Month: May 2011

Mark Blumental expects Obama's bounce for killing bin Laden to follow historical trends:

The reaction to the arrest of Hussein in 2004 is particularly noteworthy, since it presents the closest parallel to the killing of bin Laden. The chart below shows the trends in all polls compiled by University of Wisconsin Professor Charles Franklin. His trend estimate shows that the capture of Hussein produced a bounce of roughly 5 percentage points in his summary trend line, which estimates the underlying trend represented by all polls (including the aforementioned Gallup numbers). The chart also shows that the increase in Bush's rating quickly dissipated.

Adding to his earlier analysis, Nate Silver questions Blumenthal's parallel:

Is killing Bin Laden akin to the capture of Saddam Hussein, which caused a relatively small and short-lived jump in George W. Bush’s approval ratings? That probably understates the case: Osama bin Laden did orders-of-magnitude more damage to America than Saddam did. But is it tantamount to achieving victory in a war? It’s not that either, exactly: Bin Laden is just a single (very) high-value target in what United States policymakers describe as a global campaign against terrorism.

Jonathan Bernstein believes the bump will be short-lived:

It’s going to be hard to run against Obama .?.?. for the next few weeks. Which doesn’t matter much electorally, since he won’t be on a ballot for the next few weeks. After that, the most likely result is that, assuming no other events intervene, things will return more or less to normal. We have 50 years of data on rally-round-the-flag effects, and what they tell us is that the half-life on these things isn’t very long.

Kit Eaton surveys the science:

In Osama's case, the DNA tests don't necessarily involve a reference sample from the man himself (presumably because it's hard to find), but reportedly from his sister who died in Boston recently. Tissue from her body was used to create an extensive reference DNA fingerprint. Because your parents give you some of their DNA, they also give your siblings some of the same genetic code–which is why sibling DNA tests work. …

But here's the thing: DNA matching isn't an exact science, and sibling matching is slightly more inexact. It all comes down to a probability, with a statement like "there's a one in one quadrillion chance this isn't the same person in both DNA samples." In other words: conspiracy theorists still have something to talk about.

Adam Ostrow notes that Twitter docked "4,000 tweets per second around the time of Obama’s speech, roughly the same amount as sent during the peak of this year’s Super Bowl."

Christopher Preble applauds the zipped lips of government officials:

This episode demonstrates that the government still can keep secrets, even from Pakistani officials who learned of the raid only after it was over. The Wikileaks imbroglio might have convinced some people that such secrecy is impossible. This should put that to rest, at least for a while.

Much of the secrecy surrounding U.S. counterterrorism operations is unnecessary, but not all of it. As I noted last night, it is a credit to the prowess and professionalism of our military, and our intelligence and law enforcement officials, that this operation went off without a single American killed, and with no harm to anyone outside of the compound. That can be explained, in part, by the operational security that was maintained throughout the long period when this location was under surveillance, and as the operation was nearing execution.

A reader writes:

In the photo you ran of servicemembers celebrating at Ground Zero, the guy higher up on the light post is none other than Lt. Dan Choi.  I saw him on the post on television and thought it was him.  Lo and behold, about 20 minutes later he was giving an interview to CNN. He starts speaking at the 7:46 mark of this YouTube video.

The Dish has grouped liberals and civil liberties libertarians together because reactions from both groups overlap significantly. Charli Carpenter's immediate take:

[T]hey’ve done a masterful job at playing the media and making a huge story and enormous nationalistic success out of a single operation in a vast and endless war, that apparently will have no impact on our foreign policy.

Glenn Greenwald:

Whenever America uses violence in a way that makes its citizens cheer, beam with nationalistic pride, and rally around their leader, more violence is typically guaranteed. Futile decade-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may temporarily dampen the nationalistic enthusiasm for war, but two shots to the head of Osama bin Laden — and the We are Great and Good proclamations it engenders — can easily rejuvenate that war love. One can already detect the stench of that in how Pakistan is being talked about: did they harbor bin Laden as it seems and, if so, what price should they pay?

Amanda Marcotte:

I understand the urge to silence and shame people for being ecstatic that we finally got Bin Laden.  The fear that jubiliation could turn into nationalism and then to bloodlust has real world evidence to back it up.  But I would argue that liberals do ourselves no favors by shushing and shaming people's joy.  There's another option that is both more humanistic and more productive in the long run: grappling with this celebratory mood and channeling it toward policy goals such as shutting down Gitmo and getting out of Afghanistan.

Katrina vanden Heuvel:

It is time to end the “global war on terror” we have lived with for this last decade. It is time to stop defining the post 9/11 struggle against stateless terrorists a “war.” And it is time to bring an end to the senseless war in Afghanistan that has cost this nation so much in lives and money. … [W]hat we are engaged in is not primarily a military operation. It’s an intelligence-gathering operation, a law-enforcement, public-diplomacy effort.

Radley Balko outlines how Osama "won":

Yes, bin Laden the man is dead. But he achieved all he set out to achieve, and a hell of a lot more. He forever changed who we are as a country, and for the worse. Mostly because we let him. That isn’t something a special ops team can fix.

Jeralyn Merritt:

Justice is done when someone is apprehended and brought to trial, and convicted or acquitted. Murdering a suspect is not bringing him to justice. What changes Osama's death will bring: Heightened security measures, retributive attacks, and years more of the Government's war on terror and war in Afghanistan and elsewhere. I can understand that people are relieved Osama bin Laden is dead. I cannot understand cheering his murder. Murder is not a cause for jubilation.

Adam Serwer:

Just as al-Qaeda could never defeat the United States militarily, the biggest threat to its ideology was never just American force but Muslims' own desire for self-determination. It is fitting that bin Laden's end should come now, while the Arab Spring brings the reign of less imagined despots to a close. As they usher in their new democracies, we should consider what we've done with ours.

