Osama Bin Ladin is dead. Got it. Now that we have a concrete detail down, let’s smoosh some Silly Putty into it.
Some Predictions
I remember the early 2000's...
A sitting president has personally little to with years’ long ongoing intelligence operations, but that won’t stop those on the left from milking it. It’s a feather in a president’s cap, sure. But how excited would the left really be if that boon were bestowed upon some alternate-reality Republican president?
Just ask those on the right, the nuttiest of whom (again) cry conspiracy; they’re cooks with one recipe. The less nutty will point out that NObama doesn’t deserve any credit, then fold their arms in a huff because they would have loved that boon for their choice president. They’ll never say it, though. They just point and rant about the price of gas.
The partisan caricatures write themselves. The internet is great.
Sorry
I’m sorry to be the wet blanket. Really, I am, but here’s the thing: beyond matters of national self-gratification, this very good news has no additional bearing on the geopolitical mess we’re in.
Americans continued to celebrate the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden well into May 2 outside the White House, near the World Trade Center site in New York and elsewhere. The operation that led to bin Laden’s death at a compound deep in Pakistan is among the most significant operational successes for U.S. intelligence since 9/11. While it is surely an emotional victory for the United States and one that could have consequences both for the U.S. role in Afghanistan and for relations with Pakistan, bin Laden’s elimination will have very little effect on al Qaeda as a whole and the wider jihadist movement.
Again, it’s StratFor, this time with The Tactical Irrelevance of Osama bin Laden’s Death and again with the realist/pessimist prism. This irrelevance is a good thing, by the way, it signifies that ongoing operations have eroded Al Qaeda’s capabilities.
Aggressive U.S. intelligence collection efforts have come to fruition, as killing bin Laden was perhaps the top symbolic goal for the CIA and all those involved in U.S. covert operations. Indeed, Obama said during his speech May 1 that upon entering office, he had personally instructed CIA Director Leon Panetta that killing the al Qaeda leader was his top priority.
So yes, the president played a role. He set the priority status on the task list. I do the same thing when I’m shopping for groceries. But, unlike my shopping expeditions, he has whole organizations that can actually do it. This, and other military operations are expensive, and the returns on that investment aren’t exactly obvious. Does this death qualify? What’s it really worth to us? Why?
I’m glad we got the guy. I’m glad he’s dead. I’m gratified by this information. But what, exactly, has changed?
The last sentence in your article was the first question that popped into my mind.
A great endeavor of National Security? Perhaps. But more so just a jingoistic euphoria. Very temporary.
Let me criticize myself, here, too: This event gives good political cover for a withdrawal from Afghanistan, so it has some political utility. As surely as I disregard it, there may yet be some value added to the symbolic nature of this death. As a realist, I’m not terribly convinced. As well deserved as this death was, I’m skeptical of what you correctly describe as ‘jingoistic euphoria’. Among other sins, it creates another heaping dollop of false hope that this is something more than it really is.
Here are some great comments from my Buzz country friends.