...
Bergen isn't in the business of apportioning blame for 9/11 and Bin Laden's escape at Tora Bora in December 2001, but I am. According to Bergen on August 6th 2001 President Bush was told by the CIA that Bin Laden was determined to strike the US. Bush's national security team led by Condoleeza Rice had previously been informed that Al Qaeda was desperate to hijack planes on US soil. After the August 6th briefing Bush did nothing. He issued no executive orders and did not raise the security level at US airports. Bush listened to the briefing and spent the rest of the day "clearing brush" at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. What was odd about this is that on a previously aired episode of The West Wing President Bartlett was faced with a similar threat and took an entire episode to decide what to do about it. Bush and Rice however didn't give this terrifying information a moments thought.
...
At Tora Bora the guilty men were General Tommy Franks and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who refused to let commanders on the ground insert US Army Rangers or Marines to prevent Bin Laden slipping through the net. Rumsfeld was fixated on maintaining a small US footprint in Afghanistan and at the crucial Battle for Tora Bora where Bin Laden escaped there were actually more Western reporters in the region than US soldiers. Iraq was one of Rumsfeld's fatal obsessions and on the day Bin Laden escaped "Rummy" was having General Franks rework a Pentagon invasion plan. Bergen makes the point that the Iraq adventure was a severe drain on the resources of the CIA and the special forces and that by the time President Obama came to power the entire Bin Laden unit was only about two dozen operatives strong. Morale was low and leads were few. President Obama dramatically increased the CIA's Bin Laden unit and tripled the number of drone strikes on the Pakistani tribal areas that devastated the upper echelons of Al Qaeda from 2009 - 2011.
...
The rest of the story is well known. The CIA followed Bin Laden's courier to the compound in Abbotabad and after a few months trying to gather intelligence a raid was recommended to the President. Vice President Biden and Secretary of Defense Gates both thought the raid was a terrible idea but the majority of Obama's national security team felt it was the right call. Bergen did not interview the SEALs involved in the raid so his account of Operation Neptune's Spear has nothing substantially new to add to the stuff that's already out there. According to his youngest wife, Bin Laden spent much of his six years at Abbotabad watching old videos of himself, reading Noam Chomsky and writing maudlin poetry. His last words were "don't turn the light on." (The rather more successful German poet Goethe's last words were "more light, more light...")
...
I listened to Manhunt as a Random House audiobook and although I enjoyed it I have to say that I think it was a mistake for the narrator to try to impersonate Presidents Bush and Obama and his Pakistani, Afghan and Arabic accents were unintentionally hilarious (they sounded like Peter Sellars in the Goon Show). I also wonder if Bergen hasn't gotten too close to his sources in Pakistan. He completely lets the Pakistanis off the hook and insists that no one in Pakistan knew that Bin Laden was in their country which seems prima facie unlikely. That aside, Manhunt is a pretty good audiobook and it has a nice happy ending with the vain, solipsistic, deluded mass murderer cowering in his room for fifteen minutes and then getting shot in the eye.
28 comments:
Nice post!
Speedskater
Thanks, man.
It's interesting that the killing of Bin Laden has had so little resonance in the US. I think this is down to the visceral loathing Republicans have for Obama. They daren't mention the killing of Bin Laden because it reflects glory on Obama. If Bin Laden had been taken down under Bush's watch we never would have heard the end of it; Fox News probably would have started up a special channel devoted exclusively to reminding Americans of the fact.
Cary, I expect you're right. One columnist wrote that if Qadaffi, bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki had been killed within six months while a Republican president was in office, Republicans would have been clamoring to have his face carved on Mount Rushmore or some similar reaction. This makes a lot of sense to me, and it's probably one reason Republicans talk as much about the economy as they do.
A more somber reason is that American may realize that killing one or two or three men may not make much difference, at leas tin the short run.
==================================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com.
