02 May 2011
Believe it or not
The President of the United States has announced that Osama bin Laden has been killed in a firefight in a suburb of Islamabad, Pakistan. He claims that American forces have possession of the corpse of the terrorist leader. A crowd has gathered outside the White House to celebrate, but I wonder whether the news will change anything. Many will remain skeptical, believing that bin Laden is either still alive or had actually died long ago. While this news was long awaited as a vindication of George W. Bush's policies, and would presumably have resulted in a great boost for his popularity, I somehow doubt whether Obama will benefit for long, if at all. If anything, if Americans accept that the deed has been done, there will and should be increasing pressure to declare victory in the war on terror and get the troops out of Afghanistan, regardless of whether the American operation has really damaged al-Qaeda's operational capacity, so long as Ayman al-Zarahiri remains alive and well. Americans have turned inward since the economic crash of 2008, so it remains to be seen, now that the news networks are trumpeting the triumph, whether this will be the climactic event, or the cause for celebration, that it was expected to be so seemingly long ago.
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2 comments:
And if they kill Zarahiri, someone else will rise to claim the mantle. Murder causes hate. Hate causes more murder.
How many children in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan are now fatherless directly because of the US invasion and occupation? How many of them will grow up hating America and, when old enough, grab agun and start shooting?
How many women are husbandless? How many of them will be willing to strap on a bomb and walk into a crowd?
Our ramapant violence against others will only continue to backlash and the backlash will continue to grow. The only way to end the war on terrorism is to walk away.
@Crhymethinc
What he said, in addition, not only does it create more terrorism, well, it also wrecks our economy. I think all this cheering is premature, frankly I think Osama will be getting the last laugh (in hell?) as our economy continues to totally crash because of the insane costs (in all senses of the word) of these wars.
As for whether Obama will be able to ride this to re election, I think there's a good chance he will be able to pull it off with the "I killed that motherfucker!" jab, *if*, the economy doesn't go into complete meltdown until the '12 election that is.
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