WASHINGTON — It has now been a year since Osama bin Laden became a ghost courtesy of the United States SEALs. I had long since come to the conclusion that Osama became crêpes suzette for the worms back in Tora Bora in December 2001, and I was somewhat stubborn in my belief. Yet he fooled me and the student of Araby Mark Steyn and a few other pundits. I shall be a big enough man to admit it. I was wrong. Apparently Osama took up residence in the wilds of Pakistan, where he believed he was safe. Doubtless like-minded pietists in the Pakistani army or intelligence community told him he would be safe there. They were doubtless proud of their world-famous tenant. Well, they were asleep on the night of May 2, 2011, or they had the good sense not to get involved. When the U.S. helicopters swooped in Osama was pitifully exposed. He had no guards that we know of, save a few women. Several doors collapsed before our tough troops, and pop , he was on his way to the 72 virgins in Heaven or the 42 cows or whatever the Muslim theologians estimate the Hereafter to be composed of. At any rate I am glad he is gone, and doubtless you are too. Now we know he spent his last days reading licentious literature and mixing up potions not unlike the West’s miracle drug, Viagra. Also we hear from intelligence reports that he was heavily into Just For Men, another diabolical potion that originates with the hated West. He did not stay particularly fit. There was no jogging or windsurfing or bungee jumping for him, as there is with select American politicians. There was just the womenfolk all around. Sometimes he doubtless admonished them with a good scolding or perhaps a stick. According to the Islamic specialist Hazrat Maulana Ashraf Ali Thani in his Islamic bestseller A Gift for Muslim Couples, a husband can resort to “a stick,” can deny money and even “pull” his wife “by the ears.” Still, it is no substitute for a good workout at the gym. Other morsels of intelligence were found in his redoubt in historic Abbottabad, the felicitously named town in which he breathed his last. He kept computers, another Western gadget, and doubtless pens and pencils, again Western utensils. On his hard drives the U.S. has discovered valuable intelligence. Frankly, I doubt our intelligence community has been candid with us. But from what we have been told his group al Qaeda has laid plans for the long haul. They have a strategy for making pests of themselves in Afghanistan once our heroic president vamooses. And they are setting up operations in romantic places like Yemen. Moreover, they recently allied with al-Shabab, a terrorist group in Somalia. Their present leader is Ayman al-Zawahiri who we are told is not another Osama. He is according to our intelligence community “divisive.” He lacks Osama’s swarthy charm. But he does have plans for a long-term struggle. His problem is al Qaeda has too many openings at the top. In fact, by the time I have published this, even his position may be open. The skies above Afghanistan and Pakistan are full of U.S. drones. They pick up a message, say, from al-Zawahiri ordering a pizza delivery and poof , he could be gone. It has happened time and again. Consider Ilyas Kashmiri. Osama tapped him to assassinate President Obama. Possibly Osama did not like him, for no sooner had he been tapped than he was tapped… by a missile from one of those infernal drones. Or consider Atiyah Abdul Rahman, who was in charge of al-Qaeda’s day-to-day operations and Osama’s main link to his network. Poof , he is no more. And then there is, or should I say was, Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born sheik at work in Yemen. Poof , he was incinerated by another drone. So it has been a happy year against terrorism, but I would not let down our guard. We are not fighting the Cold War against technologically symmetrical forces. We are fighting a war against primitives, but all they need is a suicidal maniac with some advanced Western gadget to kill hundred s , perhaps thousands.
