Navy Seals killed the terrorist Osama bin Laden in a compund in Abbottablad yesterday. “Justice has been done,” said President Obama, and though long delayed, it has been. Good riddance.
Writing in the Times today, Ross Douthat says “This is a triumph for the United States of America, for our soldiers and intelligence operatives, and for the president as well. But it is not quite the triumph that it would have seemed if bin Laden had been captured a decade ago, because those 10 years have taught us that we didn’t need to fear him and his rabble as much as we did, temporarily but intensely, in the weeks when ground zero still smoked. They’ve taught us, instead, that whatever blunders we make (and we have made many), however many advantages we squander (and there has been much squandering), and whatever quagmires we find ourselves lured into, our civilization is not fundamentally threatened by the utopian fantasy politics embodied by groups like Al Qaeda, or the mix of thugs, fools and pseudointellectuals who rally around their banner.”
Sure. Fine. Well said. But whileI do not think Douthat meant it this way, this is as strong an indictment of the Bush administration as any that can be leveled. The Bush administration was ignorant about al Qaeda’s actual strength and capabilities, and because of that ignorance, governed in fear. It also used that fear to cynically manipulated policy, internationally and domestically. More than the 3000 people and incredible damage it inflicted on 9/11, and more than the deaths inflicted in the attacks on the African embassies, the Cole, and elsewhere, the impact of al Qaeda lies in the expensive and time-consuming security process at our airports, the long, unsupported wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other self-inflicted wounds.
It would be nice to think that we would remember this the next time some calamity causes us to become hysterical, but I doubt it.
Today let us keep in mind Rick Rescorla, Wells Crowther, Bill Feehan, Orio Palmer, and the other heroes of 9/11.