I think the 9/11 attacks damaged us all. I think we’re all walking around with emotional scar tissue. And even those who were not directly affected were wounded by the way this country chose to respond. A friend of mine reacted to the news that bin-Laden is dead by saying, “Great, can I have my decade back?” That might seem like a flip response, but think about it. What if?
What if we hadn’t invaded Afghanistan? What if we hadn’t invaded Iraq? What if, instead, we just did what Leon Panetta and President Obama did yesterday? We hunted down bin-Laden in a foreign country, sent in special forces, and terminated him. What do you think it cost us to plan for and carry out that mission? How much “collateral damage” did it cause?
While such an action would have (and is) getting a certain degree of criticism, no one could argue that it is worse than what we did instead. I think a lot of progressives are so damaged from the way the hunt for bin-Laden was turned into a War on Terror in which they were cast as enemy-sympathizers, that they are having a hard time feeling good about bin-Laden’s demise. After all, the war was quickly politicized. Karl Rove made sure of that. And there was much more trauma to come. We saw our country fabricate a case for war (and, yes, I do not believe that is too strong), engage in torture, set up a system of indefinite detention, completely ignore and eviscerate our 4th-Amendment privacy rights, and divert massive amounts of resources to a new national security state replete with unaccountable contractors, a new cabinet department for security, a new intelligence agency and director, new hassles at our airports, new passport requirements at our borders, and so on.
How much of this was necessary? How much of it was moral defensible?
While the 9/11 attacks certainly made plain that we needed to reexamine the status quo in the Middle East, we didn’t really make an honest effort at doing that. We did manage to quietly move our Air Force from Saudi Arabia to Qatar. That addressed one of the 9/11 hijackers’ main motivations for attacking us. But, other than that, we didn’t do much to lessen anti-American feelings in the region. Instead, we did a lot to increase it by invading Iraq and then letting it fall to pieces.
I think we’re making some uneven progress now. Helping to push Hosni Mubarak out the door was a definite turnabout for U.S. foreign policy. Our relationship with Mubarak was why Mohammed Atta was motivated to be the ring-leader for the 19 hijackers. We should have examined our relationship with Egypt before events forced the choice on us.
Of course, the situation in the Palestinian Territories in another component of this, as is our continuing relationship with the House of Saud. I can’t say we’ve made any progress in either area.
I’m very happy that we finally dealt with Usama bin-Laden. But I’m also sad that we got so far off track and committed so many moral errors and wasted and misused so many resources in the decade it took us to find him. We are going to be stuck with that legacy and all these problems for quite some time. I wonder what Dwight Eisenhower would have to say to us about the national security state we’ve erected. How do we ever get rid of it?
We don’t get rid of it. The Empire collapses and another takes its place, or we’re just stuck with it. Hmm, perhaps that’s too shallow and narrow-minded, given that the world dynamic is becoming less reliant on sole world-powers with power being more equally distributed. In this sense it’s very hard to predict.
What I do know is that once you lose your rights, you either start over, or you don’t get them back.
There are these options for a global security environment after the end of US global dominance:
The US foreign policy debate in terms of desired global security environments is between 6 and 7. The predictions if a positive policy is not pursued is 1, 2, or 3.
US domestic politics is at a turning point. We either start getting our Constitutional rights back now, including the right of collective bargaining or the “Great Experiment” has ended in a dead end. If The Empire collapses it will be from the US public yanking the props from under the oligarchy that controls it.
The only guarantor of human rights globally, and it is highly imperfect and in its institutional infancy, is the United Nations. And its continued existence depends on how the global security environment evolves.
It’s not that i have a problem feeling good about it, I’m as glad as anyone else the old CIA-trained bastard’s dead.
But when i look at everything else -the searches at airports, the tapped phones, the deficits from needless wars, the indefinite imprisonment, the unitary executive who claims the right to kill Americans without due process- how can i rejoice when my rights are as dead as bin laden?
And that says nothing about the fact that bin Laden, like any other terrorist, is expendable. “The king is dead, long live the king.”
I don’t think he was CIA-trained. I’ve looked into this. All the available evidence I can find says that he set up his own shop in Pakistan and that he operated independently from the CIA. The CIA was certainly aware of him and not unsupportive of his efforts. They may have even worked with him, either directly or, more likely, through the ISI Pakistani intelligence service.
But there’s no evidence that we trained him or had much contact with him while he was in Pakistan during the Soviet-Afghan war.
I think it’s something we’ll disagree on. And either way, who cares: the motherfucker’s dead.
Yeah. And I thought he was already dead.
me too.
Right, the CIA “sponsored” him indirectly, through arms delivered via the Pakistani ISI.
