The Weirdness of Osama Bin Laden

The execution of Osama Bin Laden is the latest 'triumph' of our warring madness. In one sense, he's just one more corpse in a vast pile of them in that miserable part of the world.  But in another sense, of course, his death is the symbolic decapitation of a serpentine extremist movement, and so it is hard to be sad about it (although that contradicts the plain teachings of Jesus--who was clearly out of touch with reality, I guess).

But there are so many weird things about Bin Laden. He was, of course, our CIA covert asset for many years (this is probably news to most Americans, given their vast and increasing historical incomprehension). We, the Saudis, and the Pakistanis recruited, trained, and equipped Bin Laden and thousands of his Islamist pals--we called them 'Muhajideen' and 'freedom fighters' then--for our own 'jihad' against the Soviet Union in the 70s, 80s and 90s.  First in Afghanistan in the 1980s, then in Muslim areas of the former Soviet Union (Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Dagestan, etc.) and of the Balkans (Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia) in the 1990s. (This is all fully documented.)  In all of these areas, these Islamist 'Arab Afghans' served our American national interest (destroying the Soviets while also increasing our military presence in the vital petroleum regions of the Middle East and Central Asia).  Weird, eh?

Then, like magic, just when we needed a 'new Pearl Harbor' (courtesy of the neo-con 'Project for a New American Century') to launch our war on Iraq (and possibly Iran, Libya, Syria, etc.), guess who shows up?  That's right, our Islamist freedom fighter and ally Osama Bin Laden.   What an amazing coincidence!!  Very convenient for us that this faithful ally of ours, who had done so much for us over 20 years, now turns against us just when we need a pretext for our wars.

And like some comic book superhero, Bin Laden and his cadre of terrorists sliced through our incomparable national defenses like a knife through soft butter.  Our NORAD/Pentagon/CIA/FBI/NSA/DIA/etc. forces were simply helpless before his stealthy and uncanny maneuvers and tactics, using such high tech weapons as box cutters!  And then, whoosh, he just as quickly disappeared, and we, with our vast, trillion dollar per year global intelligence network, were unable to locate him for 10 years, until a few months ago!  Living with his large family in a huge walled compound in the West Point of Pakistan.  We are just a pretty weak and helpless nation, don't you think, when it comes to this Darth Vader of Villains, Osama Bin Laden? 

The attack on 9/11 put we Americans in a very, what shall I say, aggressive state of mind?  We were ready to rumble!  If President Bush had said Canada was the culprit, well, don't you think that Toronto would today be the capital of our 51st State called Ontario?  But instead, we turned first on Afghanistan and quickly thereafter on Iraq (which of course had nothing to do with Bin Laden or 9/11, but, on the other hand, had the second largest untapped pool of oil in the world...which of course we weren't interested in).
 
So, now, the great Islamist leader Osama Bin Laden (aka 'Geronimo') is dead, executed (in his bedroom and unarmed) on the order of President Obama. One would have thought that we might want to interrogate this man, and put him on trial for his many crimes, perhaps even waterboard him, since we all know that is so effective in getting good intelligence. But instead, we killed him--no questions asked--and then took his body and dumped it in the ocean, like some kind of Chicago mob hit (as many have noted). With a proper Muslim burial, of course!  What a dumb thing to do, if we were really interested in getting to the bottom of Al Qaeda.  I guess maybe we weren't?

As I said, all this is very weird. In our national celebration over his death, few are asking any questions.  We just accept what our leaders say as the Truth because, of course, they know best. 

But that won't last.