Sane in an Insane world?

2011-05-03

I remember the 9/11 attacks vividly like many of us, one horror that was shocking was the images of Palestine’s and other people in the Middle East celebrating. Instead of turning away and labeling them as lunatics I asked myself why these people celebrate? The answer is more complex as I have time to outline here, but let’s just be content in saying that it has to do with the injustice experienced by them at the hand of the masters (previous, Britain, France and now the USA, Israel and all its proxy states). They wanted revenge; they wanted to let the safe people in the West feel the pain they suffered, so they celebrated the barbaric act of violence that happened on September 11 2001.

Almost ten years later we stand here today and read in the newspaper that the 'mastermind' behind the attacks, Usama bin Laden, has been killed. In an operation in Pakistan by US special Forces. And once again people are celebrating. In the words of our leaders: “A world without Usama is a better world”, Fredrik Reinfeldt or even better in the words of Obama “Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans … they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body."he failed to mention that a couple of other people were killed as well. But let’s once again ask the question why.

Usama, if the claims are correct, planed and organized attacks that killed people in a different country in retaliation against crimes committed by an enemy. ‘We’ planned and executed a mission that killed people in a different country in retaliation against crimes committed by an enemy. And now just like the people in the Middle East ten years ago, we celebrate. Am I the only one who sees the circularity in this way of reasoning?

Yes these two attacks are not comparable in scale, but the rationale behind them is the same. And to be fair many more people have died and suffered by our hands, than by the hands of the ‘terrorists’. Terrorist again is a word that dehumanizes the enemy, making it OK to kill them like animals. Usama bin Laden should have be brought to justice for the crimes he committed. By resolving the conflict like this, we do not prove our superiority in civilization, but only in power while we stupidly go down to the level of resolving conflicts with fist and not reason. If we really want people to start believing in us again; we have to bring to justice the people on ‘our’ side as well. Why not start with Bush and Cheney for a start?

If we not do this, we once again give the same old message to the world. Crimes against us are not OK, but crimes by us against you are OK….