What if?
For the first time in many months, I listened to NPR. As the familiar voices spoke news, I tuned into their intonations, deconstructing them just a bit more. The story was this one. It's not about truth so much as it is about narrative, and in this case NPR's narrative was simple. Isn't it boring that we hear that Al Qaeda's Number Three leader has been killed? How many times have we heard that story? It must be pretty meaningless by now, huh?
I'm not a believer in the Baby bin Laden theory - that terrorist masterminds are behind terrorist masterminds. If you kill one, another one doesn't just magically appear. In every organization of purpose, no matter how decentralized, it is necessary to have loyalty and trust. Loyalty is needed when the leadership is communicating. Trust is needed when the leadership is not communicating. Without these things, a unity of purpose cannot be maintained. These things take time to establish and they are not instantly conferred anywhere, and especially not in such a deadly game as war against America.
Al Qaeda, among the other networks of terror and their radical populist keiretsu of Jihadism now expanding to Turkey, cannot afford to bleed leaders. No organization can no matter how many volunteers are willing to step up to new responsibility. So the news that another top leader has been executed by the Coalition of the Willing, is good, and it will always be good so long as Al Qaeda is the enemy. If every year AQ must find a new defense against our dark arts, it is more than just drama for the narrative - it means back to their drawing boards. These are the reasons their attacks have not equaled the original. Masterminds are hard to come by.
But what if there is another mastermind we don't know about?
By we, I mean we peasants who don't have secret clearances or operational oversight or even straight news about the War on Terror. You know, that narrative the GWBush invented? I asked myself last night a question that our President hasn't spoken about to my satisfaction, ever. What is going on in Iraq and why are we there? I don't know any longer, and yet we are. Without the why, the where and how much and the rest of the details are all fungible. And such is the era we are now living in, an era in which the President of the United States pitches an idea and a concept of the world which is unique to himself and incomprehensible to the rest of us. Shame on us, he would say. I don't know exactly whom we are shooting in Iraq and neither do you; that is because our President doesn't think we should be bothered to know anything other than the fact that he is bringing our troops home ASAP. Remember the campaign. We can do this. So if there is another actual mastermind in Iraq, nobody is saying his name. Nobody we can talk to. Nobody who wants to talk to us.
We do know about Underpants Bombers who get through TSA security. We do know about Shoe Bombers who get through TSA security. We do know about Times Square Bombers who get through TSA security. We do know about this or that GTMO detainee whose rights were violated and we know about the call to Mirandize the world of suspects, but the names of our enemies are illusive. We would be chastised if we were to say it's 'radical Islam'. Too broad. We're supposed to love and tolerate every Muslim. There is no illuminating theory in our new foreign policy. But we do know Osama Bin Laden. He's the unboring Number One.
What if our troops found Osama? I mean practically speaking it should be understood that the reason why we don't find him is because he's got protection in Pakistan and Pakistan is generally off limits to our troops. We found Saddam, and he had a whole army to protect him - Osama's army only needs to be a few loyal and trusted men in the forbidden zone. So surely he is there. But what if?
You and I both know that if we found Osama, it would be all over. It being 'every reason' we are over there. GWBush's war would be declared over and our President would focus more closely on the domestic narratives he believes he has a better chance at controlling. And then so what if there was another mastermind?
Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you Anwar Al-Awlaki.
What do I expect you to do about it? I expect you to remember you are an American and for that reason you are a target of his holy war. And if you cannot remember his name, or the names of the hundreds of his closest followers, maybe you can remember that he exists, is connected and has some time to become a mastermind. Maybe you can remember that the ending purposes of our global war on the Jihadis is not merely a convenient narrative that conforms to a dramatic arc - that it is full of reality and therefore unpredictable and messy. It requires work to combat it, deal with the facts of it, communicate the truth of it. It requires attention to detail, and that if *we* are to be organized and purposeful that we require loyalty when our leader communicates and trust when he doesn't. But for us, as for everyone, such matters take time to establish and maintain.
Is the US Presidency just another Number Three? If not, then where are our principles? And why should I have to tell you what to remember?
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