[FORUM] What do you think about Bin Laden's death?

I've been so consumed by the Canadian election that I haven't devoted any time here to the death of Osama Bin Laden.

He deserved to die and I don't mind that he's dead: when the Dalai Lama calls his killing justified--the Dalai Lama--it's safe to say that his popularity, at least among the segments of the world population my readers and his followers are associated with, is dim. The possibility that he might make recompense for his crime is trivial, since even if he was willing he just couldn't make up for the tens of thousands who died under his direction. Given the Pakistani government's toleration and even protection of Bin Laden, the American raid may have been the only way to deal with him. And the dumping of the body in the Indian Ocean? Meh; greater respect he got than many of the victims could ever receive.



His superficial banality and actual evil are no more.

I do have some concerns with this. I find it moderately worrisome that a precedent has been set for American military forces to invade a sovereign country with the explicit goal of assassinating someone without a pretense of due process. Yes, he was a special case, but aren't there many special cases? I also noted an article explaining to children why it's OK to celebrate Bin Laden's death: I agree with Maureen Dowd that Bin Laden was far from being a victim but rather died as a result of actions he took and via a military action that took care to spare innocents, and think the celebration was legitimate catharsis. Still, is that all it was?

I wonder. Do you?

[FORUM] Should Pakistan be treated as a rogue state?

Salman Rushdie's article at The Daily Beast, "Pakistan's Deadly Game", dealt with the effective certainty that elements--at least--of the Pakistani state had been protecting and hiding Bin Laden for years. This fits with a longer history of Pakistani support for the Taliban and for anti-Indian terrorism. His final paragraphs?

For a long time now America has been tolerating the Pakistani double game in the knowledge that it needs Pakistani support in its Afghan enterprise, and in the hope that Pakistan’s leaders will understand that they are miscalculating badly, that the jihadists want their jobs. Pakistan, with its nuclear weapons, is a far greater prize than poor Afghanistan, and the generals and spymasters who are playing al Qaeda’s game today may, if the worst were to happen, become the extremists’ victims tomorrow.

There is not very much evidence that the Pakistani power elite is likely to come to its senses any time soon. Osama bin Laden’s compound provides further proof of Pakistan’s dangerous folly.

As the world braces for the terrorists’ response to the death of their leader, it should also demand that Pakistan give satisfactory answers to the very tough questions it must now be asked. If it does not provide those answers, perhaps the time has come to declare it a terrorist state and expel it from the comity of nations.

And I can't say that he's wrong.

What do you think?