Hey, everybody…Ms. Manx is meowing, and you know what that means: She’s found us some stuff! And sure enough, she’s found plenty about the death of Osama. Lead on, O Stump-Tailed One…
First off, the Manx is confused by all the different versions of the Osama death story circulating out there. Something’s been changed, she says–and sure enough, several things have. Memo to the White House (and all you hero-makers in the media): Your story would be a lot more credible if it didn’t keep mutating!
At Global Research, Paul Craig Roberts ably dissects the “fog of war” bullshit. Uruknet does likewise, noting that Osama was taken prisoner first, and then killed — according to the testimony of his wife, who contrary to the mutating official version, was not among the dead. The heroic narrative of the “double tap” that Osama got from the US Navy SEALs while holding a woman as a human shield is as much a fairy tale as Rapunzel or Sleeping Beauty, it seems.
In fact, more and more, it looks as if they were the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. The raid was so full of bungles that it’s a wonder they pulled any of it off. It appears that the first tweeter from Abbottabad to report the incident, Sohaib Athar, who talked of hearing a helicopter crash, was right. One of the “hero” team’s choppers did, indeed, go down, and its wreckage was abandoned at the scene.
Meanwhile, not only the narrative of the raid itself, but the legality of the whole operation, is under question. For all that he has been crudely likened to Adolf Hitler, Osama has not gotten the due process that the Nazi war criminals tried at Nürnberg got. He was taken prisoner, then shot and his body dumped in the sea. Team America, World Police — judge, jury and summary executioner? That’s illegal under international law, and the “war” cover is no excuse. Even a terrorist wanted for nearly two decades does not deserve to become the victim of a war crime, says the Manx. Otherwise, “we” are no better than “they”.
At AlterNet, Joshua Holland makes the case against heroic narratives and triumphalism, tying it in with the doubtful legality of the whole shebang. He also dares to ask the question that will bring a shitstorm of criticism down on his head: Did Osama win, after all, even by losing? After all, those who will be outraged at his death, and consider him a martyr, don’t need photos of his blown-up head to stoke their anger, or a graveside to turn into a shrine. They will claim him no matter what, and they will probably use his death as justification for other terrorist murders still to come. In which case, this “major” victory could become very, very Pyrrhic indeed.
And finally, Jon Stewart makes the case for releasing Osama’s death pix with his usual, inimitable truthful humor. Ms. Manx adds that there is one thing Jon neglected to mention…
…yep, those gory death-pix. Which DID eventually see the light of day, many years after JFK’s assassination. And some of which were found, oddly enough, to have been altered in several ways, as was the body of the slain president before it was photographed. Ms. Manx doesn’t know what, if anything, the death pix of Osama will show that may also contradict the much-mutated official version of the story, but she thinks, based on the lingering controversy surrounding JFK, that knowing the truth is better than being “protected”. And who can blame her?
That was a prickly post. Kudos on questioning the ”mutating official version”, but I don’t get this: ”In fact, more and more, it looks as if they were the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. The raid was so full of bungles that it’s a wonder they pulled any of it off.”
This sounds like a lament. But on this score, the operation was a military operation, an arena in which things go wrong all the time. If the world’s most highly trained unit ”bungles” things, perhaps it’s because shit happens. And it’s not a ”wonder” they pulled it off, because they’re trained for exactly such contingencies.
Anyway, this is small potatoes.
I’m not lamenting, I’m laughing. Team America, World Police — the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. Story of their entire imperialistic existence. The lamentable thing is that these bumbling bozos have managed to take over the world. Or are just arrogant enough to think they have. The world has other ideas, obviously.
I think you’re confusing “the world’s most highly trained unit” with “the world’s most over-hyped unit”!
I don’t think American war operations have ever been that big on finesse or accuracy, it’s just that they have so many bombs and things that just keep lobbing ’em until they hit something. That, coupled with a fairly relaxed attitude around the “collateral” – remember Falluja?(or Cambodia for that matter…)
But anything requiring actual precision? Remember the Iran hostage recue mission of 1980? – one helicopter crashed in a sandstorm, one got lost, one got damaged and in the subsequent rout another crashed into the supply aircraft. Hmmm… More recently? Well, there was that hostage they blew up with a hand grenade while trying to rescue her (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/us-grenade-may-have-killed-hostage-cameron-admits-2103969.html).
Once that testosterone starts pumpin’ they must get all shakey and trigger happy 😛
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there, Inversius. They rely on hardware, not brainware — always have, always will. That may be why they do all that imperialism — they need more raw materials to keep that hardware factory going, and lord knows the US isn’t inexhaustibly endowed with the stuff, after all. They have to get most of it from elsewhere because they’ve pretty much pumped their own ground dry. Hence all these imperial wars; they’re resource wars when you get right down to it. “Terrorism” is just a convenient pretext, conveniently created by blowback from previous imperialist attempts.
Apropos Jimmy Carter, etc.: A funny thing I’ve observed in the US media is that whenever a relatively dovish Democrat sends troops to rescue someone and they bungle the mission, he gets blamed for what THEY do wrong. The equipment fails? His fault. The troops poorly prepared? His fault, he “unmanned” and “feminized” them. But when it’s a Republican doing the same thing, or sending them in to kill someone, and they bollix it up, he’s a hero, the troops are heroes, and it’s the Evil Evil Enemy that gets blamed. The more right-wing the president, the more the “heroes” myth gets pushed.
Anyone who thinks the media are “liberal” should remember who owns those outlets, from whom they receive money (hint: the Military-Industrial Complex is a media owner, nowadays) and to whom they give money and for whom they gin up the vote. And then take with a massive lump of salt any “heroes” story they hear. This operation was just barely successful, and the “state of the art” equipment and “elite” troops failed in ways that could have proved fatal if the compound really were a fortress of armed jihadis, ready to kill at an instant’s notice, as we’ve been led to believe it was.
But of course, no one ever wants to blame the shoddy helicopters or the ill-trained machista troops for what goes wrong; that would be fatal to the “heroes” myth and the “superior Amurrican technology” myth both. And we all know how much their capitalism relies on those myths!
PS: Apropos mythology, look what Salon.com had today: “Your guide to Navy SEAL porn”. It doesn’t get any more mythological than that. The prosecution rests, Yer Honor!