You Say "bin Ladin", I Say "bin Laden", Let's Call The Whole Thing Off

According to the New York Times, the CIA has shut down a ten year old unit whose primary mission was to hunt down Osama bin Laden and other top al Qaeda operatives.

Now, I am of two minds on this. On the one hand, if they've been searching for bin Laden for 10 years, that means they started about five years BEFORE the nation-transforming events of September 11, 2001 and were thus spectacularly unsuccessful in protecting American lives. After ten years, it's about time to accept that this isn't a successful unit.

On the other hand, have we replaced it with anything? Has our manhunt for bin Laden and his top associates been reduced to one old retired guy in Bermuda shorts walking the desserts of Afghanistan and Pakistan with a metal detector and a tube of SPF 75? (The article does say that the CIA still considers this a priority, but it definitely feels like one more resource being pulled off of a case that should have been successfully closed years ago).

But as is so often the case, the most interesting part of the article is not in the headline, it is in the text. It is in this quote from the article:

The realignment reflects a view that Al Qaeda is no longer as hierarchical as it once was, intelligence officials said, and a growing concern about Qaeda-inspired groups that have begun carrying out attacks independent of Mr. bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Agency officials said that tracking Mr. bin Laden and his deputies remained a high priority, and that the decision to disband the unit was not a sign that the effort had slackened. Instead, the officials said, it reflects a belief that the agency can better deal with high-level threats by focusing on regional trends rather than on specific organizations or individuals.

Consider for a moment what has caused this fracturing of the main group into countless smaller, quasi-independent groups. It is not the events of 9/11. It is not particularly dissension in the ranks at the core al Qaeda group. It is the disastrous and insanely conceived war in Iraq.

We brought a war to the people of Iraq, a country which (although ruled by a bad man) was one of the most progressive and stable in the Islamic world. Women had far more rights in Hussein-led Iraq than they have today. And neither the government nor the people of Iraq had anything to do with our being attacked on that fateful day five years ago.

WE broke their country. WE caused the deaths of untold numbers of Iraqi citizens (estimates ranging from around 30,000 to over 100,000). WE tortured innocent and guilty alike in Guantanamo Bay, abu Ghraib and at other sites around the world. WE made it clear to the world that the main thrust of our war on terror was a war on Islam, whether we admitted it or not, we certainly found it easy enough to substitute one Arab culture for another when it came time to wage the war.

There is absolutely no surprise to be had in the fact that the Islamic world believes we have them, as a whole, squarely in our sights, and so we really shouldn't be surprised that al Qaeda has become a hundred little al Qaedas, all sharing a hatred of us and all drawing inspiration from the grandfather group. The main body of al Qaeda is squarely in OUR sites (at least, so our news would have us believe, how often have we trumpeted the capture or killing of some new number three guy?), tactically it makes far more sense for a new convert to the religion of hating America to form his own group, under the radar and only loosely affiliated with al Qaeda, than to join the main body of the group, already in progress.

We are reaping what we have sown, we dare not fall for anyone claiming this is a success in the fight on terrorism, or a justification for more of the same.

Liam.