And so the day finally arrived — the day many sadly felt they would never see: the day that it was announced that Osama bin Laden, CEO of Al Qaeda, but in the end a mass murderer who will likely be ranked in the same category as Adolf Hitler despite the way he marketed his organization with religious rhetoric — is finally dead. Over the years, people on the right and left essentially felt he’d be caught or killed if hell froze over.
Now it has.
And now the question remains: will this change much on the war on terror front? Does this mean the war on terror is over or still most assuredly on? Does this mean Americans can perhaps be a teeny-weeny bit more unified once the euphoria rubs off or as you read this will is it quickly going back to business as usual? And a host of other questions.
From Australia, counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen on ABC’s Lateline Australia:
DAVID KILCULLEN: I think Pakistan is already subject to such serious unrest that this is going to be the icing on the cake, if you like. I don’t think it’s going to change the operational situation too much long term.
I guess I would say that at the strategic level, this has been a terrible year for Al Qaeda. Not only last night did they lose the figurehead and inspirational character of Osama bin Laden, but the grievance that has been driving Al Qaeda since the early 1990s, the oppressive regimes across the Middle East and North Africa, that whole grievance has been evaporating for the last three or four months.
So, at a time when you would think that Al Qaeda would be wanting to get on the front foot to get out and to get involved in some way in what’s going in the Middle East and North Africa, this may cause them to turn inward and think about succession to Osama bin Laden and how they’re going to take the movement forward. I think this is a time to ratchet up the pressure and keep the pressure on all these groups rather than to rest on our laurels, if you like.
MSNBC’s indispensible First Read sees a host of political impacts in the US. Here is part of the analysis:
*** Does it change the nation’s psyche? Indeed, the size of the impact is unknown, and it will play out in the weeks and months ahead, especially with an unemployment rate near 9% and with gasoline prices hitting $4 a gallon. But it could serve to change the nation’s psyche. Put simply, the United States has been in a national funk over the past four years. Obama’s presidential victory in 2008 boosted spirits (particularly Democratic ones), despite the sinking economy. And the GOP’s midterm wins in 2010 boosted Republican and Tea Party spirits. Yet nothing has united Democrats, Republicans, independents, and everyone else — until now. As President Obama remarked last night, “Let us think back to the sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11. I know that it has, at times, frayed. Yet today’s achievement is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people.” There was never going to be a V-E Day after 9/11, but this is as close as the country will get to one.
…*** It does make everything else seem so small: Bin Laden’s death also makes the past two week’s worth of political conversation look so small by comparison. Donald Trump. The president’s birth certificate. Friday’s GOP cattle call in New Hampshire. Even the upcoming battle to raise the nation’s debt ceiling. As for Trump, if he wasn’t already embarrassed by the jokes at his expense on Saturday night, he has to be embarrassed about all of his recent charges (“Where is Obama’s birth certificate?” “Where are his college grades?” “Who wrote his book?”) And as for the more substantive debate over the debt ceiling, last night’s news will have an impact as well. Everything looks so small by comparison, at least for now. One last point: This probably guarantees that Mitt Romney — who has been on the fence about attending — doesn’t show up at Thursday’s GOP presidential debate.
(And, indeed, it has now been announced that Romney won’t.)
The Huffington Post’s Howard Fineman (always a must-read, serious analyst) says in effect: don’t hold your breath and expect this to magically transform the country because some new issues may arise:
Mindful of all of that — mindful of questions about his effectiveness, his leadership, his commitment — Obama made the case in his brief address to the nation Sunday that it was HIS decision to refocus U.S. efforts and assets on bin Laden himself. HE had ordered that new renewed focus after his predecessor had dropped the ball in Tora Bora and the years after.
This was the president as effective commander-in-chief, out-sherriffing the man who had claimed the “one riot, one ranger” legacy of the Texas Rangers of the frontier days.
Some of the likely GOP contenders for 2012 were willing to praise not only the results, but the people who made it happen. “Congratulations to our intelligence community, our military and our president,” said former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.
White House aides will pocket the accolades, but soon enough, the battle over America’s future will resume.
At the center of that battle: What to do about the war in Afghanistan, from which bin Laden launched his attack? In the latest polls, half of the American people disapprove of Obama’s handling of that war. A majority of Americans want it ended.
Will the death of bin Laden hasten the time of our departure? Experts doubt we can stabilize the country in any permanent fashion. Richard Haass, a diplomat and Afghanistan expert, expressed deep doubts about the war there.
Led by college students for whom the attacks were the formative experience of their childhoods, people waving banners and American flags filled the streets of Washington and New York to celebrate the news of bin Laden’s death. But do they think we need to remain in Afghanistan — and, on a more limited basis — in Iraq? Or Libya?
The death of bin Laden won’t end that debate; it will intensify it.
This is a time to savor and remember the common purpose — what Franklin Roosevelt called the “warm courage of national unity” — that infused our country immediately after the attacks of September 11. We should be careful to cultivate it and see that it does not get extinguished by partisan politics, as it did too quickly before. This is also a time for American affirmation. Our country is strong because we are proudly pluralistic. Freedom does defeat terror, eventually.
It is fitting that this closure occurs as we face the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. This is no time for 9/11 amnesia.. We have reason to remember our fallen fellow citizens with increased urgency and appreciation. It is a reminder of the spirit underlying one of Obama’s favorite quotes: “The arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
This is not the end of terrorist threats — but it is the end of Osama bin Laden. And now we will not only remember where we were when the planes slammed into the twin towers, we will remember where we were when we heard that bin Laden was killed by our troops. It is cause for celebration and national pride, rooted in justice delayed but not denied. Savor this moment in the name of the 3,000.
The New York Daily News has this reaction from Rush Limbaugh which appears to be serious (we will know more for sure tomorrow) and does not seem to be snark:
Rush Limbaugh said President Obama deserved “congratulation” for the death of Osama bin Laden.
“We need to open the program today by congratulating President Obama,” he said on his Monday show. “President Obama has done something extremely effective, and when he does, this needs to be pointed out.”
The effectiveness, he said, came from President Obama’s decision to send a Special Forces team to kill bin Laden–something he said, citing news reports, that none of the president’s military advisers had thought of doing.
“Our military wanted to go in there and just scorch the earth…but President Obama single-handedly understood what was at stake here. He alone understood the need to get DNA to prove the death…it was President Obama single-handedly and alone who came up with the strategy that brought about the effective assassination of Osama bin Laden,” he said, adding, “thank God for President Obama.”
Serious or sarcastic? Andrew Sullivan’s readers debated it but some insisted that later in his program he revealed it was all sarcasm. Still, ABC News’ seems to feel he was serious. Time will tell (take your bets now).
But The Hill also felt it was genuine:
Conservative firebrand and frequent critic of the president Rush Limbaugh on Monday praised Obama for his “effective” strategy that resulted in the killing of terrorist Osama bin Laden.
Reacting to Obama’s announcement that a U.S. strike team had killed and recovered the body of bin Laden, Limbaugh said Obama deserved credit for the operation and retaining some policies of the Bush administration that resulted in his capture…..
…..Limbaugh’s comments come after reports that Obama had rejected a plan to bomb the facility where bin Laden was staying. According to those reports, Obama wanted proof that bin Laden had been killed. Limbaugh praised Obama for choosing to send a team — contrary, Limbaugh said, to what Obama’s military advisers wanted.
“Obama alone understood that there would be Doubting Thomases,” Limbaugh said.
Other conservative media are claiming Obama made his announcement all about himself. (Re-watch the video and see if that is at the very least an exaggeration).
—The Telegraph’s Toby Harnden:
The moment when Mr Obama stepped into the East Room of the White House to announce to the world the demise of bin Laden was clearly one that he savoured.
Again and again, the United States commander-in-chief emphasised his personal role in authorising the operation and directing what had taken place. Like any other politician in his position, he was anxious to take credit for a major success.
The announcement came at the end of a particularly silly period in American politics in which the real estate mogul, Donald Trump, pushed the crackpot theory that Mr Obama was not born in the US, prompting the president to release his birth certificate.White House advisers were doubtless pleased with the contrast between the sober announcement of a historic event given by Mr Obama and the theatrical and often frivolous pronouncements of his currently most prominent opponent.
