Daschle Concerned About Finding Bin Laden

Democrats are so predictable. For months they have been told that their non-specific 'concerns' about the war on terror were going to hurt them at the polls. But the Democrats ignored that advice, because they really, really hate having to get into the details of defense policy. Primarily because they generally suck at it.

After getting stomped in the elections, they finally latched on to the message that they have to be more 'hawkish' on the war and less obliquely critical. You could almost predict the exact hour at which some top Democrat would come out and try to take a 'hard stand' on defense. But you could also make a pretty accurate prediction that they'd again get it wrong.

Take, for example, Tom Daschle's recent assertion that failure to get Osama Bin Laden is proof that the war has gone badly. Here's a newsflash, Tom: U.S. military policy has never defined success or failure by the capturing or killing of a specific individual, because it can be a nearly impossible task. After all, how many Nazis managed to hide out for decades after WWII, despite the efforts of many countries to find them? How many fugitives are still on the Most-Wanted list, despite the FBI's best efforts to find them?

Osama Bin Laden, if he is still alive, is no doubt holed up in some nondescript location, totally out of sight and effectively out of communication. The fact that his messages are coming in the form of audio tapes probably means that he is in a place very few people know about, where even access to video equipment would be giving too much information away. I wouldn't be surprised if he is located with one or two trusted people, no one else knows where he is, and that his little 'cell' communicates through blind cutouts or other well-known means of sending information without revealing your location.

Most fugitives from justice are found when they make a mistake. They become lazy, or tired of hiding, or complacent. So they go for a Sunday afternoon stroll, someone recognizes them, and authorities are alerted. Osama Bin Laden simply hasn't made any of those mistakes. People far less sophisticated have evaded detection by authorities for very long periods of time.

The hard truth is, Osama Bin Laden may never be captured. The U.S. will probably need a lucky break to get him, or wait for him to make an error in judgement. Does that mean the war is a failure? Of course not. Even if he's alive, his need to communicate through narrow channels in random fashion to avoid detection means that he can't be an effective tactical leader of his organization. He's been reduced to being a vaporous figurehead, unable to walk the streets, organize meetings, transfer personal funds, or do other things that could be traced back to him.

While the capture or killing of Osama Bin Laden would be a good thing all around, and cause me to do a little happy dance on my desk, it is not a prerequisite for winning the war. Just as hunting down every last old Nazi in Argentina was not a prerequisite for declaring victory in WWII. The war will be 'over' when terrorist organizations are no longer able to mount large, expensive, deadly attacks across the world, and when the risk of terrorists getting their hands on weapons of mass destruction is reduced to a small, manageable threat. That is the correct measure by which to judge the success of the war on terror. And by that standard, the Bush administration is doing just fine.

The problem the Democrats have is that the weaknesses of the Bush administration's policies are not easily attacked from the left, because they are the kinds of failures that would be worse in the hands of Democrats. Pandering to unions on homeland security, failure to fire civil servants who are incompetent, large bloated bureaucracies, and a lack of respect for the citizenry's courage, intelligence, and ability to aid in the defense of the country. These are issues on which the Democrats have no credibility, and which would require attacking a lot of vested interests in their party. So they're in a very difficult position as they try to find a Democratic 'voice' on the war effort.