How Do You Solve a Problem Like Zardari?

The diplomatic aftermath of the successful mission against the Osama bin Laden compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan was predictable, especially when it became clear that US authorities not only didn’t inform the Pakistani government of the imminent raid, but President Obama trebled the size of the assault force so, in the face of possible resistance from Pakistani police or armed forces, they could fight their way out. There may or may not have been a deal in place, giving the American military free access to pursue a raid against bin Laden but providing for vociferous after-the-fact protests by the Pakistani government. I wrote about all this on May 12.

Now, according the AP’s Kimberly Dozier,

U.S. officials say Pakistan has apparently tipped off militants at two more bomb-building factories in its tribal areas, giving the terror suspects time to flee, after U.S. intelligence shared the locations with the Pakistani government.

U.S. officials believe Pakistan's insistence on seeking local tribal elders' permission before raiding the areas may have most directly contributed to the militants' flight. U.S. officials have pushed for Pakistan to keep the location of such targets secret prior to the operations, but the Pakistanis say their troops cannot enter the lawless regions without giving the locals notice….

The latest incidents bring to a total of four bomb-making sites that the U.S. has shared with Pakistan only to have the terrorist suspects flee before the Pakistani military arrived much later.

Apparently, the American military got suspicious and satellite-monitored suspected bomb-making sites after alerting the Pakistanis. “In each case, they watched the militants depart within 24 hours, taking any weapons or bomb-making materials with them, just as militants had done the first two times. Only then, did they watch the Pakistani military visit each site, when the terror suspects and their wares were long gone, the officials said.”

Anyone paying attention will have long since come to the conclusion that the chances of real cooperation from the Pakistani government--any Pakistani government—are roughly equal to the chances that Lucy will let Charlie Brown kick the football. But while the news can hardly be described as surprising, it is certainly disappointing in at least two ways.

First, there is the obvious lack of détente after the Abbottabad raid. If there was a deal in place to allow American forces to go after bin Laden, the Pakistanis sure aren’t acting like it. Their indignation that they would be accused of tipping off terrorists is so transparently false, it’s laughable. Or, rather, it would be if the stakes weren’t as high as they are. No, they didn’t directly phone up and say, “by the way, we’re raiding you tomorrow; just thought we’d let you know.” No, they called up the local tribal chiefs, and they passed the word along. It’s like saying you didn’t tell anyone your friend’s secret… you just posted it on the Internet.

The second concern, of course, is the rather too frank admission that the administration of Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari doesn’t really have control over its own territory. Apparently they need the equivalent of a hall pass to enter certain areas, which oh-so-coincidentally happen to be where much of the terroristic activity is taking place. So even if Pakistan were an honest and reliable ally, it wouldn’t be much help.

Yet while it is true that no one believes the Pakistani government can be trusted, they’re no doubt better than the alternative. That means the allowing distrust to spiral downward into real belligerence is not a legitimate solution. But it’s clear that Pakistan has neither the desire nor the ability to clean up pockets of terrorism within its own borders. I presume that logistical problems such as the potential for extensive civilian casualties prevents using drone strikes against this type of target.

The US, therefore, is left with three unsavory choices. Possibility #1 is to continue to pretend the Pakistanis really are the allies we have long trumpeted them as being (not that anyone really believed it). That means we’ll catch the occasional low-level insurgent when the string of failures starts looking a little too long to be otherwise plausible, rather like the crooked roulette wheel generates a winner every now and then to keep the suckers interested. But don’t hold your breath for a real payoff.

The second scenario would involve simply giving up on pursuing anyone—bomb-maker, militiaman or mastermind alike—who manages to make it over the border into Pakistan. This seems even less tenable than the first option.

Finally, we could decide to take matters into our own hands and pursue any military target we want, Pakistani sovereignty be damned: if they’re not a friend, they’re an enemy. This, of course, has serious repercussions not only in terms of international law, but also in terms of the widespread perception—fueled, alas, by idiots like Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain—that the US is indeed at war with all of Islam. It is a strategy to be pursued only as an absolute last resort, if even then.

