Gannett May 02, 2011
Bin Laden's death exacerbates division over Afghanistan strategy
By Chuck Raasch
WASHINGTON - The killing of Osama bin Laden was like chopping off the head of a snake, the nation's top anti-terrorism official says, but it has not yet softened fundamental differences over how to end the war in Afghanistan or fight the war on terror.
At home, bin Laden's death has hardened the positions of those on the political left and right, who see different confirmations of their rationales in Sunday's dramatic events.
The timing and location of bin Laden's death is important. His killing by U.S. Navy Seals at what U.S. officials describe as a relatively luxurious compound near Pakistan's capital of Islamabad comes weeks before a July deadline set by President Barack Obama to begin withdrawing American troops.
That deadline has been much criticized on both of Obama's political flanks, and is now cast in a new, post-bin Laden light.
The location of the al-Qaida leader's demise - near Pakistan's capital, far removed from the squalor that some had speculated he had retreated to - has also raised fresh questions about U.S.-Pakistani relations in the war on terror.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., predicted Monday that bin Laden's death would not accelerate a troop withdrawal timetable, which Obama has previously said would rely heavily on conditions in Afghanistan.
“The president has a timetable to begin the withdrawal out of Afghanistan,” Reid said. “He has indicated that he is going to stick with that. I think that is appropriate.”
Liberals who want to end the war now say the rationale for invading Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, was fulfilled with bin Laden's death.
“That is the single biggest reason we went into Afghanistan: to get Osama bin Laden,” Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said Monday. “… I think the fact that bin Laden is dead makes a better case for moving out.”
But Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, said any decisions “have to be made based on the facts on the ground in Afghanistan.”
Acclerating the U.S. withdrawal “would repeat a mistake that we've made once before when we pulled out of Afghanistan and that region after the Soviets did, and that invited, ultimately, the Taliban and al-Qaida into Afghanistan,” Lieberman said. “And from Afghanistan, they attacked us on 9/11.”
In a joint statement, conservatives Liz Cheney, Debra Burlingame and Bill Kristol said reports that the U.S. was initially tipped to bin Laden's whereabouts by a suspected terrorist in U.S. custody would be a vindication of the controversial interrogation of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. During the 2008 election campaign, Obama promised to close the prison camp in Cuba, saying that allegations of torture there had opened the U.S. to criticism in the Muslim world. But he has kept it open, to the criticism of liberals and praise of conservatives.
John Pike, director of the think tank GlobalSecurity.org, said the status quo has remained largely unshaken by the historic events of the last few days.
“Everybody is going to say that this proves they were right to begin with,” Pike said. “If you were in favor of torture you are still in favor of it. If you were in favor of getting out of Afghanistan, you are still in favor of it.”
Bin Laden's death comes amid democratic uprisings across the Middle East. John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counter terrorism, said Monday that “by decapitating the head of the snake that is known as al-Qaida,” the United States had a prime opportunity to show that the terrorist group is “old news,” and that “terrorism and militancy is not the wave of the future.”
Brennan praised Pakistan for killing or detaining more suspected terrorists than any other country, but he also said that the location of bin Laden's hideout made it “inconceivable that bin Laden did not have a support system in the country that allowed him to remain there for an extended period of time.”
He said the U.S. would pursue all leads to find out if anyone inside the Pakistani government was involved in that support system.
Pakistani officials have said the raid and bin Laden's whereabouts took them by surprise. Their former president, Pervez Musharraf, Monday criticized the raid as a violation of Pakistani sovereignty. But Akbar Ahmed, Pakistan's former ambassador to England, said it was in the interest of both countries to “say this was a U.S. operation and Pakistan did not know about the mission.
”This is a significant moment for both U.S. and Muslim leaders and gives a new, more hopeful, direction to the world,“ said Ahmed, who directs an Islamic studies center at American University.
But others painted a far more troubling picture of U.S.-Pakistani relations in the wake of bin Laden's death. Some, like Pike, believe the relationship between the two countries will now turn more to deeply divisive issues, such as the fear that Pakistan's nuclear weapons would fall into terrorists' hands.
Richard Haass, president of the Council of Foreign Relations, said the U.S.-Pakistani relationship ”has been and will remain one of the most fraught and complicated and difficult bilateral relationships literally that exists in the world today.“
© Copyright 2011, Gannett Co., Inc.
