In war, the first constant is to ensure that the enemy is always engaged with moral correctness. Sun Tzu, in the Art of War narrates this as the Moral Law. To have only secured a target without having moral correctness in the process is a defeat, though it will always be the case that the foolish will always be blind to the requirement of moral correctness in war and regard the mere achievement of an immediate target as victory. It therefore follows that any leader who ventures into battle without first measuring precisely the moral correctness of the battle is an idiot, and a leader who was possessed of a natural moral correctness in a battle but through lack of planning emerges from the engagement without moral correctness is a super idiot.Thus, the true difference between George W Bush and Barrack Obahma is that whereas when the former sounded like an idiot and acted like an idiot, the latter sounds intelligent but is just as stupid as his predecessor. Herein lies the source of the greatest weakness for the USA, because in any society there is always a sufficient number of intelligent people who will make up for the deficiencies of a leader who sounds like an idiot and acts like and idiot, so as to reduce a potential catastrophe to a major disaster. However, intelligent folk are apt to assume that folk who sound intelligent are intelligent, and just do nothing.
So it was, that the Americans, on the orders of President Obama, embarked on the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, and though they have plenty of rocket scientists to assist them none was really necessary to work out the strategy of shooting dead, an unarmed man in front of his twelve year old daughter, does not earn any morality Brownie points, not even if the very eloquent President Obama later described the event as one of “Justice being done”.
It is trite, that justice follows law though given the low standard of American education, this simple construct was not within the grasp for a US president. George Bush who was universally regarded as an idiot was a student at Yale University, and whilst Barrack Obama attended Harvard University, it is worthy of note that some Americans in the same week as the Bin Laden debacle were casting doubt on the President's abilities as a student by requiring him prove his educational qualifications. Whatever may be said of the sate of the American educational system, it required no great effort of thought, on the part of President Obama that to conceal his botched execution the corpse would have to be disposed of, and the supine press and media provided with any account which they could dutifully reproduce, without scrutiny, for an audience, better described as a vicarious lynch mob, who being denied their blood lust for brutalising some uppity black man by hate crime laws, would at least have their satisfaction with Bin Laden's death.
Whilst Bin Laden has been accused of many things he was never accused of genocide. It therefore seems odd that Nazi's who organised the genocide of the Jews got captured alive and were tired. It also seems odd that the genocide in Rwanda, and the former Yugoslavia attracted live capture and trials at the Hauge for the alleged perpetrators. Bin Laden was, it appears was in another category. Bin Laden was an Arab. Racist Americans call Arabs “sand niggers”. America has a history of lynching black people who offend against white people. Unlike the Nazis who were white and killed white people, unlike the Yugoslav war criminals who were white, unlike Rwandans who did not kill any white people, Bin Laden pursued an equality policy and allegedly killed white folk. The stark fact therefore is that though Bin Laden was unarmed whilst being engaged by heavily armed and well trained US forces, Bin Laden was killed and not captured to be put on trial.
The killing of Bin Laden was soon followed by a disposal of the body at sea. This was done, according to the Americans, to prevent Bin Laden's grave becoming a shrine. It has been speculated by some that the President of Pakistan Asif Zardari had his wife Benazir Bhutto killed by an assassin and to prevent the discovery of his crime had the body buried without a post mortem simply stating that “forensic reports are useless”. Whether Zardari had his own wife murdered or not is pure speculation though it is disconcerting when a husband prevents a post-mortem on the murdered body of his wife with an explanation lacking in credibility. As a matter of factual geographical coincidence Obama's disposal of Bin Laden's at sea to prevent a grave becoming a shrine has also issues of credibility because Bin Laden was by the American's own account a Wahabi, and Bin Laden's followers are Wahabi whose doctrines strictly prohibit the creation of shrines. Put simply a Wahabi/Bin Laden/ Al Qaeda grave shrine is an oxymoron obvious to the even the moderately intelligent. The burial of Bin Laden at sea smacks of suspicion in the truthfulness of American's account of what happened during the engagement.
Given that the Americans are engaged with a committed enemy who have all the qualities of ingenuity, adaptation and raw courage, but that this cannot be stated in the press and media because they are “the enemy”, the Americans with one eye to Hollywood had to make some attempt at a good yarn. So we had, at first the story of, hunky big muscled full action, super-dooper trained, karate expert, lethal weapon, fifty millimetre Desert Eagle, look at my gun made by bad ass Hebrews, US Navy Seals undertaking the operation with spectacular heroism. We also had the story from the Americans of how that, no-good, nasty, down-right dirty cowardly Bin Laden was using an innocent woman as a human shield. Unfortunately for the Americans they remembered very soon afterwards that the woman was alive and could give her version of events eventually, so very rapidly, the Americans changed their story to confirm that Bin Laden was unarmed when they shot him, that the woman far from being used as a human shield, was actually trying to protect Bin Laden. In summary therefore hunky big muscled full action, super-dooper trained, karate expert, lethal weapon, fifty millimetre Desert Eagle, look at my gun made by bad ass Hebrews, US Navy Seals shot an unarmed old man dead, and shot an injured a woman who was trying to protect her husband. Not only does this new American version of events make difficulties for Hollywood script writers for the inevitable movie, but it adds to issues how to award medals to hunky big muscled full action, super-dooper trained, karate expert, lethal weapon, fifty millimetre Desert Eagle, look at my gun made by bad ass Hebrews, US Navy Seals for the engagement with Bin Laden. In the ninety seventies there was a low budget TV cartoon called Dick Dastardly & Muttley In Their Flying Machines, where the plot involved a laughing dog sounding like a bad case of emphysema on the make for a medal. Perhaps the Americans can look in their animation graveyard for more cartoon ideas on how to conduct themselves.
