By Fazal Rahman, Ph.D.:
This piece is being written on May 3, 2011, on the basis of information that has been made public thus far.
A realistic scenario of a dialogue between President of the United States and American people:
American people to President Obama:
We have huge problems that need to be solved:
1. Twenty percent of our workforce is unemployed.
2. More than 50 million of us have no health insurance and at least 45,000 of us die annually because of that.
3. Forty three million of us are so poor that we cannot feed ourselves and have to rely on food stamps.
4. Twenty-two percent of our children suffer poverty and hunger.
5. We have the greatest inequality of wealth and income in the industrialized world.
6. Our country is saddled with $14 trillion national debt, which is breaking its back.
7. Our democracy has turned into a joke, into plutocracy, ruled by the big corporations.
8. We have the largest, most pervasive, and all encompassing networks of surveillance and spying in the world.
9. Our wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Libya are draining our resources and adding to the national debt.
How are you going to solve these problems?
President Obama to the American people:
My fellow Americans! Don’t you see what I have accomplished? I have continued the occupation of Iraq and expanded the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, I have killed Osama Bin Laden. I have killed Gadhafi’s son and his grand children. I promise that I will soon kill him too. If all that doesn’t give you a high, what will? I am feeling at the top of the world. You should too. Spending $1.5 trillion was well worth it. I am ready to spend $2trillion more. May be we can get even Mullah Omar with that. Just imagine, what a high we will get from that! The facts you have brought to my attention are part of democracy. You must accept these facts, unless you want dictators like Gadhafi, Castro, and Saddam Hussain, under whom all the people were enslaved by free education and free healthcare. We have already freed Iraqis from those constitutional rights and are trying to free the Libyans too. Then we will also liberate the Cubans. We will spread our democracy and let people enjoy the sadomasochistic pleasures of pursuit of happiness, liberty, and justice, enshrined in our constitution, everywhere. Our founding fathers left these vague on purpose so that no undemocratic persons will fill them up with substance. The main thing is the psychological high, one gets from these. Backward people just do not know what they are missing.
American people: Loud chants: USA, USA, USA. Home of the Brave, Land of the Free. We are the best. We are free.
The above scenario is quite realistic. This whole country is exploding with euphoria over the claimed killing of Osama Bin Laden (OBL) in Abottabad, Pakistan, a cool and hilly town, where Pakistan Military Academy is located. That whole area is crowded with the military personnel and activities.
Naturally, the first question that arises is: Why would OBL choose that location for hiding, where the danger of his detection and to his safety was so great? With a big reward on his head and Pakistani military and security establishments-allied with the US, in its so-called war on terrorism-after him, as the biggest prize, as well as being a foreigner, with very distinct physical features, it would have been impossible for him to escape detection in that area. He was a well educated and intelligent man and was not stupid. How could he have decided to reside in such a dangerous location? It has also come to light that around three dozen other people, including numerous children, were also sharing the building with OBL! If he chose to live like that, he might as well should have flown to the US and handed himself over to the CIA in its headquarters at Langley.
US President Barack Obama went on the air and announced triumphantly that, on his direction, a team of American military personnel had killed OBL in Pakistan. Then, all the news media in the US started overflowing with that news and related programs. Crowds of Americans started gathering in numerous cities around the country, celebrating OBL’s death, mainly because of his alleged involvement with the tragic events of 9/11, without knowing that he had repeatedly denied any involvement with that and that there was no real evidence for that either or that the Taliban government at that time, as well as he himself, had offered to cooperate in any neutral investigation or legal trial, if some evidence was provided to them. The US government had refused to provide any such evidence and demanded that he be handed over to it. Instead, it used that pretext to invade and devastate the whole country. After OBL’s denials of involvement with 9/11, some US military personnel allegedly discovered a videotape in a house, somewhere in Afghanistan, in which he is shown to say the opposite of what he had said in the live and verifiable interviews earlier, admitting that he was behind 9/11. However, many American and other experts and researchers, including Professor David Ray Griffin (1-3), have concluded that the video was fake, after thorough examination and analysis. Later, periodically, some other videos kept on propping up that were also shown to be inconsistent with OBL’s personality, speech behavior, and some unique physical features. Among others, Sue Reid published an excellent article in the British newspaper, Daily Mail, on September 11, 2009 (4), in which she compiled and analyzed various important facts in this regard.
It has been announced that after killing OBL, his body has been buried in the sea! Why was that done? That is the biggest and most important question, which has not been pursued by any of the mainstream media in any depth. The explanations given by the administration in this regard are grotesque attempts to pooh pooh this most important matter, e.g., respect for Islamic tradition of burial within 24 hours, difficulty of finding a country that would accept his remains, and fear of turning his grave on land into a shrine for his followers etc. This author has family in a conservative part of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan. When his mother died, one of the sisters was in UK. The religious leaders there advised us that it was consistent with Islamic practices to postpone the burial until that sister arrived. We put the body in cold storage for three days and buried it after her arrival.
After slaughtering 3 millions of them in Iraq and Afghanistan; shattering to pieces all the intricate fabrics of their lives and societies; kidnapping, torturing, and raping them at Abu Ghraib, Bagram, and Guantanamo prisons; all of a sudden, the US has developed such an exquisite and pious sensitivity towards Muslims and their religion that after killing one of them, it wants to strictly adhere to its own version of the Islamic rituals of burial! An amazing miracle that leaves the human mind and conscience in a traumatized state!
It is self-evident that if OBL was indeed killed in the American military raid, his body would be essential to prove that. Without that, no such claims can be verified or substantiated conclusively. So far, even any pictures or videos have not been made public. Even if they are at a later stage, these would be no substitute for the evidence of the body. And these can also be faked.
