So Osama is dead ( if we take everything the US government says as true). But what exactly does it mean? Here are two perspectives by people who have more knowledge than most of both the man and what the consequences of both his actions and the reactions to them are.
When September 11 happened I was appalled by the jubilation by some quarters at the deaths in New York and elsewhere. Equally I am appalled by the cheering crowds in front of the White House last Sunday night, as I am by those who claim that Osama Bin Laden is a martyr.
Martin Luther King, Jr said it best:
"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives but I will not rejoice in the death of one, even an enemy."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When September 11 happened I was appalled by the jubilation by some quarters at the deaths in New York and elsewhere. Equally I am appalled by the cheering crowds in front of the White House last Sunday night, as I am by those who claim that Osama Bin Laden is a martyr.
Martin Luther King, Jr said it best:
"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives but I will not rejoice in the death of one, even an enemy."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Fisk: Was he betrayed? Of course. Pakistan knew Bin Laden's hiding place all along
Tuesday, 3 May 2011
A middle-aged nonentity, a political failure outstripped by history – by the millions of Arabs demanding freedom and democracy in the Middle East – died in Pakistan yesterday. And then the world went mad.
Fresh from providing us with a copy of his birth certificate, the American President turned up in the middle of the night to provide us with a live-time death certificate for Osama bin Laden, killed in a town named after a major in the army of the old British Empire. A single shot to the head, we were told. But the body's secret flight to Afghanistan, an equally secret burial at sea? The weird and creepy disposal of the body – no shrines, please – was almost as creepy as the man and his vicious organisation.
The Americans were drunk with joy. David Cameron thought it "a massive step forward". India described it as a "victorious milestone". "A resounding triumph," Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu boasted. But after 3,000 American dead on 9/11, countless more in the Middle East, up to half a million Muslims dead in Iraq and Afghanistan and 10 years trying to find Bin Laden, pray let us have no more "resounding triumphs". Revenge attacks? Perhaps they will come, by the little groupuscules in the West, who have no direct contact with al-Qa'ida. Be sure, someone is already dreaming up a "Brigade of the Martyr Osama bin Laden". Maybe in Afghanistan, among the Taliban.
But the mass revolutions in the Arab world over the past four months mean that al-Qa'ida was already politically dead. Bin Laden told the world – indeed, he told me personally – that he wanted to destroy the pro-Western regimes in the Arab world, the dictatorships of the Mubaraks and the Ben Alis. He wanted to create a new Islamic Caliphate. But these past few months, millions of Arab Muslims rose up and were prepared for their own martyrdom – not for Islam but for freedom and liberty and democracy. Bin Laden didn't get rid of the tyrants. The people did. And they didn't want a caliph.
I met the man three times and have only one question left unasked: what did he think as he watched those revolutions unfold this year – under the flags of nations rather than Islam, Christians and Muslims together, the kind of people his own al-Qa'ida men were happy to butcher?
In his own eyes, his achievement was the creation of al-Qa'ida, the institution which had no card-carrying membership. You just woke up in the morning, wanted to be in al-Qa'ida – and you were. He was the founder. But he was never a hands-on warrior. There was no computer in his cave, no phone calls to set bombs off. While the Arab dictators ruled uncontested with our support, they largely avoided condemning American policy; only Bin Laden said these things. Arabs never wanted to fly planes into tall buildings, but they did admire a man who said what they wanted to say. But now, increasingly, they can say these things. They don't need Bin Laden. He had become a nonentity.
But talking of caves, Bin Laden's demise does bring Pakistan into grim focus. For months, President Ali Zardari has been telling us that Bin Laden was living in a cave in Afghanistan. Now it turns out he was living in a mansion in Pakistan. Betrayed? Of course he was. By the Pakistan military or the Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence? Quite possibly both. Pakistan knew where he was.
Not only was Abbottabad the home of the country's military college – the town was founded by Major James Abbott of the British Army in 1853 – but it is headquarters of Pakistan's Northern Army Corps' 2nd Division. Scarcely a year ago, I sought an interview with another "most wanted man" – the leader of the group believed responsible for the Mumbai massacres. I found him in the Pakistani city of Lahore – guarded by uniformed Pakistani policemen holding machine guns.
Of course, there is one more obvious question unanswered: couldn't they have captured Bin Laden? Didn't the CIA or the Navy Seals or the US Special Forces or whatever American outfit killed him have the means to throw a net over the tiger? "Justice," Barack Obama called his death. In the old days, of course, "justice" meant due process, a court, a hearing, a defence, a trial. Like the sons of Saddam, Bin Laden was gunned down. Sure, he never wanted to be taken alive – and there were buckets of blood in the room in which he died.
But a court would have worried more people than Bin Laden. After all, he might have talked about his contacts with the CIA during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, or about his cosy meetings in Islamabad with Prince Turki, Saudi Arabia's head of intelligence. Just as Saddam – who was tried for the murder of a mere 153 people rather than thousands of gassed Kurds – was hanged before he had the chance to tell us about the gas components that came from America, his friendship with Donald Rumsfeld, the US military assistance he received when he invaded Iran in 1980.