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Osama bin Laden a Year Later
QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — More than 1,500 supporters from a pro-Taliban Islamic party have rallied in southwestern Pakistan to condemn the killing of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden by US forces a year ago. The protest came a day after the President Barack Obama visited neighboring Afghanistan on the anniversary of bin Laden’s killing. A spokesman for the Jamiat-e-Ulema Pakistan Party said more than 1,500 supporters
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Pakistan: Thousands Rally To Condemn Killing of Osama Bin Laden…
RedState Morning Briefing May 2, 2012 Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge. 1. Will The Tea Party Fight or Retreat? 2. With The Death of Osama bin Laden, We’re All Hawks Now 3. Barack Obama: A Legend In His Own Mind 4. The True Meaning of Bipartisanship in Washington ———————————————————————- 1. Will The Tea Party Fight or Retreat? Last night in Wisconsin the state Republican Party tried a few parliamentary maneuvers to drive tea party members from the ranks of the GOP. For reasons I cannot begin to fathom, the Wisconsin GOP seems willing to sacrifice tea party energy in the Scott Walker recall in order to save Tommy Thompson’s Senate bid. In Indiana, Eric Cantor has weighed in on behalf of Barack Obama’s favorite Republican Senator, Dick Lugar. Just as every major conservative group lines up with Richard Mourdock, Eric Cantor begins urging Democrats to turn out for Lugar. But Indiana and Wisconsin are not the only playing field. More and more reporters are rumbling that Eric Cantor is going to actively engage in House races to combat the tea party. He wants a more docile, pliable, controllable caucus — one that will do as it is told by its party leaders, not its constituents. The proof of this is in North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District. Please click here for the rest of the post. 2. With The Death of Osama bin Laden, We’re All Hawks Now One year ago today, a Navy SEAL team killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, the culmination of many years of intelligence-gathering. The operation was personally authorized by President Obama, over the objections of Vice President Joe Biden. While national security leaders had, properly, publicly downplayed the importance of getting bin Laden – it was more important to focus on dismantling the operational network of Al Qaeda and similar groups, and overemphasis on one man hiding in isolation would give the fugitive bin Laden an unnecessary propaganda victory – it was nonetheless a significant longstanding priority of three Administrations to get him, and a great day for America when he was killed. The Obama campaign, recognizing that there is broad bipartisan agreement on this point among voters, has done everything possible to capitalize politically on the President’s role. There are three real lessons to be drawn a year later. Please click here for the rest of the post. 3. Barack Obama: A Legend In His Own Mind In terms of iconography this photo is destined to rival that taken of FDR on D-Day. Please click here for the rest of the post. 4. The True Meaning of Bipartisanship in Washington We are constantly hearing the DC chattering class bemoan the toxic partisanship that is endemic of congressional politics. These supercilious wizards of smart contend that if we just had a little more bipartisanship in Washington, all of our public policy troubles would dissipate in short order. The reality cannot be more antithetical to this ubiquitous line of thought from the media. We suffer from a dearth of partisanship, not from too much partisanship. It is precisely this bipartisanship that exemplifies the consummate problem in Washington. It was both parties working together that bequeathed us this $15.6 trillion debt. It was both parties trying to pander to special interests that has left us with a $63 trillion unfunded liability for just two programs, and more than half of Americans dependent on government. Yes, we need more partisanship in Washington. It’s amusing to watch the media applaud the recent bipartisan string of legislation in the Senate. Please click here for the rest of the post.
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Morning Briefing for May 2, 2012
One year ago today, a Navy SEAL team killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, the culmination of many years of intelligence-gathering. The operation was personally authorized by President Obama, over the objections of Vice President Joe Biden . While national security leaders had, properly, publicly downplayed the importance of getting bin Laden – it was more important to focus on dismantling the operational network of Al Qaeda and similar groups, and overemphasis on one man hiding in isolation would give the fugitive bin Laden an unnecessary propaganda victory – it was nonetheless a significant longstanding priority of three Administrations to get him, and a great day for America when he was killed. The Obama campaign, recognizing that there is broad bipartisan agreement on this point among voters, has done everything possible to capitalize politically on the President’s role. There are three real lessons to be drawn a year later: 1. In the big picture, we’re all national security hawks now. 2. As a matter of policy specifics, the hawks won and the anti-war movement lost every round. 