‘World is Safer and Better Place Because of the Death of Osama bin Laden’

President Obama

You got that right, Mr. President. The death of Osama Bin Laden, the perpetrator of numerous crimes against the United States and humanity, including mass murder, at the hands of an American soldier is justice served. Bin Laden’s orchestrated attack against the United States on 9/11 was an act that will live in infamy in this country and to all those who watched those two towers fall. His death does not bring the nearly 3,000 fallen back to our lives, but it can’t help but bring some form of closure. This successful action also makes something very clear: If you mess with the United States and threaten our safety and way of life, you will get the horns!

A few thoughts:

• The braveness shown by the group of Navy Seals/CIA (details of course our sketchy), who were dropped from the sky to probably the most hostile of environments to carry out one of the most crucial, historical, and dangerous missions in American history, is hard to comprehend. They are heros through and through and have earned our eternal gratitude.

• This successful mission could not have been accomplished without years of hard work by our nation’s intelligence agencies, military forces, and diplomats and all of them deserve all the accolades coming to them.

• President Obama showed great leadership and of course this mission could not have happened without it. His presidency will forever be known as the one that got Osama, and like his quote above, the US and world are all the better for it.

• Though the details and facts of this amazing mission are still coming in, it seems that it could never have been accomplished without information gathered by the much-maligned CIA during the crucial and headspinning days/years after the 9/11 attack. It seems that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed gave up the name of the courier that led the US to Osama’s compound 5 years ago. This strategic information might never have been acquired without the Bush administration’s stress on capturing Al Qaeda figures alive so they could be interrogated. The success of this mission indeed has many fathers, and former President Bush and his staff definitely belong among them.

• This fight is far from over. Al Qaeda’s No. 2 al-Zawahriwi is still alive and free and this must change. He is a powerful figure and in many ways was the leader of Al Qaeda’s strategy and logistics. Violent attacks against the US by Islamic radicals did not all funnel from Osama Bin Laden, either. The failed bombing attempts in Time Square (car), Detroit (underwear bomber, plane), and Portland (Christmas tree), just to name a few, had no known direct links to Osama’s camp, but nevertheless they were real and dangerous and their threat is still alive.

• The big elephant in the room now is American and NATO’s mission in Afghanistan. Already I have heard in the media and among some colleagues about declaring ‘mission accomplished’ and ‘getting out’. Though I disagree with this, I do believe Osama’s death is going to be a game changer. More on this later.

So good riddance to human garbage and big cheers to all those who helped make our country and the world a bit safer and much more just.

(Photo Source: New York Times)

There has been some push back coming against Congressman Peter King’s scheduled hearing on the threat of homegrown terrorism to American national security. A prime example comes from the New York Times editorial page, where Bob Herbert proclaims:

Representative Peter King, a Republican from Long Island, appears to harbor a fierce unhappiness with the Muslim community in the United States. As the chairman of the powerful Homeland Security Committee, Congressman King has all the clout he needs to act on his displeasure.

Despite this rather odious implication that King is a bigot and unfairly targeting Muslims, Herbert gives not one real piece of evidence of his claim. Do you know what there is actual evidence to support though? The fact that the United States does indeed face a troubling growth in homegrown terrorist activity, which sadly, but truthfully, mostly comes from those of Muslim backgrounds. According to Gregory Treverton of the RAND Corporation’s Center for Global Risk and Security, there were 46 publicly reported cases of radicalization and recruitment of jihadist terrorism, involving 125 individuals in the US between 9/11 and the beginning of 2010. Those numbers do not include Richard Reid, who plotted his attack outside the US, or Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomber. In 2009, there were two fatal attacks from homegrown products targeting Americans: the Fort Hood massacre (13 killed, 31 wounded) and the murder of another American soldier at an Arkansas recruiting office. Lest we also forget Mohamed Mohamud, who last November pressed a button believing it would blow up hundreds of families watching the lighting of the downtown Portland Christmas tree. I could go on…

So to argue or even insinuate that homegrown terrorism, particularly of the Islamist variation, is not a serious national security is to ignore the reality of the past ten years. Rep. King’s hearing is not happening to put American Muslims in a poor light. If done correctly, it will just highlight a disturbing trend in the radicalization of a small segment of our population that poses a threat to all of our safety and well being. No one gives American Islam a worse name than those who seek to kill and maim in the religion’s name. To defeat an enemy, you have to know it. It does no one any good to hide behind political correctness and baseless claims of racism.

