From all we know of the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, the SEALs conducted a purely clinical, professional operation made possible by years of patient intelligence gathering. The SEALs got in, identified their target, took him down, secured his remains, and scoured the site for intelligence, coming away with a treasure trove of information on al Qaeda. Reports indicate that they captured a trove of information that will probably prove useful in prosecuting the war and capturing other al Qaeda figures, both those who may have been living nearby and those who may be farther afield. The SEALs suffered no casualties, and apart from the loss of a helicopter, lost nothing beyond the rounds they expended in the firefight. It’s somewhat trite to say, but this mission showcased the undeniable fact that our military is the best in the world, and its precise yet overwhelming finish on OBL sent a message that will echo around the world: Don’t mess with the Americans.
But on the other hand, while the pros carry out the hard work overseas, we’re still left with a cast of amateurs in Washington. Chief counterterrorism adviser John Brennan continues to underwhelm. He conducted a thorough and informative press briefing on Monday that turned out to be full of error and misstatement. It is his job to know these things, the nation depends to some extent on his knowing them, yet he doesn’t, and still has his job. Why didn’t the administration that’s taking so long to decide whether to release photos of dead bin Laden take a few minutes to get its story straight before sending Brennan out in front of the press? The walkback of much of what he said, just 24 hours after he said it, told the world that the president’s top counterterrorism man is still out of the same loop has been out of since he landed the job. Oh well, at least Brennan is as competent as the DNI, James Clapper.
And President Obama could benefit from an understanding that it’s often best to let others discover your greatness on their own. His statement Sunday night, while mostly appropriate in tone, nevertheless elevated bin Laden by the mere fact that the President of the United States commanded airtime to deliver it himself. The president noted several times his own role, “I made it a priority…” and “I gave the authorization…” and so forth, putting himself at the center of the story. He had made a call that any president in his shoes would make, and the outcome rested on courageous US special forces risking their lives thousands of miles away. But here is how he described the chain of events.
And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda, even as we continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network.
Then, last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice.
Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.
He inherited much of the intel that led to the raid from his scorned predecessor, and should have acknowledged that fact. He would have looked like a statesman had he done so. But he didn’t. As Americans have learned the details the president did not provide, the case for his greatness, a case articulated by His Greatness, gets chipped away. We now know that President Bush withstood blistering criticism from Obama and the entire left on a subject that it has now been proven Bush was correct on, and from which now Obama stands to benefit politically: The interrogation of captured terrorists at Gitmo. Without that, the intelligence that led to bin Laden is never developed.
When Obama did acknowledge President Bush, it was again in the context of Obama’s own actions — “I called him up to tell him what had happened,” basically. In making himself the star, the president has ended up surrendering a great deal of goodwill that would naturally have flowed to him if he had let others, perhaps Gen. Petraeus or Leon Panetta, explain the raid and the president’s role in it.
And now his entire speech may yet unravel. There is an unsourced report out today that Obama had to be more or less overridden to make the mission happen. That report, while highly suspect and unverified, comports with the image established over the last two years of an indecisive president unsure of his footing on the world stage. It is therefore unlikely to go away.
Beyond this, there is the question of how we should have treated the corpse of bin Laden. The burial at sea makes sense as a way to prevent his body or his grave site from becoming relics or shrines. But for years the United States has insisted that bin Laden is not a good or mainstream Muslim. We are fighting him and his ideology, but not Islam itself. If we meant that, then why go out of our way to insist that we treated his remains in accordance with Islamic tradition? Mainstream Muslims should see that as at best a desecration of their practices, and radicals will not be mollified by anything other than a total surrender and a renouncing of our alliance with Israel. So what was the point of this? It’s nothing more than amateurish and ineffective mollification.
And now, today, we have seen the White House spokesman go into deer in the headlights mode when asked if enhanced interrogation techniques extracted information that led to bin Laden. Jay Carney managed to try denying without denying, but did tell terrorists still at large that we have no interest in capturing them. Killing them, sure, but not capturing them. If we do capture them, we still plan to play nice with them. But since we will no longer capture and quiz the bad guys, the next bin Laden can rest assured that he is less likely to meet the same fate as the last one.
But since we will no longer capture and quiz the bad guys, the next bin Laden can rest assured that he is less likely to meet the same fate as the last one.
At least until we vote this one out and elect a POTUS that knows how to fight a war. We’ve been severely lacking in that area since Reagan.
Walt C,
Given the obstacles of a faithless and feckless left, George W. did one hell of a job as Commander in Chief.
