Did we go terribly wrong with the hunt for Osama?

[jcustis]

I wanted to poll the SWC for input on a thought I've had for a while, and it centers on our vilification of Al Qaeda and, in particular, one Osama Bin Laden.

Has our inability to produce verification that we have captured/killed OBL, actually worked against us in terms of actually bolstering the confidence of current and potential terrorist actors around the world?

Or put another way, could we have avoided a Catch-22 by simply saying that we would seek to bring those responsible for 9/11 to justice, without using by-name references? Do we face a credibility gap because we haven't produced OBL's remains, and are terrorists out there confident that if OBL can remain aloof in the hinterlands of Afghanistan/Pakistan, then they stand a chance as well?

I ask these questions from the perspective of future IO, as I wonder if we would be better served reducing the rhetoric. I read a lot from folks (military included) who believe that Afghanistan should have always been the main effort, and since that chapter has not closed, their attitudes about Iraq will always remain lukewarm.

[tequila]

I think the failure to catch and kill OBL in the immediate wake of the invasion of Afghanistan was a major strategic failure. It revitalized jihadism when its main representative evaded capture to taunt us again and again. It showed potential jihadis that even when fully roused from its slumber, the U.S. was not invincible.

A combination of other factors has sustained jihadism. OBL has become a cultural marker now, an Islamist Che Guevara. Killing or capturing him now would still be a major tactical victory, but it would not be the potential deathblow to Islamism that it would have been back in 2001.

[marct]

Hi JC,

That's a really good question - and a touch one. My suspicion is that, yes, there was too much aimed at Bin Laden (and Saddam Hussein), but not for the reasons you listed. From what I can see, a large part of the personalized rhetoric was aimed at the home audience, not the foreign one. I have a (totally unconfirmed) suspicion that part of the frustration with the current war in Iraq could be described as "We got SH, why isn't it better?".

Marc

[Steve Blair]

I think we should have avoided names, but that's more because of the rapidity with which terrorist groups can spawn new leaders (and I consider AQ to be more of a hybrid terrorist group/TNI than a true insurgency). I agree that the knee-jerk use of OBL was intended for domestic consumption, but it was a bad call.

There's still too much of a tendency on the part of some to want to view everything through the lens of World War II. "Get Adolf and it's over." Well...it don't work that way now and hasn't for some time. When dealing with a decentralized cellular opponent, there ain't just one head you can cut off. But that urge lead us straight to Iraq (IMO) when we should have stayed focused on Afghanistan (agree with your friends there, JC).

[jcustis]

Aha!

From what I can see, a large part of the personalized rhetoric was aimed at the home audience, not the foreign one.

So is there a lesson to be learned there as well? Is home consumption strictly home consumption, and do we need to think deeply about what goes out across the airwaves, youtube, and liveleak? I'm trying to come up with a few Cold War analogies about perception vs. reality. That's what really started this idea.

[Steve Blair]

We always need to consider perception versus reality, especially with IO-type operations. One good Cold War parallel could be the rhetoric about "wars of national liberation." By seeing every insurgency as Communist backed or inspired, we backed ourselves into supporting some rather questionable folks, and gave the Soviets a free hand when it came to propaganda.

[marct]

Hi JC,

So is there a lesson to be learned there as well? Is home consumption strictly home consumption, and do we need to think deeply about what goes out across the airwaves, youtube, and liveleak? I'm trying to come up with a few Cold War analogies about perception vs. reality. That's what really started this idea.

Oh, it's definitely a perception vs. reality dichotomy :D. I'm not sure, however, that the Cold War has that many good analogies for today's communications environment.

First off, I would suggest that there really is little difference between a "home" and a "non-home" information market - at least in the sense of them being reasonably isolated and, hence, amenable to differing messages.

Second, I suspect that no "unified" message strategy, a least in the conventional sense, will work - there are just too many alternate venues for dissenting voices to appear.

Third, and coming out of these two, I would suggest that there has to be a fair degree of decentralization of content production but grouped around as specific philosophical or ideological stance. Something along the lines of "We will track down the irhabi responsible for 9/11", followed by a tiny explanation of the word irhabi, and a call for Islamic states to support the suppression of them. Leave individuals out of it and cast it as a general world problem, even for the home audience.

Just some thoughts off the top of my head...

