We previously discussed the unease that many of us felt with the celebrations that occurred over the killing of Bin Laden and the later use of the killing to bolster the Obama campaign. This discomfort increased recently with an Obama commercial that unfairly suggested that Governor Mitt Romney would not have ordered the operation to go forward. Just in case anyone thought that was a tasteless and baseless campaign pitch by an overzealous Obama aide, the President himself just reaffirmed that message in a press conference with the Prime Minister of Japan this afternoon. It appears that, while the Administration will again bar the release of photos to the media and the public of the operation, they are eager to drag the body of Bin Laden behind the presidential limo to every possible campaign stop.
Recently, Vice President Joe Biden called the President’s ordering the operation as the most audacious plan in 500 years — apparently dwarfing Washington’s crossing of the Delaware and a number of other minor skirmishes. The thrust of these comments is that the President was the brave one to risk the political fallout of an unsuccessful operation.
We previously saw a squabble between Bush and Obama on who can claim part of the scalp of Bin Laden. It is clear that the President has decided to abandon his promise not to engage in excessive celebration or self-aggrandizement over the killing. I suppose there is now regret in the White House that they decide to forgo the taxidermist option in favor of the ocean disposal.
In the press conference, Obama seemed eager to suggest that Romney doesn’t have the guts to kill people, even our most hated enemies.
“I’d just recommend that everybody take a look at people’s previous statements in terms of whether they thought it was appropriate to go into Pakistan and to take out bin Laden. I assume that people meant what they said when they said it. And that’s been at least my practice. I said that I would go after bin Laden if we had a clear shot at him–and I did. If there are others who have said one thing and now suggest they would do something else, then I’d go ahead and let them explain it.
I suppose that explanation will now trigger a contest on how more willing each man is to order killings like some natural-born killer. With Obama recently claiming the right to kill citizens on his sole authority, that could be a dangerous race to the bottom. Romney is already insisting that he would have ordered the same killing.
Former and current Seal members criticized the President for using the operation in a political ad. Here is the commercial that ran in the last week:
The concerted attack appears to be based on Romney’s statement in 2007 that he believe that it was “not worth moving heaven and earth … just trying to catch one person.” That was a reasonable statement and one that many in the military appeared to agree with.
The use of the killing of Bin Laden as a campaign trophy is as unfair to Romney, unseemly of Obama, and unbecoming to the presidency. The President’s remarks this afternoon should be condemned by every citizen regardless of party affiliation.
Here is the press conference:
THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM
by
Emmanuel Goldstein (a.k.a., Osama bin Laden)
Chapter III: War is Peace
…
“What is concerned here is not the morale of masses, whose attitude is unimportant so long as they are kept steadily at work, but the morale of the Party itself. Even the humblest Party member is expected to be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war. It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist. The splitting of the intelligence which the Party requires of its members, and which is more easily achieved in an atmosphere of war, is now almost universal, but the higher up the ranks one goes, the more marked it becomes. It is precisely in the Inner Party that war hysteria and hatred of the enemy are strongest. In his capacity as an administrator, it is often necessary for a member of the Inner Party to know that this or that item of war news is untruthful, and he may often be aware that the entire war is spurious and is either not happening or is being waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones: but such knowledge is easily neutralized by the technique of doublethink. Meanwhile no Inner Party member wavers for an instant in his mystical belief that the war is real, and that it is bound to end victoriously, with Oceania the undisputed master of the entire world.” — George Orwell, 1984
Ouch.
1zb1,
I suggest a shave with Occam’s razor.
“A noun, a verb, and ‘9/11.” Said dismissively of former New York Mayor (and Republican presidential candidate), Rudy Giuliani — by Democratic Senator Joe Biden.
“Osama bin Laden! Osama bin Laden! Osama bin Laden!” Said dismissively of President (and Democratic presidential candidate) Barack Obama — by me.