Far more important to the CIA was bin Laden’s propaganda role as the “face” of world terrorism. Of course it was important to them because they created it. I’m not denying he was a terrorist, I doubt he was anywhere near as important as the CIA made him out to be. And I do strongly suspect (and there is suggestive evidence) that many of those “Osama bin Laden” videos, probably most of them, were fakes. Bush/Cheney/CIA War on Terra absolutely needed the “bin Laden at large” image. That’s why Bush had no serious intention of capturing OR killing him. On the one hand, “Dead men tell no tales.” On the other, the Bush/Cheney limitless “War on Terra” may have just come to an end.
I agree Mr. Boo. Can we bring all of our folks back now? It was all a huge waste of money. In a couple of hours, we tracked him down, got in and killed him. Not very expensive. But instead we spent BILLIONS for????? this moment?
Whatever bin Laden’s actually role in 9/11 (which remains a big question!), there is no question at all that he served as the propaganda “boogeyman” for the endless “war on Terra” idea. I see the killing of bin Laden as serving two needs of current U.S. policy — one, a leftover, and not a good one; the second, something new, and hopefully good.
The first is the simple fact that “dead men tell no tales.” The idea of a raid purposely designed to kill bin Laden outright, not capture him, is a violation of justice; but if that’s too idealistic for you, the more important fact is that bin Laden knew too much (or too little, which in this case is the same thing). Put it another way, clearly the CIA and Joint Chiefs do not want anyone to know what bin Laden knew and when he knew it.
The second purpose is more hopeful. As the official booheyman of the Bush/Cheney War on Terra, bin Laden had to remain alive. That is why Bush lost interest in pursuing him, they needed him to be seen as the great mastermind of all terrorism in the world. Like, be afraid, be very afraid. This guy’s SCARY. we can’t afford democracy as long as this guy’s still alive. So to me the killing of bin Laden may mean that the Bush/Cheney IDEA of the War on Terra — is truly over. Not terrorism, of course, but a certain limitless and insane idea of the U.S. tole in the world, with all its perks for the MIC.
I think you’re right, the CIA supplied arms to bin Laden through Pakistan’ intelligence.
FEAR, Inc has made trillions off of this decade. Class warfare is perhaps even down to its last battle and my only question now is, is WalMart the new company store?
There are only two sides to a conflict of this sort. Well…three, really.
#1-The ones with the most power and financial resources.
#2-The ones with sufficient power and resources to possibly take the place of #1 in the pecking order if they run their game right.
and
#3-Everybody else. Usually referred to as “innocent civilians” until they are renamed “collateral damage.”
All those who do not want to be #3 ally themselves with numbers 1 + 2, and then the fun begins.
What fun?
The double and triple crossing, of course.
This is as true in a small ethnic neighborhood as it is in global politics. It’s the way things work. Crips and Bloods, rival mafia families, rival sociopolitical systems. Same same. Every time.
Bin Laden?
A convenient death.
Was he a double/triple /quadruple agent?
Maybe. What difference does it make? Mistah Kurtz, he dead. Mistah bin Laden too. Probably. A very convenient burial as well.
Follow the power. Money is power. Follow the money.
#1’s money? Running out. Financial trouble at home. International debt. A nascent right wing that scares the money people as much as did the youth and minority movements of the ’60s + ’70s. Time to back out of a situation that didn’t pan out as planned.
#2’s money? Threatened by wildfire semi-revolutions in the Middle East that quite possibly could spread further east. Also time to back out and get straight internally.
Who’s the perfect scapegoat, the key to the locked stalemate?
Mistah Kurtz bin Laden.
What a wonderful coincidence.
Now Mr. Smoothie can make a speech. A speech that cripples his opposition just in the nick of time!
I can hear the media chant now:
The fix is in.
The fix is always in.
Deal with it.
But…do not fall for it.
Watch.
Understand.
But do not fall for it.
Remember.
Later…
AG
Good to see you wade in. You have the knack of putting the train back on the tracks. What an enormous hangover this event is going to cause. The game plan remains unchanged. ObL had become a side show. His assassination and the dump (called burial by some) of his corpse into the sea are blinding. Now everyone’s left holding an empty bag. ‘Justice has been done.’ Oh god, that book again. Where is justice in the USA?
at the local dive bar, this was the general reaction to the news. “First he provides the birth certificate, and now he takes out bin Laden: who’s gonna want to run against him now??”
I don’t really think it changes anything: we’re not getting our rights back any time soon, we’re not winding down any of these disastrous wars, and we’ll have a new enemy-of-the-month sooner rather than later.
I realize I’m more cynical than most, and I’m glad the SOB is dead, but it’s more trophy than anything else.
At the jazz club where I play most Sundays the reaction among the musicians ranged from “So what? Same game, another name,” through “Oh. I thought it said Obama, not Osama. Damn!!!” to the most common one:
“Oh. And when do they take down Cheney and Bush?”