3. As a matter of partisan politics, the side that loses the debate over the death of bin Laden will be the side that overplays its hand the worst. I. We’re All National Security Hawks Now The first takeaway from Obama’s emphasis on hogging credit for the bin Laden takedown – besides the obvious fact that everything Obama does these days is designed to distract the public from his domestic policy record – is that there is bipartisan agreement that being seen as the more hawkish candidate is an unmitigated political positive. No politically significant figure or group is left making the policy argument that the aggressive, unilateral projection of American military power overseas to kill our enemies is a bad thing. Obama’s partisans today make no real effort to hide the fact that they are following the Bush 2004 playbook and trying to run to Mitt Romney’s right on national security toughness . Even with war-weariness in Afghanistan increasingly crossing partisan lines, we are all hawks now. II. The Hawks Won the Policy Debates, Too The victory of the hawks is not just atmospheric or partisan. The bin Laden raid vindicated many policies championed by Bush-era national security hawks, several of which were opposed by Obama and other Democrats or were subjected to seriously overwrought criticisms during the Bush years. To the extent that any Obama policy deserves any of the credit for the death of bin Laden, it is only a hawkish, unilateral policy orientation towards Pakistan. Obama can claim a win, but the antiwar movement lost every round. I detailed this observation last year (as did Ace ), and streiff hit a few of the major examples as well earlier today . While my analysis a year ago was based on preliminary reports, we actually have not learned that much new since then on any of the relevant issues. Let’s summarize the key points: A. Guantanamo and CIA Detention Centers What we know, based on what’s been made public, is that bin Laden was located primarily by means of following a trail of intelligence that revealed that he was communicating with the outside world mainly via a single faithful courier, Ibrahim Saeed Ahmed, who went by the nom de guerre of Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti . And the leads that gave us that knowledge came from the interrogation of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and CIA “black site” detention centers. Those detainees included 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Al Qaeda operational chief Abu Faraj al-Libi, “20th hijacker” Muhammad Mani al-Qahtani, and Hassan Ghul, an associate of Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. None of this would have been possible if these detainees were treated as ordinary prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions, to be asked only the proverbial name, rank and serial number. Barack Obama campaigned against these detention and interrogation sites, closed the CIA “black sites” his first week in office, and is still promising (albeit in increasingly empty fashion) to close Guantanamo. The killing of bin Laden is an unambiguous victory for the detention and interrogation policies of the Bush Administration. And with those sites not accepting new detainees and the Administration switching emphasis to killing rather than capturing and interrogating enemy combatants, it is questionable whether that success can be replicated in the future, with terrorist leaders like Ayman al-Zawahiri and Mullah Omar still at large. B. Iraq Of the detainees questioned on the path to tracking al-Kuwaiti, the one that investigators have described as the “linchpin” of the whole investigation is Hassan Ghul. And where did we capture Hassan Ghul? In Iraq in 2004, reportedly by a Kurdish security checkpoint on the Iranian border carrying a message from Zarqawi to bin Laden asking for bin Laden’s support in the insurgency . Of course, none of this would have happened had Iraq remained a Saddam Hussein-run police state hostile to the United States. If we hadn’t invaded Iraq, we would not have captured Ghul, and bin Laden would still be alive. Does that, all by itself, justify the Iraq War? I wouldn’t go that far – there are a whole battery of considerations that we’ve all exhaustively beaten to death in that debate. But yet again: Barack Obama opposed the war, and without it, he wouldn’t have had the intelligence to get bin Laden. C. NSA Surveillance Electronic surveillance also played a key part in locating al-Kuwaiti: at some point between when the CIA pieced together his identity around 2007 and when he was located in 2009, the NSA surveillance net – the subject of much criticism back in the 2005-08 period – was set out to track calls between al-Kuwaiti’s his family members and associates and anyone in Pakistan . I’ve seen no reference anywhere to a warrant ever having been obtained for this eavesdropping, and it worked exactly as defenders of warrantless eavesdropping predicted it might. As I argued back in 2005, there was never a policy reason to object to this sort of thing , as long as it was targeted as described (which it was here: to known associates and relatives of al-Kuwaiti). As a legal matter, was a warrant needed, under the theory of the critics? It’s not clear one was, as most of the public sources indicate that al-Kuwaiti’s relatives (at least the ones he was caught communicating with) were in the Persian Gulf, not inside the United States. But it’s clear that the very same tool at issue in the FISA controversy was crucial to locating al-Kuwaiti and therefore bin Laden. D. Coercive Interrogation The three points above have barely even been contested by the once-noisy critics of Bush Administration policies; they have circled all their wagons around denying that coercive interrogation produced any returns, in line with their longstanding insistence that such interrogation has never, ever worked in any situation and never, ever conceivably could in any possible situation. But the facts are more complex. The Bush Administration authorized the use of waterboarding on only three detainees, but Khalid