Bob Barr

To Kill or Not to Kill
If we had Osama locked in target, would we pull the trigger?
by Bob Barr as published in Creative Loafing
Thursday, April 01

Friday, 0930 hours, in a remote region of western Afghanistan, U.S. Marine Sniper Team Delta November Two calls in to Command Post Charlie Zulu.

"Suspect target Big Cheese One believed in vehicle three. In range now."

"Hold tight, Delta November Two. Do not act. Repeat, do not act."

0947 hours.

"Delta November Two, headquarters Washington interested, but requires second confirmation. Can you provide?"

"Charlie Zulu, we have six team members here, all confirmed presence of Big Cheese One, in vehicle three. Visual sighting confirmed. Target convoy still in range but proceeding west rapidly. Is there a problem?"

"No problem, Delta November Two. Requested action requires top legal evaluation from Washington. Have requested expedited review."

0959 hours.

"Delta November Two, please advise if non-target civilians in target vehicle three."

"Charlie Zulu, this is Delta November Two. How the hell should we know if non-target civilians are in target vehicle three with Big Cheese One. Have confirmed Big Cheese One in vehicle. Can we take him out?"

"Delta November Two, as you are aware, SecState and SecDef cannot authorize requested action if non-target civilians in proximity to target. Can you confirm this is not the case so we can proceed with legal advice?"

"Charlie Zulu, forget it. Target vehicle convoy out of range."

Thus might go an exchange between an American sniper team on the ground in Afghanistan, which has confirmed the presence of Osama bin Laden in a vehicle convoy, and the unit's command and control personnel. This exchange, which may or may not be hypothetical, represents the best and the worst of 21st-century warfare.

The weaponry and supportive technical equipment available to our troops in Afghanistan, Iraq and other hotspots around the globe is truly mind-boggling. We can peer inside mountains, track individual vehicles from outer space, target locations from halfway around the world, and take out those targets before the targets even realize they've been "made."

Yet, with all the technical wizardry available to America's fighting forces, our troops continue to be hamstrung by arbitrary policy restrictions. They are hatched and nurtured in the pristine atmosphere of Washington's bureaucratic board rooms, where legal eagles have the final say on virtually every significant decision made in the field. This often means not achieving vital goals because of the time it takes for Washington's wordsmiths to analyze every move six ways to Sunday.

Nowhere, perhaps, is this problem more aptly illustrated than in debates that raged before and after the 9-11 attacks over whether to allow military action to kill top al-Qaeda officials, including the Big Cheese himself, bin Laden. That such questions would even be questions hints at how we needlessly tie ourselves in knots. One reason for such time-consuming and result-denying hand-wringing is the long-standing prohibition on "assassination" of "foreign leaders."

This naive policy, dating back to America's most naive president, Jimmy Carter, was intended to show the world that post-Nixonian America was "kinder and gentler" than its predecessors -- long before George Bush I coined that sappy phrase. The policy, enshrined not in law but in the next best thing, executive order, has caused nothing but problems ever since. It illustrates the folly of allowing Washington bureaucrats to trump military commanders in matters of life and death on the battlefield.

For example, who is a "foreign leader"? Only a recognized head-of-state? The leader of a national or transnational movement, such as a terrorist organization? A rogue military commander?

What is an "assassination"? Would a sniper bullet between the eyes of Adolph Hitler in 1944 have qualified? When does an "assassination" become a "military action"? If we are going to parse such distinctions in the heat of battle, are we not placing form over substance, perhaps with the nation's survival in the balance?

If Osama is in the crosshairs of an American military sniper, even if we don't have DNA samples to confirm the fact, why on God's green (or, in the case of Afghanistan, brown) earth would anyone in our government, regardless of party affiliation, wish to cause a moment's delay in carrying out that mission? Yet, sadly, they do. We seem to care more about the appearance of what we are doing than about the substance of what we accomplish in support of national security. This is why disagreements raged within the CIA over whether the agency even possessed the authority to kill bin Laden when faced with the possibility of doing so. The fact that, in years past, the Department of Justice had actually prosecuted intelligence officials for making disputed decisions meant that their successors in office were inclined to not even ask, rather than possibly make the wrong decision.

Osama bin Laden apparently was alive on Sept. 11, 2001 -- and probably even today -- thanks to the risk-averse atmosphere created by Washington policy wonks and carried out by legions of lawyers. It's a helluva way to run a national security policy. And one heckuva a price we've paid.