dr. r. keith sawyer: why osama bin laden doesn't matter - politics on the huffington post

dr. r. keith sawyer: why osama bin laden doesn't matter - politics on the huffington post the huffington post welcome | edit preferences | logout | october 22, 2007 log in | sign up | october 22, 2007 home politics media business entertainment living now all blogs all news home > the blogs > dr. r. keith sawyer this is the print preview: back to normal view » dr. r. keith sawyer| bio | i'm a fan of this blogger why osama bin laden doesn't matter posted august 31, 2007 | 11:24 pm (est) read more: newsweek, osama bin laden, breaking politics news       this week, osama bin laden is on the cover of newsweek. the story? back in the winter of 2004-2005, we almost got him. but you know what? it wouldn't really make a difference, and here's why. al qaeda is a new kind of organization. it's a diffuse, international social network, with loose interconnections and a flexible hierarchy of reporting and command. it's just the opposite of a large country's military force, with its strict hierarchy and strong leaders at the top whose orders must always be followed. if you take out the headquarters of a traditional army, you make a huge impact on their ability to hurt you. but if you take out the "headquarters" of a loosely connected movement, nothing much happens. this is the message that you'll read in any number of hot-selling new books: that with today's electronically connected world, with wikis, blogs, and podcasts, we are experiencing the rapid growth of a new kind of leaderless organization. wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia, with far more entries than encyclopedia britannica, and comparable accuracy; but there's no one managing all of the writers, no one assigning the right experts to articles. the linux operating system is created by a loose, informal network of computer programmers. it's the responsibility of no one, and yet the responsibility of everyone. books about these new leaderless organizations include wikinomics, the starfish and the spider, and my own new book, group genius, where i show that these new organizations are often the sources of radical innovation. for example, the board game monopoly emerged from a leaderless process; it was a handmade parlor game, passed around in the quaker community for thirty years, before parker brothers came out with their version. no one was in charge. in the starfish and the spider, ori brafman and rod a. beckstrom call al qaeda a "starfish" organization--because a starfish has no head, and if you cut off one of its legs, it will just grow back another one. (in fact, the detached leg can itself grow an entire body.) as a comparison, they tell the story of how difficult it has been for music publishers to shut down illegal online file sharing. when they won the lawsuit against napster, several other file sharing programs sprung up that were more distributed and harder to attack legally. the lesson of this story is, the more you attack a starfish, the more distributed and diffuse it becomes. their advice? the most effective strategies are to come up with a clever way to get al qaeda to become more centralized, or to become more decentralized yourself. newsweek's article gives several examples of how the centralized nature of the u.s. military prevented effectively responding to the rapidly morphing nature of the enemy. i've been told that the highest levels of the u.s. military are reading books like the starfish and the spider. i'm confident that our professionals are smarter and more innovative than any opponent. there will always be some value to capturing osama bin laden. but we've accomplished the main goal already: we've detached him from his network, and that's where the power is. after we catch him, the fight with the starfish will go on. email print comments for this post are now closed email print breaking politics news comments (28) 0 comments pending faq: comments & moderation | faq: huffpost accounts post a comment     wayoutleft (see profile | i'm a fan of wayoutleft) there's one staggering fact that is never confronted in the obl legend. that is that- in amid opium farmers, bandits, floating tribes, sectarians at odds, and what have you- no one will turn him over for 50 million dollars, the reward on his head. that is the absolutely staggering testimony to the reverence in which he is held. | posted 03:22 am on 09/02/2007     ladyrantsalot (see profile | i'm a fan of ladyrantsalot) i'm sorry, this guy has been nothing but trouble for the past 20 years. he and the people he continues to inspire have killed more innocents on four different continents than anyone else i can think of (well, 'cept us, of course). just because he is in one of his familiar quiescent phases does not mean that we can continue to ignore him. he is not a starfish, but a human being. how do you eliminate the influence a guy like this has on others who yearn to kill? i would say you humiliate him. you transform him into a recognizable loser. you emasculate him. i think that when we do capture him, we arrange it so that it looks like he was running away from the field of battle--leaving his many minions to do the battle as usual. i'm still working on