Monday, May 2, 2011
Osama bin Ladin
Osama bin Ladin is dead... and that's good.
Is the "war against terror" over. No.
Is it better to have bin Ladin dead rather than alive... f--k yeah!
Does President Obama "get the credit?" Well... he's taken it. You be the judge, though.
Let me give President Obama one huge back-slap of "congratulation, good work, great call" for ordering - or at least authorizing - bin Ladin's burial at sea. Smart move.
(And even smarter if this whole business about bin Ladin being dead is a blind and we've actually captured the son of a bitch and are right now interrogating him!)
As to President Obama pulling the plug in March with regard to bombing bin Ladin's compound in favor of waiting... it was a huge gamble and luckily for Barak Obama - and the country - one which the president - and the country - won.
Ultimately, though, the people who truly deserve the "credit" for "getting" Osama bin Ladin are the men and women on the ground - the military, CIA, NSA - the folks who actually located Osama bin Ladin.
If the Obama administration has been doing anything different than the Bush administration did in term of "the hunt for bin Ladin" I'm not aware of it. But, hey... if it turns out that the Obama administration - specifically Leon Panetta at CIA or any of the other Obama intelligence/national security appointees - was doing something "different" than what the Bush administration did in pursuit of bin Ladin... then certainly I'll hail Obama as the man who got it done.
(Folks... understand... I didn't give Bush personal "credit" for "getting" Saddam Hussein. (It was the military... I'm guessing that no matter who was president, given the same orders, the same mission... our forces would have "gotten" Hussein.)
Anyway... "getting" Osama bin Ladin - finally - is a big win for the nation.
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10 comments:
You have to give Obama credit for having the cojones to order the mission to go in, which I believe is to his personal credit.
A failed mission--such as the one Jimmy Carter authorized in connection with the hostages in Iran--would probably have proved fatal to Obama's presidency. It took some sang froid to let them go in; especially since the victory is largely symbolic, having few practical implications.
Now let's see if he also has the balls to pull every last man out of Afghanistan...NOW!
"You have to give Obama credit for having the cojones to order the mission to go in..."
As opposed to the bombing option you mean?
Agreed... (with a caveat)
Yep. Gutsy move in that he took the chance that during the days/weeks/months...
(I write "days/weeks/months" simply because with all the contradictory reporting I'm not exactly sure when Obama became absolutely convinced that this was indeed Obama's hide-out; I'm not "inferring" any slam - I'm just pointing out that the time-line is in dispute.)
...between "placing" Obama and the actual operation Obama might have eluded our observation and escaped.
That said, do you suppose that had Osama bin Ladin somehow slipped the noose, somehow gotten away from his "safe house" either days or even weeks or months before the operation - or even in the midst of the operation - we'd have been forthrightly told that Obama had possessed the option of a bombing while Obama was in residence but hadn't taken it, so... because of the President's decision we had "allowed" bin Ladin to "escape?"
BEFORE YOU ANSWER... (*PAUSE*)... imagine that instead of President Obama we were talking President Bush.
(*SHRUG*)
What I'm saying... what I'm questioning... isn't so much "unique" to Obama as it is related to how ANY White House acts in terms of self-preservation.
All this said... bottom line... yes, I do give Obama credit for deciding upon a SEALS mission rather than a bombing mission.
And, yes... OBVIOUSLY... we're in total agreement regarding withdrawal from Afghanistan.
BILL
Moving on...
Rob, as I understand it, the agreed upon official storyline is now that this was pretty much a "kill and establish proof of death" mission as opposed to an attempt to capture ObL.
Is that your understanding as well?
It's also my understanding that the initial reports of ObL "fighting it out with our troops, using one of his wives as a human shield" is now... er... "inoperative" and it's been acknowledged that ObL was unarmed when killed.
Again... is that your understanding as well?
If such is indeed the case, what's your view of such decision-making?
Obviously the capture of ObL would have been a positive in the sense of intelligence gathering...
Just as obviously, the capture of ObL would have meant the eventual trial of ObL - and no doubt you see the same "problems" with that as I do.
THAT SAID...
Whatever happened to "bringing the criminals to justice?" Whatever happened to "an American Courtroom being the proper venue to deal with the administration of justice?"
In any case, let me throw a thought out that I haven't heard much - yet which I believe is the obvious conclusion:
ObL had to die... he had to die prior to any "official on the record for public consumption" confessions concerning...
