'TAKING DOWN' OSAMA

Lately, President Obama has been getting a lot of credit for "taking down" Osama bin Laden.

I think the whole thing is pathetic. We broke into an old man's house and shot him. Hooray for us. 

I know, I know. It was Osama, the guy behind 9-11. I always thought this should be an international police matter. There were probably fewer than 200 people, worldwide, who were involved in the 9-11 conspiracy, including planning, funding and executing the plan, which was wildly more successful than they could have envisioned.

You have to remember that Osama's stated motive was to get foreign troops out of the Arab peninsula. He thought, as he said in a number of published letters and videos, including a long letter to then-President George W. Bush (which Bush never publicly answered or even acknowledged, as far as I know), that the only language the USA understood was violence. He wanted foreign invaders out of his homeland, and he didn't believe diplomacy would ever work.

I always thought that  police departments around the world should have hunted down and arrested everyone connected with the operation.

Instead, as we all know, the good old USA invaded Iraq and Afghanistan and spent $3-trillion trying to "bring justice" to perhaps 200 attackers. Instead of bringing justice to a few, we have killed many thousands of innocent people and destroyed our reputation around the world.

So now, after ten years and trillions of wasted dollars, we finally find Osama. Do we arrest him and try him for crimes against humanity? No, we shoot him.

Whoop-dee-doo. 

Hurray for us. Let's all chant, "USA, USA," like a bunch of mindless, jingoistic morons. Let's prove to the world that we deserve their disgust. We have certainly earned mine.

BTW, Obama didn't "take him down," as Newsweek said. The military did it, and they could have done it if Mickey Mouse was in the White House.

The truth is that Obama is continuing the failed policies of George W. Bush. I think he doesn't see a way out of this mess.

I wish I did.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle