Catching bin Laden (or not)

September 7, 2007

The release of the latest video notwithstanding, I am a little confused about the Republicans’ attitude when it comes to Osama bin Laden.

Take Fred Thompson’s reaction to today’s news, for example. (via the DNC)

“Bin Laden is more symbolism than anything else,” he said. “I think it demonstrates to people once again that we’re in a global war.”

“Symbolism”? We’re talking about a terrorist who orchestrated the murder of 3,000 Americans. Why take such a lackadaisical attitude?

For that matter, why do high-profile Republicans keep taking such a lackadaisical attitude?

In April, Mitt Romney also took a rather passive attitude towards the terrorist responsible for 9/11.

[Romney] said the country would be safer by only “a small percentage” and would see “a very insignificant increase in safety” if al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was caught because another terrorist would rise to power. “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person,” Romney said.

Now, I think I know what Romney meant, but it certainly sounded as if he were saying capturing the architect of the 9/11 attacks is too expensive. We looked for him, we let him go at Tora Bora, and now bringing him to justice has proven to be a big hassle. Better to just move on.

To borrow a page from the Republicans’ rhetorical playbook, isn’t this a “defeatist” attitude? For a party that’s supposed to be “tough” on terror, isn’t this kind of complacency about a mass-murdering head of a massive terrorist network conveying the wrong kind of message to our enemies?

Eric Kleefeld argued at the time that a Democratic candidate saying the exact same thing would probably generate national outrage. I suspect that’s right, which is why it’s even more interesting that Romney’s remarks seemed to go almost completely unnoticed.

As, I suspect, Thompson’s will. If Obama said it, it’d be a “gaffe.” If Edwards said, it’d be a sign of “weakness.” But when Thompson and Romney take a dismissive attitude about Osama bin Laden, it hardly raises an eyebrow.

Maybe people are less concerned about OBL than I realize. Six months after the 9/11 attacks, the president who once vowed to get Osama bin Laden “dead or alive” suddenly found the terrorist passé. Far from a commitment to bringing bin Laden to justice, Bush announced, “I truly am not that concerned about him.”

Neither, apparently, is Thompson or Romney. At what point did the GOP decide that bin Laden no longer matters?

Why take such a lackadaisical attitude?

Because the fact that he’s still on the loose makes republicans look bad. Downplaying him is all they’ve got in defense.

  • Obviously, the NeoCon Imperialist agent, bin Laden, is the best boogeyman money can buy. By the way, he’s a man on kidney dialysis in a cave –he’s either dead or intentionally left to be the boogeyman in the Global War On a Psychological State.

    Look at the consumer technology of Google Earth. Now imagine the technology available to the government –we have the technology to find him. I do not buy that he has outsmarted our military and “intelligence” services.

  • At what point did the main stream media not care about pressing the issue? Someone should ask the press secretary every single day, “How’s the hunt for Bin Laden going?” Every goddam day.

  • I think they’re lackadaisical because they think these convenient Osama messages, which get trotted out for 9/11 and presidential elections, are fakes. Which they probably are. Heh.

  • If people focus on OBL, the rationale for Iraq becomes more and more absurd. The wingnuts need to tie 9/11 and the ‘war on terror’ to Iraq. bin Laden is inconvenient to the justification du jour for Bush’s Iraq debacle.

  • There is no need to think hypothetically about “what if a Dem said it.” Howard Dean’s comment about Saddam Hussein was similar in content, but more defensible as it wasn’t Hussein, after all, who was involved in the killing of 3,000 Americans. The Rethugs and their media lap dogs wen’t absofreakinlutely berserk.

  • If this guy is very capable at what he does (motivating and leading people, picking or planning attacks, recruiting people), then it’s not a matter of just another terrorist inevitably rising to power. If there’s not that much of that kind of leadership material around in that terrorist community, then catching Bin Laden is a really big score for our side. And that seems to be the case, since we’ve never had an attack on America like 9/11 before. Regardless of whether someone else planned the nuts and bolts, Bin Laden is the mastermind, his being loose emboldens terrorists more than anything any liberal in America could ever do, and the attempts in the media to say another terrorist was the mastermind look just like what these Republican politicians are doing- playing Bin Laden down, apparently just because we keep failing to catch him under the leadership of a Republican president.

