Osama bin Laden is dead. Killed in a well-planned and swiftly executed raid by Navy Seals, based on intelligence gathering. No shock and awe. No drones. A few highly-trained men achieved a goal set by President George W. Bush immediately following the horror of 9/11: find Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice.
That the Seals were not fired upon suggests possible collusion with Pakistan to allow the raid. Details will emerge in time. For the moment, Americans are grateful the raid was successful, that no Americans were killed, and that Terrorism’s leader is gone.
Many Americans took to the streets May 1 to celebrate bin Laden’s death. Others visited places of worship to give thanks he could no longer incite hatred against the United States. Families of those who died in the air and on the ground in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania September 11, 2001 may feel some sense of relief.
But we should keep in mind that the search for bin Laden during the past nine years should have focused on unprecedented, tightly coordinated international sleuthing. Bush responded with military might, engaging thousands of troops in two unnecessary wars and chastising friendly nations reluctant to go to war that might have been helpful investigators.
This should be a time of sober reflection, not wild celebration. We sent troops into Afghanistan in 2001 to search for bin Laden in the mountains along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Then invaded Iraq in 2003, which had no involvement in 9/11, on the false premise that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that posed a threat to its neighbors and the United States. Had United Nations arms inspectors been allowed to complete their work we would have known with certainty that Saddam Hussein had no such weapons.
We compounded our boastful “shock and awe” Iraqi occupation by placing more boots on the ground there and in Afghanistan. Neither action advanced efforts to locate bin Laden, but did kill thousands of Iraqis and Afghans, including women and children, and spawned two million refugees.
Thousands of our sons and daughters, husbands and wives have lost their lives in these wars of choice. And the count continues. Many thousands more have lost limbs, and suffered post traumatic stress. The incidence of domestic violence and suicides among returning veterans is alarming. And we still have boots on the ground in both nations as we struggle to find our way out.
If we had avoided war and put all that human and materiel treasure, all that energy, cunning, and determination into intelligence gathering to find bin Laden and eradicate terrorists cells from many nations, we might have found him long ago.
Since World War II we have become a militaristic nation, seeking military solutions to every kind of international dispute, often supporting the bad guys if they could provide oil or serve our commercial interests.
Terrorists do not wear uniforms or represent nation states. They’re scattered and hidden among us. Only through sophisticated intelligence can they be identified and eradicated.
We need to soberly measure the true cost of military action since 9/11, acknowledge that intelligence led us to Osama bin Laden, and that a small contingent of highly skilled and marvelously fit young men conducted the raid that ended his life.
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