As has been widely reported in recent days, the US claims to have finally killed Osama bin Laden. There is plenty being said about it elsewhere in the world, and probably plenty more that will be said, so I'll keep my post brief today.
Several things disturb me about this. First of all is the fact that non-Arab leaders around the world all seemed to be singing from the same sheet. It has been widely lauded as a "milestone in the war against terror" and many non-Arab leaders have claimed "the world is now a safer place". Arab leaders, by and large, predictably either condemned the action or or said as little as possible.
First of all, the uncritical repetition of the claim that we are in a "War on Terror" really irritates me. I'm not the first to object to such an open-ended, Orwellian declaration. The fact that this was allowed to continue in usage, unchallenged, has only continued the stupidity of the whole concept. You can't have a war on an abstract noun, you just can't. It's not pedantic to insist that our leaders only consider military actions with clearly defined enemies and goals.
I should say that I feel sorry for the citizens of the US. Not only did they have to suffer the most destructive act of terrorism on American soil which I watched live on TV and which totally shocked me, but they had to live with the fact that the US government had trained and funded Osama in his fight (as part of the Mujahadeen) against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Actually, equally unfortunately, the second worst attack on US soil was also carried out by individuals who had been trained by the US government (they were actually former US soldiers), but for reasons completely unrelated to the western world's current main bogeyman: "Islam".
So, what disturbs me in all this? Do I feel sorry for Osama bin Laden? No way! An extremely wealthy homicidal, fanatical maniac who lived by the gun. We shouldn't be surprised that he died by the gun. The US would have perhaps better served the goal of international harmony by kidnapping him and subjecting him to that most vital of glue to any community - the rule of law, but they chose a less messy route.
But the thing that disturbed me is that the images of the outpouring of triumphalism in the US looked no different to the same sorts of scenes played out a thousand times on our TVs from the Middle East of unreasoned mobs gathering to shout about how great they are/their leader/their religion. Where's the moral high ground?
This same triumphalism was echoed by leaders around the world. Personally, I find such celebrations extremely distasteful, to celebrate an assassination. Perhaps it was "a just killing" (a phrase I've heard ad nauseum in recent days), but is there really a need for the red-neck chantings of "U-S-A" and celebration of death? Perhaps it could be understood if you accept that the Americans really have felt for the last 10 years that they were at war. This could then be seen as equivalent to celebrations at the end of World War II, for example. They have really been involved in two separate long running wars now - Afghanistan and the highly unnecessary Iraq war - but an end is in sight for neither of these two wars just because the world's most spectacularly successful terrorist leader has been killed. Remember, terrorist leaders derive all their power through influence on the disenfranchised, and this killing does nothing to change the conditions that drive terrorist recruitment and anti-Western sentiment worldwide.
When that realisation sinks in, those who celebrated so wildly will perhaps feel a little silly. Or, who knows, perhaps it will just embolden the US to carry out more assassinations - that Hugo Chavez and Julian Assange have both been troublesome to the US of late, don't you agree?
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