Oddly, he was not the "most wanted man" for the international crimes against humanity of 11 September 2001. He gained his Wild West status by al-Qa'ida's earlier attacks on the US embassies in Africa and the attack on the US barracks in Dhahran. He was always waiting for Cruise missiles – so was I when I met him. He had waited for death before, in the caves of Tora Bora in 2001 when his bodyguards refused to let him stand and fight and forced him to walk over the mountains to Pakistan. Some of his time he would spend in Karachi – he was obsessed with Karachi; he even, weirdly, gave me photographs of pro-Bin Laden graffiti on the walls of the former Pakistani capital and praised the city's imams.
His relations with other Muslims were mysterious; when I met him in Afghanistan, he initially feared the Taliban, refusing to let me travel to Jalalabad at night from his training camp – he handed me over to his al-Qa'ida lieutenants to protect me on the journey next day. His followers hated all Shia Muslims as heretics and all dictators as infidels – though he was prepared to cooperate with Iraq's ex-Baathists against the country's American occupiers, and said so in an audiotape which the CIA typically ignored. He never praised Hamas and was scarcely worthy of their "holy warrior" definition yesterday which played – as usual – straight into Israel's hands.
In the years after 2001, I maintained a faint indirect communication with Bin Laden, once meeting one of his trusted al-Qa'ida associates at a secret location in Pakistan. I wrote out a list of 12 questions, the first of which was obvious: what kind of victory could he claim when his actions resulted in the US occupation of two Muslim countries? There was no reply for weeks. Then one weekend, waiting to give a lecture in Saint Louis in the US, I was told that Al Jazeera had produced a new audiotape from Bin Laden. And one by one – without mentioning me – he answered my 12 questions. And yes, he wanted the Americans to come to the Muslim world – so he could destroy them.
When Wall Street journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped, I wrote a long article in The Independent, pleading with Bin Laden to try to save his life. Pearl and his wife had looked after me when I was beaten on the Afghan border in 2001; he even gave me the contents of his contacts book. Much later, I was told that Bin Laden had read my report with sadness. But Pearl had already been murdered. Or so he said.
Yet Bin Laden's own obsessions blighted even his family. One wife left him, two more appeared to have been killed in Sunday's American attack. I met one of his sons, Omar, in Afghanistan with his father in 1994. He was a handsome little boy and I asked him if he was happy. He said "yes" in English. But last year, he published a book called Living Bin Laden and – recalling how his father killed his beloved dogs in a chemical warfare experiment – described him as an "evil man". In his book, he too remembered our meeting; and concluded that he should have told me that no, he was not a happy child.
By midday yesterday, I had three phone calls from Arabs, all certain that it was Bin Laden's double who was killed by the Americans – just as I know many Iraqis who still believe that Saddam's sons were not killed in 2003, nor Saddam really hanged. In due course, al-Qa'ida will tell us. Of course, if we are all wrong and it was a double, we're going to be treated to yet another videotape from the real Bin Laden – and President Barack Obama will lose the next election.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I know that because of this announcement, that reportedly Osama bin Laden was killed, Bob [Scheer] wanted me to say a few words about it … about al-Qaida.
I spent a year of my life covering al-Qaida for The New York Times. It was the work in which I, and other investigative reporters, won the Pulitzer Prize. And I spent seven years of my life in the Middle East. I was the Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times. I’m an Arabic speaker. And when someone came over and told Jean and me the news, my stomach sank. I’m not in any way naïve about what al-Qaida is. It’s an organization that terrifies me. I know it intimately.
But I’m also intimately familiar with the collective humiliation that we have imposed on the Muslim world. The expansion of military occupation that took place throughout, in particular the Arab world, following 9/11 – and that this presence of American imperial bases, dotted, not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Doha – is one that has done more to engender hatred and acts of terror than anything ever orchestrated by Osama bin Laden.
And the killing of bin Laden, who has absolutely no operational role in al-Qaida – that’s clear – he’s kind of a spiritual mentor, a kind of guide … he functions in many of the ways that Hitler functioned for the Nazi Party. We were just talking with Warren about Kershaw’s great biography of Hitler, which I read a few months ago, where you hold up a particular ideological ideal and strive for it. That was bin Laden’s role. But all actual acts of terror, which he may have signed off on, he no way planned.
I think that one of the most interesting aspects of the whole rise of al-Qaida is that when Saddam Hussein … and I covered the first Gulf War, went into Kuwait with the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, was in Basra during the Shiite uprising until I was captured and taken prisoner by the Iraqi Republican Guard. I like to say I was embedded with the Iraqi Republican Guard. Within that initial assault and occupation of Kuwait, bin Laden appealed to the Saudi government to come back and help organize the defense of his country. And he was turned down. And American troops came in and implanted themselves on Muslim soil.
When I was in New York, as some of you were, on 9/11, I was in Times Square when the second plane hit. I walked into The New York Times, I stuffed notebooks in my pocket and walked down the West Side Highway and was at Ground Zero four hours later. I was there when Building 7 collapsed. And I watched as a nation drank deep from that very dark elixir of American nationalism … the flip side of nationalism is always racism, it’s about self-exaltation and the denigration of the other.
