Friday, October 27, 2006

If We Caught bin Laden Would the War Be Over?

In Hunting Bin Laden?, Michael Smerconish in the Huffington Post wonders how hard we're actually working to find bin Laden. He was one of 45 civilians to visit the region for a week:

"The daily agenda was packed and the presenters were stellar. We heard from the defense secretary, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the vice admiral of CENTCOM and other high-ranking war commanders. Our days began at 5 or 6 a.m. and didn't end until 10 or 11 p.m. We traveled 15,000 miles and spent time in four nations. We ate meals with soldiers, fired the best of the Army weaponry in the desert, toured classified Air Force surveillance aircraft and were educated about the latest in efforts to counteract the dreaded IEDs (improvised explosive devices)."

But when he asked about finding bin Laden, he didn't get any details and he got the impression we weren't doing everything possible. He couches everything by saying he could be completely wrong, but he also raises this question:

"More than one individual with whom I spoke - and no one that I have named here - raised with me the question of what would happen to public support for the war against radical Islam if we were to find and kill bin Laden and al-Zawahiri?"

This is wrong on so many levels I don't know where to begin.

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