OBL Dead. What Now?

I got a text Sunday night at 7:50 saying: “Usama bin Laden dead.  We got the bastard” It took me a few minutes to process the telegram-like text that my sister sent.  I remembered watching 9/11 unfold almost ten years ago and I said out loud, “finally.” I then immediately thought, “what now?”

I answered my own question: OBL’s death is the perfect reason to hasten our exit from Afghanistan.  Although troops are scheduled to start drawing down this summer, there has been a lot of talk about keeping the drawdown to a minimum. I hope this doesn’t happen. We should stay on schedule and start the drawdown in July, and continue quickly, leaving as few troops as possible to train Afghan forces to take over.  The timing of OBL’s death would be a terrible thing to waste.

America is spending billions of dollars a year in Afghanistan and Pakistan with very little to show for it (OSB’s death the exception). An article in the New York Times on Sunday reported on the difficulty and expense of building a road for the Afghans.  Costs skyrocketed because of security: America was not only paying to build the road, they had to pay Afghan tribal warlords to not shoot the people trying to build it!  Afghanistan is not amenable to our help. We are only making their corrupt government officials wealthy; we are not making ourselves safer. Yes, there are still al-Qaeda in Afghanistan but there are al-Qaeda in over sixty countries.  And, yes the Taliban will reemerge and women’s rights will be violated, but women’s rights are violated in Saudi Arabia and we aren’t sending troops there. America’s efforts to root out the Taliban and help the Afghans to a better way of life have been met with folded arms, corruption, and violence. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.

It’s been reported that the Pakistani government was not told about the secret Navy S.E.A.L. operation.  This has to be because of one of two reasons: 1) The Pakistani government is not to be trusted, or, 2) The U.S. did in fact tell the Pakistani government, the Pakistani government ok’d the operation but asked to “deny” knowing.  This way the Pakistani government keeps the American dollars flowing in, but also keeps the Pakistani population happy.  Pakistanis do not like America and don’t want American troops in their country or in Afghanistan. Afghanistan cannot be ridden of al-Qaeda without Pakistan’s help.  The people of Pakistan have been rioting in outrage because we killed OSB; they have no intentions of helping us. Pakistan is number three, behind Israel and Egypt in aid from the United States. Why do we throw money at duplicitous governments with populations that hate us?  You can’t buy love.

President Obama is to be commended for his handling of the OBL situation thus far.  It was a gutsy move to fly into Pakistan and take OBL.  A drone attack would have killed more people and made it harder to identify the body. The decision to bury OBL at sea with a proper Muslim burial was also the right decision. OBL was not deserving of the burial, but it shows the moderate Muslim world that we are civilized and respectful of their religion. There is no good to come from releasing the gruesome pictures to quell any conspiracy theory that OBL may yet be alive.  If people believe the crazy theories, they will believe that the pictures have been faked.

Mr. Obama, bring our troops home and put them on the borders.  Instead of building roads in Afghanistan, take the money and rebuild Detroit or Tuscaloosa. We’ve sent a message to the rest of the world that if you kill innocent Americans we will come after you, we will hunt you down, and we won’t stop until we get you. Now send the message that we are only willing to help those that are willing to help themselves.