by Lee Goodman
No one should celebrate the killing of Osama Bin Laden. The U.S. Government has acted in exactly the way that Bin Laden expected us to act. We relied upon our military to solve our problems for us, taking comfort that our wealth and might makes us right.
Forsaking our entire court system, our president announced that a suspect has been brought to “justice,” giving police a green light to shoot more suspects on the streets of our country and for storekeepers to shoot people whom they accuse of stealing their wares, and laying the groundwork for future undeclared wars around the globe. If we claim for ourselves the justice that some God will mete out once we have delivered a corpse, our civil justice system need barely be given a second thought and we have little need for a legislative branch. If bullets and bombs are the instruments of justice, then we don't need our courts and juries or even a government, because anyone who can get a gun can become his or her own instrument of divine providence and a partner with the Almighty.
Predictably, the killers who carried out the raid are being hailed as courageous heroes. The generation that grew into adulthood after the bombing of the Twin Towers is being taught by our leaders that killing is the path to glory, the same lesson that Bin Laden was teaching his followers. The thousands whom we have killed in Iraq and Afghanistan will be forgotten as the politicians and war profiteers prepare for their next adventure.
The U.S. maintains hundreds of military bases around the world. We spend more on our military than anyone else does, and by some accounts as much as every other nation combined. We force our college students into the military by offering financial assistance only if they agree to join the military. We talk of a path to citizenship only to immigrants who agree to help us do our killing around the globe, even in the nations they came from and where their relatives still reside. We maintain the world's most competent, well-equipped force of killers, and we remain an occupying force in two countries.
It is comforting to know that Mr. Bin Laden is no longer a living threat. But we should feel revulsion, not elation, at what we have done. Rather than using this killing as an excuse to purchase more lethal technology and train more of our young people to kill, we should renew the work of reducing our capability to be universal instruments of death. The killing of Bin Laden is just another signpost on the path of violence that we have been enthusiastically following for far too long. We should pause to consider where it leads.
Lee Goodman
3 comments:
You might want to check out this post by Chris Hedges who covered Al-Quaida for the NYT:
http://truthout.org/chris-hedges-speaks-osama-bin-laden%E2%80%99s-death/1304343151
As for myself, I wasn't unhappy about the news of bin Laden's death. I didn't particularly like the crowds forming in DC and NYC with a bunch of young people who probably didn't even vote in the last election chanting "USA" like it was some sort of sports victory. That behavior reminds me of banana republics and totalitarian dictatorships where people are encouraged to come out onto the streets and voice their approval.
I also think that people are missing the point about dangers in our world. The chances of someone being killed in a terrorist attack are fairly low both before and after bin Laden's death. The chances of someone flooded out are quite a bit higher. The chances of someone getting injured in an auto accident are much higher. That being said the chances of getting someone on the phone to help you if the second or third happen, especially the third, are lower than getting killed in a terrorist attack. I cannot get calls answered to help a disabled person. We need to get our priorities straight.
The chances of nuclear mayham from a power company are higher than from a terrorist. In case you didn't get the message today buried beneath the bin Laden news, Japan is in real trouble and the rest of the world will feel the effects: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/02/972262/-Fukushima:-Tokyo-is-on-the-Roof
I'd also like to see some acknowledgment from the government that they get that the good old USA created bin Laden and a vow to stop propping up guys like bin Laden. We owe bin Laden to
Ronald Reagan, then secretary of state George Schultz and then CIA director William Casey. George H.W. Bush was CIA director during some of this time.
Casey thought it was a terrific idea (almost as good as Iran/Contra, to arm bin Laden to fight Soviet forces in Afghanistan.
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1983/32183e.htm
http://www.labournet.net/world/0109/midwife1.html
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8804262389829191650#
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/05/05/030505ta_talk_mayer
Note the corporate connection discussed in the link just above. Schultz was a director of Bechtel and the bin Laden family is an investor.
Until, we stop making these mistakes, it won't matter which individuals are eliminated.
More to consider regarding the partying last night after the announcement:
http://www.salon.com/news/osama_bin_laden/index.html?story=%2Fpolitics%2Fwar_room%2F2011%2F05%2F02%2Fosama_and_chants_of_usa
"This is bin Laden’s lamentable victory: He has changed America’s psyche from one that saw violence as a regrettable-if-sometimes-necessary act into one that finds orgasmic euphoria in news of bloodshed. In other words, he’s helped drag us down into his sick nihilism by making us like too many other bellicose societies in history -- the ones that aggressively cheer on killing, as long as it is the Bad Guy that is being killed."
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