(*DRUM ROLL*)
CONCERNING HIS PROTECTORS WITHIN THE PAKISTANI GOVERNMENT.
I mean obviously we all "know" that ObL was being "protected" by Pakistan - and that's bad enough in terms of convincing the American People we should consider Pakistan an "ally" and continue to give them billions in aid - but "knowing" (in the sense of circumstantial evidence) and KNOWING in the sense of ObL naming names and those names becoming public knowledge... well... that would REALLY put the President and Secretary of State Clinton in an "awkward" position!
Last thought...
Do you think there's ANY chance that we actually DID capture him (perhaps weeks or even months ago!) and then either "created" this "end" to the story line (either by actually killing him or just by the claim)?
Don't get me wrong... such a conspiracy theory would actually BOOST my opinion of Obama if it were true - not serve to denigrate the man!
Just wondering... do you think there's ANY chance that the Obama administration has actually achieved what would be the best of all possible scenarios - namely, ObL captured and on ice... available for questioning basically forever... yet the world believing he's dead?
BILL
I doubt that Obama would have taken the bombing option for the simple reason that the damage it would have done to U.S.-Pakistan relations would not have been well balanced against its probability of success. Bombing for purposes of assassination is neither effective, nor is the success (or lack there of) immediately certain or demonstrable. Look at the several failed attempts to kill Ghadafy with bombs...
My guess would be that the order to go in was given as soon after it was certain that bin Laden was holed up there as the military unit involved informed Obama that they had a plan, were trained to carry out that plan, and were ready to go. Obama would not have been the one making the "when" decision, for very good reasons.
I think that he should have been taken prisoner. I think killing him (since it appears to have been unnecessary) was stupid.
I also think disposing of his body in the sea was stupid.
If I couldn't take him alive, I damn sure would have kept the body long enough to have it firmly established by independent persons that it was bin Laden's corpse.
The results of a supposed DNA test prove nothing. If his face was blown way, the pics will also be inconclusive. I'd want fingerprints, dental records--that kind of evidence--as confirmed by persons with no stake in confirming it.
No, I don't think that did capture him and are keeping it secret.
I do think that it's just as possible that they were actually after somebody else (e.g. Zawahiri - sp?) who wasn't there; that bin Laden's been dead for years; and having failed to nail their target they dumped some hapless street soldier's body into the ocean and said it was bin Laden.
In other words, I don't believe anything I'm told by the government/military, regardless of who's in office. It's almost always proven to be lies in the end.
I don't think that bin Laden would have any very valuable information at this point. I don't, in fact, think that he ever did. I think that al Qaeda has for years mostly been a bogeyman used by the U.S./Israeli propaganda machine to keep the oil wars going in the service of the One-Percenters who stand to profit by it.
Other than as a symbol, a few temporary poll points for Obama, and an excuse to get drunk and run out into the street waving a flag, I don't think bin Laden dead makes a damn bit of difference.
Rob,
I'm with you on the al-Qaeda as boogeyman thing.
I'm with you (or perhaps you're with me...) on the whole "War on Terror" thing being totally out of control and an ongoing threat more to our own Republic than to any foreign enemy.
I'm with you on ObL having been basically irrelevant post-2003 or so.
Indeed - you're EXACTLY RIGHT; ObL being dead makes not one bit of difference... EXCEPT... as I've previously noted... EXCEPT in the sense that this whole episode has lifted any remaining veil from the phony "alliance" with Pakistan.
If "getting" ObL WHERE we did... WHEN we did... under the CIRCUMSTANCES we did serves to highlight just how phoney the "alliance" with Pakistan is, then for that reason alone I thank God.
As to the burial at sea... (*SHRUG*)... as noted in my original blog post, I approve. Indeed, so far at least, the relatively subdued response from around the world... "the Arab Street"... seems to buttress that this was a wise decision.
Of course, you make a good point as well with regard to the speed and circumstances lending themselves to the furtherance of ongoing conspiracy theories... the "no real proof" crowd's message...
(*SHRUG*)
Everything is a balance, however. In the long run I'm hoping it turns out that I'm right in thinking that Obama's decision with the burial at sea was correct.
As to your general comments concerning the U.S. government and how much we can (or rather can't) trust "the system"... (*SIGH*)... I'm in complete agreement.
I say, then, that we quit while we're ahead--and just wait and see what (if anything) transpires in the aftermath...
@ Rob
Deal!
(*HANDSHAKE*)
BILL
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