The Obama Osama contest for truth and certainty

Osama Bin Laden is dead. If I didn't know before, I do now. Just been down to the corner shop where the Daily Mail, The Sun et al scream out about the death. "Obama watched Bin Laden die on live video" declares the Mail. It then delicately asks the question in smaller print above the headline "Now the question Is the world any safer today?".

I think the finding of Bin Laden is just the beginning of the next phase. It hasn't done much to change the hearts and minds of those Muslims already at loggerheads with America. President Obama says Osama got a proper Muslim burial. Dumped at sea with the ship's cook saying a few choice Arabic sayings doesn't quite cut the mustard with the Muslims today. A lot of them are up in arms about it all. Hopefully it will die down and we can get back to discussing the real problems in the world.

It is quite marked how the "wife" of Bin Laden was sacrificed in this. She was probably either some deluded female follower or an innocent victim placed under his spell. What hasn't been said by the Islamic world is that it was a disgrace he used her as a shield. The weeping woman went to her death as an accessory to the killing. If the White House watched all that it must have been a grisly ordeal. I imagine one of the navy seals obligingly offered to be cameraman for the day. What Obama does not want is for that video to get out. On YouTube it would be the sensation of the century.

Now comes the dual contest between the conspiracy theorists and the Islamic radicals. Each side will have a vested interest in stoking the myths and the fictions. However, I can't help thinking that the Americans missed a trick here. By capturing him alive and holding him for trial, they could have unearthed far more support from those Muslims, the vast majority, who have no desire for al-Qaeda moralising. How is it Islamic to kill fellow Muslims? Bin Laden never apologised for their deaths in his atrocities. Instead, he is killed and dispatched in a way that smacks of US triumphalism. It was as if revenge comes before due process of law.

President Obama now has to fend off the Osama supporters who even now have started to question things. So it appears the White House, Pentagon and other institutions are considering releasing videos and pictures to prove the point. This is hardly edifying. Either leave well alone or let the ravening wolves feed from it all.

I think Obama should just say yesterday was yesterday and move on. No videos - no pictures - period!

Posted in: al-Qaeda,Barack Obama,Osama Bin Laden