this one. but the idea is not to turn him into a martyr, but a loser. | posted 11:25 pm on 09/01/2007     factanonverba (see profile | i'm a fan of factanonverba) starfish or octopus? both can lose an arm and regenerate it. al-qaeda seems to be a highly fluid organization and yes its cells have the ability to operate quite independently. still osama bin-laden does have a high symbolic value and along with dr. al-haswari they have the ability to set the tone, to inspire, to coordinate the financial nexus. the starfish has no brain only a mass of primitive cells, an octopus has a highly developed one. still i believe the best strategy is to make him irrelevant. this requires fostering an entente with islam and assisting those societies to develop and in meeting the aspirations of its citizens. | posted 09:09 pm on 09/01/2007     snaggster (see profile | i'm a fan of snaggster) i find it difficult to understand how we know so damned much about their organizational structure, their training manuals, their membership appilications, etc. why don't we know where the sob is? | posted 08:58 pm on 09/01/2007     fullchat (see profile | i'm a fan of fullchat) i'm sorry, but this starfish analogy is inappropriate. a disassembled starfish continues to live because it has no brain. al qaeda is a distributed organization, with cells in many countries. certainly each of these cells can operate autonomously and prepare and carry out their independent attacks. however, there is little evidence of these cells being able to pull off a significant attack, as the plots that have been uncovered have seemed more like high school terrorist wanna-be's than the people who pulled off 9/11. mainly because of police operations, no western nation has been attacked in over two years. even in a decentralized operation, it is necessary to have leadership to provide goals, financing, motivation, and training. right now, obl is sitting in a cave - and thumbing his nose at the western world as an example that you can beat the great satan. obl attacked us - not iraq or afghanistan - and must be brought to justice. remember "dead or alive"? works for me. | posted 01:18 pm on 09/01/2007     fullchat (see profile | i'm a fan of fullchat) obl not important? did the government of afghanistan attack us on 9/11? no. was the government of iraq involved with the 9/11 attack? no. obl not important? it's like obl robbed a bank and we're killing the tellers and other customers in retaliation... | posted 01:02 pm on 09/01/2007     carol (see profile | i'm a fan of carol) you miss some biggies here, but two in particular. if we had handled 9/11 appropriately and wiped out binladen, his minions, and the taliban in afghanistan, they wouldn't now be growing legs all over the globe. and binladen is the guy who engineered the murder of 3000+ americans on our own soil, not these newly grown starfish. this administration is in total denial of its role in the proliferation of terrorism, yet never misses a chance to use it as a justification for its impotent foreign and domestic policies. you are apparently colluding on this. wake up! | posted 12:35 pm on 09/01/2007     wayoutleft (see profile | i'm a fan of wayoutleft) by far the most important factor in any minimizing bin laden's importance is the fact that he escaped after conducting 9/11 and hasn't been found. what a complete joke it would have been to assert that bin laden wasn't important in the fall of '01. | posted 12:06 pm on 09/01/2007     snakeback (see profile | i'm a fan of snakeback) osama bin boogeyman is a marketing slogan that has singlehandedly gotten bush re-elected, allowed cheneyco to defang the constitution, and made billions for halliburton, blackwater, and chritianoifascist megachurch preachers. osama bin laden is probably behind only mickey mouse and ronald mcdonald in its success as a marketing tool. all neoconservatives should bow down and make an official day of respect for bin laden. he has made billions for them and done more to dissolve the separation of church and state in america than any other human being. capturing bin laden will do about as much to end terrorism as capturing saddam did to end the insurgency. | posted 10:59 am on 09/01/2007     farseeingart (see profile | i'm a fan of farseeingart) obl, it seems,isn't wanted for the 911 incident. he is at best a 'suspect'. http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm | posted 09:57 am on 09/01/2007     schatsie (see profile | i'm a fan of schatsie) sorry, but the repugs are the big man party, that is that the biggest man gets to sit on the pile, ask kenny lay whereever he is now. he was a big man and deserved every dime because he was in charge. same with osama, nobody can replace him and motivate people like he does.. the reason they are throwing this crap out is to continue this idiot war. | posted 09:30 am on 09/01/2007     didereaux (see profile | i'm a fan of didereaux) just like the bunch who ignored history and thought iraq was some ancient culture longing to return to it's glory. this dr. ignores one of the most fundamental elements of the human psyche: to win. you do not 'win'(call it mete-ing out justice, whatever)until the symbolic leader of your enemy is tipped over, geronimo caught, the