I don't really have a single issue to bring up in regards to the death of Osama Bin Laden. I do, however, have three specific observations about some of the issues that have risen in the wake of this man's death that I think are worth posting.
First on the issue of credit for the kill.
Credit goes where credit is due.
George W. Bush deserves some credit for this. He does not deserve credit for capturing and killing Bin Laden, but instead deserves credit for setting up the infrastructure that would act as the launching platform from which Obama would get the job done. It is wrong to say Bush had no hand in Bin Laden's capture. It is equally wrong to say that Bush was directly involved and deserves direct credit for the act. Bin Laden's trail had gone cold, and any information gained from specific acts of pursuit had become dead ends enough for the Bush administration to ramp back rhetoric on the importance of Bin Laden towards the end of his presidency. I do not see this as a Bush failing. I do however see it as abdication of his participation in the hunt. He created the broader security infrastructure, attempted to use it to find Bin Laden, failed to do that specific task (other terrorists WERE caught in that net during his administration who were very dangerous in their own right) and then left the keys to those systems to his predecessor.
Barack Obama deserves direct credit for the capture and kill of Bin Laden. It was his decision on the priority, his decision on the method that would be used, and his call on when and how and where and what forces would move. The information became 'hot' on his watch and he acted, the results of which would have been his responsibility if they had gone wrong. We hold the commander in chief responsible for our military's failures and we therefore must grant him credit for its successes. Because military power is never 100% defined or executed within the bounds of a single electoral term, we must nod to those who helped establish the foundations for what was possible here. In that regard giving Obama total credit for the kill is inaccurate, but the command decision made and the results are, as they always have been, a direct reflection on the president's leadership.
On Water Boarding and it's impact on the information attained
There's a small group of Republican ex-administration folks making the claim that this capture and kill was the direct result of 'enhanced interrogation' techniques implemented by the Bush administration. I don't think this issue really bears a lot of discussion, but let's make the relevant points.
First of all, I think if we're honest about this, we're already giving Bush credit for establishing the security dragnet that was used, in some fashion, to gather the relevant information. The question of whether that information was pulled form a specific person at a specific time seems like splitting hairs. Obama's strength in this was in making the call on how, when, and with what strategy to execute the capture on information that didn’t' come conclusively together until his watch. Even if core information was gathered during the Bush administration, it was clearly not cohesive enough for Bush to conclude the same thing or he would have acted. Nothing about the Bush administration even hints that George Bush would have let Bin Laden remain untouched if he had the chance to do this.
Second, the claim isn't very believable. It's an attempt to create a distant 'but for' argument: But for the use of waterboarding, we would not have had the critical data needed to isolate Bin Laden, therefore Bush's decision to use waterboarding is credited with the eventual capture and kill. What any lawyer can tell you, is that but-for arguments suffer from a rapidly decreasing credibility the further away they get from the event they are said to control. Here's what I mean by that. A but-for argument made about something immediate is a compelling way of determining proximate cause: But for the trigger modification making the weapon extremely easy to fire, the weapon would not have gone off under normal pressure from a nervous hand. This is compelling. The linked pieces are close in cause and effect with few variables between. Here's the opposite: But for my birth, I would not have been able to sign this document. Okay... true.... but to say my birth is the cause of the signature throws common sense to the wind. Of course my birth is required, but there is no proximate link between the event of my birth and the signature.
So in this case we have the waterboarding of thee men five years ago that produced no information that George Bush could use to similar effect in that time. This means no matter what you believe, that a great deal of additional information was necessary before Bin Laden was located which would include a fair amount gathered after 'enhanced interrogation' was no longer being used. In short, there is no proximate link between waterboarding and the capture. Attempts to create that link defy realistic causal logic.
Finally we need to step away from the details of the argument and genuinely ask if this is a discussion we should even be having. Let's be clear that the international community and the Geneva Convention consider waterboarding to be torture. Without opening the philosophical argument of what constitutes torture, let's just ask the easy question: Do we want the world to believe that the United States uses and depends on and profits from torture? I think the answer is no, no matter what your politics. I think part of the American dream is holding a higher moral standard. We want to hold the high moral ground and a position of leadership in the world. To do that we have to be better than the petty dictators and despots we claim threaten us, and that is not just a war of facts, it is a war of perceptions. Since we already acknowledge George Bush's contribution to the process, what gainful purpose do we have to then champion what the world sees as torture?
Finally, let's talk about celebrating a man's death.
Americans were dancing in the streets when Bin Laden was killed. There is a moral disconnect that hits us as we watch people cheer over death and celebrate the violent end of another human being even if that man was evil. If you have moral fiber, you at least felt the twinge of awkwardness at cheering over this.
“I never wished a man dead, but I've read some obituaries with much pleasure.”
-Mark Twain
Let's understand that there's more at work here than just the shooting of an evil man. Bin Laden represented something. He was as iconic to the current generation as any evil force has been in the past. He represented a hidden menace, a fear that crept through our lives and got us to spend more on security in a few years than we spend in the lat 200 combined. Bin Laden was not just a man, he was representative to Americans of some of the worst parts of human nature and society. He was our boogyman, our Soviet Union, and our Hitler. His death is not just the death of a man but the death of an image burned into our hearts and minds. He is closure on the first act of international terrorism on American soil that would open a new kind of global conflict and defined a decade of war. Seeing this iconic figure end brings relief, and with relief comes joy. We need not narrow down our feelings of happiness over this to the specific fact of Bin Laden's execution. We are not necessarily celebrating in the kill. We are celebrating the end of something horrific the price of that end is the death of a man. The difference is subtle but important. As almost anyone will staunchly admit, there are times when the death of a single man or woman can create a good worth celebrating and it is not immoral to revel in the achievement of that good.
