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Bin there, done that“Justice has been done,” announced United States President Barack Obama in the late-night address following the killing of al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden.
Is that so? Images of Obama, Bill Clinton and White House staff watching it all take place on a plasma screen as it streamed live from a Navy Seal’s helmet camera like a sick reality show. Americans singing and dancing in the streets of New York and Washington, waving flags and glugging beer in elation like they had just left the Super Bowl.
Then the conflicting stories that sprouted from the White House itself: Was bin Laden armed or not? Did he use his wife as a human shield to protect himself, or not – or was it his daughter?
TIME Magazine claims that former Navy Seals allege that there is no Team 6 in the Navy Seals, the crack unit that supposedly took bin Laden out.
Were his remains immediately taken and “buried” at sea?
Have no fear, this is going to feed conspiracy theorists and dinner-party conversation hijackers for many moons to come.
I will never forget the day I watched the events of 9/11 and the towers – that symbolised the greatest power in the world – crumbling to the ground; I was horrified and afraid. Revenge may be a dish best served cold, but this was how I was left feeling again after watching the way in which the bin Laden capture was handled.
Has it really come to this? Do the Americans really think that justice has prevailed and that the wrongs of September 2001 have now been made right and been revenged? If anything, they should be more worried now: Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda second-in-charge seems far more omnipotent; and have the “infidels” not just opened Pandora’s box even wider?
Because the western world and American Left have a stake in President Obama’s approval rating, and because it would be really bad PR to criticise this very popular operation right now – in the immediate afterglow of its success, those inclined toward this sort of legalism-based critique are being pretty quiet for the moment.
But the moment will pass. I believe the repercussions will be severe and will stretch across many nations.
Perhaps someone needs to read to Obama what Martin Luther King wrote all those years ago: “The old law of ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everyone blind!”