Sheikh Muhammad was one of them, and he later provided key intelligence; you can draw your own conclusions as to whether confessing to the good cop means the bad cop accomplished nothing, but it’s safe to say that if this was a criminal trial, bin Laden’s lawyers would be arguing that any information obtained after waterboarding was “fruit of the poisonous tree.” Ghul appears to have been subjected to a number of the lesser coercive tactics , and al-Qahtani seems to as well . While basically everyone agrees that it’s preferable to use non-coercive interrogation techniques when possible, the record here suggests that a little humility by those calling for a total ban would be advisable. E. Unilateralism Not one of the policies that led to bin Laden being located had originated with the Obama Administration. As noted above, several were harshly criticized by Obama and his allies, and some have been discontinued by Obama. Does that mean Obama’s policies get no credit at all? There is one argument for crediting Obama’s policies, besides the decision to to authorize the mission itself – but it’s an argument for a more hawkish, unilateral posture in the War on Terror. The Bush Administration treated Pakistan, from very early on, as an ally, albeit an often recalcitrant one, and generally conductied under-the-public-radar incursions into Pakistani territory that nobody would admit to publicly. During the 2008 campaign, Obama made a point of arguing publicly that if bin Laden or other high-value Al Qaeda targets turned up in Pakistan, he’d authorize unilateral incursions into Pakistani territory. A variety of other candidates – Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John McCain, and Mitt Romney among them – ripped Obama for this pronouncement, especially in conjunction with his (oft-repeated, since-abandoned) promise to meet without preconditions with the leaders of hostile states like Iran, Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela. It’s easy to overstate the importance of this debate in retrospect, as McCain in particular placed most of his emphasis not on the idea that going into Pakistan was a bad idea – he famously promised to follow bin Laden “to the gates of Hell” – but on the idea that it was naive and dangerous to announce publicly in advance that you’d do so (“you don’t say that out loud,” was McCain’s memorable debate line): Nonetheless, if you credit Obama in this regard, bear in mind that it’s crediting him for being more hawkish and more unilateralist than Bush or McCain. Nobody has suggested that Obama should have worked with NATO or the UN before taking action. As I said: we’re all hawks now. III. The Side That Overplays Its Hand Worse Will Lose the Partisan Debate As I noted last year , the American people give Obama high marks for getting bin Laden, but also recognize the importance of the work done by the Bush Administration to get us to that point in the War on Terror – sort of the mirror image of the public’s view of the economy. It would be dangerously ungracious for Republicans not to give any credit to Obama under those circumstances, even when coupled with legitimate criticisms (eg, former Attorney General Mukasey’s point that Obama’s premature announcement of bin Laden’s death may have compromised the value of intelligence collected from his compound ). Mitt Romney is right that the decision to go after bin Laden is one that even Jimmy Carter would likely have made – but Romney is only making that point in self-defense, Robert Gibbs having suggested that Romney would not have made the same call in the same circumstances, and Obama running ads suggesting the same thing . As noted above, there is more than enough room for Republicans to make the affirmative policy case that the intelligence trail that led to bin Laden was paved with conservative, hawkish policies, and to use the success of the bin Laden operation to cement bipartisan public support for those policies. When you are winning the policy debate, don’t let the immediate needs of an election season get in the way of driving that victory home. For Obama, the flip side is that he should resist the trap of John Kerry’s military service , i.e., overselling a positive to the point where it becomes a negative. Americans get it; they don’t need to be beaten over the head with the point, not when they have a very long list of other reasons to doubt Obama’s leadership and are more than a little weary of him insisting at every turn that all bad things to happen on his watch are entirely the fault of conditions he inherited from Bush. And yet from last May, things like the registration of www.gutsycall.com and the dispatching of flacks uniformly lauding Obama for making a “gutsy call” suggested that Obama was going to milk this one, not-very-difficult decision as far as he could take it. As I noted at the time , this smacked of the proverbial guy acting like he’d never been in the end zone before, and he still runs the risk of alienating some voters who may not like the effort to put the President, personally, at the center of a military and intelligence triumph for obvious electoral purposes (precisely the thing his own party spent the past decade accusing President Bush of doing). The issues of a president’s leadership and policies on the national security front are legitimate issues, the subject of legitimate debate, but must be handled with the seriousness that respect for the subject matter demands. Both candidates should tread carefully here, because the real partisan political danger lies in overplaying their hands. ____ Besides my lengthy discussion here , additional sources of varying types and credibility on the hunt for bin Laden and the critics of its methods here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here and here .
