The United States’ long, bloody occupation of Afghanistan did not significantly help the U.S. find and kill Osama bin Laden, current evidence indicates. Neither did the invasion and occupation of Iraq help in decapitating al Qaeda, it appears. The means of bin Laden’s demise, and the location of his hideout, both undermine the arguments offered for the last decade by hawks who claimed an invasion of Iraq and an imperial presence in Afghanistan would help America smash al Qaeda.
Consider how bin Laden was found. Early reports say the first tip — the code name of a bin Laden courier — came from interrogating top al Qaeda officials Khalid Sheikh Mohamed and Abu Faraj al Libbi. Unlike many Guantanamo Bay inmates, KSM and al-Libbi were not caught in Afghanistan or Iraq. Pakistani intelligence captured them in Pakistan.
It is possible that one of our two wars helped in the next piece of the puzzle — U.S. officials have told the media only “we learned his real name from a different part of the world.” This could mean either Afghanistan or Iraq, but it could also mean Indonesia, Saudi Arabia or even Buffalo, N.Y.
After U.S. intelligence had the courier’s name, though, it was standard intelligence work on the ground in Pakistan to find the compound and determine whether bin Laden was there.
Bin Laden’s capture provides no vindication to those hawks who argued that invading Iraq would provide a treasure trove of intelligence on al Qaeda, nor those who insisted that 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan were a key part of our war on the terrorist network.
“We found bin Laden in Pakistan without troops on the ground,” counterterrorism expert Michael Cohen, formerly of the New America Foundation, told me. “We didn’t need troops on the ground to carry out a very successful operation.”
The location of bin Laden’s compound — a few hundred yards from a Pakistani military school — also deflates another argument of hawks. President Bush said in April that a U.S. exit from Afghanistan would “create a safe haven for terrorists.”
This notion underestimates the capabilities of American intelligence and military forces: Our drones, spies and special forces can strike basically anywhere. But it also ignores the ability of terrorists to hide in plain sight: Bin Laden was not stowing away in some clandestine cave in the wild regions of Afghanistan or Pakistan. He was living within shouting distance of Pakistan’s West Point, possibly since his compound was built in 2005.
Liberal blogger and former hawk Matt Yglesias made this same point: “Trying to physically conquer and occupy territory in order to prevent it from being used by terrorists is extremely difficult, oftentimes counterproductive, unnecessary, and offers no guarantee of success.”
What did help the U.S. weaken and catch bin Laden?
Ousting the Taliban in 2001 was crucial. This cut off much of bin Laden’s operational freedom and cash flow. It also sent a message that any government that openly cooperated with al Qaeda would be destroyed. Finally, it eliminated a “safe haven” in the sense of a training ground — but it didn’t end bin Laden’s ability to operate.
Bin Laden’s death is already giving momentum to our withdrawal from Afghanistan. Many lawmakers, including Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, are using the successful raid to call for a quick drawdown in troops.
Of course it’s not true that U.S. forces were in Afghanistan just to help catch bin Laden. Our 100,000 troops have been trying to bring peace and a stable democracy to that country. After nine years of failure on that front, it’s hard to imagine how we can possibly succeed. In effect, we might have to admit defeat at nation building in Afghanistan.
No U.S. president can admit defeat, though, which is what makes the bin Laden killing so important: The Obama administration now has political cover for a drawdown in Afghanistan. The country could be destabilized by the drawdown, but that won’t necessarily affect U.S. interests, as long as we can still conduct intelligence there.
So, for America’s doves, bin Laden’s killing is good news prospectively. But it’s also vindication. After Sept. 11, the predominant view of doves was that the U.S. should first depose the Taliban, and then deploy additional intelligence operatives and special-ops forces to fight al Qaeda. Anti-war conservatives and liberals argued that an invasion of Iraq and nation building in Afghanistan would distract the U.S. from fighting the enemy that had slaughtered innocent Americans and would try to do so again.
Bin Laden’s death makes us safer by weakening al Qaeda, but it could also make the U.S. stronger by weakening the case for American empire.
Timothy P.Carney, The Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Monday and Thursday, and his stories and blog posts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com.
