"It is the language of a bloodthirsty empire to speak of
killing another the way one would speak of killing a poisonous insect. … Obama
says without hesitation that the world will be a better place without Osama bin
Laden - but an intensification of the war with al-Qaeda awaits us all."
Americans in Times Square, New York, burst into spontaneous joy upon hearing of the death of Osama bin Laden, May 2. Was this outpouring in bad taste for a superpower? Many people around the world think it was.
It cuts straight to the bone to hear U.S. government leaders talking
like gangsters - of killing and torture as if they were talking of champagne
and canapés. They conjugate the verb "kill" as naturally as they "speak"
or "sleep." Especially when applied to the "enemy alien," the
alien, the cultural "other," the non-gringo. It is the language of a
bloodthirsty empire to speak of killing another the way one would speak of
killing a poisonous insect.
And this inconsistency also sounds petulant and glib.
Obama says without hesitation that the world will be a better place without
Osama bin Laden - but an intensification of the war with al-Qaeda awaits us all.
It has become increasingly clear that Osama bin Laden wasn't the active
head of al-Qaeda ("the base", in Arabic), but merely its founder. Although
of course, the whole of Yankee society must be persuaded that he was in effect
a super-brain capable of controlling thousands of Islamists operating under the
direct command of the great leader from his hovel in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A hole,
as thousands of images have now shown, with bare walls that were falling apart and which
has been dubbed "bin Laden's millionaire mansion."
"The base" is comprised of groups of Islamic fundamentalists who
act on their own and carry out terrorist operations in a great many countries. Osama
was nothing more than a symbolic personification - a product of
the idiosyncrasies of an extremely heterogeneous and fractured society, for
which the strongest and most unifying bond has always been to have a "clearly
identified" external enemy. So this symbol, which no longer has value as
an effective threat, has been murdered in cold blood, and the nation celebrates:
pathetic.
Of course, the U.S. government and the imperialist political forces of
that country are already seeking new and "extremely dangerous"
enemies of "freedom."
Suite101.net has editorialized:
"Although this is a great achievement, one cannot say it signifies the end
of terrorism, since according to the experts, followers of al-Qaeda are much
worse, as bin Laden's son asserted in an interview with ABC News some
months ago." Well if that is so, it doesn't say much about the victory of bin
Laden's death.
The empire and a good part of the Atlantic Alliance has at all times
and with raised voice called for democracy and respect for human rights in all
corners of the planet; but, in timely fashion, when circumstances and the moment
has arrived and the "other" is not worthy of the word human by
decision of the empire and hence has no human rights of any description, he is considered
a poisonous lice that must be killed with a single swat.
CNN has adopted a discourse that is the very quintessence of imperial
"thought": "In the decade since 9/11, many senior leaders and
operatives of al-Qaeda have been killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia,
and other places. However, these countries remain at best fragile, and at
worst, collapsing.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
"For the killing of Osama bin Laden to be a turning point rather
than a Pyrrhic victory,
the narrative of the event should avoid rhetorical tones about a 'war of ideas'
or a 'fight for the soul of Islam' in favor of a more neutral and universal
call for a global rule of law." What is this?
"That U.S. counter-terror officials were the ones to conduct his
killing on the sovereign soil of another country is a very important signal.
Many see the killing as a criminal violation of sovereignty and even
"acting like God," - which is a prerogative no nation can claim for
itself. This is false. It is a powerful symbol of our collective evolution that
individual perpetrators are pursued for their crimes rather punishing entire
societies in wars.
"In the past decade, international law has evolved so as to
justify this type of direct intervention, if we were only able to act more
quickly through the swamp of protocols and deliberations that we've invented.
The doctrine of the Responsibility
to Protect, ratified in 2005 by the U.N. General Assembly initiated a
process to determine if the international community [read United States and its
imperial allies] is obliged to intervene to prevent crimes against humanity.
The central principle behind these institutions and agreements is that
sovereignty is a responsibility, not a privilege."[translated quotes].
This is what the imperialists want now - to completely remove sovereignty
from decisions made regarding a nation's own territory, and to enter, leave,
kill, torture, and do what they please anywhere on earth that isn't recognized
as "civilized" by the empire itself.
North Africa and the Middle East are becoming even more complex and contentious.
With great difficulty, from Morocco to Syria, a profound social undercurrent with
democratic characteristics and of far-reaching power and scope is making itself
felt - and in the end, it will be this that brings down al-Qaeda, not the
sophisticated weapons of the empire.
With luck, by "the end," the tyrants and their armies will
have left the scene. Then will remain, on the one hand, societies stammering
with budding democracies, and on the other, a rapacious empire and its allies seeking
petroleum.