Needless to say, none of these choices is a happy one. Some real diplomacy is called for, then, to see how cooperative the Zardari government can truly be made to be, and how much actual steel can be packed into the velvet gloves of negotiation. The US has provided nearly $18 billion in military and economic aid in the decade since 9/11; its continuation (or not) could be a bargaining chip, but expect Congressional criticism of continuing the assistance regardless of what path the Pakistanis take: both from those who object to the notion of foreign aid in general (especially to a Muslim country) and from those who expect a little more quid pro quo bang for their buck.

Killing Osama bin Laden had great symbolic value and provided the Obama administration a short-term bump in poll numbers. But the raid has already faded from the public consciousness, the approval ratings have dwindled back down to where they were in April, and US-Pakistani relations are marked with an even more profound skepticism on both sides than in the past. Dealing with bin Laden may have been a walk in the park compared with negotiating this minefield.

A little respect, please, for our canine heroes

We’ll quite possibly never know the identities of all the commandos who successfully raided the compound of Osama bin Laden a few weeks ago, but we do know one of their names: Cairo. Not Bob Cairo or Tony Cairo, just Cairo. Cairo, you see, is a dog—probably but not necessarily a German Shepherd—who, according to Charlotte McDonald-Gibson of the British newspaper The Independent, was “tasked with tracking anyone who tried to escape Bin Laden's compound in Pakistan.”

Wearing better protection than most soldiers will ever see, and sporting tens of thousands of dollars of high-tech equipment, Cairo went into action and brought honor to his unit, the same way thousands of other Military Working Dogs (MWD’s) have done over decades of service. These dogs are highly trained: some are used, as Cairo was, to track and detain those who might escape from a merely human attack force; others detect drugs or explosives, not infrequently saving lives in the process. ABC News had a good background story on these dogs when, only a couple of days after the mission in Abbottabad, it became known that not all the personnel on that mission were of the two-legged variety. Reportedly, the canines on duty in Afghanistan have been so effective at their respective jobs that the Taliban has put a bounty on their heads.

Cairo’s fame calls attention to the service of these dogs, but it may have had an additional benefit for his fellow canine warriors: not for their time in service, but afterwards. It seems that interest in adopting retired MWD’s has skyrocketed after the death of bin Laden and the revelation of Cairo’s contribution to the mission. Julie Watson and Sue Manning of the Associated Press report that “[while] about 300 retired U.S. military dogs are put up for adoption each year, military officials say they've received more than 400 adoption applications in the three weeks since the May 2 raid.” That’s a good thing.

But Watson and Manning also point to a very disturbing fact: while Gerry Proctor, a spokesman for Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, where the military's dog adoption program is based, says that no animals who could reasonably be adopted out are euthanized now (another source says “very few” are euthanized), as had once been standard procedure after the dogs had outlived their military usefulness (way to take care of your own, guys!), the military is, as ever, bound by profoundly stupid regulations.

You see, the dogs that have been transported all around the world to risk their lives to protect soldiers and civilians alike, when they retire (or become “excess,” to use the military’s charming locution) they cease to belong to the DOD. Thus, “[putting] a retired dog in a crate on a military cargo flight is against the rules.” In other words, prospective adopters (handlers get first dibs, police second, civilians third) need to pay as much as $2000 to have the animals shipped back to the US via commercial carrier from wherever they’re stationed, when it would in fact cost virtually nothing to put an extra crate on a military plane that’s already headed to the US.

How freaking stupid is that?

Well, according to Maj. Gen. Mary Kay Hertog, the DOD MWD executive, it would be “fraud, waste and abuse for the DOD to transport that pet.” Seriously. In the world of $600 toilet seat covers and multi-billion dollar weapons systems that don’t work, what passes for fraudulent, wasteful and abusive in Hertog’s world is showing a little respect for comrades-in-arms and getting them to a loving home a little sooner? Surely she can’t believe that nonsense, right? I mean, how about we ship that… erm… “equipment” back home and then retire it?

Someone who does have it absolutely right is Debbie Kandoll, head of an organization called Military Working Dog Adoptions, headquartered in Las Cruces, NM. In her words, "Uncle Sam gave the dogs a ride over. He should give them a ride back.” Madeleine (Mrs. T. Boone) Pickens, who last year adopted her own Iraq veteran MWD (Chyba, pictured above in front of the memorial for which he was the model), adds that the failure to transport the dogs home is “like leaving a soldier behind.” Yes, ma’am, it is.