  • Bill Clinton is still getting BBQed because he “missed” Bin Laden in the Sudan, while the Party of Perverts was focused on his sex life and accusing him of wag the dog politics.

  • They got all the use they needed out of OBL so he’s irrelevant to them now. Sadam’s dead and what difference did it make…It would be more useful to the Iraq cause if he were still alive and hiding.

  • Bin Laden is to Al Cuckoo as that Snickelfritz-Gruber guy with the Charlie Chaplain mustache was to Naziism. Those who tried to kill Hitler knew that taking out the “philosophical” symbol of the Nazi State would literally decapitate the Nazi war effort. It’s the same with “Oh-Sammie bin Laugh-a-Lot.” Kill him—and Al Cuckoo unravels.

    Each and every “cell” is like a utility-pole transformer, but bin Laugh-a-Lot is the freaking substation. Shut him down, and all the transformers in the world won’t give you enough jolt to power your kid’s Mickey Mouse nightlight.

    The ReThuglicans know this. They can’t hold power unless they can scare enough people into giving them that power. They need a scary thing—and bin Laugh-a-Lot serves them well. After all, they invented him. He and his whole funky bunch were the end result of the Wax-Russia’s-Ass research-and-development team.
    But here’s the kicker—bin Laugh-a-Lot is walking around with his beard freshly dyed. Since when do high-ranking Islamic fundamentalists who are willing to live in a cave cater to the vanity of hair dye? The truth is—they DON’T—and that alone pretty much proves that bin Laugh-a-Lot is a goose-honking fraud. He’s a dime-store rubber Halloween mask, brought to the United States of America’s Joe and Jane Citizen by your freindly neighborhood GOP….

  • It’s especially bizarre because we’re talking about hawks who are willing to kill millions in revenge for an attack but don’t care about getting the person who was actually in charge of the attack. I think they realize they can do whatever they want as long as he remains at large, but you would think they might try paying lipservice to the idea of catching him.

  • Steve,

    What you say might have been true six years ago but I think if bin Laden were to utterly disappear from the earth now, terrorism will continue to strengthen and grow as long as there’s Bush to focus on and nobody reins him in. HE’s done more to encourage and swell the ranks of terrorism than bin Laden ever did. And unfortunately, ALL American are thrown into the pot with Bush for terrorists-with-a-cause.

  • Shut up and take your prescription drugs, eat your poison food, use up all the non-renewable resources you can afford, turn your back on your health, your environment, your community and your family. Fill your sole with fear and hatred. Become as ignorant and as intolerant to anything and everything that is not familiar to you, and don’t you dare become familiar with anything that is not already familiar to anyone that everyone is familiar with. Forsake your elders for they are nothing more than a financial burden. Do not take responsibility for your self or your children community and family are nothing more than another financial burden. Do not to think about it your self, look outward, to the masses and popular media for all your answers. The truth and happiness is out their somewhere and if you have enough money you can buy it from your favorite corporation or religious institution. If your rich build more wealth and more wealth it will bring you happiness, if your poor take it easy and spend everything you got it will bring you happiness, if your middle class work hard and save your money so it can be taken from you and given to the rich and poor it will bring you happiness. You must let your trusted loving corporations with the help of government do everything for you or The Boogie Laden will kill us all.

  • Thompson is right, it is symbolic. He just doesn’t know of what.

    It is symbolic of the GOP’s and the Bush Sadministration’s impotence in catching those responsible for 9/11, their failures in fighting the broader threat this country (and our allies) faces in the threat from terrorists, and their weaknes in getting anything accomplished foreign or domestic.

  • “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person,”

    If a Dem made a comment like this he’d be smeared as a defeatist AND a certified soldier hater. Remember ReThuglican Talking Point 1,025? We can’t pull out of Iraq because it would be a dishonour to the fallen soldiers. Saying it isn’t worth it to catch bin Laden says that all of the money and lives lost in Afghanistan weren’t worth the bother. But Mittens has shoulders you could land a nuke-laden B52 on and Thompson smells nice so it’s all good.

  • CBR,

    In your previous post, you wrote: “Let’s ignore the bastard.”

    But now you chide the GOP:

    “At what point did the GOP decide that bin Laden no longer matters?”

    Please explain the glaring contradiction.

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