Featured Find: Osama bin Laden's American Legacy

Tom Engelhardt discusses Osama bin Laden's real significance:

As is now obvious, bin Laden’s greatest wizardry was performed on us, not on the Arab world, where the movements he spawned from Yemen to North Africa have proven remarkably peripheral and unimportant.  He helped open us up to all the nightmares we could visit upon ourselves (and others) -- from torture and the creation of an offshore archipelago of injustice to the locking downof our own American world, where we were to cower in terror, while lashing out militarily.

In many ways, he broke us not on 9/11 but in the months and years after.  As a result, if we don’t have the sense to follow Senator Aiken’s advice, the wars we continue to fight with disastrous results will prove to be his monument, and our imperial graveyard (as Afghanistan has been for more than one empire in the past).

At a moment when the media and celebratory American crowds are suddenly bullish on U.S. military operations, we still have almost 100,000 American troops, 50,000 allied troops, startling numbers of armed mercenaries, and at least 400 military bases in Afghanistan almost 10 years on.  All of this as part of an endless war against one man and his organization which, according to the CIA director, is supposed to have only 50 to 100 operatives in that country.

9-11 Nine Years Later: America Finds Itself

photo from Reuters

"It wants to occupy our countries, steal our resources, impose agents on us to rule us and then wants us to agree to all this.  If we refuse to do so, it says we are terrorists. When Palestinian children throw stones against the Israeli occupation, the U.S. says they are terrorists.  Whereas when Israel bombed the United Nations building in Lebanon while it was full of children and women, the U.S. stopped any plan to condemn Israel.  At the same time that they condemn any Muslim who calls for his rights, they receive the top official of the Irish Republican Army at the White House as a political leader.  Wherever we look, we find the U.S. as the leader of terrorism and crime in the world." - Osama bin Laden

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That E.D. Kain is So Hot Right Now

I've been reading E.D. Kain for quite some time now (aren't I such a great hipster?), and I've had the opportunity to witness his meteoric rise from twelve posts a day at the League of Ordinary Gentlemen to being profiled by Conor Friedersdorf for the Daily Dish during Andrew Sullivan's hibernation (Cause he's a bear, get it?).  I read Kain's posts on Capitalism, Anarchy & War today (I think that's the first time I've ever typed an ampersand.  Seriously, I had to look for it.) and was absolutely floored: it was as though Howard Beale had been crossed with Mikhail Bakunin, cloned by Norman Borlaug, and then grown by Dame Julie Andrews and John Valjean with Michel de Montaigne as a private tutor a la Aristotle.

Kain:

When our government wages a war overseas against terror or domestically against drugs (or overseas against drugs and domestically against terror) [extremely pithy, emphasis mine] or when they tell you that they’re trying only to stabilize Afghanistan or resolve the conflict in such a way as to make a graceful exit, etc. these are lies.

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We're American, We Don't Discriminate

Mazoon Mosque by jhongdizon.comThe top story on Drudge today is the approval by a community board of a planned $100 million mosque in the neighborhood of Ground Zero.  Understand, despite Drudge's usual hyperbole, that it isn't a mosque on the site of the World Trade center, just in the vicinity.  While I appreciate the emotions provoked by 9/11, this isn't controversial.  Of course a mosque should be allowed in that neighborhood.  While the 9/11 terrorists were Muslims, there is no reason or right to censor, discriminate or restrict Muslim groups in lower Manhattan, or anywhere else for that matter.  We are American, we have inalienable rights and punitive reactions borne of fear or anger are beneath our principles. 

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Our Visceral (Energy) Policy

Please help me live by writing to your Representative about nuclear power. Photo by Norbert RosingIn "No Energy". the Atlantic's Joshua Green writes about the history of environmental disasters - in particular oil spills - spurring on environmental legislation.  There was the landmark 1969 spill off Santa Barbara which gave birth to Earth Day and the National Environmental Protection Act, thereby putting a moratorium on offshore drilling.  And the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill catalyzed the 1990 Clean Air Act, eight years in the making.  Seems pretty straight-forward.