emperor brought down, or the dictator hung. ever wonder why the king in chess is tipped over when mated? fuzzy, muddied logic, inadequate knowledge of the subject, and a strong disregard for confuscious(study without reflection is useless, reflection without study dangerous)are the elements that lead up to tragedies...especially global ones. | posted 04:36 am on 09/01/2007     stevelagain (see profile | i'm a fan of stevelagain) you are wrong. bin laden is very useful to the democratic party as propaganda value...pretending that he should be the number one focus instead of actually doing things to fight, locate, capture or kill terrorists. why seek out terrorists using phones when we should have the cia seeking out bin laden in some cave? why arrest or deport radical clerics preaching intolerance when we can "learn multiculturalism from them" and should be seeking out osama instead! why fight al qaeda take overs in nations around the globe when we could be looking for osama in the caves! osama has great propaganda value for the anti war crowd. don't make war, chase osama! | posted 02:58 am on 09/01/2007     goodwithwood (see profile | i'm a fan of goodwithwood) your statements are inaccurate and simple minded. typical of a faux zombie. people like you are destroying america from within by making enemies of your fellow citizens. think about the negative emotions that arise in yourself when you hear the words âœdemocratâ" or âœliberalâ". faux news and am hate radio are destroying this country from within and youâ"re proof of that. gww | parent | posted 09:28 am on 09/01/2007     phild (see profile | i'm a fan of phild) osama won dubya the '04 election - as you're well aware obl is nothing but a prop used by the fear-mongering repulicans. of course they wouldn't want to catch him - even if they falsely proclaimed that we'd get him "dead or alive". we practically escorted him out of tora bora with red carpet treatment (oops, the news didn't cover that and the massive airlift to pak) progaganda, fear, emmanuel goldstein... | parent | posted 09:52 am on 09/01/2007     wplasvegas (see profile | i'm a fan of wplasvegas) if obl doesn't matter, then justice doesn't matter. without justice what does government matter? if government doesn't matter, why are we writing on a political blog? the 'some value' you refer to is considerable. where is your passion? or is it just that your headline is misleading? you are right about the 'starfish' but you underestimate the importance of the human heart. i agree with dunnage, 'if i hear one more starfish story..." | posted 02:35 am on 09/01/2007     3fingerbrown (see profile | i'm a fan of 3fingerbrown) he matters like hell here in new york. we want justice. reducing a mass murderer at large to some kind of political abstraction is an insult to the dead. get bin laden! | parent | posted 04:25 pm on 09/01/2007     peterg76 (see profile | i'm a fan of peterg76) next thing you know, perjury and outing cia agents won't matter.... | parent | posted 01:27 am on 09/03/2007     peterg76 (see profile | i'm a fan of peterg76) wrong. his symbolic value is beyond measure. bin laden went to war with the us and he won. bush went to war with bin laden and not only lost, but ever since has done everything humanly possible to compound his country's tragedy. maybe some americans with short attention spans have forgotten bin laden, but the rest of the world has not. | posted 01:29 am on 09/01/2007     1will (see profile | i'm a fan of 1will) very true. osama is now one of the most popular names in the muslim world. if he was irrelevent then i doubt he would be looked up to and have babies named after him. | parent | posted 09:02 pm on 09/01/2007     yellowdogsc (see profile | i'm a fan of yellowdogsc) and i'd guess "george" is one of the least popular names in the christian world... followed closely by "w."... | parent | posted 02:37 am on 09/04/2007     fearlessfreep (see profile | i'm a fan of fearlessfreep) osama's still being at large does matter in one major respect. considering that dubya made osama's capture a central aim of the global war on terror ("we'll smoke him out!"), letting it slide has inevitably hurt washington's credibility in the middle east and elsewhere. | posted 01:25 am on 09/01/2007     herrington (see profile | i'm a fan of herrington) mr. sawyer, the reasoning of this is fairly good, but iâ"m sorry to say the premise is not clear. bin laden never should have mattered to the extent that he has. bin laden exists as a political crutch for the republican party, that is all. the realistic approach to his terrorism strategy is the same as for controlling any criminal organization, suppression and deterrence, diplomacy and influence. declaring war on terrorism is folly, just as you seem to imply with the starfish analogy. so why would you do it? the republicans needed bin laden and he obliged them to his own advantage. the childish manner of our response to 9/11 handed him a gift of a burgeoning following. it is his following that is dangerous to us and not his organization. even then, if he were to die tomorrow, that following would persist in his name. bush succeeded in making a criminal into a geopolitical and historical leader of an anti-american, violent