Marc

[Tom Odom]

JC

From the IO perspective, you are absolutely correct. Fixation on an individual as a target for revenge is never good; you are for one thing staking your credibility internally and externally to getting the target. If you don't you lose in both arenas. If you do, you may still lose in the external arena by creating a martyr.

From a war of ideas perspective, personalization of the fight has similar flaws. You say you are fighting for ideas and liberty then stick to the ideas and the liberty to express them. Getting into the demonization oif a figure like OBL adds to his credibility in the sectors he most wishes to cultivate.

Although it would have been near impossible to do immediately after 9-11, certain use of humor and sarcasm would better serve our purpose. Here WWII does apply because we did use such tactics to diminish key personalities like Hitler.

Put another way, we talked the talk about OBL after 9-11 but we never walked the walk. And yes it does affect us.


Tom

[wm]

Whether it was a good or bad move is definitely open to debate.

The fact of the matter is that we put a face on Terrorism, which gave the folks at home a "someone" to rally against. I suspect that a review of Orwell's 1984 might be instructive. After Winston Smith is arrested, he finds out the arch-enemy of the people(Goldstein is the name, I believe) is really a fiction created by the folks in power to give the people in the street a target against whom to direct their anger.

[Steve Blair]

JC

Although it would have been near impossible to do immediately after 9-11, certain use of humor and sarcasm would better serve our purpose. Here WWII does apply because we did use such tactics to diminish key personalities like Hitler.



Agreed, Tom, but we also have the PC sensitivities now that didn't exist during WWII. I suspect that attempts at humor or sarcasm would be branded as racist almost immediately, whereas they were not during WWII. It would have to be very carefully done, if it were to be done at all.

[jcustis]

That's what I'm trying to dissect wm...did the benefit of putting a face on terrorism really bear any fruit, relative to a credibility loss? Did the balance of the scale favor us, and then shift as Afghanistan lingered, or was the balance always favoring the extremist

I know folks are somewhat inclined to say that we shouldn't cry over spilt milk, but put our shoulder squarely into the business of finishing what we started. I read/hear that over and over again, but I believe we need to look at these "moot points" in order to make more informed decisions in the future. This is just one of those points that intrigues me.

Don't get me wrong, I am all about making sure we have our share of boogeymen to use as a target reference points. I just think we need to be very judicious when we decide to set priority targets, cancel them, and roll to a new one.

[goesh]

If he was caught today, it would be as important to us in the Western camp as the recent capture of 3 GIs in Iraq is to the jihadist camp. I suppose there are a rare few who would actually think that the capture of OBL would result in major cessation of jihadist attacks all over the planet. I for one have never had a problem believing that the jihadist camp simply wants us and our way of life dead and we need villains and heroes more than they do. They are more ideologically pure and driven and it shows in their tactics. I rather doubt his freedom has inspired very many to take up the fight, not nearly as much as fiery speeches in mosques, fatwas and videos have. If I were born in Iraq or Iran or Syria or Egypt or any number of other places, I would be fighting the West instead of waving the flag here.

[Steve Blair]

I don't consider this a moot point at all, but rather an opportunity to learn from what might be one of the bigger mistakes of the immediate post-911 period.

Tom's right in that humor and sarcasm could have been used, but I tend to think they should have been aimed at the group in general. While it can be handy to have a "face on the evil menace," that same face can also grant legitimacy to someone who might not otherwise have it. It also sets you up as targeting that person, whether or not that's actually a valuable or practical option.

[Tom Odom]

Steve

I was thinking of DeNiro's now classic skit on Saturday Night Live...

Besides as a former FAO I am expected to suggest possible cross cultural gaffs...:wry:

Seriously, I agree 100%; it would have to be done carefully but it could be done. The Arabs I have worked with do have a sense of humor that is quite developed, subtle and at once crude when it fits their mood.

overall though I believe the salient issue in this thread is the "rush to speak memorably" versus a more cautious but necessary "imperative to speak convincingly".

Best

Tom

[jcustis]

overall though I believe the salient issue in this thread is the "rush to speak memorably" versus a more cautious but necessary "imperative to speak convincingly".

Good summation. Anyone know of analysis on 9/11 and OBL that speaks to this? I imagine it's a lot like opinion polling, but I'm curious nonetheless. Someone's written a master's or doctorate thesis on this...

