Death of Bin Laden

Death of Bin Laden
Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, pepinsky.blogspot.com
May 2, 2011
Osama bin Laden was constructed as terrorist/enemy number one in public media in the mid-nineties even before attacks on US embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi in 1998. As a foundation for eternal US military/corporate adventurism, Bin Laden was touted as the leader of a form of guerrilla organized resistance to US/Israeli military occupation he called “al Qaeda,” which in plain English means the base. As in the Algerian war against French occupation, the base meant that guerrilla resistance would consist of independent cells. The US govt responded by trying to reduce this military resistance to one of its primary funders. In the one surreptitious video clip of Bin Laden talking about 9/11, he spoke with approval of what “the brothers” had done, whoever they might all have been. Like J Edgar Hoover of FBI legend, Bin Laden was socially constructed to be identified as US public enemy number one long before workers for global capitalism from 88 nations were killed in the WORLD Trade Center. How we people in the US succumb to self-centered martyrdom and over-simplification of this crime problem.
There is a lot of mis/disinformation going on as I write. We hear conflicting breaking news in conflicting reports. Was Bin Laden killed by US “assets,” “special forces” or “Navy Seals”? Were there two helicopters, or four with one gone down and “destroyed”? How on earth did the US attack happen virtually on the grounds of the Pakistani military academy with supposedly no advance notice to the Pakistani government. There’s a whole lot of spin going on.
To me in the US who doesn’t want to live in fear of terrorist violence at home, the saddest part of this assassination is that young people even at my local university broke into flag-waving celebration: USA, USA! And all that. For anyone with grievances about US imperialism, invasion, and occupation, that is salt in the wounds who might seek revenge. We celebrate at our peril, and I’m sorry Mr. President, “justice” is not “done.” We are just lucky that unlike President Carter’s attempt to send helicopters to rescue hostages at the US embassy in Teheran in 1979, this military mission “succeeded.” I’m glad casualties were minimized, but I find nothing to celebrate. Love and peace--hal