Bin There, Dun That

Here are some more articles on the alleged US execution of Osama Bin Laden that you may or may not have seen.

Creating the Bin Laden "Reality"
by Paul Craig Roberts

I have heard one dozen times today (May 13) from media that the US killed Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan. I heard it three times from National Public Radio, twice from the BBC, and from every TV and radio station I encountered, even those stations that play the rock and roll music of the 1950s and 1960s. The killing of bin Laden has now entered the legends of our time and, no doubt, the history books.

The US government that told us that Saddam Hussein had “weapons of mass destruction” and “al Qaeda connections” and that Iran has nuclear missiles that require the US to ring Russia with anti-ballistic missile systems, finally told us the truth for once. Obama found Osama and had him murdered, apparently unarmed in his underwear, defended not by al Qaeda, “the best trained, most dangerous vicious killers on the planet,” but by two unarmed women.

As I offered previously, if you believe this, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I can let you have for a cheap price.

The government has created another reality for us proles. We won again. Us white hats got the black hat, just like in the western movie. Fantasy is better than fact, and us good guys are on a roll. It makes everybody happy, even those who have lost their jobs, their houses, their pensions.

So, who’s the next black hat? The military/security complex cannot do without a bad guy, or the budget could be cut and billions of dollars in profits would go missing. Without someone for Americans to hate, the show can’t go on.

Homeland Security says the next black hat will be “domestic extremists.” The CIA says it will be the next al Qaeda leader, bin Laden’s replacement, who will terrorize us white hats for killing bin Laden. The neocon brownshirts say it is Pakistan, who hid bin Laden from us, thus protecting him from justice being done. Hillary says it is China, and as the US economy continues its collapse, more and more fingers will point at China.

Airport Security will pat down more babies, feel more genitals, and radiate more air travelers.

But without bin Laden, we will feel safer and more secure, which is counterproductive for the military/security complex. Obama has made a fundamental mistake. He has killed Emanuel Goldstein (bin Laden), the hate figure who justified the trillions of dollars we have blown trying to get him.

Once Homeland Security, the CIA, and the White House decide who the new hate figure is to be, we will be off and running again...

But Was It Murder?
by Bill Blum

Since then a number of polls have shown that the American people, by margins of up to 90 percent, support not just the fact but the manner of bin Laden’s killing. The president’s popularity has rebounded to levels not seen since the early days of 2009. The country, by some indicators, feels renewed and vindicated.

But amid all the wisecracking, backslapping and official self-congratulations, a different and uneasy counter-narrative has emerged, best expressed by Gary Younge, a columnist writing in Britain’s Guardian newspaper: “This was not justice; it was an extra-judicial execution. If you shoot a man twice in the head, you do not find him guilty. You find him dead. This was revenge. And it was served very cold indeed.”

As much as we all might wish that the counter-narrative, with all of its uncomfortable implications, would fade away, it’s not likely to, given this country’s obsession with legal process. “In the United States,” as the French political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, “everyone is personally interested in enforcing the … law.” So it was in 1835 when de Tocqueville penned his classic study “Democracy in America”; so it is today as the nation continues to celebrate the May 1 death of the world’s terrorist mastermind.

And so it is incumbent upon us to ask even in this highly charged period of unbridled emotions: Who’s right on the law, those who praise the killing of bin Laden as just and legal or those who condemn the killing as an illegal act and even an act of murder?...

Bin Laden Mission Evokes More Questions Than Answers
by David Sirota

If the mission to neutralize Osama bin Laden were a blockbuster movie, the screen would have almost certainly faded to black as soon as the accused terrorist’s death was announced. No doubt, the credits would roll to Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and then a big “The End” would appear.

Alas, real life is not one of Hollywood’s many Pentagon-sponsored flicks — and as hard as President Obama tried to portray last week’s events as proof “that America can do whatever we set our mind to,” the mission and its cloudy aftermath have raised troubling questions about the “whatever” part. Among the most important of those queries are:

— Is it legal for a president to issue extrajudicial “kill only” orders — that is, orders to kill but not capture a suspect, even if that suspect surrenders? United Nations investigators are now asking this very question after Reuters cited an Obama administration official in reporting that U.S. troops were “under orders to kill (bin Laden), not capture him...”

Final Thoughts on the Death of OBL
by Michael Moore

But before leaving to go to the former World Trade Center site, I turned on the TV, and what I saw down at Ground Zero was not quiet relief and gratification that the culprit had been caught. Rather, I witnessed a frat boy-style party going on, complete with the shaking and spraying of champagne bottles over the crowd. I can completely understand people wanting to celebrate – like I said, I, too, was happy – but something didn't feel right. It's one thing to be happy that a criminal has been captured and dealt with. It's another thing to throw a kegger celebrating his death at the site where the remains of his victims are still occasionally found. Is that who we are? Is that what Jesus would do? Is that what Jefferson would do? I was reminded of the tale told to me as a kid, of God's angels singing with glee as the Red Sea came crashing back down on the Egyptians chasing the Israelites, drowning all of them. God rebuked them, saying, "The work of My hands is drowning in that sea – and you want to friggin' sing?" (or something like that).

I remember my parents telling me how, on the day it was announced that Hitler was dead, there was no rejoicing in the streets, just private relief and satisfaction. The real celebration came six days later at the announcement that the war in Europe was over. THAT'S what the people wanted to hear – not just the demise of one evil madman, but the end to all the killing...