By Steve Hynd
Osama Bin Laden was really only of symbolic importance, his death changes little, can we move on now?
Bin Laden has been a mere figurehead for Al Qaeda for years now. Even locally, overall command of the core AQ group had already been given over to Ayman al-Zawahiri - who is still alive and well and doubtless in some other luxury compound the Pakistani intelligence agency has "no idea" about. Mullah Omar, the head of the Afghan Taliban, is like wise still alive and by reliable accounts ensconsed under ISI protection in the Pakistani town of Quetta. Al Qaeda factions and franchises across the world are largely or entirely independent of central direction in any case and unarguably pose a greater threat to U.S. interests and national security.
His death changes little. The Arab Spring has proven to the whole region and the wider world that violence is not the only, or even the most viable, path to change. Neither the massive U.S. armed presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, nor drone strikes, nor torturing folk at Gitmo killed Bin Laden. Despite all the surges and the trillions spent on them, it was a counter-terrorism victory. Still, the occupation of Afghanistan will continue even though many are calling for a "mission accomplished" moment. Because that occupation will continue, the US will continue to look the other way as Pakistan's authorities pretend ignorance of the safe havens they offer several varieties of terror group. That dynamic in turn means India will continue to feel strategically lonely and the triangular Cold War in the region will continue.
Despite all this self-evident truth, we're still obsessing about every minor detail of Bin Laden's death. Perhaps we just love revenge too much. Whether or not that's the motive, it's time we moved on to more prerssing concerns.
I admit to being more bemused than bored. Watching how people react to such events is always interesting, and some of the reactions on the right are downright knee-slapping, like the whole �16 hours� meme started by the Daily Mail. The other thing that should prove continuingly head-shaking is the whole lack of a body and current refusal to release pictures of the corpse. I am almost convinced that this is a deliberate ploy by Obama to give the Republican base so recently discredited by the whole birth certificate issue yet one more issue to gnaw upon and therefore help make the Republican primaries an even greater exercise in stupidity and pandering to extremely out-of-touch fanatics than it would be anyway. Bin Laden�s killing really shouldn�t have any effect on Obama�s re-election chances given its only symbolic significance in the greater scheme of things, but the Republican faithful chasing another conspiracy theory likely will.
ReplyDeleteI agree wholeheartedly.
ReplyDeleteSo I assume this is your last OBL post.
At least I hope it is.