When he ordered the US Navy SEAL raid on the Abbottabad compound, Mr Obama knew that he could pay a heavy political price for failure.
Foreign Policy’s Daniel Byman:
The U.S. special forces raid that killed Osama bin Laden in his hideout in Pakistan is a devastating blow to al Qaeda. The terrorist organization and the movement it leads now face a potential leadership void and internal divisions. But the battle is far from over: aggressive U.S. and allied action — including military, and particularly, intelligence measures — are necessary to
make a bad situation worse for al Qaeda…..One of bin Laden’s most important characteristics was that he tolerated different points of view within the extremist community, unifying a movement prone to divisions. Some terrorists have tried to undercut, weaken, or even kill rivals and dissenters, but bin Laden was a unifying figure……
Any successor is likely to have fewer of these qualities. Ayman Zawahiri, bin Laden’s Egyptian deputy who is assumed to be bin Laden’s immediate successor, is a highly skilled revolutionary, but he lacks bin Laden’s charisma and many jihadists see Zawahiri as too focused on parochial disputes within the Islamist community. Zawahiri may surprise doubters and emerge as a capable successor or another, new leader may arise, but bin Laden’s shoes will be hard to fill. Recruitment and fundraising may suffer as a result as wealthy donors give their money to other causes while impressionable youth take up more local fights or, better yet, stay home.
The lack of a charismatic leader may create fissures in a movement always prone to them. Like-minded affiliate groups in Yemen, Algeria, and elsewhere may become even more independent, reducing al Qaeda’s global reach.
—The Christian Science Monitor:
One particularly gnawing question for the US, some analysts say, will be: How is it that Pakistani officials insisted for years that Mr. bin Laden was not on their territory, even as he built and inhabited a huge, walled compound in a city outside the country’s capital that is home to the Army’s military academy and many high-ranking Pakistani military officials?
“Why was Osama bin Laden able to live, and apparently for some time, in a mansion so close to a military garrison in a major city?” says Lisa Curtis, senior research fellow for South Asia at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. “That’s the type of question the Pakistanis are going to have to face as the two countries assess all the implications of this operation.”
Still, on Monday the immediate official statements on the bilateral relationship were glowing. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton lauded “our close cooperation with Pakistan” and concluded by asserting that “we are committed to our partnership.” That followed President Obama’s positive remarks Sunday night about Pakistan’s cooperation in the run-up to the day’s secret mission.
Larry Sabato, one of the country’s best political analylsts, has a fascinating section on his Twitter account. He’s at the University of Virginia:
LarrySabato Larry Sabato
Who says students are apathetic? Last night suggests otherwise. Spontaneous college rallies all over nation.
8 hours agoLarrySabato Larry Sabato
Students across USA got a night to remember in their U career. “Where were you when…?” I RT’d rally reports at dozen colleges.
8 hours agoJohnNEick John N. Eick
by LarrySabato@
@LarrySabato American flags being handed out to students at UNC-Chapel Hill!
SweetVaBreeze Barbara W. Stern
by LarrySabato
@LarrySabato RT @lwaddell16: the patriot parade has reached my apartment…crazy to see hundreds of people outside #RU #Radford
13 hours agopandol412 Jack Pandol
by LarrySabato
@LarrySabato Fireworks being fired off at W&L in Lexington, U-S-A chants, American flags everywhere. Everyone going nuts @wlunews
13 hours agoLarrySabato Larry Sabato
Large group of U.Va. students just marched back to Rotunda steps. Loud “USA! USA!” again. “America the Beautiful”. All-niter ahead.
13 hours agoTheMahoney Luke Reeves Mahoney
by LarrySabato
@LarrySabato spent the last 2 hours driving around JMU with 10+ American Flags yelling U-S-A, unfortunately we were alone #wegottem
13 hours agoLarrySabato Larry Sabato
At U.Va., now I hear chants from “The Corner”, or is it Rugby Road(frats)? Oh well, who can sleep tonight?
