Charley Weighs Tactics vs. Politics

Charley set the sack of groceries on the kitchen table. He pulled a packet of peanuts out of the sack, opened it and sat himself down.

"What do you think about that Osama bin Laden gettin' hisself killed?"

"What do you mean? Don't you think he had it coming?"

"Oh, sure," Charley said. "I ain't sheddin' no tears for him. But we coulda got a lot more mileage out of him if the President didn't need the political boost so bad.

"What kind of mileage are you talking about?" I asked.

"Well, now we got a dead terrorist. And they got a dead martyr. What would it have hurt if we had played it smarter? For instance, suppose we snuck his body out of the country without tellin' nobody, and once we had him back in the US we coulda said 'Hey, we captured bin Laden and we got him in jail in the US, and we're gonna question him for a while before we try him".

"I'm following you so far, you wily old coon-hunter."

"And maybe later we could say we convinced him of the error of his ways, and he's getting ready to rat out all his terrorist buddies. That oughta put the wind up. And we could always threaten to execute him if they was another terrorist attack."

"That all sounds good, Charley. Why do you suppose they didn't do that?"

"Oh, they're smart enough in the CIA to have thunk of this. My guess is that Obama needs the political boost what with elections comin' up in another year. Politicians don't think in terms of long-range anything, except re-elections."

"We ought to put you in charge," I laughed.

"They don't make enough money at the Mint to pay me to do that stuff. But I appreciate the thought."