International Tribunal

You might think Vermeer of little contemporary relevance, but one of the docents on my cruise, Lawrence Douglas, teaches law (and creative writing!) at Amherst and has written extensively on the Nuremberg, Eichmann, and Barbie trials, and is now covering the Demjanjuk trial.

He was supposed to lecture us one night on how Osama bin Laden might fare if brought before an International Tribunal.

I might have been a bit drowsy that night, having been exhausted by the day's esthetic experiences, but it seemed he never got past the historical precedents to deal with what, at that moment, cruising through Holland, seemed an absurd hypothetical.

Yesterday, Benjamin B. Ferencz, a prosecutor at Nuremberg, had a letter in the NY Times, which expresses my sentiment exactly:

"Your superb report 'Behind the Hunt for Bin Laden' leaves key questions unanswered. Jubilation over the death of the most hunted mass murderer is understandable, but was it really justifiable self-defense, or was it premeditated illegal assassination?

"The Nuremberg trials earned worldwide respect by giving Hitler’s worst henchmen a fair trial so that truth would be revealed and justice under law would prevail. Secret nonjudicial decisions based on political or military considerations undermine democracy. The public is entitled to know the complete truth."

Some things I would like to know:

• Where was the DNA lab that could do such a quickie match? Is that normal frontline equipment, or had it been set up in anticipation of...? Or was it not really done at all?
• When were all the Muslim countries queried about their willingness to accept bin Laden's body (in keeping with Muslim belief that burial must be in the ground, not at sea)?
• How and when did the body get to the Carl Vinson from, presumably, Jalalabad?
• Had provisional arrangements already been made to receive a dead bin Laden?
• How did the Seals, looking through night vision glasses, know they had found bin Laden? Had they been supplied with a "recent" photo of him?
• Did bin Laden really live in such squalor? Or did the Seals strip and wreck the place? Or is the video that tracks around the blood stain a fake?
• Why are people who call for "evidence" being characterized as "conspiracy theorists"?
• Wouldn't bin Laden have been worth infinitely more alive than dead?
• If Saddam was given a trial, didn't bin Laden deserve one, too?