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Loose Canons
Post-OBL SGO
It’s been a week. Now what?
It’s been a week since the SEALs raided his Abbottabad, Pakistan compound, and I’m pleased to report that Osama bin Laden is still dead.
But as our president pivots from killing bin Laden back to killing our economy, there’s a lot of Post-OBL SGO. And — as usual — most of it is either politically motivated or just plain wrong. (For those just joining us, “SGO” is the comprehensively useful acronym for “s*** goin’ on” invented by my friend and former SEAL Al Clark.)
It does appear that President Obama has finally created a job, or at least opened one up. But in the week since OBL was transformed from terrorist to fish food no one has stepped up to claim the top job in al Qaeda. Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s #2 guy, and Anwar al-Awlaki (the American-born terrorist cleric hiding in Yemen) are obvious but flawed candidates. Al Qaeda needs someone with bin Laden’s power to raise money and inspire violence, and Zawahiri is a stay-in-hiding sort of guy, apparently on the outs with some of his cohorts. Al-Awlaki, may have the star power but not the acceptance among al Qaeda’s shrinking hierarchy and is at last report, ducking Hellfire (missiles) and brimstone.
Al Qaeda’s temporary disarray shouldn’t be perceived as the death of the terrorist group. They will be back, soon, because their backers in Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia will see to it. As RAdm. Ed Winters, commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, said in a May 1 e-mail to his officers and men on the death of bin Laden, “Today, we should all be proud. That handful of courageous men, of strong will and character… have changed the course of history. Stand tall — more importantly, be humble, be the quiet professional. This is what makes our organization special. Be extremely careful about operational security. The fight is not over. VR/ed winters.”
The fight isn’t over but the 2012 campaign is begun. So we will from now until Election Day be deluged with stories and campaign commercials telling us that President Obama is a warrior prince. There will be more photos taken in the situation room, videos of the president and his team debating the raid and watching it unfold.
Of the various accounts of the raid, there are many details that seem to conflict. But that’s what has to happen. Operating in pitch-dark with night vision gear and other sensors, charging through rooms and sporadically under fire, each of the SEALs will have slightly different recollections. We’ll have to await the HBO mini-series to learn what Obama and the media want us to believe really happened. And we’ll see all the pictures from the situation room again, in many campaign commercials.
The president’s decision to refuse to release the OBL death photos is, of course, political. As Jay Leno said, “The White House says there’s no chance they’ll release the death photos. Unless Obama starts to slip in the polls.” The photos will be leaked, probably a few days before the election.
Equally political, and probably even more unwise, is Obama’s trumpeting of the huge intelligence cache the SEALs apparently seized in the Abbottabad raid. As former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said in a radio interview, “I thought to myself, why in the world would they be talking about that. It ought not be talked about, there ought to be…just go about their business, gather any intel you can, and leave in doubt the people out there who feel vulnerable as a result of this.”
To the UN and other pecksniffs who want to investigate the legality of the Abbottabad raid, to those useful idiots in the media who decry the “assassination” of the terrorist, we should pay no attention. Just as the April 1943 shoot-down of Japanese Adm. Yamamoto was not only right and proper but entirely consistent with the law of armed conflict, so was the SEALs’ killing of OBL. There is, contrary to what one faux-conservative columnist wrote, something to celebrate in some men’s deaths.
Too many in the media and Democratic political circles — not that they are separable — are trying to conflate the death of bin Laden with the supposed drive for democracy across the Middle East. They want to create a narrative that these events may not be the end of terrorism but are at least the beginning of the end. It’s utter nonsense for two reasons.
First, in Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, the Palestinian territories and the other Arab states, the anti-government protests aren’t mounted by Jeffersonian revolutionaries. The despots who support terrorism now will not likely be replaced or if they are, their successors will be of the same ilk. Just ask Muammar Gaddafi, whose forces are still shelling the Libyan rebels in Misurata, despite a months-old NATO air campaign against him.
Second, though OBL is dead, the ideology that propelled him and all those like him — Islamic fundamentalism — is as healthy as it was on 9/11. We have not fought the ideological war. Unless and until we do, we cannot defeat the terrorists and those nations that sponsor them. It’s precisely as the Economist’s cover says this week: we killed bin Laden, now we have to kill his dream.
Some non-Arab Islamic states, Pakistan in particular, are moving farther into terrorism, not away from it. It is inconceivable that the Pakistani ISI — their powerful intelligence agency — didn’t help bin Laden hide in Abbottabad for half a decade. The Pakistani government is now threatening to oppose by force any further U.S. raids into Pakistani territory. But the raids and drone strikes must not stop, even after we leave Afghanistan.
