Ten Years to Find Osama Bin Laden? Really?
The anti-climactic demise of Osama Bin Laden is my whine today. There is a "too little, too late" feeling after so many lives have been lost, not only due to the direct actions of Al Quaeda, but in the resulting retribution wars based on "Stop Terrorism and Find Osama" that have cost thousands of lives and tens of thousands of serious injuries to our soldiers and fellow human beings. Has all of this truly been necessary? It may be symbolic that the U.S. "took out Osama," but have we really thwarted terrorism this late in the decade? I believe terrorism took on a life of its own after the 9/11 attacks, with no need for an attachment to any Al Quaeda leader, by the vivid example that any few organized people can produce devastating destruction if they so choose. Didn't Timothy McVay demonstrate the same ability in Oklahoma City?
The idea that Al Quaeda was some sophisticated, well organized network throughout the world, is a joke now that we have seen the conditions under which Osama Bin Laden was operating for the past five years. A television connected by an extension cord with a sophisticated master mind sitting on the floor wrapped in a blanket watching tapes of himself? He may have been the initial inspiration for inflicting terror on the Western world, put terroristic acts have certainly found their own home grown impetus that has come to have little or no connection with any Al Quaeda spreading network or central directives. I believe the world has figured out that anyone, anywhere can conduct terroristic activity which can be destructive and kill others at any time they want. My son was innocently blown up by two car bombs in an underground office parking lot in Washington, D.C., think of the Atlanta bomber at the Olympics, think of the uni-bomber, think of some of the IRA actions of the past, Columbine, and the bombing of abortion clinics. We may wipe out Al Quaeda, but I don't think that we will ever be able to stop terrorism now that the ease of terroristic opportunity has been revealed throughout the world via the internet. This is a war we simply cannot win, simply because we cannot control the actions of every single person in the world, and the actions of one person is all it takes to perpetrate a terroristic act of devastation.
The real question I now have is what took so long to get Osama Bin Laden? I just don't get it.
If we have drones, satellites, billions of dollars of military combat and survelliance equipment, hundreds of thousands of soldiers, plus the CIA, National Security Council, and secret mission operatives all over the world, why couldn't we have found and killed Osama Bin Laden sooner? Why wasn't that our number one mission in the first place, instead of going to war with a country that had nothing to do with Bin Laden? If a dictator is slaughtering his country's citizens in a form of genocide, why don't we just go in and take him out, as a humanitarian effort? Why is there a moment's hesitation? Think Rwanda, Idi Amin, Charles Taylor, The Sudan, Hitler,
Serbia, and now perhaps Quaddafi. I must believe that the United States of America with all of its technology and manpower has the ability to find anyone they want and kill them clandestinely, if they so choose. So obviously, there are reasons the U.S. has chosen not to, which we average citizens don't know about. This isn't about some prohibition on invading sovereign nations or actually considering "genocide" a civil war issue of the country where it is occurring. The U.S. has shown it will invade any country it chooses to, whenever it wants, whether or not it truly has a vested interest or its security is truly threatened -- think Vietnam.
The criteria seems to be political timing, natural resources, corporate interests, and, lastly, public pressure as the basis for sitting on the sidelines and not entering the fray, or taking someone "out" in the name of justice and humanitarianism.
The idea that Al Quaeda was some sophisticated, well organized network throughout the world, is a joke now that we have seen the conditions under which Osama Bin Laden was operating for the past five years. A television connected by an extension cord with a sophisticated master mind sitting on the floor wrapped in a blanket watching tapes of himself? He may have been the initial inspiration for inflicting terror on the Western world, put terroristic acts have certainly found their own home grown impetus that has come to have little or no connection with any Al Quaeda spreading network or central directives. I believe the world has figured out that anyone, anywhere can conduct terroristic activity which can be destructive and kill others at any time they want. My son was innocently blown up by two car bombs in an underground office parking lot in Washington, D.C., think of the Atlanta bomber at the Olympics, think of the uni-bomber, think of some of the IRA actions of the past, Columbine, and the bombing of abortion clinics. We may wipe out Al Quaeda, but I don't think that we will ever be able to stop terrorism now that the ease of terroristic opportunity has been revealed throughout the world via the internet. This is a war we simply cannot win, simply because we cannot control the actions of every single person in the world, and the actions of one person is all it takes to perpetrate a terroristic act of devastation.
The real question I now have is what took so long to get Osama Bin Laden? I just don't get it.
If we have drones, satellites, billions of dollars of military combat and survelliance equipment, hundreds of thousands of soldiers, plus the CIA, National Security Council, and secret mission operatives all over the world, why couldn't we have found and killed Osama Bin Laden sooner? Why wasn't that our number one mission in the first place, instead of going to war with a country that had nothing to do with Bin Laden? If a dictator is slaughtering his country's citizens in a form of genocide, why don't we just go in and take him out, as a humanitarian effort? Why is there a moment's hesitation? Think Rwanda, Idi Amin, Charles Taylor, The Sudan, Hitler,
Serbia, and now perhaps Quaddafi. I must believe that the United States of America with all of its technology and manpower has the ability to find anyone they want and kill them clandestinely, if they so choose. So obviously, there are reasons the U.S. has chosen not to, which we average citizens don't know about. This isn't about some prohibition on invading sovereign nations or actually considering "genocide" a civil war issue of the country where it is occurring. The U.S. has shown it will invade any country it chooses to, whenever it wants, whether or not it truly has a vested interest or its security is truly threatened -- think Vietnam.
The criteria seems to be political timing, natural resources, corporate interests, and, lastly, public pressure as the basis for sitting on the sidelines and not entering the fray, or taking someone "out" in the name of justice and humanitarianism.
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