I’m waiting for the media to find a way to attribute the mission’s success to Obama’s new, improved, totally-different-from-Bush’s approach to the GWOT. You know, the scalpel thing. Smart. Soft. Whatever. And not the fact that an opportunity just dropped into his lap and he snapped it up it as any President would have. You know it’s coming…
It’s weird how terrorists that specifically identify themselves as muslims; take a great deal of trouble to make sure is known and who constantly refer to Islam in all of their writings mysteriously become secularists.
I don’t believe in the legal status of a “hate crime” but it is a concept which is out there and if anyone deserves such a concept it is Islam because of the cultural superiority and disdain it aims at everything that is not muslim.
It’s almost gotten to the point that a t-shirt which only said “Shut Up” would be self-explanatory.
You folks simply hate the black man in the White House. Reagan was a warrior? Reagan? When you say things like that, you can’t be considered thoughtful. There are folks who live beyond your little circle of freaks, I mean friends and they know history (you surely don’t). They know Reagan – and they know King Dumbya. Republicans are thought of as being strong defenders of America – that of course, is wrong. Republicans are frightened chickenhawks.
StratRat,
I find it odd that your first line contains “black man in the White House”. Where in this thread has anyone said anything about the problems being because Obama is black? I think he is an effete, elitist moron with no real leadership skills at all, but this comes from watching him at work and has nothing to do with him being of any particular color. Are you projecting a bit?
Racer alert!
June 12, 1987, at the Brandenburg Gate :
“General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
Sometimes guns are not necessary.
Any questions?
We attacked a foreign national in another country’s sovereign territory, without warning that country. As far as I am concerned, Obama had business to own that decision. That is an example of command responsibility. I have some doubt that Obama intended it that way, but that passage of his speech was well done.
I agree wholeheartedly that they should have gotten their story straight before presenting it.
Bin Laden’s corpse was denied burial in consecrated ground: this is in keeping with the treatment of hirabists, those who commit unholy war, speciffically terrorists, such as for example the attackers in Mumbai. For this reason, I would pay attention to who vocally takes offense at the treatment of this foul murder’s corpse, who calls him sheik, who says one thing in english and one thing in arabic, etc. Lets make good use of his body, by turning it into a Rorschach test.
The problem is not that they did not have their story straight initially. They possibly did. The problem is that they did not think it all the way through. They did not ANTICIPATE how it would look, and what some of the criticisms would be, because they cannot think into the future, cannot anticipate consequences. So now, they engage in REVISIONISM. It is this willingness to rewrite history that is the most troubling. It is what totalitarian revolutionaries do.
It is not that they GOT it wrong. It is that they are GETTING it wrong. Present imperfective. It is not that they are amateurs. It is that they are totalitarian revolutionaries.
They got the first info in August. They had all this time to get the message straight, how they would do it, what they could release. 7-8 months, and they still do not have it right, because they did not think of dealing with the aftermath until the aftermath.
They thought it would stand alone. They did a good deed and the aftermath would take care of itself. The good deed, or good intent, is enough. No work required. That part IS lazy and amateurish.
So, there was no preparation of the political battlefield whatsoever. They are not aware of how they have painted themselves into a corner with their campaign rhetoric. Perhaps they cannot see how they would seem hypocritical. Perhaps they think the rest of us would not remember what they said. After all, they don’t. Things are said in the moment. They say something else the next moment. Each exists alone. There needs be no logical connectedness. Their statements are geared towards emotional response, not rational response.
They are lazy, amateurish, totalitarian revolutionaries. Thus, they cannot get their stories straight.
Some villages need their idiots back.
What if the US military released three image sequences:
1) UBL’s grim deceased visage in situ
2) UBL’s complete DNA profile
3) UBL’s dead body being expelled from a helo into a body of water
…and nothing more being said by anyone?
Who wants to be next?
Of course its amateur hour in Washington. It has been, essentially, since post WWII and the creation of the UN. World policemen, globalization and nation building all by the willing hands and leadership of the U.S. government through the world vision of the UN. For all these decades we’ve voted for amateur hour contestants to go to Washington to compete for the title of Worlds Greatest Amateur Dummies. We’ve already won the title but just can’t quit performing on the big stage. SAD!!!
We’ve been piddling around and trying to nation build and sleep with historic thugs of the Middle East since essentially 1947….slow, slow learners! The strategy for the Middle East region remains after all these decades, one void of any logical and sustainable long term outcome. Taking out UBL will change nothing to deter the Middle East’s radical and expanding to North Africa, ideological turmoil. For crying out loud we can’t even close the last chapter of the 58 year old North Korean war.
After 65 years of this nonsense we’ve taken our nation from the greatest on earth to broke, critically in debt nationally and down through States and municipalities to the individuals, along with a very tired critically over deployed and worn out military.
Will the nation ever wake up from this nightmare of decades in the making?