Obama, bin Laden’s Death, and the Future of the War on Terror

As someone who has written a lot of negative stories about Obama and his policies, given the good news about bin Laden’s death, one might perhaps expect a reconsideration of my views based on this situation. Think again. Obama was confronted with information that had he not acted on would have inflamed his critics even more than what he has had to deal with since he became a threat to this country when inaugurated. His decision to go after bin Laden, a decision he pointed out was HIS in all of his references in THAT strange speech Sunday night, was forced on him by political circumstances rather than a desire on his part to bring bin Laden to justice, or to help “win” the war on terror—a concept totally foreign to him and the radical anti-Americans he has surrounded himself with [yes, yes, I know, Hilary and Gates and a few  others are not like that—ok, fine—but Holder, and the Czars, and his radical appointees to  various cabinet positions are, so it stands as far as I’m concerned].

Why do I say that he was forced into this—simple: look at his dropping poll numbers, look at the political disaster he is facing with rising gas and food prices and look at how the economy is again slipping close to negative growth—it was 1.5% growth the first qtr of this year. On top of all that “good news”, he still has to wear the deficit/debt issue around his neck—why? Because he appointed a deficit commission and after they came up with recommendations to cut all sorts of programs, he issued a budget for 2012 that had a 1.6 trillion dollar deficit!

As I’ve said before, we have the moral high ground in the deficit/debt fight because he is not serious about fixing the problem[especially if, as the Manchurian Candidate, why should he fix it when the plan is to have the country fail!]! So, for Obama, although risky, he knew that if the mission went well, he could claim credit; if it went badly, he could go before the American people and claim he tried to get bin Laden and to show his sorrow for our fallen warriors and with his crocodile tears demonstrate to the families of our fallen heroes he felt their pain—it is all an Alinsky charade that the media willingly participates in because they are in ideological lockstep with Obama. When Bill Clinton attacked Saddam’s Iraq in December of 1998, his critics pointed out that he used an international crisis to deflect attention from the mess that his relationship with Monica Lewinsky had created—it reflected what came to be known as a “Wag the Dog” moment from the movie that portrayed a president as starting a war for political reasons to get out of a domestic jam—in my view, in one of the few times I’ll defend Clinton, it did not apply to Clinton at that time.

But, here we have a much different story that in my view more than passes the “Wag” smell test in this case. Obama is in trouble and he knows it—but now, thanks to the courage and capability of our troops, he can go before the nation with the media now singing his praises and claiming he is now unbeatable in 2012! Oh, yes--now, in their twisted minds he has become the Defender of the Faith, Lord High Executioner of the Wicked, Obama the Grand, replacing Ming the Magnificent as a universal leader! What crap—but they believe it and are selling that line as hard as they can because they know we in the Tea Party see through all that and WILL not allow this man and his radical cohorts to remain in DC any longer than one [horrible]term!

So, after that long lead in, what about the War on Terror and bin Laden? The impact of bin Laden’s demise will be debated. The “experts” like Zakaria and Bergen are already declaring the war on terror over—a point to remember when Obama starts to take his foot off of the pedal and shift us away from actually fighting harder now after delivering a body blow to al Qaeda. Bin Laden is/was the face of al Qaeda and is/was an inspiration to many who would follow him no matter what, so losing him is a blow for sure.

Just as Yammamoto's death to Japan was a critical factor in American success in the Pacific, so too will bin Laden's death be a factor in our ultimate success against al Qaeda. But Zakaria and others should understand that al Qaeda is a decentralized organization that does not exist on "orders" from the top, so, as much as we would like/hope it will wither without him, I don't see that happening. What is key is that we take advantage of the situation and roll up as many bad guy cells as possible while they are in shock and while the intelligence we supposedly gained is still valid [we should have killed him and waited a month to release the news in order to assess the intelligence and launch more raids against as many of them as possible!]--if we do that, then Zakaira will be right--if we let them off the hook and play a "wait-and-see-game” they'll be able to survive--at a less effective level though and not b/c bin Laden is dead--he had already cost al Qaeda dearly in his war against the Infidel Americans and had brought them down for some critical reasons:

• Ø He saw Iraq as the place to defeat the U.S. and suffered a major defeat there losing close to 30,000 of his best fighters and leaders;
• Ø He has created doctrinal divisions within Islam as a result of his own flouting of Islamic Laws [as nebulous as they are] and his over use of killing innocent Muslims as seen in Iraq and elsewhere;
• Ø Linked to the above, he managed to lose the vaunted “Arab street”—Iraqi’s turned on him and came to see it was better to fight with the Americans than to side with a killer who maimed and killed innocent women and children—that from Iraqi Muslims who were no strangers to cold blooded killing. The “Arab Spring” so far has not seen al Qaeda as the face of their revolt—critically, most observers have said al Qaeda has been severely hurt by the calls for “democracy.” We have to wait to see how all that plays out, but at this point, al Qaeda is not  winning there.

So, even before he died, bin Laden had lost the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, lost the critical doctrinal war within Islam, and lost the Arab  street! In that sense, then, years before we “got him,” he and his evil organization were in deep, deep trouble. And, not because of Obama—bin Laden’s troubles had started long before Obama had come on the scene—they really began when one of my Marine friends who was the Commanding General of Multi-National Forces West [Anbar province] wrote to me in the fall of 2006 that his Marines had “gotten on the enemy’s throats and were not letting go and we were seeing a lot of dead bad guys with lead poisoning”[I love that!]—this was about 6 months before the surge had started and already al Qaeda in Iraq was in deep trouble in a crucial province.

All in all, even if Obama gets credit for killing bin Laden, it is a good thing—he needed to die an ugly death to pay for his crimes. But, let us be clear about why it does not change one thing we believe about Obama: everything that has been said about Obama in my mind still resonates—what has changed because he was forced to go after bin Laden? Are you any happier with his energy polices? His health care policies? His “ solution” to the deficit/debt issues? Silly me—I thought everything had changed because Obama “got bin Laden”—how could I have missed that wonderful transformation! Next week I’ll explain how it escaped me!!

Dr.Lou