[wm]

That's what I'm trying to dissect wm...did the benefit of putting a face on terrorism really bear any fruit, relative to a credibility loss? Did the balance of the scale favor us, and then shift as Afghanistan lingered, or was the balance always favoring the extremist

I know folks are somewhat inclined to say that we shouldn't cry over spilt milk, but put our shoulder squarely into the business of finishing what we started. I read/hear that over and over again, but I believe we need to look at these "moot points" in order to make more informed decisions in the future. This is just one of those points that intrigues me.

Don't get me wrong, I am all about making sure we have our share of boogeymen to use as a target reference points. I just think we need to be very judicious when we decide to set priority targets, cancel them, and roll to a new one.

I'm not sure that we can cancel the priority targets that simply. Even the FBI tends to leave folks on their 10 most wanted list for a long time, despite putting their priorities/sights on other bad guys.

I think we might need to look for other targets to take out, but we probably need to do so very quietly.

As others have pointed out, putting a face on a bad guy in an asymmetric war provides a rallying point for the folks on the short end of that assymmetry to rally around--I think that is the ultimate point I would derive from my reading of 1984--real or not, a rebel name provides a point arond which nascent rebels can rally. Since there will probably always be rebels, it may be a good thing to give them a focus that makes it easier for the powers that be to locate and target. In other words, keeping OBL around may be a good thing because at least we have an idea where the threat comes from -- he and AQ will draw the bulk of the malcontents who desire to disrupt the status quo. At least that is the point I get from Orwell (as well as the other anti-Utopian writers I've read, like Aldous Huxley in Brave New World).

[jcustis]

Since there will probably always be rebels, it may be a good thing to give them a focus that makes it easier for the powers that be to locate and target. In other words, keeping OBL around may be a good thing because at least we have an idea where the threat comes from -- he and AQ will draw the bulk of the malcontents who desire to disrupt the status quo.

Excellent point, perhaps more so when looking at our surreptitious collections effort. "he must take these to brother Osama" must make for a decent spike to orient on.

[slapout9]

From an LE standpoint it was one of the worst possible things we could have done along with GWOT. The war on drugs, the war on crime, the war on poverty were and are political slogans that set you up to loose. The moment you call it a war it implies an enemy and a victory date, none of which is going to happen in the long war. Which is why we should call them global law enforcement operations or something like that. Take the wining and loosing part out of the equation. You need to position him (OBL) as a psyco-mass murderer of all people, not a War Hero which is exactly what you do when you call it a War. When you call him a criminal the capture date is left open because people are used to seeing the effort and time required to catch people like serial killers in our country, but they also see that you never close the case until he is caught or killed by us or someone else. My2.5 cents.

[Steve Blair]

The only issue I see with labeling him a criminal is that you then get into that odd position of having to "arrest" him (at least according to MSM criteria), "try" him, and so on. It creates a whole new level of expectations that may not be at all suited to the situation at hand.

I have mixed feelings about calling it a global law enforcement operation. Not sure why, but it just doesn't sit right.:confused:

[slapout9]

Steve, no doubt the name sucks, I just couldn't think of anything else. Key word is try to arrest, no requirment to be stupid and it dosen't mean you don't use military forces.
Remember the man from U.N.C.L.E.? United Network Command for Law and Enforement. See we already had a TV show about it.

[Steve Blair]

Yeah, slap, I remember that show. Interesting stuff....:D

But what gets me with LEO-type stuff is that the media jumps on it and acts like you should be replaying "Dragnet," complete with reading the rights and all that. It's the outside spin that comes with it that tends to drive me nuts.

[slapout9]

Steve, if we could pull it off there is real I/O merit in that SOB in handcuffs and have his rights read to him before we give him a fair trial and hang him:wry: But to go to the straight military side we had a manual and a concept called MOOTW military Operations Other Than "War" which is exactly what need to call it, but we dumped that for some reason??:confused:

[carl]

I agree with slapout on the disadvantages of declaring "war" on everything.

I think Americans aren't as tolerant or patient as in the past. There is also a tendency to equate lack of immediate result with lack of legitmacy. By putting OBL front and center we set ourselves up for discouragement that it is taking so long along with doubts whether the effort against the irhabists should be made at all.

Additionally when he does go down, some will think it is all over and be further discouraged when it is not.

The irhabists stand to win when he does go down. They have their martyr who defied the mighty US and did it for a long time.

