Photographs and Bad Memories

President Obama has decided not to release photographs of a dead Osama bin Laden to the press, citing how he doesn't want to be seen as holding up trophies. He thinks that the only thing the photos would accomplish would be to incite reprisals by rogue radical Muslims. Although many Americans are demanding the release of the photos as proof of bin Laden's demise - apparently they want to squelch rumors that he escaped to Lesotho and is now living with Jim Morrison - Obama doesn't believe they will convince anyone anyway and besides, they're too gruesome. On MSNBC, Chris Matthews voiced support for Obama's decision, pointing out that the photos would inevitably appear in the news media, and he also said that placing photos of dead people in newspapers is something the print media don't do.

Apparently Matthews forgot about the December 10, 1980 issue of the New York Post, which featured John Lennon's morgue photo on the front page.

Meanwhile, I couldn't fathom why the Obama administration would actually refer to bin Laden by the code name of "Geronimo." Didn't they think Native Americans would be offended? Sure enough, they're demanding an apology from the government for using the Apache warrior's name as a code name for bin Laden. The administration said it meant no disrespect toward Indians, saying that the code name was randomly chosen to obfuscate the mission against bin Laden. It's been pointed out that Geronimo - whose name somehow became a code word for ejecting from airplanes - was famous for evading U.S. and Mexican troops while on the run, but he's regarded as a hero for fighting for his people. Well, he is. The Postal Service even immortalized his role in American history with a stamp in 1994. We don't put terrorists on postage stamps, do we?

We don't put Nazis on stamps either, yet we somehow (coincidentally, of course) named a 1998 bombing raid on Iraq Operation "Desert Fox," which was the nickname of German World War II general Erwin Rommel, known for his exploits in North Africa. The Clinton administration had to issue a statement insisting that no anti-Semitism was intended.

The use of Native American nomenclature to refer to bin Laden, though, reminds us of the fact that, while America may be a land of opportunity for dudes like Barack Obama and John Boehner, the first peoples of this continent sadly remain afterthoughts in a nation not created for them.

You Can't Do That

The timing of the operation that killed Osama bin Laden couldn't have come at a better time for the United States, because it showed, as President Obama said, that we are capable of doing anything we set our minds to.

Meanwhile, this past Friday, the space shuttle Endeavour failed to blast off as scheduled, and it is now being reported that an electrical problem in a power distribution box in the shuttle's engine compartment is the culprit. NASA has concluded that the launch will be delayed until this coming Sunday (May 8) at the earliest, and it could be delayed far beyond that. Meanwhile, in Britain, the royal wedding went off flawlessly on the same day the space shuttle launch didn't.

But Steve, you're saying, you can't compare the two, it's like apples and oranges! A royal wedding isn't rocket science!

Oh, yeah? You ever try to plan one of those things? Did you even try to plan a family wedding? Ever see the series "Providence?"

So don't be surprised if people keep talking up the bin Laden killing, if only to make people forget about the space shuttle launch.

Ironically, President Obama declared that bin Laden was killed eight years to the day after George Walker Bush declared "mission accomplished" after the Iraqi military government fell . . . before a seven-year war in Iraq and after Osama bin forgotten.

Osama bin Töten

Ding, dong, Osama's dead!

United States Special Forces infiltrated the mansion in Pakistan that Osama bin Laden was hiding out in and killed him in a firefight, shooting him in the left eye and retrieving his body, ending a nine-and-a-half year operation. Not only has al-Qaeda lost its leader and founder, it gives the United States a badly needed psychological boost while trying to bring order to Afghanistan and struggling to bring an end to the situation in Libya . . . and this operation should make Qaddafi think twice before sticking it out in Tripoli.

The operation began with a tip in August and the tracking of al-Qaeda couriers to the compound where bin Laden was staying. Under the leadership of the Joint Special Operations Command, the Special Forces were ready to move once President Obama and his advisers knew they had their man and gave the order. The operation has been seen as a re-affirmation of American diligence and tenacity. Ironically, the success of the bin Laden killing comes in the wake of the scrubbed Endeavour space shuttle launch (more about that later).

