Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

The editorial in The Irish Times yesterday stated, "The US special forces team was under orders not to take him [Osama bin Laden] alive, as confirmed by a US national security official to Reuters." We now know he was shot dead unarmed.

The Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and leader of the Labour Party and presidents of the EU Commission and Council, all categorically supported the assassination of bin Laden. Since when is it the policy of the Government and of the European Union to support a shoot-to-kill policy of somebody suspected of serious crimes? Is it only justified if the target is a reactionary anti-democratic, anti-human rights obscurantist like bin Laden, whose organisation slaughtered thousands of innocent people, not only in New York but, massively, in Pakistan and elsewhere? Are there other circumstances? Before the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste join the chorus of sycophantic congratulation, did the Taoiseach consider some more profound and subtle issues, for example, that bin Laden was being increasingly isolated because the heroic revolution for democratic, economic and human rights sweeping Arab nations and led by the youth and the poor in their millions did more to undermine al-Qaeda than all the US military might and their missiles and bombs? Did he consider the rank hypocrisy of the United States and EU countries such as Britain which armed and supported dictatorships whose brutal repression was grist to the mill of the reactionary al-Qaeda organisation?

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