14 hours ago
This is a great day for America: a moment for pride in our intelligence services, our military planners, and the bravery and professionalism of our fighting men.
Don’t mess with us: there will be consequences. It’s easy to forget that with all the troubles and setbacks of the past ten years, this is a message America has actually brought across to the world with considerable success. From that perspective, the killing of bin Laden is less an instance of belated justice than the capstone of a continuing and successful effort to convince those who would tolerate or abet terrorists within their borders that making an enemy of America is not a good idea.
—Buzzflash has a poem. Here’s the first part:
Boehner praised Obama and Bush for the demise of bin Laden:
A typical GOP sleazy maneuver
In which they eagerly would use
A pathetic ploy to shoehorn one
Of their own into this good news.
Go to the link and read the whole poem.
The National Journal’s George Condon (who used to work for my former newspaper employer’s company, Copley Press):
Osama bin Laden’s body had barely hit the water before people were predicting the impact his death would have on the war in Afghanistan, U.S. relations with the Islamic world and President Obama’s reelection campaign. The only problem with these immediate statements is that events are unlikely to work out the way anybody expects right now.
That has been the historic pattern. With events like this, unforeseen consequences have been the norm….
Far from helping Obama politically, the latest development could increase the pressure on him to get American troops out of Afghanistan. It will, said Cordesman, “raise new questions about whether the Afghan war can really put an end to al-Qaida and other terrorist sanctuaries and lead some of those who oppose the war to state that the U.S. and its allies should now withdraw.”
Cordesman said “it will take weeks and possibly months” to assess the strategic impact.
So that “Mission Accomplished” banner that Democrats would love to unfurl at the next Obama campaign event? Probably best to keep it in George Bush’s attic. Less than 48 hours after such an historic event is a little too early for declarations of victory.
Matthew Yglesias seems to be thinking along those lines:
James Fallows published a fantastic piece back in September of 2006 on the need for the country to declare victory in the “war on terror” and move away from the post-9/11 dynamic where our national life was so focused on the threat of al-Qaeda terrorism. It was a great idea then, and I think it remains a great idea now, and it’s especially timely since the death of Osama bin Laden affords an opportunity to actually make it happen.
….That seems correct to me. The threat to the physical security of Americans posed by terrorists needs to be put alongside the threat to physical security posed by “ordinary” criminals, by car accidents, etc. And the foreign policy significance of violent Islamists needs to be put alongside the foreign policy significance of China and India emerging as great powers on the global stage. Homeland security investments ought to meet a plausible cost-benefit test and not just take it for granted that anything done in the name of terrorism-prevention is worth doing. The primary mechanism through which terrorism works as a tactic is fear and panic, and in an ideal world the emotional catharsis we saw around the country last night should be a chance to put things on a more sustainable footing.
Good for Obama in going out of his way to stress, at both the beginning and end of the statement, the unified mood of the country ten years ago, and to try to summon it again. To his credit, he also several times emphasized the continuity of effort against al Qaeda over the past decade (while pointedly omitting any mention of the invasion of Iraq as part of the long effort against al Qaeda). To his further shrewdness and credit, he invoked his predecessor by name when mentioning one of George W. Bush’s bravest and most important statements: “As we do, we must also reaffirm that the United States is not — and never will be — at war with Islam. I’ve made clear, just as President Bush did shortly after 9/11, that our war is not against Islam.”
Good for Bush and his own statement, including saying that after Obama called him with the news, “I congratulated him and the men and women of our military and intelligence communities who devoted their lives to this mission. They have our everlasting gratitude.”
Obviously there are going to be partisan implications of this news, many of which are tempting to tick off right now. It’s reassuring that at least on the night of the news most major partisans avoided openly going into them.
—The always MUST READ Nate Silver:
To state the obvious, this is good news for Barack Obama’s re-election campaign. I can’t imagine a single, atomized piece of news, foreign or domestic, that would be better for the President.
Although the Republican candidates had not seemed especially interested in making an issue out of national security — perhaps because Mr. Obama’s foreign policy has been fairly hawkish and not clearly differentiated from theirs — it at the very least neuters the issue for them. It presumably will become a significant talking point for the President — the sort of thing that swing voters will be reminded of in a commercial on the eve of the 2012 elections.