So why does the most recent Gulf explosion have most politicians defending offshore drilling?  Green suggests that the Democrats have put all their eggs in one basket with the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman Climate Bill, viewed as a final Hail Mary attempt to regulate carbon emissions during this session of Congress.  The bill is a two-headed monster of a compromise, pushing for nuclear energy and offshore drilling investments while simultaneously starting implementation of a cap-and-trade scheme for electrical utilities and gradually expanding to other industries.  The rush to defend offshore drilling is par for the course for soulless Republicans and political maneuvering for sneaky Democrats.  God (or BP) clearly doesn't care.

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Eagle and Bear: Who's a Hawk?

Russia’s big week in the headlines proved a mixed blessing.  The announced START nuclear arms reduction agreement represented new progress and cooperation with the United States and brought a renewed sense that Cold War clash of civilizations is forever past; meanwhile the graphic violence of the subway bombings demonstrated that Islamic terrorism‘s barbarism has radicalized even the most violent asymmetric conflict in the world with new methods of casual murder.  The stories critically inform one another: the juxtaposition reminds of the opportunities that lie in even slightly improving on policy currently executed counter-productively, even if that just means finding a crappy equilibrium rather than struggling deeper into the quicksand.

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Fantasia and the Narrative Fallacy

As a new parent, I introspect constantly about the impact various media will have on my ten-month-old daughter's neural and moral development.  I seem to find major problems with nearly everything we try watching together, whether it's a disappointment with the Euclidean oversimplifications and anthropomorphism of everything in Inai Inai Baa, or a skeptical wariness of preachy Sesame Street.  While I certainly don't think it's healthy to be obsessed with a particular, fictitious, red monster, I usually convince myself that my criticisms are slightly overbearing, and that, as important as the first year of neurodevelopment is, thirty seconds a week of three triangles and a rectangle suddenly becoming a penguin is not going to force my daughter into a compartmentalized world-view or stymie an appreciation of the profound, true complexity of the cosmos.

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Brookings: How We're Doing in the World

Brookings recently released its annual survey of how the U.S. is doing in the world, a series of indices for the last four years concerning foreign policy and diplomacy as well as global economics and development.  According to the survey, the United States has made considerable diplomatic progress under the Obama Administration in nearly all spheres, while global economic indicators have gotten decidedly worse across the board.  And while this shouldn't surprise anyone, the progress made over the last two years goes to show the enduring power of a cooperative and cordial international stance and good PR, and the statistics highlight several neglected issues.

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Terrorism isn't a Team, it's a Noun

Joe Stack's decision to crash a plane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas can not be divorced from the symbolic weight of that form of violence in this country.  Pretending that he was not aware or did not intentionally intend to parallel 9/11 is willfully naive.  Obviously the scale of the attack was much smaller, and in his suicide note/anti-IRS screed Stack seemed to hint that he only intended to kill himself.  Then again, one quote either hopes for copycat suicides or mass-murder: "I can only hope that the numbers [of people dying for freedom] quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less." Whether or not he intended to kill many people, or only himself, his actions speak for themselves: this was terrorism.  He flew a plane filled with gasoline into a building and murdered someone to make a political point.  

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Osama bin Laden is Conan and America is NBC

The upcoming trial of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed should be used to redefine the War on Terror as being about bringing the perpetrators of 9/11 to justice.

The Washington Post recently reported that al Qaeda Grand Poohbah, Osama bin Laden, has endorsed the failed Christmas Day attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound jet:

The message delivered to you through the plane of the heroic warrior Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was a confirmation of the previous messages sent by the heroes of the Sept. 11," he said of the Nigerian suspect in the Dec. 25 botched attack.

"If our messages had been able to reach you through words we wouldn't have been delivering them through planes."

Directing his statements at President Barack Obama - "from Osama to Obama," he said - bin Laden added: "America will never dream of security unless we will have it in reality in Palestine."

While bin Laden would seemingly make a perfect Bond villain, this is a non-story.

