It really doesn’t matter.
My belief is that the Bush Administration knew where Osama Bin Ladin was for a number of years and intentionally didn’t kill him.
I believe this was confirmed when it was leaked that the NSA was monitoring his phone calls. Many years later, most of us understand that if we can monitor your phone calls we know where your phone… is.
I, along with Sec. State Rice, thought it was a crime to have leaked such information as monitoring Osama’s phone led to an incredible amount of extremely valuable intelligence. But I was unaware that such a leak did not reach the bar determining a “crime”, unlike Navy-SEAL Bisonette disclosing in his book “No Easy Day” who shot Osama and when he did it. It’s worth noting, Leon Panetta sees clearly this man needs to be crucified (alas, we would have to send him to the Middle East for this punishment) at the moment of this typing.
Enter Mike as the Bush apologist… (Don’t get used to this.)
My feeling that it was OK to leave Osama Bin Ladin alive (at that moment) was also related to my belief that the Left was hoping he would turn up dead so they could begin berating the Bush Administration for perpetuating another “unnecessary” war. (Note that any war not being conducted under a Leftist Administration is “unnecessary”) This type of “good when I do it, bad when you do it” politics only seems to manifest itself on one side of the aisle. But that’s another post.
Well, now Osama is dead… So What?
At this very second the U.S. Embassy in Yemen has been attacked. Keeping score? That’s Libya, Egypt and Yemen. (Update, Add: Oman, Iraq, Tunisia, Algeria)(Update, Add: Sudan, Pakistan)(Update, Add: Bangladesh, Berlin, London, Sudan, Yemen again…)
Secretary Clinton is in Morocco… the presser was more of a begging apology than a stance against violence. It’s my biased observation that the State Department is concerned “in the strongest terms”. That’s “scared” to you and me. This is the fundamental problem we have in the world. We have Leftists faced with fighting Leftists. All our home-grown Leftists can do is condemn the violence… but not the ideology.
We, the U.S., are fighting a war against Statism. (At home and Abroad) In this specific case of the Middle East it’s a variant of Socialism known as Theocracy. The Theocrats wish to establish a “Caliphate” made up of the entire Middle East. The leaders of this movement want to create an exclusively Muslim area intended to include Israel. Not sure how that would work? Neither are the Jews.
You might be saying to yourself… “Wow, that kinda seems like a bad idea.”
Indeed. But our current Administration cannot allow us to pass judgements on Theocracies versus other ideologies such as their personal brand of Socialism because the similarities would be difficult to ignore. (The only difference between the two Governing Theories is Theocrats switch out the top of the pyramid from “The State” to “A Deity of Choice”. That’s it. All else remains, structurally, the same.)
The connection the Left does not want you to make is that Socialism, and all of its variants, are the root of all evil. It’s exactly this ideology and its brethren that demonize the individual and view life as expendable to the greater good of the state and/or religion. (There is nothing new about Religious States. Catholicism had a solid run if you recall.)
So, in this War on Terror 2.0 the Obama Administration is personalizing it. (I think their rhetoric throughout both Bush Administration’s pushed them into a corner on this to some degree. They have graduated from Clinton’s “Tomahawk Diplomacy” to Obama’s “Drone Diplomacy”. The Left likes killing people, just not up close and personal.)
They have attempted to “keep it personal” by pinning all evil on Osama Bin Ladin and lately Al Qaeda. Sec. State Clinton’s thesis subject, Saul Alinsky, wrote about this approach in the book Rules for Radicals if you have one lying around. “Personalize it.” Never get in a debate regarding ideology or theory… (If you’re any kind of Socialist, you will lose. My words, not his.)
Well, clearly Osama Bin Ladin was not the root of all evil, he was merely a symptom. The fact that we are still killing “leaders” of Al Qaeda we’ve never heard of before should legitimize my point. (Update: IS, ISIL, ISIS, DAESH)
What the Administration is trying to ignore, deny, obfuscate, is that we are fighting a war against an Idea not a human being. We are fighting a war against an ideology that shares many, if not most, of the societal ideals our current Leftist leaders here in the U.S. promote. We are not fighting a war against any specific person… remember, people are expendable and can be quickly replaced by the closest fellow traveler. The Muslim Brotherhood understands that theirs is a Mission of Ideology… a Mission of Faith… a Mission of Social Justice. They must find the Great Satan’s attempt to define them differently as hypocritical and juvenile at best.
This is a very important time in our history, a turning point if you will. (Domestically and Abroad) It is a time that must be clearly thought about by every U.S. Citizen. What happens in the next ten years will determine the quality of life our children will experience through their old age. The definitions of Freedom and Liberty are being challenged globally by those wielding ideas… very, very bad ideas.
No one wants to live thinking they and their loved ones are, or will be, in imminent danger.
But there is a valuable lesson here…
What it is and what we wish it to be are most often at odds.
(091312)