Cut off the head, another grows

[kynon]

Right. Few of you can have missed that the USA are crowing mightily about having finally, after nearly ten years and however many millions/billions of dollars spent, bumped off The BogyemanOsama Bin Laden. I have one or two thoughts about this (and related things) - they may not be fully coherent, or indeed even consistent, but here's my tuppence

Comments

[mark13]

I think that all the celebratory crowing was rather distasteful, but to be honest I think that distaste shows how far we've come as a society. Not very long ago at all, executions were one of the biggest spectator sports in the world, and we were sticking the heads of our fallen foes on spikes outside the gates of London.

Personally, I have no plan to have an Osama RIP! party, but equally I won't be shedding any tears about his death, or the manner of it. He declared war on an entire ideology, did his best to carry it out, with catastrophic consequences for everyone, and eventually died as a combatant in his own war.

Will his death change anything?

No, because I think change has already started.

The civilian populations of a lot of Muslim countries seem to have realised that blaming the West for all of their woes achieves nothing, and that the glorious Jihad that the fundamentalist preachers promised hasn't materialised, and have started addressing their concerns to their leaders, rather than to a nebulous concept of The Enemy.

I think this will be the real engine for change, and bizarrely could lead to a gradual calming and moderation of the Middle East, while the US becomes increasingly fundamentalist, paranoid and isolated.