Everybody on the planet has heard by now that Osama Bin Laden has been killed. My Facebook feed is showing a range of reactions, mostly triumphant, with only two cynics.
Count me with the cynics. I don't believe "Justice has been done". I'm not even convinced we've made progress, on either justice or terrorism.
Here's why: terrorism is like spam.
Yes, terrorism is like unsolicited email. The stuff that fills up your inbox, even if you don't have the physiology to take advantage of their offers.
Here's the key similarity: they're both a simple, effective way for someone with minimal resources to make an impact.
That's also why neither is going to stop, even if you eliminate the biggest perpetrator. Someone else who wants to make an impact is going to step up and become the new biggest perpetrator.
Case in point: in 2007, the King of Spam was arrested. Was your inbox affected? How about after the Russian Spam King was arrested in 2010?
When the means to cause an impact is so easily employable, someone will use it. We won't get rid of it until virtually all of society considers the means to be unacceptable.
On a more serious note -- and the reason this post gets tagged as 'Politics' -- I can't agree that "Justice has been done". The man is dead; technically, killed in action. He considered this a war against his religion; that means he died for his religion, which makes him a martyr, which means he goes on to a heavenly reward. Will this act as a deterrent for others who want to step into his shoes?
More relevantly to justice: how does this assuage the posterity of those killed in the World Trade Center Attacks?
Unless we seize his fortune (assuming there's any left), and use it to improve the lives of those he affected, no justice has been done. We can't even have a trial, so we can expose his justifications as the meaningless empty rationalizations they are. We can't expose him to the people he hurt, we can't demonstrate the disdain all the nations of the world have for his actions.
All we can do is bury him at sea and tell the survivors to move along.
If only he had committed suicide when he knew it was over, at least we wouldn't have a martyr that others would try to emulate.