[Steve Blair]

Yeah, the whole name game is enough to drive someone nuts. MOOTW was interesting, but so is small wars.... Perhaps Leveraged Actions with Synergistic Termination (LAST) or Controlled Utilization of National Termination Systems (you can do the acronym for that one, lest I be banned to the Club) might make some wordsmiths happy....:D

But with LE you get into that whole legal loophole question, and that tends to make me nervous. I agree with the SOB in handcuffs image, but in this day and age it also conjures up images of certain gloves that didn't fit. But what the hell, right? We all have our little word preferences.;)

[jcustis]

Additionally when he does go down, some will think it is all over and be further discouraged when it is not.

The irhabists stand to win when he does go down. They have their martyr who defied the mighty US and did it for a long time.

I guess this speaks to the necessity to have a message ready now, loaded and cocked. I'd personally like to see him de-mystified and put down as a low-lying cretin. There needs to be a full-court press that he died on the run, cowering like a frightened child, and not some bold entity.

I'm surprised that most of those who praise Che and wear his t-shirt don't realize that he died dirty, starved, and certainly not some valiant warrior.

[slapout9]

The legal loopholes would not be as big a problem as we think if it was done right. Just like with Noriaga in Panama was taken under special warrants and tried in a non public way. We could do the same for OBL and everyone in AQI don't just stop with him.

[wm]

The legal loopholes would not be as big a problem as we think if it was done right. Just like with Noriaga in Panama was taken under special warrants and tried in a non public way. We could do the same for OBL and everyone in AQI don't just stop with him.

Your last sentence says it all. We may have killed of the head of AQI a while back but we have a new face and name as head of AQI to be the bad guy now, don't we? Even if we get OBL, we still will find another name and face popping up to haunt us--if for no other reason than so that the media can continue to gartner their profits.

[LawVol]

Slapout's Law Enforcement Operation is intriguing. I definitely see a potential down-side with the whole legality thing (I am a lawyer after all), but perhaps there are some benefits too. We get to label him as something Americans easily understand. There are no PC-type arguments about why his acts were committed and it denies him his perceived legitimacy. After all, if America has declared war on OBL then he must be important, legitimate, etc. However, a criminal is something that carries a negative perception throughout the world. In this sense it would be helpful to indict him not only for American deaths on 9/11 but also for Arab deaths.

I'm still thinking this part through, but I also see a benefit on the home front. Fighting global criminals would not seem to require a huge military presence. We, of course, would use military force to effectuate an "arrest," but that military force would be of limited duration since the mission objective is to make the arrest or kill.

Immediate questions that come to mind involve the type of seizure law (think 4th amendment) that would apply since even killing is a seizure; sovereignty issues; if captured, who would try OBL and others like him and how;etc.

[pvebber]

My take on this is that asking if a specific decision "went wrong" or not can't really be answered. There are too many audiences and interpretations of the decision to be able to definitively say one way or the other. It may have been "terribly wrong" to the perception of some audiences, but a benefit to others. What is the result "on balance" - the answer is not as important as the way you try to take account - and the implications on future decisions.

What did we try to accomplish with the decision? My recollection is that it likely had more to do with the audience here at home - rather than overseas -and the pervasive notion that we "need to hold someone to account" when bad outcomes occur.

That naming him likely had a beneficial effect on early morale and confidence here in the US, compared to a situation where a "shadowy unnamed group" was behind it is arguably true. Specifying AQ as the agency behind 9/11, de facto implicated bin Laden - distancing that name from responsibility would have been difficult and opened assorted Pandora's boxes. Would it have been possible to go after AQ without bin Laden figuring highly? My sense is probably not...would the media have hyped him anyway, with equivocating on the part of officialdom on his role feeding conspiracy theorists in the press?

If we had gotten him that would have been a handsome payday in 'political capital'. Not getting him eroded that inititial benefit, but its not clear that turned to a net negative, or just back to zero. OR set the stage for a later shift to net negative when other bad outcomes occured...

But that is here at home.

