I have no clue why it looks like two different fonts, i was typing in word and it magically turned like that, so fuck you Bill Gates, I blame you. Excuse the gramatical errors for now I was in such a rush to get this posted, I am editing it as I read it. Sorry for any difficulty this provides.
Was struggling to come up with a good topic, then a group of brave American seals put a bullet through Osama Bin Laden’s skull so with the suggestion coming from Christina Bosco (find the link to her blog at the top of my page people). I decided to go in on this topic and give MY thoughts. I do not expect you to agree with me, I do expect you to read, analyze and think about what I say and if you disagree I expect a educated discussion in the comments. If you catch any historical inaccuracies feel free to point them out to me, I am NOT a historian, just a man with an opinion, though I tend to know a lot about history. I wanted to post something funny but the current events occurring changed that. I will post something funny later on this week, maybe a fiction piece or nonfiction, but something light hearted.
Killing one man will not spell the end to this conflict. I think that our celebration of Bin Laden's death, though warranted, is a futile and pointless thing. He was nothing but one man, flesh and bone; the thing we are fighting is not man, it is something greater, it is an idea, a concept—Something that cannot be defeated. I will not give this topic the justice it deserves but I need to discuss, our misunderstandings about this man, and our blatant disrespect of the Islamic faith following 9/11. Our efforts in this war are nothing but a waste of American lives and money, chasing a man who, yes was a figurhead for Islamic Radicalism, is just that: a man.
September 11, 2001, a day which defined our generation. I think every American remembers where they were when they heard the news that two hijacked planes slammed into the Twin Towers in the World Trade Center, another into the Pentagon and a fourth crashing in the middle of Pennsylvania. I was a freshman and I recall sitting in lunch (yes, I had lunch at like 10:30 am, 4th period lunch, worst lunch period ever) when they made an announcement of the terrorist attacks over the loud speaker. I don’t think I will ever forget where I was, it is engraved in my memory. Our discussion went from random high school jargon to a more serious discussion; war. We knew, even as freshmen that our great nation would not sit back and let some shit brained terrorists kill thousands of Americans without any repercussion.
When I got home and turned on the TV, the images of planes crashing into those building played over and over on every channel. People running covered in dust, running away from the crumbling towers. Images of this horrific day played all day, and night for days. These images are as clear in my mind now as they were the day I first saw them. The man responsible: Osama Bin Laden, he was harbored by the Taliban controlled government in Afghanistan. So in order to capture the man who devised the deadliest terror attack on American soil, we had to enter a war in Afghanistan. This is a country where the people have only known war; since 1979 the Afghan people have been fighting outside invaders and one another.
In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded this desolate, poor nation. Now this was during the heart of the cold war, so we saw this as an opportunity to give our hated enemy a defeat similar to ours in Vietnam. At the start we invested little money and weapons for these so called “Freedom Fighters”, but as the war between the Soviets and Afghanistan progressed our financial involvement grew. We began providing better weapons more money and training done by the Pakistanis ISA.
SIDE NOTE- Just a curious point, bin laden and his fellow Al-Qaeda were trained by Pakistan, the same place where he was hiding in his compound. Just interesting, that the Pakistani government didn’t know. Maybe it is just me though.
We began providing anti aircraft rockets to shoot down Soviet helicopters, which was a turning point in this war. Now I am not going to go into a history lesson about this war, you can research it on your own and formulate your own thoughts. Just know this, our money and weapons assisted these fighters, who we now call terrorists, which included one Osama Bin Laden. He assisted in “our” toppling of the Soviet Union arguably more than most Americans care to acknowledge. Bellow is an excerpt from an essay by rapper/political activist Immortal Technique which I feel fits my discussion, I will put a link to his full essay at the bottom of the page. I suggest you read it in order to hear a different opinion on Bin Laden, most may not agree with him (I don’t agree with everything he has to say either), though he makes several valid points. I believe strongly it is important to get as many POV’s as possible on any topic so you can form your own opinion.
