muckefuck | Beat the Devil

Entry tags:

politics,
rant

Beat the Devil

There was a lot of celebrating in my Facebook feed last night. Then came a flurry of pointed non-celebration, and then after that defensive responses from some of the most celebratory celebrants. I'm not really interested in seeing Round 4, since I don't really find myself firmly in either camp. I don't even feel relief at the news. All in all, it was rather like hearing about the death of a middle-aged television actor you never cared for from a sitcom you didn't watch, like if the guy who played Al Bundy had suddenly dropped dead.

Okay, I guess I'm kind of in the second camp, since the victory-dancing is making me a little queegy. It's not that I'm such a great humanist that I wouldn't be thrilled by the death of somebody, it's just that Bin Laden wasn't even my top ten list of Political Figures Who Ought To Bite It. Moammar Qaddafi, Robert Mugabe, Kim Jong-Il--tell me one of them is gone and you'll see a very different reaction.

What they all have in common, of course, is that they are in positions where a word or two from them means the deaths of hundreds or thousands of people. I'd be content just to see them resign and go into exile, but they've resisted that so stubbornly that their death seems the only way to end their brutality. Maybe Bin Laden was once in a similar position, but from all appearances he wasn't any longer. I can't remember the last time we had a video, a tape, or even a few quoted remarks from him; you'd think if anyone would have something to say about the Arab Spring, he would.

In my mind, he'd long since made the transition from irritating bogeyman to a pathetic has-been squatting in caves. Is being dead worse punishment than that? Well, I guess it denies him news of further al-Qaeda successes. And that gets at the root of my indifference: taking out Kim Jong-Il would by no means guarantee an end to the murderous regime his father established, but it would at least create an opportunity. The death of Bin Laden at this point will do nothing at all to stem Islamist terror; in fact, it may even invigourate it.

That, in short, is why the rejoicing rubs me the wrong way. It's not relief and delight at the removal of a threat, it's taking pleasure in an act of pure vengeance. Worse, it distracts from ugly setbacks like the massive Taliban prison break in Kandahar[*]. How many potential Bin Ladens were in that bunch? We killed a shadow from the past while the monsters of the present are still free to wreak havoc.

[*] Which come to think of it may be a feature rather than a bug for many people, I don't know.

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Sign me up for queegy. Your point is practical and well-made. Mine was merely "don't any of us remember the whole martyr trope we were so concerned about in 2003?"

The alternatives are demonstrating that it's possible to live in comfort after perpetrating an attack against and becoming a mysterious disappeared figure who will One Day Return, so it's not as if there's anything that can't be twisted to the bad guys' advantage. Given that, the one in which it's made clear that you can't just use young fanatics as catspaws forever, while using living well as the best revenge yourself, seems like the least bad option symbolically. It also helps counter the narrative that the US has a short attention span so that if you can keep ahead of us for more than a presidential term or two, you're fine.

(More importantly, it's more clearly just than either of the other two. In this case, it helps that the symbolic aspects don't necessarily run counter to the interests of justice.)

Beyond that, they're doing what they can: e.g., the sea burial, to avoid a shrine. We're also possibly fortunate in the timing, if the theory that Al Qaeda's popularity stemmed from there being no other plausible avenues for change in the Arab world is correct. (Arab democracy movements in 2001 were largely viewed as nonstarters. Not so much in 2011.) Al Qaeda looking like less of a "strong horse" at the precise moment that more potentially productive reforms are taking off is the sort of thing that could actually result in a long run downturn in Islamist terrorism.

(In the short run it could speed up some timetables for immediate terrorist acts. But I seriously doubt there's anyone who's decided that this is the occasion for revenge who wasn't planning an attack yesterday or the day before that. OBL's admirers aren't a quietist lot.)

what pne said. Superstitiously I hope that I can forestall a saint Osama meme from spreading by predicting it - you know the form, he never raised a rifle himself against the Americans, they came into his home, his blood spilled on the Koran when they shot him in an attitude of prayer etc etc.

I imagine the optimal tactic against martyrdom is to discredit/humiliate the martyr. But keeping him in prison or having him face a trial might not have been practical. Having senior government figures openly confess that such was never the intention is bound to cause trouble, though.

But of course you're right that the real question is whether people feel there are viable avenues for political change. Whether they feel that there is anything to lose.

