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Monday 19 September 2011

Trial or Error?

    Whilst watching the YouTube channel "The Young Turks" whose segments I often watch, I came across a video of theirs in which they discuss a conversation between Michael Moore and Elisabeth Hasselbank on a show called "The View."
   Now most of you might know who Michael Moore is but you might not know who Elisabeth Hasslebank is or what "The View" is.
  Elisabeth Hasslebank is a TV personality over in the US and general television presenter. She more often than not represents Conservative views and has been outspoken more often than not.
  "The View" is the USA's version of "Loose Women" except in the former they have proper debates and conversations with some fairly serious people as opposed to "Loose Women" which is mostly celebrities and celebrity chatter with a bit of debate on the side.

   Now that's out of the way, to the video itself.
The video is a debate on the TV show on which Michael Moore was a guest. They were discussing the death of Osama Bin Laden. As you are about to see, Michael Moore believes he should have been taken back to the USA and put on trial:



Now in this Moore compares such a trial to that of the Nazi's indicating it would have been the right and moral thing to do. He also claims that "we are no longer at war" (and by "we" he means the USA). This is obviously not true.

 The reason the comparison to the Nazi's and the Nuremberg trials doesn't fit is because that was the aftermath of a world war. The Germans had accepted defeat and the general consensus was that it was right and proper to try those who were responsible for war crimes. There was no real division over the decision to send those people to the Hague to face trial, and there certainly wasn't any objections least of all for religious reasons.

Had Osama Bin Laden gone to trial in New York it might well have caused a certain amount of religious tension and division and could have caused civil unrest in certain parts of the world. Furthermore, had he been captured alive and sent to New York to face trial it could have triggered a spree of kidnappings or murders of Americans in retaliations or in an effort by the supporters of Bin Laden to free him. Any dignitary or person in a position of power both in the USA and abroad (especially in countries where the population is considerably or mostly Muslim) could have been in danger of being taken and held to ransom.
   
   Another person on the panel makes a the valid point that Bin Laden was killed instead of captured alive because the USA did not want to make Bin Laden a Martyr to which Moore replied that putting the Nazi's on trial didn't make them martyrs. However the Nazi's weren't religious fanatics. They were fanatics but not driven by an insane religious brainwashing.

In conclusion, if a democracy puts a person like Bin Laden on trial nine times out of ten, just because they didn't do it once out of those ten times that doesn't make that country any less democratic. Furthermore, I think said countries are allowed to make exceptions, especially in a case like Bin Laden, because Bin Laden and all that surrounded him and 9/11 is no ordinary case.

I believe it was right to kill him, so that all nations effected by 9/11 and the familes can perhaps move on, if indeed that is possible.

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