Walter Russell Mead, an esteemed scholar of American history, and provocative observer of current geopolitical trends is attempting to see the world through Pakistan’s eyes. Here’s his Pak-Vision of the situation in Afghanistan through Islamabad’s view:

The second major issue shaping negative Pakistani feelings about the United States is almost as important.  Pakistanis are on the front lines in the war on terror and Afghanistan is, literally, right on their doorstep.  Pakistanis have no confidence in America’s regional strategy and they are convinced that American blunders have created a multifaceted disaster that has already cost Pakistan dear.  Many Pakistanis believe that the US invasion of Afghanistan was a mistake in the first place; Mullah Omar offered to send Osama Bin Laden to stand trial in a third country, they say, and the US should have accepted that.  More, they argue that American policy from the beginning was a disaster.  We invaded in the wrong place at the wrong time; we refused to work with the people who could have helped us; we lost our focus on Afghanistan to turn toward Iraq (a war deeply hated by many Pakistanis).  Now, inevitably, the disaster in Afghanistan has spread across the border into Pakistan, with religious radicals and tribes in revolt turning their fury against Pakistani targets even as drone strikes in Pakistan infuriate many people.

The US, Pakistanis say, has given only derisory military aid — $1.5 billion versus the estimated $40 billion the war has cost Pakistan.  More, we are blaming the victim.  The spread of radical violence in Pakistan is the direct result, they say, of the American war and American blunders in Afghanistan, but all we do is blame Pakistan for the problem and, endlessly, repeat the cruel and unfeeling refrain: “Pakistan must do more.”  We even want them to dismantle their defenses against India (an enemy strengthened by America’s nuclear bias) to move forces to the Afghan frontier.

US attacks on Pakistan for ties to the Taliban and radical groups are, Pakistanis say, cynically hypocritical.  After all, the US and Pakistan worked together with many of these groups to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.  Is it perfectly OK to work with radical religious groups for American goals but a moral crime to use the same groups to protect Pakistan’s interests?

More, US threats against Iran threaten Pakistan’s economic interests and political stability — just as our failure to solve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute outrage Pakistani sensibilities and make our overall position in the region less stable.  Pakistanis darkly suspect that Indian money and Indian agents are responsible for violence in troubled parts of Pakistan and many believe that the US supports what Pakistanis believe are India’s efforts to build up its influence in northern Afghanistan.

Many Pakistanis believe that on top of everything else, the US is now getting ready either to cut and run in Afghanistan, leaving Pakistan with the thankless task of sweeping up, or, worse, handing northern Afghanistan to India, forcing Pakistan into a two front confrontation with its larger and richer rival.  Pakistan has no greater strategic nightmare than to see India entrenched in Afghanistan; many Pakistanis are completely convinced that this is what the end result of America’s Afghan policies will be.

Harsh! Mead has spent the last couple weeks traveling around Pakistan doing his academic thing, which means he does his ‘best to try to understand what it is that people object to in American foreign policy and, at times, American culture and life.  Before I arrive,..I’ll read up on the history and on contemporary issues and try to get a sense of the economic situation….I’ll come up with some working hypotheses about what is going on, or going wrong, in the relationship.  Once on the ground, I spend as much time as possible absorbing the local news media, interacting with journalists, officials, students, intellectuals and diplomats to test and refine my hypotheses. I keep at this until I find that more and more of the local people I meet with think that I ‘get it’, and it’s at that point that the conversations get really interesting.’