And it’s about forgetting that terrorism is a tactic. You can’t make war on terror. Terrorism has been with us since Sallust wrote about it in the Jugurthine Wars. And the only way to successfully fight terrorist groups is to isolate themselves, isolate those groups, within their own societies. And I was in the immediate days after 9/11 assigned to go out to Jersey City and the places where the hijackers had lived and begin to piece together their lives. I was then very soon transferred to Paris, where I covered all of al-Qaida’s operations in the Middle East and Europe.
So I was in the Middle East in the days after 9/11. And we had garnered the empathy of not only most of the world, but the Muslim world who were appalled at what had been done in the name of their religion. And we had major religious figures like Sheikh Tantawy, the head of al-Azhar – who died recently – who after the attacks of 9/11 not only denounced them as a crime against humanity, which they were, but denounced Osama bin Laden as a fraud … someone who had no right to issue fatwas or religious edicts, no religious legitimacy, no religious training. And the tragedy was that if we had the courage to be vulnerable, if we had built on that empathy, we would be far safer and more secure today than we are.
We responded exactly as these terrorist organizations wanted us to respond. They wanted us to speak the language of violence. What were the explosions that hit the World Trade Center, huge explosions and death above a city skyline? It was straight out of Hollywood. When Robert McNamara in 1965 began the massive bombing campaign of North Vietnam, he did it because he said he wanted to “send a message” to the North Vietnamese—a message that left hundreds of thousands of civilians dead.
These groups learned to speak the language we taught them. And our response was to speak in kind. The language of violence, the language of occupation—the occupation of the Middle East, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—has been the best recruiting tool al-Qaida has been handed.
If it is correct that Osama bin Laden is dead, then it will spiral upwards with acts of suicidal vengeance. And I expect most probably on American soil. The tragedy of the Middle East is one where we proved incapable of communicating in any other language than the brute and brutal force of empire.
And empire finally, as Thucydides understood, is a disease. As Thucydides wrote, the tyranny that the Athenian empire imposed on others it finally imposed on itself. The disease of empire, according to Thucydides, would finally kill Athenian democracy. And the disease of empire, the disease of nationalism … these of course are mirrored in the anarchic violence of these groups, but one that locks us in a kind of frightening death spiral. So while I certainly fear al-Qaida, I know it’s intentions. I know how it works. I spent months of my life reconstructing every step Mohamed Atta took. While I don’t in any way minimize their danger, I despair. I despair that we as a country, as Nietzsche understood, have become a monster that we are attempting to fight.
Thank you.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another good article here.
Robert Fisk's interview with Osama Bin Laden.
Fresh from providing us with a copy of his birth certificate, the American President turned up in the middle of the night to provide us with a live-time death certificate for Osama bin Laden, killed in a town named after a major in the army of the old British Empire. A single shot to the head, we were told. But the body's secret flight to Afghanistan, an equally secret burial at sea? The weird and creepy disposal of the body – no shrines, please – was almost as creepy as the man and his vicious organisation.
The Americans were drunk with joy. David Cameron thought it "a massive step forward". India described it as a "victorious milestone". "A resounding triumph," Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu boasted. But after 3,000 American dead on 9/11, countless more in the Middle East, up to half a million Muslims dead in Iraq and Afghanistan and 10 years trying to find Bin Laden, pray let us have no more "resounding triumphs". Revenge attacks? Perhaps they will come, by the little groupuscules in the West, who have no direct contact with al-Qa'ida. Be sure, someone is already dreaming up a "Brigade of the Martyr Osama bin Laden". Maybe in Afghanistan, among the Taliban.
But the mass revolutions in the Arab world over the past four months mean that al-Qa'ida was already politically dead. Bin Laden told the world – indeed, he told me personally – that he wanted to destroy the pro-Western regimes in the Arab world, the dictatorships of the Mubaraks and the Ben Alis. He wanted to create a new Islamic Caliphate. But these past few months, millions of Arab Muslims rose up and were prepared for their own martyrdom – not for Islam but for freedom and liberty and democracy. Bin Laden didn't get rid of the tyrants. The people did. And they didn't want a caliph.
I met the man three times and have only one question left unasked: what did he think as he watched those revolutions unfold this year – under the flags of nations rather than Islam, Christians and Muslims together, the kind of people his own al-Qa'ida men were happy to butcher?
In his own eyes, his achievement was the creation of al-Qa'ida, the institution which had no card-carrying membership. You just woke up in the morning, wanted to be in al-Qa'ida – and you were. He was the founder. But he was never a hands-on warrior. There was no computer in his cave, no phone calls to set bombs off. While the Arab dictators ruled uncontested with our support, they largely avoided condemning American policy; only Bin Laden said these things. Arabs never wanted to fly planes into tall buildings, but they did admire a man who said what they wanted to say. But now, increasingly, they can say these things. They don't need Bin Laden. He had become a nonentity.
But talking of caves, Bin Laden's demise does bring Pakistan into grim focus. For months, President Ali Zardari has been telling us that Bin Laden was living in a cave in Afghanistan. Now it turns out he was living in a mansion in Pakistan. Betrayed? Of course he was. By the Pakistan military or the Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence? Quite possibly both. Pakistan knew where he was.
