When All's Said and Done

Besides the Archbishop of Canterbury, there's been a notable lack of protest from critics of targeted killings in the wake of the death of Bin Laden. Because...well, honestly, it's Bin Laden for crying out loud! Not exactly a figure commanding great compassion, to say the least. It's easy to argue against the assassination of someone unless it happens to be a really, really terrible someone.

Democracy in America lays out the bottom line:

The silence of the usual critics of "illegal", "extrajudicial", targeted killing in the wake of America's killing of Osama bin Laden might reflect hypocrisy, sure. But this can be tough to distinguish from resignation to the fact that Mr Obama didn't submit his case for executing Mr bin Laden to some global civil authority because there isn't one and he didn't have to—because America's the biggest kid on the block and, ultimately, what America says goes. And, if it comes down to it, Britain, France, Italy, Russia and other powerful governments hope America will indulge their own kill-squad adventures with similar approving silences. Of course, if some aggrieved faction in the future seeks retribution through the targeted killing of one of these countries' leaders,

that will be raw vengeance, that will be terrorism, that will be an international crime, because, like it or not, that's how it works.