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Osama Eliminated. His Spirit Lives On In The US Administration

By Sadanand Patwardhan

03 May, 2011
Satark.Blogspot.Com

“The death of Bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat Al Qaeda. But his death does not mark the end of our effort – President Obama”.

Osama Bin Laden is killed. President Barak Obama personally announced his death on the night of Sunday, 1st May (US Time). He was killed by a special squad of Navy Seals. This happened in a $ one million 3 storey mansion that was 8 times larger than most of the houses in the area of Abbottabad. It sat in a sprawling compound surrounded by up to 5.5 meters high wall.(compare the identical descriptions in Daily Mail & The Economist about the residence that seem to be reproduced from press hand-outs, but without any credits)

Abbottabad is located some 80 Kilometres north of Islamabad, the capital city of Pakistan. A town of some 1 million plus, it boasts salubrious climate favoured by VVIPs, and hosts Pakistan Military Academy (PMA). PMA is reputedly just a “stone’s throw away” from where Laden was killed. Intelligence about Laden’s whereabouts came to be known according to Obama administration in August 2010. Pakistan itself has been ravaged by deadly terrorist attacks during the last decade. The terror network the governments of USA & Pakistan helped to found in the eighties to fight their proxy war against the Soviet Union has turned against both. It stretches credulity to believe that somebody could “hide” in such conspicuous establishment in a military township for so long without raising any suspicions. Especially when that somebody was a “dreaded fugitive”, but who still had to depend upon the outside world for his requirements. For example, such a mansion would require a retinue of servants (culture & circumstances of the subcontinent, and even Saudi Arabia from where OBL came & where rich import cheap domestic labour) for its upkeep. Then there is the question of “eastern curiosity” about the neighbors. Somebody who stays in such a high walled compound unlike his neighbours, and doesn’t show up in public at all would have set many tongues wagging. Servants coming & going out of this establishment surely would have been bombarded with searching queries. Even if the incumbents of the place didn’t engage domestic help, it wouldn’t go unnoticed. Absence servants itself will be conspicuous. Thus, even the Pakistani establishment would have got the wind of it. Surely, OBL couldn’t have stayed in obscurity in such a place without active support of Pakistani rulers, and most likely with tacit US approval & understanding.

OBL was the most valuable asset of CIA when “Mujahedeen” were waging “Jihad” against the infidel USSR. He became more valuable post 911 by which time Mujahedeen had conveniently metamorphosed into “Taliban” & “Al Qaeda”. Now any offensive & bloody military action against any Sovereign State could be justified as “Pre-emptive self-defence”. It led to war on Afghanistan on the pretext that Taliban provided safe heaven to OBL. It was the same evil, misogynist & fanatically Islamist Taliban with whom Texas Oil Industry was earlier busy cutting deals (Beneath their burkas, UNOCAL is being exposed for giving the five star treatment to Taliban Mullahs in the Lone Star State in 1997. The "evil-ones" were also invited to meet with U.S. government officials in Washington, D.C.). War was waged against Iraq on the pretext that Saddam Hussein supported Al Qaeda & had Weapons of Mass Destructions. First was a complete lie. Second was substantially a lie, save except the Nerve Gas that secular Saddam, a brutal dictator, had been given by Ronald Regan for use against “Ayatollahs’ Iran”. US went to war with the “Coalition of the Willing” in complete disregard of International Laws & conventions. The “ritual of UN approval” before attacking a sovereign country was most casually brushed aside. The world cheered even though no WMDs were found because a brutal dictator was removed. It didn’t matter that Saudi Arabia, a valuable ally in the coalition of the willing, was a brutal autocratic state too. It was also most rabidly misogynist unlike Saddam’s Iraq. But who cares for such palpable contradictions. Even if Saudis, Egyptians, Tunisians, Yemenis, Algerians suffered and suffocated under autocratic rules, it was Iraqis, who were chosen to experience the “glow of Freedom & Democracy” under USA’s Iraq. Even before 9/11 happened, Project for New American Century had anticipated it, wished for it. All those with this “Think Tank” found strategic & key positions in George Bush’s administration. In 2000, PNAC published a document : “Rebuilding America’s Defences : Strategy, Forces and Resources for the New Century”. This reads like a Horoscope of what was to happen in next 8 years. Unlike horoscopes this one proved prophetic, nay, it was the blueprint for Bush’s War on Terror. It says another “Pearl Harbour” is required to realise the aims of their ambitious blueprint (Pearl Harbour happened on 7 December 1941 and USA joined the WW-II. It is another matter that freedom, liberty & later Israel loving US sat on its haunches while Hitler was sacking country after country, and began killing Jews in 1940 after having persecuted them right since coming to power in 1933). PNAC document also repeatedly emphasizes “Defending the Homeland” when US had faced no hostilities on its own soil until then. Did PNAC know 911 were coming? Al Qaeda & OBL were the lynchpin of the strategy that would let the designs of PNAC to unfold.

