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.

Trial By Fire

I got lost trying to follow the various stories this past week about health care reform, Eric Massa, and the like, but one story this week that did get my attention was Liz Cheney's attempt to impugn the integrity of seven unnamed Justice Department lawyers representing al-Qaeda suspects. The former Vice President's dumber daughter suggested that the mere idea of these lawyers representing these terror suspects amounted to lack of patriotism and even treason. The Cheneys may have gone too far - may have? no, did! - this time. The fiercest critics of Liz Cheney and her McCarthyism-style tactics were conservative lawyers, saying that Liz's interpretation of the Constitution - enemy combatants are not entitled to fair trials - make a mockery of the fairness this country's system of laws strives for.

You know you've crossed the line as a conservative when even Michael Mukasey (George Walker Bush's last Attorney General) and Ken Starr speak out against you.

Upholding the rights of odious defendants in criminal trials is a time-honored American tradition that dates back to before the founding of the nation. John Adams famously defended the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre, and even Nazi war criminals received trials at Nuremberg. For Liz Cheney to suggest that al-Qaeda defendants are not deserving of a fair trial simply because we don't like these people is more un-American than she thinks the acts of their lawyers are.

Listening to Liz Cheney speak after having listened to her father for too long, it's obvious that the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. In fact, the apple is still on the tree.

Obama's Afghanistan Speech

President Obama gave his long-awaited speech on Afghanistan last night, and he seems confident that he can disable al-Qaeda and the Taliban effectively within the next three years. If polls and pundits are any indication, though, he seems to be the only person who thinks it's possible. Well, maybe Robert Gates as well.

The President announced that he will add 30,000 more troops beginning this month, with escalation to be completed by this coming summer. Other NATO members will be asked to provide more troops. Obama hopes he can begin a withdrawal by July 2011, with a full withdrawal possible by some time in 2012 - January, hopefully. But - I know it's cynical for me to say this - certainly by November 2012.

Specifically, before Tuesday, November 6, 2012.

Obama declared that as long as the Taliban and al-Qaeda are at large, the common security of world is at stake. The President illustrated this by citing numerous terrorist attacks around the world that followed 9/11, and his goal is not to engage in nation-building but to help the Afghan government shore up its foundation and train and prepare an Afghan military to take over the country's security. He plans to do this by launching a counterattack on the al-Qaeda-Taliban insurgency and the securing of key population centers.. as well as helping the government of neighboring Pakistan stabilize itself and support the Pakistani army's objective to secure and stabilize its tribal regions along the border with Afghanistan.

Obama was largely realistic and measured, and his speech was astonishingly low-keyed for that reason. His plan seems to fall short, though, in several areas. For example, without a deeper commitment Afghanistan, he offered no realistic reason to expect Afghanistan to become more secure on its own. Ineffectiveness of the Afghan army remains a concern, as does the weak central government in Kabul, with all the corruption involved with that. Key Democrats have already given their thumbs a downward trajectory in response, and the Republicans - used to hyperactive saber-rattling rhetoric - haven't given Obama much support either.

The President was wise enough to put limits on spending for the counteroffensive, and he expects to see results from Kabul before he gives Afghan President Hamid Karzai more help. Obama even tied the war in Afghanistan to the problems faced at home, sating that America can't afford to and won't stay in Afghanistan for any longer than he plans to. In this otherwise sober speech, Obama insisted that Americans don't historically wish engage in imperialism, occupy other countries, and exploit their resources.

That's what made me laugh, although no one in Latin America or the Philippines were likely laughing at that remark. Well, Obama is a law professor, not a historian.

Having heard Obama's speech - and the references to Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and Cooper Union speech were nice touches - I am begrudgingly willing to give the President the benefit of the doubt on this. I only hope he's right.

Torturing the Torturers

President Obama has suggested that while he doesn't want to prosecute the CIA agents who tortured al-Qaeda prisoners to get information on terrorist plots, he would be open to prosecutions of those who wrote or endorsed the torture policies. Former Vice President Dick Cheney, likely aware of the fact that he could be prosecuted, spoke out against the recent release of the torture memos, insisting that these practices were necessary to prevent another attack in the aftermath of 9/11. Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich found the time to bash Obama for shaking hands with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Fine. How about that cordial meeting former and future Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had with Saddam Hussein in 1983 on behalf of the Reagan administration regarding U.S. support for Iraq in its war with Iran, which ended in a handshake?

The prosecution of just the higher-ups for advocating the torture of enemy combatants makes sense, though. It was just reported that torture was endorsed by the Bush administration as early as the spring of 2002 to get information on a Saddam Hussein-al Qaeda connection that never existed.