Not only was Abbottabad the home of the country's military college – the town was founded by Major James Abbott of the British Army in 1853 – but it is headquarters of Pakistan's Northern Army Corps' 2nd Division. Scarcely a year ago, I sought an interview with another "most wanted man" – the leader of the group believed responsible for the Mumbai massacres. I found him in the Pakistani city of Lahore – guarded by uniformed Pakistani policemen holding machine guns.
Of course, there is one more obvious question unanswered: couldn't they have captured Bin Laden? Didn't the CIA or the Navy Seals or the US Special Forces or whatever American outfit killed him have the means to throw a net over the tiger? "Justice," Barack Obama called his death. In the old days, of course, "justice" meant due process, a court, a hearing, a defence, a trial. Like the sons of Saddam, Bin Laden was gunned down. Sure, he never wanted to be taken alive – and there were buckets of blood in the room in which he died.
But a court would have worried more people than Bin Laden. After all, he might have talked about his contacts with the CIA during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, or about his cosy meetings in Islamabad with Prince Turki, Saudi Arabia's head of intelligence. Just as Saddam – who was tried for the murder of a mere 153 people rather than thousands of gassed Kurds – was hanged before he had the chance to tell us about the gas components that came from America, his friendship with Donald Rumsfeld, the US military assistance he received when he invaded Iran in 1980.
Oddly, he was not the "most wanted man" for the international crimes against humanity of 11 September 2001. He gained his Wild West status by al-Qa'ida's earlier attacks on the US embassies in Africa and the attack on the US barracks in Dhahran. He was always waiting for Cruise missiles – so was I when I met him. He had waited for death before, in the caves of Tora Bora in 2001 when his bodyguards refused to let him stand and fight and forced him to walk over the mountains to Pakistan. Some of his time he would spend in Karachi – he was obsessed with Karachi; he even, weirdly, gave me photographs of pro-Bin Laden graffiti on the walls of the former Pakistani capital and praised the city's imams.
His relations with other Muslims were mysterious; when I met him in Afghanistan, he initially feared the Taliban, refusing to let me travel to Jalalabad at night from his training camp – he handed me over to his al-Qa'ida lieutenants to protect me on the journey next day. His followers hated all Shia Muslims as heretics and all dictators as infidels – though he was prepared to cooperate with Iraq's ex-Baathists against the country's American occupiers, and said so in an audiotape which the CIA typically ignored. He never praised Hamas and was scarcely worthy of their "holy warrior" definition yesterday which played – as usual – straight into Israel's hands.
In the years after 2001, I maintained a faint indirect communication with Bin Laden, once meeting one of his trusted al-Qa'ida associates at a secret location in Pakistan. I wrote out a list of 12 questions, the first of which was obvious: what kind of victory could he claim when his actions resulted in the US occupation of two Muslim countries? There was no reply for weeks. Then one weekend, waiting to give a lecture in Saint Louis in the US, I was told that Al Jazeera had produced a new audiotape from Bin Laden. And one by one – without mentioning me – he answered my 12 questions. And yes, he wanted the Americans to come to the Muslim world – so he could destroy them.
When Wall Street journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped, I wrote a long article in The Independent, pleading with Bin Laden to try to save his life. Pearl and his wife had looked after me when I was beaten on the Afghan border in 2001; he even gave me the contents of his contacts book. Much later, I was told that Bin Laden had read my report with sadness. But Pearl had already been murdered. Or so he said.
Yet Bin Laden's own obsessions blighted even his family. One wife left him, two more appeared to have been killed in Sunday's American attack. I met one of his sons, Omar, in Afghanistan with his father in 1994. He was a handsome little boy and I asked him if he was happy. He said "yes" in English. But last year, he published a book called Living Bin Laden and – recalling how his father killed his beloved dogs in a chemical warfare experiment – described him as an "evil man". In his book, he too remembered our meeting; and concluded that he should have told me that no, he was not a happy child.
By midday yesterday, I had three phone calls from Arabs, all certain that it was Bin Laden's double who was killed by the Americans – just as I know many Iraqis who still believe that Saddam's sons were not killed in 2003, nor Saddam really hanged. In due course, al-Qa'ida will tell us. Of course, if we are all wrong and it was a double, we're going to be treated to yet another videotape from the real Bin Laden – and President Barack Obama will lose the next election.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Published on Monday, May 2, 2011 by TruthDig.com
Editor’s note: Chris Hedges made these remarks about Osama bin Laden’s death at a Truthdig fundraising event in Los Angeles on Sunday evening.I know that because of this announcement, that reportedly Osama bin Laden was killed, Bob [Scheer] wanted me to say a few words about it … about al-Qaida.
I spent a year of my life covering al-Qaida for The New York Times. It was the work in which I, and other investigative reporters, won the Pulitzer Prize. And I spent seven years of my life in the Middle East. I was the Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times. I’m an Arabic speaker. And when someone came over and told Jean and me the news, my stomach sank. I’m not in any way naïve about what al-Qaida is. It’s an organization that terrifies me. I know it intimately.
