Public Approves Of Attack On Osama - Some Give Bush Credit

The above picture was released by the White House. It shows the president deep in thought as he awaits the outcome of the attack on Osama bin Laden's mansion in Pakistan. We know now that the mission was an unqualified success, but at the time it took a great deal of political courage to give the final order to proceed with the attack -- an attack fraught with danger, both to the troops that pulled it off and the president that ordered it.

No matter how well an attack is planned there is always the danger of something going wrong. A perfect example of this is the attack in Iran ordered by President Carter to free the American hostages being held there. That attack went badly awry in the desert of Iran and turned into a political disaster for the president. It made him look incompetent and ineffective and contributed to his defeat in the following election.

But that didn't happen in Pakistan. The attack came off as planned and a vicious criminal was brought to justice -- making heroes of the Navy Seals who carried it out, the intelligence officers who gave them the necessary information, and the president who had the courage to give the final order.

And a new Gallup Poll shows the American people almost unanimously approve of the action taken. A whopping 93% of Americans said they approved of the attack on Osama bin Laden, while only about 5% said they disapproved of it (and the other 2% said they didn't know or refused to answer). While I can understand the 5%, who probably don't believe in the killing of any man, I just can't agree with them this time. I would have preferred putting him on trial before the entire world, but his death is far better than allowing him to remain free for even one more day. He was a mass murderer and had already evaded justice for far too long.

The 93% approval by Americans is not really a surprise. The poll gets a little more interesting when it goes on to ask who the people give credit to for finding and killing Osama bin Laden. Here are the numbers of those who give either a great deal or moderate amount of credit to the following people:

U.S. Military...............98%
The CIA...............88%
President Obama...............71%
George Bush...............52%

I wish a little more credit had been given to the president, but I understand there are a lot of right-wingers (and racists) in this country who just cannot bring themselves to say anything nice about the president (even when he gives the order they have been wanting for many years now). But that is their failing -- not the president's.

I do find it a bit odd that 52% of the people would give George Bush at least a moderate amount of credit. That seems to be more generous than history would support.

Some want to credit Bush's authorization of the use of torture in questioning captured fighters and suspected terrorists. They seem to think the information on Osama's location could not have been developed without the use of torture. That is just silly. Even Donald Rumsfeld, Bush administration official and rabid Bush supporter, discounts this theory. And several former CIA interrogators have testified that no useful information was ever gathered from the use of torture. Torture, as I have said in the past, makes a person tell you what you want to hear -- not the truth.

Others give Bush credit for putting in place the processes used to get at the truth. I guess they are referring to the invasion of Afghanistan (a terrible mistake) and the creation of a military prison at Guantanamo Bay (an even worse mistake). The truth is that this mission could have been planned and carried out (and the information necessary for it) without either of those things happening. In fact, it has become obvious that an intelligence and special forces action accomplished what a war and the use of torture could not.

Although Bush promised Americans that he would hunt down Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice, the fact is that he didn't. And he didn't because it was more important to him to invade Iraq (a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11 and posed no danger to this country). Bush had an absolute obsession with Iraq, so he left the job in Afghanistan half done and pulled out troops to send them to Iraq. The capture of Osama was only a secondary issue for Bush after his initial failure to capture him at Tora Bora (where Osama could have been captured or killed if the Bush administration had sent enough troops).

Frankly, the American people are more generous than I am. I give Bush no credit at all for the killing of Osama bin Laden. He should have done it, but he failed and then turned his attention elsewhere. It took a new president to turn our attention back to the capture/killing of Osama -- and he got the job done.