After almost a decade searching for the man that most Americans mistakenly consider to be the “mastermind” of the 9/11 attacks” (it was actually Khalid Sheik Mohammed, or KSM as he’s known), he’s finally been found and killed. Let the “spin cycle” begin! :>)
Everyone on both sides of the aisle are trying to take credit for the intelligence that brought us to that walled compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan and the two bullets in bin Laden’s head and trying to lay blame for why it’s taken so terribly long to find him. And a good deal of this conversation is filled with misinformation and the hopes that our memories are clouded enough to believe what’s being said. And there are plenty of “media sources” that love to continue that obfuscation. Let’s get down to some of what’s being said and see how it plays with “The Truth”…
First off, President Barack Obama, in his speech announcing the death of bin Laden, certainly did a lot of chest-thumping and patted himself on the back repeatedly. Of course, if I were a Democratic President and had accomplished something my Republican predecessor hadn’t been able to in 7 years, I’d probably be high-fiving myself too. However, as a lot of my friends on the Right liked to point out, there were an awful lot of “I did this….” and “I did that…” in the speech, with not so many “We”. And I’ll have to acknowledge that my Right leaning friends were correct.
That said, as we now know, President Obama was very definitely “hands on” in this operation, including watching the mission live at the White House as it went down. We know that he gave Leon Panetta, the Director of the CIA, explicit directions at the beginning of his Presidency to make the capture/killing of bin Laden the top priority in the “war on terror”. We can see the results of how this President handles foreign policy in the cooperation of the intelligence communities around the world and the leads that this generated (with the possible exception of the Pakistani ISI, which could be an entire post in and of itself….<g>).
He does indeed deserve kudos for the direction he put in place and the results that’s netted, though he could have toned the “I…I….I….” down a little.
As to the Republican side of the aisle, there’s been a tremendous amount of praise being lavished upon former President George W. Bush and it’s certainly clear just how partisan that praise is.
But to be completely fair, let me first say that it is indeed reasonable to say that the teams that the Bush Administration put together within the Intelligence community and their consistent work at fleshing out leads to the whereabouts of the leaders of Al Qaeda was a significant factor in building a base of contacts and better understanding the loose web of organization that Al Qaeda is. They certainly deserve praise for that foundation. That said, many on the Right have gone past the point at which the facts bear them out.
Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga), ranking Republican member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, tried to use the moment to justify the Bush Administration’s use of “harsh interrogation techniques”, i.e. the use of waterboarding and other methods of torture, as if these techniques resulted in actionable intelligence that led to the killing of bin Laden. From what we know and what has been said by other members of the same Senate Intelligence Committee, there is no evidence to reach this conclusion. There are details in an AP story that makes it clear the initial “lead” to the courier who’s house bin Laden was found in came months after waterboarding of detainees was stopped.
Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin posted on her Facebook page praise for the victory for the victims of 9/11 and made comments in a fundraising speech in Colorado on Monday night that never once mentioned the name of President Obama. In fact, in Colorado, she went so far as to praise President Bush by name: “Yesterday was a testament to the military’s dedication in relentlessly hunting down an enemy through many years of war,” ….“And we thank our president. ... We thank President Bush for having made the right calls to set up this victory.”
Let’s take a look at that: does former President George W. Bush actually deserve praise for the killing of bin Laden? Did anything he do actually help find him?
I think, if you will put on your thinking cap and remember what actually happened after 9/11, you’ll have to agree with me that President Bush did a number of things that actually contributed to bin Laden being on the loose for so long, and that he changed direction and made finding him less of a priority.
Let’s start with a few months after 9/11 and the beginning of the war in Afghanistan. In December of 2001, our military had the Taliban on the run and it was believed (and was later corroborated) that Osama bin Laden was holding up in the mountainous region above Tora Bora. CIA Paramilitary Officers, under the command of Gary Berntsen, had bin Laden located and asked United States Central Command to provide additional troops to get him. They were not listened to. Instead, Central Command relied upon Afghan tribesmen they had paid to carry out the mission. Whether they were aligned with the Taliban, paid to let him go, or simply looked the other way, they let bin Laden escape. This was a failure on the part of the Bush Administration to follow-through with what should have been a primary focus of the mission.
Then, instead of focusing all of the might of the US Military on bin Laden and the Taliban, the Bush Administration lost sight of the target and moved to overthrow the government of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. As we’re all aware now, there was truly no “actionable intelligence” that connected Saddam Hussein or his Iraqi regime with the 9/11 plot.
Once again, we see a Bush Administration failure to stay focused on the “war on terror” and those that had hit America hardest. In fact, the focus on capturing bin Laden was so greatly lost that by March 13, 2002, George W. Bush said “I truly am not that concerned about him.” In fact, Bush stopped mentioning bin Laden’s name for the next few years, and didn’t start to mention him again until the beginning of his 2004 re-election campaign. I'll leave it to your imagination as to the timing on that.... :>)
While I do think that those of us that are political beasts and caught up in partisan politics always want to frame events by who wins and who loses, there’s been enough grandstanding over bin Laden’s death that it’s time to take a step back and just be happy that he’s gone. There’s lots more scary people out there, so we’re clearly not out of the woods yet, but at least there’s one less terrorist in our world. And maybe, just maybe, the survivors of 9/11 can feel just the smallest bit of relief that some small measure of justice has been served.
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