The news will also, almost certainly, trigger a significant improvement in Mr. Obama’s approval rating.
The sense in which I’d urge caution is that the former is not equal to the latter. Yes, this is going to help Mr. Obama — to some degree or another — in November 2012. And yes, it’s also going to make Mr. Obama look much more formidable in the near-term.
But I’m not sure that the magnitude of the bump that Mr. Obama might get in the Gallup tracking poll is going to be especially predictive of how much the residue of this news might produce for him 19 months from now.
There’s a lot more so go to the link.
Red State’s Melissa Clouthier :
Osama Bin Laden died and no liberals cried…for him. If they cried, it was tears of joy. Just like the rest of America.
When the rubber meets the road, liberals aren’t crying that:
*Intelligence gathered, probably via “enhanced interrogation” in a secret prison (or if you’re a liberal, torture), lead to Osama’s death.
*Justice meant a targeted assassination aka capital punishment
*A country’s boundaries were violated to achieve justice (how can we violate a sovereign nation?!!)
*Bullets were used
*Base impulses like “vengeance” were indulged
*Diplomacy didn’t achieve what 40 Navy Seals achieved.There are probably more points, but that’s enough to establish the premise that when liberals talk about mercy and giving peace a chance and evolving and using words instead of actions…it’s all crap.
One might argue that President Obama’s policies on fighting terror have more in common with President George W. Bush than with those of Bush’s leftist and liberal critics. He has not closed down Guantanamo contrary to his campaign promises; he has continued to engage in the kind of tactics in fighting terror condemned regularly by the ACLU and the leftist Center for Constitutional Rights; and he has finally decided to try imprisoned suspected terrorists by military commissions, rather than civilian trials.
Nevertheless, the success of this mission now gives the president the credentials he was previously missing as a commander-in-chief who put into action a covert plan whose details were kept from Pakistani intelligence and other officials and that took eight months to finalize before the president gave the word to move ahead and take Osama down at his secret mansion in Pakistan.
The Daily Caller’s Jamie Weinstein:
Sunday night’s announcement that Osama bin Laden had been brought to justice just shy of a decade after the attacks of September 11, 2001, brought revelers into Washington’s streets. They descended on the White House because, well, I suppose they didn’t know how else to respond to such fantastically shocking and unexpected news.
The front of the White House was filled with people, from former military personnel to current military personal to students to voyeurs simply there to watch the festivities, holding (or, in some cases, dressed in) American flags. I even saw a Gadsden flag present and Obama-Biden campaign paraphernalia could also be found. It was certainly a poor time to be the anti-colonialism, 9/11 truther who is always camped out in front of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave perpetually protesting America.
To state the obvious, the death of Osama bin Laden is welcome news. Nearly 10 years ago, his al-Qaeda organization perpetrated the greatest terror attack in world history on American soil, killing just under 3,000 people and destroying or causing great damage to symbols of American financial strength and military power. Despite a massive American military response, which took down the Taliban government in Afghanistan that hosted the terrorist leader, bin Laden remained a free man. That the United States was able to finally hunt him down and eliminate him all these many years later sends the important message, as Charles Krauthammer proffered, that no matter where America’s enemies hide, they will never be safe. No matter how long it takes, they will be ultimately brought to justice.
John Esposito, on the Washington Post’s On Faith blog:
The death of bin Laden and the political transformations in the Arab world may signal a turning point in contemporary world affairs. The revolutions and calls for reform in the Arab world demonstrate to those still living under oppressive regimes that religious extremism and terrorism are not the only ways to gain freedom from entrenched autocrats. Since the rise of militant religious extremist organizations in the past two decades, the path of terror has been ineffective in liberating people, while in the past few months it has become clear that non-violent people-power is an increasingly effective mode of opposition in the contexts of twenty-first century realities.
The challenge for leaders around the world is to take advantage of these opportunities. The United States should take the lead in working with European and Muslim allies in efforts to construct new political and socioeconomic realities that reduce conditions and grievances that have in the past and continue in the present to foster extremism and the recruitment of terrorists.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.