A few weeks ago, a murmur started going around the office about the US Army finally tracking down and killing Osama bin Laden. A quick visit to "the Age" website subsequently confirmed the rumour and after almost 10 years on the "most wanted" list, it was apparent that the USA had finally got their man.
I have to say the news prompted mixed emotions. Yes, there was some element of relief that the perpetrator of such a despicable act as the September 11 attacks had finally met a sticky end. Although I also have to admit to some surprise, in that I was not entirely convinced that the Americans actually wanted him dead. In much the same way that the Machiavellian "Inner Party" in George Orwell's novel "1984" used the heretical fugitive Emmanuel Goldstein as a focal point for the hatred of the masses, I often wondered whether the US government actually preferred having Bin Laden at large so as to sustain popular support for their "War on Terror".
What I really found disturbing though was the reaction to the news in America and more particularly, New York. I know that many New Yorkers would have lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks and having recently had the opportunity of visiting the harrowing "Ground Zero" memorial, I also know first-hand that feelings about what happened still run very deep there. But seeing hundreds take to the streets celebrating and cheering the fact that someone had been gunned down in cold blood was not something I expected in a city as educated and liberal-leaning as New York. It made me realise that if New Yorkers are capable of behaving in such an atavistic fashion, then we shouldn't be surprised or shocked at the violent reaction of lesser-educated Middle Easterners when terrorist incidents occur there, as they all too frequently do.
It also made me realise that while people continue to react instinctively and respond in kind to acts of savagery, then there is no chance whatsoever of this so called "War on Terror" coming to an end. As the US and to a lesser extent, the other members of Bush's "Coalition of the Willing" have found out to their detriment, any engagement like Afghanistan or Iraq where people shoot first and think later is hardly one which is going to lay the groundwork for a successful diplomatic and economic partnership with the people of those countries. It also creates fertile recruiting ground for organisations like Al Qaeda, whose modus operandi involves inciting hatred of Western "infidels" and preying on the emotions of those affected by military and economic sanctions imposed by the west on rogue states like Iraq.
This is why the killing of Bin Laden to my mind will ultimately prove to be little more than a Pyrrhic victory. Sure, Bin Laden might have bankrolled and masterminded the September 11 attacks and any number of other atrocities, but it would be ingenuous to treat this as more than a temporary setback for the broader Al Qaeda organisation. The best analogy for Al Qaeda I can think of is that of the Hydra in Greek mythology; namely if you cut off its head, then two others grow back in its place. The USA might have dealt with public enemy number one, but in his place will surely arise a new public enemy number two, one potentially who is not familiar to western intelligence services and who therefore may prove more dangerous than his predecessor.
I think I have rabbited on about this before, but you won't successfully exterminate an organisation like Al Qaeda by shooting their leaders whenever they stick their heads up. As the expression goes, the cemeteries are full of irreplaceable people and the organisation will just keep reinventing itself. You need to do it by starving it of recruits by removing the reason for its existence. And doing that requires a degree of intellect, courage and diplomacy that has so far proven beyond the capabilities of the western powers.
In this vein and as the 10th anniversary of September 11 approaches, it is a good time to reflect on the aftermath of the attacks and the lessons learned. Unfortunately, the legacy that has been left the Americans is not good: record sovereign debt, an economy that is barely growing if at all and too many soldiers still coming home in body bags almost 10 years after the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq began. While Iraq now seems to be settling down into some semblance of normality, disturbingly the Afghanistan conflict seems no nearer to resolution now than when it started, and with mounting issues to deal with at home, you have to question whether the Obama administration will have the fortitude to see it through.
Given the mess the USA finds itself in, inevitably you have to ask the question, could this have been dealt with another way? Certainly given the knife-edge result in the 2000 presidential election, it's a question that I'd love to ask Al Gore. While I query whether Gore would ultimately have stood up to the warmongers in the Pentagon, at the very least I suspect he wouldn't have sat in a year 2 classroom like a stunned mullet for 10 minutes upon being told.
It might be naive, but I wonder whether a better way might have been to first, harness the sympathy of the rest of the world and seek their co-operation in rounding up the perpetrators. If necessary, this could have come with an offer of $1 billion in foreign aid for the country who handed over Bin Laden. While this is a lot of money, it's still a lot less than the more than $1 trillion spent on the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns. Then, having satisfied the public bloodlust for revenge by trying and executing those responsible, setting up a global taskforce on terrorism which is designed not just to round up terrorist cells but also getting to the bottom of why it exists and thereafter dedicating resources to foreign aid or other benevolent purposes which help change the perception of the west in the developing world and take away the motive to engage in terrorism.
Not only would this measured response gained the respect and admiration of the rest of the world but it would have avoided the ghastly personal, political and financial toll of the "shoot first" option adopted by Bush and Cheney.
Then again, such an approach would require levels of political courage and restraint which haven't been seen in the USA since the end of WW2. Far easier just to drop some bunker-busters on Al Qaeda installations. Now where was that public enemy number 2 hiding again?
