Technorati

So to verify to technorati that I, Chris, do indeed control this blog, here goes: XS276M6F5688.

Bin Laden Redux again

Continuing on the same theme, this article is worth reading. It deals with the philosophical issues presented by the rejoicing over Bin Laden's death.  One idea is presented in the article that strikes me as particularly profound. Harvard philosophy professor Christine Korsgaard stated that a commonly held view is that killing in war can be justified as a means of incapacitating an unjust enemy, when all other means are exhausted. Another, common, but more controversial view is that a murderer deserves to die for their actions. If the two desires are conflated, one may come to believe that another person deserves to die merely for being the first person's enemy. Since terrorism has elements of both war and crime, it is not surprising, that in keeping with the aforementioned sentiments, some people would begin to rejoice at Bin Laden's death.
I did not rejoice. I personally feel that while killing may be in some cases justified, it is an act that should be treated with the utmost seriousness. I feel that celebrating a violent death, is a failure to take killing seriously. When we fail to take killing seriously, we start down a slippery lope that ends in unnecessary bloodshed. This is not to say that finding relief in the demise of a dangerous figure is a bad thing. The same goes for black humour; deriving humour from a concept doesn't mean it's not being taken seriously.
I also think that it shows a sickening level of small mindedness, to rejoice at the death of a foe. To me, it indicates that they think there is no fate worse than death. I can think of a few, like a life sentence at ADX Florence, or having your mind erased (it can, and has been done, sort of, go read about MKULTRA subproject 68). It takes a rather small mind to think that either of the above is preferable to death.

Wiscissota

In the about me section, I state that I reside in Wiscissota. This probably confuses some people, so let me explain. The area of western Wisconsin in which I reside is rather cut off from the rest of Wisconsin. We do not recieve any of the Madison or Milwaukee TV stations, but almost all of the Minneapolis- St. Paul stations. This results in a certain amount of isolation from the rest of the state, and also legions of confused Minnesotans at election season, wondering why the Wisconsinites are running political ads in their state.
Some areas, especially the Hudson area, are functionally part of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area. If St. Croix county in Wisconsin doesn't already participate in the Metropolitan Council, a very strong argument could be made for letting them in. Hudson is that intertwined with the twin cities.
Bottom line: The area is functionally part of Minnesota, but politically part of Wisconsin. As a result, somebody thought it would be amusing to refer to the region as "Wiscissota".

Change in appearance

After a few comments about the readability, or lack therof, of this blogs color scheme, I changed it. Hope this works better.

Bin Laden Redux

So, invariably, the question will arise, to what extent is Bin Laden's demise the result of efforts by the Obama Administration, and to what extent It was the end result of actions initiated by the Bush administration. It's also worth remembering that the president only directs the work of others, and not necessarily closely either (Nobody's an expert in everything. Also, an idiot can be surrounded by competent people, who may or may not make up for the idiot's idiocy).  Apparently, he was found by tracking one of his couriers. It seems that we were long aware of this courier's existence, but did not identify him until four years ago. His rough location was determined two years ago, and the exact location of his residence was determined in august. The CIA concluded in February that Bin Laden was most likely hiding there.  And yesterday, this was confirmed.

In apportioning credit between the two administrations and the CIA, it is important to distinguish between actions taken at the request of an administration, and things they would do as a matter of course. From what we're being told, the existence of the courier was learned from detainees at Guantanamo bay. Interrogating terrorism suspects is something the CIA would likely have done without input from the White House. I was  watching ABC last night, and one of the analysts they had on made the point that Bush's anti terrorism policy focused mainly on making the US safer, whereas Obama has actually focused more on neutralising Al Qaida leadership. That suggests to me that while the Bush administration may have been aware of this courier, and their potential to lead us to Bin Laden, it may have been given lower priority than other things. Much has been made about Obama's instruction to the CIA to make the neutralization of Bin Laden its top priority.
That is likely to have been a major factor, but his opponents will likely argue that the groundwork for Bin Laden's demise was laid during the Bush era, and so the credit should go to Bush.
My opinion is that we can only make an informed judgement on the subject with at least 15- 20 years of hindsight.

Bin Laden again

So I read this article in the Guardian this morning. It seems the Mr. Bin Laden was hiding out in a suburb of Islamabad, in a recently built compound that seemed designed to hide people. It was surrounded by twelve foot walls topped with barbed wire, had very few windows, and no phone or Internet connection.
Apparently, the operation was carried out by SEAL team 6. I wonder why them, rather than Delta force, but I guess we'll have to wait on that. According to the article, he "resisted" the SEALs, and was shot in the head. This suggests to me that they wanted to take him alive, but were left with little choice but to kill him.

It's unfortunate that one of the greatest criminals in recent memory should get off so easy, rather than face trial. I think that had he been captured alive and detained, his life would have become a fate worse than death (at least to him). Given his background, and from what we knew of his lifestyle, I don't think he would have adapted well to life in ADX Florence, the federal supermax prison.

Death of Osama Bin Ladin

So Osama Bin Laden is dead. Good riddance I guess, but I would rather have seen him captured alive. I am a bit uncomfortable with the reactions of some people, for several reasons. I don't particularly care for the "War on Terror" rhetoric that's been thrown around over the years, as it A: gives them a prestige they don't deserve, and B: Makes us forget what they really are: criminals. Osama Bin Ladin was a criminal, but many of the announcements of his death seem to forget that. He's been made out to be a powerful evil figure who has the capability to wipe the US out of existence. Yeah, right. Even 9/11 was botched (had they hit the towers a bit later, they could have killed many more people, and why did they never target oil refineries or pipelines, or other such functional targets? they could have done a better job at crowd control on flight 93 too). Many people see this as a triumph of the US over an evil foe. As an internationalist, this view irks me. I feel no loyalty to any country, but to humanity as a whole, and feel that such expressions tend to needlessly alienate other people.
I also feel that the US military, while definitely deserving of it in this case, will receive more credit than it deserves. From what we know at the moment, Bin Ladin was found by the intelligence community, after several years of searching. According to reports, a lead surfaced in august, which was followed, and which led to his death today. Given the above, it seems to me that in this operation, the military functioned solely as a tool of the intelligence community.
I also feel that Bin Laden's death will be little more then a propaganda victory for the US. I think the best case scenario would be his death causing Al Qaida to become demoralized, and as a result, ineffective. Given the decentralized structure of Al Qaida, they seem to be perfectly capable of functioning without much intervention from the top leadership. Historically, that seems to have been one of their strengths.
I do think the reporters got it right when they started wondering whether this would encourage retaliatory attacks. Given their decentralized structure, and wide geographic range, this seems quite possible.
I can't wait till we have greater hindsight from which to examine this.