Below is today’s column in USA Today on the death of Osama Bin Laden.
The death of Osama bin Laden has left the United States with a type of morning-after effect. For 10 years, an ever-expanding war on terror has been defined by one central dark figure: Osama bin Laden. It is perhaps not surprising that in a celebrity-driven society, even our wars seemed personality driven. For many, Iraq was about Saddam Hussein. Afghanistan was about Osama bin Laden. With both of these defining figures gone, however, it is time to take account of what has been lost, and what has been gained.
For civil libertarians, the legacy of bin Laden is most troubling because it shows how the greatest injuries from terror are often self-inflicted. Bin Laden’s twisted notion of success was not the bringing down of two buildings in New York or the partial destruction of the Pentagon. It was how the response to those attacks by the United States resulted in our abandonment of core principles and values in the “war on terror.” Many of the most lasting impacts of this ill-defined war were felt domestically, not internationally.
Starting with George W. Bush, the 9/11 attacks were used to justify the creation of a massive counterterrorism system with growing personnel and budgets designed to find terrorists in the heartland. Laws were rewritten to prevent citizens from challenging searches and expanding surveillance of citizens. Leaders from both parties acquiesced as the Bush administration launched programs of warrantless surveillance, sweeping arrests of Muslim citizens and the creation of a torture program.
What has been most chilling is that the elimination of Saddam and now bin Laden has little impact on this system, which seems to continue like a perpetual motion machine of surveillance and searches. While President Dwight D. Eisenhower once warned Americans of the power of the military-industrial complex, we now have a counterterrorism system that employs tens of thousands, spends tens of billions of dollars each year and is increasingly unchecked in its operations.
Just as leaders are unwilling to take responsibility to end the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, we face the same vacuum of leadership on civil liberties. Whether it is groping at airports or warrantless surveillance or the denial of rights to accused terrorists, our security laws will continue to be justified under a “war on terror” that by definition can never end. There will always be terrorism, and thus we will remain a nation at war — with all of the expanded powers given to government agencies and officials.
If bin Laden wanted to change America, he succeeded. Bush officials were quick to claim that our laws and even our Constitution made us vulnerable to attack — even though later investigations showed that the attacks could have been prevented under existing laws. Despite the negligence of agencies such as the FBI and CIA in allowing the attacks, those same agencies were given unprecedented power and budgets in the aftermath of 9/11.
President Obama has continued, and even expanded, many of the controversial Bush programs. His administration moved to quash dozens of public interest lawsuits fighting warrantless surveillance. Both Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have refused to investigate, let alone prosecute, officials for torture under the “water-boarding” program — despite clear obligations under treaties for such action. The Obama administration has continued military tribunals and the Caesar-like authority of the president to send some defendants to real courts and some to makeshift tribunals. The administration recently instructed investigators that they can ignore constitutional protections such as Miranda rights to combat terror. Once the power of the FBI and other agencies were expanded, no one had the courage to order the resumption of lost civil liberties or the return of prior limits on government power or surveillance. It is not the lack of security but the lack of courage in our leaders that continues the expansion of this security state.
The death of bin Laden is not the marker of an end of a period but a reminder that there is no end to this period. For those who have long wanted expansion of presidential powers and the limitation of constitutional rights, bin Laden gave them an irresistible opportunity to reshape this country — and the expectations of our citizens. We now accept thousands of security cameras in public places, intrusive physical searches and expanding police powers as the new reality of American life. The privacy that once defined this nation is now viewed as a quaint, if not naive, concept. Police power works like the release of gas in a closed space: expand the space and the gas fills it. It is rare in history to see ground lost in civil liberties be regained through concessions of power by the government. Our terrorism laws have transcended bin Laden and even 9/11. They have become the status quo. That is the greatest tragedy of bin Laden’s legacy — not what he did to us, but whatwe have done to ourselves.
Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, is a member of USA TODAY’s board of contributors.