As I've probably said here before, it's not like I'm in mourning for the guy, but I think a trial would have said more for American principles than a hit team. And for anyone who doesn't already know this, I'm speaking from the left, not the right.
And drones strike me as a really, really bad idea.
Cary
Yeah its pretty obvious from the book that the real game changing moment in the search for Bin Laden came with Obama's election and the increase in size of the Bin Laden unit within the CIA. I'd vote for him on that basis alone. Romney is on record as saying that he wouldnt violate the sovereignty of America's good ally Pakistan (Bergen quotes this remark in the book).
Peter
If Bin Laden had been killed on Bush's watch Fox would have been going bananas about it. Similarly if 9/11 had happened on Al Gore's watch Fox would have been going bananas about it.
Seana
A trial might have worked but it was probably better just to kill him. Its like when they shot down Yamamoto, probably the best thing to happen all things considered.
Yamamoto's poetry btw, much better than Bin Laden's.
Possibly better in the instance, probably not better in terms of how we think of doing things in the world.
I don't think it really had the effect it was meant to have. As Cary said, I think it fell a little flat, but it's not just among Fox viewers.
But as you know, I'm not in favor of the death penalty--except for people who have personally offended me.
Seana
I dont think a trial would have been very edifying either. We probably would have had to use evidence contaminated by torture to convict him. Ron Kuby could have got him off.
I remember sitting in a cafe once next to a guy who was reading this book about Lord Haw Haw. I was reading an Irish crime novel for a review for the paper and we got to talking. The guy had got all worked up about the Lord Haw Haw book and started spinning me this story about how Haw Haw shouldnt have been charged with treason because he wasnt a British citizen and how his trial was a sham etc. I didnt know much about the legal niceties but I did remember my mother telling me that Lord Haw Haw had promised "Easter eggs for Belfast" shortly before the Nazi blitz that wiped out much of the city in 1941; so I told the guy in the cafe that he was probably right and the British would have been better just to put the Nazi bastard up against a wall and shoot him. The guy in the cafe clearly wasn't expecting me to say that and shut up after that.
It doesn't matter if it's edifying, though. My counter story is that when I was in my early twenties, I was back home right around the time that a woman who used to lead a girl's group that I was in was brutally murdered by a home intruder. If I had met this psycho on the street, which I somehow thought I might, I would have killed him if I had the means and power to do it. But that's when I realized why the trial by jury system was so important--because the people who would be the most directly effected aren't bound by the claims of society anymore. And for the time being, they aren't entirely sane either.
That Bin Laden was a murdering coward there is no doubt but what concerns me with his death is that it would have galvanised hate in the Muslim world even further.Pakistan harboured him yet are an ally of the West ? Saudis were the prime instigators of 9/11 but hey petrol prices need to be kept low! Iraqi civilians died in huge numbers but hell who cares ? In all of this innocent people pay the ultimate price whilst hypocritical politicians/millionaires/businessmen continue to feed from the trough : Cheney/Halliburton.
I'm not for one minute saying that Saddam , the Taliban , Bin Laden Et al shoudn't be brought to account but it seems to me that the likes of Blair , Bush , Rumsfeld etc all have just as insidious roles in all this and the young of both the UK and the USA sacrifice their lives to allow these creeps to make money.
Seana
I guess I havent quite escaped the world of the blood feud and vendetta. I think if someone hurt my family or a close friend like that I probably would attempt to take things into my own hands. The law courts would be option #2.
Neil
I sympathise with much of what you're saying. Rumsfeld in particular comes across as a sinister figure in this book. He seems obsessed with invading Iraq in December 2001! Who was even thinking about Iraq in December 2001?
I dislike the Bush presidency notion that wars can be waged on the cheap. Bush told the American people that Americans could wage war and have a tax cut. And we all know how that turned out. I also think its fair to indict the entire Bush administration with negligence for allowing 9/11 in the first place and then being extremely cavalier with the lives of soldiers and civilians. And of course authorising torture was a moral disaster that brought great shame to the country.