As one can see from Mead’s assessment of Pakistani interests in regards to the Afghan state, there are many areas of concern. First and foremost is their fear of Indian encirclement. An Afghan state too closely allied with India is considered a non-starter for Islamabad. Another threat that Mead mostly underplays in this section is the present violent turmoil being wrought by the Pakistani Taliban inside of the Pakistani state. The military has benefited from these insurgent forces inside of Afghanistan, but there have started to wreck havoc internally, with Karachi becoming a spot for near daily scenes of planned violent actions. That being said, Mead’s analysis puts the insecurities of Islamabad regarding its relationship with the United States, Afghanistan, and India under a bright, transparent light.

What do you think of Mead’s Pak-Vision?

Charles Krauthammer chimes in on ‘Flight of the Intellectuals’ main theme:

The Pentagon review of the Fort Hood shooting runs 86 pages with not a single mention of Hasan’s Islamism. It contains such politically correct inanities as “religious fundamentalism alone is not a risk factor.”

Of course it is. Indeed, Islamist fundamentalism is not only a risk factor. It is the risk factor, the common denominator linking all the great terror attacks of this century — from 9/11 to Mumbai, from Fort Hood to Times Square, from London to Madrid to Bali. The attackers varied in nationality, education, age, social class, native tongue and race. The one thing that united them was the jihadist vision in whose name they acted.

I just finished Paul Berman’s ‘Flight of the Intellectuals‘ and while not a tour de force like its prequel, ‘Terror and Liberalism’, was a phenomenal read. I will give a full length review after my vacation (warning GPP is going on a two week travel break), but right now I will highlight to key part of the book’s conclusion. This section features Berman building his theme of Western intellectuals failing to stand up to the Islamist’s ideology, which he clearly lays out was partly fathered by European fascism, while at the same time spitting venom at actual liberal people with Muslim backgrounds, such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The following sections immediately follow a listing of Western intellectuals (some with Muslim backgrounds) who require bodyguards to protect them from Islamist violent radicals. The list is sadly long. Enough of me, here’s Berman:

‘And so, Salman Rushdie has metastasized into into an entire social class. It is a subset of the European intelligentsia-its Muslims free-thinking and liberal wing especially, but including other people, too, who survive only because of bodyguards and police investigations and because of their own precautions. This is unprecedented in Western Europe since the fall of the Axis. Fear-mortal fear, the fear of getting murdered by fanatics in the grip a bizarre ideology-has become, for a significant number of intellectuals and artists, a simple fact of modern life. And yet, if someone like Pascal Bruckner intones a few words about the need for courage under these circumstances, the sneers begin-”Now where have we heard that kind of thing before?”- and onward to the litany about fascism. In the New York Times Magazine Ian Buruma held back from hinting even obliquely at the genuinely fascist influences on [Tariq] Ramadan’s grandfather, the founder of the modern cult of artistic death-Hassan al-Banna, who spoke highly of Adolf Hitler and helped the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem escape from getting tried at Nuremburg. Yet Pascal Bruckner, the liberal-here is somebody, Buruma would have us think, on the brink of fascism!’….[Pg. 296]

‘The Rushdies of today find themselves under criticism, contrasted unfavorably in the very best of magazines with Tariq Ramadan, who is celebrated as a bridge between cultures-Ramadan, an alumnus of the anti-Rushdie Islamic Foundation in Britain. Ramadan, who, even in 2009, managed to commend in a single sentence of his book Radical Reform both Sheikh Qaradawi, the theologian of the human bomb, and the Egyptian sheikh Muhammad al-Ghazali, who publicly defended the assassination of Foda. And yet, if there is a menace to society, nowadays it is said to come from Hirsi Ali or some other vocal and articulate opponent of the violent sheikhs-the European intellectuals from Muslim backgrounds who, in their unforgivable departure from the child-like image of how Muslims are supposed to behave, have arrogated to themselves the right to update a few ideas from John  Locke or John Stuart Mill or Bertrand Russell. During the Rushdie affair, liberals who called for courage were applauded. Liberals from Muslim backgrounds were positively celebrated. But not today.’ [pg. 298]

Hopefully, you were able to follow Berman’s thinking in these paragraphs. If so, please give GPP your thoughts. If not, please give GPP your confused thoughts.

