After ten long years, after bombing Afghanistan to kingdom come and controlling all its oil and gas resources, after invading Iraq and creating havoc there while controlling its oil and gas resources, after declaring a War on Terror and practically profiling all Muslim males as terrorists, the United States of America, through its president Barack Obama, has announced that the American troops had killed Osama Bin Laden, America’s and the West’s (and their puppets’) Enemy Number ONE. Finally!
For quite some time, rumors were flowing around that Bin Laden was already dead. He had kidney problems and supposedly needed dialysis. For a self-proclaimed leader of the Arab world, it would seem uncharacteristic of him to stay quiet in the midst of the Arab uprising from Tunisia all the way to Yemen. (See Osama bin Laden: A Dead Nemesis Perpetuated by the US Government.)
At any rate, nobody can now point to him as the culprit of every terroristic act in the world.
The demise of Bin Laden must be a huge loss for the American and European governments. They have lost their bogeyman. Now, the U.S. Defense and Intelligence departments might have to invent another bogeyman to frighten the American people and keep their hold on massive defense and intelligence budgets and governmental powers.
However, I believe that the times have changed. The era of Fear, the era of the 3 B’s — Bush, Blair and BinLaden — is over. Finally!!!
But like Hitler and Elvis Presley’s, Bin Laden’s death would be debated for a long while. Is he still alive or is he really dead?
In Oct. 2006, I wrote a critique of CNN’s documentary, In the Footsteps of Bin Laden. It was published in my column in Mr. & Ms. magazine, Oct. 2006 issue entitled “The Life and Times of a Super Terrorist”. A shorter version of it titled “Getting Lost in the Footsteps of Bin Laden” was published in the PJR (Philippine Journalism Review) Reports, Sept. 2006.
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P.S.:
What happened after the supposed killing of Osama Bin Laden was bizarre. Instead of giving his body back to his relatives or to his country (Saudi Arabia) to be buried properly, the US military brought his body to their (American navy) ship and threw it overboard. The US military claimed that it was “Muslim custom” to do so.
Such idiotic reasoning can only come from mindless American bureaucrats and military. The Muslim world was naturally shocked. No Muslim would bring a dead body of a person who died on land and throw it to the sea. The Americans must have confused the Muslims with sea pirates.
One day later, on May 3, 2011, a “photoshopped” picture of a dead Osama Bin Laden, which first appeared in 2009 and immediately debunked as “photoshopped” or manipulated re-appeared in various Western publications.
Up to now, there is no official, authenticated photograph of a dead Bin Laden.
Postprandial Musings, 2.0 