Published on Facebook today...
The news broke last Sunday night just as I was preparing to leave for a week of training up at the Law Enforcement Academy in Des Moines: apparently, Osama Bin Laden had been killed by US Forces. The evil one, the bastard, asshole, tyrant, evildoer, terrorist mastermind, kingpin, dickhead, whatever you want to call him had finally been caught and, as many had predicted, been killed. Like most everyone else, I sat glued to the television and the internet, watching as details on the daring Navy Seal Raid emerged and then I listened to the President's statement and I went to bed.
It wasn't until about 7:35 the next morning, when I found myself in a bit of a traffic jam trying to get onto the base at Camp Dodge (where the Law Enforcement Academy is, apparently) that it struck me that the world had, once again, as it usually does, changed. It also made me a bit nervous when the gate guard asked for two forms of identification- as all military forces worldwide had upped their security- something I hadn't even considered- but he seemed happy enough to glance at my driver's license and a credit card with my name on it and let me through. Of course finding the Law Enforcement Academy proved to be a bit of a challenge, but I managed it and after that, my week began.
People had warned me about the Academy. I don't really know why. It was quiet- freakishly quiet after hours and I had a very large room all to myself. And, glories of glories, there was no internet to speak of, no television and no contact with the outside world other than my cell phone. It was a week of solitude in which I did a lot of reading- and thinking, despite the somewhat uncomfortable beds.
And what I came up with was this: well done. That's literally all I could come up with. A lot of people were somewhat leery of the spontaneous celebrations of patriotism that broke out everywhere Sunday night and some people were downright snotty about them, but I think that's OK. I mean, it was as if a weight had been lifted off the world. The guy who did the deed, the awful deed that's engrained into a generation, ten years ago is dead. Why wouldn't you feel an overwhelming sense of relief at that? Yet we have to temper that by noting that the guy, dickhead though he was, was shot in the head. I'm not sure we should make a habit of celebrating when people get shot in the head- some fool television exec might decide to make a reality show out of it. So while I felt pretty damn good about it, I wasn't about to do a cartwheel either.
Then came the inevitable question, from the usual source: what are the political implications for President Obama? This question was put to me roughly an hour after the annoucement had been made to which my initial thought was 'damned if I know.' But as I said, a monastic week of solitude gives you a lot of time to think, so here's my take on that as well:
The political implications for the President? Diddly squat. I think he'll get a nice, short term burst of happiness from people that might see him tick upwards in the polls but he's still in one helluva tight spot and 2012 is going to be a very, very close election and at this point I still think it's a 50-50 split on whether or not he'll win. Yes, traditionally post World War II elections have been very kind to incumbents seeking re-election and that's a huge advantage, but it's not everything.
First, there's the Republicans. The fact that they're keeping their powder so dry is starting to irritate me immensely, because I'll be damned if I'll see Donald Trump as the Republican nominee. At first I thought it was because their crop of candidates is about as appealing as a boil on your ass and then I thought it was because they were all shaking like little children at the prospect of Sarah Palin getting in the race but now I think they might actually have a few brain cells between them. The longer they keep quiet, the longer they keep the spotlight on the President. He has to explain the economy. He has to explain gas prices. He has to explain inflation. If he's got no clear opponent, then the spotlight is all on him.
Second, there's his other foreign policy messes. Now that Bin Laden is dead, the pressure is really on. He's got to fix Afghanistan and start wrapping that show up there and then he's got to disentangle himself from the rapidly growing mess he made in Libya. I still say that means ratcheting up military pressure and aid to the rebels and the Berbers in the Western Mountains (no friends of Colonel Nutbag) as well as the political strategy. You need one or two solid military victories and I think you might break western Libya wide open- especially as economic sanctions really start to bite.
Third, there's the plain and simple dictum brought to us by Bill Clinton: 'it's the economy, stupid.' 2012 is going to swing on the price of food and the price of gas no more, no less and I don't care if the Republicans run Barney Fife against the President: if gas is $6-8 a gallon this time next year, he's toast. People vote with their pocketbooks and money is tight enough for everyone right now that if the pain gets worse, they won't care who his opponent is, anyone who can get prices down and get the economy under control will do.
So at the end of the day, is this a big win for the President? Oh no doubt- it's a big win for all of us if you want to get right down to it- but is it a game-changing win? I don't know. Probably not. Though the President's laser sharp focus on this issue was a pleasant surprise. By all accounts, he sat down with his National Security Team, said 'let's find the bastard' and that's what they went out and did. Granted they may have gotten extremely lucky, but a job well done is a job well done- and I have a sneaking suspicion that it would have been done a lot sooner if someone in the Pakistani government hadn't been looking the other way.
I read a column in the New York Post today comparing the death of Bin Laden to the death of the Mahdi in the Sudan a century ago. A radical Jihadist, he besieged the British at Khartoum, defeated them and chased them out of the Sunday. 13 years later, the British stormed back in and chased his successors right out of the place again and that was the end of radical Jihadism in the area for at least a century. I don't know if I'd go that far, but I think, ironically enough that Facebook and Twitter have done far more damage to Islamic Fundamentalism than any invasion or airstrike we've ever thought of. The people in the streets of Cairo, those young people, affecting non-violent change? They were all on Facebook and Twitter and they didn't look to be too enthusiastic about Al-Qaeda. The Ayatollah? I'm betting he doesn't have a Facebook page either... progress, in this case represented by the technological change of the internet is the enemy of fundamentalists of all stripes, everywhere and I think if you really think about it, the true hammer blow to Al-Qaeda came on the streets of Cairo. Whether people want to admit it or not, Egypt is seen as the center of the Arab world- which makes what happened there an upheaval of historical proportions.
Bin Laden, now dead, was merely caught in the crossfire. Which, as the President said, was justice- very well done.
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