7 Things I Think About Osama Bin Laden’s Death

The news of the death of Osama Bin Laden has sparked what can only be perceived as celebration throughout the world, if the images beamed from each television station are anything to go by. But is it something to celebrate?

Personally, I think we need to consider a few things before we start hollering “yeeee-heew”, spitting tabaccy in glee and shooting our guns into the air.

1. Terrorism in Perspective.
   The first thing to think about is this: what the fuck have we been worried about? The War On Terror is one of the most ridiculous things the allied nations have ever concentrated their efforts and resources on. For a start, the threat of terrorism is so microscopic compared to issues such as road safety that it is completely disproportionate in regards to expenditure versus priority. In fact, over the last 50 years, the amount of American citizens killed in international terrorist incidents has been no more than the amount struck by lightening.There is no denying the massive loss of innocent life caused by Bin Laden in the September 11, 2001 attacks is one of history’s saddest days. But when we compare this to the amount of people who have died in the search for him and the associated War On Terror, it pales in comparison. The US military death toll in Iraq surpassed the 9/11 benchmark in 2005, and this doesn’t even take into account civilian and related conflict casualties. The entire world reaction to the September 11 attacks and associated conflicts has caused a death toll reaching over one hundred thousand. (1)(2)(3)
2. It’s Not Something To Be Proud Of.
   First off, it took the culmination of the most powerful and advanced countries on Earth ten years to find him. But more importantly it appears people around the world, especially the United States, have confused justice with revenge. Judging by some of the comments made by a handful (and thankfully a minority) of my American friends on Facebook and the scenes of crowds in New York waving American flags and chanting “U.S.A, U.S.A…” it looks more like America won some kind of world sporting event, which as the major world competitive sports such as soccer, cricket and rugby enthusiasts will know, is preposterous.If anything this should be a sombre day to remember the victims of the attacks he orchestrated, and it will hopefully bring some closure to the victim’s families. But it’s not something you should be celebrating, it was never a competition.
3. It Changes Nothing.
   Terrorism wasn’t invented by Bin Laden, and killing him hasn’t made the world any safer. The fact the Bush administration made him the poster boy of terrorism doesn’t make the guy any more significant as a terrorist threat. The only claim to infamy he has is the scale of innocent non-combatant human life which he killed, and that all depends on how you define terrorism. Which ever way you look at it, it comes right down the list underneath the Holocaust and other mass human destruction such as, say, dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
4. We Probably Just Made Things Worse.
   If our faux-Islamic crusader friends at Al Qaeda didn’t have much to be shitty about before, they sure as hell do now. The Australian Government is now advising everyone not to travel, and if they are already are overseas, to stay indoors due to an enhanced violence risk toward Westerners. To be completely honest, I felt safer while Osama was alive.(4)
5. Invasion of Iraq, What The Fuck.
   The War On Terror has helped cement the Western World as aggressors to many nations, none more so than the invasion of Iraq in our search for “Weapons of Mass Destruction”, the witch of the 21^st Century. For a country that had absolutely no ties to Osama Bin Laden or Al Qaeda, we certainly pissed it off enough that it now does. And don’t even get me started on the amount of ancient history that has been destroyed because of it.(3)
6. We Have Much Bigger Things To Worry About.
   While the Western World has been measuring our dick size in Afghanistan and Iraq against the Islamic World’s equivalent of Westboro Baptist Church, almost 4 million people have died in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The war in the Congo is the most deadliest conflict since World War II and no-one has done a thing, in fact as of 2011, the UN have completely pulled out of the conflict zone, leaving the entire population in the hands of rebel infested anarchy. This to me says to all that the hunt for Bin Laden had nothing to do with making the world safer and everything to do with greed, revenge and dick size.(5)(6)
7. We Have Learned Nothing.
   After all the people that have died, we seem to have forgotten that Osama Bin Laden was trying to bring something to our attention. Our attention he sure got, but (most probably due to the hideously dim-witted way he went about it) we didn’t get the message. Most of Bin Laden’s reasoning behind the attacks he directed are his own skewed interpretations of, and contrary to, Islamic beliefs.But much of what our governments like to tell us, such as the hatred of western culture, is simply not the case and is more just to divert our attention from the fact that it is mostly our foreign policies that are the motivation for extremist activities. The western world’s stance and policies concerning the Israeli–Palestinian conflict is also a common theme, and of all the things Bin Laden got wrong, he may possibly have been right about this. But that’s a whole new ball game.(7)

Works Cited

1. Six Rather Unusual Propositions about Terrorism. Muellera, John. 2005, Terrorism and Political Violence, pp. 487 – 505.

2. U.S. deaths in Iraq, war on terror surpass 9/11 toll. CNN.com. [Online] CNN, September 3rd, 2006. [Cited: May 2, 2011.] http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/09/03/death.toll/.

3. Scahill, Jeremy. Jeremy Scahill on Killing of Bin Laden: Obama Has “Doubled Down on Bush Administration Policy of Targeted Assassination”. Democracy Now! New York : http://www.democracynow.org, May 2nd, 2011.

4. Enhanced Risk of Anti-Western Violence. Smartraveller. [Online] Australian Government’s travel advisory and consular information service., May 2nd, 2011. [Cited: 5 2, 2011.] http://www.smartraveller.gov.au/zw-cgi/view/TravelBulletins/Enhanced_Risk_of_Anti-Western_Violence.

5. Robinson, Simon. The Deadliest War in The World. TIME.com. [Online] Time Magazine, May 28th, 2006. [Cited: May 2nd, 2011.] http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1198921,00.html.

6. Kemp, Ross.
Ross Kemp’s Extreme World – Congo. Democratic Republic of the Congo : Sky1, 2010. Video Documentary.

7. Understanding Terrorism: 20 basic facts. Borgu, Aldo. 2004, Strategic Insights, pp. 1 – 10.