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The Spectacle Blog
The death of Osama bin Laden at the hands of American forces is a semiotic victory in a semiotic war: Its strategic significance is largely tied to its symbolic resonance. “Jihadis I’ve interviewed since 9/11 always expressed cocky pride the US never got OBL,” ABC foreign correspondent Jim Sciutto tweeted last night. “This is an enormous blow to that pride.” As David Frum notes,
Bin Laden’s cowardly death - hiding behind a woman taken as a human shield - further damages his image in Muslim world as “strong horse.” Prestige of al Qaeda-style terrorism [is] diminished at exactly the moment that change is sweeping Arab world.
Frum identifies several other, somewhat less obvious strategic implications. Bin Laden’s ability to hide in plain sight in Pakistan will inevitably chill relations between Washington and Islamabad — and ought to improve relations between Washington and New Dehli. And the stability of Afghanistan suddenly seems less vital to US interests.
U.S. policy in Afghanistan is turning a corner - from a military surge to a military drawdown, from battering the Taliban to enticing them into negotiations…
That Afghan surge is now mostly complete, and Obama aides argue that it has been a success. “Remember that the surge had two key goals,” a White House official told me last week. “One, to stop the Taliban’s momentum; two, to give time and space for the Afghan security forces to grow. Both have gotten done, by and large.”
The raid on bin Laden’s compound may be a glimpse at the sort of light-footprint counterterrorism operations, often involving incursions into Pakistan, that will continue after the large-scale counterinsurgency campaign has wound down. If bin Laden’s hard drive yields the cascade of actionable intelligence that we all hope, these counterterrorism operations could be quite productive indeed.
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More Blog Posts by John Tabin
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/05/03/after-obl
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Alan Brooks| 5.3.11 @ 4:04AM
The worst thing is this war has been debt-funded for almost ten years.
Bush and his father were NOT economic conservatives.
Oldefarte| 5.3.11 @ 1:31PM
OMG, get off this constant Bush cocaburr up your backside, please! What, did a Bush steal your girlfriend when you were both in the 12th grade? Don't be such a one-trick pony!!!!!!!!
Intelligent Design| 5.3.11 @ 8:34AM
My guess is that the government of Pakistan has known the location of OBL for about 4 years, and that Obama knew the location for about 2 years. Obama authorized the death of OBL to improve his voter approval rating, so he can continue pushing socialism on the United States.
PCC| 5.3.11 @ 9:04AM
ID is probably right about Pakistan and almost certainly insane about Obama.
Let's declare victory in AfPak and bring the troops home, pronto.
Intelligent Design| 5.3.11 @ 1:19PM
I wonder exactly when U.S. intelligence first decided there was a strong probability that OBL was in that building. I will guess it was in 2009. Just a guess.
It's possible that Obama decided to just monitor the building after being told it was 90% or more certain that it was occupied by OBL. It was a risky decision to send special forces into Pakistan to conduct the raid, since it would have been a huge political disaster for Obama if it failed. With his back to wall in the polls, he decided it was worth the gamble. (?)
Pete| 5.3.11 @ 9:52AM
Now they are saying he didn't use a woman as a shield and he didn't fire back. So then, why wasn't he captured for intel purposes? Can you imagine if Bush had executed him like this when he had the chance to interrogate him? The media would be going nuts.
Autoacct628| 5.3.11 @ 10:44AM
Really, how "brave" & "courageous" did BHO have to be to order this?...this was an almost risk-free decision, & He & the press carry on as if a.) he pulled the trigger himself, & b.) it was the most difficult presidential decision since Truman okayed the A-bomb.
Puh. Leez.
As presidential decisions go, this was a no-brainer. The professionals (put in place by GWB, I might add....& still in place despite BHO's avowed desire to dismantle the military-intelligence structure of this country...) developed the intel, tracked him, found him, devised the plan, trained on it, & put their lives on the line every step of the way to execute it. They are the true heroes. They presented him with a plan which had an exceptionally high likelihood of success....although military operations always entail some risk. This was the presidential-decision-making equivalent of ordering breakfast.
The danger here is that Obama starts to actually BELIEVE the press's fawnings that this now makes him a battle-hardened military leader. Which he ain't.
What a marvelous distraction for the country, though. "Pay no mind to the deficit, or the debt limit, or health care debacle, or the economy, or the unemployment rate, or the price of food and groceries. See? Look at me! I can say yes when the military does all the work for me. Ain't me great?"
Soon enough, the ADHD-addled press & electorate will remember that the more important struggle for the survival of the country & our economy still rages. This small, insignificant-in-the-grand-scheme, victory doesn't change the calculus of that political struggle one whit. It will become all too apparent that the poppinjay in chief, so secure in making the slam-dunk decisions when the military establishment does the heavy lifting, can't make a decision to save his life when the stakes are truly high.
Are we better off with OBL gone? A bit...but the time wasted by this distraction will hurt more in the long run.
Oldefarte| 5.3.11 @ 1:33PM
Yes, I'm cureous to find out the contents of those computer hard drives and to see if the pictures of his dead/shot body are ever published [guess the Muslim community will go bonkers over that]!!!
Intelligent Design| 5.3.11 @ 2:03PM
http://www.jpost.com/Headlines.....?id=219023 Pakistan says it has been sharing info about Osama bin Laden compound with the CIA since 2009.