As for Blair, well I've read his book and I think he sincerely believed the bogus intelligence about Iraq. What can I say? A liar? No. A fool? Yes, very probably.
I don't think any of us are all that far from the world of blood feud and vendetta, which was sort of my point. The law is option number 2 for all of us, and my recent experience with it makes me think it's pretty flawed. But the world of revenge reprisals seems worse.
Maybe an example would be the trial of Adolph Eichman. I have no idea what to take from that, if having Bin Laden in a glass booth in New York for months (years?) of a trial and then executing him and burying him at sea would make people feel like the world is more civilized or not.
One thing is for sure, he shouldn't have been free for so long afterr the crime with no one even trying to find him.
I think the impulse was to try and rid the world of the presence and influence of bin Laden, especially the influence on the Muslim world. But to bury that also muted the discussion in the West, and I have a feeling that his memory and influence will only emerge again, probably more perniciously than if there had been a more public witnessing of it at the time.
I think the West may feel it's taken care of in a way that the Muslim world does not.
Seana
I think the Muslim world respects power rather than impotence and the killing of Bin Laden seems to have sent out a strong message. According to Bergen UBL was constantly telling his acolytes that there would be no reprisal for 9/11 because the US was weak, unfocused and decadent. No one in the jihadi movement thinks that now.
John
Yeah I think an Eichmann style trial may have worked, esp in lower Manhattan with a good defence team, (maybe with Ron Kuby and Alan Dershowitz).
The shocking part of Bergen's book is how unseriously the Bush administration seems to have undertaken the hunt for Bin Laden, especially after it got bogged down in Iraq. This is a story that needs unpacking for the American people.
I know you're sociologically more astute than I am, but I do wonder if anyone really took the long view fully into account. What bin Ladin's grandchildren will be thinking of, for example. I mean, you're the one who's championing vengeance.
On the other hand, this was exactly the failure of the American approach with the rising Nazi regime, at least according to that Eric Larsen book In the Garden of Beasts. He says that the Nazi's only respected power, and that the ambassador they sent, though well-intentioned, did not communicate a sense of American strength.
Whatever Rumsfeld's obsession, it remains unclear to me why the rest of America let itself be so easily sucked into Iraq.
Seana
I'm not sociologically astute at all. I do think that one of the many ironies of this whole decade is going to be this very strange legacy: Iraq, the bad, unnecessary war, is probably going to turn out fine. In 20 years I think Iraq will be a prosperous multiparty democracy operating a bit like Turkey. Whereas in 20 years Afghanistan I reckon will be much the same as it is now, half way between the modern world and the middle ages and a complete basket case.
I said, more sociologically astute than I am. It isn't that high a threshold.
I think you're probably right about those two futures. I know which country I'd rather be a woman in, anyway.
Seana, I think maybe your comment about which country you'd rather be a woman in speaks to Adrian's view about the muslim world only respecting power.
Well, maybe, except that Iraq is a Muslim culture too. As is Turkey.
Frankie has left a new comment on your post "The Feel Good Book Of The Year":
I got talking to a young guy from Afghanistan at a gig in the Ally Pally. He told me he wanted a woman to cry for him and other weird stuff.It made me think
their major malfunction is they take life way too seriously. They need hobbies like football or rugby or better telly. Every civilised society has postive diversions to ward off becoming weirdo fanatics.
Frankie
They definitely need another focus. I dont know what but they need something.
I am reminded of a guy brought to a US court (NY? don't think it was guantanamo) who was somewhere on the food chain of al qaeda, blustering the whole time during his case about Death to America.
And realized really late in the game that he could have actually defended himself but didn't because he had believed the hype about america being the land of infidels where he'd have no chance at what, justice, a voice, something.
I go back and forth about bin Laden getting killed. I'm glad Obama was successful. I kind of wish bin Laden had been in court. But I'm not at all happy about the drones.
Post a Comment