This didn’t always need explaining– lynching and body snatching are INJUSTICES. There used to be an understanding of what “taking the law into your own hands” meant. Killing someone outright doesn’t bring them to justice, and I’m not alone to assert that killing someone -even after a trial- is premeditated murder. We’re not hearing any such voices on the media unfortunately. Even in the days of mob lynching, the crowd once drained of its blood-lust would sober to the crime it committed, often masked. That said, the press has always responded with statements of pitiable glee. In Colorado, even the most gruesome lynchings, race-related and otherwise, prompted congratulatory editorials from the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Rocky Mountain News and the rest. However, political leaders were usually more careful not to be celebrating extra-judicial revenge killing.
Today even world leaders seem to be piling on with attaboys. Dispiriting really.
The facts emerging from bin Laden’s killing just get worse and worse. If Osama was indeed in a military-secured compound, a whole secured zone apparently, what reason could possibly be given for why every usual method would not be used to bring him into custody? Where was he going to go? Did we need to kill his entourage like we did Saddam Hussein’s sons? The fact that this raid is purported to have been planned for months makes the assassination all the more purposeful.
And then we learn his body was buried at sea, which the media uncritically recite is “in accordance to Islamic tradition” even as Muslims refute it. Besides of course suggesting that today’s raid was only Kabuki theater for disposing of OBL’s ten-year-dead corpse, conveniently making the body disappear makes dark humor of mocking Habeas Corpus. Where already America disregards the fundamental right of a trial of your peers.
Bin Laden’s colleagues are denied the jury of peers and instead judged through kangaroo military tribunals, patently illegal by international law. Lynching of course dispenses of even that formality.
But lynching victims of the earlier times were not deprived of their bodies. How dare the US declare itself judge, executioner AND God over Osama bin Laden’s remains?!
The pretext is that they don’t want a shrine made of wherever his family would have chosen to bury him. But of course, that will not be ours to decide. At the very least the site of bin Laden’s murder will already be a shrine for those in Islamabad. It will certainly be ironic if the WTC in New York City will be the most significant memory of Osama bin Laden’s deeds and become ground zero for his enormous fame worldwide.
Edifices like the Taj Mahal are the exception, the Qu’ran says a simple grave with no ornamentation. No images of angels, no images of people and writing the name and dates on it pushes the envelope.
So, a shrine? I mean, sure my knowledge of sepulture would limited next to that of a Funeral Director but even I know that relic filled grave-shrines is a Christian-European thing.
I’m trying not to follow the jubilation. Some of the not-as-stupid people in the administration are warning that it doesn’t mean an end of the wars started with the alleged goal of revenge. We’ve killed millions in the “war on terror” and guess what? Every one of them has living relatives and Hell no they ain’t going to forgive us for killing their kinfolk and even GASP! loved ones. bin Laden being officially dead would be really low on the list of reasons a young mother deprived of her children to Drones, Clusterbombs and Flusterclucks wrought and wielded by Invading Americans, would hate the U.S.
One death among millions. The orphans, widows, widowers, the bereaved parents, brothers, sisters… they won’t give a shit about bin Laden or any lame-ass explanations given, especially if they’re prefaced or followed by “You sorry sand-nigger towel-head wogs brought it on yourselves”.
Kill somebody near and dear to them, their kids for instance, and it has a larger impact than killing somebody they’ve never met.
The USA invaded Afghanistan without the full majority of the UN Security Council. It invaded Iraq also without the full support of UN Security Council These wars were illegal but for some reason the US absolutely needed to fight them. Osama Bin Laden had to be caught, thousands of American soldiers lost their lives, hundreds of thousands of innocent Afghan children, women and men were killed. In Iraq – the number 2 most wanted man Saddam Hussein was killed, but Osama bin Laden was not caught – today he was found, killed and his body disposed off at sea. The waste of countless lives. The USA has driven itself and its allies in economic ruin. Since the wars were illegal the prisoners were placed in the neutral zone in Gitmo. The US needs wars in order to keep its economy going – as some one said war is good for business. The reason to fight wars is to develop new weapons. A new drone has been introduced with a new system called the Gorgon. None of these would have been developed if they were not ‘field tested’. Any enemy has to be created to start a war. He has to be dehumanised and turned into stereotype image of what people a monster is like. The USA false flag operations are well known and their purpose recorded. I suppose now that the USA has lost too many soldiers and squandered too much money in this war, it may well withdraw. Obama had come with the policy of CHANGE but he did not change a single thing. The wars continued and the money was not spent on the things he said it should be spent on. The USA has earned the name of a country which destroys lives and countries. Steals from any country it wants. The greatest terror in the world is the USA. It can attack any country in the world on the slightest pretext. The USA used illegal chemical weapons on the citizens of Fallujah – the result of chemical attack were birth defects. This the example of a country which can descend to this level of barbarity.
What a frankly great blog post
Thank god some bloggers can write. Thanks for this blog post