First, suffer through this two minutes:

In essence, the person in charge of American law enforcement and legal systems cannot say that ‘radical Islam’ played even a part in the three latest terrorist attacks by………….radical Islamists! The Times Square failed bombing, Christmas Day Panty-bomber, and Ft. Hood shooting spree have all more than enough evidence already uncovered for this to be obvious, but Attorney General Eric Holder appears to not get it. A flight of the intellectuals indeed. If no American ever again said aloud the words ‘radical’, ‘extremist’, ‘violent’ before the word Islam, attacks would still be coming our way. I am sympathetic to staying away from inflammatory or all encompassing language regarding this war and believe the Obama administration has the best intentions in their fight to keep America safe, but how can you defeat an enemy when you can’t say his name aloud? 

(H/T Tom Bevan, Real Clear Politics)

Just a quick book recommendation here. I just bought Paul Berman’s sequel to ‘Terror and Liberalism‘ called ‘Flight of the Intellectuals‘. Berman’s ‘Terror’ was a bestseller back in 2003 and had a tremendous impact on how I see the so called ‘war on terror’ and violent Islamic extremism. I reviewed the book here. ‘Flight’ is reportedly an expansion on Berman’s long New Republic article ‘Who’s Afraid of Tariq Ramadan‘. I’ll get to ‘Flight’ as soon as I’m done with Robert Kagan’s ‘Dangerous Nation’, which has been a joy, but one of those ‘joys’ that takes a long time to get through. Reviews of both will be coming and so look to see 2nd (and 5th overall) Great Power Rankings of the year soon as well. Now, go get Berman’s books!

Two quick items today:

A. I would like to give a hearty recommendation to Real Clear World’s ‘The Compass‘ blog. It has two main contributors, Greg Scoblete and Kevin Sullivan, with guest writers chiming in from time to time (like Rob and Hubbel, hey what happened to that guy?). The Compass brings a Realist perspective to pretty much every foreign policy issue of the day facing the United States and world. Though I am at times in disagreement, their critiques of neo-conservative and liberal internationalist rhetoric and policy perspectives is always clear, concise, and based on what they see as basic American or another state’s national interests. So check out The Compass, Real Clear World for links to numerous foreign affairs articles, and well you’re at it visit Real Clear Politics, my favorite domestic political site!

B. After the attack occurred, there was much written about the Jordanian double agent suicide strike that killed 7 CIA personnel and injured several others. Over the past month the story has inevitably faded from the newsstands and our conscience, but thankfully former CIA operative Robert Baer has kept the tragic incident and its important implications on his mind. Baer has written the definitive piece on the topic that I have seen so far and he finds many lessons that need to be relearned (yes, re-learned) by the CIA to prevent future ‘Khost’s from happening. Using his contacts in the intelligence world, Baer does his best to recreate the how the whole process of Humam Khalil Abu-Malal al-Balawi’s recruitment, infiltration of Al Qaeda, and finally his successful attack against the Khost CIA base. Weaved in this dramatic story is a harsh critique of Clinton era CIA Director John Deutch’s decision to downgrade the importance of and future prospects for, on the ground operatives. This process included ‘scrubbing’ all nefarious contacts (drug dealers, arms dealers, dictators) of the CIA’s slate and depending more on local intelligence groups to do the dirty work (i.e. Jordan’s intelligence operatives in the Balawi case). A provocative claim in a dramatic retelling of an important event. (Yes! 3 adjectives to 3 different nouns in one sentence! Too bad it’s not a good sentence )

Since it is the season of giving, I’ve got some super exciting, extremely provocative, and amazingly fascinating great power stories for you to check out. I mean we got….sanctions, Hugo Chavez, Polish missiles, Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer, an Islamic Reformation, and cyberwarfare in Iraq. One of those was just a tease. Another present? GPP’s 4th Great Power Rankings will be out this weekend. Print it out, wrap it, and give it to your loved ones.

