Category: News

Osama bin Laden (1957-2011)

presidential smug

So everyone’s favorite Scary Towelhead Boogeyman is finally dead, after only nearly ten years too. Now that it’s fait accompli, a significant fraction of people are actually contemplating the possibility of him being on trial if he was successfully captured, as a hypothetical. Of course, that runs into a few problems that everyone thinking about the issue has gone over a million times. If you have a public trial, it’ll be a media carnival and a bully pulpit for radical Islam, not to mention it could bring up a hornet’s nest of inconvenient facts that would make Wikileaks look like a slumber party. Keep it behind closed doors and you feed the jihadist machine. Lynch him (as the howling GOP troglodytes will undoubtedly whip their base into demanding) or just plain execution, and you create a martyr that is way out of proportion to bin Laden’s actual influence in 2011. So OBL’s obvious refusal to be captured alive is convenient for everyone having a stake in the region, since he’s outlived his usefulness and can be safely assassinated. Make no mistake, this was a far better candidate for that term as opposed to Gaddafi, who is actually the legitimate head of a conventional military structure. Last time I heard the nomenclature for the latter was “decapitating strike”.

The issue of how involved Pakistan was in the operation is also the subject of intense speculation now that we know he was living in relative comfort in Abbottabad. The huge mansion was within walking distance of a military academy, and the town is a regimental base for the army, so it’s incredibly ludicruous to claim the ISI and/or the army wasn’t aware of his presence. There have long been theories that certain elements in the ISI at the very least are using Al-Qaeda and the Taleban to destablize their northern neighbour, because the last thing they need is another strong neighbour besides India. That is the conservative interpretation, with the other theory being the state apparatus in Pakistan has been thoroughly infiltrated by fundamentalist sympathizers. Although Obama claims that the raid was done with Pakistan’s approval, it’s highly possible that the raid was kept quiet from the vast majority of the governmental forces for fear of either internal blowback or strategically worse (from the perspective of the US), of Osama escaping and the botched raid made public, in which case Pakistan would be very likely to disavow involvement and turn on the US diplomatically. It’s also possible the ISI has had a change of heart and thrown Osama, an orphaned figurehead of a weakened movement, to the dogs. What is clear is that Obama took a massive political risk sanctioning the raid, and at least in a domestic context, it’s paid off for him splendidly.

What’s striking in all this is how intensely pathetic Osama had became. He’s reduced to virtual house arrest, has access neither to the Internet or a phone, and rubbish has to be burned. It’s a life of intense paranoia and what’s worse, all that only makes his hideout even more obvious to suspicious eyes considering the place cost over a million in a comfortable neighbourhood. At the end of his life even his death has become staged political theater, considering Obama must have known about the planned operation (if not its outcome) during the Correspondents’ Dinner where Trump was roasted in hilarious fashion. May 1st also coincidentally happened to be both the 8 year anniversary of Bush’s infamous MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner, as well as the death confirmation date of one Herr Adolf Hitler. Obama also delayed his speech until the last 15 min of Trump’s Apprentice broadcast. While all that may be (amusing) coincidence, the contents of Obama’s speech, littered with Christian references and American triumphalism clearly meant as blatant pandering to his prospective voters in 2012, makes it harder to chalk all that off conveniently, especially with people overseas already inclined to view the US with less trusting eyes due to Obama’s presidency turning out to be almost identical to the Bush administration in practical matters. Bin Laden might be dead, but that’s scant consolation for the incredible number of lives, many of them innocent, lost in 2 nations, one of which was only invaded out of outright deceit and the vaguest of casus belli using 9/11 as an excuse. It will certainly serve to incite fundamentalism once again (which has mostly moved to SE Asia as a spawning ground), and things may look even grimmer for the Afghans since there’s now an overwhelming temptation for America to declare victory and run, leaving a complete mess behind. That’s the standard result of almost every American miltary adventure since WWII, so it’s far more probable than any other outcome, sadly.

P.S:Turns out he was buried at sea. I suspect the birthers will be clutching at that straw as if it was Wonder Woman’s unbreakable rope. They want their gloating parade with the death certificate, damnit.

I heard you like the same book I do

Ah, the wonders of fundamentalist Christian conservatism in Africa. But what happened to the vaguely commie talk Gbagbo is fond of sporting, good senator? What kind of delightful cognitive dissonance is at work? Could it be that Ouattara being a Muslim really is the simple answer? I guess when push comes to shove, we see what set of internalized propaganda really is strongest in the conservative States.