Trusting, Verifying, and the Deal That Might Have Been

I currently have several hundred pages of student papers to grade in the next 6+ days. No better reason in my mind to write a blog piece…

There’s actually a fair amount going on, and I may get to some or all of the following: the less than universally positive reception among Catholics to John Boehner’s imminent commencement address at Catholic University, the Supreme Court’s washing its collective hands of the plight of the cheerleader who was thrown off the squad for refusing to cheer for her (alleged) rapist, the insane decision of the Texas Senate to allow concealed weapons on college campuses (even if the colleges object), and, also here in Texas, the unconscionable priorities which will pour a quarter of a billion (yes, with a "b") dollars of state funds over the next decade into supporting Formula One auto racing (seriously!) even while slashing everything else in sight, including somewhere between 80,000 and 100,000 teaching jobs.

But we look now at some of the implications of one of the biggest stories of the year, the raid on the compound of Osama bin Laden. Let us take as given a few things: that whatever any of us thought about the wisdom or goals of the raid, we’re glad it went well; that President Obama will get a significant but doubtless ephemeral bump in his approval ratings, whether he deserves it or not; that we’ll probably never know enough of the details of the raid or the decision-making behind it to be legitimately able to offer much more than the foregoing.

Mr. Obama is (of course) being criticized, mostly if not exclusively from the right. His decision was described by Andrew Napolitano as “immoral” and “a crime.” On the other hand, according to David Koch, the President should get little to no credit for precisely the opposite reason: that “no president in his right mind would not approve that decision to go eliminate him.” Amy Jo Rice of the tea party group Maine ReFounders said that the mission was a re-election stunt [too bad George W. Bush didn’t think of that one] and sniffed that “we entered another country without their knowledge and carried out a military operation” [unlike the entirely preemptive bombardment and subsequent invasion of Iraq, apparently].

The despicable John Yoo suggests that capturing bin Laden would have been far preferable, but that doing so “would have required the administration to hold and interrogate bin Laden at Guantanamo Bay, something that has given this president allergic reactions bordering on a seizure.” Tea Party Exalted Moron (perhaps not his official title) Judson Phillips, citing a “story floating around the Internet,” [so it must be true!] muses that perhaps the SEALs “went behind [Obama’s] back.” Andrew Card, the former Bush chief of staff whose guy was dropped onto an aircraft carrier in a flight suit to falsely proclaim “Mission Accomplished” whines that Obama “pounded his chest” by (get this) going to Ground Zero after the death of OBL.

Meanwhile, from the left, Alternet’s Joshua Holland, whose interest in splashy story-lines unfortunately exceeds his interest in truth is spreading his own conspiracy theories based primarily on the fact that initial reports from Abbottabad turn out not to be entirely accurate. Who’da thunk it? OK, three more givens: 1). initial news reports on virtually anything are likely to require revision; 2). Barack Obama is a politician and is extremely likely to behave like one. 3). about the best thing that can happen to a politician is to have vocal opposition from both sides. Next.

All this said, what really interests me has to do with the relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan. Much has been written in the decade since 9/11 about the uneasy alliance between the two nations. Pakistan has, in the opinion of most Americans, done far too little to prevent the Taliban and al Qaeda from hiding out there. And the citizenry there seem not to be thrilled with being the targets of drone attacks (why ever not?). The relationship was further complicated by the largely accurate presumption that the U.S. government had propped up the reign of military strongman Pervez Musharraf. With his departure, then (especially), the democratically elected government of Asif Ali Zardari found it particularly difficult to walk the line between maintaining good relations with the U.S. and recognizing the distrust felt by the Pakistani populace.

There are two facets of the OBL assassination story that interest me in this regard. The first is the familiar refrain of “what did they know and when did they know it.” After all, in retrospect, at least, the bin Laden compound would have been pretty hard to miss. Not quite like Dave Granlund’s cartoon, perhaps, but still: high walls, security, no Internet… Anyway, either the Pakistanis didn’t know, and are therefore utterly incompetent, or they did know, and are therefore duplicitous. Not a happy place for them to be, either way.

