If Nuremberg Could Give the Worst Holocaust Fiends a Trial, Why Not Bin Laden?

Killing Unarmed Osama is Against US Policy Allowing Even Nazis a Fair Trial

- Kelly O'Connell
Sunday, May 8, 2011

It made perfect sense to kill on sight Osama bin Laden. It was also perfectly wrong. Mistaken because we as Americans, heirs of the European Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment, decided last century that all accused men deserve a fair trial before execution. We staged trials for even the Nazis, but not because they earned it. Instead we did so in the name of Rule of Law, our common humanity, and to illuminate the dangers of ideological fanaticism. We use the legal sciences and forensic arts to give depravity its proper place within the larger story of history, making sense of it, drawing out lessons which cannot be gleaned any other way.

Modern European law is a triumph of fairness over often savage ancient and medieval rules. For this reason the idea of a written constitution, and Bill of Rights, inherited from England, became the most influential political/legal ideas in the modern world. It was a triumph of the Allies they were able to set aside a felt need for revenge and put these mass-murderers on trial to prove their crimes. This was a first in world history, and is counted a massive success. A side effect was the creation of the United Nations. And yet, now, politicians on both sides of the aisle are celebrating the shooting of an admittedly unarmed man, one who deserved a trial—because all humans deserve at least that much. This is the topic of our article.

I. World War II & Nuremberg Trials
When World War II erupted, certain factors made it one of the most objectionable wars ever fought. The anti-racial and religious elements led to the murder of 6 million Jews, amongst an ocean of other human rights violations. But according to the agreement made by the Allies, those Nazis surviving the Armistice would be put on trial, and so they were. This group would have included Adolph Hitler, had he survived. Can we possibly say Osama bin Laden was a worse person than the Nazi leaders? So why the rush to judgment?

There were thirteen trials at Nuremberg, chosen as the site because Hitler used it for Nazi celebrations. The trials themselves marked a triumphant return of Natural Law, becoming the foundation for the proceedings. This was because Nazis made being Jewish illegal, so the killing of Jews was both legal and part of quintessential Nazi public policy, without which Germans believed greatness could not rise.

The proceedings at Nuremberg are described here:

Held for the purpose of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice, the Nuremberg trials were a series of 13 trials carried out in Nuremberg, Germany, between 1945-1949. Defendants, including Nazi Party officials and high-ranking military officers along with German industrialists, lawyers & doctors, were indicted on such charges as crimes against peace & crimes against humanity. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) committed suicide and was never brought to trial. Although the legal justifications for the trials and their procedural innovations were controversial at the time, the Nuremberg trials are now regarded as a milestone toward the establishment of a permanent international court, and an important precedent for dealing with later instances of genocide and other crimes against humanity.

The trials were discussed in San Francisco and the Allies decided upon the format:

First they agreed upon trial rules, adopting combined procedure of the four Allies (America, France, England & Soviet Union). Defendants were given rights to an attorney, to call witnesses, and present evidence in their own behalf. They were not given the right to a jury trial, part of the law only in Great Britain and US. Finally, after all the evidence was presented, the defendants were permitted to make statements to the court without being sworn or cross-examined.

The next step was the indictment, a statement of the charges against each defendant. The trial was held before a panel of judges called the Tribunal. The Allies presented their evidence consisting almost entirely of the words and documents of the Nazis themselves. During the investigation were discovered tons of documents proving the charges against the defendants. The decision was made, therefore, to rely on the words of the defendants themselves in the trial. Certain witnesses were presented to flesh out the evidence, especially in the case of the concentration camps.

II. 9/11 and Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden was centrally involved in the attack against America on September 11th, 2001. He masterminded the assault. He bragged about the results, admitting his role in attacking the World Trade Towers, saying:

While I was looking at these destroyed (US Marine) towers in Lebanon, it sparked in my mind tyrants should be punished with the same and that we should destroy towers in America, so that it tastes what we taste and would be deterred from killing our children and women. God knows that it had not occurred to our mind to attack the towers, but after our patience ran out and we saw the injustice and inflexibility of the American-Israeli alliance toward our people in Palestine and Lebanon, this came to my mind.

This admission by Osama is being used by Americans to justify his killing. But this could just as easily have been used to lay a foundation for his prosecution.

III. Eight Reasons for Giving Osama bin Laden a Trial
Europe was torn to shreds by WWII; generations of men killed or crippled. And yet those who went through this decided there was more to be gained by taking the ringleaders of the Nazis and putting them on trial, than just executing them, as Churchill advised. Remember, bin Laden was unarmed when shot. Further, the team was under orders to kill him, not bring him back live. These facts are very important, because Osama could have been captured and put on trial. The following reasons support Osama being tried first before execution:

1. Erecting the Rule of Law Over Revenge & Fear
Ultimately, only a few things separate mankind from the animals, none more powerful than our ideas of law and religion. These are a few of the most civilizing forces known to humans. By taking even a devil like Osama and making him stand trial, we do several notable things. First, we establish that crazy acts of violence are made up of understandable, illegal parts. Consider the specific Nuremberg charges:

• Count 1 - CONSPIRACY to commit crimes alleged in next three counts.
• Count 2 - CRIMES AGAINST PEACE including planning, preparing, starting, or waging aggressive war.
• Count 3 - WAR CRIMES including violations of laws or customs of war.
• Count 4 - CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY including murder, extermination, enslavement, persecution on political or racial grounds, involuntary deportment, and inhumane acts against civilian populations.
Such legal proceedings serve as instruction to even primitively minded people, and also give a stark warning for the consequences of such monstrous behavior. Ultimately, the Rule of Law is what separates the West from the rest of the world and also primitive mankind. We cannot possibly afford to simply toss it aside whenever we feel it inconvenient.

2. Putting Radical Islam on Trial
An Osama trial would have given the West the best opportunity to put on display the crazy and unacceptable ideas that drove bin Laden to murder. Then we could have decisively knocked down each like Saint Augustine, in the City of God, taking on and demolishing the pagan cults of his day to the point where much of what we now know of them is taken from his criticism.

3. Humiliating Osama
To see an arrogant, self-righteous, judgmental character like Osama caged like a rabid dog would have humiliated him and his movement. Likewise, this was done to the Peruvian leader of the Sendero Luminoso—Shining Path—Marxist butcher Abimael Guzmán Reynoso. Guzman was arrested, tried and convicted for terrorism and murder. He is now held in an open cage dressed in stripes. The militant philosophy professor, responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent farmers, was humbled in this manner.

Islamic Shari’ah law itself calls for “exemplaryâ€