Which is not to say that Ouattara isn’t in a pickle in a political sense. He seems to have done a Faustian alliance here. As is typical of the sub-Sahara, there’s plenty of bloodshed to go around.

War tourism takes a deadly turn

Rebels

Another day, another fiasco. Now, some might accuse detractors of excessive snark, but it’s hard not to when stuff like this happens. Even if you ignore that factoid about 4x the wasted ammunition as being unreliable, there’s plenty of stuff that makes one smack the face:

But in the characteristically fanciful version of events provided by the Shabaab, a spokesman claimed it was all part of a cunning regime plot. According to Mustafa Ali Omar: “Some of Gaddafi’s forces sneaked in among the rebels and fired anti-aircraft guns in the air. After that, Nato came and bombed them.”

Captain Rahim Mohammed Fatousi, an army officer who defected to the revolution, shrugged “It is very difficult with the Shabaab: they were told many times to leave because we knew the coalition was going to carry out air attacks. But these people have support from some of the political factions in Benghazi who want to use their influence through them. We shall continue to try and have some discipline into this operation.”

and..

By yesterday, however, this had frayed. The Shabaab, as well as unarmed civilians, were allowed access to the front line and the result was seen in the retreat from the scene of the “friendly fire” when the Shabaab began to shoot in panic at their own side — rebel military moving along the desert — and even others fleeing behind them. Later, another retreat followed when a “volunteer”, a 17-year-old who had decided to observe the fighting while his school remains shut, mistook some local farmers for undercover Gaddafi troops.

At some point the Shabaab needs to ask themselves whether they’re tagging along for a photoshoot jaunt or they’re actually serious about overthrowing Gaddafi. All the impartial observer is seeing are disaffected youths letting off testosterone-fueled steam. Lives are at stake here, most of the time not theirs, as evident in the witch-hunt roadblocks they run in friendly cities and the lynchings of black migrant workers from the sub-Sahara.

Also, in other reports:

Despite reported ambiguity on Barack Obama’s part over the issue of arming and training the rebels, Gates made clear that the Pentagon firmly opposed it. Repeating that it was a “certainty” that no US ground troops would be authorised by Obama, he laid into the rebels’ capabilities, describing the opposition as a faction-ridden and disparate “misnomer” whose forces lacked “command and control and organisation”. If the opposition needed training and weapons, he said, “someone else” would have to provide it, a declaration that would seem to slam the door on the rebels’ hopes of being armed by the West.

The rebels better hope for a ceasefire, because that’s the best they can achieve out of this pointless stalemate as Gaddafi will be adverse to moving far out of Ras Lanuf and Bin Jawad, knowing he can starve the east out of oil revenue if he holds those towns. All this hooha about the Benghazi Bravado(tm) also ignores the real problem of Misurata, where the civilian deaths (that pesky issue that Resolution 1973 was actually SUPPOSED to be about) continues with merciless shelling by Gaddafi forces. Now, with the US withdrawing their gunships, these people have been effectively left to their fate.

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Days of Our (Libyan) Lives

It never fail to pour for our poor, poor rebels. It’s doubly ironic that the coalition doesn’t think twice about stretching Resolution 1973 to its utmost limit by bombing mobile field forces of Gaddafi that aren’t immediately threatening the civilians in urban areas, but sees no problems withdrawing the gunships from places like Misurata, where civilians ARE being targeted. Some will think of this as tacit admission that Gaddafi has outwitted the coalition now with his new tactics of deep entrenchment in city centres and using rebel tactics of travelling in civilian vehicles without heavy armour following. All this means is that the rebels keep getting flanked, which is really child’s play when the rebels could never pull off any similar counter with their deep disorganization and poor morale.

Which is not to say they’re not TRYING:

Al Jazeera’s Sue Turton, reporting from the frontlines of the battle to reclaim Brega from pro-Gaddafi forces, said that overnight NATO air strikes allowed the pro-democracy fighters to gain some momentum, with discipline and co-ordination improving.

“They sent spotters out on the flanks before moving a unit forward,” Turton said. “It worked for a while before the more excitable rushed forward.”

Gaddafi’s forces, she said, reacted swiftly.

“Mortars obliterated one car and damaged two others. These rookie soldiers are learning the hard way,” Turton reported.

Progress seems painfully slow though. In other more hilarious news, turns out the Federal Reserve was snookered completely by the Libyan crisis. This is pretty much going to be gasoline on the anti-Fed fire in the US. The Tea Party is sure to make a lot of political capital off this.

UPDATE:Seems like cooler heads are now prevailing.