Osama bin Laden's death (presumed here to be fact) has resurrected the longstanding question whether America should have attempted instead to capture him alive. Below, I contrast the choice of taking him out over bringing him back for trial.

THE CHOICE TO KILL OSAMA BIN LADEN

In some ways, I almost wish the pathetic old loser had just been allowed to continue to wither and fade rather than be a martyr. (I've even wondered if Bush had his location but made such a decision, rather than risk the storm Obama now has created.) Instead of a suicide belt in case he was confronted, it turns out he had Euros sewed into his robes, presumably so he could flee quickly if necessary! Instead of a booby-trapped compound, he was defended by one booby who was taken out immediately.

It's not that I have pity for the creep, but it's a little bit like when they find some WW2 Nazi concentration camp guard has been living for decades as a peaceful, friendly, respected family man somewhere in America and drag him to prison for crimes committed 70 years ago. However heinous the crime in the midst of WW2, with no statute of limitations it might be a kind of mortal justice done, but what good does it really do?

On the other hand, the whole thing about "don't show the photos," and worrying about inflaming the Muslims seems ludicrous.
(A) It's not like we're going to make them hate America any more than they already do anyway, and sometimes if you get them riled up they get careless, and charge out in the open where they're easier to target, right?
(B) What nobody seems to have said is, remember how whenever we turn tail and run they disrespect us, so this time shouldn't we get more respect from those primitive thinkers for our success in counting coup?
Barbarians who do not choose sides by intellectual debate or moral reasoning nevertheless respect strength even when used against them, and might just learn it's really the Taliban/Kyduh who are the losers.

On weekend talk radio (different crew from the weekday usuals), I even heard some extreme right wingers (I presume that's what they were) arguing how, basically, we killed a man outright without trial or evidence. There's substance to that objection. We've all heard and most of us believe that he was the "mastermind" or at least a chief instigator behind 9/11, and all the rest of what he's supposed to have done (and likely did), but propaganda and rumor are not evidence. He wasn't killed in the heat of battle. In an undeclared war with too many enemies, too many fronts, and too many complicated and convoluted purposes, we took out a sick, aged, self-absorbed old fool, hiding in a dump, who had actually already been usurped and marginalized. Not quite the same thing as taking out Hitler at the height of the war.

Of course, if as reported Osama was still trying to regain his position, allegedly had been traveling around trying to position Al Kyduh in the various Middle East uprisings, and was still doing his best to plan deaths of our soldiers and otherwise attack us, so, no pity, no qualms, just good riddance to bad rubbish.

THE OPTION TO CAPTURE OSAMA AND TRY HIM FOR WAR CRIMES

First and foremost, I sure hope not one of those SEALs involved ever suffer a moment's doubt for their excellent work, that's for sure. They were sent into they knew not what but succeeded spectacularly. Quoth Tennyson, "Theirs not to reason why...."

Second, someone -- some say Obama himself -- chose to put boots inside the compound instead of just dropping a load on the place. That turned out to be a good decision, in the way that a guy gets to be a hero instead of a goat (as Bill Cosby put it long ago in his stand-up comic days) if he gets away with some risky move on the battlefield. The women and children were mostly saved. We got to be sure it was Osama. None of our guys was even hurt. We did expose and possibly compromise our stealth helicopter technology, and it seems Pakistan is threatening to turn it over to China, but that's the hazards of war. We also got a lot of intel that would have been lost. Although it turned out well enough, the decision could all too easily have been another Carteresque Desert One.

Third, the team sent in was what the Lefties during Bush called "Cheney's hit squad," now magically transformed into Obama's heroes. As many have said, you don't send those guys in with orders to capture. So, that debate ended before they took off.

Still, if we pretend for a moment that they didn't have clear kill-not-capture orders, and also suppose that Osama had managed to plainly, obviously, non-threateningly surrender (as if he was given the chance, surprised in the dark in the middle of the night!), instead of ducking back into his bedroom where our guys would be facing who-knows-what (I wonder if his video prop AK47 reportedly under the bed even worked), then we might have had to figure out what to do with him.

So, IF we'd arrested Osama, we'd be dealing with
(1) security nightmares out the wazoo,
(2) the whole Guantanamo "issue," and relatedly
(3) what kind of trial.
Most of the Left did a 180° pirouette, celebrating that Obama did what they would have screamed about if Bush had done, so maybe they wouldn't have insisted Osama get a civil trial in Cleveland instead of a quick, safe military trial and firing squad in Guantanamo, but it very well could have dragged out for ages, with all attendant threats and problems.

Pop. Pop. Splash. Done! Hard to beat that for concise.

The folks who say he should have been buried in an unmarked grave filled with pork fat... that's just... okay, it's funny.

The folks saying the war is over, and that kind of thing -- yeah, of the whole mess, that's the weirdest! You really have to wonder how bad the public schools have been. Unfortunately this conflict is a game of Whack-a-Mole. Jesus said, the poor you have with you always, and I think that applies to the moral and intellectual poor. We still have people around who think of themselves as Nazis, even ones that aren't just noisy but cause real trouble. You can't justly kill them just for claiming to be Nazis, you just try to make sure they never have any significant power again. That'll be tough with Islam!

But you know, it is really all our fault that the radical jihadists hate us. We just need to quit doing those things which offend Muslims, and everything will be hunky-dory. Here's the still-growing checklist. Keep this list handy. There will be a test later.