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The Language of Politics: Nuance versus Moral Certainty

Along with a change in legislative direction, President Obama has ushered in a new era of political language.  In stark contrast to President Bush's use of moral language and dichotomies, Obama expresses inclusive nuance, even frequently including a mention of the sincerity of those who disagree with him.  While generally this is an improvement, there are important lessons Obama could learn from his Republican counterpart in framing an issue.

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Reflexively Wrong

The reaction to the failed bombing of a Detroit bound international flight has proven to be more sobering than a fresh reminder that the world is never perfectly secure.  President Obama demonstrated that he will ramp up the useless airport security apparatus to protect his Achilles heel, a second 9/11 that would instantly doom his presidency.  Conservatives embraced Cheney's extraordinary philosophy by complaining that the law wasn't broken.  The media chose to ignore the human interest story - Jasper Schuringa, the heroic passenger who ripped the bomb away from Farouk Abdulmutalla and dragged him out of his seat - in favor of a controversy about what Obama could have done to prevent the attack.

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Sullivan: America Wakes up to the Shift in Global Power

Andrew Sullivan recently wrote a column for the Times Online called "America wakes up to the shift in global power."  Sullivan's column is a response to recent Pew Research Center polls that have found record levels of support for positions on international affairs commonly labeled "isolationist."  According to the polls, 44 percent of Americans feel the U.S. should "go its own way" on international affairs; 49% of Americans believe the U.S. should "mind its own business."  The same poll shows a majority of Americans think of China as the world's pre-eminent economic power and that 47% think Afghanistan will revert to the Taliban after U.S. troop withdrawal. 

Sullivan interprets the polls as showing a new public recognition of global realties.  It is rare for me to disagree with Sullivan, however, I feel the poll results are skewed by disappointment with current U.S. international policy, a populace manipulated by politicians and media, public recognition of American hypocrisy, a poor economy with unsustainable debt, a very short-term perspective, a widespread zero-sum worldview, and a more-interconnected world.  That is to say, the poll results reflect pessimistic dread and misunderstanding more than reality.  That is not to say, however, that America isn't on a dangerous path.  I have clarified my position on America's standing in the world in my article, The Default Power and the Sword of Damocles.

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Bombay: One Year Later

A landmark burns.It has been almost a year since "India's 9/11", the terrorist murders in Bombay – a fitting description considering the similarities.  Both attacks were perpetrated by low-level foot soldiers of larger extremist Muslim conspiracies, spreading out in small teams to maximize the carnage inflicted on the population to achieving the goal of massive destruction and loss of life and paralyze the respective countries with fear.  

The level of technological sophistication employed in organizing and carrying out the attacks was striking.  The terrorists used modern gadgets to coordinate their violence.  Blackberries, anonymous email accounts, GPS tracking systems, and satellite phones all contributed to the methodical precision with which the attacks were executed. A few months after the attack, the Indian government released the transcripts of cell phone conversations between the terrorists and their handlers in Pakistan.  These conversations raise tough questions about the ease with which these attackers were able to enter the country undetected, aided only by common technology and the chilling instructions of their handler.  How difficult is it really to carry out a terrorist attack like the one in Mumbai?

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The Terrorists Never Win- But Neither Do We

On Veteran's Day, it seems fitting to discuss the murder of 13 members of the Army at Fort Hood last week.  To start with the obvious, the Fort Hood murders were despicable and the circumstances, a radical Muslim shooter who yelled ""Allahu Akbar" as he opened fire, were another reminder how fundamentalist Islam can be used as motivation for atrocities.  There have been reports that Nidal Malik Hasan attended the same Mosque as two 9/11 hijackers, vocally had advocated suicide bombing, and had attempted to contact al-Qaeda.  For now, it seems that he acted without informing any organized terror groups of his plan; though clearly the attack itself was planned and not rash or spur of the moment.  For those who believe that radical Islam poses an existential threat to Western civilization the temptation to view the attack as proof that their entries for greater vigilance have been under-appreciated must be alluring.  To succumb to that temptation and make the specific general is wrong-headed and frankly dangerous.  

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