Amid the Arab spring uprisings, Bin Laden's popularity was at its lowest ebb in the Arab street. But the amount of lies advanced by the official story of the administration was astonishing and unnecessary (see Cockburn's Volcano of Lies,) especially the one regarding the reason his body was thrown in the sea. It was received in the region with utter disgust and revulsion, as well as condemned by Al-Azhar, Egypt's highest religious authority.
The official story was that no country had accepted to receive his body so it was dumped in the Arabian Sea after conducting "Muslim ritual burial rites." But two days after the incident Denis McDonough, the deputy National Security Advisor, told Lawrence O'Donnell of MSNBC, "The disposition of the remains -- that was an issue that was debated and decided unanimously before the operation was undertaken."
The notion of American exceptionalism, where America applies one standard to itself, and totally another to the rest of the world (except Israel of course) is unquestionably detested by the rest of the world. Noam Chomsky recently observed "how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush's compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed Bin Laden's."
After the euphoria of Bin Laden's assassination subsides, President Obama has an historic opportunity to fulfill his Cairo promise and "seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world." This relationship should indeed be based on mutual interests and mutual respect as the president asserted. Undoubtedly, the notion that Al-Qaeda and its affiliates are a threat to the U.S. -- albeit diminishing -- is true, but it needs to be put into perspective.
Since 9/11 the U.S. military and national security agencies in the U.S. have been mobilized to pursue a phantom enemy, vastly inflated in Western imagination so much so that every Muslim activist or religiously observant is transformed and looked at as a potential terrorist or a threat.
In a moment of candor Gen. Jones admitted such worldview to Woodward when he said that this perceived war was "certainly a clash of civilizations. It's a clash of religions. It's a clash of almost concepts of how to live." He added, "the conflict is that deep. So I think if we don't succeed in Afghanistan, you will be fighting in more places."
This analysis at the highest levels of American decision-makers, especially in light of the waning effect of Al-Qaeda and the rise -- and success -- of nonviolent people power, must undergo massive re-evaluation. Once the threats of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are correctly assessed then the American escalation and associated heavy cost would become unwarranted. The relationship that Obama called for, rooted in mutual interests and mutual respect, cannot be established by the barrel of the gun or advanced by the missile of the drone.
If the Obama administration does not take advantage of this moment in history and implement a paradigm shift by mobilizing its finite resources to support the aspirations of the people expressed in the Arab spring revolutions, then a real moment of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, not only in Afghanistan but beyond, may be around the corner.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