Given that the last two American presidents — and especially the American military/intelligence establishment — have little but national humiliation and bankruptcy to show for eleven years of profligate butchery in the Middle East, it might seem churlish of me to begrudge them their trophy Muslim corpse. I mean, when something that pathetic passes for the true measure of American “greatness,” a country has to take what it can get. And America will get either Barack Romney or Willard “Mitt” Obama — Tweedledumb or Tweedledumber, without even a “contrariwise” between them. .
When General Tommy Franks pompously declared, “We don’t do body counts,” he of course meant that America does little else. And whether the body-count boast comes out of Obama’s mouth or Romney’s, it won’t signify one thing of value to the world. Just two killer capons crowing at sundown.
Gyges… in the context of some of the the posts i thought you were referring to jill…. my mistake.
as to my original comment i do believe – and I find this issue with jt and many others on this site – is a disconnect between the world we all would like, and the world we have – a disconnect between the real world and the idealized abstract (and even a disconnect between comments and facts). As my old architecture professor in England said to me a few centuries ago about one of my diatribes, “Jeremiah speaks from the comfort of his rolls”.
its not that we don’t talk about issues to help people think about them, but if we don’t set the conversation at least a little bit in reality with solutions grounded in that reality rather then a “wouldn’t it be nice” point of view it diminishes the effort to bring about change. in the end, many of these issues are more complicated then we would like and less simple then we think.
i think the post was rather simplistic for a complicated issue, even for a pacifist.
1zbz1,
JT is Jonathan Turley. The person whose blog this is and in reply to whose post you said, “Yeah, so while Republicans were pushing isolation prior to WW2 and FDR was doing his best to prepare for war and helping the British we should not point that out.
Or what about the fact Romney and the republicans have been attacking Obama on everything he has done in foreign policy – and proven wrong in each case – we shouldn’t point that out either?
So every problem is Obama’s fault and every thing right is off limits?”
Which with seems to be implying that JT is criticizing President Obama for something that he wouldn’t criticize Republicans for. If I misread that, I apologize.
The thing is, this post isn’t about how to beat the Republicans, or how awful the Democrats are, or any other bit of party politics. That’s what you and others bringing into it, this post is about if it’s right to celebrate the death of a human and use it to drum up political support.
The proper response to “You’re soft on Terrorism” isn’t “look at the people the troops have killed,” it’s “look how few terrorist attacks there have been during my administration.”
I read something recently about Dick Cheney demanding an apology from President Obama for criticizing Cheney’s killer-presidency policies before adopting them and making them his own. Possibly the only time in Cheney’s despicable life that he said something defensible.
“I like the squirrel story. It beats picking on President Obama for fighting the war dogs with fire.” TalkinDog
President Obmaa has not fought the war dogs with fire. He has lain down with them and gotten up with their plague-infested fleas.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/30/election-between-obama-and-romney-will-be-boring-and-that-s-fine.html “This campaign will be dull because even with Karl Rove, republican race-baiting isn’t what it was in the days of Lee Atwater.”
Gyges:
I did not suggest this was about bashing Obama… the issue is it a legit campaign issue. Romney/Republicans are trying to use it in their own way as an issue, and obviously they want to diminish anything in the plus column for Obama. Is it a plus or not; do voters consider it a plus; is it legit to suggest – based on past statements – that Romney might have made a different decision; do people think it was a good decision; does it inform us about Obama as a leader and Romney as we decide how we cast our votes; Romney says if Obama is reelected iran will get the bomb but not if he gets elected – is that fair; do the facts support that…. i could go on but you get the idea.
regarding JT, nothing i said attacked her for her position on “killing” or that she was in some way hypocritical. I happen to think its okay to bring people to justice; she apparently does not. i accept her being a pacifist, but i don’t know that is what she is.
i realize there are some who believe 911 was a government plot; the earth is 10,000 years old; and christianity is gods one true religion, or is it judaism, or islam, hindu, or you name it. Seriously, the point is none of us can ultimately be sure of anything. And since none of us know first hand the facts for sure (any more then most everything in our life) it is certainly in the realm of possibility that Bin Laden was a nice old man that never did a thing. I’m satisfied by the legal standard of beyond a reasonable doubt an all the evidence available to me as a layman, the sun is at the center of our solar system; 911 was not a government plot; bin laden was the mastermind.
as far as i’m concerned jt can believe whatever she wants, though, given her comments I have to wonder how she can be sure she’s not a figment of my imagination.