But I’m also intimately familiar with the collective humiliation that we have imposed on the Muslim world. The expansion of military occupation that took place throughout, in particular the Arab world, following 9/11 – and that this presence of American imperial bases, dotted, not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Doha – is one that has done more to engender hatred and acts of terror than anything ever orchestrated by Osama bin Laden.
And the killing of bin Laden, who has absolutely no operational role in al-Qaida – that’s clear – he’s kind of a spiritual mentor, a kind of guide … he functions in many of the ways that Hitler functioned for the Nazi Party. We were just talking with Warren about Kershaw’s great biography of Hitler, which I read a few months ago, where you hold up a particular ideological ideal and strive for it. That was bin Laden’s role. But all actual acts of terror, which he may have signed off on, he no way planned.
I think that one of the most interesting aspects of the whole rise of al-Qaida is that when Saddam Hussein … and I covered the first Gulf War, went into Kuwait with the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, was in Basra during the Shiite uprising until I was captured and taken prisoner by the Iraqi Republican Guard. I like to say I was embedded with the Iraqi Republican Guard. Within that initial assault and occupation of Kuwait, bin Laden appealed to the Saudi government to come back and help organize the defense of his country. And he was turned down. And American troops came in and implanted themselves on Muslim soil.
When I was in New York, as some of you were, on 9/11, I was in Times Square when the second plane hit. I walked into The New York Times, I stuffed notebooks in my pocket and walked down the West Side Highway and was at Ground Zero four hours later. I was there when Building 7 collapsed. And I watched as a nation drank deep from that very dark elixir of American nationalism … the flip side of nationalism is always racism, it’s about self-exaltation and the denigration of the other.
And it’s about forgetting that terrorism is a tactic. You can’t make war on terror. Terrorism has been with us since Sallust wrote about it in the Jugurthine Wars. And the only way to successfully fight terrorist groups is to isolate themselves, isolate those groups, within their own societies. And I was in the immediate days after 9/11 assigned to go out to Jersey City and the places where the hijackers had lived and begin to piece together their lives. I was then very soon transferred to Paris, where I covered all of al-Qaida’s operations in the Middle East and Europe.
So I was in the Middle East in the days after 9/11. And we had garnered the empathy of not only most of the world, but the Muslim world who were appalled at what had been done in the name of their religion. And we had major religious figures like Sheikh Tantawy, the head of al-Azhar – who died recently – who after the attacks of 9/11 not only denounced them as a crime against humanity, which they were, but denounced Osama bin Laden as a fraud … someone who had no right to issue fatwas or religious edicts, no religious legitimacy, no religious training. And the tragedy was that if we had the courage to be vulnerable, if we had built on that empathy, we would be far safer and more secure today than we are.
We responded exactly as these terrorist organizations wanted us to respond. They wanted us to speak the language of violence. What were the explosions that hit the World Trade Center, huge explosions and death above a city skyline? It was straight out of Hollywood. When Robert McNamara in 1965 began the massive bombing campaign of North Vietnam, he did it because he said he wanted to “send a message” to the North Vietnamese—a message that left hundreds of thousands of civilians dead.
These groups learned to speak the language we taught them. And our response was to speak in kind. The language of violence, the language of occupation—the occupation of the Middle East, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—has been the best recruiting tool al-Qaida has been handed.
If it is correct that Osama bin Laden is dead, then it will spiral upwards with acts of suicidal vengeance. And I expect most probably on American soil. The tragedy of the Middle East is one where we proved incapable of communicating in any other language than the brute and brutal force of empire.
And empire finally, as Thucydides understood, is a disease. As Thucydides wrote, the tyranny that the Athenian empire imposed on others it finally imposed on itself. The disease of empire, according to Thucydides, would finally kill Athenian democracy. And the disease of empire, the disease of nationalism … these of course are mirrored in the anarchic violence of these groups, but one that locks us in a kind of frightening death spiral. So while I certainly fear al-Qaida, I know it’s intentions. I know how it works. I spent months of my life reconstructing every step Mohamed Atta took. While I don’t in any way minimize their danger, I despair. I despair that we as a country, as Nietzsche understood, have become a monster that we are attempting to fight.
Thank you.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another good article here.
Robert Fisk's interview with Osama Bin Laden.
Dear Marina,
ReplyDeleteWatched the news on NTV7 news yesterday and felt sick of a cross over during Obama's speech showing Americans prancing in joy to the news.
Do we have to be so callous about the death of another? That scene should have been edited out.
Hello? Those Americans have every right to celebrate in front of the White House as they are only normal humanbeings who suffered the loss of their loved ones in such a barbaric manner!
ReplyDeleteYes, there is much to Rejoice in the death of Osama. Yes, we can have more Peace without him. That Barbarian didn't think of human lives or religion.
I wish they chopped off his head and placed it on a stick for the whole world to see!
Joshua, I am disappointed in you. If you had actually seen the scenes of the jubilation, you would have realised that none of them were people who actually lost anyone in the 9/11 tragedy.
ReplyDeleteIndeed on the same night many Muslim-Americans joined in a vigil at the site of the World Trade Centre to pay homage to those lost there. No undignified cheering and whooping but quiet reflection and respect.