and suicidal movement. it is a movement that creates organization and not an organization that creates a movement. now it is organic, like a starfish, and you must treat it organically, like a criminal organization is organic to the nature of man, weed it out seed by root. therefore you are right, he does not matter in the future because he already matters more than even his death can matter. he will have followers for a century because of the stupid greed of republicans seeking and accomplishing exploitation of fear of him. iâ"m afraid the question is not what to do about terrorism, it is equally what to do about our own corrupt and criminal leadership that got us here and does not choose to get us out. | posted 01:24 am on 09/01/2007     yellowdogsc (see profile | i'm a fan of yellowdogsc) stephen, actually... â¦the current administration had a secret strategy for catching obl that the american public has yet to be informed of. very simply, they trademarked osamaâ"s name! then they sat back and waited. the plan was that as soon as obl used his own name publicly, american planes would drop thousands of attorneys over whatever location the violation first appeared. unfortunately, though the attorneys did manage to locate and surround osama, it turns out that the country involved (still classified) did not recognize american trademarks. business cards and e-mail addresses were exchanged, and obl waved goodbye and walked back home, towing his dialysis machine after him. but, for the good for the american people, the major flaw in the strategy did finally give a good enough cause for bush to get rid of the planâ"s mastermind, al gonzoâ¦. (sorry. itâ"s late and meds have changed.) | parent | posted 02:35 am on 09/04/2007     kasjuh (see profile | i'm a fan of kasjuh) nice try. but it misses completely the fact that battling al qaeda has been badly confused with imperatives to consolidate oil supplies. if you don't believe this, take a look at who benefits under the proposed oil settlements in iraq. the fundamental mistake regarding al qaeda, however, is failure to recognize that coping with this social anomaly is not a job for armies, but rather for police actions. strong police work, together with shared international intelligence will do the job. the "battlefield" is dispersed, and armies aren't designed for that. and yes, bin laden should be neutralized for having committed a major crime against humanity. you say he doesn't matter? | posted 01:22 am on 09/01/2007     nommo (see profile | i'm a fan of nommo) wow, they've gone and read the book so now they can catch osama. what if he had read the book long before they did? what else have they read? | posted 01:18 am on 09/01/2007     fpie (see profile | i'm a fan of fpie) some shakespears. three of 'em. one after the other. which ones? oh that's top secret. | parent | posted 10:43 am on 09/01/2007     dunnage (see profile | i'm a fan of dunnage) crazy. if i hear one more cutting up starfish stories in this life ...,... | posted 11:54 pm on 08/31/2007 post a comment you must be logged in and your account must be approved for you to be able to post comments. log in now or sign up for an account. bloggers index read all posts bydr. r. keith sawyer related news politics contested vote! rivals say romney win at "values" summit is illegitimate politics lynn sweet: gore gives 'best stump speech i have heard in 2008 season' politics congressman: gop sending troops to iraq to "get their heads blown off for the president's amusement" related blog posts politics: naomi wolf finally, action! ron paul introduces bill to defend constitution! politics: huff tv huff tv: arianna on countdown discussing rush limbaugh and the gop politics: bob cesca world war iii is going to be hilarious related tags newsweekosama bin laden top politics tags hillary clintonnet neutralityrudy giulianipete starkal gore 2008 barack obamao'reilly factordonny deutschann coulter jewsfox news     top news top blog posts living now: stacey lawson: are you part of the 11%? business: raymond j. learsy: a short tutorial on the high price of oil and the falling dollar media: shelly palmer: the end of analog television entertainment: linda milazzo: ellen degeneres' misuse of the media and a challenge to right that wrong politics: cenk uygur: stop apologizing! living now: who's afraid of the big bad empowered woman? media: oprah's obama endorsement tests limits of her influence business: microsoft blinks in decade-long showdown with euro regulators politics: the new rudy: i'd support a constitutional ban on gay marriage entertainment: jermaine dupri disses justin timberlake in new book: "he's very ordinary looking" home politics media business entertainment livingnow advertise | login | make huffpost your home page | rss | jobs | faq: comments & moderation | faq: huffpost accounts | contact us copyright © 2007 huffingtonpost.com, inc. | user agreement | privacy | comment policy | powered by movable type the huffington post share: close "" by email your friend's email address: (separate multiple addresses with commas.) your email address: message (optional): by instant message your friend's screen name: send instant message: aim yahoo msn

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