Killing Bin Laden

Unless you've been hiding in a cave in the mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan (well, bad example), you're well aware that earlier this week, United States special operations forces found and killed Osama bin Laden after a manhunt which began almost ten years ago, soon after bin Laden orchestrated the 9/11 attacks which stands today as the worst attack on American soil.

I welcomed the news but didn't feel a great sense of joy, relief or celebration. While bin Laden clearly deserved justice and due punishment for the grand atrocity, the thousands of civilians that lost their lives on that September morning are not coming back. Those children who lost parents will not have them return for their weddings, nor will lost spouses return to celebrate missed anniversaries. The notion of a cell structure of a terrorist organization means that unlike the celebration of V-E and V-J days after World War II, there is no armistice or surrender that accompanies the death of bin Laden. He lives behind a terrorist movement that has resolved to avenge his death, and while they have lost a mastermind and leader, the movement will live on. The crushing of the head of the snake does not kill the snake, but rather splinters it into small serpents who may be capable of less grand attacks, but can clearly still inflict pain and loss of life. While the death of bin Laden is good news - this is not over.

I'm reminded of the end of the movie Munich, in which the head of the commando team, Avner, voices his doubts of the effectiveness of their assassinations with their Mossad handler, Ephraim:

Avner: If these people committed crimes we should have arrested them. Like Eichmann.

Ephraim: If these guys live, Israelis die. Whatever doubts you have Avner, you know this is true.

Ephraim: You did well but you're unhappy.

Avner: I killed seven men.

Ephraim: Not Salameh. We'll get him of course. You think you were the only team? It's a big operation, you were only a part. Does that assuage your guilt?

Avner: Did we accomplish anything at all? Every man we killed has been replaced by worse.

Ephraim: Why cut my finger nails? They'll grow back.

Avner: Did we kill to replace the terrorist leadership or the Palestinian leadership? You tell me what we've done!

Ephraim: You killed them for the sake of a country you now choose to abandon. The country your mother and father built, that you were born into. You killed them for Munich, for the future, for peace.

Avner: There's no peace at the end of this no matter what you believe. You know this is true.

This is not to say that it was wrong or futile to take out bin Laden, and there will be others who we will target. Ephraim is correct in noting that fingernails still ought to get cut despite the fact they will grow again. Avner is reasonable in his contention that an eye for an eye is unlikely to broker a enduring and lasting peace. A few more musings:

• Given that the bin Laden was found hiding in a compound within a town filled with Pakistani military officers and a stone's throw away from the Pakistani military academy, you can understand while many are at best, perplexed and at worst, livid at the Pakistani government and intelligence community. Now that Pakistani leadership is in the awkward position of trying to convince that they're incompetent, as opposed to disingenuous around their partnership in combating terrorist. That makes all the sense in the world. Being incompetent earns you derision from the international community. But realizing that you've been taking counter-terrorism aid from the United States while knowingly harboring those responsible for the greatest mass murder on US soil can lead to (to recall the verbatim threat of a US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage post-9/11) getting bombed "back to the Stone Age".
• There's been some debate around whether the real order was to "take no prisoners" - in other words, shoot bin Laden on sight and ask questions later. The official word (though this seems to be evolving) is that the order was given to give him safe harbor and take him alive if bin Laden surrendered and offered no resistance. The reports somewhat evolved from "bin Laden resisted" to "bin Laden was unarmed, but didn't have his arms up" which may soon become "bin Laden didn't scream 'I surrender and I'm really sorry!' in proper English". It doesn't take a conspiracy theorist do believe that at some point, Obama and the NSA realized that capturing him alive would create a multitude of problems (e.g. a trial that would look O.J.'s look like a traffic court visit in comparison, mass rioting, terroristic actions and threats to blackmail his release, etc.), that it might be better if he simply wasn't, uh, alive.
• Kudos to Navy SEAL Team Six for their amazing and courageous work. We, as Americans, can be grateful that we have among the best, if not the Special Ops military capabilities in the world. In a world in which conflict is becoming largely specialized and surgical as opposed to being fought with heavy artillery and large scale infantry, these individuals will be increasingly important to our national security and national interests. Thanks to each of them for their dedicated service. Given their clandestine nature, I can't imagine the discipline to never be able to disclose that you were part of the team that effectively wiped bin Laden off the map. They certainly don't do what they do for the glory.