May 2, 2011

Osama Bin Laden is Dead

Osama bin Laden is dead, exterminated by a team of Navy SEALS as the al Qaeda leader hid in a fortified compound some 31 miles north of Pakistani capital Islamabad. As the details emerge, it is clear that the mission was executed brilliantly, with the tactical precision and extraordinary heroism which characterizes operations conducted by our wonderful military personnel. Swiftly, surgically and without loss of American life, the special ops forces disposed of bin Laden with a shot to the head as the terrorist leader, with characteristic cowardice, cowered in an upstairs bedroom, reportedly using a woman as a human shield. The last image seen by the mass murderer was the barrel of a U.S. gun. It was a great day for America.

The heroic members of SEAL Team Six who conducted the nearly flawless mission deserve the unmitigated praise of the American people. And President Obama should be commended for authorizing the daring raid.

Because Mr. Obama is the current occupant of the White House, he will derive political credit as the President in office at the time that Osama bin Laden was killed. And certainly, once intelligence personnel had determined that the high profile occupant of the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan was, in fact, bin Laden, Mr. Obama could have taken what is being characterized as “the safe approach” by authorizing a drone strike or B2 bombing of the compound. But such a remote attack had its downside.

Bombing the compound was likely to leave only a big crater, with no immediate verifiable proof that bin Laden had been killed. It might be months or even years before online chatter and other evidence would confirm that the terrorist leader had, in fact, been eliminated, and even then the evidence would be open to doubt.

Additionally, a bombing run might potentially kill dozens or even hundreds of Pakistani civilians living in the neighboring residential area, inspiring international outrage that the United States had conducted a bombing raid in a sovereign nation that resulted in the deaths of women and children (and might not have even killed bin Laden), inflaming anti-American passions in the Muslim world, and disrupting even further our fragile relationship with nuclear power Pakistan.

Finally, a remote bombing raid would not have provided the huge political capital that a bold, successful strike force mission would have on the President’s re-election prospects. To an administration which weaves the political into each of the President’s words and actions, the potential to re-brand Mr. Obama as … a “Commander-in-Chief” was too much to let pass. Certainly, the commando raid might fail, leaving the President with a Desert One level fiasco and further supporting the “Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter – separated at birth?” narrative. At the worst, the President might suffer a Mogadishu-level disaster. But Bill Clinton has recovered politically from the Somalia Black Hawk Down incident, and so could Mr. Obama. So, after several high-level meetings debating the means of taking out bin Laden, the White House made the decision to authorize the commando attack.

And, with typical narcissism, President Obama made it seem in his remarks late Sunday night as though Mr. Obama, rather than the brave members of the Navy SEAL strike team, had conducted the raid that killed bin Laden (“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”; “I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden”; “I met repeatedly with my national security team”; “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”).

The mission for which the President is taking credit owes its success to the interrogation methods and intelligence techniques developed during the Bush administration. While President Obama embellished his own role in the success of the operation during last night’s statement to the American people, and certainly the President made a gutsy call in authorizing the mission, it would have been gracious for Mr. Obama to have at least acknowledged the significant role played by the Bush administration in ultimately getting bin Laden.

Indeed, the trail to bin Laden began with the discovery of an unnamed courier in 2003, whose existence was ascertained through those same enhanced interrogation techniques that Mr. Obama has denounced throughout his Presidency. The courier’s actual identity was not discovered until 2007, when new intelligence collected from detainees at Guantanamo (which fortunately was still open at that time despite the left’s (and Mr. Obama’s) protests) revealed the courier’s name. By 2009, U.S. intelligence discovered that the courier was operating north of Islamabad. In August of 2010, U.S. intelligence pin-pointed the courier’s homebase as the fortified compound which also housed a likely top-level al Queda leader. By 2011, information from detainees at Guantanamo Bay, CIA operatives, the CIA interrogation program (since closed down by President Obama), and other intelligence sources, suggested strongly that the compound, two miles from Pakistan’s version of West Point, housed bin Laden. Finally, in July of this year, Pakistani agents spotted the courier driving into the compound.

So, the killing of bin Laden, an act of justice for which all Americans are grateful and for which President Obama now takes credit, was made possible by the enhanced interrogation techniques, CIA interrogation program and Guantanamo facility put in place by President Bush and condemned, and in some cases dismantled, by President Obama.

The monumental significance of the killing of bin Laden — for its wielding of U.S military might against those who would do us wrong, for its bringing some element of closure to families who lost loved ones on 9/11, for its exacting of vengeance against a monster, for its triumph of good over evil – is evident to all.

We now hear the steady swooning refrain from Obama’s loyal left, exalting it seems that Obama, otherwise inept in all that he touches, has finally done something right. We hear language like “the killing of Osama bin Laden is the defining moment of the Obama Presidency” and “People will remember for their lifetimes where they were the night they announced that Bin Laden was dead.” The President’s captive media exalts as they claim that the killing of bin Laden renders Mr. Obama all but unbeatable in 2012. “Pity the poor fool who will go up against President Obama,” they tell us.

Sometimes you’re in the right place at the right time. And just as candidate Obama happened to find himself running against the incumbent’s party when the economy collapsed in 2008, so President Obama happened to be occupying the White House at the time Osama bin Laden was finally tracked down and killed.

Certainly the President’s poll numbers will tick upwards, and the administration will try to milk the killing of bin Laden to embarrassing extremes. Already the White House has announced that Mr. Obama will be traveling to the World Trade Center site on Thursday to do a photo-op with some 9/11 families. Look for the administration to drag out releasing details of the attack, possibly dripping out photos and videotape over time, in order to prolong the story with a public which will soon refocus on the damage caused by this administration’s policies.

The White House will be brazen in its exploitation of the daring raid. As they continue the makeover of the President as a strong leader, look for the “Vote for Obama — He killed Osama” bumper stickers.

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