Carney still worries about terrorism

BY BORYS KRAWCZENIUK

Times-Shamrock Writer

For former Congressman Chris Carney of Dimock, the pursuit of Osama bin Laden personally dated back better than a decade.

Long before he was on the House Homeland Security Committee, well before 9/11, the former college professor was a Middle East analyst for the federal government. His job was helping to keep Saddam Hussein “bottled up” in Iraq, but also included “paying attention” to bin Laden and al-Qaida.

When Carney heard President Barack Obama planned to address the nation late Sunday, he had a feeling about what the president would say. He woke up his sons so they could watch. He thought about the hundreds of thousands, no, millions of man-hours spent tracking down the world’s most famous terrorists.

“Honestly, I was so elated,” Carney said. “I knew it was coming. But when the president said it out loud, my eyes welled up.”

As much as they celebrated bin Laden’s demise, Carney said it raised new questions about the United States’ complicated relationship with Pakistan but mostly left the fight against terrorism ongoing.

“The war on terrorism is not over, but this is a significant turning point,” Carney said.

Carney has no doubt someone within the Pakistani government – probably its controversial intelligence service that is more interested in keeping tabs on India than fighting al-Qaida – knew of bin Laden’s presence. Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari’s assurances that he is serious about fighting terrorism are hard to believe, he said.

“He’s saying that with a country full of al-Qaida supporters,” Carney said.

Gretchen Van Dyke who teaches a class on U.S. foreign policy at the University of Scranton, said the United States had eliminated a man that caused the country to spend $1 trillion in two wars and undermined the reputation of the Central Intelligence Agency, which did not foresee 9/11.

Other groups on terrorist watch lists – Hezbollah and Hamas – are unlikely to be discouraged by bin Laden’s death, she said.

“Terrorism is not going away,” Van Dyke said. “It has been around for years and years. It will likely continue to plague the international community although it might be on a much smaller scale.”