First Thoughts

Like most of us, I assume, I was surprised by President Obama's announcement last Sunday night. The hunt for bin Laden had simply been off my radar. And unlike millions of us, I felt no surge of satiated bloodlust, no urge to run out into the streets beating my chest or chanting the name of my country.

My first thoughts:

1. Pakistan is a problem. Perhaps the problem. Obama made a wise decision in not notifying our "ally" of our plans. Bin Laden was living unmolested for 5 years in a city in Pakistan. Not a cave in Afghanistan, but a garrison town in Pakistan. That Pakistan is far more dangerous and treacherous than Afghanistan is self-evident. That we should probably stop giving them money and weapons is equally clear.

2. Since bin Laden was found and killed in Pakistan, the entire premise of the American war in Afghanistan, the longest in our history, is so profoundly flawed as to be entirely nonsensical. The war in Afghanistan has degenerated into an abattoir fueled by inertia rather than interest. Perhaps the most profound silence this week has been the silence created by the lack of voice urging President Obama to declare victory and leave Afghanistan.

3. It seems clear that the mission was to kill bin Laden rather than to capture him. This was necessary partly because of the staggering logistics involved in invading Pakistan, raiding the compound, and returning safely. It was also necessary, in the government's mind, to prevent bin Laden from having any sort of platform that a trial may ensure or the potential outrage that would ensue if bin Laden were not given a trial.

4. Obama's decision not to release the death photos is understandable, but also based on the profoundly counterrevolutionary (the American revolution being the revolution in question here) premise that the photographs in question are somehow the personal property of the president. This is just one of many elements of the bin Laden killing that resemble the Roman Empire more than the American Republic.

5. The burial at sea in particular was a deeply Roman thing to do. It was as if Caesar had slain the charismatic leader of a barbarian tribe and scattered his ashes to the winds so as to dispirit the slain leader's followers and to erase his very physical memory from the earth. This was a logical decision, but a weirdly ancient and superstitious one.

6. While I do not believe in killing, and while I was deeply ashamed and disgusted by the street carnivals which broke out upon news of bin Laden's death, I cannot argue against the premise of killing him. It stands in stark and ethically appealing contrast to George W. Bush's strategy of invading whole nations of unoffending peoples.

7. Aside from the classless, tasteless, and barbaric nature of them, the most profound reason that the celebrations upon the news were pathetic and disturbing, is that bin Laden probably would not have objected to the outcome. It seems to me that bin Laden would have taken the deal.

Imagine that bin Laden had been offered this deal 10 years ago: You will achieve the most physically and economically devastating attack in the history of the United States. In response, the United States will invade two Muslim nations, spend 2 trillion dollars, lose 6,000 soldiers, kill 1 million Muslims, and eviscerate its reputation and economy. You will then be shot dead by an American soldier.

I feel like he would have taken that deal. Enthusiastically. So while we accomplished something, we should not celebrate the death of this man, especially in light of the awful cost. And we must recognize that our wars still continue and will do so indefinitely. As Churchill said, This is not the end. Nor is it the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.