On the other hand, overseas audiences, particularly in the Islamic world, the focus on AQ and bin Laden was undenyably an early victory for our adversaries. Demonstrating that they could poke the great Satan in the eye, AND provocing such responses BY NAME was much more than 15 minutes of fame and the equivalent of Billions in ad money. Could that victory have been moderated with a strategic comms effor that payed more attention to the differences between messages aimed at home and messages to be reinforced overseas? Undoubtedly. It is not clear from any of the books I've read so far that the finer details of the needed strat comms effort was even appreciated, let alone planned out that early on. Its not clear that the lesson there has been learned.

Other audiences are not so clear, I think Europe was far more influenced by the "with us or against us" rhetoric, than anything to do with pronouncements on bin Laden. The media itself - simultaneousy an audience and a cacaphony of messeges itself would be a wild card in any strategy to down play AQ and bin Laden - the potential for a media blowback that awarded AQ a victory anyway, and was a net loss on the home front was not outside the realm of possibility.

So in some ways there is the "was it really a choice" - once AQ was identified, bid focus on bin Laden follow as fair accompli? I may ascribe too much to the media, but that is at least possible. If it was not a choice, but a matter of priority given his name was going to come up, what were the pros and cons of going 'all in'? How do you evaluate the various unitened consequences of "paying too much attention" vs "not paying enough attention" or the dreaded "looking you are deliberately being evasive on the topic" opening the door to who knows what?

Bottom line, the answer may not be as interesting as the train of logic and new questions trying to answer it leads you down. Even if we can definitively answer for this case, does that mean following the same course next time will be right? Maybe, maybe not. We tend to be too peoccupied with predicting results of decisions and their goodness, (a result that often occurs for reasons totally unrelated to the decision itself) rather than on the decision-making framework that allows examination of the ramifications of various interactions in the decision space.

Work the various outcomes of "if I do this and then this happens and other people do these other things..." Gee that is starting to sound like something that one needs to do with games and game theory-like stuff :eek: Being a proponent of "truely complex problems require game-like exploration" guy I often end up there :D

[slapout9]

LawVol the US Marshal's can and do serve international warrants, 4th Amendment would not be a problem due to the demonstrated danger to society at large (fleeing felon law). Also one of the authors was a...gulp..Air Force Officer...there is hope after all, and to top it off it is a Navy published paper.



Here is a link to a paper on how I think it should have been done. This is basic police work. In this case the main consultants were the US Marshal Service,British Security Service and plain old detectives.
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/nps/manhunting_marks_jun05.pdf

PS Goesh and Stan some good huntin stuff in here for real:wry:

[Stan]

LawVol the US Marshal's can and do serve international warrants, 4th Amendment would not be a problem due to the demonstrated danger to society at large (fleeing felon law). Also one of the authors was a...gulp..Air Force Officer...there is hope after all, and to top it off it is a Navy published paper.



Here is a link to a paper on how I think it should have been done. This is basic police work. In this case the main consultants were the US Marshal Service,British Security Service and plain old detectives.
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/nps/manhunting_marks_jun05.pdf

PS Goesh and Stan some good huntin stuff in here for real:wry:

Evening Slapout !
Coincident with our night off from evening duties (it’s Wednesday aye), we gathered for a few brews and much needed humor with EOD Techs and friends from specialized LE units (pictured below).

As politics reared its ugly head, I related Slapout’s comments and a senior LE opined: “You Yanks have made the whole affair far too personal. We don’t name our criminals. What did that get you?” Deep pause…”I would encourage the military to kill people and break things, because that is what they are there for. Do I need to send my team there and collect the 1 million ?”

I like the hunting gear, Slapout !

[LawVol]

Slapout: thanks for the great paper. There is some very interesting stuff in there. I can't help but wonder if OBL would be dead or behind bars if we'd used this approach. Perhaps he wouldn't have the same following either.

I'm intrigued by the LE approach to fighting the war on terror.

[slapout9]

LawVol your welcome. except for some of the more hi-tech stuff I have used every technique in there. All boils down to my original 3F sometimes 4F technique. It is not complex it is just hard work, labor intensive as the accountants say. Oh yea want to find OBL no problem, he has a whole bunch of kin folk and a construction company in Saudia Arabia. Who IMHO are in this whole GWOT think up to their eyeballs. Me Goesh and Stan and Jedburgh and Tom and RTK and Rob Thornton and Marct could find him. Might need some Air Support from you... Doing anything the next couple of years?? Gotta go.

[Sargent]

I wanted to poll the SWC for input on a thought I've had for a while, and it centers on our vilification of Al Qaeda and, in particular, one Osama Bin Laden.