But even more interesting to contemplate are two sidebar stories that, as far as I can determine, haven’t received a great deal of play. Intriguing enough individually, they’re especially fascinating when taken together. First to come to my attention was the revelation by Eric Schmitt, Thom Shanker and David E. Sanger of the New York Times that “President Obama insisted that the assault force hunting down Osama bin Laden last week be large enough to fight its way out of Pakistan if confronted by hostile local police officers and troops.” Now that’s a look at the reality of U.S. trust of the Pakistani government: speeches are one thing, but when it’s our troops we’re talking about, we’re going to prepare for active opposition.

As you might expect, Gentle Reader, I’m not a big fan of Ronald Reagan (although I liked the real one better than the mythological one created in the imaginations of today’s conservatives). But there was wisdom in one of his most famous sayings, “Trust, but verify.” That line used to drive some of my friends on the left crazy. They’d mutter all sorts of things about how Reagan wasn’t making any sense. But he was. Let’s take an example from my world: what, after all, does an actor do when checking his props? He's trusting that the stage management and props crews have done their jobs, but verifying, anyway... and if the prop doesn't come on stage with him, it's his fault. Obama’s decision reflects this kind of thinking: we’ll proceed on the assumption that the Pakistanis are the allies they say they are… but, just in case, let’s treble the size of the attack force.

The President’s action suggests several things, not least of which would be a level of active engagement in the mission that completely undermines the criticism of, say, David Koch. (Koch is a liar? The Pope is Catholic? What???) But it also suggests, as the Times piece makes clear, not merely that President Obama “was willing to risk a military confrontation with a close ally in order to capture or kill the leader of Al Qaeda,” but also “how little the administration trusted the Pakistanis as they set up their operation.”

OK, now couple that with the revelation by Declan Walsh in The Guardian (why does most of the best reporting on U.S. foreign policy come from east of the Atlantic?) that “The US and Pakistan struck a secret deal almost a decade ago permitting a US operation against Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil similar to last week's raid that killed the al-Qaida leader.” The agreement allowed the U.S. military to conduct raids within the borders of Pakistan against any of the three most significant al Qaeda leaders. There was even a provision that “Afterwards… Pakistan would vociferously protest the incursion.” The pact was put in place late in 2001 and re-affirmed during the “transition to democracy” in 2008.

All of this, assuming this reporting is accurate, means that much of what transpired a few days ago went pretty much according to this agreement: a limited mission, no interference from the Pakistanis when it mattered, considerable hue and cry from them after the fact, supported by (presumably feigned) U.S. impatience at Pakistan’s lack of cooperation. Check, check, and check.

But whereas the mission seems to have played out largely according to the terms of this presumed agreement, the implications are really rather significant. That is, whereas the Pakistani reaction after the raid might be either genuine or scripted, the news that President Obama seems to have personally intervened to increase the size of the incursion allows of only the following possibilities, assuming there ever was a deal in place: a). the Bush administration didn’t tell the Obama administration of its existence, b). the Obama administration forgot, c). Obama thought (rightly or wrongly) that the understanding was more personal than governmental and expired in January of 2009, or d). Obama really didn’t expect the Pakistanis to abide by the pact.

Whatever we may think of the competence and honesty of the two administrations in question, options “a” and “b” seem pretty far-fetched, and “c” isn’t very likely, either. That leaves us with the likelihood that President Obama, despite assurances from the Pakistani government that local forces would offer no resistance, chose to proceed as if there were no agreement in place. Perhaps this decision, and the one not to inform the Pakistani government (until and unless absolutely necessary to ensure the safety of the American troops) was intended to provide Zardari plausible deniability. But surely, even in that part of the world, dropping a strike force of a few dozen commandos backed up by attack helicopters into a city the size of Detroit in an area surrounded by military establishments is likely to attract some attention. That there seems to have been literally no resistance is interesting, to say the least, especially since the locals weren’t informed of the raid in advance. So, Obama didn’t trust the Pakistanis to abide by the deal, but they did, anyway, despite not really knowing what was transpiring at the time? Or what?

Of course, the deal may never have existed in the first place. Former president Musharraf denies it, in fact:

I do not accept anybody getting up and saying there was a deal. There was no such deal. And that was in 2001 between me and President Bush. I personally was trying to cast my mind back to 2001 after 9/11 and in those three, two and a half months left, after September 2001, I do not remember, recollect, that I even spoke to President Bush. And besides, we didn't even discuss this issue about allowing such an action.

