Osama Bin Laden is Dead
As I was flipping through the channels tonight while half out of it, I saw Fox News running a big banner that Osama was dead. Not believing it because it was Fox, I switched to MSNBC to see the same headline. I dragged my roomie out of bed so we could watch the President’s speech. This is actually the first time I have caught a President’s speech live since Bush gave Saddam 2 days to get out of Iraq. It’s some of the best news I have heard in a while.
First and foremost, I’m a New Yorker. It’s something that growing up in NY will always leave behind. I was actually a kid home sick when the first attack on the WTC took place in 93. While I was at work on 9/11, I can not explain to you the terror in my mind as news reports came in over the radio. Or the horror of watching what had happened when I got home (in Jersey at the time) was just without words. Although I haven’t been in touch with most of my friends from Staten Island, it slowly but surely came back to me who I knew had died.
The closest person I knew actually lived two houses away from me. They eventually named the block I lived on after him. He was one of the absolute nicest people in the world. He raised two really great kids too who were just as friendly as him. I actually had no idea he was still a fireman for that matter. He ended up charging into the first tower before it went down. I can’t think of any worse of an ending for someone who was an all around great guy and person.
So it’s incredible today that Osama Bin Laden is finally officially dead. It’s incredible to think that he managed to escape US forces for nearly a decade. For a while though Al-Qaeda had been relatively neutered. Their name was becoming more of a codeword for people fighting against US forces then any actual ties. Al-Qaeda in Iraq didn’t have much actual ties to Osama besides their leading announcing his loyalty to Osama. Amazingly something like this happened in Soviet Russia, people about to be shot by KGB death squads would announce their loyalty to Trotskydespite knowing almost nothing about him or what he stood for. It was just a last show of defiance.
The amazing thing in all this is hopefully we learned a lesson. We created Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda back in the early 80s. We decided that the Muhjardeen were the best fighters against the Soviets in the Afghan-Soviet War. Osama and his people were CIA trained and equipped. Following the victory over the Soviets we decided to just leave these war veterans to their own ends in Afghanistan and we paid for it.
The real victory though is that this cuts off a large amount of funds for whatever remains of Al-Qaeda. You also can’t underestimate the value a leader who had been through previous wars. Or that the riches of the Bin Laden family (the #2 richest family in Saudi Arabia) is going to extremely speed up the collapse of whatever remnants of Al-Qaeda still exist. The reality is that Al-Qaeda has mostly existed to help train Taliban fighters to continue fighting in the Afghan civil war which has limited their global reach recently. Don’t forget that the Al-Qaeda members who took part in 9/11 were largely from Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
I have to give Obama credit. I thought he was wasting time taking troops from Iraq and sending them to Afghanistan. I thought it was just sending American Troops somewhere else to die. Which once again makes you question how hard George W. Bush was trying to capture the great American Boogeyman? Don’t forget that Bush’s 04 campaign was helped by a timely release of a Bin Laden tape right before the election. Up to that point Kerry had taken a lead and it was unheard of for a candidate to recover in such a short time. Let me leave you with this video and you can make your own decision about how hard Bush really wanted to bring in Bin Laden before he was able to start a pointless War in Iraq:
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Afghan, Bin Laden, Bush, Bush re-election, CIA trained Boogeyman, Emmanuel Goldstein, fake wars, Iraq, Lies, Obama, Osama, Plucky terrorist, War On Terror
I’ve been reading a lot about Bin Laden’s death today, but your post is the first account from a New Yorker. A very interesting read, thank you.
Thanks, anytime I can be interesting it’s a compliment.
If Bush had managed to get Bin Laden, I’m sure he would have gone after Saddam anyway, since the Iraqi dictator would have been deemed the next major threat to American security.
Bush would have found any excuse to go after Saddam, this is true. But had he captured Osama earlier on, it might have been tougher to convince the American people of the need to invade Iraq.
Part of me feels like they waited to get Bin Laden until Obama announced he’d be running for president again. I guess I’ve seen too many conspiracy theory docs online…
I don’t think there was a question that Obama would be running for President again. It’s been a while since a sitting President didn’t run for re-election.
But isn’t it still the perfect timing for Obama to claim this success? It might have been less memorable if it happened at the beginning of his presidency, and THEN the economy busted.
You do realize that Obama won the Election largely because the Republicans sent it into the shitter?