Osama bin Laden Dead, But Is Justice Done?

President Obama took to the airwaves tonight to announce that U.S. special forces killed 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden. It’s a great day for the States, the world and the President, but was justice, as Obama said, done?

After almost a decade on the run, Osama bin Laden was tracked to a remote area of Pakistan this weekend and shot dead during a firefight with U.S. special forces, the President said, marking the end of an era in the war of terror.

As with 9/11 itself, bin Laden’s death is a historic event with huge consequences for domestic and international politics.

For President Obama, who looked ready to explode with excitement, he can now say he’s the commander who accomplished a mission George W. Bush and Bill Clinton couldn’t: killing the nation’s number one enemy, a fact Obama made very clear this evening, declaring “I determined” that we had enough information on bin Laden’s location and “at my direction,” American soldiers did the deed.

And internationally speaking, bin Laden’s death will deliver a symbolic and significant win against Islamic terrorists, no doubt changing the way we conduct diplomacy with Middle Eastern and South Asian nations, particularly Pakistan, whose forces helped with the attack. It also provides a huge morale boost for our overextended military, and raises question of who, if anyone, will fill the void as the world’s most wanted terrorist.

Even conspiracy theorists have their work cut out for them: some are already wondering if the timing of this strike has something to do with the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan in three months.

An overlooked detail of bin Laden’s death, however, is whether, as the President proclaimed today, “Justice has been done.”

To most Americans, “justice” implies the fair and impartial trial, the due process of determining facts and finding the truth. And while we all know the al-Qaeda leader plotted 9/11, the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa and other horrific attacks—he boasted openly and often—seeing him on trial would have been the ideal and most cathartic form of “justice.”

Osama bin Laden was a super-villain who haunted our nation for over a decade, cloaked in shadow and mystery. Having him exposed on the stand, like Saddam Hussein before him, would have been a tonic. The logistics would have been a nightmare, but a bin Laden trial would have the drama, closure and disclosure that could have helped put a definitive end to his madness, especially if he received a death sentence, a foregone conclusion.

But don’t forget that Lady Justice also wields a sword—or in this case, bullets—and delivers her punishment with full force. In that light, bin Laden did indeed get a sort of judicious death sentence, though perhaps not one as fulfilling as the aforementioned trial’s.

No matter how you define it, however, justice is ultimately concerned with finality for victims and their families, an emotional conclusion and spiritual release. Therefore, it seems the countless people whose lives were shattered by bin Laden’s maniacal reign, those who can now have some peace after years of agonizing while bin Laden roamed free, are the most important jury in the judging of bin Laden’s fate.

And something tells me that population, like the world as a whole, are breathing a little easier knowing bin Laden was brought down, even if it wasn’t in a courtroom.

If that’s the case, then justice has done her job.