First on the issue of credit for the kill.
Credit goes where credit is due.
George W. Bush deserves some credit for this. He does not deserve credit for capturing and killing Bin Laden, but instead deserves credit for setting up the infrastructure that would act as the launching platform from which Obama would get the job done. It is wrong to say Bush had no hand in Bin Laden's capture. It is equally wrong to say that Bush was directly involved and deserves direct credit for the act. Bin Laden's trail had gone cold, and any information gained from specific acts of pursuit had become dead ends enough for the Bush administration to ramp back rhetoric on the importance of Bin Laden towards the end of his presidency. I do not see this as a Bush failing. I do however see it as abdication of his participation in the hunt. He created the broader security infrastructure, attempted to use it to find Bin Laden, failed to do that specific task (other terrorists WERE caught in that net during his administration who were very dangerous in their own right) and then left the keys to those systems to his predecessor.
Barack Obama deserves direct credit for the capture and kill of Bin Laden. It was his decision on the priority, his decision on the method that would be used, and his call on when and how and where and what forces would move. The information became 'hot' on his watch and he acted, the results of which would have been his responsibility if they had gone wrong. We hold the commander in chief responsible for our military's failures and we therefore must grant him credit for its successes. Because military power is never 100% defined or executed within the bounds of a single electoral term, we must nod to those who helped establish the foundations for what was possible here. In that regard giving Obama total credit for the kill is inaccurate, but the command decision made and the results are, as they always have been, a direct reflection on the president's leadership.
On Water Boarding and it's impact on the information attained
There's a small group of Republican ex-administration folks making the claim that this capture and kill was the direct result of 'enhanced interrogation' techniques implemented by the Bush administration. I don't think this issue really bears a lot of discussion, but let's make the relevant points.
First of all, I think if we're honest about this, we're already giving Bush credit for establishing the security dragnet that was used, in some fashion, to gather the relevant information. The question of whether that information was pulled form a specific person at a specific time seems like splitting hairs. Obama's strength in this was in making the call on how, when, and with what strategy to execute the capture on information that didn’t' come conclusively together until his watch. Even if core information was gathered during the Bush administration, it was clearly not cohesive enough for Bush to conclude the same thing or he would have acted. Nothing about the Bush administration even hints that George Bush would have let Bin Laden remain untouched if he had the chance to do this.
Second, the claim isn't very believable. It's an attempt to create a distant 'but for' argument: But for the use of waterboarding, we would not have had the critical data needed to isolate Bin Laden, therefore Bush's decision to use waterboarding is credited with the eventual capture and kill. What any lawyer can tell you, is that but-for arguments suffer from a rapidly decreasing credibility the further away they get from the event they are said to control. Here's what I mean by that. A but-for argument made about something immediate is a compelling way of determining proximate cause: But for the trigger modification making the weapon extremely easy to fire, the weapon would not have gone off under normal pressure from a nervous hand. This is compelling. The linked pieces are close in cause and effect with few variables between. Here's the opposite: But for my birth, I would not have been able to sign this document. Okay... true.... but to say my birth is the cause of the signature throws common sense to the wind. Of course my birth is required, but there is no proximate link between the event of my birth and the signature.
So in this case we have the waterboarding of thee men five years ago that produced no information that George Bush could use to similar effect in that time. This means no matter what you believe, that a great deal of additional information was necessary before Bin Laden was located which would include a fair amount gathered after 'enhanced interrogation' was no longer being used. In short, there is no proximate link between waterboarding and the capture. Attempts to create that link defy realistic causal logic.
Finally we need to step away from the details of the argument and genuinely ask if this is a discussion we should even be having. Let's be clear that the international community and the Geneva Convention consider waterboarding to be torture. Without opening the philosophical argument of what constitutes torture, let's just ask the easy question: Do we want the world to believe that the United States uses and depends on and profits from torture? I think the answer is no, no matter what your politics. I think part of the American dream is holding a higher moral standard. We want to hold the high moral ground and a position of leadership in the world. To do that we have to be better than the petty dictators and despots we claim threaten us, and that is not just a war of facts, it is a war of perceptions. Since we already acknowledge George Bush's contribution to the process, what gainful purpose do we have to then champion what the world sees as torture?
Finally, let's talk about celebrating a man's death.
Americans were dancing in the streets when Bin Laden was killed. There is a moral disconnect that hits us as we watch people cheer over death and celebrate the violent end of another human being even if that man was evil. If you have moral fiber, you at least felt the twinge of awkwardness at cheering over this.
“I never wished a man dead, but I've read some obituaries with much pleasure.”
-Mark Twain
Let's understand that there's more at work here than just the shooting of an evil man. Bin Laden represented something. He was as iconic to the current generation as any evil force has been in the past. He represented a hidden menace, a fear that crept through our lives and got us to spend more on security in a few years than we spend in the lat 200 combined. Bin Laden was not just a man, he was representative to Americans of some of the worst parts of human nature and society. He was our boogyman, our Soviet Union, and our Hitler. His death is not just the death of a man but the death of an image burned into our hearts and minds. He is closure on the first act of international terrorism on American soil that would open a new kind of global conflict and defined a decade of war. Seeing this iconic figure end brings relief, and with relief comes joy. We need not narrow down our feelings of happiness over this to the specific fact of Bin Laden's execution. We are not necessarily celebrating in the kill. We are celebrating the end of something horrific the price of that end is the death of a man. The difference is subtle but important. As almost anyone will staunchly admit, there are times when the death of a single man or woman can create a good worth celebrating and it is not immoral to revel in the achievement of that good.
Comments
Post a Comment