OBL alive had served as a convenient bogeyman for over a decade. He, for US sake, slipped into the role of a villain as easily as the hero he played in fight against the USSR. He had successfully collaborated in the prosecution of war by US (and by coalition of the willing) on Afghanistan & Iraq; and now on Libya. “War on terror”, in reality, was always War By Terror. In that War By Terror, OBL was a useful mascot; alive. May be now, it’s time for him for a different role, this time as a dead man. But how do we know he is dead? He was a given a “Sea Burial”, whatever that means, according to the “Best Islamic Practices” (that meant it had to be done before the evening of Monday, 2 May 2011 -US time, we are told). Location is unknown. Sea burial was necessitated, because the site of his “onshore burial”, Obama administration feared, may become a “pilgrimage Centre” for the terrorists of the world. So OBL lived in obscurity, coming alive through “tapes” that made their appearance at moments strategic to the Global Capital & Rulers, and also died in obscurity. World at large knew OBL only through the Tapes and what was dished out in the worldwide corporate media. Myth was bigger than the man. US administration could have tried him in absentia at the International Court of Justice or even in a Federal Court in USA. It could have obtained a conviction & possibly a verdict of death penalty. But that would have meant producing “irrefutable evidence” that would stand intense scrutiny. The way it was done in the case of Slobodan Milosevic. But like the Guantanamo Bay prisoners, who have been held, tortured, and incarcerated indefinitely without being brought before US courts; OBL’s trial, conviction, and execution of death penalty is done solely & exclusively by the US administration led by President Obama. Civilized countries call this murder. Even Kasab, who was seen on TV murdering people in Mumbai attacks, was tried, convicted and sentenced in Court.

A computer programmer in Abbottabad, Sohaib Athar, startled by the chatter of helicopters, was tweeting in the early hours of Monday morning (PST). He tweeted abut loud explosions too. Unknown to him then, he was reporting US operations in real time. It is difficult to believe therefore the US claims that Pakistani authorities were informed post facto. Or that the US helicopters managed to penetrate so deep into Pakistani territory without alerting Pakistani radars or air defence systems. One thing for sure something did take place in Abbottabad that day. Some say Osama Bin Laden died long ago in late 2001 (“KILLED IN PAKISTAN – BURIED AT SEA” NATIONAL VICTORY OR CHILDISH SNAKE OIL TO AID THE 9/11 COVERUP AND BOOST OBAMA POLLS?). In that case someone else was killed in the early hours of 2nd May (PST). What is the truth one may never know with certainty. But what is curious is what advantage is to be gained by “killing OBL now”? Some speculate : May be dead OBL is going to serve a purpose after all – the re-election of Obama. This won’t wash. It is too early to confer any decisive advantage. OBL effect would have worn off by the time US-citizens line up to cast their votes. It has though come as a salvation of sorts for many actors as captured in these NY times’ lines : “For an intelligence community that had endured searing criticism for a string of intelligence failures over the past decade, Bin Laden’s killing brought a measure of redemption. For a military that has slogged through two, and now three vexing wars in Muslim countries, it provided an unalloyed success. And for a president whose national security leadership has come under question, it proved an affirming moment that will enter the history books”.

