Newsnight.

On Newsnight last night 17 May, Jeremy Paxman was discussing what would happen if Osama bin Laden had been captured, could he have got a fair trial in America, and should he have been tried there, by a civilian court or a military tribunal? There were various experts giving their opinions. In 1946 a public trial of the leading 22 Nazi leaders were tried by an  International Military Tribunal  at Nuremberg with judges from the victorious allies. Of those tried 12 of the accused were found guilty of various counts of war crimes and 10 were executed,one committing suicide, and one tried in his absence.  At the time and over the years many jurists have raised doubts about the legality of the tribunal. There were lesser war crime trials over the preceding few years by other members of the victorious allies.   Britain  executed 147 in there zone of occupation.  The German people themselves did not on the whole object to these trials, and there were no reprisals against the allies even by fanatical Nazi sympathisers. Now move forward 65 years, what would happen if bin Laden had have been captured and put on trial. Who by? If in America could twelve honest and true citizens been found who would give him a fair hearing? If prosecuted by  the international court in the Hague the same would apply. But unlike the trials in Germany if bin Laden had have been put in prison awaiting trial. Hypothetically what would the Western Governments have done if Al Qaeda told the West release him, or we will carry out bombing on your trains, boats, planes, and in your  major cities, Washington, New York, Paris, Berlin, London, Rome, and many more. What would Western Governments  do if these threats  started to happen, executed by fanatical bombers who started to explode bombs resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocent citizens throughout the world over the coming weeks and months, how long before public opinion turned against the Western Governments as their people said enough is enough release him. Perhaps the execution of bin Laden  was the best course of action. We may yet get fanatical Al Qaeda Muslims who are prepared to die in acts of revenge. In the last war we had basically Britain and France declaring war on Germany, for invading Poland, with Italy siding with Germany. We had Britain a christian country, France, Germany, Poland and  Italy catholic countries. Yet we didn't hear people saying I'm not going to fight the Germans or the Italians because they are fellow Christians or catholics. It was right against wrong, good against evil. This is some thing sadly lacking when we here some Muslims saying  that they are not going to fight fellow Muslims, as many do, yet these same Muslims forget that Iran and Iraq two Muslim countries fought each other for six years, that resulted in thousands of deaths. Perhaps they should remember that it is good against evil, not Christian against Muslim.