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Looking for Bin Laden

He brings vital experience to the US administration from the time, post 9/11, when bin Laden became the chief target of US war on terrorism. Secretary Gates has said that failure to ascertain the location of the value target has been the reason no action has been taken so far. It is both ironic and contradictory. It is ironic because to date key US officials and the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown have been claiming Osama’s presence in Pakistan’s restive border with Afghanistan. At least, such claims will now be set aside till telling intelligence points otherwise.

The contradiction arises from the fact that the recent US troop surge for Afghanistan is primarily to hunt down Al Qaeda. If Secretary Gates has finally decided to come clean — to a degree — on the actual facts, it runs counter to President Obama’s war mandate. Even if Osama bin Laden is not the only target, his capture or killing remains the top goal of the US strategy for Afghanistan. It is a war that has been sold as crucial for safeguarding the security of America and the international community. The bigger question is the sheer futility of waging a war for eight years. It has come at a tremendous financial and human cost. With a greater military commitment, at the yearly cost of $ 30 billion, the US has decided to plunge deeper into waters that are getting bloodier and murkier by the day. The surge announcement has come with a withdrawal schedule to appease those at home and partners at war overseas. Obviously, the efforts are aimed at one last push to achieve some semblance of success.

In such a scenario, the frank admission by Gates is a reminder of how clouded the landscape is for the coalition. The recent assessment by Senator John Kerry before the Senate served as an eye-opener, highlighting the grave errors made by Washington at the time of the Tora Bora airstrikes in late 2001. Failure to hunt down bin Laden landed the US in its current predicament. How this may have happened when US forces are not mandated to conduct ground operations in Pakistan 
remains unanswered.

This admission could actually serve US interest if used to probe a larger dilemma that Washington refuses to acknowledge. What does Al Qaeda claim to stand against? The continuing injustices against Muslims and morally and politically inept policies pursued by the US and its allies for decades. It is time to realise that even the elimination of Osama or Ayman al Zawahiri is not going to make Al Qaeda and dozens other such organisations go away.