Is the deterrent effect really that great when dealing with a movement which relies on suicide bombing as one of its chief operational strategies? There's a reason why "al-Qaeda retirement plan" quickly became a satirical cliché.

Revealed preferences suggest that enthusiasm for suicide bombing as a personal lifestyle choice rather than as a tactic for others to undertake for the cause is more common among the lower ranks of these sorts of groups.

(For reasons which surely include the obvious selection effects: if you start the year's entering class of jihadis and sort them by genuine interest in personal martyrdom, the leadership cadre available at each opportunity for promotion is going to tend further and further towards the other end of the curve. Though it'll also select for persuasive arguments as to why it's extremely virtuous for George to do it.)

OBL could have had a legendary Bolivian Army ending in Afghanistan circa a decade ago if he'd cared to, or gone about his business with a dead man switch and an "Inshallah" till we caught up with him. Even this week, if he'd taken the trouble to have his estate wired as if it were a Tube station filled with commuters and schoolchildren, he'd have had a decent chance of taking some infidels (and surely some inadequately faithful Muslims) with him into inspiring martyrdom.

So it may be uncharitable to their religious certitude, but I'm guessing that his and his counterparts' preference for living on in their houses over living on in Paradise is real enough to be worth frustrating.

"I don't even feel relief at the news. All in all, it was rather like hearing about the death of a middle-aged television actor you never cared for from a sitcom you didn't watch, like if the guy who played Al Bundy had suddenly dropped dead."

I think this is a really great quote.

The only caveat is I'm a fan of Modern Family, so I'd actually notice if that guy died more than Bin Laden. But I can't remember his name.

Mucke - this is not to distract from your point.

Seriously! This is the important point I was writing in to make.

Also, as someone on my friends list pointed out, "Due process and the rule of law are vitally important to our society, and if they are ever to be bypassed then it must be with extreme care."; she continues to ask, "Was he killed only as a last resort after attempts to capture him and have him stand trial had failed? Was he personally shooting at the US forces he was engaged with, forcing them to retaliate in self defence? Was this done in close collaboration with the government of Pakistan, who were content to allow American military forces handle the matter?"

(Her point 2 is also interesting, I think, but you made it as well.)

If he'd been squatting in caves, we'd presumably not yet have found him. Living in luxury in a mansion in urban Pakistan is somewhat gentler punishment for the worst attack on the US mainland in living memory than being dead, I'd guess.

I disagree, I think killing bin Laden was pretty important. As I was arguing to somebody on Facebook, the power of al Qaeda is the perception that they can win; very few are willing to die for a cause they don't believe can possibly succeed. Every time we drop in and vaporize one of theirs is a psychological victory for our side, and the more protected the target, the bigger the victory. Bin Laden was living inside 3-story high walls under the protection of Pakistan. We strolled in and got him anyway. That is like 20 kinds of awesome in my opinion.

I personally was never worried about the martyr thing, that's part of the whole if-we-tiptoe-carefully-enough-maybe-they'll-stop-hating-us thing that I've never bought.

But the proof will be in the pudding, I guess; if the so-called Arab Street decides his death was a hoax, then we'll know we hurt rather than helped the Islamists.

My reaction was in about this order, 1) AQ will attempt vengeance - in addition to the Prison Break, the Germans just broke up another plot with, what one account described as 100 times the explosives stored up as was used for the London 7/7 attack, they were gearing up for more anyway. 2) I am deeply hard pressed to imagine that the network didn't plan for the contingency of Bin Laden being captured and killed as the signal to unleash attacks. 3) I hope Zardari's security arrangements are tight and I wonder what is going to happen within the ISI 4) I am really hoping they documented the body six ways to sunday or we'll soon hear that AQ is alive along with Jim Morrison and Jimmi Hendrix. Not giving his followers or people of the future a shrine was a good idea. 5) This, I would think allows for consistency on the troop withdrawal schedules, to the extent they are actually complete withdrawals. 6) I have to wonder what this will do to the Democracy movements through out the Arab world, will the remains AQ try to stir stuff up, will they make big dumb clumsy mistakes that allow their networks to be pulled apart by the newly forming governments and the armies that back them.

I am not celebrating his death, not going to miss the sociopathic mass murderer thug. And Mucke, given that Robert Mugabe made it to the beatification of John Paul in Rome this week, I agree its not like there aren't others to contain and neutralize.

Well said!

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