I realize that a lot of people in the United States’s first choice would be for Osama Bin Laden to be dead. And it’s certainly apparent that as things stand he makes a convenient club for Democrats to beat over the head of the Bush Administration.
I’m doing a temperature check. Would it be better for Osama Bin Laden to be on trial in the United States or hiding out in Waziristan (where he’s not only isolated from the rest of the world, he’s isolated from the rest of Pakistan)?
Uh… I’m gonna go for on trial in the United States. I’m far from convinced that ‘isolation’ hurts the small, nondirect role he plays in the network. He didn’t exactly have a high-tech command center five years ago either.
I think there is a case to be made that Osama is insignificant (and that he always has been) but even so, to prefer that he remain ‘at large’ than have to face justice? That sounds like Bush Derangement Syndrome to me (if catching Osama was a good thing then surely Bush would have done it by now, right?).
Of course, if they give him to the same prosecutors who managed to bungle the Moussaoui case, we might end up with Osama back on the street!
Why are those two the only choices? Is on trial at the Hague one of the possibilities? It may be long and drawn out, but it could usher in the possibility of global condemndation, with a bit of skillful diplomacy, rather than a single voice of condemnation.
Why do you assume that Waziristan is isolation? Haven’t we heard several times about the low tech methods of communication and financing? He didn’t build the airplanes, he send people to where the planes were to hijack them.
neil, my own feeling is that overestimating OBL’s significance in the total scheme of things is a mistake.
dan, the more alternatives the better. If he were on trial in the Hague based on experience he’d no doubt die of old age. And I don’t assume that Waziristan is isolation I conclude it. I’d certainly be open to evidence of its desireability and preferability to, say, Afghanistan, as a center of operations.
Well, then we agree on that. But I still believe that Osama in jail would be vastly preferable to Osama ‘isolated’ in conditions probably very similar to those he lived in in 2000.
It appears that most of his power comes from his ability to make and disseminate video tapes of himself. I’m sure his communication with the network is and always has been through a few trusted lieutenants to whom he probably has as much access as ever. He stopped using his satellite phone in 1998, famously (but not, also famously reported, because of a gov’t leak). It didn’t make him less dangerous.
The only way to isolate him is in a guarded cell or in the grave. The only reason I can think of that his new digs are better than the first option is because a trial would give him publicity, and publicity is his main weapon. I do, however, believe that it would be possible to try him without submitting to the theatre that Moussaoui and Hussein have been allowed to turned their trials into.
I think it’s possible, neil, but I’m not sure that it’s likely, particularly not in an “international tribunal”. From what we’ve seen so far the Hague is theater.
So, in the hierarchy of possible outcomes, there’s dead, imprisoned (and incommunicado). I think, however, that I’d rather he be in Waziristan than have an ongoing (and potentially lifelong) public platform at the ICC.
Keep him in Waziristan. If he were captured and tried, every human rights NGO in the world would get involved, turning thr trial into a circus of unprecedented proportions. Plus protest marchers carrying “Free Osama Now” placards. Plus counter-protesters, who would be accused of Islamophobia.
I said possible, not likely. I don’t think it’s likely either because I don’t think anyone involved would want it to happen. If it proved possible to try terrorists in a court of law and bring them to justice just like the normal criminals, it would undercut the justification for a war without boundaries. It appears that you, too, prefer for the enemy to enjoy his freedom so that we may continue to fight him. I don’t see why — the laws are on the books, the supermaxes are ready and justice is waiting to be served.
Marc Schulman makes me wonder: at what point does it stop being a straw man and start being a fever dream?
And if my dog had wheels it might be a Chevrolet. You probably should read more of what I’ve actually written over the years, neil. I’ve opposed every use of the U. S. military for the last 30 years—including the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. How you conclude from that I’m slavering for a “war without boundaries” eludes me.
I think that our best option in many ways is to catch Osama (or any other really HVT) alive; release no information about his capture; extract whatever information is possible from him in the deepest, darkest hole we can find, for as long as he’s useful; then let his body be found at a politically convenient time, dead from a single bullet to the head, smeared in pig fat or some other manifestation thereof, as an implied warning to others. And never, never, never admit we had anything at all to do with it. The crowing would ameliorate the fear of the unknown, which I think we would want to maximize.
Second best would be live capture, interrogation, and summary execution (pirates don’t get trials).
Third best would be killed while resisting capture.
Bad would be him alive but isolated and unable to control events.
Worse would be him on trial (it would be a complete circus, and likely to severely damage the fabric of American society as the loonies on both sides come out). Not to mention that the last thing we need is Europe blathering on and on about how immoral it is to kill people regardless of what they have done or might do.
Worst would be him alive and in clear control.
My guess is there isn’t enough OBL left to bait a very small fishhook, and hasn’t been since Tora Bora. It is too convenient for both sides in the struggle to have him alive for them to allow him to be dead. (I know, I know, there have been plenty of audiotapes, and even a video, but the jihadis aren’t stupid or underfunded, and those things can be faked.)
Expect OBL sightings to replace Elvis sightings for the next generation.