Pardon the double post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/02/brennan-we-would-have-taken-bin-laden-alive_n_856541.html
The following excerpt illustrates the extent to which the Obama Administration will go to denigrate the memory of bin Laden with false statements that he was “hiding behind women” at the time of his murder. This Obama’s top counterterrorism person.
{Quote:
“President Barack Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said Monday that U.S. military operatives were prepared to capture Osama bin Laden alive but were “absolutely” ready to kill him when he fought back.
Brennan painted a dark scene of bin Laden’s final moments. He said the al Qaeda leader used one of his wives as a human shield while he was being shot at. “From a visual perspective, here is bin Laden … living in this million dollar-plus compound … hiding behind women who were put in front of him as a shield. I think it really just speaks to just how false his narrative has been over the years,” Brennan said. “Looking at what bin Laden was doing hiding there while he’s putting other people out there to carry out attacks again just speaks to, I think, the nature of the individual he was.”
[UPDATE: Administration officials retreated late Monday from Brennan’s claim that one of bin Laden’s wives had served as a human shield or that bin Laden himself had been firing back at U.S. forces.]”
End Quote}
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/201152121358887979.html The Arab world for the most part does not have a good memory of OBL and would like to move on.
The following excerpt illustrates the extent to which the Obama Administration will go to denigrate the memory of bin Laden with false claims that he was “hiding behind women” at the time of his murder.
{Quote:
“President Barack Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said Monday that U.S. military operatives were prepared to capture Osama bin Laden alive but were “absolutely” ready to kill him when he fought back.
Brennan painted a dark scene of bin Laden’s final moments. He said the al Qaeda leader used one of his wives as a human shield while he was being shot at. “From a visual perspective, here is bin Laden … living in this million dollar-plus compound … hiding behind women who were put in front of him as a shield. I think it really just speaks to just how false his narrative has been over the years,” Brennan said. “Looking at what bin Laden was doing hiding there while he’s putting other people out there to carry out attacks again just speaks to, I think, the nature of the individual he was.”
[UPDATE: Administration officials retreated late Monday from Brennan’s claim that one of bin Laden’s wives had served as a human shield or that bin Laden himself had been firing back at U.S. forces.]”
End Quote}
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/02/brennan-we-would-have-taken-bin-laden-alive_n_856541.html
I updated Michael Moore ever so slightly..
“We like non-fiction. We like non-fiction because we live in fictitious times. We live in a time where fictitious election results gave us a fictitious president. We are now fighting wars for fictitious reasons. Whether it’s the fiction of duct tape or the fictitious ‘Orange Alerts’ we are against war, Mr. president. Shame on you.”
Swarthmore,
you could be right about that. I think what also came into play was that younger people who have only known the world with OBL as the Bad Guy, were relieved to have that “fear” extinguished. Many of the people outside the White House after the announcement looked very young to this old guy.
I think the reaction to OBL’s death was heightened by the fact that only a week ago Obama was considered un-American and had to produce his birth certificate.
Former Fed,
Great link to an interesting article. I agree that some of the uproar after the killing of OBL might have been over the top and a little too nationalistic for my liking, I can’t deny that I was glad that OBL was no longer going to be the face of al-Qaeda. I am also glad that President Obama used American forces instead of lobbing another cruise missile or ordering another Predator drone hit. I agree that Obama has violated the Constitution in the past, but this was the correct action for this particular problem.
Now, I am very interested in seeing what happens now. If Obama uses this moment to get some stones and stick to his withdrawal plan or even accelerate it, we will all be better off.
The money has to stop flowing to two or three wars or OBL will have won by bankrupting the US.
The following single link would not post with my previous comment:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-barack-obama-america_n_856107.html
Bob, Esq.
I am appalled that any lawyer, especially a constitutional lawyer—supposedly so, would state that justice was done through the callus act of clandestine cold-blooded murder. Respecting those who suffered from September 11, 2001 and all of the other lives lost since then, I still cannot understand the celebratory atmosphere displayed by otherwise decent individuals. While I am light-years distant from being perfect, I find repugnancy in the actions of ‘high-fiving’ and ‘toasting’ over any person’s murder.