Yeah, Obama’s a big, tough fucker; just like boy Bush was a big tough fucker. Yeah. Go America!
Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord. Where have I heard that? Must have been some wimp.
Oh, I forgot, Obama’s going to save us from Romney, so Obama’s guys — who happen to be pretty much the same as Romney’s guys — can can continue the great theft of America. Whatever it takes to win I guess.
l
I have doubts about the whole OBL story.
1. He said he didn’t do 911 and there are plenty of homegrown suspects given the stand down of the military and the destruction of evidence.
2. The man was on dialysis for years. The CIA station chief met with him before 911 when he was mid-east hospital for dialysis treatment. Could he really have lived so long?
3. Burial at sea is a Muslim tradition when so many Muslims live in land locked countries?
4. I find it strange that so many of the team involved in the raid were killed in a helicopter crash shortly after.
I long for Jimmy Carter, a man who preferred diplomacy with words rather than bombs.
Reading the headline I thought there might be at least one good point about Romney but the story shows otherwise.
Thanks talkin and woosty. I am a squirrel hero!
1zb, adding to the excellent analysis of Gyges I will just remind you that you have no idea who the guy was. The govt. gave two conflicting stories about what happened and the body is at sea or maybe it’s at Dover Air Force Base. But honestly, what Gyges says is the far more important point about all of it.
OT Post and I apologize: how does one submit something for consideration?
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_20513736/dna-evidence-clears-colorado-man-who-has-served?_requestid=1399519
commoner I liked your squirrel story. You did the right thing….squirrels make lousy pets and even rehabbing them is a handful as they ‘stay with the family’ for a very long time and need a slow rlease back to the wild. They are cute as a button tho….as for Obama and the Republican nightmare….
http://www.wimp.com/stopnightmare/
1zb1,
‘In the real world its okay to take satisfaction that a really really bad guy…”
You know, there’s a large group of people out there who believe that any violence is wrong.
Aside from that, there are differences between “satisfaction” and “celebration” or “exploitation.”
As for your suggestion that this is all about bashing Obama, I suggest that you read the archives of this site from when Bush the Younger was president. You’ll find that JT has consistently been critical of the use of the war drum as political rhetoric.
jill, in the real world its okay to take satisfaction that a really really bad guy who killed tens of thousands on purpose and would have killed YOU in a second if he had the chance is dead. i can assure you, those who lost loved ones on 911 have no doubts justice was done. bringing people to justice for crimes is not the worst thing we do.
It seems as though Romney and the rest of the GOP keep attacking people rather than arguments. The so called conservatives showing everyone their moral superiority has run it course.
To Commoner and any other squirrel folks on the blog:
I like the squirrel story. It beats picking on President Obama for fighting the war dogs with fire.
I got a three blind mice story. My pal was living in the country in a borrowed home for a short visit. There was this mouse who hung in the bathroom. It was a house built into a hillside and the only light that came into the house was from the front outer wall. So, this mouse had been born in the house and seen no light his young life and was blind. So my pal catches him quite easily and puts him out the front door. Meanwhile, I was sitting on the couch in pal’s absence and two more blind mice came out of the wall into the bathroom and were rummaging around. So I dropped some dog food on the floor for them. The next day my pal (one never calls a human an owner) is getting in the car to go to work and blind mouse is still out in front running into things in the broad daylight cause he cant see. So pal brings him back into the house and puts him right next to the stash of dog food pellets on the floor in the bathroom. We left after a few days and the left the meeses well fed. They were fairly tidy (pooped inside the walls only) and were nice little house guests. Of course we were guests too so the equilibrium was not broken.
I hope that the county is good to them when they come get the squirrels. If you have any doubts about the good intentions of the county there might be a garage nearby for the squirrels.