May 5, 2011
As America’s morbid celebrations over the killing of Osama bin Laden begin to fade, we are left with a new landscape of risks – and opportunities – created by his slaying at the hands of a U.S. Special Forces team at a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
10 comments:
Ray,
Pardon me as I pay you a sincere compliment for your insightful observations.
You also touched on what may be the deciding factor in our getting OUT of the un-winnable war in Afghanistan:
For its part, Pakistan can retaliate by blocking the resupply of U.S. and NATO forces along roads to the Khyber Pass and into Afghanistan. This extremely long logistics line may well prove the Achilles heel of the entire U.S. war effort.
Since we don't have Hannibal's elephants available, our mechanized army depends upon gasoline for movement. Military fuel in Afghanistan already costs $400 per gallon. If the costs of fighting this war escalates for us, we may have to turn the war over to someone who has closer access to Afghanistan such as China.
Appropriately, now only does China have a higher level of skill in dealing with insurgencies, they also were the country that "won" the Vietnam war, the "benchmark war" for US imperialism.
‘Bin Laden scenario prelude to new war’
Former officials with Pakistan's military and intelligence service say the US wrongfully claims it has killed bin Laden in Pakistan to invade the country for harboring the terror leader.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/178272.html
"Though clearly bin Laden represented an extreme case – as the leader of an international terrorist organization that has slaughtered thousands of innocent people –". Hardly on a par with the US Republican party, the Democratic party, Israel's Likud, Kadima or Labor party, the Stern Gang, Irgun......
I completely agree that a greater effort should be made to extract information from anyone who can help correct the historical record, and Mr. McGovern's observations...
"That bin Laden might have had extremely valuable information to impart to interrogators is a no-brainer. But some of that information also might have been embarrassing to important elements of the U.S. government, especially considering his longstanding relationship with the CIA going back to the 1980s and the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan."
...certainly address part of this point.
The question that I am curious about, however, is why is it that self-professed born again "veterans" of our government's duplicity are not coming forth to share the information they have with the public? Our uniformed military, in this context, is the weapon being employed; it is those that employ the weapon that need to explain the use of the weapon so that the public can make informed decisions about rather or not the uses of its weapons are in keeping with the Constitutional will of the people.
It is well past time for the shackles of secrecy and the threat of reprisals to be removed from those who can correct our historical awareness as a people, so we can get about the business of repairing the damage, and returning to the task of perfecting our union.
Those who are unwilling to come forward, caste aside their sacred vows to secrecy and corruption, and come clean with the people; are part of the problem, not the solution.
Excellent article and comments.
See my references in my response
to "Politics of Revenge and
Submission." My entry is titled
"Bloodlust", posted May 6, 2011,
CONSORTIUMNEWS.COM.
email: peterloeb@yahoo.com
Additionally, as much as Obama says his decisions were motivated so as not to create a "shrine" or make a "martyr" out of bin Laden, everything from picking the code name of the legendary and spiritual "Geronimo" renown for foiling his trackers, to hastily disposing of bin Laden's body (even before the DNA test was confirmed!), are likely to have the exact opposite effect. Then in their haste, Obama people being quickly caught in a series of false stories that ultimately exposed that bin Laden was not armed, etc. serves to reinforce that notion of "martyrdom". It's quite possible a post-death martyr video of Osama could surface making the narrative even stronger.
Does no one remember the lasting inspirational power of the missing body of Jesus? Think about it. Don't the long term implications matter more than the short term and wouldn't longer-term thinking have helped reduce the chance of a "martyrdom" narrative springing up?
A huge contrast exists in the short term thinking of Obama, who seems to have made many of these Mickey Mouse mistakes due to his rush to beat the midnight press deadline so he wouldn't be upstaged by press leaks from elsewhere. His focus was to appear bold and decisive so he would derive the promised 13% "bounce" in the polls that Charlie Cook has down to a science.
The eery similarity in their names may forecast the deeper classic contrast between Obama and Osama and go down in history if, in the longer term, Osama comes to be viewed as a martyr. Obama should have considered that what plays in Peoria doesn't necessarily play well in the wider world. US politicians could really stand to get remedial training on strategic, long-term planning.
Ray McGovern actually believes 9-11 was the work of Al-Qaeda! He really believes OBL aka Tim Osman was living in the green hills on Pakistan?! This is playing like a psycho thriller, where no one really knows who the baddie is. It's time for ex-servicemen and women, ex-CIA agents and the like to come forth and spill the beans on US complicity on everything from drug running, to waging wars, to propping dictators. The sheeple of the US are the ONLY ones who can stop this madness.......
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