I don't know H.L. Goldstein or anything about him, including whether he has ever served in the armed forces or has faced an enemy in combat.

However, it is clear from his letter, "America should not feel morally righteous in bin Laden's death," that Mr. Goldstein has little or no concept of the struggle the United States and the Western world in general is facing with terrorists like Osama bin Laden.

Make no mistake, the U.S. is engaged in a war, a real honest-to-God shooting war that has already caused more death and injury than it should have.

The object of war, said Gen. George S. Patton, a brilliant soldier, "is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his."

Further, the general said, "May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't."

Bin Laden sent his minions to the United States to try to blow up the Trade Center in New York in 1993; they succeeded in 2001. About 3,000 people died in the attacks of 9/11.
From this, the United States had not only a political but a moral imperative to destroy the man behind these deadly plots.

Bin Laden was not a purse-snatcher who should be arrested, read his Miranda rights, given a lawyer and a trial — something of which Mr. Goldstein apparently would have approved.

Mr. Goldstein said, "bin Laden is dead. The question is: Did his murder make us a better democracy, or a more moral people?"

He called bin Laden's death "a sneak-attack murder of an unarmed man in his own home surrounded by family. ..."
Osama bin Laden was a stone cold killer who deserved nothing more than to be crushed like a bug.

There was no moral judgment involved; this is not a sporting contest and to quote an old saying, "Democracy is not a suicide pact." When he launched the attacks on the U.S., bin Laden became the enemy; now he is dead and others like him should take that as a lesson.

Mr. Goldstein should be congratulating the brave men of the U.S. Navy SEALs for their heroism of ridding the world of a menace, instead of picturing them as "sneak-attack" murderers.
The murderer was Osama bin Laden, who was responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world.

The United States lost no moral stature by killing bin Laden. The only moral judgment against the U.S. government would have been if it had not pressed the hunt for and killing of Osama bin Laden.

Robert A. Erlandson
Towson