Taking Out Snooki

I agree with Michael Moore that Osama Bin Laden’s exit strategy was an execution as much as anything. What else can you say about shooting an unarmed man in his pajamas? It didn’t appear that he had any idea who was hammering on his door in the middle of the night, never mind that they were dangerous, which inspires a lot of the skeptical diplomatic questions about Pakistan and management of their internal controls, if nothing else. That they have a lot of challenges is no mystery, but at the very least you have to wonder about their ability to insure any kind of secure and consistent administrative strategy and performance.

In spite of the legal implications and ideological hypocrisy, however, I’m not sure taking Bin Laden alive would have been either just or helpful. Pakistan’s shaky grip on political loyalty makes it abundantly clear that there was no way of knowing what exactly the hit squad was going to find. They could conceivably have ended up in a shootout with the entire Pakistani army. The mere need for the kind of excluisve secrecy maintained indicates a precarious lack of confidence in the circumstances. I take it Bin Laden’s arrangements for escape or protection were pretty much unknown. Explosives? Tunnels? A squad of battle-hardened immortals? Or even if he was there at all? Bin Laden alive could have meant missing our one chance to hold him accountable. Do the interests of justice ever exceed the interests of due process, even once in a millenium? How willing was Bin Laden to engage the international legal system? Maybe that’s the real test. How much did international law mean to Osama Bin Laden? I haven’t noticed Al-Quaida appealing to the international court for representation lately.

I also haven’t seen Bin Laden’s birth certificate, but unlike President Obama and Hawaii, I don’t think connections to a de facto U.S. territory like Saudi Arabia makes Bin Laden a U.S. citizen, so no problem there. He would not be entitled to either post bail or run for president. Taking him out may be a technical violation of international law, which is the sticky point, but what if in the course of human events the authority demonstrates unwillingness and inability to enforce the law? This would be comparable to a situation in which Mayor Snooki of Chicago sends out agents from Parks and Recreation to ram a trailer truck into an office building in Texas, killing thousands of school children at a Christian temperance rally. The mayor admits privately to planning the operation and ordering the landscapers to crash the truck, but she escapes into the South Dakota badlands and disappears. The Texas Rangers complain to the federal government. The government responds that they’re working on it.

Hot on Mayor Snooki’s trail, the Texas Rangers turn over critical information to the Feds, only to discover Mayor Snooki has been tipped off and escaped from the Corn Palace in Mitchell where she was known to have been holed up under the protection of local sheep ranchers. Ten years later, the Feds are still working on it when the Rangers find a Facebook page for Mayor Snooki and she turns up in Sioux Falls, working as a contestant on a reality survival show and living at the local Hilton hotel in a witness protection program after ratting on the New Jersey mob.

The Texas Rangers send special forces disguised as a Zydeco band into Sioux falls to take down Snooki in the hotel. During the raid, Snooki’s business manager dies in anguish from a fatally irregular bass beat and the lead guitarist steps on her chihuahua. In the dark hotel room, the Rangers discover a stash of hunting equipment from Snooki’s escape into the wilderness and erroneously conclude they have blundered into a trophy hunt for an endangered species by Mama Bear Palin, where they will be gunned down at the first opportunity, so as a precaution, they execute her on the spot with a portable electric chair.

I realize this is trivializing the entire terrorist issue, which is not funny for a lot of people, and with good reason, but it could happen, and you see the point. Who would complain about the Texas Rangers?

Here's thinking for you,

Iffy