After the collapse of the Dr. Najibullah’s regime, the loss of countless Afghan lives and over 20,000 Russian soldiers, Usāmah bin Muhammad bin Awad bin Lādin [there is no direct translation from Arabic to English so this is one of the many ways to spell his name, perhaps the closest translation possible] became another unpronounceable name that, to be quite honest and veer from the formal manner of journalism, nobody here gave a fuck about in 1989. The U.S. and its allies will downplay his roll, saying he just raised money, that he was not a great fighter. But he was a link, and a recognizable one that was considered as an asset to the CIA and to other intelligence services like the Pakistani ISI. In other words, he did to the Russians what we would call terrorism if it were done to us now. (Immortal Technique)
I feel, now this is completely opinion I am not sure how I can prove it without entering the mind of Osama and the other Afghan Freedom Fighters, that we assisted in this decade long fight against Soviet invaders, and once the final Soviet soldiers retreated, so did our funding. Now I can only help but to wonder if we put the same amount of money into the rebuilding of this poor nation as we did to help destroy it, would we have become the enemies of such a number of, now called, Terrorists. We left Afghanistan with an internal struggle for power, a struggle that would lead to civil war. Now is this the reason for us becoming radical Islam’s number one target? Or was it when the first American troops arrived in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait during the first gulf war? Regardless of the reasons, these freedom fighters were now called terrorists by the American Government.
When we shared a common enemy with these people, they were freedom fighters, defending their home from the Bastard Communist invaders, yet once we no longer have a common enemy, they are terrorists. Then 9/11 occurred and the whole country began a rally to fight terrorism. President George W. Bush declared a war on terrorism, American citizens rallied behind this idea by waving the American flag outside their homes, on their cars and on the roads: Patriotism began to spread like wildfire. Now I just want to look at the term used for this war, “The War on Terrorism”. This is a war with no clear enemy (though the media and government made Bin Laden the figurehead for the “enemy” in this war), it is a war fighting an idea not an actual enemy. It is similar to the fight against Communism after WWII; yes we gave the enemy label to the Soviet Union because it was the largest, most powerful Communist nation, but it was the idea of a communist state that the U.S. government was against.
Side note—The eerie similarity between the Soviets and Osama, each was our “ally” turned enemy, the soviets during WWII, and perhaps without them making Germany Fight a two front war we would have struggled to win the war, and Osama during his fight vs. the Soviets. Shows that when there is a common enemy you will be the American Government’s friend, but when it is time for us to look good on the global stage we will declare you our enemy. A similar situation is occurring with the uprisings throughout the Middle East now, which I suppose is another blog entirely.
Who was our enemy? The American Public, as stupid and naive as they are, decided that since these particular terrorists were Muslims all Muslims were terrorists. Irrefutable logic right? While these morons began to treat Muslim Americans differently they seem to forget that Islam is a religion of peace. Yes, there are Islamic people who are terrorists, but most of them are hard working, religious people, who would never harm anyone. Yet these Americans became singled out and harassed. For the Men the beards they grew as a symbol of their devotion to god became a way for stupid racists to spot them and harass them. The head dress worn by many woman of the faith to show their love for Allah became a symbol of how this religion oppresses women. The faith of Islam became the public’s enemy. This country which was founded on the belief of religious freedom was now persecuting people because of their faith.
Though this discrimination has died down recently, there have been two major controversies discriminating people of the Islamic faith. The first happened right here in our backyard. I am sure everyone remembers the Mosque controversy in NYC, if not I shall recap what occurred. Last summer there was a proposal to purchase an abandoned Burlington Coat Factory and turn the Building into a Mosque/Community center. While the group was trying to raise funds to purchase the property the plans came to light in the public eye. Now this shouldn’t be a big deal, but this vacant building was different then all others: this was hallowed ground.
Hold on. I have to pause and laugh at that asinine statement.
This purposed site was two blocks away from the spot where the Twin Towers fell. Now within that same neighborhood there is an OTB (off-track betting) and a strip club. Yet Americans are fine with gambling and naked women occupying their “hallowed ground”, because what’s more American than that? Well religious freedom for one thing. The ignorant public took this and ran with it, fueled by the moronic mass media.
SIDE NOTE- Mind you while all this was occurring, the group raising the money was not even close to the amount of money needed for the project.
During demonstration and protests against the mosque (which was unnecessary in my mind, but it is the right of Americans to protest and if I refuse to take away the religious freedom of people, I would definitely not want to take away their right to freedom of speech and assembly) the side fighting against the mosque had no legitimate argument for the building not to be converted into a community center, so they resorted to racist rants, showing their ignorance and stupidity. They referred to the people behind the mosque as, according to one protestor, "the same people who took down the twin towers," And that “it should be put in the Middle East” (quotes attributed to Steve Ayling, taken from a Foxnews.com Article, link at bottom). Really Steve? That is perhaps the most un-American thing you could say. You are trying to take away their right to follow the religion of their choosing. It is their right granted by the constitution, yet it is sad that these were not just the thoughts of Mr. Ayling, but of a whole group of Americans. These people were no different than the protestor’s except for their skin color and religious beliefs; they are not terrorists, they are not illegal immigrants, they are hard working Americans. Yet the protestors only saw something they did not understand, so they feared. They lumped in all people of the Islamic faith with those Islamic extremists. Instead of thinking about the situation in a logical way they allowed the hate to fuel their argument. They had no valid argument against an abandoned store becoming something meaningful to the Islamic community.