Perhaps you did not read the Vatican statement on Bin Laden's death, http://www.gmanews.tv/story/219396/nation/vatican-on-bin-laden-a-christian-never-rejoices-in-a-mans-death.
"Faced with the death of a man, a Christian never rejoices but reflects on the serious responsibility of each and every one of us before God and before man, and hopes and commits himself so that no event be an opportunity for further growth of hatred, but for peace," the statement read.
I believe that Martin Luther King Jr "quote" might not be as authentic as a lot of people think it is.
ReplyDeleteHere is a story on it: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/05/out-of-osamas-death-a-fake-quotation-is-born/238220/
Ahaha...i saw it everywhere too...but always posted and retweeted by people who, like me, believe in the sentiment. So even if it didn't come from MLK, it did come from someone who has a good heart.
ReplyDeleteIt made me really happy seeing your post title. I was just thinking that myself as I saw the footage of the Americans celebrating. As for those who lost loved ones in the September 11 attack, they might feel relief...but to actually celebrate? There is really no reason to...what's lost is lost.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much Datin Marina for all this great information.
ReplyDeleteI had long ago suspected there is something amiss with nationalism, racism, machoism and religion, as they all induce us humans to do rule over another. as a result, we could never live together in peace.
And while all these ism's aren't something we can remove in an instant, there is nothing stopping us from moving to discard it all, for the sake of real peace.
It is not just Osama Bin Laden is dead. John Lennon is also dead. Not that we ought to celebrate any death. But we ought to note why they were made to die.
Thank You
I saw the news briefly and was struck by several things:
ReplyDelete1) Was he really killed? Why the secrecy at disposing his body so quickly and without the dignity of a Muslim burial? Was there some sort of deal made?
2) What an odd way to "bring someone to justice" by killing them outright.
And then I felt a little sick after seeing the joy displayed by so many people on learning that a sentient being's life has been taken away from him.
What have us humans become if we jubilate and celebrate the misfortune and death of others?
Then a even bigger sadness as I realised that this is only the beginning.
Oh, I wish the world would stop doing violent things to each other. I wish that every person only harboured thoughts of goodwill to each other. Then the world would not be in such a mess.
Yup, Osama is dead. Finally the East Africans can breathe a sigh of relief. Yeah, that's right. Kenya and Tanzania felt the sting Osama's 'jihad' 3 years before the 9/11 incident. So it's not only a war against the 'infidel US-Israel alliance to free Muslim Palestine', so there's no justification for Muslims to celebrate this terrorist as a martyr.
ReplyDeleteAs much as I think it's tasteless, I kinda agree with Joshua that the US people have the right to celebrate and rejoice over his death. Much like the peoples of Kenya, Tanzania, the Philippines, Indonesia and Pakistan, and the Afghanis pre-2001 who were victims of his 'struggle for a world Islamic government.'
Alahai Datin...one has to be a devil to fight a devil! How are we to think with Religion when the Magnitude of Terrorism that this man committed was beyond the imagination of Lucifer!
ReplyDeleteit's not the most authentic but it'
ReplyDeletes pretty damn close from one of his book that he wrote if i'm not mistaken before the montgomery boycott in 1955.
If we return evil with evil, then....we are THE SAME.
ReplyDeleteBtw, MM, do you have the URL's for those 2 articles?
commentmalaysia,
ReplyDeleteOsama was given the proper Muslim Rites but had to be buried in sea because no country (Including Arab & Pakistan) wanted to claim his body and no country wanted him to be remembered or idolized. Bottom line is, he had to be killed. Just as how 'Batangkali' was killed many years ago by our Police.
Buyung, if you click on the headings of the articles, they'll take you to the original site.
ReplyDeleteBTW I was wrong about the dignity and respect shown at Ground Zero. Here's Mona Eltahawy's report on it, http://www.monaeltahawy.com/blog/?p=512
ReplyDelete... I was half-hoping that a turbaned, bearded, Al Qaida operative would suddenly appear amongst those cheering and thumping their chests at the news.
ReplyDeleteThen we would had a whole new definition of heroism as the gathered masses fled like jackrabbits at the appearance of a fox.
Strange that emotions and bravura run highest among those who are furthest from the battlefield.
A snippet of Wahhabi's teaching (from Global Security website):
ReplyDeleteHe (Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab) condemned specific acts that he viewed as leading to shirk, such as votive offerings, praying at saints' tombs and at graves, and any prayer ritual in which the suppliant appeals to a third party for intercession with God.
Consequently, the Wahhabis forbid grave markers or tombs in burial sites and the building of any shrines that could become a locus of shirk.
A good example is how King Fahd (the head-of-state of Saudi Arabia for 23 years, not some common person) was buried "into a simple, unmarked grave in a cemetery on a barren desert plain in Riyadh", in line with Wahhabi teaching, and which should be the proper burial method for a Wahhabi like OBL.
Even Baruch Goldstein and Slobodan Milosevic got proper burial. What's the rationale of dropping OBL's dead body into the sea? Perhaps they never learn from how Megatron was buried :-)
Joshua Lopez said...