Sanctions and Strategy – This is a provocative (I told you that would be here) analysis of the use of economic and political sanctions in modern international politics by George Friedman at Stratfor. Friedman, a staunch IR realist, is more than a little skeptical about sanctions usefulness in actually changing a state’s behavior. Friedman’s conclusion concludes that sanctions are just a way of buying time and passing the buck:

The ultimate virtue of sanctions is that they provide a platform between acquiescence and war. The effectiveness of that platform is not nearly as important as the fact that it provides a buffer against charges of inaction and demands for further action.

Sanctions satisfy the need to appear to be acting while avoiding the risks of action.

Hugo’s Russian Missiles – About a week ago, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez stated his country had received thousands of Russian-made missiles and rocket launchers as part of his government’s military preparations for a possible armed conflict with neighboring Colombia. Chavez claimed: “They {Colombia} are preparing a war against us. Preparing is one of the best ways to neutralize it.” In recent years, Hugo’s regime in Venezuela has grown closer and closer to Moscow and it has been reported that Venezuela has bought more than $4 billion worth of Russian arms since 2005, ‘including 24 Sukhoi fighter jets, dozens of attack helicopters and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles. In September, Russia opened a $2.2 billion line of credit for Venezuela to purchase more weapons.’

A more distressing issue though is Chavez’s military build up on Venezuela’s border with Colombia and released reports that his government is aiding and abetting FARC members. The US should make it loud and clear that any overt aggressiveness by Chavez would be met with a strong rebuke, mainly with international pressure and military assistance to Colombia. However, I doubt anything serious will occur.

Cyberwarfare in Iraq and Beyond – Shane Harris of The National Journal has written a fascinating (told ya!) article about the recent past and present of US cyberwarfare tactics and defense. Harris asserts that President Bush authorized a cyberattack on cell phones and computers used by Iraqi insurgents to plan roadside bombings in May 2007. Anonymous officials reported that the Americans were able to deceive their adversaries with false information and led them into the fire of waiting U.S. soldiers. Well, I’m impressed and think this needs to be a tactic that the US military continues to exploit. Harris credits former Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell and Gen. David Petraeus for bringing cyber threats to the table under the Bush administration. Gen. Former President Bush formed the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), which President Obama is attempting to enhance and grow. In regards to our beloved great power politics, Harris quotes Kevin Coleman, a senior fellow with security firm Technolytics, who asserts that there is basically a three way tie between China, Russia and the U.S in terms of cyberwarfare capability. The whole articles a must-read.

Poland’s American Missiles – A Status of Forces Agreement has been reached between Poland and the US, which calls for American troops to install and operate a mobile, land-based set of short- and medium-range missiles to defend against incoming attacks. In other words, after scrapping the major Czech-Poland-American missile defense plan, the Obama administration has put in place a similar program, but on a much smaller, disconnected scale. Russia, of course, is concerned about this recent development. Though I was against the cancellation of the earlier plan, I applaud the Obama administration for a rather quick strategic re-engagement with a trusted ally, Poland.

Special Relationship, Not So Special – I’ve discussed this at least twice before so I don’t need to get into too much here, but the Obama administration has continued to distance itself from the British Isles. I think this is wrong for many reasons and hope the administration changes course soon.

Islamic Reformation, Not Looking Too Likely Anytime Soon – New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote an exciting (ok, that one was forced) op-ed calling for internal changes within the Islamic community. Here’s an example of what Friedman sees as wrong or failing in parts of the Islamic world and with reactions to it in the US:

(Referencing the recent terrorist bombings in Baghdad) Not only was there no meaningful condemnation emerging from the Muslim world — which was primarily focused on resisting Switzerland’s ban on new mosque minarets — there was barely a peep coming out of Washington. President Obama expressed no public outrage. It is time he did.

Friedman is right, there really is very little the United States can do to get to the heart of Islamic violent extremist dilemma. Their neighbors, family, countrymen need to stand up and say ‘this type of behavior is wrong and does us much more harm than good’. In referencing Friedman’s article, I found an even better one on the subject by Tom Bevan.