As you know, Osama bin Laden is dead. He was killed in a US Navy SEAL operation. We finally got him and, though we should rejoice and be happy about this, we must remain vigilant.
Of course, the conspiracy theorists are still doing their thing. They have two lines of thought, one saying that he’s been dead for years and the other saying he’s still alive. I doubt the validity of both theories and I’m merely acknowledging them for completeness.
Ok, back to the topic at hand. I’m partly amused, disgusted, and disappointed by what I see in the mainstream media, not that this is anything new, mind you. It’s par for the course. So what’s the media foolishness this time? It’s this game they’re playing about who really deserves the credit and who came up short. As usual, the MSM’s missing the point. Everybody deserves some credit and some criticism, and I’ll try to handle that briefly here.
The military and intelligence community, first and foremost, deserve a lot of credit for their flawless execution in this operation. The SEAL team completed the mission successfully, quickly, and without casualties. The intelligence community did a great job of putting the puzzle pieces together and finding the compound. Each has had their respective black eyes over the years, but they got results.
Barack Obama took a huge gamble here and it paid off. He ordered a unilateral covert operation into a foreign nation. It worked, and he must be credited with taking the risk. Had it failed, it would’ve been a disaster and Obama wouldn’t hear the end of it. Obama deserves credit for green-lighting the operation and having the courage to act boldly, decisively, and quickly when the opportunity presented itself. This is leadership.
Even in success, Obama is highly vulnerable to criticism. Many on the left are angry because, in many ways, Obama is continuing the foreign policy of his predecessor – the very same foreign policy that he’s been so critical of over the years. Guantanamo Bay remains open, for example. Many on the right are angry because Obama’s been so critical of those policies, yet clearly benefitted from them. Interestingly, Obama can easily be portrayed as a hypocrite in this sense by both sides.
Also, Obama is reneging (yet again) on promises of transparency in his administration by refusing to disclose the photos of Osama’s corpse. I understand the rationale and political strategy associated with not doing so, and I also believe the photos will eventually enter the public realm, perhaps through Wikileaks or some similar outfit. If Obama doesn’t release them, then he gets a degree of insulation should something bad happen as a result, and if something good happens as a result, he could find a way to take credit. Again, neither the left nor the right is happy here.
George W. Bush laid the foundation to make it all possible for Obama. Whether one approves of the intelligence methods or not, one cannot deny that much of the necessary intelligence was gathered during his presidency. One also cannot deny that Bush Jr. did a great job of weakening the terrorist organizations.
Bush Jr. deserves his fair share of criticism, as well. Some conservatives argue that the war in Iraq is justified by the fact that we got a lot of the intelligence for Osama’s death from Iraq. This is nonsense, as it makes the erroneous assumption that we would have been unable to get Osama without invading Iraq. I contend that, had we not invaded Iraq and instead kept our military and intelligence community focused on Afghanistan and Osama, then Osama likely would’ve been killed/captured years ago during Bush Jr.’s presidency. Obviously, we can’t say for sure, but it’s quite possible. Note that discussion of the merit (or lack thereof) in our excursion into Iraq is out of scope here.
This is clearly a quick overview of credit and criticism for the major players involved. I just wanted to hit everyone briefly.
So what happens from here? Obviously, Pakistan is troubling. We have a lot of questions that must be answered about Pakistan, which I suppose I should add to my backlog of posts. We also have to wonder what becomes of the terrorist movement now that Osama is dead. Who, if anyone, is waiting in the wings to take his place as one of the leaders of the terrorist movement?
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