ReplyDelete" I wish they chopped off his head and placed it on a stick for the whole world to see! "
It is said that personal remarks and insults will be removed or moderated. I don't care. I think Joshua Lopez is a very sick man. Can someone send him to Tanjung Rambutan please.
Marina,
ReplyDeleteMy Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada
lamented that it was with 'sombre satisfaction'
he accepted the news of Osama's demise. 24 Canadians
were murdered in the World Trade Centre.
Osama got more respect from a world leader than
the victims of the 'Itamar' massacre. Palestinians
handed out candy and sang for joy.
Similarly, chants of Allah U' Akhbar echoed
through the streets in Gaza when news of the
World Trade Centre (WTC) was received. I wonder how
many Muslims in the world giggled and sneered at
the deaths of Americans. How many Muslims do you
think were in the WTC.
Why do you abhor Americans chanting 'USA, USA, USA'
when chants of 'Allah U' Akhbar' are the melodious
call to the Caliphate?
Peace Be You In Jesus Name
... just as any man eating animal has to be putted down .... without the ceremony of course .
ReplyDeletePeople only seem to read what their prejudices want them to read.
ReplyDeleteSo two wrongs make a right and the world is now safe and peaceful. Dream on.
Can't recall, but Marina, can you refer us to what you might have written then of the Palestinian, Afghanistani and Pakistani celebrations immediately after 9/11? Also I even had to sit through a Malaysian Datuk who once was a CEO of one of a GLC trying to explain how the towers were brought down by a Jewish and CIA conspiracy. I guess he was not the only Malaysian attempting to make it look like a Jewish and CIA conspiracy. Have you had anything to say about that?
ReplyDeleteAt that time there was just that one wrong! Of course we all know that Malaysia was unable to condemn the 9/11 without reservation.
OF, that was in 2001 way before I started this blog. I'm pretty sure I said something in my column but I'm not organised enough to dig it up right now.
ReplyDeletePeople focus on the crazies who celebrate but forget about the many many more who did condemn the tragedy then. Sheikh Tantawi of Al-Azhar University was one of them. But prejudice can get in the way of this, so everyone gets tarnished with the same dirty brush, instead of the good one, no?
So funny how nobody wants to comment on the video I put up in my next post? Too difficult to comprehend such compassion and generosity perhaps?
Too sop to comment on the video la....
ReplyDeletean eye for an eye and the whole world will be blind...(does it matter who came up with this qoute ? I believe it is more important if it makes sense...)
ReplyDeleteit was indeed sad to see both ...9/11 tragedy and yet people can rejoice and the death of Osama and people are partying.
Osama might be dead, but his extreme philosophy and belief is not. Killing him is not the answer and will never be. We need dialogue , understanding and compassion. Why would the son of millionaire left his life of luxury to live and move from one cave to cave/shack ? How many of you out there will actually abandon your life of comfort and luxury (assuming you have the chance) ? I think we have to understand why and to go deep down to really understand why ? where we go wrong ?
indeed , two wrongs doesnt make it right and it will only give birth to the 3rd wrong , 4th wrong and continue in the circle of suffering..human beings can be so vengeful...sometimes blinded by anger that they forget , no religion in the world teaches them to kill , revenge in the name of their religion ...
unit space - people are allowed to make their personal remarks I guess, because people often/usually/basically look at things from one perspective/angle and their understanding/opinion/conclusion are formed based on the level of information/knowledge/exposure to a certain subject. when you are brought up to believe in something and to certain extent influenced conciously/subconciously to take side..you no longer want to hear anything else or perhaps no longer able to be neutral...thats the danger , thats why we see so many wars ...suicide bombings etc ...
"We have done this to avenge the Abbottabad incident, Ahsanullah Ahsan, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban.At least 80 people were killed 120 people were wounded" ...does the killing stop after Osama is dead ?
Keny Ryuu,
ReplyDeleteI read that statement about me by 'Unitspace' sometime ago. It didn't bother me bcos i felt that i didn't have to stoop so low. What i meant was a mere figure of speech, i never meant it literally, i can't even stand seeing my own blood.
I made that statement out of anger and frustration and i'm sure that retired lamb may have supported me if he/she lost his/her children or grandchildren in those towers.
At the end of the day, most people only retaliate when it involves their loved ones.
Yes, Osama's killing was barbaric and it's not the best solution but really it had to be done. Barbarians deserve what they get and in no way am i saying that any party is right or wrong.
I am speaking about that individual OBL, in no way did he represent the beauty and teachings of Islam.
I know I am a few weeks late on this topic, but after reading the comments, I felt like I had to comment.
ReplyDeleteI was a teenager in Malaysia when 9/11 happened. I remember being woken up by my parents at midnight to watch the news and I saw the towers tumbling down. I could not comprehend what was happening back then. Honestly, it did not impact me because I had no personal connections with America. All I knew was that a tragedy happened, and I was looking upon the incident as a bystander.
Fast forward a few years, and I found myself studying music therapy in America. I then understood the trauma that Americans faced when the towers came crashing down. One of humans' most basic needs - safety (according to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs) was shaken. They attacked by terrorists. Yes, logically the ones who should be most affected by the tragedy are those whose family or friends died in the incident. However, it is not up to us to determine how one relates to the event.