Matt Yglesias tries to kill the "safe haven myth":

On the one hand, no location on earth is actually safe from a United States military capable of deploying special operations troops and a wide array of deadly airborne munitions. On the other hand, people can hide out in all kinds of places. It didn’t take a remote cave or a super-villain lair, it just took discipline. Trying to physical conquer and occupy territory in order to prevent it from being used by terrorists is extremely difficult, oftentimes counterproductive, unnecessary, and offers no guarantee of success.

?Mike Flannigan:

It goes without saying that the world is a better place without Osama bin Laden but that would be to also suggest that the world would be an even better place without a United States that creates monsters the rest of the world has to slay. Osama bin Laden, as stated here earlier, is the ultimate blowback, a perennially unlearned object lesson delineating what happens when we rashly choose, train and finance allies based not on common, noble interests but simply on having common enemies.

Digby:

The US is under threat, to be sure. But it's the threat of a bunch of paranoid opportunists convincing an entire generation that a handful of suicidal religious fanatics are so dangerous that the most powerful nation on the planet must immediately jettison its fundamental values. If killing bin Laden could change that, I'd be celebrating too.

Will Wilkinson:

That America failed for so long to find and kill the devil who led us so successfully into temptation, who delivered us so fully to evil, has left an exceedingly proud people with a suppurating psychic wound. Shooting Mr bin Laden and dumping him in the sea may or may not make Americans safer. Maybe it marks the welcome end of an ugly era. Maybe it marks the start of a fresh cycle of vengeance and destruction. Who knows? Either way, Mr bin Laden's demise makes most Americans feel bettter. It seems to balance the moral scales, which is inherently cathartic. But it also helps us feel strong again. And, perhaps most importantly, it helps us convince ourselves that, in the end, we won the war against al Qaeda. That's something we seem to need to believe, whether or not it's really true. Here's hoping believing it helps. Here's hoping we finally call it a day.

Tristero:

If ever there was a time that Obama could be persuaded to pursue even a moderately liberal agenda – as opposed to a (roughly) centrist/right one – that time is now. It is likely he will never be more popular. If progressive politicians haven't anticipated this moment, and if they're not prepared to make a full court press for those policies that matter to us, they will have failed us and there should be hell to pay. Opportunities this good are very, very rare, and very, very fleeting.

Barney Frank:

Look, part of the argument against this reduction is that it was reputational, for staying in Afghanistan. ‘We can’t look like America was driven out.’ ‘We can’t go away with our tail between our legs.’ All of those metaphors. Well, we just killed Osama bin Laden, and I think that takes a lot of the pressure away — a lot of the punch away from the argument that ‘oh, it will look like we walked away.’”

Charles Lemos:

As he has so often been in the past, Dick "they will welcome us as liberators" and "last throes" Cheney was wrong. We may not see what's going on in the battle against terrorism but this success suggests a diligence and a laser-like focus by the Administration. It again speaks to the competence of the President himself. It is a moment to savor for Barack Obama, and for the nation, though I am sure that for him and his national security team, their focus remains on what is yet to be done, not what has been accomplished.

Oliver Willis:

Democrats have a very strong tradition of being the party that gets things done on national security. Including FDR and Truman in World War 2, or Clinton in Kosovo. When Obama was elected, we were told time and again that he was too weak, that he would be the worst of liberal pacifism, that he was too “other”, too liberal to really take the fight to those who threaten us. Those of us who prioritize national security on the progressive side knew those arguments were bunk. We knew Democrats have what it takes to be commander-in-chief. We know Democrats can take the 3AM call without a second thought.

D. Aristophanes skewers Pam Geller and Paul Waldman critiques Michele Bachmann's fear of "Sharia-compliant terrorism".

The right's reaction to the news is here.

(Image of Fox's homepage via Pensito Review)

Afghans watch television coverage announcing the killing of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at a restaurant on May 2, 2011 in Kabul, Afghanistan. Bin Laden has been killed near Islamabad, Pakistan almost a decade after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and his body is in possession of the United States. By Majid Saeedi/Getty Images.

Joe Klein is fed up with Pakistan:

Pakistan should no longer be regarded as a U.S. ally. Bin Laden was hiding in plain sight, right down the road from a significant Pakistani army facility. They had to know–as Hillary Clinton has been insisting on every recent trip to the region.

Goldblog isn't so sure:

[K]nowing Pakistan as I do (not as well as Steve [Coll] does, to be sure, but I still have a bit of experience there), it is completely plausible to me that Bin Laden was hiding in plain sight, really, actually hiding, without the knowledge of, among others, senior military officials in Abbottabad. Those who assume that certain elements with the Pakistani government knew where he was are assuming that those elements communicated with the actual power centers of Pakistani governance; they assume that Bin Laden ever showed his face in Abbottabad; and they assume the existence of a culture of inquiry and curiosity that doesn't necessarily exist in Pakistan (nosiness in Pakistan only gets you into trouble).

A reader writes:

Obviously one can argue that any president with this type of intel could have and would have done the same as President Obama. Fair enough. Yet, what strikes me the most is this: The C.I.A. tracked down the courier last August to the compound in Abbottabad. By September "the C.I.A. had decided that there was a “strong possibility” that Bin Laden himself was hiding there."

If you recall, this was all happening while Obama and the Democrats were getting crushed in the polls. Any President could have taken the information, simply bombed the hell out of the compound, claimed they killed for Bin Laden for a nice "October surprise" to score political points. Obama not only decided not to do this, but not even a whisper of it leaked out. That to me is something this president could have done and did not do. I'm not sure every president would have done the same.

Apropos the tweet above, Homeland Security has declined to raise the terror alert until it has "specific or credible information to convey to the American public."