[poof131]

I don’t believe that is an entirely fair characterization of that action. Was the United States not supposed to go after Osama Bin Laden? Hiding in an allied country whose intelligence services derailed previous missions? [1]

I’m impressed by the diligence in trying to make sure your most wanted target is there before taking lethal military action. I’m disappointed by the immediate release of operational details for political expediency.

It is a tragedy that people are refusing vaccinations in Pakistan, but it’s not fair to entirely blame the CIA. At least pass some of the responsibility to the Obama Administration and Pakistan itself. [2]

This current event is different and shouldn't be confused with an actual success. When the intelligence services operate against the people of the United States and its elected representatives, individuals from the Agency should be going to jail. We've allowed far too much intelligence overreach and people need to start being held accountable.

[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_support_system_i... [2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Osama_bin_Laden

[fnordfnordfnord]

>I’m impressed by the diligence in trying to make sure your most wanted target is there before taking lethal military action.

Diligence would have required following through with the vaccination campaign. For pennies they could have vaccinated the kids, and probably evaded detection, but in their haste they carelessly exposed their operation.

> I’m disappointed by the immediate release of operational details for political expediency.

I'm disappointed to see that sad pathetic excuse bandied about in defense of failure and malevolence. The gig was up a long time before the press found out, when they failed to follow through with the vaccination campaign. By allowing the operation to be discovered, they endangered not only potential future operations, but also the safety of aid workers everywhere on the planet.

>It is a tragedy that people are refusing vaccinations in Pakistan, but it’s not fair to entirely blame the CIA. At least pass some of the responsibility to the Obama Administration and Pakistan itself.

It is precisely the fault of the CIA, and not the sitting President because the CIA is responsible for planning its operations. The President doesn't dictate operational details.

[poof131]

I agree with your first point: They should have vaccinated everyone. I don't agree with your second point, way too much information about the operation was released. And your last point I find most discouraging. It's the president who is most responsible for the actions of the government both at home and abroad. It's too easy to blame a 3 letter agency than the leaders we elect for then we would have to blame ourselves.

[lotsofmangos]

It's the president who is most responsible for the actions of the government both at home and abroad.

If you believe that, you'll believe anything.

[mikestew]

> Was the United States not supposed to go after Osama Bin Laden?

Not at any cost, no. Now what with all of the "America...fuck yeah!" rhetoric after Bin Laden was killed, I gather that I might be writing for the minority opinion.

How many kids will die because they now won't be getting polio vaccines? How does that number compare to the number killed at the World Trade Center? If the numbers are comparable, then we figure brown kids have less value than Wall Street bankers? So, maybe apply a value of two-thirds (I'm pulling numbers that have been used in the past) one brown kid for someone working in NYC? If not, then what's the math that we can agree on?

It was all just a revenge killing anyway. Are we now safer with Bin Laden dead? I'm open to opposing opinions, but as far as I can tell we haven't improved anything.

[dan_bk]

> If the numbers are comparable, then we figure brown kids have less value than Wall Street bankers?

We all know we do exactly that, even if we don't like to admit it. Our inaction is the proof.

There are thousands of questions like this one that we should have been asking ourselves for a very long time, but never did, on a societal level.

[poof131]

Of course not at any cost. The irony of this tragedy is that the intent of the operation was to mitigate the possibility of collateral damage and going after the wrong target. I'm pretty sure Cowboy Bush would have been all in at the mention of Osama and never done the vaccination op.

To depict targeting Osama as a revenge killing is not right. I try to empathize with the grievances he had and represents against the US, but I believe the world is better off without him. We don't need people who inspire others to suicide and homicide in the name of religion.

[lotsofmangos]

“Jacques,” he said, “You and I share a common faith. You’re Roman Catholic, I’m Methodist, but we are both Christians committed to the teachings of the Bible. We share one common Lord”

Chirac said nothing. He didn’t know where Bush was going with this.

“Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East,” Bush said. ‘’Biblical prophecies are being fulfilled.”

Gog and Magog? What was that?, thought Chirac.

“This confrontation,” Bush said, “is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a new age begins.”

Chirac was bewildered. The American president, he thought, sounded dangerously fanatical.

After the call ended, Chirac called together his senior staff members and relayed the conversation.

“He said, ‘Gog and Magog.’ Do any of you know what he is talking about?”

Blank faces and head shakes.

“Find out,” Chirac said.

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/10/kurt-eichenwald-50...

[poof131]

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this. Violence in the name of religion is wrong no matter the side. While I disagree with the war in Iraq and only wish the best for the Iraqi people, to draw too much of a parallel between Bush and Osama I wouldn't say is fair.

I also think it distracts from the more important issues: The continuous belief in Washington that they can play with peoples lives like chess pieces and shape a better world through violence. [1], [2]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Life_in_the_Emerald_Ci... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_and_the_Brightest

[lotsofmangos]

Only half of the hawks are playing cynical power games, the rest of them think they are in the middle of a religious war as foretold by prophecy. Unless you understand that many of our leaders and armed forces are literally involved in a crusade, then you will never get a handle on middle eastern policy.

edit - and the most dangerous are those who don't believe, but claim faith for leverage. Those are the people who will go into a 'final war' with an eye on the spoils. The true believer doesn't believe there will be spoils at that point.

[lawnchair_larry]

Who was present for all of these detailed conversations as a source for the author?

[lotsofmangos]

Jacques Chirac has apparently confirmed the account - http://www.alternet.org/story/140221/bush%27s_shocking_bibli...

The original source appears to be the theologian Dr. Thomas Romer, whose expertise was sought to try and work out what Bush was going on about.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/08/gog-magog-and-...