I got to witness and understand the grief that my American friends went through. For the first time, their home country was not safe to them anymore. A new fear was introduced to the Americans.
Imagine being in a country that is the greatest country in the world. No one can hurt you. You are the big shiny beacon on top of the hill. Then imagine a surprise attack coming out of nowhere, destroying the beacon, crushing all your sense of security.
Yes, Americans rejoiced after learning about the death of Osama bin Laden. I am giving them the benefit of the doubt, saying that what they are really celebrating is the end to the fear that was once instilled in them during 9/11. They are celebrating the death of the fear that shook their world 10 years ago.
Malaysianming, yes I know that Sept 11 was traumatic for Americans. But it does not justify the trauma the US then inflicted, and are still inflicting, on Iraq and Afghanistan since. I'm sorry but American lives are not worth more than those of Iraqis, Afghans, Palestinians and everyone else.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you should read the American Red Cross study on how Americans teens now view torture as justified, unlike their parents and grandparents who had supported the Geneva Conventions.There is something wrong with a society that believes in violence so much.
I, too, believe that all human lives are unique, beautiful, and precious. In a perfect worlds, there will be no war, hunger or strife. However, we are far from such a utopian world.
ReplyDeleteI believe in the goodness in life, equality for all, and justice for all.
As a music therapist that has worked with troubled children and teenagers in a mental health hospital (imagine locked wards and psychotropic drugs), I have witnessed the darkness of the souls of America's troubled youth.
Yes, there is a rise in the acceptance of violence amongst the new generation. We can banter about the causes for the troubling increase. However, I do not know if the media made aware to the world of what happened after the celebration.
The celebration happened first, as a form of instinctive jubilation. After my facebook and twitter account were overloaded by America's celebration of revenge, then came the thoughtful reflections:
Some quoted verses from the Bible, and various past American leaders about not taking joy in a person's death.
Some reflected on the death of their loved ones who died in Iraq and Afganistan.
Some of my friends from New York pulled up pictures from 9/11, reflecting on the day that America was shaken.
Some joked about the timely death, suggesting it was a hoax or it was Obama's ploy to secure his seat next term.
Yes, there is an acceptance of the ideation of revenge, and the rising acceptance of violence is concerning. But the humanist in me believes in the good in all mankind.
Even though 60% of American teens accept torture, there are 40% of them who do not. Compare the number of Americans celebrating in the streets that night and the ones mourning at home. Even though there are Americans supporting the war, there is a huge number of them who do not either.
I admit I might be sheltered in a community of American friends who are peace lovers and lovers of all human beings. But just as I beg my American friends not to be swayed by all they read about the controversial politics in Malaysia, I am asking my fellow Malaysians not to place all Americans in one generic bag.
Ming Yuan Low
there are a little part of 'osama' in the hearts of many in this world. The world can only be a peaceful place once we kick-out the 'osamas' from such hearts.
ReplyDeletewhat can one man osama do.. we are far from achieving peace, cos' now his followers would want to avenge his death.
Folks, face it, this has got nothing to do with religion! Ego, selfishness, envy and sense to control others is the real problem here. Only when one understands that he is beyond this body, we can see some real peace on this planet!
Out and about,
BOGO!
You chose carefully not to involve into domestic politic to avoid confronting your daddy. It must be very hard for you chose to be silent except to fight for Muslim sisters and carefully touch on international politic. Nothing wrong for you to speak out against issues involving all m'sian politically, even if your opinions are different from daddy. Hope one day you'll gather enough courage and stand on the front line tackle domestic issues of the land we called home even tho I'm living 10,000 miles away from home for the last 40 years in Germany.
ReplyDeletekwok-sang,
ReplyDeleteHai! Datin Paduka Marina has always been vocal as far as i can remember. She has no issues if her opinions differ from her father's. They have maturity. I've been following everything about them since i was in primary school.
Perhaps you've not been here to know that she has never been in her father's shadow. She is her own person and that's how she has gained respect nationally and internationally, even from those who totally disagree with her father.
I'm not her spoke's person but just felt the need to share my story from within Malaysia because it's rather obvious that you've not been in touch.
Joshua Lopez,
ReplyDeleteReading M'sian news have become a MUST for me everyday. Of course that doesn't mean I'm more updated than you about M'sian politic. But one thing for sure I respect Marina as much as you respect her. My concern about M'sian politic bcos it affects me as much as you and all M'sians.
kwok-sang,
ReplyDeleteVery few sane, brilliant and honest people around like MM in this country. Many of us often wait to hear her blast off on issues that really trouble us.
So we wait for her bloggings, twitter, musings, forwarded emails and her many public roles as a social activist. When she does her blasting it gives us fresh new hope and yes, she gives us a voice.
It's really sad that she's not in Parliament and she refuses to get in!
To Datin Paduka MM, you have been a Brilliant Star Of Malaysia which often brings us Hope and i hope you continue this journey by doing more! Tiredness isn't an option you have. Well, your dad has never been tired, when he gets quiet, something is up his sleeve!