Another important question that arises is: Why was no effort made to arrest him, instead of killing him? When he was so isolated, it would have been very easy to arrest him. The pretext given for not doing so is also absurd in the extreme, i-e., concern for the safety of American attackers, who were highly trained and equipped with all kinds of high tech weapons. OBL had no chance against them and their numbers. Some eyewitness reports coming from Pakistanis in the area reveal that Pakistani military forces had surrounded the compound some time before the US assault on it and had also arranged a blackout of that whole area. That contradicts the assertions of US military and government sources, which have claimed that there was no involvement of Pakistani security forces in the operation and the US team carried it out all by itself. Certainly, OBL would have been the most valuable source of information about 9/11, other alleged acts of terrorism, Al Qaeda, Taliban, and other groups, if he was captured alive. No one, with even a minimum of common sense and intelligence, can deny that. So, why was no effort made to arrest him alive? Is it because he was not there?
President Obama is asking the American people, media, and rest of the world to take his word for it, not only not producing any evidence, but destroying it in the sea! If OBL’s body was to be buried, why was it not buried on the land? Is it because it could be extracted from there for proof and evidence of his identity? Why was it thrown into the sea, from where it can never be recovered?
These are the most important and obvious questions that must come to the mind of any person, who has any critical and free thinking left in him/her. That these are not being raised shows the destruction of critical and free thought in the mass mental apparatus of this society, which Herbert Marcuse, the great German-American philosopher, had described and analyzed in profound depth in his most important work, One-Dimensional Man (5). After the throwing of OBL’s body into the sea, it will now be impossible for Obama and his administration to provide any credible or truthful answers to these questions.
Related to the above, other questions also arise:
If OBL was not killed in the raid, then where is he and who was actually killed in that compound in Pakistan? Did he die earlier? In regard to the latter, did Obama and others in the administration know about his earlier death? OBL was suffering from kidney and other health problems. He needed dialysis on regular basis, which would have been very difficult to arrange in remote mountainous areas where he was located after 9/11. Professor David Ray Griffin (1, 3), on the basis of all the available evidence, concluded that he had probably died sometime during the middle of December 2001. BBC aired a program “Conspiracy Files: Osama Bin Laden – Dead or Alive?” on January 10, 2010, on the same topic (6). Some Taliban eyewitness accounts also support that conclusion. He was appearing quite weak and pale during 2001.It is quite likely that his health problems killed him much earlier than his alleged killing by the US Navy SEALS and CIA. on May1, 2011.
In relation to the first question, it is very unlikely that OBL is alive and will show up somewhere. It would be politically suicidal for Obama and other administration officials to take that risk. But, as far as the second question is concerned, it is very likely, almost certain, that Obama and key officials of his administration already knew about the earlier death of OBL and staged this whole drama for specific political goals and objectives, some of which are listed below:
1. Obama’s public approval ratings are at their lowest levels. There is massive dissatisfaction and disillusionment among the public about his policies, character, campaign promises and their violations, and competence. He will need a miracle to have a shot at the presidency in the next elections. As he does not expect any real miracles, he has gambled big time to invent one.
2. In spite of the all out military efforts; diabolical atrocities committed against the people of Afghanistan for ten long years; and gathering 150,000 of its own, NATO’s, and other client states’ troops; US is losing the war there, and Taliban are getting more popular, stronger, and more aggressive and effective. It has turned out to be a huge drain on the already collapsing US economy, which is mired in profound and prolonged crisis. This year alone, it is estimated to cost $119 billion, more than double that of the war in Iraq. Both wars have become increasingly more unpopular. One of the false and laughable pretexts for this absolutely unjust and barbaric high tech imperialist war has been the pursuit of OBL. Even though, rest of the world knows the real reasons for the war-centered around the goal of control of vast energy resources in neighboring Caspian Sea countries and Turkmenistan, and their transportation through Afghanistan and Pakistan, for marketing to other regions of the world-overwhelming majority of Americans still believes that US is there to capture or kill OBL and fight terrorism, just like they have now taken Obama’s words for the facts, that, as a result of his leadership and direction, OBL has been killed. Staging this drama, at this particular stage, would enable the US to withdraw its military forces, without suffering a humiliating defeat, like that of Vietnam, and will allow it to save some part of its face, as well as exorbitant costs of the war. If the reason for gathering 150,000 troops in Afghanistan was the capture or killing of OBL, then that goal has been achieved. Viola! Now, we can come home with honor and satisfaction. That can be a very good result of this whole drama, the benefits of which will far outweigh the phoniness of the whole thing.
Notes
1. Griffin, D. R. Did Osama bin Laden Confess to the 9/11 Attacks, and Did He Die, in 2001?
Global Research, April 30, 2010
2. Griffin, D. R. Did 9/11 Justify the War in Afghanistan? Using the McChrystal Moment to Raise a Forbidden Question. Global Research, June 25, 2010
3. Griffin, D. R. Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive? Northampton, Mass.: Olive Branch [Interlink Books], 2009.
4. Sue Reid, “Has Osama Bin Laden Been Dead for Seven Years – and Are the U.S. and Britain Covering It Up to Continue War on Terror,” Daily Mail, September 11, 2009. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1212851/Has-Osama-Bin-Laden-dead-seven-years–U-S-Britain-covering-continue-war-terror.html
5. Marcuse, H. One-Dimensional Man, Beacon Press, Boston, 1964.
6. Conspiracy Files: Osama Bin Laden – Dead or Alive? BBC2, January 10, 2010; available on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpqg9SF2x50).
Dr. Fazal Rahman is an interdisciplinary researcher and writer. He has worked as a scientist and administrator of R & D programs in several countries, like Brazil, Lebanon, Pakistan, Zambia, US etc. He can be reached at Unpollutedfaz(at}aol.com. Article completed on May 3, 2011.