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In Sunday’s interview with “60 Minutes,” President-elect Barack Obama reaffirmed that “it is a top priority for us to stamp out al-Qaida once and for all,” adding, “and I think capturing or killing bin Laden is a critical aspect of stamping out al-Qaida.” Obama argued that the Saudi terrorist “is not just a symbol” but is rather “the operational leader” of the organization, which he said is still planning attacks against U.S. targets.

Obama’s quiet seriousness of purpose is a welcome contrast with George W. Bush’s swaggering pronouncements about bin Laden being “wanted dead or alive,” or his darkly comic standard answer to the question of why bin Laden has not yet been caught. “He’s hiding,” Bush likes to say.

And for those who believe Bush, obsessed with Iraq, has either not tried very hard or has secretly avoided capturing bin Laden, Obama’s words are probably reassuring. Now American attention will return to the real author of 9/11, and a more determined effort might yield fruit. But the question is whether the new president should really focus his attention on bin Laden, and spend his political capital in a renewed attempt to bring him to justice. There are many reasons why a stepped-up and publicized pursuit of bin Laden may prove costly to Barack Obama.

The first is the danger of failing, just like his predecessor. After the bravado of the early post-9/11 period, and vows to catch his quarry, Bush came up empty. An enemy who struck at the beginning of his first term is still at loose in the Pakistani-Afghan borderlands at the end of his second. (more…)

A letter recently appeared in the Washington Post that got me thinking about John Walker Lindh again. You remember him… The so-called “American Taliban” sentenced to 20 years in prison for “aiding the Taliban”. In reality, Lindh was more likely likely an unwitting victim of an emotionally fragile post-9/11 United States as well as a guinea pig for U.S. torture policy elsewhere.

As it turns out, the FBI allowed Lindh to be abused in various ways, perhaps insignificant compared to incidents in Iraq and Guantánamo, but abuses nonetheless. In retrospect, the revelation that Lindh was subject to abuse should not be a surprise. In the foamy-mouthed ideological environment of Bush’s “War on Terror”, Lindh was just another tool to forward the administration’s propaganda machine. (more…)