“Remaining for a moment with the question of legality and illegality: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1368, unanimously passed, explicitly recognized the right of the United States to self-defense and further called upon all member states 'to bring to justice the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of the terrorist attacks. It added that 'those responsible for aiding, supporting or harboring the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of those acts will be held accountable.' In a speech the following month, the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan publicly acknowledged the right of self-defense as a legitimate basis for military action. The SEAL unit dispatched by President Obama to Abbottabad was large enough to allow for the contingency of bin-Laden's capture and detention. The naïve statement that he was 'unarmed' when shot is only loosely compatible with the fact that he was housed in a military garrison town, had a loaded automatic weapon in the room with him, could well have been wearing a suicide vest, had stated repeatedly that he would never be taken alive, was the commander of one of the most violent organizations in history, and had declared himself at war with the United States. It perhaps says something that not even the most casuistic apologist for al-Qaeda has ever even attempted to justify any of its 'operations' in terms that could be covered by any known law, with the possible exception of some sanguinary verses of the Koran.”

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About Christopher Hitchens

British and American author and journalist

Christopher Eric Hitchens was a British and American author and journalist. He was a public intellectual of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, known for his work as a columnist and speaker, and for his role among the so-called “Four Horsemen” of New Atheism. He became widely noticed for sharp, argumentative writing and for the principle often linked to him that claims without evidence need not be accepted. That idea, sometimes called Hitchens’s razor, is cited in philosophy and law, and it reflects the evidential style associated with his work.

More from Christopher Hitchens (397 quotes) →

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Books by Christopher Hitchens

God Is Not Great

2007

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Thomas Jefferson

2005

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Is Christianity good for the world?

2008

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The Missionary Position

1995

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Thomas Paine's Rights of man

2006

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