"Osama bin Laden’s American Legacy: Time to Stop Celebrating and Go Back to Kansas" --Tom Englehardt

[KoKo]

Osama bin Laden’s American Legacy
It’s Time to Stop Celebrating and Go Back to Kansas
Posted by Tom Engelhardt at 9:27am, May 5, 2011.

Back in the 1960s, Senator George Aiken of Vermont offered two American presidents a plan for dealing with the Vietnam War: declare victory and go home. Roundly ignored at the time, it’s a plan worth considering again today for a war in Afghanistan and Pakistan now in its tenth year.

As everybody not blind, deaf, and dumb knows by now, Osama bin Laden has been eliminated. Literally. By Navy Seals. Or as one of a crowd of revelers who appeared in front of the White House Sunday night put it on an impromptu sign riffing on The Wizard of Oz: “Ding, Dong, Bin Laden Is Dead.”

And wouldn’t it be easy if he had indeed been the Wicked Witch of the West and all we needed to do was click those ruby slippers three times, say “there’s no place like home,” and be back in Kansas. Or if this were V-J day and a sailor’s kiss said it all.

Unfortunately, in every way that matters for Americans, it’s an illusion that Osama bin Laden is dead. In every way that matters, he will fight on, barring a major Obama administration policy shift in Afghanistan, and it’s we who will ensure that he remains on the battlefield that George W. Bush’s administration once so grandiosely labeled the Global War on Terror.

More at........

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175388/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_osama_dead_and_alive/

[emilyg]

1. kick

[alarimer]

2. This is EXACTLY how I feel about this

It is also a mistake to cheer this execution because it will only lend credence to the idea that we can kill anyone, anywhere for any reason.

I am despising this country right now.

[Yon_Yonson]

3. Robert Fisk

I would have wanted Bin Laden captured alive and judged at The International Court of Justice at The Hague along with George W. Bush’s administration. The whole gang should have been tried for war crimes against humanity because they all had a hand in bringing down the Twin Towers, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. However amerika’s hand of justice is almost always tilted toward the bizarre, somewhere between truths and half.

I just finished reading:

Robert Fisk: If this is a US victory, does that mean its forces should go home now?

Iran spoke for many Arabs when it said Bin Laden's death took away the West's reason to have troops in the region

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-if-this-is-a-us-victory-does-that-mean-its-forces-should-go-home-now-2278508.html

[KoKo]

7. Thanks..I knew that Democracy Now was trying to interview him..

but he was not available. Good to read him.

WE NEED TO GET OUTTA THERE!

[Scottybeamer70]

4. but, but, but.....

how will they keep the war machine rolling along without a bogey man of some description?
Doesn't seem to matter whether he is alive or dead......they still keep talking about
all the thngs that "could happen". Now, it's trains......next, shopping malls.....
any reason to keep the populace alarmed.......and more reasons for groping!

[KoKo]

6. I understand what you say.. After this weekend the "backlash" to keep us in AfPAK has started.

The propaganda for "staying in and finishing the "course" set by BushCo. is on high agenda on Cable TV..and even there and there on NPR and of course in the MSM Print..NYT/WAPO. They put a few articles out there making the case for getting out...but they counteract it with Militar and Finance/Political Ops spinning it all as a reason to STAY IN these WARS.

It's sickening to watch how the American Viewing and Paying Public are snookered and manipulated ...over and over again. :-(

[Yon_Yonson]

8. Be Really Afraid ....

I heard the media throw around the name Mullah Mohammed Omar spiritual leader of the Taliban. The other day some American military ‘commander guy’ said we had turned the corner in Afghanistan. The last time I head that phase was just before TET 68 in Vietnam; then the Saigon Embassy got hit, NVA and Viet Cong commenced to kick our arse! It would be another 7 years before that pile of dung ended!

Ten years in those sinkholes of Iraq and Afghanistan and what have we got to show for it; except more death, destruction and a richer military industrial complex. I am a Smedley Butler Marine and by GAW he was right when he stated WAR IS A RACKET.

[KoKo]

9. Yep...shades of "Stuck in the Big Muddy" from so many years ago..

I agree with what you say. :-(

[Yon_Yonson]

10. We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down

Pete Seeger 'Waist Deep in the Big Muddy'

Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep! Neck deep! Soon even a
Tall man'll be over his head, we're
Waist deep in the Big Muddy!
And the big fool says to push on!

[KoKo]

11. yep..."the fool says..push on." Exactly.

Thanks for the Seeger lyrics.

[Dokkie]

5. Kick and Rec