_______________
{Quote:
“Justice has been done,” a relieved and proud President Barack Obama said in the East Room late Sunday. Americans had shown their unity and determination by bringing bin Laden to justice with a bullet to the head in a suburb compound of Islamabad, he said.”
End Quote}
“The problems with the treatment of OBL as a mythic figure more than a fugitive from justice existed long before Obama took office and into his presidency.”
And that was my point, Bob.
The fix was already in unless Obama wanted to put Bush and Cheney under the legal microscope as well – something he’s said he won’t do (because he’s a spineless two-faced liar like 99% of all politicians under the current CF model).
Buddha,
My comments were strictly limited to a response to Swarthmore mom.
The problems with the treatment of OBL as a mythic figure more than a fugitive from justice existed long before Obama took office and into his presidency.
I stand by what I said.
Bob, Esq. Sometimes the rhetoric is quite similar, but I appreciate the fact that you clarified your position.
Come on, Bob! Everyone knows there’s nothing more racist than a penguin in a top hat. (I kid!) You know I’m not down with letting Obama abuse the Constitution either, but honestly, unless he wanted to put Bush on trial too, do you think Obama had a choice in this matter? As a pragmatic spineless purely Machiavellian political decision? I have to lay the blame on limiting those choices squarely on the torturer’s doorstep. To blame Obama for lacking a spine to do the right thing is a bit like blaming a jellyfish for being slimy. Is he responsible for further degradation of the Constitution? You bet he is. But the not brining OBL to trial thing? Eh, I have to go with the fix was in when Obama got there.
Swarthmore mom,
I’m not anti-Obama; I simply refuse to look the other way while he uses the constitution as a urinal puck.
Those who are truly anti-Obama are the racists on the right who think him nothing more than an “upity nig***.”
Accordingly, it would be greatly appreciated if you didn’t lump me in with the racist right.
FYI:But you knew it was coming,now you know by who:
“Osama Bin Laden – Boal Writing Up Bin Laden Demise For Hurt Locker Follow-Up
03 May 2011 01:32
Boal Writing Up Bin Laden Demise For Hurt Locker Follow-Up
Oscar-winning writer/producer Mark Boal is busy turning Osama Bin Laden’s death into a dramatic climax for his upcoming screenplay about the search for the Al-Qaeda leader.
Boal and his The Hurt Locker partner and director Kathryn Bigelow have been working on the script about operatives on the hunt for bin Laden since they won gold for the 2009 war movie – and now they have a solid ending, according to a Variety exclusive.
Their new film reportedly centres on the team that wound up killing bin Laden on Sunday (01May11).
Sources close to Boal tell Variety that the fire-fight at the compound in Pakistan where bin Laden was found and killed will feature in the film.
The publication reports Boal had been following the mission to seek out bin Laden, thanks to his access to military intelligence.
Casting for the hard-hitting movie is underway and Bigelow is expected to start shooting this summer”
Bob, esq. You have stated many times how anti-Obama you are. Thought you were saying it indirectly again. Obama has had a few good days, and it is bothering his political enemies tremendously.
Swarthmore mom,
Of course, the rule of law can always be boiled down to “how does this affect Obama.”
Give me a break.
Mike Spindell,
Jingoism is the correct term to describe the reaction to bin Laden’s death; I can’t even listen to sports radio without being regaled with the glory of the U.S. killing bin Laden for the past two days.
Let’s face it, if the movie “Patton” is considered jingoistic, you’d be really hard pressed to refuse to use the term while describing the reaction to bin Laden’s death.
Make no mistake, there is a thick air of jingoistic mob mentality — as in don’t you dare say word one questioning this moment of national triumph.
Per the case against bin Laden, I’m not the only one who sees the elephant in the living room. But by all means, if you feel you can provide that which Tony Blair and Colon Powell could not, i.e. a prima facie case against Bin Laden, then by all means please do.
Both I and Mike Appleton will be waiting with baited breath.