Springtime For The Regime By Anthony Gregory
(2011-05-06 at 19:02:56 )

Springtime For The Regime By Anthony Gregory

Politically speaking, the Obama administrations double f eature in the
last week - f irst, the revelation of the long-form birth certificate and
now the announced killing of Osama bin Laden - could not have come at a
better time. The presidents approval rating was sinking. His entire
approach to domestic central planning was falling under scrutiny. His
wars were unpopular, especially among his own party. But now two points
of detraction, one rather superf icial and the other cutting more to the
heart of the regime, have seemingly been swept aside. Most folks are
fairly sure Obama was born in the USA. And it is harder for anyone to
question his credentials as a war president or, more fundamentally,
the warfare state in general.

Most Birthers missed the big picture. F irst of all, I would be just as
inclined to trust the private newspapers that announced Obamas birth as I
would a government birth certif icate. More important, a president who
wages unjust wars, bankrupts the country, detains and tortures innocents,
and cracks down on liberty in a thousand ways, becomes no less or more
"legitimate" depending on his country of origin. Constitutionally he
does, perhaps, but the entirety of Obamas agenda runs against the
Constitution, and that would seem to be more pressing.

Yet the scrutiny of Obamas presidential legitimacy was good theater, and
the mainstream protectors of the presidencys honor did seem too eager to
end the fun. They also accused the Birthers of racism, when really they
were essentially the latest manifestation of the technicalitarian
movement - often well-intentioned folks who think that the problem with
government is that someone high up is not following the written law.

Many hardliners were still not satisf ied by last weeks release of
paperwork, which also failed to endear the presidents more mainstream
detractors to him. Indeed, the drama over it as well as the accusations
of racism appeared to harden the anti-Obama right. The declared death of
Osama bin Laden, however, may prove to be diff erent.

To mainstream opinion, Trump seems quite the chump indeed, now that the
circumstances of Obamas birth and Osamas death make the billionaire
appear to be a goofy TV megalomaniac, compared to the homegrown commander
in chief who nonchalantly dismisses his critics claims and then, only a
few days later, tells the American people on a Sunday night that he
hunted down and killed the alleged terrorist ringleader behind 9/11.

This will of course hurt the Republicans, who for some reason tend to win
centrist votes on national security issues. Bush promised to f ind and
capture bin Laden over nine and a half years ago - although, only months
after 9/11, he did say, "I truly am not that concerned about [Osama]. I
know he is on the run. I was concerned about him when he had taken over a
country. I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running
Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban." It was around then
that Bush diverted his and the nations attention to Iraq.

The death of Osama, whose body has reportedly been dumped at sea in
accordance with Islams doctrine that the body must be buried within 24
hours and in supposed fear that a burial site would become a shrine, will
draw suspicion from many who doubt even the basics of the establishment
line on the war on terrorism. Some might f ind it odd, even if the
administrations account is completely accurate, that it chose to get rid
of the evidence so quickly. Perhaps the administration knows this and has
chosen this route merely to assert its prerogative, to show that it is
boss, and to ruff le the feathers of the skeptics.

And I am guessing some conservatives will take the reports at face value
and complain that Obama has ordered that the body disposal follow Muslim
rules. How dare Osama get to pass into the next world this way! It makes
the Ground Zero Mosque look positively red-white-blue-and-Christian by
comparison. Yet moderate conservatives can be heard all over talk radio
cheering on the chief executive and the military for the great success.

Most Americans, in any event, are simply glad that Osama is dead. There
was widespread cheering outside the White House. "USA! USA!" - the anthem
of an uninspired generation of youth. Flag-waving that harkens back to
9-11-01 itself, if not the pre-Vietnam Cold War.

The talking heads will say this vindicates the war on terrorism for the
last decade. It does not. I wrote for LRC f ive years ago: "Osama has
still not been found - not to suggest that even his capture would make
the last f ive years of death and destruction worthwhile. Although even
antiwar Americans were quick to say some organized response was
appropriate to apprehend the 9-11-01 culprits, it now appears that we
would have been better off had the government done absolutely nothing
at all."

And of course, this is still true. Hundreds of thousands of innocents
have died years before their time. Tens of thousands of American soldiers
have been killed, maimed and psychologically scarred for lif e. Priceless
liberties have been trashed. The United States has waged military
operations, major and minor, in Afghanistan, the Philippines, Iraq,
Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, and Libya. Trillions of dollars in resources
have been squandered and destroyed.

