Links to others re my previous post on Osama bin Laden’s death –

The Moral Maze – this evening’s Radio 4 programme on The Killing of Osama Bin Laden.  Would a trial have provoked many more atrocities?  Comparisons with Nuremberg.  If it’s OK to kill bin Laden without trial, who else might warrant the same treatment?  Do two wrongs make a right?  With Michael Buerk, Claire Fox, Melanie Phillips, Michael Portillo and Matthew Taylor.

Channel 4 News online – Ed Fraser There would have been no attempt to capture bin Laden.  “The first US military flag officer to set foot in Afghanistan after 9/11 was a US Navy Seal. Their man-hunt is over.”

The Guardian – Gary Younge on Osama bin Laden’s death: The US patriot reflex.  “If you shoot a man twice in the head you do not find him guilty. You find him dead.”

Sydney Morning Herald – Geoffrey Robertson on Bin Laden’s summary execution maketh the man, martyr and myth.  “When the time came to consider the fate of men more steeped in wickedness than bin Laden – the Nazi leaders – the British government wanted them hanged within six hours of capture. The president Harry Truman demurred, citing the conclusion of Justice Robert Jackson that summary execution “would not sit easily on the American conscience or be remembered by our children with pride . . . the only course is to determine the innocence or guilt of the accused after a hearing as dispassionate as the times will permit and upon a record that will leave our reasons and motives clear”.