I think we ought to have turned his world upside down and defied him to come to America on a speaking tour to sell his position in the free market place of ideas. Offer him complete security. And keep making the offer, and keep making him decline.

Ok, this is a bit wacky, but the point I'm driving at is that, to a degree, the ideas the AQ et al are selling aren't all that great. They really haven't made anything much better for the people they purport to serve, support, or represent. Who thinks that the Taliban did a good job with Afghanistan? Who thinks that the work that they did in Pakistan has really improved the lives of anyone who has attended one of their Madrassas? And their big idea is to replicate this model across the world? I don't really know that many people really _want_ this. However, what they like is that he stands up to America. What the young men who join the movement like is that he gives their lives some bit of purpose, something to do. But if he were forced to really sell his ideas, the flaws in the grand design would be made breathtakingly apparent.

He's a great strategist, but he really has a terrible idea. If he were made to have to rely on the idea rather than the strategy his stock would fall.

As much as 9/11 and the loss of the WTC pained me personally, I think we conflated a great tragedy with a great threat.

[Steve Blair]

That may turn off the American listening public, but I really don't think that idea would hinder his ability to recruit in the least. What he's appealing to is emotional, not rational, and if he's a good speaker the idea could easily backfire.

There are a number of historical examples to back this up, but I'd like to look quickly at just two. The first are the European terrorist groups of the 1970s and 1980s (some of which still exist today). How many Germans really believed that the Red Army Faction wanted to "free" the workers? Or how many Italians thought the Italian Red Brigades had the same goal? Not that many in real terms. But they both could tap into just enough resentment, idealism, and urges to destroy the "system" that they managed to keep a flow of recruits coming. The second example is Hitler. I'm not saying Bin Laden is "evil" in the same sense, but many in Germany (and the rest of the world) figured that his message was too nonsensical to be believed. It was, but he was also a hell of a speaker and audience manipulator. By the time some folks figured that out, it was too late.

Messages can be tailored. Hitler understood this, as did Stalin, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, and other revolutionary leaders. They also understand that just because we (and I use the term in a very generic sense) think their message is absurd doesn't mean that others will feel the same way. And if they can win over a few of the others they come out ahead.

[slapout9]

Steve, your right OBL gets his talking points form God we get ours from....well wherever we would get them from, which is exactly my point attempting to engage this guy in anyway that gives him a public platform is playing his game....buy his rules.....and you can only loose.

Sargent, I agree with you that he gained a great deal of respect for standing up to the US. Which is exactly why we should not call it a war! We turned a mass murderer into a great General who is leading his rag-tag rebel army in total defiance of the only superpower on earth. Again he can only win from this position and we can only loose. This is exactly how small criminals become big guys. Just go pick a fight with the biggest guy on the block! It doesn't matter if you win or loose in rational terms, the fact that you are willing to fight gives you a great deal of status and sets you up to draw support from the enemy. It gets people thinking maybe I should switch sides because this guy is just crazy enough to pull it off, so lets go jump on the winning team so to speak.


Law Enforcement is a process not a war. It that sense you never need to win you only have to enforce the law as long as that law exists-hence no time limit. By taking away the status of war from OBL you automatically deny him victory from the start, he can not win the war because there isn"t one. President Bush had the right idea from the very start he should be Wanted Dead or Alive as a criminal mass murderer.

[Sargent]

That may turn off the American listening public, but I really don't think that idea would hinder his ability to recruit in the least. What he's appealing to is emotional, not rational, and if he's a good speaker the idea could easily backfire.


The concept is mostly meant to be illustrative of what sorts of things need to be done to take his movement down a peg. I grant that his appeal to the young men is not something that we're likely ever going to be able to touch -- and probably don't need to directly -- although you can reduce the size of the pool of the potentially willing. Nevertheless, the willing to be recruiteds are not the primary targets in this case -- it's the vast populations who sit on the fence or just to his side of the fence. Head to head, most people in the world pick the American/Western idea (in part, if not in whole), hands down -- even though it is far from perfect itself. If Afghanistan had had free immigration, who would have moved there to live under that regime? I think if you couple that idea with a dose of humility and empathy in American policy, the Bin Ladens and AQs of the world don't really stand a chance.

