Obama Sees the End of the War on Terror

The war against terrorism acquires a new dimension after the death of Osama bin Laden. If the United States has not already won, it finds itself in a position that couldn’t be better to bring it to an end and close a chapter that, with less light than shadow, has marked an era of North American foreign policy and has deeply affected the security of many other countries.

“The world is safer now,” Barack Obama concluded yesterday, valuing a success that, among other things, gives wings to his presidency and returns the morale of victory to a nation still sunk in the depression caused by the attacks of September 11. Vengeance has been accomplished. With the perseverance of countries that have blind faith in their historic destiny, the United States has just brought down the principal person responsible for those crimes and has decapitated the Islamic terrorist movement. Without bin Laden, for whom no successor has emerged, al-Qaida and the organizations born in its environment remain at the edge of the abyss.

The North American administration does not want to take it for granted yet. The first reactions to the death of bin Laden from a shot to the head have been prudent. “The war against al-Qaida and its syndicate of terror is not over,” warned Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But undoubtedly a new sentiment of optimism has gripped the country, if not for having eliminated all risk of a new terrorist action, then for having demonstrated the superiority of the United States. As Clinton also said, “it’s clear that they can’t defeat us.”

The principal national security adviser for the president, John Brennan, affirmed that “al-Qaida may be a mortally wounded tiger that still has some life in it,” but he added that they had “cut off the head of the snake” and that represents “a defining moment in the war on terror.”

Now it will be necessary to protect against a possible revenge by al-Qaida — they have taken emergency measures in embassies and protective measures for other North American interests in the world — and above all, to translate Sunday’s success by a command of special forces to the military and strategic field. That is, they must end the war in Afghanistan in an adequate way and establish with Pakistan and other Muslim countries the level of cooperation that would impede the resurrection of al-Qaida. But the merit of this operation, its long preparation and its impeccable execution constitute a salutary lesson for the fight against terrorism and for the international role of the United States as a whole.

Fifteen Years Searching for bin Laden

Washington has been after bin Laden for 15 years. On one occasion it nearly got him, in the mountains of Tora Bora, a little after the invasion of Afghanistan. But during the greater part of that time there were no clues about his whereabouts. People speculated about his death and gave him up as lost forever. But the United States insisted, convinced that without his head there would never be true justice, and now all that effort has been rewarded and even many of the errors committed during this time can remain hidden.

The worst of those errors, Guantanamo, is paradoxically the source of the information that led to locating bin Laden in an Abbottabad mansion, 60 kilometers from Islamabad. According to the official version, one of the detainees in that prison revealed last August the code name of a messenger of bin Laden, whom the CIA identified afterward and followed to the residence in which he ultimately died.

The assault was executed by a command unit of elite Marine SEALs — which corresponds to the English initials for land, sea, and air — that operates under the orders of the Joint Command of Special Forces. The attack lasted 40 minutes. Two helicopters participated, and although one of them broke off, the mission was accomplished without loss of North American lives.

A Strictly U.S. Operation

These are the fundamental facts about the operation that the United States brought about by itself and, according to the version provided by Brennan, without communicating it previously to the Pakistani authorities. The White House tried yesterday to clarify this and other controversial points of this episode.

One of these is, precisely, the knowledge that the Pakistani intelligence service, which has always been suspected for its connections with Islam, had of bin Laden’s presence in a town close to the capital and principally inhabited by retired high officials. Brennan did not wish to speculate about this matter.

He did rule out, however, that the operation was conceived exclusively to end the life of bin Laden. According to Brennan, the assault command was prepared to face the possibility of the leader of al-Qaida deciding to surrender, although it was always considered as “highly improbable.” Instead, in accordance with this version, bin Laden and the men watching out for him offered resistance, and various of them died along with their leader. It’s not precisely known if bin Laden himself used a weapon. It’s only said that he “was involved in the firefight.” The operation’s priority, in any case, was not to save the life of the al-Qaida leader, but to put the command members in the least possible danger.

Brennan gave assurance that the North American soldiers took a lot of care in not killing civilians or innocents. In this regard, it has been reported that family members of bin Laden were living in the assaulted residence, including various women behind whom the al-Qaida leader tried to hide during the firefight, according to the official version.

[Meeting in the Situation Room, or the crisis room, of the White House, Obama and the members of his national security team followed the military operation in real time, which lasted 40 minutes and ended the life of bin Laden, France Presse reports. “It was probably one of the most anxiety-filled periods of time, I think, in the lives of the people who were assembled here yesterday [Sunday],” said John Brennan, principal security adviser to Obama. “The minutes passed like days, and the president was very concerned about the security of our personnel” over the terrain. “But it was clearly very tense, a lot of people holding their breath,” he added.]