Then again, the word of Pervez Musharraf and $1.40 (plus tax) will get you a small drip du jour at my favorite local coffee house.

Which brings us back to where we started: we are unlikely to ever really know. But if a deal existed, and both men know if it did, then Mr. Obama has some fences to mend with Mr. Zardari. In a hurry.

Yoda and the Politics of Killing OBL

As this Star Wars Day (May the 4th be with you) winds down, it is appropriate to remember the signature commentary of the Jedi sage Yoda: “Do or do not; there is no ‘try.’” 

I am pleased to say I heard a variation on this theme a few weeks ago when my Dean told me he was recommending me for promotion. He said some very nice things about my work, and, as is my wont, I stumbled in accepting praise. I mumbled something like “I try.” I doubt that I’ll ever forget his response: “Lots of people try; you succeed.” 

Whether I deserved to be thus described isn’t the point. Rather, what happens in the real world and what happens in a George Lucas movie are alike in at least this respect: for things that matter, results are always more important than effort. I don’t want to listen to a violinist who strives mightily to play that concerto, to put in a placekicker who will take his best shot at kicking the game-winning field goal, or to entrust my life to a surgeon who does his best to remove that tumor. No, work ethic goes only so far. Success trumps effort, ten times out of ten. 

There is a place for honest failure. All of us, even, possibly especially, the most accomplished, fail frequently. Indeed, the scale of one’s failures is often a determinant of one’s true worth. The violinist, the placekicker and the surgeon mentioned in the previous paragraph all know defeat. But they are skilled enough, confident enough, bold enough to attempt what others dare not. There is honor in that. Striving for greatness and coming up short is better than settling for mediocrity. But it doesn’t beat accomplishment. Do or do not. 

I’ve been thinking about this phenomenon in relationship to the recent assassination of Osama bin Laden, specifically as it relates to the frenzied attempts by right-wing talking heads to try to claim that the (failed, criminal, unconstitutional) policies of the Bush administration were largely if not principally responsible for the success of the mission. To be fair, while most of the leading Republicans who actually hold elected office (Boehner, Cantor, even Rand Paul) cited Bush administration efforts to capture or kill bin Laden, they also expressed thanks to President Obama and his administration. 

Is this, as Representative Barney Frank suggests, “politicizing” the event? Sure, it is. But any sensible person sees the touch of desperation for what it is and moves on. Of course, the real leadership of GOP—Limbaugh, Palin, Cheney, Rove, everybody at Fox News—sees President Obama’s administration as simply a vessel for the culmination of Bush-developed intelligence, rather like the ancient Greeks regarded the mother’s role in procreation as merely a receptacle for the seed of the true parent, the father. For this gaggle of zealots, it could only have been Bush-era policies which won the day. And when, initially, it appeared that water-boarding may have played a role in leading to a key early lead in determining OBL’s location, the loonies became downright giddy, crowing about how their torture techniques had paid real dividends. 

Subsequent reports, including a statement by Bush era Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, denied these reports, only to have them re-surface today when current CIA Chief Leon Panetta acknowledged that part of the “mosaic” (to use Attorney General Holder’s term) that ultimately led to locating Osama bin Laden appears to have been achieved through torture. So we have a proponent of waterboarding, who ought to be in a position to know, denying its efficacy (in this case, at least), and an opponent of waterboarding, who also ought to be in a position to know, asserting precisely that efficacy (again, in this particular instance). 

Jay Carney’s claim that “we don’t know” whether a particular piece of information was vital evidence  achieved through waterboarding may be the first time in a generation that a presidential press secretary has told the absolute truth. What is clear is that 1). some useful information may have been gleaned using “enhanced interrogation” and 2). there’s no direct line from whatever information was thus gathered to this week’s raid, or that mission would have taken place months if not years ago. 

None of the above, of course, changes whether torture—and waterboarding is torture, far from the “moral imperative” that Rep. Peter King would have us believe—is a good idea. It is not. No pragmatic argument overcomes the legal and ethical barriers, as Jack Marshall, among others, has pointed out. There are, to be sure, some philosophical issues raised by the raid. Is it ever legitimate to send troops into a sovereign country, uninvited, to conduct a vigilante mission, even against the world’s poster boy for terrorism? Can information obtained by torture ever form the evidentiary foundation for such an operation? What was the effect—legal, ethical, or pragmatic—of bypassing the Pakistani government? But while these are legitimate concerns, they are topics for another day and/or another commentator. What concerns me right now is the wisdom of Yoda. Do or do not. 

