Native American leaders are upset that Geronimo's name was usedas code for Osama bin Laden. I respect their concern, but I don't think this particular reference is the insult tribal leaders think it is.
Quite the opposite, it sounds to me like a salute to the Apache warrior's leadership genius and his tribe's organizational success.
To understand why, do what they do at the super-secret U.S. JointSpecial Operations Command that oversees Navy SEAL Team Six, the commandos who found bin Laden: Look past the obvious differences between Geronimo and bin Laden and examine what they shared in common.
Each was a charismatic, leader-by-example of a decentralized organizational structure that long-stymied much mightier and formally organized armies. The Apache style of organization -- shared power, nimble execution, motivated by leaders who led by example more than by command.
That's how Geronimo is described in a 2006 book that is said tobe a must-read for those trying to think outside the box at JSOC:"The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations" by California entrepreneurs Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom.
The book's central metaphor is this: If you cut off a spider's head, it dies; but if you cut off a leg of certain types of starfish, it grows a new one -- and that leg can grow into an entirely new starfish.
The Apache under Geronimo and today's al-Qaida are starfish organizations. But so are Alcoholics Anonymous, Craigslist, eBay, Napster, the tea party movement and the Internet.
In fact, the Internet age increasingly seems to be characterizedin many ways by starfish organizations trying mightily to avoidbeing brought down by the urge to become more organized.
Since it is hard for us products of old-school, top-down, spider-style organizations to grasp the seemingly nimble new wave of"leaderless organizations," Brafman and Beckstrom say they have been invited to speak in military circles too secret for them to talk much about.
When I reached the two authors by telephone, they told me theywere as surprised as I was to hear "Geronimo" pop up as bin Laden'scode name. Although they have talked to top military officials andSEAL Team Six commandos in the past, they have no way of knowinghow the commanders name their missions.
A Senate hearing last week on "the impact of racist stereotypeson indigenous people" (already scheduled before the bin Laden raid)heard from a great-grandson of the Apache warrior. Harlyn Geronimo called for an apology and the expunging of this use of his family's name from government records.
I sympathize. Indians have had to put up with many irritating stereotypes over the years. I can only imagine how I would feel about, say, the "Cleveland Negroes."
Yet, in view of their training, the code-naming of bin Ladensounds like an appropriate sign of respect for Geronimo's genius.More than a century after his death we still have lessons to learnfrom his leadership and organizational style -- and clues as to howto handle a post-bin Laden al-Qaida.
Indeed, the irony of "leaderless" organizations is the "dis-economics of scale." Starfish organizations tend to thrive on smallness, disorganization and dispersion, three qualities of al-Qaida after bin Laden.
That could help explain why President Barack Obama decided not to"spike the football" by releasing bin Laden's after-death photos or displaying any other provocation that might unnecessarily fan resentments in the Muslim world. Starfish organizations thrive on motivational leaders, sometimes from beyond the grave. No need to make bin Laden more of a martyr.
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