Once his name was pitchforked into bloody headlines throughout the world…A President vowed to capture him…The new and old media — and American intelligence officials — analyzed every word and inflection in tapes and videos purporting to be made by him..A new President Barack Obama vowed to make the elusive terrorist’s capture a top priority.
But the question remains: if Osama bin Laden was captured, would his capture be more symbolic, more of a political boon to the Obama administration, or would it be a major, substantive, game-changing victory in the war on terrorism? Michael Hastings takes up this issue in a post on True/Slant. Here’s a key part of it:
I’m going to take this moment to ask: would it matter if we did know where Osama was, and killed him? Of course, it would matter–it would be a decent PR victory and be an even greater boost for President Obama’s national security credentials. It would dominate the news cycle for a few weeks, give us a moment of victory in the war on terror. Our national desire to finally get some justice over what happened on September 11th would be partially sated (the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and tens of thousands of Afghan killed in the wake of 9-11 not quite doing the trick, though most of the dead have at least shared the same skin color as the hijackers.)
But other than the brief exhilaration of good, clean, revenge, not much else would be effected. We’d still be committed of years more of fighting in Afghanistan, we’d still be launching drone attacks in Pakistan, we’d still be taking baby steps towards withdrawing from Iraq. Soon enough, a new Bin Laden-like face would pop up to fill the void. And so the war on terror would continue, albeit with the highest profile turban hanging from our belt.
In these thoughts I’m not alone….
There’s more, so go to the link and read it in its entirety.
This is a point open to some debate: if the Obama administration captured bin Laden it would most assuredly feel it was a huge victory and it would indeed be touted as such by Democrats. There would also be the psychological impact of the U.S. having captured its most prominent nemesis. Meanwhile, bin Laden may not be surfacing in a new tape or screaming headline every day, but he is very much in the news.
For instance, bin Laden is dissed by his son in a new book in which he says his Pa is so mean he took his dogs away and had them murdered with gas to test the gas, the New York Daily News reports.
OSAMA BIN LADEN’S son Omar first realized the depth of his father’s evil when his beloved dogs were taken away and gassed in a chemical warfare experiment, he says in a new memoir.
Omar also confirms what U.S. officials have long believed – that his father was tipped off to a 1998 U.S. attempt to kill him.
He writes that Bin Laden got a secret communication and fled his Afghan camp two hours before cruise missiles struck it.
He does not identify the source of the tip, which the U.S. suspects was Pakistani intelligence.
Omar’s book, “Growing Up Bin Laden,” written with his mother, Najwa – the Al Qaeda leader’s first wife – describes the ultimate dysfunctional family….
….Omar, 28, describes weeping as a teenager when told that Al Qaeda needed his pets to conduct chemical warfare tests.
“After I learned the truth about the puppies, I turned even further away from my father,” whose jihad led only to death, Omar writes in the book set for release by St. Martin’s Press later this year.
And bin Laden continues to surprise many by his boldnesss. He did issue a new tape:
In audio message said to be of Osama bin Laden was released with Urdu translation of his Arabic speech by an Islamic Jehadi site and was also available on You-tube.
The message with Urdu sub-title was released on July 12, 2009 and was posted on U-tube on July 11 in which Osama bin Laden has targeted PakistanPresident Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Chief of Army Staff.
Osama bin Laden who was once referred to by CIA as Agent “Tim Osman” during Afghan Jehad against Russian occupation has also warned that “if Pakistan gets weak India would divide it into parts and Pakistani nuclear assets may be neutralized then.”
Pakistani observers here expressed surprised over the release of latest message that how the most wanted man is able to send audio messages and upload it on Western controlled electronic media.
It is also surprising that in his first direct message to Pakistanis Osama bin Laden concentrated on Pakistan and spoke little of situation in Afghanistan.
Of course part of the mystery is: where is Osama bin Laden? The CIA reportedly believes he’s hiding in the remote area of Pakistan.
But have been other theories about where he has been hiding, too:
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.