It’s not the strongest pitch for a potential prime minister that he is a “total opponent of al-Qaeda”. Yet that was the message from Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign yesterday when footage emerged of the frontrunner for the Labour leadership commenting in 2011 on the killing of Osama bin Laden. Speaking to the Iranian state broadcaster Press TV, Mr Corbyn termed it “an assassination attempt, and is yet another tragedy, upon a tragedy, upon a tragedy”.
On cue, Mr Corbyn’s supporters complain that the words had been taken out of context, and the “tragedy” he referred to was that bin Laden had been killed rather than captured and arraigned. Let’s, then, put aside Mr Corbyn’s indecently referring in the same breath to the attacks of 9/11 as a comparable “tragedy” and his dalliance with the conspiracy theory that bin Laden wasn’t really killed. Even on the generous interpretation hastily confected by his campaign, Mr Corbyn’s comments are a disgrace. In tracing and killing bin Laden, US forces acted justly. They and their commander-in-chief, President Obama, merit the gratitude of all who uphold democratic values.
When he was killed, bin Laden wasn’t carrying the weapons that he habitually kept with him. That fact alone wouldn’t have entitled him to the rights of noncombatant immunity, however. He’d suborned the murder of thousands of civilians. In response, not knowing for certain if they’d correctly identified their quarry, US forces acted with such scrupulous proportionality that they targeted bin Laden direct rather than bomb the compound in which he lived. They acted for a lawful sovereign power exercising self-defence.
Had bin Laden emerged from his bedroom naked and with arms raised, he might have been spared. It’s morally irrelevant that he had only seconds to consider his decision. He’d had 13 years — since al-Qaeda’s bombing of two US embassies in East Africa — to give himself up, and chosen not to. Hence he was shot. Like Mr Corbyn, I’m opposed in principle to judicial execution, but I don’t call bin Laden’s death a tragedy. On the contrary, I’m glad of it.
It’s monstrous cant to suppose that, for all their imperfections and failings, the western democracies need to prove their moral superiority to theocratic barbarism. By his remarks, Mr Corbyn asserts aloofness from that struggle and demonstrates unfitness for membership, let alone leadership, of a constitutional political party.