Obama describes the operation that f inally caught bin Laden: " The United
States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad,
Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with
extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They
took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a f iref ight, they killed
Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body."

This sounds like a relatively limited exercise, although if anyone
innocent was shot in the crossfire, we can object on those grounds. But
why did it take nine years for the U.S. to carry out a narrowly focused
mission to f ind and kill Osama?

The smarter liberal media are playing this up as a repudiation of the
Bush approach to the war on terror. Yet this only makes sense if Obama
himself had actually repudiated that approach. He has instead tripled
down in Afghanistan, continued the war in Iraq, multiplied the drone
attacks many times over, and continued to treat international law as well
as the U.S. Constitution as f lexible rules in the waging of war and
enforcement of national security. Insofar as Obama is implicitly
admitting none of this was necessary to catch Osama, he should be
criticized for persisting in it, not hailed as a hero of foreign policy
restraint.

Indeed, Obama promises more war: Osamas "death does not mark the end of
our effort. There is no doubt that al Qaeda will continue to pursue
attacks against us. We must - and we will - remain vigilant at home and
abroad... The cause of securing our country is not complete."

So how on earth is Obama diff erent from Bush? Bush soon revealed that
f inding Osama was tangential to the central goals of the war on
terrorism, the vast majority of which were policies that had nothing to
do with tracking him down. Indeed, the Taliban off ered to hand over bin
Laden in October 2001, but Bush did not like the terms of the deal.

Obama, for his part, has said the war must continue even though the
"death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in
our nations eff ort to defeat al Qaeda." If this is not about Osama,
What Is It About??

At least when bin Laden was reportedly on the loose, there was hope he
would f inally be killed and our political masters would end the wars and
invasions of our rights. Yet when Obama triumphantly but coolly took
credit for smashing public enemy #1, he did not declare the TSA was
closing up shop, that Guantánamo was no longer needed, that the Patriot
Act should now expire, that the NSA would stop spying on our
telecommunications, that he no longer needed the presidential authority
to order the summary execution by drone attack of anyone in the world,
including American citizens. The terror threat level is the same as it
has been for years. No, nothing has changed. The U.S. has gone abroad to
slay the monster, killing hundreds of thousands in the process, and now
that the monster is dead the "cause of securing our country is not
complete."

Of course, this means the whole war on terrorism is every bit as phony
as its sharpest critics have always said. If we were really supposed to
tolerate endless wars and domestic depredations to catch Osama, then how
come we do not get full relief now that the government says he is dead?

Moreover, we are still no closer to addressing the principal question
that should have been raised on 9-11-01: Why did they attack us? Even
according to the government, blowback played a key role. The most
conventional of accounts would imply that we should, at a minimum,
rethink the whole of U.S. foreign policy in the Muslim world before
9-11-01. Obama correctly calls Osama a "mass murderer of Muslims" because
al Qaeda has "slaughtered scores of Muslims." What does this make the
U.S. Government, which has slaughtered scores of thousands? This mass
killing, obviously, has long enraged the Muslim world. If the U.S.
continues to bomb and occupy and rule by proxy Muslim nations as it has
for decades, there will always be more Osamas to come. How many
terrorists were created in the ten years it took to kill bin Laden? By
drawing the U.S. into perpetual, debilitating, counterproductive war,
Is Osama Not The Most Eff ective Suicide Terrorist Of All?

Despite these nagging questions, Obama will likely succeed in having it
both ways. It is a huge political win for the president. He caught the
boogieman that the Republicans did not. And now he vows the conf lict will
continue. We are not yet safe. We are still a country at siege. We are
the greatest country on earth, but we can never be free or at peace.

Our Hawaii-born law professor proved himself tougher than the
conservatives - and he will prove himself tougher than his fellow
Democrats who naively think the war will f inally end now. He is also as
good at doublespeak as any of them. A lot can happen from now to the
election, but it will be hard for the Republicans to overcome the
perception that the Democratic president they all accuse of being soft
on Islamic terrorism beat them at their own game.

There is more to the story, but here is the politically relevant
narrative: It is lights out for bin Laden. It is a bad week for Donald
Trump. And It Is Springtime For The Regime.

May 3, 2011

Anthony Gregory is a research analyst at the Independent Institute. He
lives in Oakland, California. See his webpage for more articles and
personal information.

Copyright © 2011 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or
in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.