"The Man Who Shot Osama bin Laden"

Okay, the boogeyman is dead. In the hours following the telephone call last night, watching the news coverage until dawn, I felt a surprisingly huge weight lifting off my chest. A strange transcendental peace descended. I’ve been madder than a midget with a yo-yo since 9/11, but I didn’t realize that bin Laden’s very existence constituted such a burden on my psyche until it was lifted.

Still, there were some disparate thoughts and impressions that immediately attached to this historic moment. These wildly divergent notions ranged from elation to cynicism. The details of the operation are still coming in, so some of what follows may be subject to revision or reconsideration at my discretion. However, these are first impressions as I listen once again to “The Concert for New York City”—Madison Square Garden; 20 October 2001—at high volume:

It was a mistake to “bury” Osama bin Laden at sea “according to Islamic tradition.” Only a true adherent of the righteous tenets of Islam should be afforded the care and considerations of his religion. Bin Laden forfeited those considerations when he started organizing Al Qaeda in 1988. The moral nature of terrorism precludes acceptance as a civilized human being.

Like the “Elvis sightings” that plagued us after Presley’s death, there is now going to be a hard-core following of jihadists who will insist their little tin god is alive, and immortal. Instead of tossing him into the drink, we should have brought bin Laden’s bloody corpse to New York and put it on display for a week. This would have given the rest of the world a chance to see and believe that he is truly discorporated. The true believers could have filed past, smelled the blood and decay, and accepted the fact that their spiritual guru was dead. Now, no matter how many gruesome death photos are displayed, the hard-core heathens will simply dismiss them with the assertion that they are PhotoShop™ or CGI products.

If anyone took umbrage that bin Laden wasn’t buried within 24 hours of his demise, they could be referred to paragraph three above. Islam is a valid religion, and true believers should be treated with respect and dignity. Those who abuse and twist the Islamic belief system should be shunned and treated as pariahs. If postponing a burial and displaying the corpse of an Islamic heretic will convince others that he has truly received a measure of justice, then Muslims should be just as amenable to this as anyone else.

Feeding bin Laden to the fish was also justified as not establishing a “shrine” for his adherents. Personally, I would have buried him somewhere here in America, in an easily accessible location, and set up full-time surveillance cameras to record and identify all those who came to pay their respects. That would give the Ministry of Homeland Security something to do besides groping grannies at the airport.

Tossing Osama overboard was a mistake.

I was slightly taken aback by the bloodthirsty nature of the spontaneous demonstrations that broke out following the news that Osama had been killed, but only slightly. Watching the—mostly—young celebrants, and deducting ten years from their median age, I wondered how many of them realized the import of what was happening back in 2001. Still, they have grown up for nearly a decade with the specter of jihad, so they’re entitled to revel a bit. Like the cataclysm that made bin Laden the most despised and wanted man of this new century, his death has had a unifying effect on the American people, and this is never a bad thing. In this post-post-modern age of class warfare, partisan political dissonance, and old-school careerist politicians versus a new wave of sincere reformers, a little unity in the general population is a much-needed nostrum.

That being said, what’s with the “I…me…my” rhetoric that overloaded the Manchurian Candidate’s speech last night? A couple of minutes into it, I was talking to the TV, muttering “Hey! You didn’t strap on a cape and fly over there to kill him yourself!”

Osama bin Laden was finally brought down by nearly ten years of hard work by intelligence professionals and dedicated military personnel. The path to Osama’s mansion led straight through the Guantanamo Bay detention center, where our “torture” of known terrorists yielded vital information as to bin Laden’s whereabouts. The existence of “Gitmo” is totally vindicated, despite the Manchurian Candidate’s empty promise to close it down.

Mr. Bobama has done exactly two things that I consider semi-presidential, since he took office. The first was green-lighting the takedown of the Somali pirates who hijacked the Maersk Alabama and held the captain hostage a few years ago. That ended quite badly…for the pirates; thanks to the Navy SEALs. Giving the go-ahead to this black-flag operation that finally leveled bin Laden’s karma was the second executive decision I can unequivocally support. The rest of his administration remains a vacuum of incompetence and a morass of sinister suppositions. Life-and-death decisions, and sending others into harm’s way, are the day-to-day obligations of leadership, not some comic-book heroic grandstanding undertaken for the aggrandizement of the office-holder. Signing off on a risky and morally troubling decision for the greater good should be treated with modesty and self-effacement. Instead, we got a trumpeting of the sprained arm Bobama suffered from patting himself on the ass for finally doing his job.

Finally: I have already splattered this notion all over FaceBook™ comment threads, because I sense it to be at the core of this incident. This is where the cynicism kicks in. The image emerged fully-formed when I saw a makeshift sign one of the “death celebrants” was waving in the pre-dawn hours: “Obama—1, Osama—0.”

I went so far as to post a $100 bet on FaceBook™. When the next Democrat convention rolls around, and the Designated Liberal introduces Barack Hussein Obama to accept his anointment, I am already certain that the rote list of his achievements will be topped by the accolade that he is “the man who killed Osama bin Laden.”

I refer you to a 1962 John Ford movie: “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.” The three stars of interest here are John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, and Lee Marvin as Liberty Valance, a thoroughly unbalanced and nasty outlaw. I don’t want to give spoilers if you haven’t seen this, but after being victimized repeatedly by “Valance”, Jimmy Stewart forces a confrontation that ends with “Valance” dead in the street. Stewart’s “Ransom Stoddard” character is hailed as a hero and goes on to elicit much political mileage from his exploit, eventually becoming a US Senator and considered for higher office. There is a plot twist involved, because in fact, “Stoddard” didn’t shoot anyone. The story is told in flashback, and quite involved.

If you’ve never seen this classic, try to figure it out. I urge you to rent the DVD, as it applies to what I’m saying here. The “punch-line” of the movie is this:
Ransom Stoddard: “You're not going to use the story, Mr. Scott?”
[Newspaper editor] Maxwell Scott: “No, sir. This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

“I…me…my…”

In spite of his repudiation of Guantanamo Bay, the Afghanistan mission, the Iraq adventure, and a whining insistence that his failures are an “inheritance” from the Bush administration, Barack Hussein Obama will become legendary as “the man who killed Osama bin Laden.” Maybe Michael Moore will even make a movie about it.