Lord Buckley…the original anti-establishment comic, bet on it…had a routine about Nero and the burning of Rome. (You can read it here or get it off of iTunes. Better off of iTunes because it’s oral knowledge. Bet on that as well. You can hear a preview, too, It’s available on the albums “The Tales of Lord Buckley Box Set Crown Prince Richards Collection” and also “Royal Best of Lord Buckley.” $9.99. A steal!!!) What it was really about was what happens when too much suddenly becomes not quite enough and hustlers have to continue to raise the level of viciousness so that they can get their rocks off.
Same thing going on here.
The escalation of desperation.
And just like the baddest cat in Nero’s entourage, O-bob-a-Lap, even the worst fools are beginning to see through the bullshit.
The climax of the routine?
Sure. Nero has taken it out to the max…crucifying Christians, riding his chariot through the burned out streets. O-bob-a-Lap is feeling a little…nervous about alla this.
Here’s the setup and the punchline(s). (Try to hear Louis Armstrong telling this story.)
Like dat.
Watch yo’se’ves.
It’s still escalatin’.
Bet on that as well.
AG
I have been staggered at the response of the progressive penintentes flogging their backs over the fact that US forces killed Osama bin Laden.
All reports are that the mission was to capture or kill and that there was sufficient resistance that the entire mission took 40 minutes to complete. But the penintentes automatically adopt the word “assassination”, an emotionally charged word that likely is far from the truth of the matter.
The burial was not convenient; it was carefully planned to minimize the creation of a martyr’s shrine. And it was orchestrated to minimize offense to muslims: burial within 24 hours, a burial service with a prayer. Undoubtedly, the US flew in a muslim chaplain to conduct the service.
Was it really bin Laden who was killed? The Afghanistan Taliban certainly think so, but likely they are not longer in the al Quaeda communication network. There have reported been pictures circulating on Twitter from Pakistani TV of what is reported to be a dead bin Laden, and Pakistani TV got access to the house where the early morning raid took place. Reports are that the CIA took a lot of “material”, assumed to be documents and other items from the house. Likely, given US care with the burial, a lot of details will not be made available until after a decent interval to respect muslim sensibilities.
The raid was accomplished through extensive international law enforcement and intelligence techniques. The US troops behaved like an urban SWAT team; take that however you want; the record of US SWAT teams has been very mixed and overused in situations that do not call for them.
President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton have the opportunity to dramatically change US foreign policy. The now have the domestic political space that they didn’t have with Osama bin Laden still alive that will allow them to do that. Saying that the opportunity is now there does not mean they will take it. One key benchmark has to do with how thorough US withdrawal from Iraq is (hint: a 16,000-person embassy doesn’t qualify). Another is whether the July date for beginning drawdown of troops from Afghanistan holds (hint: the Afghanistan Taliban does not want the US to withdraw).
I think you’re right on the money about this being a real opportunity for policy change. Your benchmarks for judging whether that opportunity is taken seem correct. I just hope in the the days to come there is wide discussion of the idea that we should have responded to Sept 11 by means like this from the very beginning instead of going in like strutting fools to wars that offer no clear chance for victory.
Maybe Bush/Cheney couldn’t stand up to the pressure to “do something”, even if it make no sense, in the emotions of the moment. Maybe few politicians could. But the reality remains that they set us on a counterproductive course that Obama inherited. Now he has a chance to change direction. Let’s hope he takes it.
Should we have responded to 9/11 by means like this from the very beginning? The answer is yes.
But the situation then was much different than this. In 2001, bin Laden was in the wilds of Afghanistan at a training camp (according to most reports). The war in Afghanistan in the very early days forced him eventually out of Afghanistan and into Pakistan.
But there are credible reports that the Afghan Taliban were willing in late 2001 to deliver up bin Laden to the Islamic Conference for trial in order to avoid war.
The fact is that that illegitimate, Supreme Court-appointed George W. Bush, was itching for a war in order to gain the political capital he needed (call it “shock doctrine”) to shove through his domestic political agenda.
As far as the identity of the person, there are sources:
I may be easy but I believe that these 4 streams of evidence all confirm the identity of the carcass.
It all comes down to this simple question:
Who do you believe?
Our Permanent Government has lied to us so many times over the past 10 years about so many things…from various wars to pollution to the safety of pharmacological drugs and our food and water supply to who really won a couple of presidential elections to the oversight of our financial institutions…that I am flat out of belief in anything that it says.
You’re not.
So it goes.
I have my reasons.
What are yours? Besides total surrender of disbelief in the face of a monstrously powerful hypnomedia, of course.
AG
we would have gotten OBL if we hadn’t gone into Afghanistan. I never was really sure there was another option regarding Afghanistan.
Iraq was a complete disaster, of course.
Our relationship with Egypt was about preventing another Middle Eastern War. We tend to forget that, and it is defensible
What the US has never figured out how to do is to maintain fidelity to our own values amidst the realities of the Middle East. It’s not an easy thing to figure out. The best course would be to stay out as much as we can – since I don’t think we understand the region at all.