My thoughts on OBL's death
May. 2nd, 2011 06:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphiasFirst, I am deeply, deeply impressed by the folks who pulled off the raid.
Second, I certainly cannot bring myself to feel upset by his death, at all. Nor do I feel particularly happy about it. I feel it was a needed thing to do -- I feel that, in an ideal world, capture would have been preferable, but it seems ridiculous to think that that was even a plausible scenario. I think this was the right thing to do, and a necessary thing to do, and the folks who conducted the operation are heroes.
But I don't feel it's a cause for celebration. If al Qaeda collapses because of this, THAT would be a cause for celebration. But the death, per se, isn't.
And what I wonder is how much bin Laden was directly involved in the operation of al Qaeda. If he was actively directing things, then we are now significantly safer. But if he was a symbolic leader, then things are murkier. When bin Laden was alive and avoiding the United States, he was a symbol of the United States' inability to catch him.
He's now a different symbol. I suspect, and deeply, deeply hope, that, with his death, he's now a symbol that encourages folks to lay down arms and go back to their pre-al Qaeda lives.
So, either we've taken out an actual link in al Qaeda's command and control -- with luck, the single most important link -- or we've removed a symbol, and, in the process, changed it to another one. If the first, this is an absolutely good thing. If the second, it COULD be a good thing.
Call me "cautiously optimistic," and deeply, deeply grateful to the people who carried out the operation.
Second, I certainly cannot bring myself to feel upset by his death, at all. Nor do I feel particularly happy about it. I feel it was a needed thing to do -- I feel that, in an ideal world, capture would have been preferable, but it seems ridiculous to think that that was even a plausible scenario. I think this was the right thing to do, and a necessary thing to do, and the folks who conducted the operation are heroes.
But I don't feel it's a cause for celebration. If al Qaeda collapses because of this, THAT would be a cause for celebration. But the death, per se, isn't.
And what I wonder is how much bin Laden was directly involved in the operation of al Qaeda. If he was actively directing things, then we are now significantly safer. But if he was a symbolic leader, then things are murkier. When bin Laden was alive and avoiding the United States, he was a symbol of the United States' inability to catch him.
He's now a different symbol. I suspect, and deeply, deeply hope, that, with his death, he's now a symbol that encourages folks to lay down arms and go back to their pre-al Qaeda lives.
So, either we've taken out an actual link in al Qaeda's command and control -- with luck, the single most important link -- or we've removed a symbol, and, in the process, changed it to another one. If the first, this is an absolutely good thing. If the second, it COULD be a good thing.
Call me "cautiously optimistic," and deeply, deeply grateful to the people who carried out the operation.
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(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-02 11:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-02 12:36 pm (UTC)(The guy who figured out how to bring up Pinochet on charges in Chile, whose post-dictatorship constitution was tailored to protect the leaders of the previous regime, should get some kind of medal. But I digress.)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-02 01:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-02 03:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-04 02:58 am (UTC)