It is no genius of wisdom that if someone finds themselves in a hole they should first stop digging. Here the Americans not only do not stop gardening but they proceeded to swap their shovel for a JCB by producing Bin Laden's home videos a few days after the engagement. This contradicted the media's description of the Abbotobad hideout as a villa and more properly has the appearance of a shabby flat on a blighted inner-city sink estate. To make matters worse is a still picture of gery haired Bin Laden huddled in a blanket watching TV. All that is missing is a half empty mug of Bachelor's cuppa-soup and it could be have been used by Age Concern to persuade sixth formers to visit the elderly as a means of satisfying the social welfare requirement of their CVs to get entry to one of the Oxbridge medical colleges.
Bin Laden declared war on the US and its allies. He reasoned that a state boasting to be democratic cannot escape the consequences of all its people being held accountable for the state's actions and being liable to be targets. No one can doubt the commitment or the courage of those who join in Bin Laden's cause. To knowingly die for a cause is bravery in the ultimate. But bravery and courage do not by themselves make a particular course of action justified in the first place. Representative democracy is not a perfect means of reflecting the will of the people, this is particularly so where a measure, such as foreign policy, will not touch the daily lives of an electorate. So it is that the America and its allies have propped up tyrants when it suited them, stolen the resources of others when it profited them, and dispossessed the undefended when a particular group could lobby them to support ethnic cleansing. The genius and tragedy of Bin Laden's assumption is that he has brought foreign policy to the fore for many people in the West but this has been paid for with the deaths and suffering of innocent people. Perhaps there is no other way. Perhaps it takes spectacular atrocities in Western cities to have people take interest in those policies of their Governments that inflict harm abroad.
Bin Laden's death, however it may have happened, is also a good time to take stock in terms of his war aims.
Before Bin Laden, what we now define as the Muslim world with the exception of Iran, was under the political sway of various Arab (Bathist) nationalisms and quasi nationalist parties in the non-Arab Muslim world. Before Bin Laden a Muslim identity was merely a notion to a rag-tag bunch of coffee-house intellectuals looking forward to Muslims transcending national identity without resorting to Marxism. After Bin Laden there is most definitely a popular Muslim identity that not only transcends national borders but indeed regards national identity, nationalism and even the nation state with contempt.
Before Bin Laden the fact of Zionism was an excuse for all that ailed the Muslim world. After Bin Laden, Zionism is still regarded as a pernicious evil but there is also a developing immunity to the opium of Zionism as tool of diversion by demagogic tyrants.
Before Bin Laden the Americans treated Latin America as their back yard. After Bin Laden, the burden of their war against him, caused the Americans such a loss of the their grip, that beginning with Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and later with other countries the USA has been effectively booted out of Central and South America. The future may yet record Bin Laden as a later day Simón Bolívar.
Before Bin Laden, the USA stood as peerless economic super-power. After Bin Laden's war with the USA and its allies, the USA is bankrupt, its vast military machine rendered sustainable only by the use of remote control flying bombs operated from the safety of Creech Air Force Base in Las Vegas. What may happen in Vegas stays in Vegas so far as personal vices are concerned, but for those who sit at computer terminals in Vegas flying bombs and killing civilians in the process, its tough, because they too are now suffering mental health problems. Whilst mortality rates for the Americans are low in the battlefield, this is not because of any exemplary tactics or training but because of improved medical practices which means American soldiers tend to return home injured and hideously disabled rather than to a funeral. Of those that do return from the battlefield the mental trauma of service and the mentally brutalising effect of training has translated itself into a one third increase in the prison population of ex armed service personnel. After Bin Laden the metaphor of the US is that of a penniless cripple with a machine gun.
How history records Bin Laden is most premature. What is not in doubt is that he was an extremely capable commander who took to the point of near-destruction the last remaining super-power, which in the final analysis was so replete with stupidity that it provided the physically enfeebled leader of its enemy an opportunity for victory even as he was hunted down. Bearing in mind that Bin Ladin attained his policy aims if not his strategic aims within a space of twenty years, with negligible resources compared to his adversaries, against an adversary possessed of the most sophisticated military machinery it can be objectively said that in terms of leadership Bin Laden's military abilities outranks by far most of the great leaders of history.
Some have commented that in the circumstances of Bin Laden's killing the West has lost moral authority. This is untrue. The West has not lost moral authority by the killing of Bin Laden because it never had any moral authority. The West was never semi-detached from human history. The West has been like everywhere else that suffered human history. Just like everywhere else it has been prone to monstrosities for the purposes domination whether that has been economic, religious or the upholding of the nation state. Once upon a time, the West boasted of its lack of moral correctness as a positive measure of its strength. The West, once viewed moral correctness as weakness. The Greeks comforted themselves through Homer how they committed genocide in a simple case of adultery. The Romans eyed their rape of the Sabine women as natural superiority in their foundation, whilst Virgil could be poetic in telling of the Carthaginian genocide. Ghandi on being asked what he though of Western civilisation remarked that “it could be good idea”. The difference between East and West is that though both have a past steeped in shame, the East has always been so embarrassed of anything lacking nobility that it seeks refuge in amnesia, the West on the other hand has either sought to adopt its inhuman past as indicative of its strength of character or falsely excused it as one-off sin for the sake of survival. Only in recent times have the Americans and their allies learnt that they cannot remain indifferent to the lack of moral correctness. Democracy in the West like everywhere else is developing project. However democracy in the West needs to develop faster and better because it is the only mechanism capable of preventing and addressing the injustice which will give rise to another Bin Laden. Lets therefore not mourn the death of either Bin Laden or celebrate the impeding demise of the USA as a super-power but invest our emotions in justice and the work in progress that is democracy.
Viva democracy.
Authored by Mohamed Dawoodji
No comments:
Post a Comment