Dead Or Alive

It's interesting to see the reaction of today's news about the Senate report on the fact that we had a chance to pursue and capture Osama Bin Laden in December of 2001 and simply chose not to do so.

“Removing the Al Qaeda leader from the battlefield eight years ago would not have eliminated the worldwide extremist threat,” the committee’s report concludes. “But the decisions that opened the door for his escape to Pakistan allowed bin Laden to emerge as a potent symbolic figure who continues to attract a steady flow of money and inspire fanatics worldwide.”

The report, based in part on a little-noticed 2007 history of the Tora Bora episode by the military’s Special Operations Command, asserts that the consequences of not sending American troops in 2001 to block Mr. bin Laden’s escape into Pakistan are still being felt.

The report blames the lapse for “laying the foundation for today’s protracted Afghan insurgency and inflaming the internal strife now endangering Pakistan.”

Its release comes just as the Obama administration is preparing to announce an increase in forces in Afghanistan.

The showdown at Tora Bora, a mountainous area dotted with caves in eastern Afghanistan, pitted a modest force of American Special Operations and C.I.A. officers, along with allied Afghan fighters, against a force of about 1,000 Qaeda fighters led by Mr. bin Laden.

The committee report, prepared at the request of Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the committee’s Democratic chairman, concludes unequivocally that in mid-December 2001, Mr. bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, were at the cave complex, where Mr. bin Laden had operated previously during the fight against Soviet forces.

The new report suggests that a larger troop commitment to Afghanistan might have resulted in the demise not only of Mr. bin Laden and his deputy but also of Mullah Muhammad Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban. Mullah Omar, who also fled to Pakistan in 2001, has overseen the resurgence of the Taliban.

Gosh, you mean if Bush had captured OBL then, not only would we not be in Afghanistan now, but he wouldn't have been able to sell the Iraq War to Americans and the world, either?

The reaction from the right so far is textbook: in hindsight, everything is 20/20 and that capturing OBL wouldn't have changed the fact that Islam is the most singularly evil thing on the planet, or something. 

I'll tell you what:  anybody who feels the need to make excuses as to why Bush failed to get OBL in December 2001, please explain that to the families of the 9/11 victims and to the families of all the troops that we've lost since OBL's escape into Tora Bora, not to mention all the families of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi, Pakistani and Afghan civilians lost to eight years of war.  Then, help pay back the trillions of dollars we spent on this little foreign policy exercise.

Thanks.