Friday, May 27, 2011

OSAMA: IRRELEVANT

As The New Yorker magazine pointed out in its May 16 issue (Page 89), Osama bin Laden was increasingly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

He was cut off from the "Arab Spring" and most of the Muslim world. He had established no permanent power base, and had done little to change politics or anything else.

As Steve Coll says in his article "The Outlaw," Bin Laden didn't leave much behind. "Other leaders claiming to be vanguards of revolution, such as Lenin and Castro, remade their homelands and altered global affairs."

Bin Laden did not. He "didn't leave behind ideas, either."

All he left behind was a hatred of the West, especially the USA, and one spectacular terrorist attack, on 9/11.

If we do little to fan those flames of hatred, I believe they will die out.

I don't think we should be very proud of killing Bin Laden, after all these years. There wasn't much left to kill.

What we need is a new foreign policy that will promote peace, prosperity, and democracy in the Middle East, at home, and around the world.

Here's hoping Obama can do that. The Republicans don't have a clue. I wish they did.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

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