I made the point last time that President Obama deserves “a modicum” of the credit for this operation. Most of the success is attributable to intelligence operatives, military strategists, and of course to the SEALs who carried out the mission. But just as the quarterback gets too much of the credit for a win and too much of the blame for a loss, so is a Commander-in-Chief’s effectiveness often measured by the success of operations over which he has little direct influence. Barack Obama wasn’t responsible for the successful raid on OBL’s compound, any more than Jimmy Carter was to blame for the failure of the rescue mission in Iraq in 1980. 

But—and here is where Peter King is actually right (write this down; it doesn’t happen very often)—presidencies are often defined by whether such missions work or not. It isn’t fair, but it is the way of the world. So what matters in these terms is quite simple: what was the result? It is clear that the many moments when President Bush downplayed the search for OBL were simultaneously sour grapes and a legitimate and truthful description of geopolitical reality: “concentrating on one man really indicates… that people don’t understand the scope of the mission” is no doubt true. 

But you can’t convince me that the Bush administration wouldn’t have strutted more than a little (as indeed they did, not altogether inappropriately, with respect to Saddam Hussein) had they succeeded in bringing bin Laden to ground. There are, in other words, lots of reasons why Bush ought to be excused or reasonable arguments that Obama simply got lucky. No argument here. But Yoda’s scorebook looks like this:

Obama did. Bush did not. There is no “try.”

Abbottabad and the Miracle on Ice

The announcement of the killing of Osama bin Laden was one of the first galvanizing events of the post-Facebook age. As such, it generated an immediate response from a lot of my FB friends: from multiple Wizard of Oz references (“Ding Dong, the witch is dead”) to gags about Donald Trump’s demanding a death certificate (“and it better not be from Hawaii”) to musings on Fox News’s spin (“Obama Admits to Murder of Elderly Homeless Man”). There was also a snarky rhetorical question about whether any pro-life people were out celebrating.

Other responses were more philosophical, shying away from the gloating that characterized some people’s reactions: is celebrating a death, anyone’s death, a really good thing to do? There were quotations attributed to Mark Twain (“I've never wished a man dead, but I've read some obituaries with great pleasure.” —probably actually a slightly misquoted line from Clarence Darrow) and to Martin Luther King, Jr. (“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” —this much, at least, seems actually to have been Rev. King, although there was a tag at the beginning that wasn't), and at least one Biblical citation (“Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles; lest the Lord see it, and it displease Him.” Proverbs 24:17-18).

But the two Facebook posts that struck me were a wish that “it didn’t look so much like a sports rally” and a prediction of the certainty of Barack Obama’s re-election. Let’s start with the latter notion. While there are those who will no doubt try to make a case that Obama earned another term on the basis of a single military mission, it’s a shaky argument at best. True, President Obama deserves a modicum of credit, if that is the word, for what transpired in Abbottabad. If nothing else, he remained true to his campaign promise (one which was mocked by John McCain) to send American troops into a sovereign country—specifically, Pakistan—in pursuit of a known terrorist if the local government was “unwilling or unable” to do the job.

Whether this decision is ethically or legally defensible is an issue for another day: what matters in terms of this discussion is that it worked, at least until and unless there is a remarkable backlash from the Pakistanis. But Mr. Obama didn’t develop the intelligence-gathering apparatus, didn’t put the pieces together, didn’t plan the raid. He was simply smart enough to employ people with the skills to fulfill those functions. Should that keep Mr. Obama in the White House for another term? Nope. Will it? No, again, although it could help.

But I don’t think so. For one thing, in purely political terms, the operation was mis-timed. In fact, failure often works better than success as a re-election strategy. Just ask the Bushes: GHWB had 90+% popularity immediately after winning the first Gulf War, and was promptly defeated by Bill Clinton a little over 20 months later when other issues had time to become paramount. His son, however, accomplished little in the Afghan or Iraq Wars, but managed to win the 2004 election based largely on fear-mongering and a desire not to change leadership while at war. (N.B.: I am emphatically not suggesting that President George W. Bush intentionally dragged out the war as an election ploy.) We’re still a year and a half from November 2012: plenty of time for the electorate to forget this incident if the Republicans are in the position to run their own “it’s the economy, stupid” candidate.

