As Gandhi reminded us, again and again and again, “The means and the ends are same.”

It is for this obvious reason, and many other obvious reasons,

that we should not be too quick to gloat about the forced suicide-murder of the terrorist Abu Bakr al Baghdadi and his three children.

It’s worth repeating that the U.S. Special Forces hit squad used their dogs to chase and corner this man, who, when cornered, used a suicide vest to kill himself and his children. We don’t know—probably never will know—whether the Special Forces team had orders to kill or try to capture. If the Osama Bin Laden precedent is any indication, they probably had orders to kill.

Which is not a good precedent to set. The U.S. military got permission from both Russia and Turkey, and cooperation from Iraq for this mission. Does this indicate we just gave implicit permission to Russia, Turkey and Iraq to likewise send special hit squads into foreign countries and kill whomever they consider to be enemies of their state? (Saudi Arabia already assumed it had such permission, luring U.S. based journalist Jamal Khashoggi from Washington D.C. to the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, where they first chopped off his fingers as a warning to other journalists, and then chopped him up entirely. Rumor has it that an international group of activist journalists calling themselves, “Khashoggi’s Fingers” is preparing to carry on his work of exposing Saudi corruption.)

This seems a good time to remind ourselves, and the world, that we are a nation of laws, and that we are part of an international community that likewise functions according to long-established laws, rules and procedures.

Clearly, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi was a bad actor, a violent man, a known terrorist behind horrific deeds. As Wikipedia documents it, “These [deeds] include the genocide of Yazidis in Iraq, extensive sexual slavery, organized rape, floggings, and systematic executions. He directed terrorist activities and massacres. He embraced brutality as part of the organization’s propaganda efforts, producing videos displaying sexual slavery and executions via hacking, stoning, and burning. al-Baghdadi’s character was summed up [by Time Magazine] as a man who ‘was killing and ordering rape of thousands of people and at the end of the day blew himself up’ with kids ‘rather than fight.’”

How did Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, an Iraqi born in 1971, who at one time was considered quiet, non-violent and shy, get this way? Obviously, he came under the influence of profoundly unstable and unworkable ideas and philosophies, none of which, by the way, are supported by the Koran. He fought against the U.S. invasion of his country, and was held prisoner for a time in Abu Ghraib, the infamous Iraqi prison run by U.S. and Iraqi forces where illegal torture took place.  None of this justifies his own track of terror.

Nevertheless, we must admit that killing him in the manner he was killed—forced suicide—does nothing to counter, weaken or deconstruct the ideas and philosophies that he held. Indeed, such a manner of forced death can and does add fuel to these very ideas and philosophies.    

Osama bin Laden was trained in these same unworkable ideas and philosophies. After the first two days of U.S. bombing in Afghanistan, that Taliban said, “that’s enough! Just show us your proof that Bin Laden plotted this air strikes and you can come get him. We don’t want him anymore.”

Either the U.S. didn’t have sufficient proof against Bin Laden or George Bush had other plans for this war, such as a stepping-stone to invade Iraq. Or, perhaps, he thought he could just bomb these ideas and philosophies out of existence.

Here seventeen years later (seventeen years!), after countless deaths (some estimate one million, all told) and a trillion U.S. dollars spent, the Taliban now control more territory in Afghanistan then they did on the first day of bombing!

Killing these extremists doesn’t work to counter their ideas and philosophies.   Abu Bakr al Baghdadi was killed on October 27. Just four days later, on October 31^st, his replacement (Abu Ibrahim al Hashimi al-Qurayshi) was announced.

We are a nation of laws and an international community of laws. Assassination squads are not lawful, no matter the country, no matter the target. If we know where these criminals are, we can capture them, put them on trial, in their own country, in our country, or at the International Criminal Court in the Hague. We can show the evidence of their crimes against their fellow countrymen and the world at large (and against the religion they claim to follow.) Only in this way can we begin to dismantle the ideas and philosophies of which they are captive.  

These terrorists are lawless men. When we take up lawlessness as a tactic to fight them, they win.  “The ends and the means are the same,” Gandhi taught. It’s a lesson we have yet to learn.