[Steve Blair]

Another issue with this would be that when you grant someone a speaking tour in the US you're more or less saying that you believe their cause is legitimate. Any sort of sponsorship can be constituted as an endorsement. It might also allow him to reach into areas that might otherwise be difficult for him, and if the guy's a good speaker....well...we've seen historically where that leads.

Interesting discussion, though.

[Sargent]

Another issue with this would be that when you grant someone a speaking tour in the US you're more or less saying that you believe their cause is legitimate. Any sort of sponsorship can be constituted as an endorsement. It might also allow him to reach into areas that might otherwise be difficult for him, and if the guy's a good speaker....well...we've seen historically where that leads.

Interesting discussion, though.

We allow all manner of reprehensible sorts to speak and demonstrate freely in this country. It doesn't mean that anyone necessarily grants them legitimacy, it just means that even the idiots are allowed to sell their ideas here. It's that freedom that's meant to keep the firebrands in check -- the other side will always be able to speak out in opposition. I recall that the Fascists were making some pretty good inroads prior to our involvement in WWII -- but in the end, people just didn't want that.

In the end, I don't think OBL would entice more people here than we'd gain elsewhere by standing firm on our freedoms. But that's just a gut response -- maybe it's just the idealist in me.

[Jedburgh]

The Jamestown Foundation's Terrorism Monitor, 25 Sep 07:

Assessing the Six Year Hunt for Osama bin Laden (http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2373678)
More than six years after the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden remains free, healthy and safe enough to produce audio- and videotapes that dominate the international media at the times of his choosing (http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2373639). Popular and some official attitudes in the United States and its NATO allies tend to denigrate the efforts made by their military and intelligence services to capture the al-Qaeda chief. The common question always is, "Why can't the U.S. superpower and its allies find one 6'5" Saudi with an extraordinarily well-known face?" The answers are several, each is compelling, and together they suggest that the U.S.-led coalition's military and intelligence forces are too over-tasked and spread far too thin to have more than a slim chance of capturing or killing bin Laden and his senior lieutenants.....

[Armchairguy]

I'm thinking if we ever kill OBL and his inner circle that we should not tell anyone about it. Just let the videos and pronouncements stop coming and the faithful wait for guidance that never comes.

[MattC86]

I'm thinking if we ever kill OBL and his inner circle that we should not tell anyone about it. Just let the videos and pronouncements stop coming and the faithful wait for guidance that never comes.

Perhaps useful from an overall strategic standpoint; but impossible because of domestic politics. Killing OBL (or any of his lieutenants) is a big deal domestically, especially for a Republican party currently taking a beating on its bread-and-butter arena: national security.

Also, I'm not entirely convinced how valuable that would be in the first place, particularly given the credibility gap we've created by talking him up and not getting him.

Matt

[goesh]

He has already attained mythical status and killing him will only enhance his standing and stature - t'is a far better thing he mutter and threaten from flea-infested hovels on the Paki frontier thus keeping him off a white horse in full Public view on the Arab street.

[tequila]

Right. So now it's a good thing that we allow the murderer of 3,000 American civilians to survive and continue to both lead his organization and propagandize against the U.S.

No doubt Bill Clinton could have followed a similar tactic after the African embassy bombings and saved us some money on Tomahawk missiles and a CIA bin Laden unit. Much better to allow bin Laden to continue muttering from Afghan caves - what harm could a guy like that possibly do?

[goesh]

Personally I think he died of sepsis 5-6 months after Tora Bora and was cremated but the tally of their dead, and its been in the thousands since 9/11, gives us more than a pound of flesh and we are still killing them. His message is not reaching the mass of neutral muslims, not as long as we stand our ground in Afghan and Iraq. I'm not saying don't keep trying to kill him but once the insurgency surpassed expectations in Iraq, it became more strategically viable to not pin his ears on the door of the White House.

[tequila]

I wish you were right but I doubt it.

[Ken White]

Personally I think he died of sepsis 5-6 months after Tora Bora and was cremated but the tally of their dead, and its been in the thousands since 9/11, gives us more than a pound of flesh and we are still killing them. His message is not reaching the mass of neutral muslims, not as long as we stand our ground in Afghan and Iraq. I'm not saying don't keep trying to kill him but once the insurgency surpassed expectations in Iraq, it became more strategically viable to not pin his ears on the door of the White House.

Wheels inside of wheels...