In a speech that focused on the tangled terrorist threat America faces from the Middle East, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and former South Asian correspondent for the Washington Post Steve Coll opened with an anecdote.
In 1999, Osama bin Laden went falcon hunting near Khandahar, Coll told a nearly-full house at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy's ASEAN Auditorium Monday night. Afghani CIA agents tracked bin Laden to this remote location, and relayed the precise coordinates back to the United States.
According to Coll, this was one of three or four clear-cut cases in which the United States had an unparalleled opportunity to kill bin Laden, and declined to act, in part due to questions surrounding the reliability of the tracker's information.
Coll used this story as a backdrop to pose several difficult questions that America must ask itself on the war on terror - "Who is the enemy? Who can be considered a true ally? What risks are we willing to accept in this war on terror?"
Using Pakistan as an example, Coll described how the United States has used many countries as allies in the short-term, only to breed less devoted - and more powerful - enemies in the future.
In the 1980s, the United States gave Pakistan billions of dollars to fight invading Soviet forces. Although U.S. leaders were aware of Pakistan's proclivity towards Jihadist and anti-American sentiments, they deemed it necessary to help fund the country's efforts against the impending Communist threat.
Coll proceeded to describe the role that Osama bin Laden has played - and continues to play - in the evolving terror structure in that region.
Born in 1957 to a Saudi billionaire, bin Laden quickly strayed from the luxurious and privileged life that many of his 54 half-brothers chose to enjoy. Instead of reveling in his $1 million yearly allowance, bin Laden studied under extremist Islamic professors at Abdul Aziz University.
Coll described bin Laden as "not a vicious man" in the sense that he never executed people around him, as many militant Middle Eastern leaders are prone to do. "He has always led by persuasion rather than fear," Coll said.
He proceeded to discuss what impact the capture or death of bin Laden would have on the war on terror. "Osama bin Laden is certainly the most important symbolic leader of the al Qaeda movement," Coll said. "His capture today, however, would not make a big technical difference in al Qaeda operations."
The precise manner in which bin Laden would be captured or killed could also affect the event's effects. "[Bin Laden] being captured and relatively humiliated as Saddam Hussein was would have a positive impact against al Qaeda," Coll said. "Bin Laden sacrificing himself in a hail of bullets on Arabic television would, however, project a very different message."
Before delving into a lengthy question-and-answer session, Coll described how the war in Iraq has not progressed as the Bush administration had originally hoped. "There was a strain of thinking in the Bush administration that a war in Iraq would be a long-term strategic advantage for the U.S," Coll said. "Well it hasn't evolved that way, at least not so far."
Coll's lecture was followed by a book-signing promoting his new book, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001.
His speech was jointly sponsored by Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) and the Tufts Program in International Relations. EPIIC's theme this year will be "Oil and Water."
