As I wandered through the blogosphere today I’ve found quite some number of posts and comments expressing ideas to the effect that perhaps now we’ll actually go after Osama Bin Laden. I find this notion puzzling in the extreme. I sincerely doubt that Osama Bin Laden —if he’s alive—had anything whatsoever to do with the attacks in London today. If he’s alive the overwhelming likelihood is that he’s hiding somewhere in the tribal areas of Pakistan, out of touch with everyday operations, and didn’t even know about the attacks and may not know of them yet. As a commenter on the BBC just said, “the people who did this were inspired by Bin Laden”. How will “going after Bin Laden” change that inspiration?
We are not now and never have been engaged in the “War Against Osama Bin Laden”. Nor should we be. Sure, he’s a target but he’s not the only target.
Like it or not our alternatives are very few: accept periodic attacks, remove people who are “inspired by Bin Laden” from our midst (along with a sizeable number of people who might be inspired by Bin Laden), or give the people who are currently inspired by Bin Laden (or might be inspired by Bin Laden) better aspirations than killing us.
