We are in trouble when the head of state brags about killing someone. This is no longer a political issue.
Killing Osama Ben Laden, has been an obsession of our government since September 11, 2001. I have no issue with this obsession; our country has been violated, fundamentally and profoundly. Our government has take this violation and converted it to a security obsession that has no boundaries, crossing the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, personal dignity and geopolitical sovereignty.
Osama Ben Laden is dead. No politician should or can take credit for this act. The US Military has done their job, eliminated a threat. Can we move on?
From a political standpoint, having a threat serves a useful purpose, it focuses our collective attention to an outside problem, away from the domestic issues that are affecting all Americans. Issue’s like unemployment, run away cost of health care, low or no-growth in our economy, galloping governmental mismanagement of the economy and the acceptance of high risk decision making with little concern about the ramifications of failure.
The way our government deals with a problem is rather simple:
- We identify some symptom that we don’t like
- We create some regulation
- Set up a institution to remedy the “problem”
- Never look back
Funding is set, and overtime the institution grows and takes a life of its own.
This is not what the United States is about. Our government officials both elected and appointed have it all wrong. The government is obsessed with looking like it is doing something to justify it existence. Rather than ask the question over and over again, “Is what we are doing working” and “have we achieved the objective?” The government tries to look like is doing something and justifies its actions without an objective criteria for success.
For this reason, we have created some seriously flawed institutions.