The Washington Post, alone among liberal media outlets, seems to understand that we lack the power to compel Pakistan to become a nation that will support us in the ongoing ant-terror fight. But in WaPo world, the facts drive the wrong conclusion. In a Sunday editorial, WaPo seemed to excuse Pakistani duplicity writing that Pakistan’s “double game” is “…likely to continue because Pakistan’s own war over its identity is far from over. By cutting off aid — in particular economic aid — Congress would only weaken the pro-American side in this fight.”
There is no internecine Pakistani war over their national identity. That identity is based on Pakistan’s founding, which split it from India and left the border region — the Muslim-majority and incredibly rich province of Kashmir — in India’s hands. It’s impossible to talk to a Pakistani about any political subject without the Kashmir conflict coming up. The Pakistanis long ago chose war and terrorism as the means of fighting India’s possession of Kashmir. It is not within our power to change that. The Obama administration’s calls for Pakistan to “investigate” who provided OBL with safe haven will be laughed off in Islamabad.
About the Author
Jed Babbin served as a Deputy Undersecretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush. He is the author of several bestselling books including Inside the Asylum and In the Words of Our Enemies. You can follow him on Twitter @jedbabbin.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (18) | Leave a comment
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John G.| 5.9.11 @ 8:44AM
Ah yes, from the environs of Abbottabad, which is just a short distance away from Costelloabad, we have the administration coming out with their own version of "Who's on First"!
Pecos Pete| 5.9.11 @ 9:08AM
John: Costelloabad! Good one. Also, seems to me that the cartoon characters Roadrunner and the Coyote also are applicable, that is, King O is the Coyote and whatever the current crises is, is the Roadrunner.
Skippy| 5.9.11 @ 8:46PM
I thought Abbottabad was a small town near the border in Costellostan.
Must need a new GPS, I guess...
vb| 5.9.11 @ 9:19AM
Is it true that there is a big divide among the Islamists regarding direct conflict with the West and a stealth jihad approach that prefers intimidation and infiltration until they have enough strength to restore the Caliphate? If true, it seems that wiping out OBL will only make the quieter jihadis stronger and that we really need a good strategy against them. Yet I don't see one; in fact I see the opposite. This is where I see the focus on OBL as harming us. We need more information on recruiters and intimidators. We need to stand for our cultural values. They only lose respect for us when we fall for their BS. Does Obama understand this?
Dai Alanye | 5.9.11 @ 9:52AM
We need to defeat Muslim terrorists and weaken the governments that support them. Obama could have gone after Syria but seems to want to coddle Assad. He and Dubya both failed to set up a government in exile for Iran, the best way of keeping Ahmadinejad and his buddies too busy to sponsor attacks on us. As for the Sauds, limiting or removing their privileges would do a great deal of good.
Militant Muslims have the conviction history is presently on their side. We need to convince them otherwise by stern measures, not assurances of how we respect Islam.
Radioman777| 5.9.11 @ 9:58AM
Obama will undoubtedly manufacture crisis after crisis, then tout his "solution". Classic Hegelian dialectic.
da monk| 5.9.11 @ 11:44AM
What a negative article. According to how I read Mr. Babbin, removing OBL will cure nothing.
Occam's Tool| 5.9.11 @ 1:43PM
Correct. It will not stop the War on Terror, because the problem is an aggressive warrior faith and legal system.
However, there is something to be sad about in OSama's death. It deprived our guys of hours of fun playing "telephone" with Mr. Bin Ladin, and seeing if he "got the message."
shipley130| 5.9.11 @ 12:48PM
Obama Bin Lying claimed he would create jobs, but he didn't say where. It's the unspoken we have to worry about these days.
PineKnot| 5.9.11 @ 1:04PM
Would that there was a single Republican who is brave enough to call out Islam and brand their religion as the cult it is. Their aim is global domination, and there is no such thing as a good, moderate Muslim. They certainly showed their real aims yesterday in the attacks on Egyptian Christian churches.
Obama is a fraud. We attack the Libyan dictator to save innocent lives, but ignore what's going on in Syria. Consistency, anyone? I think not.
Occam's Tool| 5.9.11 @ 1:43PM
PineKnot,
There is one. His name is ALLEN WEST.
SpiralArchitect| 5.9.11 @ 1:53PM
Too bad you will only receive a national - 'Who?'
cicero| 5.9.11 @ 1:21PM
As long as we continue to kowtow to the sensitivities of the Muslim ideologues, we will never make any headway in this war. We side with the Egyptian revolters, and the first thing they do is burn down the Christian churches. Check with the Iraqui christians, and ask them whether their religious sensitivities are being respected. But we worry about proper burial rituals for the mass murderer, Bin Laden. What nonsense.
