Although I was disturbed about the cheering and chanting I witnessed last night in response to the death of Osama bin Laden, this weekend was nonetheless a great day for America and the world. Obama and all of us should be proud of this accomplishment and, with any luck, this will help to bring some closure to a country that's lived in the shadow of constant alert and the politicization of 9-11 for unsavory political ends. It's pretty clear that the last administration had little interest in actually fighting terrorism, but instead used the 9-11 tragedy to consolidate conservative power, engage in adventurous wars for the sake of economic gain, and to increase control of the American people through fear, ugly manipulations of patriotism, and the erosion of freedoms and civil liberties. The last administration read Orwell's 1984 and used it as a guide book for the production of a totalitarian state with a "human face". Perhaps this is a step in the direction of regaining our sanity and refounding democracy.
Nonetheless, as I've read comments here at Dailykos and listened to the news, I've found myself disturbed. Throughout comments and diaries, I've repeatedly seen an undercurrent of people suggesting that now that we've gotten bin Laden this entails that we've somehow won or triumphed over terrorism. This, I believe, represents a significant and dangerous misunderstanding about the nature of terrorism and what terrorism is. It's this sort of misunderstanding that got us in these insane wars of adventurism that so many, both here in the United States and in the Middle East, have suffered from.
Before I get to why I believe this is a dangerous and naive way of thinking, I will first say that I don't begrudge anyone feeling joy at the death of bin Laden. While I indeed think it's creepy to celebrate the death of anyone, nonetheless I understand where this impulse comes from. The great philosopher Benedict de Spinoza-- whose book the Ethics, especially parts III and IV, are essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand human nature and politics --remarks that whatever diminishes the power of our enemies causes us to experience joy and that whatever increases the power of our enemies causes us sadness. We see this logic played out here on dailykos everyday in the meta-wars, and we certainly saw this proposition confirmed in the responses of so many Americans yesterday. This reaction came from a very basic and honest place in the souls of our fellow hairless chimps, and there is nothing to begrudge in a bit of joy produced as a result of the destruction of a person who so fundamentally divided us from our power of being and acting in the world.
Nonetheless, the idea that the death of bin Laden is somehow the end marks a dangerous misunderstanding of what terrorism is. Unlike nations that have leaders that can capitulate or be killed, terrorism is a decentralized, non-linear network, without national soil, without fixed location, and, above all, without fixed leaders. Let me repeat: Terrorist organizations have no leaders. This is what it means to say that they are decentralized.
Why, then, is it dangerous to believe that somehow we triumph over terrorists by killing someone like bin Laden? Well it was this way of thinking that led us to believe that military solutions and occupying other countries was a good way of fighting terrorism. Too many of us, democrats and republicans alike, believed that terrorists are located in a particular place and that they have particular leaders. We didn't understand that terrorism is not so much persons and places, but ideas and networks. In other words, we modeled the war against terrorism on the idea of past conflicts we'd had with other nations. As a result, we sent military forces to fight this threat, destroying countless American and Middle Eastern lives, intensifying recruitment, and squandering all sorts of resources in a way that has frightening parallels to what caused the collapse of the Roman empire.
I have been a vocal critic of Obama, but in this case, I believe he did nearly everything right. Obama used intelligence and surgical strike teams to take bin Laden out. As another kossack mentioned, not only did we take bin Laden out, but it's very likely we got all sorts of top quality intelligence. Rather than sending in entire armies, causing chaos and death in the lives of so many people-- thereby very likely increasing terrorist recruitment --he instead engaged in a very targeted attack. Obama, it seems, recognizes that fighting terrorism is more a law enforcement, military, and special ops issue than a military mobilization issue. To this strategy, I would add an additional one: humanitarian aid and infrastructure building for peoples that live in desperate situations. People who have opportunity, people who are flourishing, people who have political control over their lives, I submit, are less likely to find terrorism attractive because they have nothing to lose. It's said that we earn more bees with honey. Increase the power of people to act and these sad and desperate actions look less attractive. Let's hope the American people are collectively learning these lessons.