Murder or self-defense?

“I’D LIKE to know what you think about the killing of Osama bin Laden,” a thoughtful friend e-mailed. “I have an eerie feeling about the manner of his death, even if I (condemn) the evil that he has done. I mean in a deeper philosophical context of good and evil and taking lives,” she went on. “There is something not quite right about the whole thing, that to celebrate it is to me bordering on perversity.”

“I have no pat answers,” we replied. In the face of realities, like death and mindless violence, glib mantras will flop. May we share instead undisputed facts, relevant comments and some anecdotes.

Sixteen Filipinos were among the 2,669 killed when Bin Laden’s hijackers slammed planes into the World Trade Center in New York, on Sept. 11, 2001. More than 90 countries lost citizens in that scorch-earth assault. Foreign nationals accounted for 12 percent of the victims: India, 41, South Korea, 28, Japan, 24.

All crew members of the hijacked American Airlines Flight 11, American Airlines Flight 77 and United Airlines Flight 175 perished. And 200 people leaped to their deaths from the burning Twin Towers. The dead included eight children.

Of the 125 victims in the Pentagon attack, 70 were civilians. And 343 firefighters perished, including fire chaplain and Franciscan Fr. Mychal Judge who anointed the dying. A total of 6,294 people were treated for injuries.

“(Bin Laden’s) lifework was built on a readiness to kill thousands of innocent people,” Inquirer noted. An Economist poll detected “a general distaste” for post-Bin Laden celebrations.

“It feels odd to rejoice in a man’s death, even someone as heinous as Mr. Bin Laden” wrote an Economist staffer, who left Twin Towers an hour before the planes hit. But “were the crowds … rejoicing in a man’s death? Or rejoicing in that this man can no longer cause death? ‘We did it’ was the common refrain, not ‘we killed the bastard.’

“Sombre reflection may have been more in order … (Still ) revelers were not pumping themselves up for some future aggression. Instead, there was a satisfying sense of closure to an era of mass discomfort caused by our fears.

“That this era is not actually over is perhaps a good reason to be more staid. But even if it is merely the beginning of the end, that seems like some cause for celebration. A fist pump, at least.”

We recall being shaken awake, in Manila, by our visiting son Francis, a Delta Airlines pilot. “Look at that,” he urgently pointed to our room’s TV screen. It displayed the burning Twin Towers.

As the first hijacking reports came through, we could see forming, on his tense face, a thought: “What if I were a flight officer on that plane?” What came through his gritted teeth was the curt remark: “Someone has to pay for this.” A decade later, Francis’ President was to say in a White House address: “Justice has been done.”

Following the slaughter, the anxious wife and I made repeated futile calls to New York. Our daughter worked there for the United Nations. Larry, our son, was also there on a visit.

“The UN was cordoned off,” recalled Marixie, now Unicef spokesperson in Geneva. “We were told to evacuate. Streets were crammed with screaming fire engines and police cars. Moving in the opposite direction, on foot, were people, thousands of them.

“Telephone lines were dead,” she added. “The subway had locked down. We hoofed over 30 blocks home in the Lower East side, burdened with a sense of dread and threat.”

Larry was stepping out of the apartment to board the subway for a station near World Trade Center when the telephone rang. It was the wife Annika, calling from Cebu. By the time they finished talking, the planes had hit Twin Towers.

A friend waved him back. “We wanted to search for Marixie and help. But suddenly, the Towers came crashing down. Everyone was a potential target,” he recalls. “It was scary.”

The indiscriminate nature of the attack is the point that President Obama underscored, in his May 1 address: “Our war is not against Islam. Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader; he was a mass murderer of Muslims. Indeed, al-Qaida has slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries, including our own.”

Bin Laden’s fingerprints surface in Filipino terrorist groups, notably Abu Sayyaf. Initial funding for the Abu Sayyaf came from al-Qaida, through the brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden: Mohammed Jamal Khalif.

This man also funded Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who planned “Operation Bojinka,” a plot to destroy airplanes in mid-Pacific flight using explosives. From a Manila apartment, they tested their attacks on malls in Cebu and Greenbelt.

In December 1994, Yousef slipped a test bomb inside the life jacket under his seat (26K) before he got off at Cebu. PAL 747, flew on from Manila to Narita as Flight 434 with 273 passengers abroad.

The bomb exploded near Okinawa. Japanese businessman Haruki Ikegami was killed and 10 other passengers were wounded. The crippled plane made an emergency landing at Naha airport. Future plots against Pope John Paul II and 10 US airliners were scrubbed when an accidental fire in Room 603 of Josefa Apartments tipped the police.

Remember the Superferry 14 bombing on Feb. 27, 2004? A TV set, crammed with four kilograms of TNT, had been placed on board the 10,192-ton ferry before it lifted anchor in Manila. Ninety minutes later, the bomb went off killing 116 in the world’s deadliest terrorist attack at sea.

So, was the shooting of Bin Laden murder, as radicals claim? Or was it self-defense, as families of the victims assert? You judge.

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