I picture the scene from the Wizard of Oz. The one near the beginning when Dorothy comes out of her house that has just landed on the Wicked Witch of the East. Then, all the munchkins start singing "ding dong the witch is dead..." Only this time it is a giant, awkwardly slapped-together house in a compound, and under the corner, near the foundation, is a spinach-chinned douche-bag with a bullet in his left eye.
"Ding dong that bitch is dead, took a bullet in his head
ding, dong Osama bin Laden is deaaaaad"
By the way, how badass is that...shot through the left eye. I wonder from what distance? Was it the ultimate sniper shot? Or did a SEAL walk up and BAM! Just like mother fuckin' Moe Green?
If you read my blog, you are wondering "when is he going to criticize Obama?" Don't worry, it's coming. But there is a lot of praise to distribute first.
First, Obama is the President who got bin Laden. That's just badass...period. He made a gutsy call, sending elite troops into an allied country without permission, and carrying out a kill mission. There's going to be blowback from that, and he did it anyway.
Second, it showed competence. It showed that America can handle its shit...at least where taking revenge is concerned. Bush the Younger had eight fucking years to do the same and came up empty. Smart guys 1, idiots 0. Finally, someone has taken the fight to the guy who hit us, and did it in a way that didn't include massive collateral damage.
Third, "no drama" Obama has stayed cool throughout the process. He's not fist-pumping (but he's letting it be clearly known that HE is the guy who did it), he's moving forward. No banners being hung, no flight suits being donned; just a "yeah, it was me" swagger.
One would think that he will be harder to criticize now, on national security matters. Although 2012 is still a long way away, he will only have to suggest that "I got him" and voters will remember. But I am surprised some poll numbers.
A Pew Research poll showed him with a nine point bump in approval rating. Not bad, although I thought it would be higher. It showed a rise in approval in how he's handling the wars, and showed a rise to the 60s in favoring how he's doing in the war on terror. Really? In the 60s? The man just took down Osama bin Laden! How is he not in the 90s on that issue?
He's not in the 90s because the 20 - 30% racist fringe of America will never give this president credit for anything. Also, because it has been a long time coming. I think some Americans do differentiate between Bush and Obama, but think that a president, whomever it is, should have wrapped this up a long time ago. And many, many Americans realize that we sent a few dudes into Pakistan and avenged 911 AFTER spending over a TRILLION dollars on two wars supposedly to do the same thing.
And Americans realize just how stupid that is.
Awww...man! We invaded Iraq, hammered its people and still occupy that country - for no good reason. There was NEVER a tie to 911 or al Qaida. Just a Bushian wet dream of daddy vengance and oil lust. One thing that Americans should reflect upon with the death of bin Laden is how We the People, through unworthy leadership visited 911 times 100 upon the innocent people of Iraq. Sure, they had an evil murderous asshole for a leader. But as it turns out, so did we. And unfortunately, President Obama continues the occupation.
It sucks to have airplanes used as bombs by terrorists to kill thousands of our people. But it also sucks to have airplanes carry bombs to kill tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people, again, for no good reason. There were no weapons of mass destruction, no ties to bin Laden, we just fucked them up for their oil. We terrorized them, killed them and displaced millions of them, started a civil war between Islamic factions, and allowed Iran tremendous influence in the country. What a genius foreign policy.
And speaking of genius foreign policy, how about the President's police to escalate the war in Afghanistan? Dude, Osama was assassinated in PAKISTAN! He had been living there for more than five years! Al Qaida is long gone from Afghanistan. And the Taliban? They are the rebellion of convenience in Afghanistan, rising from the valleys whenever foreigners invade. The Taliban is a problem because we are their problem. Get the fuck out of that country!
Another thing we have to remember is that we TORTURED PEOPLE FOR NO GOOD REASON! Awww...shit! How far from the Bill of Rights have we fallen? Shit, how far from the Magna Carta? King John himself would have been embarrassed. The CIA has said, as have army intelligence officers (and no, I won't link to it...just google "torture doesn't work" for credible testimony), that torture doesn't yield credible information. It doesn't work. We did it because we wanted to, and to show the world we could. Now the world looks at us as despotic, not as the badass Jack Bauer types that the Bush Administration thought they were. Jesus Christ man, we have burned the Constitution - we tortured folks. We have become the villains from every bad action movie, and even a few good ones.
A final thing to reflect upon is the extra-legal notion of assassination. As the news cycles have filtered the information, it turns out that this was strictly wet-work. Resistance was minimal - apparently one dude shooting back against 20 highly-trained Navy SEALs. Osama was unarmed when he took the bullet in his left eye. If we were a nation that even pretended to care about the democratic ideal of justice, we would have renditioned his ass to a courtroom in America, put his ass on trial, and sentenced him to death. Or, put his spinach-chin on trial in the international court in the Hauge. Let the world know, we practice what we preach.
But I'm afraid that ship has sailed. Our president, a Democratic president, currently has death warrants for at least one American citizen (last known to be in Yemen). This is pre-Magna Carta stuff. This is sovereign power of life or death over those you can reach. Human history arced towards ending this type of inhumane governance, and for a while, that arc was drawn by the United States; until recently in fact. Now, we torture, murder and invade countries on a whim. This is what we, as Americans who still retain some semblance of our better nature, should reflect on as bin Laden lies at the bottom of the Arabian Sea as a crab buffet. This is what happens when the smart president looks forward, not back.
The visceral part of me wants to shout "U-S-A!" and high-five my neighbors at the death of Osama bin Laden. He was an asshole of the first order, and harmed our country. He killed our fellow citizens in an action that rivals Pearl Harbor in its "infamy." But because I think, I am forced to reflect on how his actions caused a decade in which our leaders debased the values of the United States in ways that seem almost irreparable. That is not bin Laden's fault, but the fault of the leaders we had, and continue to have. Leaders who do not live up to the founding ideals of this nation.
All in all, I am saddened by the event. I am glad that a shit-stain like Osama bin Laden has died cowering before a black-clad representative of America - soiling his pants as he realized his life was to end like so many that he killed - in terror of the violence about to happen. But I am saddened by how one guy who resembles a goat could cause the country I love to debase itself to such a low level, the level of despotism. Getting bin Laden is a win, but only after so, so much self-inflicted loss.
No comments:
Post a Comment