I’m no fan of bin Laden but…
Watching Americans celebrate, particularly at Ground Zero, you would think that the death of this one man meant the death of all terrorist organisations, and that they – never mind the rest world in which American embassies and consulates are peppered – are safe forever. One college student is quoted as saying ‘Yeah it was right to kill him. He took down the [Twin] Towers. He was a threat to the security of our nation.” The US homicide rate is among the worst in the industrialised world, surely this is a more pressing matter than killing a man who to all intents and purposes posed a lesser threat to national security?
Bin Laden was summarily executed without trial. American security operatives effectively invaded Pakistan and killed a man. I’m fairly certain that this violates all sorts of international treaties and human rights conventions. Members of former president Bush’s administration say that water boarding, a controversial form of torture, was crucial in extracting information on Bin Laden’s whereabouts. I know for certain that this is a direct violation of the Geneva Convention. But these inconvenient rules and laws don’t really apply to the United States do they? While the former president Musharraf of Pakistan has raised his objections regarding the operation, the sitting president is doing his best to kiss America’s ass. His country needs aid.
Unlike the case of Saddam Hussein, images of whose dead body were mercilessly displayed all over the international media, there is a frightening absence of any actual evidence that bin Laden is dead. It’s difficult to understand how this can be so when the operatives who killed him were able to record the entire event for the benefit of Barack Obama. Are we really supposed to believe that after he was killed, not one single man or woman involved in ‘Operation Geronimo’ took a photograph? It is no wonder then that terrorist organisations are refusing to take Obama’s word for it. I wouldn’t either.
It’s ironic that bin Laden was code named Geronimo, after an Apache leader who fought against the United States and Mexico for pretty much the same reasons and bin Laden waged his war against the United States. I’m sure the American government at the time called him a terrorist too. In view of the lack of evidence for bin Laden’s demise, it is interesting that when Geronimo was eventually tracked down by American authorities he managed to live to old age as a prisoner of war.
So now that bin Laden is dead is the world really a safer place? Not really. And exactly what significance does bin Laden’s death have on the Muslim minority of extremists fighting a jihad? Will this single act stop them dead in their tracks and force them to realise that their cause is a lost one? Or will it just add more fuel to the fire? Possibly. It’s just another example of American imperialism. America has shown the same disregard for the sanctity of human life, sovereignty, and the international conventions that that she accuses third world dictators of having. And quite frankly, I’ll take Mugabe or Chavez over American hypocrisy any day.
Monday, May 16th 2011 at 10:15 am
it’s easy to sit back and be critical when your country isn’t considered the only superpower and world leader. Heavy lies the crown. America, for it’s faults, has worn the crown with more benevolence than most before it. Hate them now..but I’d rather they be in charge than Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, or in the future when the Chinese Communists gain more power.
Monday, May 30th 2011 at 12:48 pm
America is not the only super power and world leader. China’s economy is the world’s second largest and is predicted to overtake the US’ in the next decade, and China is actively increasing it’s sphere’s of influence in the world. France and the United Kingdom’s colonial histories guarantee those countries direct influence over their former colonies. At one time these combined constituted almost half of the earth’s total population.
Before you point to America’s benevolence you must also take into account America’s similarly chequered history. Like America, those former colonial powers’ have economies that are built on forced labour and and unfair and unequal trade partnerships. They too saw themselves as the saviours of the savage natives who not only need their protection, but also their cultures and languages. But of course it’s not pc to call people savage natives anymore, and terms like democratisation, human rights and ‘war on terror’ are used instead. America, whose means are different, but with the same goals cannot be imagined to be any different or any better.
Outside of America, it is opposition politicians and not citizens who call for US intervention in their domestic politics. A case in point is the resistance by the Iraqi people to American occupation, and the recent mass demonstrations demanding that the US honours the troop withdrawal deal. US intervention in any nation does not come from an overwhelming sense of responsibility neither is it an act of christian charity, as you seem to think. It is an act of imperialism. In the instances where the US has instituted a change of government, the new regime is sometimes more repressive than the ones they replaced. Might I also add that the revolutions in the Maghreb were against American supported dictatorships. It is this support of repressive regimes, the blind eye turned toward countless human rights abuses, the continued existence of the Guantanamo bay detention prison, the bullying through tools such as the World Bank and the IMF, and in the above post, US invasion of Pakistan and the illegal operations within that country’s borders without the knowledge of Authority that constitutes American hypocrisy. Any such action by any other country in the United States would have been considered an act of war by the US government. The Pakistani government is donor dependent, and as such has no choice but to remain silent and placating.
And let’s not pretend that the billions given in donor funding to third world countries is altruistic either. It is not, it’s a form of political and economic manipulation to further and protect American interests regardless of what is in the best interests of the citizens of those countries.