If the Southern Baptist Convention would declare holy war on all idolaters, and blashphemers, do you really think that the police would make sure that they didn't violate any sensitivies when they caught a church burner?
If we are going to wage war against our enemies, we should do so. If Islam is a religion of peace, let the peaceful Muslims stand up and be counted. I have seen no demonstrations of peace and tolerance so far. The bad guys deserve no respect. As far as burial rituals, I suggest that jihadis be wrapiped in pig skin, have their heads cut off, and thrown tlo the crows and jackals.
Perusha| 5.9.11 @ 1:40PM
Reminder---
91% of Egyptian females have had their genitals mutilated.
Now, extrapolate that fact, with varying percentages for the countries with Muslim majorities, as a “hint” of the widespread barbarism extant in 2011.
And, how long has Islam been brainwashing humans?
I just “enjoyed” the original “Manchurian Candidate”, last night---can it really be almost FIFTY YEARS since it came out?
It’s amazing, to me, how much AND how little of the details of this movie I remembered.
Just so, with fresh humans popping out and stale ones settling back into dust every day, over the past thousands of years, Islam continues to SUCCEED in spreading its suicidal message---brainwashing WORKS!
As Mark Twain put it, basically, so much of what everyone knows JUST IS NOT TRUE.
Truly, this transcendental understanding of the nature of humans at once Enlightens, and makes one a realist.
It will take centuries to KILL the Muslim ideology.
Twain’s insight is simply another way of recognizing that KARMA rules.
Human life is a do or die game, no matter how sugar coated and softly treated high technology makes it.
Within the psycho-physical limitations of our space-time sojourn on Earth in 2011, and on into the future, we each take out SHOT, ever taking into account the OTHER opponents we always confront, and for most people, such actions are VERY PREDICTABLE!
Sam Jones, one of the lesser known members of the Boston Celtics basketball team, back in the 60’s when they were dominating the NBA, led by Bill Russell, was said to have worked on his game during the off season. He always tried to master a new move, or shot, so that he wouldn’t be so easy to guard, when the NEW games began.
Well—I just wonder when something like THAT can, or WILL, happen for the most key “players” in Islam, so that it sheds its suicidal nature.
As one who approaches the age of the MAGICAL 69, another memory arises---a rare Jew in my high school, in the late 50’s, became well known to all his fellow students when he declared he was going to Israel to join the fight against the Islamic hordes.
And, here we are, over FIFTY YEARS LATER.
The more things change……..
JP| 5.9.11 @ 3:55PM
One wise Beltway Insider said about 12-15 years ago that the Conservatives love the old, large standing armies that won the Cold War; but, Progressives love Special Ops. It comes as no surprise to me that President Obama loves the SEALS and Predator strike teams. Of all the services, the most conservative and traditional, the USMC, has always been agnostic about forming SpecOp teams, while the other 3 services can't seem to get enough of them.
A word of warning to those who believe that Spec Ops are the wave of the future - we've essientially been involved in a long-term counterinsurgency with no end in sight. Progressives since 1950 have gotten thier wish. We no longer fight "traditional wars". I suppose it is too difficult to rouse a public to support wars "to the finish". Progressives found a way around all of that. And make no mistake, Progressives run the DOD. All of the old Cold Warriors have either Gone West or are in nursing homes.
The War on Terror will never end -even if we run out of terrorists. It will be like Welfare, or Aid for Dependent Children. Once a program starts it is difficult if not impossible to stop it. The DOD has gotten too much invested in SpecOps to ever return to the "bad ol' days".
Mark Costa| 5.9.11 @ 6:43PM
so what ladin is dead,your still unemployed and your president has our country in a 17 trillion dollar debt -- one more note: there were tornados that affected 40% of the state of Alabama ,thats getting no attentionfrom the blind eye media
Dee See| 5.9.11 @ 11:34PM
---Great piece.
MEANWHILE, yet another massive explosion
at Fukishima utterly covered-up by the Yuppie
gigglers of our globalist corporate media.
"Remember folks, cancer is the IDEAL mode
of depopulation. Remember too, just a pound
of plutonium is enough to exterminate everyone
on the planet---"
-ALAN WATT
(essential onlione coverage)
Off the charts radiation has been picked up
as far away as Kent England.
National monitoring has been shut down and
has remained shut down for a month now.
Fukishima is set to continue spewing, at this
rate, for the next 10 months ---AT LEAST.
Look at your kids-----------------listen for yuppie
giggles beneath the hiss of the microwaves what
have been turned up to dumb us down.
WHAT ABOUT THIS SITUATION DON'T WE UNDERSTAND?
HUAC meets NUREMBERG 2012.
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