Sunday, May 1, 2011

Death of Osama bin Laden



Approximately one hour ago, news broke worldwide of the death of Osama bin Laden, confirmed by a special announcement by U.S. President Obama from the White House. According to the President, intelligence following a strong lead dating from last August (2010) finally confirmed that the Al Qaeda leader had been located in a private house in a community in Northwest Pakistan west of Islamabad, and a special forces unit was sent in. Following a brief fire-fight, bin Laden was killed, and his body taken into custody.


The location of the capture/killing apparently was in a private residence, right "under the noses" of a Pakistani military outpost. There has been speculation for a long time that the Pakistani government, its military and intelligence community, was not being straight with America--that it in fact knew bin Laden's whereabouts, and was deliberately concealing this information from us, while it strenuously objected to all American military actions within its own borders. It had been assumed for the better part of a decade that bin Laden was hiding in the rough, remote mountainous terrain along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, but increasingly, it was deduced that he was being protected by friendly factions inside Pakistan. The raid and consequent killing confirms all these conjectures.

Whatever the "fallout" from this development, it represents a momentous occasion in the "war on terror" (a phrase--and a policy--coined during the Bush II Administration). Without bin Laden's inspired leadership (and rumored wealth) driving Al Qaeda, it remains now to be seen how powerful that underground, secret organization will remain on the world stage.

Bin Laden was a fanatical leader who created a sense of awesome commitment among his followers. Driven by a fierce anti-American, anti-Western fervor, he sought nothing less than the removal of American and European influence from the Middle and Far East territories. Through his actions, he set into motion events which have so far led directly to two protracted wars (in Iraq and Afghanistan), causing deaths in the hundreds of thousands, with the displacement of hundreds of thousands more.

What kind of a man was Osama bin Laden? He was not a strutting dictator, or a crude tribal chieftain, but a shrewd schemer, convinced of his rectitude, the son of a well-connected--and well-to-do--Saudi Arabian family. As his fanaticism grew, he became devoted to a "jihad" or holy crusade against America and its interests, which he believed had corrupted and compromised his country, and the rest of the Muslim world. Like many fanatical Muslims, he saw Western traditions as a secular profanity, a scourge which he thought must be effaced from history. Though not representative of the majority of peaceful worshippers of Islam, the power of his determination and that of his followers continues to present a severe danger to American interests both here and abroad.

Without its leader, how dangerous will Al Qaeda continue to be? It's a question we won't be able to answer for several more years; but now, at last, we can at least ask it.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

NEAT ! we got another nasty SOB !

and in Northern Pakistan's remote mountains our Navy Seals
not only killed him in what a talking head is saying with
absolute knowledge of this secret operation
and took the body and flew the body all the way down to the Arabian Sea and dumped the body in the sea.

Some terrific operation. ! can hardly wait to see the film-at-eleven and how this great news/event will effect the next election .... and the price of oil/gasoline.

now we need to send those Navy Seals into Syria and Libya and iran and etcs and kill those "rat-bastards"


so tese Navy Seals who just killed bin Laden get to split the $25 million reward ?

J said...

We too have mixed feelings.



The seals did reportedly ask OBL to surrender before offing him.

Saudi sunnis are not exactly the most reasonable of humans though--IMHE, a bit more zealous than the sons of Ali, ie shiites--a bit similar to the division between protestants and catholics (tho not exact parallel--). A few shiite sects still revere greek rationalism and a bit of western science, to some extent, and they oppose the saudi monarchy. Not the case with the sunnis--who seem quite jewish in ways . Binladen itself probably derived from ancient semitic (bin - ben, Laden, Leiden, etc)

Curtis Faville said...

J:

Are you suggesting bin Laden is somehow "Jewish"?

Anonymous said...

"bin" throughout the Middle Eastern region simply means "son of"

so it would be "Osama 'son of' Laden"
in Judaism it is not spelled "b i n" it is spelled
"b e n"

it didn't sound/read like J was saying bin Laden was a Jew ... as close as one could get to that would be that
Laden was/is a Semite

even though according to The Big Myth all present Mankind came from Adam and Eve who got condemned by "god" to forever suffer because of
fucking !

J said...

Jews, Muslims, Christians: all the sons of Abraham, Sir F. Even the muslims say that--people of the Book, Al Kitab, IIRC--and linguistically, arabic is quite similar to hebrew--both semitic tongues.

Of course, muslim fundamentalists detest the jews and christians --but in regard to the greeks and western science the shiites--and ishmali sect-- seem a bit more tolerant, and slightly ...republican rather than monarchical.

Ancient shiites often were well versed in Aristotle, Euclid, ptolemy, etc. (whereas later sunnis proclaimed them pagan infidels...). In brief. Sort of the difference btween Avicenna (ibn Sina) and Al Ghazali (google 'er). There are many sects however, and that doesn't always hold.

J said...

Yes, they are semites--both jews and sunnis. And most WASPS for that matter, at least in principle.


All opposed to Logos, Edski--a bit harsh but that's the way it is, as Ezra Pound realized (granted, some infidels might do the right thing at times, and Im not denying the holocaust, or anything)