Is America Safer With BinLaden’s Body Dumped In Ocean? – OpEd

By Dr. Sultan Ahmad

Americans are rejoicing the killing of Osama bin Laden by its commandos. Americans branded Laden as the number of terrorist of the world who killed/planned to kill thousands of people all over the world Finally America got rid of Laden through invading the territory of a sovereign country, Pakistan. American President justified the killing of Laden by saying, “Justice is done!” Mr. President, Not justice has been done, but “Retaliation has been accomplished.” Let us just brainstorm to recapitulate how Laden once the collaborators of Americans in fighting out Russians from Afghanistan turned into an enemy.

It started with the opposition of Laden against the establishment of American base in Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf war. From then on, much water has flown in the rivers of the world and the bitterness between Laden and America also grew alongside. Finally, the 9/11 bombing of Twin towers in New York has grown the enmity to its highest level. Laden was accused of as the mastermind for the attack on American soil. [The then] President Bush asked Taliban government of Afghanistan to extradite Laden to America. Talibans were ready to hand over Laden to America on the condition that Bush will have to provide evidence of the engagement of Laden in the attack. Bush refused [in reality, Bush did not have any credible evidence at hand but speculation] to do so and thus invaded Afghanistan. When Laden was collaborating the Americans, he was a good Muslim; when he started challenging their authority, he was branded as a top terrorist [the great religion Islam, as such, has also been branded with Laden as a terrorist religion].

That was the start of a 10 year long bloody war in Afghanistan that had destroyed the country and hundreds of thousands of innocent Afghans were killed by the [so called] NATO forces using all sorts of deadly sophisticated weaponry including drones in the name of establishing democracy and rule of law in Afghanistan.

The accusation that Saddam Husain had link with Al- Qaeda [as such with Laden] and cooked intelligence reports that Iraq had WMD including biological weapons [which was admitted later to be the result of wrong intelligence], Bush started a pre-emptive war against Iraq that had also destroyed the country including hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country, the bitter sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region. So Iraqis had to give their lives for the false [cooked?] intelligence report of the most powerful country of the world. Eight years of war could neither bring peace in Iraq nor stopped terrorist attack.

Doubts are creeping in the minds of many on what had happened in the commando operation. American administration can be held responsible for the skepticism. Because White House “revised” several key details of the raid following the operation. Bin Laden wasn’t armed after all [he still “resisted,” officials say, although it’s unclear how one resists a heavily armed special forces team without a weapon], and he didn’t use a human shield. One official told CNN that there were no armed guards at the compound, another told Reuters that the Navy Seals team had been ordered to kill rather than capture bin Laden and NBC News reported that nobody fired a shot at the SEALs. Bin Laden’s daughter, who was present during the raid, said that U.S. forces first captured their quarry alive and then executed him.

The question that has not being answered is: why Laden was not bodily lifted and brought to USA for further interrogations that would have made it easy to unearth his chain of terrorists and made it easy to eradicate terrorism from the Al-Qaeda gang. Is it because America still wants to invade countries in the guise of “war on terror”? Was Laden successful in challenging the only unchallenged super power of the world, America? The answer should be in the affirmative.

Because Laden tactfully provoked America to engage in two bloody and costly wars- in Afghanistan and Iraq. The consequence is the destruction of the economy of America. Trillions of dollars spent on war has put America in the back foot. America now has billions of dollars budget deficit, where President Clinton left White House with billions of dollars in surplus budget. America had to borrow money from China through the sale of treasury bonds to supply money for the war. Americans have surrendered their human rights to the administration [example, harassment of the public in the airports through rigorous checking in the airports], millions of Jobs are lost, and many Americans are struggling for survival. America lost its prestige and respect as the Super power of the world. Her human rights record is among one of the worst. All these are the contribution of Laden [number one terrorist of the world] to the Americans.

Killing children and grandchildren of Gaddafi by American bombardments for what? The pretext was- Gaddafi is killing innocent people of his country. Americans forget the billions of innocent people killed by its troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Americans think they have the license to kill innocent people anywhere in the world, but none else.

If now some Libyan groups try to kill the President of America and throw his body in the Atlantic, shall they call them terrorist?

Dumping the body of Laden at sea has already provoked both anger and skepticism in much of the Muslim world. What are the consequences of this unnecessary bloodshed? Is America now safer than it was 15 years ago?

It seems that American administration is in the act of adventurism of invading sovereign countries and killing millions of innocent people.

Information shows that “Probability of dying from heart disease, cancer, car accident, plane accident in America is thousand times more than from terrorist attack [The Progressive Review]. In essence, the US-UK-European powers with an anti-Islamic bend of mindset and with energy-hunt-hidden agendas have launched joint terror operations to destabilize Muslim nations and make the world extra-terrorized and insecure. Moreover, [lost] territories occupied and colonized by the British, France, Italy and some other European countries is still haunting the leaders of UK and France, and they want to take revenge for their ouster from the colonizes through killing innocent people in the region.

What are the consequences of this unnecessary bloodshed? Is America safer than it was 15 years ago? Laden is dead now. Is the war on terrorism over or Americans are safer now in the absence of Laden? These are the questions that will be analyzed and debated in the near future.

Dr. Sultan Ahmad: Former Professor and Dean of the faculty of Science, Chittagong University and also Professor and Dean of Faculties, East West University.