May 7, 2011
How Liberalism Killed Osama
As more details come out, it appears that the administration wasn't following its mantra of terrorist-as-crook when it came to executing, no pun intended, the Osama raid.
SEALs are not bloodthirsty killers and if they'd been told to capture Osama no matter what, he'd be sitting in a holding cell somewhere fighting off armies of liberal lawyers trying to represent him and not being recycled at the bottom of the ocean.
That doesn't mean that Obama actually ordered the SEALs to kill Osama, just that he didn't order them to capture him at all costs.
From a purely military perspective the best option would be to capture Osama but tell the world he's dead. That way you would get the morale boost associated with eliminating him without generating a never ending quest by terrorists to liberate him -- we won't kill these thousand hostages if you release Osama -- and still be able to wring every last secret out of him even if it took years.
Sadly liberalism rules out this option because there are too many in the administration that would tell the world about an Osama who is being "mistreated" in some prison by being denied a civil trial. Liberalism requires one to put one's own personal beliefs, no matter how minor, over loyalty to your country after all.
What other reasons are there for Obama not wanting Osama to be captured?
Liberals have made it nearly impossible for justice to be served in America when the defendant is political. In those cases where justice does occur, the political show drags on forever and the villains are lauded as heroes by the Left. Look at Mumia Abu-Jamal.
In a country where there was no shortage of lawyers willing to fly to Iraq and defend a mass murdering dictator, does anyone doubt that the best and the most morally impaired of our country's legal elite wouldn't be champing at the bit to get Osama off on a technicality?
Liberalism is at its core an elitist philosophy that castigates the "common" man for silly emotions like patriotism and love of God and country. Liberals believe that they are better because they have a more intelligent and "nuanced" view of the world. Strangely that nuanced view always seems to paint America as the bad guy and criminals as the good guys.
In the toxic waste site that Liberal philosophy has made of our court system everyone knows that even the most obviously guilty of criminals can get off if any miniscule procedural error occurs. By eliminating truth and justice as the objectives of trials and replacing them with a slavish following of arcane rules designed to ensure the worst offender is never without hope of being given a pass Liberals have made it impossible to trust our courts.
Obama learned of this problem when the terrorist Ahmed Ghailani was acquitted of 279 of 280 counts against him. That was a public relations problem because it clearly showed that treating terrorists like crooks wasn't viable.
Currently Obama knows he's losing the hearts and minds of Americans. No one likes $4 a gallon gas and unemployment isn't moving down. It's been two years and no one, other than the folks at the Huffington Post, think it's still all Bush's fault. Obama being the product of the Chicago political machine that he is, is already fixating on the next election. If Obama had nixed the raid and it had leaked he would never get reelected. Liberalism thirsts for power; not being reelected is not an option. There had to be a raid.
But if Osama was captured rather than killed that would have been a major political problem for Obama. If Obama put Osama into some black hole, like Gitmo, the left and the Muslim world -- about whom he seems to care more than American voters -- would be at his throat. But if Obama put Osama up for trial and Americans saw a bloodthirsty terrorist murderer getting the benefit of all of the insanity that is modern American law the consequences would be even worse.
We don't know if Obama ordered an execution but it's clear that Obama's approach to the war on terror and his fellow liberals approach to the criminal justice system made it difficult to capture Osama and interrogate him.
Of course the solution is there, military tribunals. But the liberals' distaste for the military and their ingrained sympathy for the offenders have so far outweighed liberals concerns for the victims of terrorism.
It will be interesting to see if liberals' desire to ensure Obama's reelection will cause them to get serious about dealing with captured terrorists. Sadly it appears that as of now liberals believe that because Osama was killed on Obama's watch change won't be necessary. But a major legal fiasco between now and 2012 could change that.