Scalzi on the passing of bin Laden

The short version: John Scalzi's for it.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2011/05/02/osama-obama-and-us/


> (Image ganked from Andrew Sullivan<http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/05/the-arc-of-justice-live-blogging.html>
> )
>
> *And now, some further thoughts on the death of Osama bin Laden.*
>
> * In a very practical sense, bin Laden’s death doesn’t change anything,
> particularly in the short run. He’s been on the run for years, al Qaeda is
> designed to be decentralized, the scope of our military operations in the
> Middle East far exceed the boundaries of bin Laden’s group. Today we still
> have troops in Afghanistan, and their job there will not be any easier today
> than it was yesterday. The Middle East itself is not the same region it was
> a decade ago; it seems to have developed a home-grown taste for democracy.
> So on and so forth.
>
> But in an existential and psychological sense bin Laden’s death makes a
> huge difference. Dude’s been out there for years, and the fact The Most
> Powerful Country in the World™ couldn’t get to him was an overarching
> narrative frame for much of what else the US did in the last decade. But in
> the end we did get to him, and the frame has changed. No longer was the US
> engaged in a futile pursuit of a man who killed thousands of our citizens
> and would die of renal failure far out of its reach; now the US engaged in a
> ceaseless pursuit, and in the end bin Laden received a form of justice from
> his actions, i.e., an American bullet in (or as seems likely more accurate,
> through) the brain that conceived of 9/11.
>
> Changing the frame from “hapless” to “implacable” means something to us as
> Americans and also, I expect, means something to others as well,
> particularly for the folks for whom “bin Laden is laughing at the US” was
> part of their worldview. What effect the existential impact of bin Laden’s
> death will have on the practical life of the US and the rest of the world
> over the long term is something we’ll get to find out in the coming months
> and years. No matter what, however, bin Laden will still be dead, and that
> has a cathartic, and I optimistically suspect in the long run *useful*,
> finality all its own.
>
> * In the immediate aftermath of Obama’s announcement of bin Laden’s death
> last night I saw some folks on my Twitter feed note that it was too bad we
> killed him rather than captured him and put him on trial. I would have been
> have been happy with that as an outcome, but I can’t say that I would have
> been *happier* with that outcome than what actually happened. Bin Laden
> killed in a firefight with US operatives, none of whom were killed? All
> right then. No complaints on this end and good shooting.
>
> There would have been some pleasure in seeing him in the dock, being
> confronted with his crimes, ably represented by the best defense his money
> could buy, getting buried by the evidence, and then kept in a tiny cell for
> as long as we could keep him alive. But inasmuch as I expect that bin Laden
> was akin to the types who maintain that a fringe on a court flag means its a
> court of the admiralty and therefore can’t try them for tax evasion — and
> was perfectly happy to have murdered lots of innocents in any event — this
> works too. I don’t imagine bin Laden was hoping to spend many days in a
> courtroom, either. In this one thing I don’t feel it to have been much of an
> imposition to oblige him.
>
> * As the image at the top of this entry suggests, the fact that a closet
> Muslim socialist WHO ISN’T EVEN AN AMERICAN is the one who gave the order to
> kill the bogeyman who has haunted the US for a decade will be a terribly
> inconvenient fact for a lot of folks. Well, let it be. If only for it
> moment, it serves to remind us that the job of a president is a serious one,
> while the job of tearing down a president can be done by morons, and often
> is. This definitely puts Obama’s birther jabs at Donald Trump over the
> weekend at the White House correspondent’s dinner in a whole new context; as
> someone else has noted, Obama’s not a guy you want to play poker with,
> because he’s got the straightest face in the business.
>
> People are already speculating what this means for Obama in 2012. I think
> it means that any rumblings about a Democratic primary challenge are now
> done. It also makes it more difficult for the GOP to paint him as Carter II:
> The Quickening, although of course they certainly will try to do so; they
> can’t help themselves, and I think at this point the Democrats would invite
> them to keep trying. In a larger sense, if the economy falters Obama will
> still be vulnerable in his quest for a second term. But if it’s coming
> along, then 2012 won’t be a happy presidential election cycle for the GOP.
> Dude had bin Laden killed. Kind of hard to top.
>


Johne Cook
| http://raygunrevival.com | http://authorculture.blogspot.com |*
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