The World's Most Wanted Man
By George Capaccio
11 May, 2011
Countercurrents.org
You've heard what they're shouting in the news, on the street, over the Net, and from the rooftops of the White House: “We nailed the world's most wanted man. We shot him dead. Double-tapped him. Two shots to the head.” The Prez says justice was served. The Wall Street Journal agrees. So do the rest of the media bigwigs. Why just the other night on the Charlie Rose Show , I heard NBC Nightly News pretty boy anchor Brian Williams wonder if we erred in not putting a golden bullet into the head of Saddam Hussein in lieu of going to war. Even some of the leading lights of progressively liberal politics chime in with their own version of thumbs up, hoo-ra, way to go, USA !
You've heard the rap: Americans are united in their sense of relief that at long last, after a decade of vain pursuit and existential angst, the world's most wanted man has met his just reward — two shots to the head. Bang! Bang! You're dead.
Look, kids! Look what our peace-loving, Constitutional scholar of a President did! He authorized the extrajudicial killing of the world's most wanted man. Barack's got balls, yessirree, Bob. Balls as big Katrina vanden Heuvel, Arianna Huffington, and Hilary Clinton combined. Did I say extrajudicial killing? My mistake. I meant to say legitimate, legal payback for 9/11. So now we can all rally ‘round the flag in our fat outback rigs, our Ford Rams, our kick ass RUVs, and have ourselves a field day of whoopin' and hollerin'. The world's most wanted man is finally, irrevocably, sure-as- hell dead with no post mortem body to prove otherwise and no land-based grave where nosy nabobs might go poking around. And best of all no witnesses except a blood-splattered 12-year-old girl who saw her father shot in cold blood by a gang of black-uniformed Ninja psychopaths plunging from the sky with orders to kill. Thank god for Sheriff Hang ‘Em High Obama who served up a flaming barbecue of well-deserved pride for the whole country to sink its teeth into.
I don't know who that dead guy is or was. Maybe he was the so-called mastermind of 9/11. Maybe he was his even more evil twin or a CIA double agent, or the pizza delivery boy from around the block. The thing is I don't give a fuck. As Leon Panetta is my witness, I did not join those yahoos who took to the streets to pump their fists and chant some patriotic swill about America 's finest hour.
Here's another “finest hour” to chew on: According to some sources, the Gandhi-esque Barack, along with his Rottweiler of a Secretary of State and a bunch of old farts in periwigs and makeup sat together and watched it live. I kid you not. They watched the whole shebang unfold in real time thanks to a live camera feed from the helmet of one of the assassins. Or they didn't. Apparently, the live feed went dead before the shoot out at Waco . . . I mean Wounded Knee . . . no, sorry, I mean in Abbottabad , Pakistan . I guess the whole point of releasing a photo showing our fearless leader watching (or pretending to watch) the execution was to show the world just how brass-balled Barack can be. Real or staged, this flagrant act of voyeurism by the grim reapers of Washington tells a tale of moral depravity.
Then Barack hits the airwaves and announces that OBL is dead and that his execution means justice has prevailed. And in living rooms and bars across the land folks nod their heads. Yes, they say, justice has prevailed. The motherfucker got what he deserved for what he done to us.
For the sake of argument, let's assume OBL inspired, planned, and orchestrated the terrorist attack on 9/11 that killed over 3,000 innocent civilians. Of course, we'll never know for sure since this world-class perpetrator of industrial scale violence never went on trial and therefore never revealed the extent of his involvement in 9/11 or his love-hate relationship with the CIA and other nefarious organizations committed to spreading the American way through assassinations, black ops, death squads, and the funding of Fascistic paramilitaries.
But that's neither here nor there. In the brave new world now under construction in the twists and turns of Obama's mind and the minds of his enablers and minions, cold blooded murder equals justice and “fair trial” is another way of saying “sleeps with the fishes.” This is what we've come to in the tenth and glorious year of the “war on terror” when domestic and international laws add up to a bucket of chum good for little more than throwing overboard; when vigilante justice is the measure of our finest ideals and traditions; when, in the face of a broken economy, mounting debt, and no end in sight for the empire's endless wars, the powers that be only want to push on with their crusade against evil and assorted hobgoblins threatening our security.
We're long past being knee deep in the Big Muddy. As far as I can tell, we're over our heads in blood and the waste of war. To my mind, perverted though it may be, Osama's death should be a wake up call for anyone who still believes in due process, equal protection under the law, the concept of innocent until proven guilty, and the immorality of shooting an unarmed captive (assuming Osama was indeed unarmed when the avenging Furies stormed in his bedroom).
Spinmeisters would have us believe Osama's murder was justifiable homicide given the victim's alleged complicity in multiple acts of terrorism claiming the lives of thousands of innocents. By this logic, the President and his predecessor the honorable George W. Bush are worthy recipients of those golden bullets that so enamored TV anchor Brian Williams. After all, during his watch, Bush launched two wars of aggression, which have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. Obama for his part has ramped up the war in Afghanistan, continued the occupation of Iraq (with an estimated 50,000 combat-ready troops still stationed there along with an unknown number of military contractors), expanded drone attacks into Pakistan, and sent God knows how many Special Forces teams into other countries on his hit list.
Imagine dropping by your local police precinct to review a line up of high value suspects. One by one they shuffle past a guard and take their place on the line. First up, the former king pin himself George “Bring It On” Bush . Behind him, his loyal henchmen Condi “Mushroom Cloud” Rice, Don “Things Happen” Rumsfeld, and last but certainly not least Mad Dog Cheney. And just when you think there's no one else to view, out comes the latest capo di tutti cappi and dodgiest quick-change artist of them all, Baby Face Barack.
Lights dim. The murky image of a man wearing camouflage fatigues, a long salt and pepper beard, and a white head covering appears on the wall behind the suspects. A police officer, standing beside you, whispers into your ear. “Study their faces carefully,” he cautions, pointing toward the image and the line of suspects. “Weigh their words against their actions. Consider the consequence of their actions. Then ask yourself which of these individuals has the greatest amount of blood on his or her hands? Who is most deserving of the title “world's most wanted”?
Before you answer, you picture an assassin's bullet finding its way into any one of their hearts. Would you proudly claim that justice had been served on behalf of the countless innocents who died as a consequence of that person's decisions and his or her role in implementing destructive, immoral plans and policies? Or would you condemn the murder and the murderer as vehemently as you condemn the willingness to inflict massive violence on relatively defenseless populations in the pursuit of one kind of agenda or another?
More to the point, as you study the faces of the suspects before you and assess the record of their deeds, would you demand that each of them first be charged with a crime and then given their day in court to answer the charges against them? That's the way it used to be done when this country was nearly a nation of laws. But that's not the way it is now thanks to the current Administration and its warm embrace of murder as an acceptable means of law enforcement.
Hoo-ra.
(George Capaccio writes for educational publishers. He made numerous trips to Iraq during the sanctions era, helps to support impoverished Iraqi families in Baghdad, went to Jordan in 2009 to interview Iraqi refugees, and is now assisting Iraqi refugee families in Massachusetts. He can be reached at [email protected] )
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