OFFICIAL STATEMENT: ASP Chairman, The Honorable Gary Hart on the Death of Osama bin Laden
The manner in which the U.S. administration and our highly-skilled Special Forces carried out the successful assault on the leader of al Qaeda emphasizes the changing nature of conflict in the 21st century, a point of emphasis by the American Security Project since its inception.
The confrontation between peaceful nations and terrorist organizations has much more in common with suppression of crime than it does war in any traditional sense. We now appreciate that the methods we use against al Qaeda must more closely resemble those used against drug cartels, weapons proliferators, and Mafia syndicates than it does conventional warfare.
Now is the time to for us to define the kind of new global leadership we can provide a 21st century world. The world is changing fast and so too must our approach to our national security and foreign policy. We must restructure our institutions to fit this new mission to ensure an economically and socially flourishing America in the 21st century and beyond.
ASP’s “Are We Winning” report has shown that the killing of one man will not suddenly bring this struggle to an end. Today though marks, perhaps, what another leader said in another fight: it is the end of the beginning.
We at the American Security Project congratulate the Administration and the brave men and women in uniform who helped bring down the man who was behind the deaths of thousands of innocent men and women all around the world, including many innocent people in the Muslim community. We especially think of the over 3000 people that were killed on American soil on September 11, 2001, and all who have given their lives in the wars we have fought since that day. They and their families know the price of freedom. We are forever in their debt.
– The Honorable Gary Hart