Then in France just recently they placed a ban on women wearing anything that covers their face, this was targeted at the some 2,000 Muslim women who reside in France. The Niqab and the Burqa, are two of the headdresses worn by Muslim women as part of their religious beliefs. France’s Islamphobia led them to this ridiculous ban. In a country where Islam is the second largest religion (though not close to the Catholic population, about 5 million Muslims reside in the country) it does not appear that the government ready to acknowledge this. These women have chosen to wear the headdresses on their own will, yet France sees it as a danger. This is wrong in every way I could think of, bigotry at its finest. This would be similar if they were to ban yamakas, or not allow people to wear a cross around their neck; to take this away is to take away a person’s right to worship.
I am still appalled that these things can occur in developed nations, and I apologize for that rant, but I feel it is necessary to show how anti-Muslim the post 9/11 world has become. But I shall return to the matter at hand, Osama Bin Laden, a man who helped the United States defeat the Soviet Union, now (and since the Clinton administration) our most wanted. Now since the Early 90’s the U.S. Government has been on a hunt for Bin Laden, but after the attacks on September 11, the hunt intensified. Bush began the deployment of American troops into Afghanistan, with the objective to overthrow the Taliban Government and to find and capture/kill Bin Laden.
After news that Bin Laden was killed, Facebook began be covered with “go America”, and “Osama’s dead” status. Which is of course all well and dandy, because our troops have been hunting this man for years, and we finally got him; it is time to celebrate. Then I saw a status were the poster rambled for a few hundred characters and then posted this gem “We know Obama is trying to take credit for this . . . we do have stupid Americans who think he did this. Maybe we should give Bush a call and thank him”. I thought to myself really, thank Bush? I agree that Obama did nothing but listen to intelligence and give the green light on the mission— he does not deserve the credit for the killing of Osama. It was not Obama, nor was it Bush, in fact in my mind this would have been accomplished years ago if President Bush did not begin the pointless war in Iraq. This war took away crucial money, troops and weapons away from our campaign in Afghanistan, making it more difficult to find Osama. So let us not thank any politician, but let us thank the brave men and women fighting these two wars. Not just the group of Navy Seals who actually carried out the mission, but to ever single solider who has stepped foot onto the barren landscape risking their lives for a cause which most don’t actually understand. I personally want to thank every single person in our military, you are the true heroes in all of this, and it is just a shame that politicians will use your sacrifices in order to seek their re-election. If Obama wants applause from the American public he will bring as many troops home as possible (though I know it is impossible to bring them all home because in order to help these two countries rebuild we must keep presence there.)
So Osama Bin Laden is dead what now? Is this the End of the war? No. As I said earlier this is a war without the possibility of victory, as Immortal Technique puts it,
Bin Laden may be the face of radical Islam, but he was not its only leader. His death leaves a vacuum, a place for others that may wish to find fame and at the same time satisfy their supposedly pious Muslim ego in “accepting their duty” to engage in a Jihad against someone who is occupying their country. This person who wishes to be a singular entity must remember, only a few of those have ever held true power. (Immortal Technique)
With the death of one, another takes his place. If we were to pursue a war on this it would not end, there is a never ending supply of people that could be brainwashed into this wrong interpretation of Islam. The government would continue to ship our young men and women across the seas to fight, to kill, to destroy, to die. How many American lives are our politicians willing to waste on a futile effort? Our objective was Bin Laden and we, supposedly still waiting for proof, got him. It took ten years, and thousands of lives, but we finally have a bullet in his head. So this should be the end. We should now focus all the money on our own problems, other internal wars.
Whatever the result of the death of Bin Laden, let us never forget all those who perished on 9/11. Let us remember all the brave soldiers who gave their life. Whether you agree or disagree with the war, whether you believe the stories of what actually happened on 9/11 or if you are one of those conspiracy theorist, regardless of your skin color, regardless of your religious beliefs, regardless of your political views, and regardless of your social standing: Never forget.
