Home OP-ED Osama’s Death Can Breathe Life Into Obama Presidency

Osama’s Death Can Breathe Life Into Obama Presidency

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[img]583|left|||no_popup[/img]First, Mr. President, allow me to congratulate you on bringing Osama bin Laden to justice.

That one act alone separates you from the disingenuous chest-beaters who have been manipulating American misery to gain political traction.

No longer can they wrap themselves in the flag and strut around in their ineffectual, faux patriotism while they accuse the President of the United States of “palling around with terrorists.”

The quiet and effective way in which you’ve gone about carrying out America’s business clearly distinguishes who’s the adult in the room,and who's the true American.

Osama’s death could also provide you with an opportunity to correct one of the biggest mistakes of your Presidency. It gives you a second chance to extricate the United States from the no-win quagmire in Afghanistan, and that part of the world.

In November 2009, I wrote Could Obama Fall Victim to a Lack of Change We Can Believe in?,

“The President needs to recognize that there is nothing he can do that's going to make him acceptable to the GOP, unless he agrees to appoint a Republican vice president, then resign. By now it should be clear that even while he's asleep, the GOP is trying to hatch plans to destroy him. So by spending more time thinking about them than he is his base, he's playing right into their hands.

“I mentioned power as one of the reasons that Cheney's trying to rush the President into Afghanistan. I wonder if the President has considered the fact that Cheney just might be trying to get him to make the same kind of mistake in Afghanistan [and now Libya] that the Bush administration made in Iraq in order to take the Iraq issue off the table for the 2012 election? If during the 2012 campaign America is bogged down in Afghanistan with the useless death of thousands of U.S. troops, all of a sudden, Bush, Cheney and the GOP won't look all that bad. The President should think about that possibility since the machinations of Dick Cheney makes Machiavelli look like a trainee.

“On the other hand, if the President would have the CIA go after Osama bin Laden (through the use of intelligence, instead of blindly shooting at rocks), then pull out of Afghanistan, and make an agreement with the government of Pakistan to help them protect their nuclear arsenal, he'll be looking pretty good in 2012, and he won't have the deaths of thousands of U.S. troops to have to justify.”

So it seems that I was right on the money, at least, with respect to the way to go after Osama bin Laden. I am virtually certain that I’m right about the rest as well. So Mr. President, at this point you should simply say, “Okay, we’ve done what we set out to do. We’ve brought Osama bin Laden to justice, so our job is done.”

Then you should get the hell out of there as fast as you can go.

Eric L. Wattree is a writer, poet and musician, born in Los Angeles. A columnist for the Los Angeles Sentinel, the Black Star News, a staff writer for Veterans Today, he is a contributing writer to Your Black World, the Huffington Post, ePluribus Media and other online sites and publications. He also is the author of “A Message From the Hood.”

Mr. Wattree may be contacted at wattree.blogspot.com or Ewattree@Gmail.com

Religious bigotry: It’s not that I hate everyone who doesn’t look, think, and act like me – it’s just that God does.