Of course, they all have it wrong. As anybody knows, Gog and Magog are the two giants who defend the City of London on behalf of the Lord Mayor.

http://www.lordmayorsshow.org/history/gog-and-magog

[lawnchair_larry]

What about the rest of the article? The conversations between Blair and Putin, etc.

[srean]

...and I thought this was a scene from a Coen brothers movie, it is that bizarre.

[lotsofmangos]

Ronald Reagan riffing on that theme is equally mental:

"Ezekiel tells us that Gog, the nation that will lead all of the other powers of darkness against Israel, will come out of the north. Biblical scholars have been saying for generations that Gog must be Russia. What other powerful nation is to the north of Israel? None. But it didn’t seem to make sense before the Russian revolution, when Russia was a Christian country. Now it does, now that Russia has become Communistic and atheistic, now that Russia has set itself against God. Now it fits the description of Gog perfectly."

[Symmetry]

Was the United States not supposed to go after Osama Bin Laden?

No, but sometimes the price of a just aim is too high to pay. In retrospect at least the damage to the anti-polio campaign was too high a price to pay for his death, just as nuking the city to get him wouldn't have been justified. I find the mistake they made somewhat understandable since they could easily have failed to foresee the consequences of their actions, but it was still a mistake.

[mikestew]

> I find the mistake they made somewhat understandable since they could easily have failed to foresee the consequences of their actions, but it was still a mistake.

Yeah, like arming Bin Laden when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, who would have guessed? Iran-Contra fallout? To an outside observer, it would appear that the CIA may have a sound tactical approach in many cases, but fails miserably at strategy and long-term view.

EDIT: oh, yeah, and Iran and the Shah (for the youngin's, the movie _Argo_ gives an ever-so-brief bit of background at the beginning). How could I forget about that textbook example of blowback?

[sitkack]

The CIA is !precluded! operationally and I think legally from operating with USAID for this very reason. It wasn't a _mistake_, it was 'not-fucking-caring.'

[poof131]

I agree, the vaccination part of the operation was a mistake. But if the information had been released in 5-10 years the effects would have been less tragic. There are reasons clandestine operations should stay clandestine, at least for a period of time. [1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakil_Afridi

[acdha]

> Was the United States not supposed to go after Osama Bin Laden?

I'm with mikeash on this: sometimes the cost is too high.

For the sake of argument, compare it to more traditional hypothetical trade-offs, starting with what almost nobody would have considered justified:

Would getting Bin Laden have justified dropping a nuke on Abbottabad? … What about conventional bombing the entire city? … the neighborhood? … the block? … that house?

I suspect that the number of bystander casualties most people would consider too high is lower than the number of people who have already died either directly (medical workers) or indirectly (unvaccinated children).

[mikeash]

Killing one guy who isn't even all that important in the organization should definitely not have taken priority over seriously harming polio eradication efforts.

Yes, sometimes you should let the bad guy get away if the consequences of what's required to catch him are worse. This should be obvious, but people's minds shut down when confronted with "terrorism".

[auxbuss]

"... but people's minds shut down when confronted with "terrorism"."

And why is that?

I ask, because, like many here -- well, as few, at least -- I grew up in the UK with the IRA bombing things around me every now and again. These were frequent events. I saw the aftermath of a few of them myself. They were as hideous, as you can imagine.

I narrowly missed being caught up in two. My girlfriend and I had a picnic on the Regent's Park grandstand the day before it was blown up with the military band playing at the time. I suspect that the bomb was right beneath us that day as we ate. Ticking away.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyde_Park_and_Regent%27s_Park_b...

There were almost nightly atrocities on the TV news. It was a constant.

But minds did not shutdown. The public message, conveyed by the media, was to carry on as normal; that to do otherwise was to let the terrorists win. So we did. We kept calm and carried on.

So why are folk, these days, freaking out at the mention of terrorism?

Rationally, we know that the number of deaths from terrorism is tiny compared to almost every other form of death. We know that the probability of being present, let alone injured or worse, at the scene of an act of terrorism is vanishingly small.

What if instead of our politicians and media ramping up the fear factor they instead suggested stoic, silent resistance. What if they said that they had our backs. What if they were positive instead of negative.

Fear of terrorism is irrational, and everyone -- well, the vast majority -- would act accordingly if the politicians and media didn't exploit citizens' fears for whatever reasons they are exploiting citizens' fears.

And, because of this, going back to your point, I agree, killing Bin Laden should never have taken priority over harming polio eradication efforts. Doing so was purely story-building to support political grandstanding. It had nothing to with security or reducing terrorism.

[poof131]

Thank you for sharing your personal accounts. I wish the politicians and the media wouldn't exploit citizens' fears. It's time to end the 'war on terror.'

[mikeash]

"Why" is the big question, isn't it?

It looks to me like a feedback loop. Fear in the populace results in politicians and media responding to and magnifying that fear. Fearful news reporting generates better ratings in a fearful populace, which makes them more fearful. Similarly, fearful political rhetoric garners votes from a fearful populace, which makes them more fearful. This would imply that it's sensitive to small differences in initial conditions.

One thing that I'd bet makes a big difference is the existence and magnitude of other threats. The US and UK are pretty solidly secure right now. There are no major human threats present now or in the near future. Compare with the era you're talking about, in which our countries (and, of course, many others) were perpetually 15 minutes away from total annihilation at the hands of the Soviets, either because they decided to try to take over the world, or just because of some terrible mistake. I imagine one probably doesn't take a terrorist nail bomb too seriously when you legitimately think there's a real possibility that you and everyone you ever knew will be killed in a two-hour-long WWIII.

Perhaps we're geared towards thinking about existential threats, and if one isn't present, we'll magnify whatever we can find.