Antiwar activist Robert Greenwald is now circulating a petition to bring the troops in Afghanistan home immediately, now that bin Laden has been killed. I'm inclined to support it. If the war is to make Afghanistan a peaceful, stable, democratic country, then we will fail; we should just concentrate on making it stable, and we don't necessarily need an army to do that. But the war on terror goes on; there will be more attacks, more plots, and more terror operations in the years to come. They just won't be directed by bin Laden out of Afghanistan or Pakistan. We'll need more than a strong military to combat it. But for now, America can bask in the triumph denied by the failure of the similar Desert One operation to free the American hostages in Iran 31 years earlier.

Iraq: It Started With a Bang

President Obama addressed a convention of disabled veterans in Atlanta today declaring that all American combat troops in Iraq - which, I believe is still trying to form a new government after the elections in March - and even though today is the twentieth invasion of Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, Mr. Obama did not mention the event.

The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was actually a watershed moment for the world, as it was the point where the Cold War began to end and a new era of geopolitics began to emerge. With greater instability in the Middle East and Iraq's sudden control of over 20 percent of the world's oil as a result of his occupation of Kuwait, Western focus shifted from the Soviet Union - a year and change away from dissolving - and eastern Europe to the rise of Arab and Islamic influence. President George Bush sent troops to Saudi Arabia to check the Iraqi army from going any further and then push Saddam's troops out of Kuwait when it became apparent that Saddam wouldn't give it up without a fight. This angered Osama bin Laden, who resented the presence of American troops in his homeland, which led him to form al-Qaeda from the anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan, from which the Soviets had withdrawn and which the Americans forgot about. (Bin Laden wanted to use his commandos to defend Saudi territory, but King Fahd would have none of it.) Bin Laden himself took up residence in Afghanistan much later after living in Sudan, where he approved and oversaw the plotting of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks that took place in September 2001, which the second President Bush used as an excuse to invade . . . Iraq.

Before August 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein was a thuggish dictator who persecuted his own people and had grand but unrealized ambitions of controlling more of the Middle East. His invasion of Kuwait upset the balance of power in the Persian Gulf region. In the eighties, the United States had supported his regime as a counterweight against the Islamic fundamentalists who ran Iran, and American support allowed Saddam to wage an eight-year war against Iran. When he forcibly annexed Kuwait, the elder Bush must have wondered who would provide a counterweight to Saddam.

I must admit this: The Persian Gulf War was the right war to prosecute, although I didn't think so at the time. Although I feared it would lead to World War III and last interminably, what happened was that the Iraqi army was decimated in six weeks, Kuwait regained its sovereignty, and a peace was quickly established in which Saddam was contained by the American and British air forces. War was never actually declared against Iraq - an official declaration of war, if I'm not mistaken was made in advance by Saddam's rubber-stamp Parliament recognizing a state of war if Kuwait was invaded by the Americans and their allies - but the resolution Congress gave to the senior to wage war was used judiciously. Bush could have allowed American troops to go deep into Iraq, march on Baghdad, and overthrow Saddam - but he merely wanted to restore Kuwaiti sovereignty, not remake Iraqi civilization. Besides, Bush, Secretary of State James Baker, and General Norman Schwarzkopf knew what would happen if they tried to invade and occupy Iraq. Exactly what happened when Bush's son did the same thing. The younger Bush's war didn't start a global conflict, but, boy, has it been interminable.

Was it about oil? Of course it was about oil, but bear in mind that in 1990, the U.S. only got twelve percent of its oil from the Gulf region, while Germany and Japan got much more of their oil from there. Japan actually paid for much of the military operation then called Desert Storm. Had Saddam been allowed to annex Kuwait, it would have amounted to appeasement and given carte blanche to starve the West of oil. The Saudis, who have more oil than they need, are happy to sell it to anyone, but Saddam would likely have used greater control of the world's oil as a weapon. It figures that American policymakers only realized that after it was too late, after having propped him up for eleven years.

If Albert Gore - who supported the Persian Gulf War but has never supported the current war in Iraq - had become President in 2001 instead of George Walker Bush, there likely wouldn't have been another war in Iraq, but we'd probably still be in Afghanistan and we would still be struggling against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. And while our dealings with Iraq would have been different, they wouldn't necessarily have turned out better. It's only fair to say they would have been different.

The effects of the invasion of Kuwait twenty years ago today, despite shift in American policies based on who's in the White House, are likely to last for a long time.