By George Pitcher Last updated: May 3rd, 2011
George Pitcher is an Anglican priest who serves his ministry at St Bride's, Fleet Street, in London – the "journalists' church".
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/georgepitcher/100086071/celebrating-osama-bin-ladens-killing-is-wrong/We have to be very careful about our response to the killing of Osama bin Laden. The West was appalled and deeply offended by the street celebrations in Tehran and elsewhere after 9/11, but how do rednecks in Washington DC chanting “USA! USA!” after the shooting of Osama and other members of his household compare with that? And what’s this talk of “justice” having been done? I thought justice in the West was being arraigned for trial and judged on evidence. This was summary execution and, while it may have been necessary or forced by circumstance, it’s hardly grounds for rejoicing.
There seems to be a dangerous equivalence creeping into our politics. Our own British ministers speak of the necessity of striking at Colonel Gaddafi’s command post to stop him launching “murderous assaults”. That Nato strike cost the lives of three of his grandchildren, who by any measure are innocent victims. I don’t think there’s much of a future in preventing murderous assaults by launching murderous assaults of our own.
Back to Osama: the only bit of this story that speaks to our traditions of liberty and freedom is that he was buried having been cleansed, according to the Muslim rite. That has some of the dignity to which we aspire, which is notably missing from much of the rest of the story.