But all this is gloss. It doesn’t confer any tangible gain beyond pretences of image building. On the other hand, it has followed too quickly on the heels of a major development in the Middle-East. It is the rapprochement between Fatah and Hamas –the two implacable foes- brokered by the transitional Egyptian government led by its Army. Egyptian army probably realizes that it can no longer afford to ignore the popular mood among the Egyptian masses on the Palestine issue. Immediately after Hosni Mubarak was deposed back in February, Hamas had appealed to the Egyptian authorities to throw open the Rafah border between Egypt and Gaza. Despite serious sabre rattling by Netanyahu, Egypt has expressed its resolve to throw open the border in one or two weeks. This was reported on 29th April. Now Hamas has been regularly accused of close ties with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad & Iran. Significantly, Egypt’s foreign minister, Nabil El-Arabi had said last month that his country wants to open a new page with Iran. They haven’t had diplomatic relations since 1979, when Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi finally panicked and flew out to Aswan, in Egypt to seek asylum. Now these are serious developments in a strategically important region. The carefully laid out plans of US & Israel look to be in danger of coming unhinged. Palestine issue has a deep emotional appeal in the Arab world. Palestine struggle is a symbol of all that is wrong in the world order. An order that is controlled by corporates and is enforced by the might of US military. If predominantly Sunni Arabs join hands with predominantly Shia Iran (and Iraq), it would spell doom to US hegemony in the region. A prospect neither USA nor Israel cherish. They will have to take counter measures to stop it from happening. The measures would have to be backed by credible threats of use of force, and followed by actual violence. But US is already overstretched in three wars. Would US public be brought on board to support continuous and ever widening war efforts? It is already deeply concerned over an economy that is showing no signs of robustness. Closure on Osama Bin Laden was necessary to bring the Afghan involvement to a triumphal end before other fronts are opened. News of OBL’s assassination achieves that end.

O O O O O O O O O O

Accompanying material :
1] Below is a Letter to the Ruling Class written by a US Citizen.
“You control our world. You’ve poisoned the air we breathe, contaminated the water we drink, and copyrighted the food we eat. We fight in your wars, die for your causes, and sacrifice our freedoms to protect you. You’ve liquidated our savings, destroyed our middle class, and used our tax dollars to bailout your unending greed. We are slaves to your corporations, zombies to your airwaves, servants to your decadence. You’ve stolen our elections, assassinated our leaders, and abolished our basic rights as human beings. You own our property, shipped away our jobs, and shredded our unions. You’ve profited off of disaster, destabilized our currencies, and raised our cost oPresident Obama, War on Terror, Osama Bin Laden, Al Queda, PNAC, Hamas-Fatah, Iran, f living. You’ve monopolized our freedom, stripped away our education, and have almost extinguished our flame. We are hit… we are bleeding… but we ain’t got time to bleed. We will bring the giants to their knees and you will witness our revolution!”


Before one rushes to conclude that these are rants of a roving lunatic, consider this : The man was a Vietnam veteran and served his time with Navy Seals (yes, same people who killed OBL), a bodyguard to Rolling Stones, a famous wrestler, a Mayor, and was, hold your breath, the 38th governor of Minnesota. He goes by the name Jesse Ventura & is accused of courting conspiracy theories. He was on CNN in April while promoting his latest book – 63 secret documents the government doesn’t want you to read.

CNN : Pierce Morgan To Night - 4th April 2011.

 

2] Norman Finkelstein’s both parents were survivors of Hitler’s concentration camps, though he lost many relatives on either side to the holocaust. His mother inspired in him deep devotion to truth and intense loathing for war & violence. One of his famous books is titled “The Holocaust Industry”. He is often reviled as “self-hating Jew” or “A Jew who hates Jews”. While he is regularly mocked at, seldom anyone challenges the truths he exposes.

Norman Finkelstein : The Time We Went Too Far


3] The “Pearl Harbour” of 21st century – 9/11- was a catastrophe. A traumatic event for most US citizens, more so for those who lost their loved ones. It was a time for also deep grief, reflection and introspection. The following documentary analyses how the catastrophe was hijacked to serve the blueprint prepared by PNAC for the Corporate Empire.
Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire.

 

 

 



 


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