But, more importantly, there was that enormous outpouring of quasi-patriotic emotion last night: at the White House, at Ground Zero, indeed all over the country, crowds of largely young people—those who were in grade school on 9/11—gathered to bellow off-key renditions of the Star-Spangled Banner, to embrace strangers, and to chant the now-familiar “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!”. Indeed, the observation of my FB friend who described a “sports rally” was especially apt.

I understand the impulse. If I’d still lived in the city of my doctoral alma mater, I’d have been part of the crowd of thousands who gathered downtown when the basketball team won the NCAA title three years ago. Our side had won a game, and it didn’t matter that nothing had really changed. Had a certain jump shot clanged off the rim with 1.9 seconds left in that game instead of hitting nothing but net, the team would have been no less skilled… but we won, and that was cause for celebration.

And, indeed, nothing has really changed in the last day or two: Osama bin Laden was little more than a figure-head, long since distanced from real operational leadership of al Qaeda. No one with any political sophistication thinks this one event will truly be a game-changer: it won’t change appropriations bills, bring the troops home any faster, or have any significant effect on global terrorism. True, there will be a considerable symbolic value that plays out for some time, and threat levels will likely be a little higher in the short term and a little lower in the longer term. But I don’t see anything of major significance. In geo-political terms, this is all good news for the US, but, frankly, the fall of Hosni Mubarak will resonate considerably louder and longer—or at least it will if we play our cards right.

And yet, there were those spontaneous demonstrations: seemingly authentic patriotic expressions that seemed over the top for all their unquestioned sincerity. Indeed, I was reminded not of the celebration of some generic sports victory, but of a specific incident in sports history: not of Kansas beating Memphis in basketball in 2008 or of New Orleans beating Indianapolis in football in 2010, but of the response to the semi-final win of the US Olympic hockey team over the seemingly invincible Soviets in 1980. That was the game that gave us heroes named Jim Craig and Mike Eruzione, one of the most memorable sports broadcasting moments ever (Al Michaels’s “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!”), and the crystallization of the hitherto all-but-unknown “U-S-A!” chant.

I was living in a small town in Kentucky at the time, and if I wasn’t the only person in the area who had ever actually seen a hockey game, I was pretty damned close. But within minutes of the end of the game, there were dozens of vehicles cruising around the town square to the accompaniment of blaring car horns and the now-ubiquitous “U-S-A!”. In a town of only a few thousand residents, even counting the college students, there were scores of screaming people in the streets. True, that “Miracle on Ice” victory in Lake Placid was a significant athletic achievement, but the response was mind-blowing, especially since the overwhelming majority of the celebrants didn’t know a blue line from a poke-check.

It was the disproportionality of the excitement that caught my attention last night, as well. And that is where President Obama needs to take the right lesson away from the evening’s events. When people who knew nothing about the sport took to the streets to celebrate a hockey victory in 1980, it was because we needed some positive news, because we craved a reason to celebrate, well, anything, and a hockey game happened to be handy. At the time, the so-called “misery index” (inflation rate plus unemployment rate) hovered above 20% (by way of comparison, it’s under 12% now); the American Embassy in Teheran had been overrun three months earlier, resulting in dozens of US citizens being held hostage; the present looked bleak and the future bleaker. An outlet, any outlet, that let us feel good about ourselves was to be treasured.

We’re there again. The impetus for celebration existed last night, just as it did that February night in 1980, the last previous time I can recall when people all over the country celebrated and no one was unhappy (as would happen in a national election, for example, where tens of millions of people didn’t like the fact that Bush or Obama or whoever else was elected). But neither a semi-final hockey game nor the death of a single terrorist—even the biggest bogeyman in the pantheon of Bad Guys—is really a sufficient catalyst for the public response they engendered. That’s what ought to have Mr. Obama worried: the disproportionality. Because while getting a lot of praise for a military mission you endorsed is a good thing, people getting this excited over a newsworthy but ultimately tangential event isn’t. Mr. Obama would do well not to over-estimate his achievement just because the crowd did… because their excitement may well be driven as much by desperation as by patriotism.