity in an uncertain world will serve us well into the future.
I'm far from being an ardent royalist, but given the choice between keeping them and getting rid of them, I think we're better off keeping them. For a start, what would we replace them with? An elected president with real political powers, requiring a wholesale revolution in our constitution, or a figurehead president with the same reserved powers of a monarch? We'd most likely go for the latter, like Ireland, but who tends to become a figurehead president? Former politicians or safely faded national treasures, whose election is partly a referendum on the government of the day.
Let's face it, Britain is a long faded empire, a middling European economy up to its knees in debt. We need something to make us shine. The mystique of monarchy is a key weapon in obscuring our otherwise tricky position and helping to maintain the illusion of prestige which allows us to punch far above our weight on the global stage.
That the eyes of millions of people around the world were focussed on Britain for the wedding of two nice but otherwise unremarkable young people does wonders for our international esteem. And there's no doubt it rakes in the tourists, since working royal palaces are more attractive than empty ones, whether you manage to spot a royal corgi or not.
It even gives foreign diplomats and heads of state a certain thrill to be entertained by a monarch, even those who are annoyed by the fussiness of royal protocol. It's a subtle reminder to foreign statesmen that they are "here today and gone tomorrow", meeting a monarch who has ruled for many years, who has entertained their political predecessors, and will no doubt their successors too. Whilst presidents come and go, the stability of monarchy remains.
Even for our home grown politicos, it's good for Prime Ministers to be reminded that, unlike a US president, they are not at the top of the tree. Every week David Cameron has to report to the Queen, like the head boy visiting his headmistress, explaining what he has been up to lately, and why. PMs don't like this duty, and that's a good thing. It's like the slave in a Roman triumph, whispering into the general's ear, "remember, you are just a man".
Lastly, the royal family is about the only thing that unites our strangely disunited kingdom. It's not like we have many national symbols other than the flag and the royals. Unlike almost every other national, we don't have a national holiday, and even our national sports teams are broken up into England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
If there's one thing our monarchs do embody, it's a sense of duty, charity, tradition and continuity. In a time where we've replaced getting to know our neighbours with watching reality tv, the royals are our ultimate reality soap opera. We've had romance, divorce, spectacle, affairs, revelations, car chases and deaths. Now the fairytale tv wedding.
It may be all a media circus, but it's fun. The royal highs and the tragedies serve to unite us in a way nothing else does in modern Britain, in a way that no dry republicanism could do. With this new couple, we have our next two heads of state and their children sorted for the next century. I've no doubt that sense of history and continuity in an uncertain world will serve us well into the future.
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