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With The Death of Osama bin Laden, We’re All Hawks Now
In terms of iconography this photo is destined to rival that taken of FDR on D-Day.* With some trying to turn bin Laden’s death into a campaign talking point for Obama’s reelection, it is useful to remember that the trail to bin Laden started in a CIA black site — all of which Obama ordered closed, forever, on the second full day of his administration — and stemmed from information obtained from hardened terrorists who agreed to tell us some (but not all) of what they knew after undergoing harsh but legal interrogation methods. Obama banned those methods on Jan. 22, 2009. – Jose A. Rodriguez The Washington Post, The path to bin Laden’s death didn’t start with Obama Any doubt that Barack Obama is a small, petty, and inconsequential human was dispelled last week when his campaign released an ad claiming credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden portraying the decision to order a raid to do something to bin Laden ( we aren’t quite sure what his intent was based on the directive issued by the White House ) was a some kind of watershed moment in American history. As was noted then , the video is notable for being narrated by the guy who allowed bin Laden to rise to prominence and insinuating that Mitt Romney would not have ordered the raid. Undeterred by the criticism received, even by the likes of Arianna Huffington , Obama decided to double down in a press conference yesterday: Continued the president, “I said that I’d go after bin Laden if we had a clear shot at him and I did. If there are others who have said one thing and now suggest they’d do something else, then I’d go ahead and let them explain it.” The article then helpfully points out some context for Romney’s statement. Romney, incidentally, was hardly the only politician taking issue with then-Senator Obama’s comments about Pakistan. Then-Senator Hillary Clinton, D-NY, called the remarks “irresponsible and frankly naive” in an interview with Iowa’s Quad City Times, and then-Senator Joe Biden, D-Del., said “the last thing you want to do is telegraph to the folks in Pakistan that we are about to violate their sovereignty.” So, presumably, the Secretary of State and Vice President have been called to account for their opinions as well. Unfortunately, Obama using the accomplishments of the U.S. military for personal political gain seems to be part of his make up. When Navy SEAL snipers whacked three hapless part-time Somali pirates, Obama was, according to his fluffers, there on the quarterdeck picking out the targets. The new ad could lead you to believe that he personally fast-roped into the Abbottabad compound and killed bin Laden for all the mention that is made of the men who actually did the job. ( Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey , writing in today’s Wall Street Journal, describes how other presidents have handled similar situations.) The fact is that Mitt Romney was right , even Jimmy Carter would have made this call. In fact, Jimmy Carter made a much tougher call during Operation EAGLE CLAW . Or as one former Navy SEAL told the Daily Mail : “The decision was a no brainer. I applaud him for making it but I would not overly pat myself on the back for making the right call. I think every president would have done the same.” And despite bin Laden enabler Bill Clinton’s statements, there was no political downside risk for Obama whatsoever. Jimmy Carter actually got a 4 point bump in his approval rating , though admittedly a short-lived bump, in the aftermath of the disastrous raid into Iran. Had the compound been empty, Obama would still have gained some credit for continuing the pursuit. So now we have the sorry spectacle of the President of the United States, as our economy and international prestige circle the crapper, reduced to basing his reelection hopes on the death of a strategically irrelevant fugitive in Pakistan. A man so small that he can’t be bothered to mention the skill of our troops or intelligence agencies in his orgy of self-congratulation. *Like all of my good lines, I stole this one from Dan McLaughlin.
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Barack Obama: A Legend In His Own Mind
